History Literature / ArtemisFowl

* MacGyvering: Artemis steals a painting from a heavily guarded bank vault using part of a scooter, his braces, and a portable videogame player. Subverted in that the braces were only to hide the stolen vault keys and the game player was actually an X-ray scanner.

* GreenAesop: The series teems with these, some more subtle than others. As of book five, environmental issues have not featured in the main plot, but the fairy people are quick to criticize humanity's lack of respect for nature and Artemis tends to agree with them in an EvenEvilHasStandards sort of way. Book six, ''The Time Paradox'', brings this front and centre with the main plot focusing on an endangered lemur. Even the EasterEgg codes in some of the books are blatantly pro-green.
** Interestingly, in the first book, Artemis nonchalantly destroys a whaling ship, [[XanatosGambit as a side-effect of some of his other schemes]]. Despite his apparent aversion to killing, he calls it a bonus (and it helps that the ship was abandoned at the time).
---> There were less objectionable ways to get oil by-products.
** The seventh book opens with Artemis unveiling his plan to end global warming.
** Comes to a head in the eighth book with [[spoiler:practically all modern technology being destroyed ('cause of Opal, by proxy) and green technologies replacing them.]]

* DemonicPossession
** [[spoiler:Opal]]'s possession of [[spoiler:Angeline Fowl]] seems to go beyond mere ''mesmer''.
** It's played even straighter in ''Last Guardian'', when [[spoiler:Juliet, Myles & Beckett, and various other life forms are possessed by the souls of the Berserkers.]]

* CoinTargetingTrickshot: At the end of ''The Arctic Incident'', Holly Short tosses a fairy gold coin into the air, shoots a hole dead through its center, and gives it to Artemis as thanks, pointing out there's no way she could have made that shot if he hadn't used the Ritual to restore her trigger finger after it got cut off by a train car's door.

* CoinTargetingTrickshot: In ''The Arctic Incident'', Holly Short pulls one off at the end of the story when she shoots a hole dead through the center of a fairy gold coin and gives it to Artemis as thanks, pointing out there's no way she could have made that shot if he hadn't restored her trigger finger with the ritual after it got cut off by a train car's door.

** In the case of Artemis himself, well . . . on one hand, he ''is'' an unashamedly greedy criminal (which his future self readily admits). On the other, he does have [[EvenEvilHasStandards some standards]] and feels some guilt over his plan. And given the set of values that his father gave him, he certainly doesn't think he's doing the "wrong" thing so much as following a twisted sort of "God-helps-those-who-help-themselves" mentality. Plus, two of his less explicit reasons for his kidnapping plot were to heal his mother and raise more money to try and find his father.

* AdaptationalExplanation: The
Michael Moreci graphic novel explains that Artemis didn't kidnap the sprite who gave him the book because she'd been excommunicated from fairy society and they wouldn't try to get her back.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* LoopholeAbuse: The way Holly passes her [=LEPrecon=] exam. Despite the test being interrupted by [[spoiler:his brother Turnball]] and Holly saving his life, Julius Root says Holly failed because she didn't follow his orders. Then Holly shoots him with her paintball gun, because Root said the one sure way to pass was shooting him before he could shoot her (which nobody had managed in a century).
* NeverGoingBackToPrison: [[spoiler:Turnball Root]] decides he would rather kill himself by swallowing a Tunnel Blue spider than let his brother Julius incarcerate him.

* {{Fiction 500}}: He's '''#3''' on the 2011 list, behind only [[{{Literature/Twilight}} Carlisle Cullen]] and [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales Scrooge McDuck]].

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Artemis and Butler.

* MadLibThrillerTitle: Most novels have one.
* MagicalDatabase: In Foaly's case, this might be a literal description.
* {{Masquerade}}: Fairies are real!

* SherlockScan: Artemis can pull this off.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Juliet is described, at the age of seven, as being a third dan black belt in multiple disciplines, and being beyond belts by the time she's a preteen. There is '''no''' way that anyone, no matter how good their teachers are, could possibly get that good in that short of a time frame, especially a child who is still learning basic coordination.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil

* ReplacementFlatCharacter: Artemis becomes a more decent person as the books go on, so ''The Lost Colony'' introduces Minerva Paradizo, a near copy of Artemis in the first book. The younger Artemis encountered while travelling back in time in ''The Time Paradox'' also counts.

* AmnesiacResonance: After Artemis's mind-wipe, he admires a painting, ''The Faerie Thief''. He acknowledges that the fairy in the painting can't enter a human dwelling without permission (one of the laws fairies live by), then wonders how and why he knew that. Later, when an assassination attempt against him fails, he recognizes the blue light from the incident as a Blue Rinse, a fairy superweapon similar to a NeutronBomb.

* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: Holly remembers attending an anti-troll training course which only covered fighting a troll one-on-one, since no-one the instructor reasoned, would be crazy enough to put themselves in a situation where they'd be dealing with a whole pack at once. Naturally, this is the situation Holly and Artemis find themselves in when Opal traps them in the ruins of Eleven Wonders.

* BerserkButton: Don't call Loafers short, and [[DoNotCallMePaul don't bring up Abbott's given name]].

* SnootyHauteCuisine: Damon Kronski acquires a slab of glacial ice that has the last specimens of an extinct species of fish frozen inside it, just so he can serve the fish to guests at a conference he's hosting for [[CruellaToAnimals The Extinctionists.]]

* WistfulAmnesia: Artemis post-mindwipe. [[spoiler:Then he shows his former self when he discovers contact lenses he made to cheat the mesmer.]] As of ''The Time Paradox'', [[spoiler: Artemis's original, plot-kickstarting interest in fairies was actually due to this.]]
* WhamLine: Near the end of the sixth book, after [[spoiler:[[HijackedByGanon Opal]] starts gloating about finally getting her hands on the Lemur]], Artemis has this to say:

* TheFairFolk: "The People": Arrogant and annoyed with the Mud People, yes. The first fairy we meet in the series comes close to being genuinely scary (though later ones are much less so; despite their contempt for humans they don't act terribly different from us, give or take a few cultural mores). Interestingly, all of the fairies share a common ancestor: [[PteroSoarer pterosaurs]]. Species we've seen:

* WingedHumanoid: Played with--except for the sprites, fairies' "wings" are actually jetpacks. It is stated that at one point all of the People had wings owing to their [[PteroSoarer ancestral pterosaur linage]], but adaptation to terrestrial and subterranean lifestyles caused them to atrophy in all but the sprites. Their ancestral flight instinct still makes them better at using jetpack and gliding devices than humans, though.

* SadisticChoice: At the beginning of ''The Opal Deception'', Opal forces Holly to choose between [[spoiler:saving Commander Root and Artemis]], then [[HopeSpot compounds the sadism]] by offering her a false [[TakeAThirdOption third option]]. [[spoiler:To add even more insult to injury, Opal didn't give Holly enough time to save Artemis even if Holly ''had'' left immediately, and it's only thanks to Butler that Artemis survives]].

* LuckyTranslation: Trouble Kelp is called Truba in official Russian translation. It does sound similar as far as translation goes, and even though its main meaning is "pipe", its second meaning is "a disastrous situation"

* BizarreAlienBiology: Dwarfs. Their pores open up into suction cups to leach moisture in times of dehydration. The species tunnels by rapidly eating and extorting soil. Their phlegm is luminescent and soporific and hardens on contact with air. Their hair can stitch wounds shut. [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands And so on]].

* UniversalDriversLicence

* VillainousBreakdown
** Spiro in Book 3, after Artemis not only escapes from him, but calls the SWAT team, steals the Cube, and basically screws Spiro over after he had everything he could ever want in his hands.

* WakingNonSequitur

* FiveManBand - Sometimes unclear.
** TheLeader, Artemis/Holly
** TheLancer, Holly/Butler
** TheSmartGuy, Foaly/Artemis
** TheBigGuy, Butler
** TheChick, Mulch/Juliet