Talk:Book:Night Watch/Annotations

The Baker Street Irregulars have been mentioned before, but no one ever explains what the connection is between a group of street urchins working for the good guys and an evil crew of secret policemen working for the villain. They could be compared to the Canting Crew, maybe, but I don't see why the Unmentionables. (The Bow Street Runners would be more credible.) --Old Dickens 17:26, 23 June 2007 (CEST)

10 year old Nobby Nobbs, now, is exactly a Baker Street Irregular. ...--Old Dickens 02:51, 24 June 2007 (CEST)

Hapenny now says it's a definite reference, but fails to say why, or who told her. I remain totally unconvinced. ...--Old Dickens 17:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Come on, Dickens. [Name] Street [Particulars/Irregulars]? I really don't see how you can claim that to be pure coincidence. One could even say that particular (as in precious and pedantic) is a contrast to irregular, but that may be pushing it. Ha'penny is completely convinced. Her jaw drops at the idea that it could be anything else. As a matter of fact, a quick google will show you that the APF backs me up completely (http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/maskerade.html page 247).--Hapenny 18:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm probably out-voted again. No one's come up with any relation between the street children and the very Establishment secret police for me yet. Do you mean only that the the form of the name is the same? --Old Dickens 20:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to run deep - when I first came across it in Maskerade, it made me chuckle but I never saw it intended as any meaningful comparison. If I think about it, I can sense various contrasts which could be said to be drawn between Establishment Particulars and urchin Irregulars but I frankly don't think it's worth it.--Hapenny 17:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Whereas I would say the only reason to mention it would be as part of a discussion of various substitutions of opposites in Night Watch, probably including Nobby as an Irregular type who grew into a corrupt policeman - but that's why I don't get involved in annotation; I only mentioned this one because it keeps creeping into the real articles. --Old Dickens 17:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree then. I hope we don't clash over this again, but I feel it's a valid annotation to insert at the bottom of a "real" article, perhaps not on the Watch one but on the Particulars --Hapenny 14:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

"both are given rather broad laissez faire by their Patrician to conduct their duties" isn't laissez faire strongly connected to free market policies? I'm not native speaker but I heard this term exclusivly in such context in english. Uzytkownik 20:42, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

But at the risk of getting political, Margaret Thatcher discovered that to make the laissez-faire free market work in Britain, she needed a very strong authoritarian police force! This was necessary to impose free market economic theory on the malcontents and leftover socialists, who insisted on belonging to the sort of strong trade unions who only served to hinder its operation... it's amazing how often the light tiller of Government needed a repressive police force to use, to back up its ideas about freedom and the free market! --AgProv 13:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Dr Lawn

Mossy Lawn is certainly NOT a reference to Bartholomew Mosse

In The UK, anyone with the surname Lawn is called Mossy or some similar 'witty' nickname at some point

John Lawn, a fan of some long standing, won the right to have a character named after him in an upcoming book, back at the 2001 Wadfest, and had the choice of a pox doctor or an assassin

He chose what he thought would be funniest

Chrisboote 15:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

Is this incarnation of Reg Shoe a deliberate shout-out to Michael Palin's Constitutional Peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Then there's Jefferson, the radical blacksmith in Snuff, who picks a fight with Vimes to make a similar sort of demonstration to the other repressed bloody peasants...--AgProv 02:03, 7 November 2011 (CET)

The Mothman Prophecies

Putting this here as I can't see how this fits. But it's an odd coincidence.

A book by - John Keel

Unless it's the content about time-slips, the idea Others are manipulating time as it pertains to humans, the Men In Black thing, et c. It's listed as a sort of Annotation on tvtropes, but apart from general weirdness, I can't see how. AgProv (talk) 21:59, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I always thought Reg --> Enjolras

I appreciate the edit by MrHutchy01 about Delescluze... I had never heard of him! In a brief google, I discovered he participated not only in the 1871 Paris Commune, but also in previous Paris uprisings. Like, the one Les Miserables is about, perhaps? Cool.

See, given the copious Les Mis references throughout Night Watch, I always thought Reg Shoe was straight-up playing Enjolras - the over-enthusiastic, over-idealistic young leader of the student revolutionaries. In the stage version of the show, the soldiers attack the barricade, killing pretty much everyone but Marius and Jean Valjean. Enjolras's death is played way over the top... he waves a flag atop the barricade as it's clear the revolutionaries are being slaughtered. He falls to a dramatic musical score after catching multiple bullets. Enjolras's red-hot belief in the revolutionary cause, according to the lyrics of Red and Black in particular, should by all rights be enough for him to continue his life as a zombie. Don't know why Alain Boublil didn't think of that!

But now I'm expecting that Boublil - and Pratchett! - were thoroughly aware of and channeling Delescluze. Thanks for the insight! Moishe Rosenbaum (talk) 01:40, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Gee! A torrent of useful annotation! I would also assume that The Author found both in his research and melded them, as he would. --Old Dickens (talk) 03:14, 19 September 2023 (UTC)