The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 112: Monstrous Regiment Pt. 2 (The Implication of Hippo)

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “Monstrous Regiment”. War! Gender! Coffee! (This could be a tagline for the entire podcast tbh)Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:TTSMYF Presents Marc Burrows: The Magic of Terry Pratchett - We Got TicketsPneumatic Clocks - Nature Paris pneumatic post - Wikipedia Sonderv0gel’s Comment - R/TTSMYFPratchett audio interview from 2003 – one I'd not come across before - r/TTSMYF Bucephalus - WikipediaThalacephalos - Discworld WikiAppendix:Glossary of British military slang and expressions - Wiktionary James Gillray - Lambiek Comiclopedia  Hablot Knight Browne - Wikipedia  Fizz - Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki    "We Belong Dead" (Final Scene) | The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - YouTube Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

he has been poisoned. Has he? By whom? I was going to put this on follow-up, but it's not really related at all to anything we've done recently. I was reading an 1880 Nature article about the pneumatic clock system that Paris used to have. I noticed there were a few like announcement notes on the second page, say things like, Dr. So-and-so has gotten a professorship at Oxford University and rare beans, that kind of thing. And I noticed this one says, many lessons will and already have been drawn from the unprecedented explosion of gas in London or Monday. The results were disastrous enough, but we may congratulate ourselves that they were no worse. The science of the explosion is simple enough as the daily papers have been

telling the public, and when science is properly taught in our elementary schools, such accidents can only be due to perversity, not lack of knowledge. We recommend this explosion and its immediate cause to the consideration of Lord Norton. Incredible. Which sounds extremely alchemist skill to me. Very. And also, does not tell us what the science was because it was like, it's one of those things I love and also frustrates me. It's like, this is such common knowledge at the time of writing, we're not going to even vaguely give you a clue. And it's like a hundred odd years later, like, mm-hmm. There's an example of that. And I can't remember if it's apocryphal or if it's genuine, but apparently there was like a land that traded a lot with the

ancient Egyptians and had a lot of interaction with the ancient Egyptians, but no one knows where the fuck this place was because it was obviously like, this is this place. And it's not been traced archaeologically because all the evidence of this place is in the writings of ancient Egypt. I would not be at all surprised if that was non apocryphal. That's very believable to me. Yeah. But yes, that is one of the most frustrating but simultaneously my favourite things of like, of course, no one would write down what a horse is because we all know. And then we were talking about like pneumatics ages ago. And I didn't realise how into it the Parisians were for a while. I think they had like a mail system as well,

which Parisian pneumatic mail system. Yeah, I think so. But definitely the clocks. And they lasted right up until the thirties when the Sen flooded. And then it fucked it all up. And I think by that point, there was enough other technology that nobody could be bothered fixing the whole thing up. But those weird clocks, you know, the very Parisian clocks, like the four faced on the lamppost looking thing. Yes. Those were those. And obviously now adapted for the electric. Yeah. Oh, cool. That delights me. I'll send you the PDF anyway, so you can read the full article. It's just got my illustrations. You know, I like that shit. I look forward to this. I would enjoy this. I've started watching the X files because that Buffy podcast I liked

is now covering the X files. So have you watched it before? I've seen like odd episodes, but I've never like watched it through. Okay. So it's quite nice. The podcast is covering it so I can watch it weekly because I feel like it's just not going to hold up to a binge. Yes, I really enjoyed binging the first couple of seasons. I don't know whether I got too bored of it after that or whether it just became less bendable afterwards. When it gets into the kind of deep plot point stuff, I lose interest. I love just the monster of the week stuff. I don't mind a deep plot point thing, but a show like that I prefer to watch weekly than binge. Binging a deep plot point show feels like you kind of get very can't see the wood for the trees with

it. Yes, agreed. The X files has come up as I've been working on my book because obviously it was on around the same time and the network it was on is quite interesting. So it was very weird because the podcast, they're doing a bit Latoya Ferguson, the producer who is an amazing person who talks about TV a lot, was doing like a whole, this is the context of what the network was in 1993 and what they were doing. I was like, I know that. I know those facts. It's very fun little mild overlap with what I'm working on. But yeah, I forgot how much shows, especially from like that particular bit of the 90s, can be quite male gaze-y. Yeah. Yeah, there's an awful lot of damsel in distress. There's a bit in this word because there are some weird markings on kids

that may not have been abducted by aliens and she takes her robe off and sees the markings on herself. But it's all like very slow lingering shots on her Calvin Klein underwear. She was the only woman in the room for this, wasn't she? Yeah. I'm just trying to work out how to segue from the X files into our podcast. Speaking of things beyond our understanding. Oh, it is literally a recap podcast. Speaking of recap podcast, would you like to make a podcast? I would like to make a podcast, Joanna. Let's do that. Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The Trishamik Ifret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Bradford's Discworld series, one us time in Cornelogical order. I'm Joanna

Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of monstrous regiment. Yes. We'll just remind you that this section begins on page 160 in the Corgi paperback with that was a good time and ends on page 330 with you don't know nothing about war. Nothing. No, on spoilers. Before we crack on, we are a spoiler light podcast, obviously heavy spoilers for monstrous regiment, but we will avoid spoiling major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there. So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Covered in forbidden camouflage and sneaking through the woods at night.

Oh, forbidden camouflage. There's a direct name. Follow up. I was looking for some random bit of knowledge about this book and came across an old interview with Terry Pratchett that I'd never seen before from 2003. It was mentioned in the L's face list of interviews, but not linked. But I found it and it has a lot of talk about, well, a monstrous regiment and be what we were talking about with like the writing style of olding and all of that. So I'll link to that for interested listeners. It's always a joy to find nice audio of Pratchett that we haven't heard before. We've also got a long comment from Sonda Vogel, our cyclopedic annotator in multifarious studies from the subreddit.

And that has some very cool annotations, including recommendation to read remarks all quiet on the western front, which like monstrous regiment really hits home on the rat catcher's propaganda during the war, the discourse around the war in the unsuspecting or unaffected populace. So I haven't read it and I will try and do so at some point soon. Also, apparently the depiction in this book of the relationship between NCOs and COs has always been quite amusing and is quite accurate in this one. All officers at Posh, Sonda Vogel, get you in trouble and generally are a piece of work. Lie to them if necessary or you'll be in deep or deeper trouble. A little bit of nice detail about his old captain. Nicknamed Hout Kinder Schokolad, because he always had this

unsettling, frozen smile in his face resembling that of a boy on the chocolate box, which is linked in the... Oh my God. Did you click through on that? No, I actually didn't. Oh God. So yeah, I will link to this full comment because it's very good and I can't read the whole thing out. We had some stuff on the Patreon, didn't we? Oh, from Naris to saying the German Natal Anthem only has one verse, but it is the third verse of the original song and capital letters, you do not sing the other verses, especially not the first one. Brackets, though I was once on a choir trip where the Italian choir sang all the verses and it was incredibly awkward, but also hilarious. For our international listeners who may not be aware of the fun, do not sing the first

bit of the German Natal Anthem, it's to do with the war. Oh yes, the war. Yes, the war. Yes. So, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Monstrous Regiment? Yeah, sure. I did not learn the tune to this, I'm sorry. Previously on Monstrous Regiment. As young Polly Perks worked her job at the bar, she began to imagine a plan quite bizarre. Though Nuggan would never permit me to roam, I must fetch my brother and bring him back home. So early one morning, she softly arose and dressed herself up in her big brother's clothes. She cut her hair close and she finished her chores and joined up with Jackram to go off to war. The sergeant told tales and the corporal harassed as Olly and company marched off to the barracks,

where they soon found that they were the last troops remaining. They'd be sent to the front lines with no further training. Though strappy soon split, they had a lieutenant whose manner was mild and temper was clement. After a run in with soldiers and chat with the press, the lads one by one took a chance to confess. Each one told her secret and now in cahoots, they marched on together clad in dead men's boots. That is fantastic. If anybody would like to try and put that to a tune, please feel free, but I don't think I will be. When my voice is better, I'll try it. Nice. I have promised a Polly Oliver rendition.

What happened this time, Joanna? In this section, there's smoke in the trees as the squad marches through the woods. The charcoal burners have been burned and it looks like the culprits were cheese mungers. Maladites got no coffee and the squad suspects strappy, but Jackram doesn't need to know. Blouse and Jackram discuss deserters and the squad gets another lecture. They're travelling at night off the roads. Igarina reveals her true self to Polly and there's the light of a klax tower in the distance. They head for the recipients and Blouse keeps Jackram back. Polly runs for the third man and claims the poisoned cipher. While a prisoner waits, Polly and Wazza dig graves and discuss the Duchess, Alice plans to lead the army.

Maladite noticed Polly noticing but promises to keep it quiet. Polly takes tea to the captive who suggests surrender is their best bet. Polly learns the truth about Captain Horrance and the dire straits of the regiment and a crossbow hostage situation ends messily for Blouse's earlobe. Six miles later, while paused at a vantage point, Jackram chats killing at a mitzy-scent strappy running. It's a strange war and Maladite's struggling. There's troops nearby and a newspaper cart. Polly confronts William DeWerd who's desperate for an interview. Jackram warns William about the tiger. He destroyed his cage. Yes, yes, the tiger is out before delivering him to the roopert. The army is bottled up near the keep.

Most of the high command's captive and there's little hope but there is some human interest. Blouse poses for a pick and Jackram gets a tip and spreads lies about the regiment's plans. Camouflage is constructed and Blouse plans to take the keep but Jackram's not happy. Maladite's personal space is picking up the watching werewolf and he's still desperate for a coffee. The Duchess has given permission to skip the scarves and Jackram remembers a girl he knew. There's a signal on the hill and Blouse lies with light. Vimes is annoyed but all the Borogravians need to do is hold their ground. Buggy comes by and Vimes wonders how conspicuous a coffee drop would be. As the squad approaches the keep, Waza promises the Duchess's help.

There's a turkey-based miracle and Polly makes washerwoman plans. Blouse has the idea and he's the obviously the most obvious woman. The others provide feminine accoutrement but Polly can't shave him. Jackram makes excuses to keep Polly and the others out of the keep. Blouse saunters in and Maladite's almost lost it when coffee comes crashing down. Jackram wants to sneak into the front lines but Polly wants to continue into the keep. The big confrontations are bust but Jackram promises to get the squad dressed up. Nice. Still little quotes? Oh no wait fucking helicopters. Goddamn it Francine, I'm sorry. We can't skip helicopters today Francine. I know especially not today. I do apologize.

Okay so I was trying to remember exactly where this helicopter loincloth thing started and as far as I can remember I noticed the loincloth and said that they crop up a lot and then said oh yeah and I feel like helicopters are there a lot too. I think I was literally just thinking of this scene. I think that's possible. Yeah I think it was entirely this but anyway. It was in one of the first steps. It was like episode one or two because I've listened to it reasonably recently. There were no helicopters in there. There was an aeroplane but there were no helicopters so yeah I was literally just thinking of this one scene and decided helicopter. 112 episodes later. The bit is finally fucking justified. No we've had actual helicopters.

Yeah we have, we have, we have. But I'm sure you were thinking of. Yes they maladies suggest flying machines sort of flying windmill. It's just like a big screw up in the sky and when he starts having his flash sides for a moment Polly saw them in the sky. Giant fat screws spinning in the air hovering in the air. Yeah actually this relates to that interview we were talking about because Pratchett brought up a man called Sir George Cayley who is like the father of aeronautics and who worked out stuff like the anatomy of a bird's wing in a way that Leonardo da Vinci didn't and I was thinking actually now I think about it I think the last hero Leonard of Querm was kind of half based on Leonard Leonardo da Vinci and half on

Sir George Cayley. Oh. And yeah finally actual weird screw helicopters. Is that what you would think of when you saw a helicopter screw in the air? Well the description matches the specific helicopter that Leonard de Querm was in to paint his ceiling at the end of the last heroine. Oh okay yeah yeah so it's maybe not R Vietnam. I've been trying really hard to not say flash sideways because that's like the nickname for the weird flashes in the final season of Lost. And I don't know. God you can seem too much media we can't use a lot of words because of it. I know but now I'm trying to make it my job I can't really fucking stop. Anyway loincloths we are going with the branches leaves etc because what was the first loincloth

if not a leaf? Deep. The er loincloth as it were. As it were. And just for other things we keep track of we have got death in this section he walks with Polly for a bit. Yeah kind of yeah. I think it did also bear a slight resemblance to and it's not the same situation but when Vimes is having his near-death experience and death has to have a near-vimes experience in the fifth elephant. Absolutely. Quotes. Quotes. Yes let's. Would you like to go first? I would thank you. In the firelight the grin of Sergeant Jackrom was a crescent of blood his coat the colour of a battlefield sky. You were my little ads he roared and I would look after you. I love Jackrom as an avenging angel I think he's painted perfectly in this section essentially

just fucking terrifying. Yep. Even so when I'm on side. Mine is a very short one because we've I've got a lot to talk about today. The sky was red the war was a day away. Very good. It's just a really nice unpoetic description. There's a very thuddy little sentence. Yes but also very poetic at the same time. Very much so. Cool. Right let's start talking about characters then. Briefly Squad in general get referred to as the monstrous regiment we got the name of the thing in the thing. We did William Duerd. Thank you William for providing the name of the thing in the thing. He's done that for us a bit now hasn't he? Yes well done well you'd think he's quite good with words I suppose. Yes. See how Polly is coming into her own. She is it's quite interesting

for her that so she's right at the beginning she's kind of frustrated with the the fact that they all took her for a boy. She's very much like well obviously yeah because I worked really hard and I studied and I planned and I had the socks and the walk and I wish I hadn't not figured it out at all. Yeah. I can kind of see both sides of that I respect that attitude. Yeah absolutely. I found it quite interesting that she was trying to like hide some of her intelligence as well from the rest of the soldiers in Maladix kind of noticed it. Yeah very much so. I think there's a really big theme for her in the section as she keeps you know she's wondering why she kept her hair and she's thinking about how she wants to leave the girl behind her and she keeps insisting

very outwardly that she's doing this one job which is getting her brother and going home and that's all she's here for which is part of why she doesn't want to be noticed. She doesn't want attention drawn to her. Yeah. And Jacqueline goes when you're sergeant Polly goes I don't want that. Jacqueline's like yeah right. I'll give you a minute to figure that one out then. All right. I liked how the drama of her having to shave blouse was drawn out. It's one of those like tiny little detail. It shouldn't be a big deal in the grand scheme of things there's so much peril but it's just one of those like little stumbling tasks that really throws you off when you're doing something else. It's like what if I have to shave him? And this kind of ludicrous

thing where blouse keeps asking to be shaved and there's all these different reasons why and eventually he has to admit I don't know how to shave myself. Poor fella. Poor blouse. Yeah no I think Polly's character really expands in this one for sure. You definitely see how she is a natural leader. She's able to take over from Maladoc when he is kind of incapacitated by coffee cravings. She learns how to steer a Rupert very quickly having watched Jackram do it for a couple days. Her Rupert steering is fantastic because Jackram starts starting to and I'll get on to Jackram blouse but Jackram seems to be kind of starting to lose the ability to steer this very specific Rupert. Yeah absolutely and I guess maybe it's because it's Polly's first time doing it. She's

not stuck in her ways about it. Yeah she's willing to be a bit more creative which is also a kind of these moments she gets with Jackram. There's one where she gets away with something and there's they're gleamed a gleam. It was the one you got when he was secretly pleased. I think it's when he's called her out on you know not taking care of all these things that someone else has passed on to her and she says I'm wearing red in a forest. What do you want from me? Yeah absolutely. It's not just that Jackram's pleased with her it's that although she's not actively doing it she's pleased that he is pleased with her. There's something satisfying about impressing Jackram. You can see like built which obviously yeah if you're around someone like Jackram you would

kind of want to impress them. Of course her kind of lack of lack of social skills that's a bit harsh but she's young and she doesn't know how to deal with the conversations with the less fortunate girls I think which is an interesting thing to watch. Very much so um so yeah speaking of lofty and Tonka which are the big ones for that one. When Tonka explains that the working school and specifically Father Duke and I think that's the big because to Polly that's like oh it's this annoying pious guy that came to dinner sometimes and Tonka's response is yes he was very good at seaming. Very good at seaming. There was something about like a chasm. There was a dark chasm in the conversation that not even a troll could bridge which what a fucking line. Yeah and

kind of calling back to that huge bridge across the chasm earlier. Yes that she physically had to cross and you get lofty I've sort of bunched them together a bit which is a bit unfair of me really they're very distinct people lofty slash tilde and her little relationship to fire which starts coming in a bit more here. When Polly's fighting for yes we're going to go and storm the keep right at the end lofty struck a match and held it so it flared that was pretty much a speech from lofty. Yes okay like you get all these little obviously they've just been spending so much time together and learning so much about each other in the short period of time that the fact you could make an observation like that about somebody having known them for what a week

at this point. Yeah maybe not even a week. Yeah it's it's really interesting how quickly they've gotten used to each other's foibles and then at the same time know so little about each other as was proved with like the workhouse thing. Yeah and you go into I mean obviously we learn about Igorina in this section which I think is the first female eagle we've met. We've had a mention of female eagles before but I think it was mentioned as they just look like attractive women. Yeah so I think we've slightly developed from that. Who has also kept a hair in a jar it's still growing. I don't know how much I would love to be able to like take all my hair off but keep it and be able to put it back on whenever I wanted and yes I know wigs exist but it's not the same.

Yeah I mean for summer. Yeah like it's taken me three years to grow this so I don't want to shave my head for the summer but at the same time I really want to shave my head for the summer. So you've got enough hair you can do like an undercut. I can then I'd have to buy clippers and I don't trust myself with them. Yeah fair okay I was about to say I'll do it for you know I won't terrible ideas it's like poly with a knife in the bilge room. It's like poly shaving blouse. Okay so Waza slash Alice which is really fascinating little character growth here. Yeah we've gone from almost no detail to ah this is interesting comrade. We knew she was like quite religious already we saw her reaction to someone denigrating the duchess

but here we get this really intense belief she believed in everything and the conversation she has with Polly while they're digging graves there's a very chilling thing about the way she's sort of asking what Polly's motivations are and very much speaking with her and the duchess thinks that does you credit. Yeah and Polly sort of panickedly said yeah I'm also doing this for the duchess I think about the duchess a lot and the response of I'm very glad to hear that because I had thought you were a backslider. Backslider. And you can just imagine something in the delivery from described as like a stick thin lab that shakes a lot holding a shovel that that would be really kind of terrifying and sinister.

Yeah especially when Polly mentions Waza or Alice has this kind of occasional she seems much taller and there is power behind her eyes and her smile is frightening and yeah. And talks about how this traveling with them has been the happiest times of her life and suggests that they get down on their knees and pray while they're standing in a grave that they're digging. And then you kind of get some of those details filled in by the others who were at the girls' workhouse and saying like now you get some idea of why this is the best time of her life and it adds a little bit more to the troubling doesn't it because like the trope that practice does nicely sidestep is that the poor you know troubled abused girls and then to scary religious

serial killer kind of thing. Yeah and so there's a hint to that here before you know it it seems apparent that she's a good person really but when Polly is reflecting on it and you know she's thinking about what the girl's school did to people if you were Tonka at bold you and gave you a shell lofty it was hard to know but she does like a bit of fire doesn't she and with Waza it talks about you know if you're dealt to pull hands starved up and beaten and mistreated push deeper and deeper into yourself what would you find down there and then you'd look up from those debts into the only smile you ever saw meaning the Duchess's smile. Yeah but how much more scary is that belief somewhere like the disc world where the belief really can do something?

Yeah good point yeah when you really believe in something it matters yeah. And yeah so she starts growing and changing as they travel like you said sometimes she seemed taller full of some ethereal certainty and shadows fled before her. I like the kind of theology elements of it as well and that Waza is arguing with Nuggan through the Duchess like she is so into her religion that she's able to question parts of it which is something I associate with like the Jewish faith a bit more than Christianity like the that ability to to argue yeah to argue. I think there's also there's a very clear like shown of art parallel obviously she's pretending to be a boy or like dressed in masculine clothes and her plan is some kind of deity has told us

she has got to go and lead the army. Yes moving on from our slightly frightening one to Maladik to slightly frightening in a whole different way. I know I said I like Maladik but I started reading it as Maladik now so that's just what's coming out again. Again I like that Maladik's paying a lot of attention to Polly enough to notice the Polly noticing the third man thing. He's the kind of the outside of Deva. Yes you know he's with them all he's two steps back and far enough away to see what's happening from further away even than Polly who I think considers herself a step back. Yeah yeah Polly sort of thinks of herself as a little bit above it all and watching everyone else and has now realized there's someone else who's also watching

everyone else. It's that same realization we had from the first section while you're watching everyone other people are watching you. Yeah but at the same time Maladik is now corporal and is not really capable of having that control anymore and so is happy to kind of give that to Polly as she needs to. So there's a certain equality I think there that even like the very strict army ranks is not really sticking to these guys like as it's shown in a few places actually they're just kind of like oh yeah no we kind of get the idea of like the ranks and stuff but like in reality this is kind of a weird day isn't it so. I mean we very much respect the rank of Sergeant everything else is. I like this idea of extended personal space when vampires are stressed

their personal space can I won't say it the way Igor says it but can extend for quite a quite a wide range. Yes that's kind of relatable to me. Yeah for sure. Is it proprioception I think I always forget this word like the awareness of yourself and then this must be just like an extended version of this maybe they work with magnets I don't know. Quite possibly. We'll find out one day. Werewolves are also magnetic this has been proven but it's also still continuing to help when they see him again and he's sort of like this is what's going to happen next with your vampire and you might have to be prepared if you can't get them coffee. Yeah and it's happens very quickly obviously it's over a few days still and again

it's really upsetting for them even though they've not known him very long at all I think you can see like the huge contrast there between his like put together self and then even when he's like disheveled he still looks good for that whatever word it was the French word. And Igor's the one who's actually prepared and capable to do it despite being like the least at home with killing because it's part of what Eagles know. I guess they think it's like vimes and anger have got so invested in helping this particular squad and like bearing in mind we've seen a bit of already and we'll see some more of vimes and anger not werewolves fans not vampire fans. Yeah yeah. Very much not vampire fans but they want to help this vampire.

Yeah I think they're not vampire fans on the whole like the the society vampires but they know what I shriek they you know they've yeah they met a couple decent ones now I guess. And they can see that Maladay is you know maybe a vampire but is also still a teenager that's really struggling. Yeah for some even if they've been a teenager for a while. Yeah and I think like William DeWard's the same isn't he he's trying to do the documentarian thing yes a little bit but he's like here's all the info actually and stop being a twat. Anyway who else have you got? Shofty slash Betty. So we get a bit more context for the boy that she was traveling or the boy that she's trying to find Johnny.

Just Johnny? Yep. Yeah you can extrapolate from that sorry. And after she sort of explained it and how he left with the Sixpence because he got called away to war and she says to Polly I expect you think I'm a silly girl and Polly's response is a foolish woman perhaps. There's something very sweet about this kind of affirming you didn't do anything that bad or that stupid yeah the grand scheme of things you could have done and you know she talks about whirlwind romance and said let's not talk about being silly and foolish we've got a god who hates jigsaws and the colour blue. Yeah absolutely how do you expect to act like a sane person yeah and times like this and but of course the the terror there is that

this is a time and a place where she could be sent away to somewhere like the girls working in school and yeah yeah and Polly says at the end of that bit kind of well no it's different now that are you really going to let people just take you away somewhere like that after everything you've gone and done. Yeah it's like you've got a sword. Yeah hit them with it. Right let's talk about Blouse. Oh yeah Blouse the fucking klax magician. Love Blouse quick sidebar on his noble steed Thalassephalos. Yeah Rip. Well she's been at loose to go and do her own thing so not necessarily dead. I mean I reckon that horse could survive in the wild. Oh maybe I was about to say generally you turn a horse loose in the woods somewhere like this it's going to get eaten by wolves but they

might give it a wide berth. Yeah like I feel like that horse could kick a wolf. Yeah fair okay yeah we'll pretend she's fine. I mean a team. So Alexander the Great who so Thalassephalos has been named after General Tatticus. Alexander the Great was one of the inspirations for Tatticus and his steed was named Busephalos which translated as ox head apparently it was a very stubborn horse. Good. So the cephalos suffix is head. I was trying to find etymology for the Thala part of it so going back to Greek which is what we're looking at here something like an inner chamber, a bedroom or a bed. The discworld phantom wiki suggests that Thala may could be a lair or a cave so it could be something like empty head. Okay yeah yeah. Which I like that

interpretation so I'm going with that Thalassephalos. Good that's good. Another small like classical reference is Blouse's auntie who he references. Don't see many old women with beards except my auntie Parthenope as Oracle. Parthenope was a siren. Oh was she? Yeah nice. But yeah Blouse really early on in this section asked Polly to the men talk about me. Oh yeah he's sweet. It's like quite an early inkling of his like hopes for a famous last stand. He wants to be talked about. He's got the same kind of idea of famous last stands and things as the the silver horde do except he's in a more grounded place in the discworld and he is not Cohen obviously and it's that you get this kind of and here's the grand idea and here's what would happen

saying that fact it likes to do. Yes very much reality. Of course with Cohen it's like and here's what actually happens because we're brilliant. Yeah Blouse hasn't had a chance to have the brilliant bit yet. But it's very sweet all the same and you can kind of understand the motivation of it as well. He's just blanket counter is suddenly being sent to the front and it's very much like if I have to suddenly be sent to the front then fine I'm going to bloody well be sent to the front and I'm going to do it properly. Gosh darn it. Yeah and I mean it turns out he is extremely clever and is one of those minds that would probably have been wasted as a low level bureaucrat because he's not he didn't have the confidence to push himself forward

like that. Yeah now he's been dropped into this and just just off the top of his head just goes off on one about the the class and different squeezing algorithms and different coloured filters and really impresses the press. Polly gets a little bit in trouble with Blouse slightly later on when she's trying to not be sent off to fetch the tea while they've got this captive and they're sort of arguing over what to do with them. And he does this you are my batman after all I think I run a happy ship here but I would be a black bait please. It was like being savaged by a goldfish. And I've imagined like being savaged by a goldfish. You kind of just back off because you don't want to fight a goldfish. Speaking of Blouse fighting can I talk about Blouse and

Jackram? Yes. This is really fascinated me as I've like watched this relationship grow through this section of the book. So near the beginning they're about to attack this klax tower they found and he's holding Jackram back and it's because he wants them to finish sending their message he has thought this through he has a good reason for doing what he's doing. But Jackram is infuriated. Jackram's subsided but only into the deceptive karma volcano waiting to explode. And he's still no matter how furious he is he is still doing as he's told by the officer. Yeah. And then when we get into he's arguing with Blouse over how to interrogate this prisoner and he's so frustrated with the fact that he's being overseen he is used to dumb officers that

tell him to go and do what he wants to do but he's actually got this very clever officer if he's not willing to admit it. And I can relate to that particular frustration you're so used to being left to go and do your own thing that when you suddenly start getting managed it's enraging. I thought the second bit with the light signals and all of that. Oh where he's actually sending the message and diverting them. And he keeps trying to talk over Blouse and Blouse has like been quite patient with him and then eventually having a go at him like do you understand Sergeant Jackram? And the thing is Jackram is smart enough to have got it to have understood it if he'd just listened for a second

but he's so convinced that Blouse is useless that he can't see it he just can't see past that one in his head fact that Blouse is stupid and can't do anything practical. Yeah. So that even when faced with something for Jackram would that would be quite simple to grasp if not think of because you know he's not a technological man necessarily and he just he needs to be properly yelled at before he gets it and even then he manages to kind of backpedal his like mental state into the idea where Blouse is stupid. Yeah very much so. And Blouse doesn't really help himself with the old woman lorx me old feet. No, no, no. But he can't see that you know he could be really useful and if they'd work together

on a few more things this bit might have been less painful to get through although you know went pretty well in the end. Very much so. And just before you get that sending the Klax messages bit we get Blouse tries to call Jackram out for encouraging Shofty to loot. And Jackram sort of says oh no we're allowed to loot blah blah blah regulation and Blouse checks. And then checks the regulation Jackram made up to be allowed to be re-recruited after being given his papers. Yeah. And sort of does this nod of yep yep that's definitely all in here too and it's this very how I've got one over on you thing. And Jackram's absolute fury and Polly's very reasonable like you quoted chapter and verse you know you ran that risk.

Yeah. And then a little I think it's a little bit later Blouse kind of does the nice version of that where he gives Jackram his official excuse for still working until the age of 43 was it 45 47. War shows hard on a soldier's face. It's a really it's a really incredible moment of tension because we built up this whole shaving thing. And then we've also seen Jackram get wound tighter and tighter through this whole section till what we get is Jackram shaving Blouse with a very sharp razor while Blouse is bringing up this paperwork situation. Yeah. And it's a genuine moment of fear you could genuinely see Jackram killing the officer in that moment. And obviously he doesn't and Blouse does the of course there's been a problem with

the paperwork and I'll put an explanatory note in your pamphlet. Do we think at this point that Blouse was too silly to realize his predicament like the risk he was taking or do you think it was a genuine like negotiation I'm making myself vulnerable in the second so that you will listen to what I'm saying. I don't know. I feel like the motivation was I feel like that Blouse might have had a moment of fear there. I think Blouse was clever enough to know that he might have pushed Jackram too far. Yeah. Yeah. There's also the same moment actually such a tense scene all around because at that point Jackram has just shown his cards that he knows Polly is Polly. Yes. And he said they're not men looking at Polly. And then they're boys to Blouse.

And does the thing about how they've lied about their ages and stuff. Yeah. So yeah. So I think the Blouse and Jackram tension build in this section is a really interesting detail. Yeah. Jack, Jackram as a whole as I said I fucking love how he's portrayed in this whole thing as this kind of supernatural entity a lot of the time and then kind of shrinking back down to quite petty unreasonable sergeant while always like having a good motivation. He's really like obviously being a bit of a Twitter at some parts. Yeah. But then like he's very Deus Ex Machina and other parts. Well, yeah. The moment you were your quote that the devil shall be my sergeant moment after this captive's been killed and Polly's thinking he

played a game with us as pieces and one he was puppet mastering. Yeah. Yeah. He is genuinely this terrifying thing. And as I said, there's this feeling of also wanting him to be pleased with you. Yeah. There was the way he didn't bully what he was, you know, he treated Waza almost like a child. He had this almost fatherly concern, but with Tonka and with Polly and with Maladite, he pushed all the time wanting you to push back. Yeah. Jackram is kind of like a force of nature. I think is illustrated as well by the fact practice more than any of the other characters in here far more and say uses a lot of similar metaphor to describe them and describe what he's doing all the time. So you mentioned before, like the deceptive come of the volcano, the dog on the leash.

He was bearing down on him like a landslide who is, you know, all of this is very, very Jackram all the way through. And yeah, I just love the switching between human and superhuman. And then like right near the end, when he's talking to Polly about what, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Are you going to shoot him? Who's going to reload? You know, a few tricks, do you know enough tricks? There's something other. And at that point, he's kind of because we're on Polly's side or looking at through Polly's eyes, he's kind of portrayed as the unreasonable adult in the situation, stopping the famous five going ahead and doing that thing. But it's portrayed in such a way that you can also, he's right. Yeah. Because, because we're

being fueled by the narrative here, we know that they're probably not all going to get killed as soon as they go in, but he is perfectly reasonable in believing they will. And he has seen a lot of people die. And this is why he's so frustrated with Blouse's sort of famous last stand attitude. Because it's one thing for a Rupert to go and die in a famous last stand, but he doesn't want to lose his little lads to that same idea. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Because he's portrayed as this, this huge force of nature of a character, this larger than life thing. That's why the frustration is so impressive. When they say, all right, let's have it out. I'm a woman. We're all women. And he just doesn't react.

And it's like throwing a punch and not hitting anything. So your fist keeps going. Yeah. Yeah. This was all of their big secret. This was the, this was the tension filled for them. Jack Rump, his realest display of emotion here was when he was asked to like dress up in disguise when, like as a sunflower or whatever it was. Like the idea of not being a soldier, not being in his uniform. Because obviously there's a whole thing there about being tied up in the uniform and the hat, the very pratcheting the hat. This is my identity now. Yes. And the shilling around his neck. And this is the thing. We do see Jack Rump send me out of uniform. He takes his jacket off and

sits there in a grubby vest so that you can see the shilling in the locket. But not when he's told to and not for camouflage. He's doing it because he's having. Yes. Obviously you take your jacket off when you sit down by the river. But if I'm marching, I'm a soldier. Yeah. I like the line where he surreptitiously shined his buttons. Yes. As one does. But yeah, after this big woman confrontation and the whole reason they're bringing this up is because they're talking and he explains that they're not the first women he's seen come through the

army and they insist, right, no, we are going to just undisguise ourselves as washer women and go through the keep. Yeah. And Polly says, we're still going, Sarge, sorry. And he's like, oh, don't say sorry. You were doing so well up till then. And it's interesting at this point, again, is very story. It's very established kind of narrative structure. They are going to lose their mentor, that Deus Ex Machina at this point. This is Gandalf falling into the ravine. Yes. They're going to lose their superpower for a bit now. Yeah, they've got to go and go on without their whatsit and test themselves. Hear his words echo in their head in a very trophy dramatic way if this were on screen. Eventually hear them echoing

elsewhere. And yes, we also learn in this section that Strapi ran away because of Jackram. Yeah. And we knew that Strapi was scared already. We saw Strapi piss himself, but it was Jackram who had a quiet word with Strapi about exactly what accidents could happen to someone at the front. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm guessing because Jackram didn't want him around fucking with things because he knew he would. He knew it by that point that all the lads weren't lads. He knew that Strapi was the kind of fucker who would really mess things up for everybody. And he was anyway, he managed to do it as he snuck out at night, but he would have done a lot more damage perhaps if he'd been given the time to think it through. Yeah, this is impressive.

Strapi is not in this bit at all, but he's such a prick from a distance with what he's done with the coffee machine and taking Polly's hair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just again, it's impressive villain. I know he's not really a villain. He's a nasty little, I don't think he deserves the title villain. He's just this very nasty man. But it's one of my favorite things. Pratchett can do incredibly well as write incredibly nasty little men that we hate with very few things need to happen with these nasty little men for us to hate us, hate them. And again, I'm going to keep referencing this fucking interview I'm going to link Pratchett was saying about character building. Like he knows he's doing this. It's deliberate. You can tell a lot about a character by and he's,

these words by the way they laugh, by the way they clap their hands and you can communicate a lot just with these little things. And we keep mentioning the stupid laughs of the villains. Yeah. And obviously like Strafi is a really, yeah, a really good example of that. And that he did have a fair bit of dialogue to be fair and like a fair bit of emotional impact on the characters. But he was, yeah, he was gone by section two. And yeah, he's still talking with everybody. And yeah, no, the way that they clap their hands is also a very specific one for me because I developed such an intense loathing of managers who clap their hands and say, right, guys. Oh, wait, no, I have one more thing about, sorry about Blast and Jack Crumb.

Oh, yeah. The fact that Jack Crumb obviously very into the idea of being a soldier, very into the idea of staying regimental, keeping his uniform on. I think Blouse has a lot of that as well, and that they could have found a bit more common ground in here because Blouse really didn't like the idea of being guerrilla fighters or a regulars. He's like, no, we are not a regulars. We are this regiment. We are soldiers. Oh, and I quickly want to mention William DeWard just because he gets faced, he's very much being threatened with a crossbow while trying to go to the loo and his first response is, can I have an interview? Yes. And he's also in peril and grammatically correct somebody, of course. Yep. Just incredibly consistent character work for one of my very

favorite discord characters. Yep. No character development needed for DeWard. He has done his character development. We've had the deadly issues. He's finished now. I understand that Sakurisa Kripslock is like probably back in Ink Moorpuk running like that side of the times, but I also wish I could like see Sakurisa in this situation. Getting annoyed at the men being trying to be Nuggan Atikata. Yeah. Quickly locations. I know we don't go to Ink Moorpuk, but it was something we were tracking for a while, was does a book mention Ink Moorpuk and we went a really long time. And we have had it recently. I don't think that Ink Moorpuk gets a single mention in We Free Men. I think you might be right. But outside of that, it's been a long time since

we've not had. And so I think it's interesting to look at the way Ink Moorpuk's affecting this place as a foreign power because we saw a lot of that in the Fifth Elephant vimes going and being the ambassador. Yeah. But we saw it as more of a overvolt is more on a level with Ink Moorpuk in terms of power, perhaps not quite, but getting there. But now we actually get to see Ink Moorpuk's influence on a small state. And it mirrors quite well round world stuff. You get left alone until you've pulled down important part of infrastructure for a big country kind of thing. Yes, very much so. And that's what's happening here. And we get our depiction

in the cartoon of specifically Moorpukia and William DeWerd explaining like, yes, I'm an Ink Moorpuk citizen. It shelters me under its wide and rather greasy wing. I'll tell you what, I'm going to talk about birds later and I forgot to include that. I just think it's great that like there's this weird Borough Gravian national pride. And they argue about patriotism and there's that line from the last section, you know, the only good bit of country is you people here in this tent. Yes. And Ink Moorpuk is, I don't know, liberated and safe enough that if you're from Ink Moorpuk, you're just able to be a total dick about it and it doesn't feel transgressive.

Like if someone from Ink Moorpuk was like super proud of it, they'd be really sus. Yes, Heinrich had a reputation locally for cunning, but Ink Moorpuk had overtaken cunning a thousand years ago, had sped past devious, had left artful far behind and then now, by a roundabout route, arrived at straightforward. And I think that largely works with the promotion of vimes to Duke. Definitely helps, doesn't it, when your ambassador cannot be bothered with any of this. I'm fucking up. I know we've not got vibes or character, but the idea that everyone thinks he eats raw meat now is like,

can't be bothered to explain to Red why that's a weird thing to tell people. It's just like, oh, I mean, it's probably won't do me any harm. All right, fine. Yeah, go with that one. I eat strips of raw meat. Oh, and bless, I forgot to mention this, but Reg, Reg being so frustrated with the zombies not embracing their new opportunities, that he's ranting about it and doesn't notice that the bird's eating his fingers. And he can't stick them down his throat.

It's like poor Reg, but oh, Reg. Anyway, oh yeah, in the other location, obviously, we've finally seen Neck Keep, and yes, I'm just shoehorning in another quote. If there is a fairytale scale for castles where the top end is occupied by those white, spiring crusted castles with blue pointy roofs, then Neck Keep was low black and clung to its outcrop like a storm cloud. Yeah, that's good. I like that. You can definitely see it. It's a beautiful way to just describe something by exactly what it isn't.

Yes. Yeah, hung in the air much in the same way that Brooks didn't. This is the least Disneyland. You are the opposite of Fat Man. How many popular culture references can we get in? Also, the neck was described in what I thought was quite an interesting way, because we were talking about the chalk last month, obviously, and how in chalk land, a lot of the fertile soil gets washed down. So I think my brain was primed for it, and it said that the Neck Valley was rich and fertile, and it was from here that the fertility had been washed up.

It was a landscape of ravines and thick scrub woodland with a few small communities practically living from the poverty stricken soil. That's such a good description. This is whereabouts they're having the battle and stuff, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ravines. Oh, I'm sorry. Little m6 hit Joanna at the same time. I said something very stupid. Ravines. Ravines.

Ravines. Should we take five? So, Joanna, what little bits do you... I see you've put what you might think is sneakily, but really isn't several little bits we liked under one bullet point. Yeah, 100% have. Well, we were talking last week about how this book had just genuinely had some really funny moments, and I think I know with some of the stuff we've covered recently, obviously Night Watch was so very dark, and last week we were very caught up in all the excitement of new character and folklore. It's rare we actually take a moment just to

appreciate how fucking funny these books are, and there were so many laugh out loud moments in this section. And Polly is about to shave blouse, and Jack Grimm says, do you think you could kill a man today? And she looks at the razor. I'm sorry to say, I think I could say. I mentioned this line briefly last week, but when blouse says on Captain Horrance, he was pressing his suit in no small way, was he not? He didn't have ironing in mind, sir. And then there's a follow-up when they're discussing the washer women going in to help at the Keeb. And Jack Grimm says it doesn't always stop at washing neither. Sergeant, there are young men here that have to find out about ironing and darning sooner or later. There's the great little

footnote when someone's dropped a crossbow which fired into the air, failed to hit anything, especially a duck. Yeah, it drifted in the breeze a little, landed in a note tree some 30 feet away where it missed a squirrel. And Prattcher has a particular gift as well for picking the animal names that are the funniest. Like duck is just inevitably funny, and squirrel is just a very funny word to end a sentence with. Yeah. So we've got a fun little tropes of version. You can see why this works so well on stage. Like this is one of the ones that's most done on stage, isn't it? All these little online is a big audience engagement laughter stuff. I would like to see a stage production of this, actually. I mean, I'd love to do one, but I haven't

got the time or the money to organise that. Believe me, it's occurred to me. Oh, yeah. And there's a great little conversation that's just very cleverly funny. Blouse is asking about sending pictures, how they get the pictures back to the Angmore book times office. How do you get the pictures back so quickly? Magic, I assume. And the question is very, obviously, we know magic does exist on the disc world. Probably not a lot of it in Borogravia, I assume, which is a band at the stake very quickly. And that seems likely. I don't think there's much of a university situation going on for wizards. No. So it's very much a, I know absolutely nothing about this, it must be magic sort of question. And the response is this dead plan. No, wizards are

expensive and vines are said there'll be no first use of magic. Yes. So we use quacks. Yeah. And yes, now I can see magic is a reasonable thing, because we do have access to it, but no, we won't be using wizards and we won't have the first use thing. And then blouse, like, very quickly works out what it actually is, which kind of makes it more fun. Yeah, yeah. And another sort of blouse just being slightly, what's the word, not dopey, overconfident. I dare say our enemy feels impregnable just because he commands a heavily armed fort on a rocky crag with walls 100 feet high and 20 feet thick. Which is terrible and very funny. And then it's quite near to the bit where Jack Krum says, I wouldn't try it with a thousand men.

And blouse said, ah, but I might try it with half a dozen, which is actually a very good overconfident line and has the ring of a, it's a million to one chance, but it might just work. There's a loss of million to one chance that might just work vibe. Yes, we don't need to say it anymore. We know. No, we know the vibe. So yes, just all those brilliant little comedy moments. I want to take a moment to appreciate. It is a very funny book. It's great. I strongly disagree with a couple of people I've seen talking online about how it shows practice, lost a sense of humor and whatever. I was like, it's fucking full of jokes. Like, it's full of jokes. And so much of the company comes from the

fact that we've basically got a group of teenagers hanging around with a couple of very different types of oblivious adults looking after them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've got, I just made a couple of notes on military slang, because obviously it's mentioned a couple of times here. I thought it's funny how we get lines like slipping easily into the slang that only learned 10 hours ago kind of thing. Oh yeah. So a couple of the ones we've learned here, obviously, a cello, sweet milky tea. We've got scubbo, which is a weird horrible stew thing. We got Rupert, which according to Wikipedia, Rupert would be a Rodney on Round World. Ah. So I've got a little list of a glossary of army terms on Wikipedia. But that wasn't as fun as asking a couple of people I know about

military slang. So my mum was brought up a military brat, my granddad was a major. And so I grew up with like the normal few military words that I'm sure a lot of people do. It's like Mufti for casual clothes or that kind of thing. Yeah. And like BV for sleeping bag, that kind of nonsense. Mum liked the fact that their wrath used to be called crabs, I think it was. Yeah. Crab airline. And she was told when she was a kid that this was because the wrath flew sideways and it was a joke, it was a tease. Yes. But growing up, she realised it probably had more to do with like crabs, like lice. And then I asked Sterling, who was that friend in the Navy? And he said it's more likely that it's because it's crab blue is the

colour of the thing. Yeah. So I think, I don't know, maybe we've got a little folk etymology or rat conning or whatever. And Sterling's favourite slang he contributed was Space Pilot, which is an officer who thinks they know everything and believes sheer confidence will see them through an exercise. Excellent. And sits down when he weaves and wears his mum's jeans, which means somebody exceptionally weird and or homeschooled. Strappy. I feel like we can't use like sits down as he weaves as some kind of criticism. No. But it's just a very... But strappy wears his mum's jeans. For sure. I just thought that was funny. Then I had kind of related the political

cartoon that you were talking about. Yes. It's shown in the beginning of the paperback. And I imagine the hardback. And it is mentioned in this section. Vara Gravia characterised as this tiny little person standing on a mountain kicking Slovenia in the socks as he walks with Angmorpork. It's done in that kind of old political cartoon style. And I love that shit. It's beautifully calligraphed. Is that how you say calligraphy? Calligraphed? Yeah, why not? Captions on like these huge character labels sometimes. Not in this particular example, but you know, the ones I mean where it's like talking about a political concept and it'll be like the economy on a cannonball or something,

as it smashes into a wall labelled France. I don't know why would the economy destroys France? We won't know. Doesn't matter. Just needs to look dramatic. And like the intricate shading and all of that. So Punch Magazine is obviously like the master of this sort of thing. And the Angmorpork Times columnist, Fizz, yeah, this is probably a reference to in its 19th century. Hey, Dave Punch employed a house cartoonist called Fizz, P-H-I-Z, short for like Fizzog, which is a slang term for a face. Yeah. And he was Hablett Knight Brown, who was an illustrator who also worked on Charles Dickens' Pickwick papers. Oh, and quite a lot of these actually worked on books we would definitely recognise. So I think the one in this book, I think it also kind of resembles another punch

artist called John Tenniel. And he did Alice Mondland illustrations. Oh, amazing. I know those ones. And I think most closely, the art style here, though, and Paul Kippy is obviously very good at referencing art styles, resembles James Gilray. So do you have singing open? Oh, I see the thing you mean. Yes, very much that style. Yeah. And it's really clever because this is the kind of shading that could be in something that could be sent with that sort of algorithm over the cracks from what I understand, because it's like line shading. Ha, good point. Which for indicating like a grayscale shade, again, I don't fully understand how it works, but I could understand how this sort of shading would help. Yeah. I was like that one. And so Gilray is earlier than

Tenniel and Fizz. So he's like 1700s. So that's a very nice and early one. Yeah. And yeah, the whole history of like political cartoons, very interesting. And maybe a rabbit hole one day, you can sing. Yes. Watch out patrons. Watch out. That's a threat, not a promise. I also really like just a detail in the thing that on the sort of large shield, it's like the train or the bustle of the dress that more porkier is wearing. You can just seal it allow all at the top above the speech bubble. And it very much looks like it is a hippo holding a shield on the dress. Oh, yes, it's the Antmole pork coat of arms. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely. I like the little Aaron. Oh, if all could be so good at details. And yes, I like the implication of a

hippo. The implication of a hippo. Yes, I enjoy that. That's the Royal prerogative you blagged. Oh, my succession that such a small thing could hurt so much. Oh, I swear, enough for our liaison will be cut short. Love. That's not how I imagined more porkier speaking. No, I don't know. I think she would have a more like deep croaky voice. That's interesting that you've taken away your ill voice and done a falsetto. I picture her very as what's the name from EastEnders get out of my pub that one. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Nice. I like it. So, what was your last LBL, Joanna? She's an unnecessary abbreviation and even more

unnecessary explanation. Oh, yeah. Polly is walking through the woods and hearing the peaceful bird song and thinking about how unpeaceful the bird song is once you've learned what birds are songing about. All around you, the world is shouting, bugger off. This is my bush. Ah, the nest thief. Have sex with me. I can make my chest big and red. Is this one of the ones that stuck with you for the years? Yeah. This is something that has lived with me since I first read it. And occasionally when I'm hearing birds song, I'll just make up little narrations to myself in my head. It's a nice way to amuse yourself on a walk. It is. Absolutely. Speaking of birds, Francine, do you want to have a bigger bird conversation? Sure. Although not quite to the level of big bird.

Probably. Yeah. So, birds, I picked the talking point because why not? I obviously got very invested in that one quote last week. So, I was like, why not dive in? Yeah. So, birds are used as like a motif through this book, through the section particularly, I'd say, just because we're on the journey here. We're doing the hero's journey. We're doing a lot of walking and there's a lot of chance for birdsong in the woods. It underlines the fact that Polly is very into ornithology and it keeps reminding us of this because she's very specific with her observations. It's also used to kind of demonstrate the loudness of a silence and how a silence filled with noise is louder as we've talked about explicitly in We Free Men, possibly not in this one.

So, a couple of examples of that are when William DeWerd is talking to Blouse and they say you, he began to chuckle. They say you overpowered Prince Heinrich and his guard and stole his boots and made him hop away in the altogether. In a thicket, some way off, a nightingale sang. For quite a while, uninterrupted, then Blouse said, no, you are in fact wrong. And then after, did you kill that old couple in the woods? Far off, there was the call of a female blue-capped woodpecker. Yeah, that was a fucking moment. Yeah, and there's another one with like Heron Honking and all of that kind of stuff. It's

used a few times to kind of show a silent pause and I like how he's picked out a different specific bird each time. A, because it's probably a delightful thing to think about and B, because, yeah, we're looking at it through Polly's eyes and Polly knows what the birds are, so why would she just say a bird chirped in the distance? That wouldn't make any sense. Yes. There are also a couple of just bird metaphors throughout. I think maybe more than would be usually, like you pointed out and I've missed entirely, the greasy wing of Anke-Morphawk, sheltering William DeWard. Also, when Blouse and Jack-Rama are arguing and they turn back to Polly

and she kind of melts the tension of it, is their expression changed if they'd been birds, their feathers would have gently settled back? Yes. And then a little later, because they're picking up on your bird song, actually, just before the turkey miracle, which is in itself a bird thing, she says, she should have listened to the bird song, she realized later. The shrill calls and the distance would have told her the news if only she'd been calm enough to listen.

That just the fact that she'd been so overly hyped up to completely forget her nature almost, because this is constantly what she's thinking about the whole time. I thought that was interesting. Yeah. We've got the turkey miracle itself, which and Polly's thinking about the Duchess, who said she could move small things. How small is a thought in the mind of a bird? Yes. A. Cool line. Yeah.

B. We kind of know that because equal rights. When Esk borrows a bird, well, we don't know how small thought would be, but we do know the eagle's mind is very small and like a small purple arrow, I went and checked. And in fact, this just got me thinking generally of birds as metaphorical techniques. Obviously, we've had the eagle, vorbis, rant. Birds signifying the divine or a character in general, very good. The eagle, oh my God, vorbis, the eagle, but the eagle is vorbis. And the vorbis is the eagle, yes.

Yes, we've very much had this. Yeah, we've done that. We've had the phoenix. The phoenix was a thing. Yeah, the phoenix does definitely do a thing. I'm saying that. I've forgotten which one it was. I think it might have been.

That was in Lords and Ladies. No, Carpe Joculum. Carpe Joculum. Oh, in which case also magpies. Yes. Very bird heavy. We've got the last hero and Leonard's gorgeous lines. When the gods say, if we would want to metaphor, we would have given you wings.

And Leonard said, you gave me wings when you showed me birds. Yes. Oh, I fucking love that still. And more, I would say, connected to Roundwell Trope, Reaper Man. I thought it was a really good example of this. So birds and prisoner's metaphor, very big. Very big in literature.

Huge. Not only literature. I think Sweeney Todd and Joanna and the Fucking Bird caged and all of this stuff. And so, so, so many bits of literature where the prisoner sits and watches the birds. And in Reaper Man, this is a big symbol, I guess. And Bill Dore becoming human part of it is him realising why a prisoner would sit and watch the birds and tame them and allow them into the cell. And finally, when death is talking to Azrael.

And he says, Lord, will you grant me just a little time for the proper balance of things to return what was given for the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds? Just the more I think about it, the more of this kind of bird motif is through perhaps its stuff. And I just I love the way he loves birds. Yes, it's my conclusion. And honestly, I hadn't even thought about the fact that just any bird mention is more detailed here because it's it because it's from Polly's point of view that hadn't occurred to me because it just absorbed into the book so well.

It's subtle. But yeah, it's so present there. And there's there's a great moment as well where one of the other girls sort of tries to do a bird call and Polly makes a note to teach them some bird calls that actually sound like birds that would be in this forest. Or is it something like, oh, yes, that's the bird call of the person who doesn't know what birds sound like. Yeah. Fucking love that. Yeah.

Ah, yes, good. I love it very much. And do you have thoughts on something I can't relate to birds at all? Yeah, I'm sorry, there's no easy segue here. So this book goes into this is kind of two talking points planned into one. But this book goes into the different sides to things a lot. And obviously we like looking at two sides of a coin or three sides of a really fucking weird coin as it might be. We like edges.

We do like edges. Let's get a bit liminal. Should we get liminal? Yes, let's get liminal again. So looking at the war side of things first, and there's this sort of debate between this soldier thing, this war versus murder versus killing and what the difference is. And it starts really early on, they find the charcoal burners and then they find the cheesemongers badge.

And they have this very are we the baddies moment because they've suddenly realized that a lot of their side are deserters. And not only deserters, but violent killing deserters. Yeah, this is a horrific thing. They found two people who have been murdered who didn't need to be murdered. No. Obviously no one needs to be murdered. No, no, no.

I mean, these weren't people, these weren't people fighting bad. Strapi did be murdered. Strapi does still need to be murdered. She's unfortunately still alive. And there's this discussion of so blouses talking about the fact that, you know, deserters are a very bad business. And they've obviously talked to the word once already. And Blouse says, you know, the newspaper man says there's been a great many deserters.

And this is Blouse wanting to admit that he's been struggling for this whole book with the fact that the orders we've been given haven't been the right ones. It's very it's not asked to question why, but I'd really like to fucking question why gritted through gritted teeth. And he knows that things are going very badly, but he's not meant to tell his men. And no. And he wants Jackram to be on his side a bit with this. But Jackram is obviously in a very different way, completely unwilling to criticise the military.

Yes. So, yeah, Blouse brings up these desertions and sort of this hint of it's strange, so many men would desert from a winning side. And Jackram comes back with, yeah, but whose side is the newspaper guy on? There's like a bullheadedness to it because they've just been confronted with the fact that, yeah, you've got very nasty deserters out there doing very nasty shit. Yeah. And it would be nice to have something to cling on to to mean maybe we don't have to just

take as fact that it was our side who did that. Yeah. Or that there's any kind of reason. When Polly sits down with Jackram the day after the captive that they had has been killed at Jackram's hand and Blouse has taken a bit of a clip to the yellow and Polly sits down and says, right, well, you murdered that guy. And Jackram says, prove it. And she's talking about the fact she was sessing up.

And it's good to see her actually confront Jackram, especially this is after that devil is my sergeant realisation that we've been used as pawns thing. And Jackram has got a fair justification, which is what else have we have done with him? If we had left him here, he would have died. Yeah. Like if it were up to me, I would have executed him like an officer. Yeah. But what, you know, the kind thing of leaving him behind alive, but leaving it so he can't

follow us, time to a tree and let him kick walls. But also Jackram has very much been trained to kill and to justify these actions a lot more. And who knows how horrible it is and would be for other people. So things like think you'll be man enough to stand when the metal meets the meat. Yes, very much so. It makes it very visceral. And we get that moment during the miracle of the turkey. Yes.

And Polly is getting ready to kill someone because otherwise he's going to see Alice. And she's thinking she wished she'd been trained stabbing sacks of straw until she'd been able to believe that all men were straw. And comes this realisation of maybe that's why you do it. You do it to stop someone killing your mates. Yeah. Yeah. It's never for king and country.

No. And you get Igarina's very specific view, which is that all war is murder because obviously the Eagles have this very specific, very heightened respect for life. Yeah, the Hippocratic Oath version of, yeah, yeah. Definitely. I'm not sure what the Discworld equivalent of Hippocrates is. The whole thing about kind of focusing on the visceral nature of the killing here, I think is quite good.

It doesn't go into like unnecessary gory detail, but I feel like just a phrase when the metal meets the meat reminds me of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast, I really like. And I think he does a really good job of really focusing and repeating the point that ancient warfare and warfare until very recently was this horrible, up-clothed, terrible thing of having to stab somebody, having to take a blade and put it in another human being is so far beyond most people. It's very against our nature.

And there's also the idea of Polly and the Squad, you know, you're going to be pikemen. You're going to have a pointy stick and they'll be further away. So we have this dichotomy between these different flavors of killing, let's say. And it starts coming to a head with, is there a better way to do any of this that maybe involves not putting something pointy in someone. And it's William DeWard talking to Blouse and this point that I fucking love, and which I think we talked about, you know, has come up as a theme somewhere else. Blouse has, once he's, you know, been a genius about the clocks,

and said, it's perfectly straightforward. Had to redefine the department's filing system. People build something that works, then circumstances change. They have to tinker with it to make it continue working. They're so busy tinkering, they cannot see that a whole much better idea would be to build a whole new system to deal with the new circumstances. And I swear, Zach quote, almost word for word has popped up in a book and we've talked about it and I can't remember which. Listeners, please help.

But it is a favorite theme. Yes, we like it and we agree. And it's a, and it's the word who tries to bring that back to politics and say, you know, maybe not just in filing systems, like maybe someone needs to look at a country from the outside and go, could we do this less pointily? Yes. I've had a lot of cough medicine. Okay, but so Polly trying to convince Blouse to talk to the word brings me to one of my favorite

bits in the book because it's a theme we've returned to over and over again. And it's very, it's very good that this is in relation to William DeWard. Sometimes the way people tell you lies, if they tell you enough what lies, they sort of show you what shape the truth is. Yeah. Yeah, keep talking and it doesn't matter how like, how much bullshit you're talking, I will get an idea of it. Yeah.

Which brings me neatly into some gender-related emotions. Little bit of gender as a treat at the end. Little bit of gender as a treat because Polly is, is sort of repeatedly lying to herself. You know, you see, I have this frustration we talked about right at the beginning of her being kind of taken for a boy, which you add to last week's confusion about she was wearing a petticoat, but she was definitely still very much a soldier, wasn't she? And she's not sure. Yes, soldier being a gender here.

Well, soldier is a gender for them. Women aren't allowed in the army. Yeah. You can't be a female soldier. And this goes into this conversation where they're having to unlearn a lot of lies, not so much that they tell themselves, but that they have been told about themselves. You know, as women, they have to be good girls, bad girls go to the working school. Everything that they do is an abomination unto Nuggan.

They, they can read, but they can't write. So they can't wear trousers. And they're having this conversation about, you know, if we're caught, we'll be beaten and sent back. And this is before we get to the whole conversation with Shafty. This is still fairly early on in the section. It's while Shafty is making a lovely little casserole because Tonka's done a decent bit of hunting while she was so on guard.

And they stopped talking about how they're treated so differently wearing the trousers. They're sort of saying, well, it doesn't feel very abominable. Like it's quite comfortable. Men talk to you differently. They listen to you differently too. You're just another person. Like if a girl walked down the street wearing a sword, a man would try and take it off her and we get Jade's troll version of it.

It's not right for a girl to wear like him. Jade is naturally cracking and doesn't see where she should polish. Exactly. Which relatable as a craggy person. I also, speaking of like Jade and Jen, I liked it a bit later when Jack comes like deflating the big reveal and goes like, yeah, I do with you. I knew with you. Not sure about Maladik.

Who knows? And with trolls, no offense. But who cares? And like genuinely, I think there is none because it's like pointed out earlier. Trolls don't really care what humans think. Humans don't really care what trolls think about. And like she can relate to some of the aspects of it. Yes.

With the girls. But a lot of it's like, huh. Like there clearly is troll misogyny. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is you have this whole conversation across this page about being treated differently because when they're wearing trousers and not wearing trousers, you've got a footnote that kind of undermines it at the end,

which is just the woman, a woman always has half an onion left over, no matter the size of the onion, the dish or the woman, which is like a really gendered comment to make. It's not an offensive comment. No, I mean, so we've seen that exact joke before. Oh no, we have seen that joke before. Was that Herida or Canina? One of those two.

One of the early, Fractic Women. But yes, but you're right. Yes, it is a, but I think it's just a one-liner that Terry Fracti wanted to reuse. No, and it's fine. It's a funny joke. I don't mind it. Like speaking as a non-binary person,

I only have half an onion left over about half the time. Oh, that makes sense then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's how that works. That's how that works. That's why I don't always have half an onion.

You just have half a stereotype, all of them, right? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Only half of a stereotype for me. Thank you. Not very hungry. Constantly Victor Victorian, my stereotypes. It makes shopping for a swimming costume very difficult.

No. Yeah. No, it's again, it's not an offensive joke at all. It's just very funny to put such a gender specific joke after a whole like two page spread of talking about how gender is kind of irrelevant. It's how, but they've presented a certain way and suddenly been treated very differently. Yeah. And there's this great moment slightly later on where I think Alice, who is obviously suffered

a lot, but is quite naive in so many ways, says something along the lines of, I think the world would be a lot better if it was run by women. There wouldn't be any wars. And then says, of course, the book would consider this an abomination. It might be an error. I'll consult the Duchess. Yeah, that's what I loved. Yeah, yeah.

And Polly is thinking about the response. And you only thought the world would be better if it was run by women, if you didn't actually know many women. I mean, I know exactly the kind of women she's thinking about. Yes. Yeah, she is thinking about the dimity scarf thing and the curtain twitching women watching to make sure everyone behaved properly. And the half-hearted punishments meted out by a result.

But I do respect this thing of it's not the fact that it's specifically men or specifically women. It's the fact that people are being really shitty. Yeah, although I do think it's a certain. The problem with the women that Polly is thinking of running the world is that they are as much upholders of the patriarchy as they are. Exactly. They are upholding the patriarchy much more than the men are.

The men are doling out these half-hearted punishments because of the curtain twitching women. Yes. Although, again, that's the way Polly is seeing it in her little village setting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, although as we'll find out, it all gets a bit complicated. I've seen a lot of annoying Tumblr discourse about this one,

about how, yeah, no, if women ran this or that, what happens then. I get quite annoyed when the pendulum swings too far the other way from this and like, women are worse actually, Margaret Thatcher. Like, there are definitely certain things all humans do just as shittily as each other. But I think there are certain things that really benefit from women yelling at people about it. Absolutely, yes. And maybe that's societal. Maybe it's societal, so.

What is a societal thing? Like I said, all these problems with what if women ran this instead is that you're still talking about a lot of this happening within a fairly patriarchal society. But I have also gone, we've gone off wildly on a tandem. What, have we? I'm going to try and rope us. Surely not. Back in to the Book Monsters Regiment A, I like the comedy of Blouse's reaction to it.

Yeah. Absolutely noticing the masculinity of the others and is therefore the only convincing woman. None of you. Because he's an officer, because the rest of them keep up their scratching and farsing and what have you to be convincing just in case, even though they all know about each other and they don't know if Jackram or especially Blouse have any idea. Because Blouse is an officer, Blouse doesn't scratch and fasten things. Yeah.

Yeah, there's a big difference there between, there's a lot more commonality perhaps between the working class. They can emulate it a lot better than the upper class. And yeah, yeah. Sidebar, Rigglesworth, Blouse's old school chum who was very into the theatricals. I'm headcundling Rigglesworth as a trans woman. Yeah. And I hope she's living a happy and affirming life.

So to circle this background to the point I was thinking about Polly telling lies to herself, she has been insisting, I'm doing this one thing, I'm getting my brother, I'm going home. Except she's also really fucking not willing to do that. And towards this section we see her actually more out and out admitting it. Again, it's with that conversation with Shafty. She is not willing to go back to the world where she has to wear a dimity scarf and she is not allowed to run the Duchess. If we get out of this, there's going to be no schools and no beatings,

not for you or any of us, not if we've got brains, not if we're smart. She might not have yet admitted to herself that she is in this for a much longer haul than just grabbing her brother and going home. But she has, I think, started to accept to herself that there is no safe to go back to without a loss of change. She might not know the rest of her journey, but she knows which destination she is not heading for now. Yes.

And by the process of elimination, we've got to the obscure reference for Neil. If you say so. Speaking of gender roles, in a more amusing way than more eager, you know, when she's talking about the kind of enforced gender roles within her society. Yeah. You know, she wants to do the surgery, the incision part, as well as the sewing up. And she says, and I think a woman on the slab would feel a lot better about things if she knew there was a female hand on the Weep Along Dead switch.

And I was like, Weep Along Dead switch. That said, in the final scene from the Bride of Frankenstein, 1935 movie, a famous line from Boris Karloff as the monster, as he's just about to blow himself and the bride to smithereens, he says, go, you live to Frankenstein and Elizabeth. And then turning to Dr. Pretorius, you stay, Weep Along Dead, which is the hell of a line. Yeah. And then also, obviously, probably referring to a kill switch. Yes.

Yeah. Cool. Right. I think that's everything we are going to say about part two of Monstrous Regiment. Certainly. Part three begins where part two ends and then goes to the end of the book. Good. Just in case you were wondering, begins page 331 with, and one of the things they hadn't

known was that it had edges. And we are going to go to the end of the book. Okay. Until next week, dear listeners, when hopefully I'll be able to talk properly, you can find us on Instagram at the True Share Make You Freight on Twitter at Make You Freight Board, on Facebook at the True Share Make You Freight. Join our subreddit community, r slash t t s m y f, email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, and bird calls, the True Share Make You Freight pod at gmail.com.

If you would like to support our podcast financially, you can go to patreon.com forward slash your True Share Make You Freight. And exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. Don't forget, May 19th, True Share Make You Freight presents Mark Burroughs, the magic of Terry Pratchett, at the Hunter Club in various lemons. Please come because, like, I really want there to be an audience, guys. Yeah. There'll be an audience.

It'll just be nice if lots of them knew us. It would be really cool. We would look really cool if a bunch of our listeners came. I don't know, man, for sure. To, like, no one but us and maybe Mark Burroughs. Yeah, yeah, ticket link in the show notes. And if you are a patron, there is a link for discount tickets. And until next time, dear listener, don't let us detain you.

There we go. You've got my flash sides. Flash sides by name, flash sides by nature. Woof. I'm not even going to try on woof. I know my throat can't take it. End of the man who has no voice. Ask me why.