Characters / The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain

The Nautilus is occupied by a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits whose personalities get played with a lot over the course of the series.

Elizabeth Quatermain

Elizabeth Quatermain

The second child and only daughter of Allan Quatermain, who was played in the movie by Sean Connery. Her diary entries form the bulk of the stories in the series.

• Author Avatar: Elizabeth started out as one of these, but eventually developed her own personality.
• Audience Surrogate: Being The Team Normal, she lets the reader experience what it might be like to be a completely ordinary person in such a company.
• Best Friends-in-Law: With Alexandra who becomes her niece by marriage

• Broken Bird: She's this, to some extent, when the League first meets her. Her journey is largely about moving past it and becoming her own person.
• Dead Guy Junior: Elizabeth's middle name is Grace, after her late mother; her first name is after her paternal grandmother, Allan's mother. Word of God adds that after the series ends, Elizabeth and Skinner name their first child after Allan. However, the child is a girl, so she's called Allanna.
• Death by Childbirth: Elizabeth's mother died giving birth to her.
• Distressed Damsel: Elizabeth fills this role at times, though she attempts to be plucky about it.
• Establishing Character Moment: Most of the cast had theirs in the movie; Elizabeth's comes when she meets the League for the first time. She offers them the hospitality of the manor, describes them respectfully (if incredulously) to her diary, and appreciates the fact that they are all clearly grieving for her father, just like she is. This establishes her as intelligent, polite, somewhat naive, and almost painfully normal.
• Famous Ancestor: Her father, Allan Quatermain.
• Faux Fluency: Elizabeth is not good with foreign languages, and admits as much when she makes herself look stupid in Paris.
• First-Name Basis: She's the only person to call Skinner "Rodney" for most of the series. The first time she does it sort of by accident; when they discuss it afterward, he encourages her to "call me whatever you want."
• Fish out of Water
• Friend to All Living Things: Humorously averted. Nearly all of the wildlife they come in contact with tries to kill her.
• Girl Next Door: Elizabeth is meant to be one of these; the author even invokes the trope when describing her in one of the FAQ chapters.
• Happily Adopted: Not formally, but Elizabeth comes to regard Nemo as her foster father. It Makes Sense in Context.
• Heroic BSoD: She goes through something like this toward the end of the first volume, after shooting the man who might have been her brother.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She tries to make one of these, or something like it, toward the end of the third volume. It doesn't quite go as planned.
• Idiot Ball: Elizabeth could be accused of picking this up once or twice, along with the Distress Ball at times. Occasionally she juggles.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Perhaps not in so many words, but Elizabeth is very aware of her status as "the ordinary Extraordinary Gentleman." She doesn't mind that by itself; she just worries about being The Load.
• Innocent Inaccurate: Details are sometimes glossed over because Elizabeth is unconscious, not present, or just has absolutely no idea what's going on.
• Last Of Her Kind: Elizabeth being the last Quatermain is a plot point in the first volume. In the fifth volume, it's revealed that she's also all that remains of her mother's family.
• Like Brother and Sister: Her relationship with Tom Sawyer, eventually.
• The Load: She worries about being this due to her frequent Damsel in Distress status and lack of practical skills.
• Mistaken Identity: When the League finds Sherlock Holmes in the fifth volume, he's been extremely ill and, on first glance, believes Elizabeth to be someone named Lucy. Not a case of Identical Stranger, however, since when Lucy is finally seen, the resemblance is only a mild one.
• Morality Pet: For Skinner, as explained in his version of the fourth volume. She's not the only reason for his redemption, since he's more or less honestly repenting his past misdeeds, but she's a big part of it.
• Naïve Everygirl: A variant on this trope, in that she's quite a bit older than the usual example, and does know how to say thank you.
• Naïve Newcomer: For almost the entire first volume. The ending leaves her considerably less naive.
• Oblivious to Love: It both amuses and irritates her friends.
• Original Character
• Parental Abandonment: After her mother died in childbirth, Elizabeth was raised by her mother's sister because Allan didn't feel up to raising a baby girl.
• Peerless Love Interest: She's unaware of it, but Skinner grows to see her this way.
• Plant Person: Her most useful skill. Elizabeth is an herbalist, having been taught the discipline by her aunt, and grows medicinal plants of all sorts in the "herbarium" garden which Nemo had constructed in her quarters.
• Protectorate: To Skinner.
• Princesses Prefer Pink: She's not a princess (although Skinner calls her that occasionally), but Elizabeth's fondness for pink is lampshaded at least once.
• Proper Lady: She was raised to be this by her aunt, as befits a young woman in Victorian society.
• Shipper on Deck: For both of the other pairings in the story.
• The Team Normal
• Tell Me About My Father: Twice - in the first chapter of the first story, when she wants to know the details of what happened in Mongolia, and then again in one of the last chapters of the last story, when she talks with Sherlock Holmes.
• The Unfavorite: Allan, at least from her perspective, deeply favored her elder half-brother Harry.
• Virgin Sacrifice: Elizabeth was supposed to be one of these in the third volume, in what is possibly the most contrived plot of the series.
• The Watson: Elizabeth fills this role to some extent in general, and a bit more literally to Tom when he's in detective mode in the fourth volume.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: She has daddy issues along these lines.
• Will They or Won't They?
• Wrong Guy First: She has a crush on Tom through most of the first volume.

Rodney Skinner

Rodney Skinner

The invisible man and Gentleman Thief of the League, who becomes Elizabeth's dearest companion and eventual husband.

• Berserk Button: Like the other League members, he reacts poorly to any threat to anyone in the group. But God help you if you so much as look the wrong way at Elizabeth.
• Bodyguard Crush: Self-appointed bodyguard. The crush came later.
• Cannot Spit It Out: He dances around the situation for a while.
• Comforting Comforter: Elizabeth wakes up from a nap in the Amazon to find a certain leather trenchcoat covering her that hadn't been there before she fell asleep. Another time, she falls asleep in the Nautilus library and wakes up tucked into her own bed, and we all know who put her there.
• A Day in the Limelight: Because he and Elizabeth are separated for so much of the fourth volume, a second version of it was written detailing the adventure from his point of view.
• Gentleman Thief: Skinner identified himself as one of these in the movie; in the third volume, he shares a large part of his backstory with Elizabeth, revealing how he came to be one.
• Go Through Me: Skinner takes his self-appointed role as Elizabeth's "invisible shield" very seriously. In volume II, he takes it to literal extremes, getting between her and a crocodile (and later, a vampire).
• Green-Eyed Monster: A mild example in the final volume, though he's easily soothed when he learns the truth of the situation.
• Heroic BSoD: He has one in the fourth volume, when Elizabeth announces her engagement to another man. It's shown more explicitly in the version from his point of view.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: In the version of volume IV from his point of view, Skinner finally tells Tom that he won't pursue a relationship with Elizabeth because he's not good enough for her.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The response this receives.
• I Can't Dance: Skinner, in his version of the fourth volume.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: While Jekyll has come to accept his Hyde side as a result of the movie's events, Skinner still has this going on, at least in part. It doesn't come up until volume III, when he concedes that he's not sure he wants the invisibility cure because then maybe he won't belong in the League anymore. However, in volume IV, he decides to go ahead with it, largely because he thinks he might have a better chance with Elizabeth if he does.
• Invisibility: Skinner has the opportunity to be cured of his in the fourth volume.
• Invisible Streaker: Lampshaded in "Allan Observes" (like almost everything else) when Allan comments that Skinner is frequently naked around Elizabeth.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Why he attempts to remove himself from the awkward Love Triangle in volume IV.
• Loveable Rogue: Even moreso here than in the film.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: On their earliest meeting, he makes Elizabeth so uneasy that she thinks she needs to count the silver when he leaves.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Subverted. Skinner is very much in favor of Tom getting together with his niece Alexandra.
• The Nicknamer: Skinner. He dubs Jekyll "Jeks," calls his niece "Ducky," and has an apparently endless supply of nicknames for Elizabeth, including "Bess," "princess," and "our bonny English rose."
• Oblivious to Love: It both amuses and irritates his friends.
• Papa Wolf: Once his niece Alexandra joins the team, Skinner will stop at nothing to protect her.
• Reformed Criminal
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: Since Skinner spends most of the series invisible, this is an important factor in his eventual Relationship Upgrade with Elizabeth.
• Will They or Won't They?
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: He normally calls Elizabeth "Bess." When he actually uses her formal first name for the first time ever, it definitely gets her attention.

Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer

Elizabeth's other closest companion and surrogate brother; because he was so attached to Allan in the movie, this provides a natural bonding point for the two young people.

• Big Brother Instinct: He even dubs Elizabeth "li'l sis" to drive the point home.
• Character Tics: As in the Mark Twain novel Tom Sawyer, Detective, Elizabeth notes that Tom likes to trace a V on his cheek or chin while he's thinking.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Elizabeth.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Averted entirely. Tom is not only in favor of his adopted sister's romance, he's the biggest Shipper on Deck.

Captain Nemo

Captain Nemo

Designer of the Nautilus and its much-beloved captain. He's the one to formally invite Elizabeth to take a place aboard the ship.

• A Father to His Men: As in the film.
• The Good Captain
• Happily Adopted: Not formally, but Nemo regards Elizabeth as his surrogate daughter. It Makes Sense in Context.
• Papa Wolf: Toward the men of his crew and also his foster daughter.
• Reformed Criminal: As mentioned in the film.

Mina Harker

Mina Harker Jekyll

The lady vampire of the League, also a master chemist.

• Deadpan Snarker: More than almost anyone else in the League.
• Happily Married: To her late husband Jonathan, and then later again to Jekyll.
• Long-Lost Relative: Mina finds out what happened to her son Quincey in the fifth volume.
• Married at Sea: In the third volume.
• Raised by Grandparents: Part of her story in the final volume.

Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde

Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde

The shy physician and his monstrous alter ego both have a place in the story, though Hyde is often rather quiet.

• Cannot Spit It Out: Almost as bad as Skinner.
• Happily Married: Eventually
• Married at Sea
• Papa Wolf: To his adopted son
• Reformed Criminal: Hyde, at least to an extent.

Alexandra Skinner

Alexandra Skinner

The daughter of Skinner's older brother, whom he hasn't seen since said brother's death years earlier. He locates her in London in the final volume and brings her to live on the ship.

• Best Friends-in-Law: With Elizabeth who becomes her aunt by marriage
• Original Character
• The Piano Player
• Statuesque Stunner: Alex is tall, and appears even moreso next to the rather short Elizabeth.
• Write Who You Know: She's the only character in the series (besides, arguably, Elizabeth herself) who is based on a real-life person.

Allan Quatermain

Allan Quatermain

Elizabeth's father, the narrator of "Allan Observes" (naturally). He dies near the end of the movie, which prompts the entire plot of the fanfic, and has his own thoughts about what happens while watching from the afterlife.

• Deadpan Snarker: And how.
• Doting Parent: In his own fashion. He honestly loves and is proud of his daughter; he was just never good at showing it.
• Henpecked Husband: In spades. To him, the worst part of having outlived both his wives is that it gave them time to gang up on him.
• I Want Grandkids: He's a little impatient for Elizabeth to sort out the nonsense of the Love Triangle and get on with furthering his bloodline.
• Loving Bully: He can be described this way, given his remarks about Elizabeth.
• Side Bet: He seems to enjoy making these.

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