History Characters / TheSecretHistory

* AcceptableFeminineGoalsAndTraits: Studying Early Childhood Education.

* UnkemptBeauty: Richard emphasizes that despite hanging out with all guys, Camilla is nonetheless feminine. Not feminine in a stylized kind of way -- she has a "boyish haircut" and sometimes wears her brother's clothes -- but an innate femininity of demeanor. Bunny calls her a "bramble rose, as opposed to your hybrid tea."

* OddFriendship: Henry and Bunny were school-assigned roommates freshman year. They were reportedly best friends for a few years. But the time Richard joins the group, it's starting to crumble.

* AbusiveParents: ImpliedTrope. Henry is mostly estranged from his father for no reason that we ever learn. As a child, Henry suffered a serious injury that gave him permanent facial scarring, and Bunny says Henry gets uncomfortable talking about it. Bunny comes up with an explanation involving a car accident, but that's purely his own conjecture and doesn't seem to be true. Henry "drove fast and often recklessly" -- not the behavior you'd expect from a man who was in such a serious car accident as a child.

** Richard is in awe of the whole clique, but Camilla and Henry in particular he describes in the romanticized manner of a crush. In an interview, Donna Tartt said that an editor once told her a book written by a woman from a man's POV would not sell, and that she needed to rewrite it and GenderFlip Richard. Tartt said she couldn't do that because the main character would seem too in love with Henry if she did.
--->'''[[https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3209/donna-tartt-on-the-secret-history Donna Tartt]]:''' I couldn't have told the story I wanted to tell from a female point of view, because then there would be the question, "Is she doing this because she's attracted to him?" It would have been an interesting novel, but it wasn't the novel I wanted to write. There had to be no question, a way to keep it a purely moral decision and that was the territory of the novel. My main character had to be male.

* DissonantSerenity / TheStoic: She is surprisingly calm sometimes, such as when [[spoiler: she receives an impromptu passionate kiss from a very drunk Charles]] in front of Richard, or when she tells Richard that [[spoiler: Charles tried to kill her.]] She is as "calm as a Madonna" when [[spoiler: she witnesses Bunny's murder]].
* DudeMagnet / UnwantedHarem: She attracts the attention of ''three'' men in the classics group -- though it's at least in part just by virtue of being the [[TheSmurfettePrinciple only girl present]] in an insular group that resists socializing with outsiders. Over the course of the novel, Camilla is an object of lust for Richard himself, [[spoiler: Henry, and even her own brother Charles]]. At one point in the novel it's implied that she may have rejected Bunny's advances. If we do count Bunny, this means that her ''entire friend group'' has a crush on her, except for the gay boy.

* UnreliableNarrator: By his own admission. Richard's admiration and affection for Julian and the murder clique (though mostly Henry and Camilla) results in a picture of each of them that may not be entirely representative of who they truly are.

* AnxietyDreams: Especially during his time in Leo's warehouse.

* EmbarrassingOldPhoto: Richard destroys the only photo of his mother that he owns, for fear that Bunny will see it and realize that Richard grew up relatively poor.

* TheNondescript: Richard lovingly describes the appearances of his friends, but not himself. He mentions he's "prone to freckles", and that's it. Readers are left assuming he must look just sort of... average.

* ScholarshipStudent: He goes to great lengths to hide his lower-middle class upbringing from his rich friends.

* WithFriendsLikeThese: Richard gets shot; nobody notices.

* InformedFlaw: Francis alleges that Charles and Camilla are equally possessive over each other--but we never see anything at all that suggests Camilla is jealous over Charles, and she certainly shows no bitterness over the trysts Francis and Charles have. Of course, given that Francis is in love with Charles, he might be an UnreliableExpositor. Alternatively, Richard might be airbrushing Camilla's faults as a UnreliableNarrator.

* ChickMagnet: Richard attracts attention from Judy, Sophie, Mona Beale, and a few unnamed female characters are implied or directly shown to be attracted to him. Francis also attempts to sleep with him on two separate occasions.

* TheNondescript: Richard lovingly describes the appearances of his friends, but not himself. He mentions he's "prone to freckles", and that's it. Readers are left assuming he must look just sort of... average. The fact that he got into Julian's class, though, suggests he might be a PrettyBoy.

** Richard is in awe of the whole clique, but Camilla and Henry in particular he describes in the romanticized manner of a crush. When considering the possibility of a tryst between Henry and Bunny, he's offended because he thinks Bunny's not attractive enough -- if Henry ''were'' to get with a guy, it should be a ''different'' guy. (This is right after Henry saved Richard's life and spent a month nursing him back to health.) At the end, Henry appears to Richard in a dream, and he compares it to when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream in the ''Literature/TheIliad''. The nature of Achilles and Patroklos's relationship is debated. In an interview, Donna Tartt said that an editor once told her a book written by a woman from a man's POV would not sell, and that she needed to rewrite it and GenderFlip Richard. Tartt said she couldn't do that because the main character would seem too in love with Henry if she did.

[[folder:the clique jointly]]

[[folder: the Macaulay twins jointly]]

* ValleyGirl: She's from Los Angles, and thinks that she and Richard have a lot in common because they're both California kids.

* MeaningfulName: [[{{AncientRome}} Camilla]] was also the sister of the [[{{SiblingTeam}} Horatii]], who [[{{CombatByChampion}} killed her fiance]].

* TheNondescript: Richard lovingly describes the appearances of his friends, but not himself. He mentions he's "prone to freckles", and that's it. Readers are left assuming he must look just sort of... average.

* LonelyRichKid: In his childhood: his family is very rich and he appears to have been friendless or nearly so.

* OnlySaneWoman: She's pretty sharp for a "senseless cokehead". BookDumb Judy is a stark {{Foil}} to Richard's BookSmart by DitzyGenius classics friends.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Richard remarks, "Being the only female in what was basically a boys' club must have been difficult for her." Camilla deals with being the only woman with intelligence and verve, for the most part, but being the object of three men's lust and love takes its toll after a while. Richard emphasizes that despite hanging out with all guys, she is nonetheless feminine.
-->''Things would have been terribly strange and unbalanced without her. [[CardGames She was the Queen who finished out the suit of dark Jacks, dark King, and Joker.]]''

-->[Julian's] students […] were imposing enough, and different as they were they shared a certain coolness, a cruel, mannered charm which was not modern in the least but had a strange cold breath of the ancient world: they were magnificent creatures, such eyes, such hands, such looks--''sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat''. I envied them, and found them attractive; moreover this strange quality, far from being natural, gave every indication of having been intensely cultivated.

* DitzyGenius: The classics clique are initially introduced as a GeniusBookClub of TheBeautifulElite. Once Richard actually starts hanging out with them, we start to learn they're actually pretty impractical people outside of their studies (Henry's bizarre and convoluted plans to cover up the murder). They are shown to be bizarrely technologically illiterate, eerily unaware of any history that has taken place since about 1940 (Henry has never heard of the moon landing!), and to have trouble comprehending contemporary attitudes towards a variety of subjects (Camilla ends up ComicallyMissingThePoint of an anti-war film).

* TheBeautifulElite: Henry and Francis are so rich they'll never have a to work. Charles and Camilla are less so, but nonetheless wealthy enough their family can send them to Hampden without any aid. Bunny and Richard pretend to be wealthy to fit in with them, even though they're not.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Richard remarks, "Being the only female in what was basically a boys' club must have been difficult for her." Camilla deals with being the only woman with intelligence and verve, for the most part, but being the object of three men's lust and love takes its toll after a while. Richard emphasizes that despite hanging out with all guys, she is nonetheless femininize.

* UnkemptBeauty: Richard emphasizes that despite hanging out with all guys, Camilla is nonetheless femininize. Not feminine in a stylized kind of way -- she has a "boyish haircut" and sometimes wears her brother's clothes -- but an innate femininity of demeanor. Bunny calls her a "bramble rose, as opposed to your hybrid tea."

* TheEveryman: Richard lovingly describes the appearances of his friends, but not himself. He mentions he's "prone to freckles", and that's it. Readers are left assuming he must look just sort of... average.