NOTE: This page is under construction. If you have a trope to add to a character, a character to add to the article, or an improvement in the phrasing or description, please do so.
open/close all folders
Major Characters From "Sleight of Hand" and "Vanishing Act":
Harriet "Harry" Barber
A gruff bounty hunter with a dog and a pipe, eventually partners with Sidney Malik. She's the granddaughter of the Widdershins equivalent of Indiana Jones, and has four sisters and one brother at varying levels of badass.
- Deadpan Snarker: A magnificent one at times - here's a sequence from her first scene with Sidney Malik:Harry: Hrm. Your wrist and this priceless relic just happened to bump into each other?
Sid: Well . . . yes, actually!
Harry: After it flew, bird-like, from another man's wrist.
Sid: Yes! - Defrosting Ice Queen: It's happening slowly, but it's happening.
- Fiery Redhead: Averted, Harry is very level headed.
- Heroes Love Dogs: She has a big, white, magic-detecting one named Greenwich (Gren for short).
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: She's abrupt, abrasive and about as prickly as a particularly stoic bramble patch. But, her heart is actually several sizes bigger than her pipe. Not that she would outwardly thank you for telling her that.
- In the Blood: She's an artifact hunter like her grandfather.
- Perpetual Frowner: Except around her dog Gren, her sister Florrie, and (after a while) Sid.
- Sibling Rivalry: Appears to have this with Captain Nicola Barber, but the reality is more complicated: Harry used to be a police officer along with her sister, and quit to become a bounty hunter, taking along Gren who was police property. This has really lowered Nicola's reputation in the department, especially since she's not trying to retrieve Gren. She and Harry eventually patch up somewhat.
- Smoking Is Cool: She goes nowhere without her pipe.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Her favourite way of wearing her hair - when forced into ladylike clothes, including a "respectable" hairstyle, Harry's fuming and only cheers up after changing back into her normal ensemble and putting the hair up in a ponytail.
- Wunza Plot: Harry's a short, no-nonsense, gun-toting, perpetually frowning artifact hunter; Sid's an ungodly tall, flamboyant, Non-Action Guy, perpetually smiling failed wizard and street magician. Together, they take down the King of Thieves.
Sidney Malik
Lancelot Sidney Arthur Oliver Malik; goes by Sidney or Sid. He failed to get a degree as a wizard, partly from not paying attention in class, partly because of his habit of unintentionally stealing things.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Among the extras there's his evaluation as a student, describing him as talented but lazy. It mentions Sidney having never, ever handed in an assignment in time.
- Fearless Fool: When Harry mistakes him for the "King of Thieves" and holds him at gunpoint, his reaction is: "Is that a gun? A real gun? I've never seen one before, at least not in person!" The ensuing scene, where he and Harry get accosted by the real King of Thieves and make a daring escape, has him still absolutely failing to be anything other than excited at this new experience.
- Genki Guy: Full of energy, Perpetual Smiler, next to no sense of self-preservation.
- Large Ham: Harry tells him that her plan to get the statue of Greed away from Macavity's gang will require "some theatre". Sidney rises to the occasion admirably, barging into their meeting in a Cool Mask saying, "Make way, vile pretender, for the true King of Thieves!" When Macavity asks how he isn't dead, he replies: "When death came for me, I stole back my life from his very grasp!" This causes enough distraction (almost all the thieves instantly renouncing Macavity as their leader in favor of Sid) for Harry to get the statue.
- Motor Mouth: Sometimes his speech bubbles just go on and on behind the head of whoever else is in the panel with him.
- Non-Action Guy: To Harry's definite, rifle wielding Action Girl.
- Noodle People: He's very tall and thin.
- Sidekick: Functions as one to Harry once they meet again in "Vanishing Act". By the end of the story it's official, since she asks him to be her bounty-hunting partner.
Mrs. Florence de Montfort (nee Barber)
The youngest Barber sister and Edmund's twin; married a rich businessman, likes to live easy, but in danger she shows she's still a Barber. Appears in "Sleight of Hand" and "Green-Eyed Monster".
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Well, Harry is irritated by Florrie's shipping her and Sidney (which Florrie seems to do deliberately to tease her), and her energetic cheerfulness sometimes clashes with her serious sister, but otherwise they get along. The oldest sister, Nicola, is also much more serious than Florrie, but more amused than annoyed by her.
- Glomp: It's how she first greets Harry in "Sleight of Hand", and her grandma Isabelle in "Find the Lady".
- Hidden Depths: It would be very easy to dismiss her as nothing but a brainless social butterfly. Except, she's a rather quietly cunning social butterfly née Barber with a rather good connection detection skill set.
- Shipper on Deck: For Harry and Sid.
Thomas Macavity
The villain of "Sleight of Hand". Calls himself "the King of Thieves", and was the last wearer of the Mark of Thieves until Sidney accidentally stole it from him.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Instead of just shooting them or something, he leaves Harry and Sid cuffed to a stalactite so they'll be drowned when high-tide fills up the cave. Naturally, it turns out Sidney stole the key to the cuffs and he and Harry get free just before the water covers them.
- Gentleman Thief: Scruffy, but still projects an air of aristocracy. His gang of thieves is called "the Shabby Gentlemen".
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's a casual sexist. Calls Harry "girlie", and also talks to Sid about his "charming assistant" when one minute's observation would have told him that was not Sid and Harry's dynamic at all. (Though then again, he thought Sid was the Thiefking and badass enough to steal the Mark of Thieves without even killing, so he may well have thought Harry was a bodyguard.) Later uses the same "girlie" towards Lei, as she's helping him open a safe - she asks if he even remembers her name.
Major Characters from "No Rest For the Wicked" and "Green-Eyed Monster":
Jack O'Malley
O'Malley or Mal to you. A cynical vagrant who can see magically-summoned spirits and the visual manifestation of people's emotions. He and his best friend Heinrich Wolfe eventually work for Ben Thackerey as a sort of 1830's Ghostbusters, catching and de-summoning "buggerups" - malformed spirits resulting from botched spells.
- Aura Vision: Can see people's essence in bright colors. Because he's a witch.
- Blessed with Suck: His Aura Vision powers, especially since the other witches sense spirits with different senses, so they don't have the issues that he does.
- Book Dumb: He gets into arguments with Ben because Ben won't stop using fancy words.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Strongly hinted. He can't read and doesn't know his exact age, which implies his parents either died early on or were too indifferent to even keep track of his age, let alone teach him reading. When Wolfe first meets him, he's in Germany for unknown reasons, knowing fewer than ten words of German and failing to steal bread to survive.
- Later we learn that he spent at least part of his childhood under the care of an Irish Traveller cleaning lady named O'Malley, but he met her in Acedia's basement, where the latter has been keeping him for nefarious purposes. And Acedia took him from an orphanage. She specifically asked for a kid with Aura Vision
- Disability Superpower: Mal's Aura Vision comes with colorblindness so severe that he sees the world in shades of grey. He doesn't even know what the colors are called.
- I Have Many Names: Spirits, from buggerups to Deadlies, seem to like nicknaming him: "The O'Malley", "The One Who Sees", "The One Who Stands Between" (that last one may turn out to be a Name To Run Away From Really Fast).
- Lethal Chef: O'Malley, that
is not how to cook eggs. - Never Learned to Read: So in "No Rest For the Wicked" he signs the contract to work for Councilwoman Fairbairn with an X without noticing that by doing so, he pledged all of his and Wolfe's sleep as an offering to Sloth.
- Odd Friendship: With Ben. After the events of "Green-Eyed Monster" they learn they actually can work together.
- Sensory Overload: Mal's Aura Vision gets painfully overstimulated by crowds.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Even after he and Ben gain understanding of each other, they never stop the sniping.
Heinrich Wolfe
An easy-going German violinist, formerly a private in the Prussian army; has been traveling with Mal for three years. The plot of "No Rest For the Wicked" starts when he insists they visit Widdershins.
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Downplayed - he speaks pretty good English, but it's distinctly "off" with no contractions and sometimes strange word choices. When speaking German, he's more colloquial.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Deliberately. He's capable of suspecting people, but usually dismisses those suspicions to hold himself to his belief that most people are actually good. He says Councilwoman Fairbairn "needs to smile more" (!) and that "the important thing is that she has provided for us" - but that's several minutes after he notes that she's "terrifying" and hopes Mal didn't sign anything she gave him. And he's actually the first to investigate what's going on with her and those streetlamps.
- Nice Guy: Seriously, it's probably against Prussian law to be this nice and kind. During the origin story portion of "Green-Eyed Monster", we learn that Wolfe basically sacrificed his highly-successful career as a soldier to defend a foreign vagabond who'd been caught stealing (O'Malley). The present-day storyline of the same arc concludes with Wolfe forgiving and similarly covering for Dominik Voss, his squad-mate from the army, who under Envy's influence had been robbing people left and right of livelihoods and was on the verge of mass murder. Oh, and his kindness and calm were used to bind and subdue the Deadly malform Wrath without Wolfe even noticing— he had that much extra to give.
- Noble Male, Roguish Male: Noble elegant and serene musician to Mal's rougish, nervous vagrant, although they're both really decent blokes.
- Only Friend: To Mal (until Mal and Ben's Odd Friendship, anyway), probably because Wolfe's aura reflects his constant serenity and makes him one of the few people that don't give Mal headaches.
Benjamin "Ben" Thackery
Ben is a short, fussy wizard working for the city of Widdershins to desummon malforms.
- Determinator: Ben will do his duty and desummon malforms, no matter the circumstances. He has run deeper into a burning building to try to desummon Sloth, and desummoned another one of the seven deadly sins, Wrath, despite O'Malley's protestations and the danger he, Wolfe and O'Malley were in at the time.O'Malley: Ben's th' bravest bloke I ever met.
O'Malley: ...And I hope 'e can't hear me sayin' that. - Neat Freak: He has to tidy up any messy space. In his introductory scene, he is consistently tiding up after his new colleagues.
- The Smart Guy: Not only does he fit the description of this trope with his short stature and glasses, Ben is book smart. One thing that being a wizard requires is a lot of memorization of summoning circles and spells, which Ben is very good at. For example, he knew the binding circles for the seven Deadly sins off the top of his head while Sidney didn't.
- Odd Friendship: Ben and O'Malley will never stop sniping at each other, but after Envy briefly causes Ben to have O'Malley's spirit sight, and O'Malley to see normally, Ben understands O'Malley and his spirit vision better, and they learn how to work as a team.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He has a tendency to use big words.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: With O'Malley, the messy, snarky, shirking his responsibilities, and did we mention messy?
