- Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Jackrum a leader and father of men, or a dinosaur, stuck in the old ways of fighting a war? The implication of the end, supported by Jackrum himself, is that he's a bit of both, and recognising the latter is why he retires.
- Aluminium Christmas Trees: 'The Cheesemongers' is a silly nickname for a military unit, right? Well, yes, but it also happens to be one of the actual nicknames of the Life Guards; the senior cavalry regiment of the British Army. The Life Guards acquired this nickname when the social requirements for officers were lowered, allowing the sons of merchants to become officers, causing some of the older and conservative members to comment that they no longer soldiers but 'cheesemongers'; i.e. tradesmen. As is so often the case, it became an Appropriated Appellation.
- Applicability: Grab a bowl of popcorn and check out Does This Remind You of Anything? on the main page. Between tiny-but-bellicose Borogravia, ambitious-and-powerful Zlobenia, and meddler-from-afar Ankh-Morpork, you can find a lot of parallels to Roundworld wars and politics.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Tonker and Lofty, our Yuri duo have quite of a fandom on their own. Mal is also absurdly popular with present-day audiences for perfectly understandable reasons: being described as slim and pretty, striking the perfect balance between suave and endearing, and being amazingly easy to ship with main character Polly, all while generally having absolutely no concept of the gender binary.
- Genius Bonus:
- Anyone familiar with the quotation which the title refers to will probably figure out that all the recruits are women fairly early on. It refers to a book called The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (in this context, regiment refers to royal rule, not military units).
- Actual bank notes from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
show a woman who is in every respect a model for the Grand Duchess Annagovia. This must have been noticed by Terry Pratchett? note
- It Was His Sled: Pretty much anyone in the Discworld fandom who hasn't already read it knows pretty soon that all the soldiers are women.
- Les Yay:
- Aside from Tonker with Lofty, Wazzer and Maladicta get very close with Polly.
- Polly, generally unimpressed by more or less everyone and everything, is also rather awestruck by the stunningly beautiful Sergeant Angua. Tellingly, Maladicta notices and seems a bit jealous, promptly revealing their own identity.
- LGBT Fanbase: Discworld generally enjoys a substantial one, but Monstrous Regiment attracts this the most, with a narrative on gender roles and identity that was way better than Fair for Its Day and a straight-out canon lesbian couple who get a happy ending.
- Nightmare Fuel: The Girls' Working School. We don't actually learn that much about what goes on in there, but from what the characters say and from the effect it's had on Tonker, Lofty and Wazzer, we learn that it is horrendously abusive. Considering the horror stories about the real-life Magdalene Laundries on which it seems to be based, this would be frighteningly plausible.
- One True Pairing: While the book only ever depicts them as close friends and comrades, Polly and Mal have enough chemistry to be one of the most popularly-shipped non-canon couples in the entire franchise despite only appearing in this one novel.
- Trans Audience Interpretation: It's become common for people to think of Mal as non-binary and Jackrum as a trans man. It's helped by the way Mal is written uncomfortable with identifying strictly within male and female gender roles, to which Polly states "you're you", and Jackrum is almost exclusively described as male, and even during the conversation between Jackrum and Polly after The Reveal, the narration is very careful to avoid pronouns in Jackrum's dialogue and dialogue tags.
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