Lieutenant Blouse
A significant character in Monstrous Regiment, he is Polly Perks' platoon commander. A rather effeminate aristocrat, he previously worked in the Quartermaster-General's Blanket, Bedding and Horse Fodder Department as an administrator, and had no previous experience of field command. He has a remarkable talent for mathematics and technology. Ironically, despite his rather feminine manner and distinct lack of martial prowess, he turns out to be one of the few characters in the novel who is genuinely male. Despite this, he respects and admires the women when he learns the truth, informing their captors that " would not trade them for any six men offered ". Blouse's ambition is to have an item of clothing or a food named after him, in the manner of many famous military men. Eventually a type of fingerless glove is named for him. Blouse seems to be a direct contrast to Jackrum- the small, skinny, naive man is brilliant with numbers, and in one notable scene, thinks faster than Jackrum and uses a signaling device to misdirect enemy forces, whereas Jackrum would have simply smashed the device and moved on; a sign of warfare on the Discworld changing, with intelligence and technology beginning to take the place of bravery and fighting skill.
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Famous quotes containing the word blouse:
“A slight digression: that bit about my mother was a deliberate lie. In reality, she was a woman of the people, simple and coarse, sordidly dressed in a kind of blouse hanging loose at the waist. I could, of course, have crossed it out, but I purposely leave it there as a sample of one of my essential traits: my light-hearted, inspired lying.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)