History Characters / HouseOfLeaves

* EvilIsPetty: When Tom at one point mocks the [[blue:House]] while alone at the top of the spiral staircase, the [[blue:House]] seems to maliciously contort the staircase in a way designed to frighten and threaten him. It's also implied that this taunting might be why [[spoiler:it later [[DisproportionateRetribution kills Tom]].]] The rampage where it does so may itself have been prompted by the [[blue:House]] being pissed off over Hook managing to escape the labyrinth instead of [[spoiler:dying with Jed and Holloway]].

* WorldTree: The novel repeatedly hints at the [[blue:House]] having ''some'' kind of connection to Yggdrasil, the world-linking tree of Norse mythology. Whether this is intended as an explanation of its nature or just yet another MindScrew is unclear.

* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:Will loses multiple body parts to frostbite in his final delve into the labyrinth.]]

* {{Applicability}}: Karen shows ''The Navidson Record'' to numerous experts and analysts in an attempt to [[spoiler:make sense of what's happened to her from a non-literal perspective. They're not helpful -- the men do little more than hit on her, and the women are too caught up in academic theory to help Karen.]]

* BlackBestFriend: To Will, though his ethnicity has zero bearing on the story. The two are nearly inseparable, and repeatedly endanger their lives to help one another. He sticks up for Will in more mundane situations, too, spoiler:calling into a radio show to berate the host for gossiping about Will being a lousy husband.

* TheHedonist: His main goals in life are doing drugs and getting laid.

* MissingTime: As his madness worsens, he begins losing large stretches of time and noticing big gaps in his memory. This first comes to his attention when he walks into work one day and is met with shock by his coworkers, who inform him that they haven't seen him in ''weeks'' and that they thought he was either dead or had split town.

* TheParanoiac: Becomes an increasingly worse one as the story goes on, obsessing over the possibility he's being hunted by the [[red:Minotaur]].

A total {{Jerkass}} who causes Johnny and Lude a lot of problems.

* CreepyChild: The Navidson children respond in ''especially'' unsettling ways to the eldritch nature of the [[blue:House]], such as drawing bizarre pictures of their home represented as a black block surrounded by monsters. In general, they're disturbingly indifferent to a lot of the [[blue:House]]'s behavior and oddities.

* ShellShockedVeteran: Will is all but explicitly stated to suffer from untreated PTSD over traumatic experiences he suffered in his time as a photojournalist in war-torn countries.

* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:His corpse is never found. But given everything the [[blue:House]] does, it's almost certain that he's dead once he disappears.]]

* BlackBestFriend: To Will, though his ethnicity has zero bearing on the story.
* HandicappedBadass: Being in a wheelchair does little to stop him from being totally awesome.

* NightmareFetishist: Very downplayed in comparison to others, but he has an undeniable fascination with the [[blue:House]]. Unlike others who develop similar interest, he's smart enough to abandon the chase when it becomes clear how dangerous the place is.

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: [[spoiler:Lost in the maze with no hope of rescue and the [[red:Minotaur]] probably closing fast on him, Holloway decides to blow his own brains out. Whether he does it to avoid whatever horrific fate the [[blue:House]] had in store for him, to deny it the satisfaction of personally killing him, or simply out of pure despair is hard to say.]]

[[/folder]]

* PetTheDog: Maybe, if you interpret [[spoiler:Will's escape from the labyrinth at the climax]] as the [[BrownNote House]] taking mercy on the Navidsons for some reason. Even more ambiguously, while it's seemingly hostile to humans, that hostility doesn't extend to animals given that the Navidson's pets don't even acknowledge the labyrinth and just end up safely outside if they go in it.

[[folder:The House]]
!The [[EldritchLocation House]]

The titular location around which the narrative of ''The Navidson Record'' — and possibly the whole book — is focused. While it is superficially just a normal [[HauntedHouse house]] from the outside, on the inside it is slowly revealed to be a terrifying and eldritch object or being with a physics-defying labyrinth at it's center. Its nature and motivations are inscrutable at best, madness-inducing at worst… for the characters and reader alike.

* AlienGeometries: The fact that it's BiggerOnTheInside is arguably the '''least''' weird thing about it.

* AmbiguousSituation: Literally everything about it. The [[RiddleForTheAges House]] defies any and all attempts to explain it or its behavior and every answer given to its nature just raises more questions.

* AntagonistTitle: It is the [[EldritchAbomination house]] of the title and its malign influence infects every level of the story from ''The Navidson Record'' upward.

* BiggerOnTheInside: The first weird thing discovered about it. Its inner dimensions do not match its outer dimensions, with the inside of the [[ParanoiaFuel House]] being a few inches bigger than the outside. It gets worse from there.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: A possible interpretation of the house is that it is actually trying to help or communicate with the Navidsons and other humans, but operates in ways incomprehensible to mortals. A lot of what the [[EldritchAbomination House]] does can be interpreted as [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor a twisted and clumsy attempt at wish fulfillment]], for instance.

* EldritchLocation: Putting it mildly. The [[JackassGenie House]] only looks like a normal building from the outside. On the inside, [[BiggerOnTheInside its inner dimensions are completely out of wack]] and its most defining feature is a massive, constantly changing labyrinth that might have some kind of monster in it.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: The labyrinth within it is repeatedly noted to always be extremely cold regardless of the temperature in the [[NoFourthWall House]] proper or outside. [[spoiler:This becomes a rather terrifying plot point when Will gets trapped in said labyrinth in the climax. He ends up losing several body parts to hypothermia and frostbite.]]
* EvilIsPetty: When Tom at one point mocks the [[LivingLabyrinth House]] while alone at the top of the spiral staircase, the [[CosmicFlaw House]] seems to maliciously contort the staircase in a way designed to frighten and threaten him. It's also implied that this taunting might be why [[spoiler:it later [[DisproportionateRetribution kills Tom]].]] The rampage where it does so may itself have been prompted by the [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow House]] being pissed off over Hook managing to escape the labyrinth instead of [[spoiler:dying with Jed and Holloway]].
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: [[spoiler:One interpretation is that, either directly through the Minotaur or indirectly by driving both insane, the]] [[LivingLabyrinth house]] [[spoiler:kills both Johnny and Zampanò despite not technically ''existing''. And near the end, Johnny seems pretty convinced that it does exist in some capacity]].
* GodIsEvil: In his unhinged letter to Karen, Will opines that the [[AlienGeometries House]] is God. There's frankly little reason to doubt him, given it makes as much sense as any other explanation offered.
* HauntedHouse: If by "haunted", you mean "terrifying eldritch monstrosity". Intriguingly, it doesn't appear to have always been a [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm house]]; the explorers from colonial times who explored the land where it would eventually stand never see a building, but they do find the spiral stairs leading to the labyrinth, possibly implying the [[SurrealHorror House]] proper is just a shell that the labyrinth wears to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood and/or lure in victims. Either way, it being haunted is probably the least frightening potential explanation for its actions.

* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Those who survive its torture tend to come out the other end stronger. Whether this is intentional on the part of the [[WellIntentionedExtremist House]] or not is up for debate.

* VillainousBreakdown: After Holloway's disastrous expedition, the [[NightmareFuel House]] freaks the fuck out and begins actively attacking the Navidsons and their friends, [[spoiler:killing Tom]] and prompting everyone to frantically escape. Why it does this is unexplained, like everything else about it.
* WorldTree: The novel repeatedly hints at the [[MetaFiction House]] having ''some'' kind of connection to Yggdrasil, the world-linking tree of Norse mythology. Whether this is intended as an explanation of its nature or just yet another MindScrew is unclear.
* YourMindMakesItReal: Maybe. Zampanò speculates that the [[BlueAndOrangeMorality House]] alters its maze based on the desires and thoughts of its inhabitants, noting that Holloway (who wanted an adventure) got a much longer and more complex labyrinth than Will (who just wanted to find what he needed and get out).

The main characters of ''The Navidson Record'', a supposedly average family made up of the Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Will Navidson, his supermodel partner Karen Green, their two children Chad and Daisy, and their pets. The family moves into a new [[RealityWarper house]], hoping to come together. [[{{Understatement}} It doesn't go well]].

** Will's reasons for [[spoiler:returning to the [[SurrealHorror House]] are astonishingly unclear, to a point that even he doesn't seem sure why he's doing it.]]

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The Navidsons move into the [[TheSpook House]] seeking to come together as a family. [[spoiler:It works. They're terrorized and traumatized to the brink of madness, Will is left crippled and deformed, and innocent people die in the process, but you can't deny that they're together by the end.]]

* {{Claustrophobia}}: Karen suffers from it, which obviously brings her a lot of grief when it comes to the [[BiggerOnTheInside House]].
* CreepyChild: The Navidson children respond in ''especially'' unsettling ways to the eldritch nature of the [[BigBad House]], such as drawing bizarre pictures of their home represented as a black block surrounded by monsters. In general, they're disturbingly indifferent to a lot of the [[SurprisinglyCreepyMoment House's]] behavior and oddities.

* DysfunctionJunction: Beneath their cheery nuclear family image, they're a boiling pot of flaws and dysfunction. Will's cold professionalism interferes with his attempts to connect to others, a problem made worse by untreated PTSD. Karen may or may not be a rape victim and is definitely claustrophobic to a crippling extent. The kids are just plain bizarre. All of them are struggling to bond as a family. This is all ''before'' they move into the [[AppleOfDiscord House]].

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Will is a deeply flawed man, but ultimately a good one and the reader's sympathy will definitely remain with him, if only because the [[RealityWarper House's]] idea of "punishing" him is so horrific and disproportionate.

* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler:Their love for one another is what ultimately saves them from the [[BeastInTheMaze House]] and its torment.]]
* SanitySlippage: Will becomes increasingly mentally unwell as he becomes obsessed with studying the [[DarkIsEvil House]]. The kids as well, to a lesser but more profoundly unsettling extent; their behavior gets weirder and weirder while the family is in the [[AmbiguousSituation House]].

Will Navidson's fraternal twin brother, a handyman and contented underachiever with no fixed residence or attachments. He and Will were estranged for some time prior to the events of ''The Navidson Record'', but reunite as Tom assists Will in his investigation of the [[WorldTree House]].

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:He gets killed when the [[{{God}} House]] freaks out and starts directly attacking the family, heroically pushing Daisy to safety at the cost of his own life.]]

* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:His corpse is never found. But given everything the [[TheMadnessPlace House]] does, it's almost certain that he's dead once he disappears.]]

* TemptingFate: He's initially rather skeptical about the [[MobileMaze House]] and the danger it poses, being prone to mocking it. In turn, the [[GeniusLoci House]] seems to palpably hate Tom on a level it doesn't feel towards the rest of the Navidsons, [[spoiler:and it's implied his taunting of it [[DisproportionateRetribution might be why it later kills him]].]]

Will's best friend and an engineering professor at the University of Virginia, rendered paraplegic by a construction site accident near Hyderabad. Engrossed by the mysterious nature of the [[TheUnsolvedMystery House]], Reston helps the Navidsons in their investigations.

* BadassNormal: He's just a normal dude and a paraplegic at that, but he's also a total badass who arguably handles the horrors of the [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory House]] the best out of everyone.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Unlike most people who get obsessed with the House, Reston knows to back off from it when it becomes obvious that the "building" is too dangerous to study safely.
* NightmareFetishist: Very downplayed in comparison to others, but he has an undeniable fascination with the [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness House]]. Unlike others who develop similar interest, he's smart enough to abandon the chase when it becomes clear how dangerous the place is.
* OnlySaneMan: For the cast of ''The Navidson Record''. He's just about the only one with both a healthy attitude towards the [[GhostStory House]] and no major psychological issues.

An accomplished professional hunter and explorer who is contacted by Reston to lead the explorations in Navidson's place. He proceeds to lead explorations of the labyrinth within the [[OurMonstersAreDifferent House]], which he develops an unhealthy obsession over.

* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: [[spoiler:Lost in the maze with no hope of rescue and the Minotaur probably closing fast on him, Holloway decides to blow his own brains out. Whether he does it to avoid whatever horrific fate the [[EvilIsPetty House]] had in store for him, to deny it the satisfaction of personally killing him, or simply out of pure despair is hard to say.]]

* EvilCounterpart: Evil is a strong word, but he's functionally this to Will, as someone who wants to be in control, and likewise lets an obsession with the [[BreakingTheFourthWall House]] and his potential fame and fortune take over his life. But whereas Will overcomes this through CharacterDevelopment, Holloway [[spoiler:is destroyed by it.]]

* MuggingTheMonster: His certainty that he can conquer the [[EldritchLocation House]] and the Minotaur like any other dangerous animal or location he's dealt with over the years gets him into ''a lot'' of trouble.
* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:The [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou House]] drives him steadily insane, until he snaps completely and starts hunting the other explorers before committing suicide out of despair.]]

* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: A rather tragic deconstruction and exploration of this trope. His InferioritySuperiorityComplex causes him to become obsessed with proving his explorer credentials by conquering the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace House]] like he has many mountains before, which naturally leads to nothing but pain as it does not obey the rules of said areas... and actively refuses to do so.

* TheLancer: They initially play this role to Holloway, [[spoiler:until the [[{{Infinite}} House]] drives him insane and he begins hunting them.]]

* NightmareFetishist: PlayedForLaughs. Not only is she immediately accepting of the bizarre nature of the [[AlienGeometries House]], she's downright fascinated by the idea of it and tries to figure out how the physics could work.

* SkewedPriorities: Her main reaction to learning about the [[LovecraftLite House]] is to do equations to try and figure out how the physics of it work.

* AnimalLover: He has a lot of cats that he seems to love a lot… cats which may or may not get butchered by the Minotaur as it hunts him down.

* MagicalRealism: He generally prefers to focus on the characterization and psychology of ''The Navidson Record'', treating the [[CosmicHorrorStory House]] as just this thing that's happening.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's never revealed what precisely killed him. On one hand, the dude was eighty and in poor physical and emotional health; it's far from unbelievable that he simply died of natural causes. On the other hand, it's quite possible (and Johnny believes that) the Minotaur finally got him. [[MindScrew If the Minotaur is real]].

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: He's an obvious send-up of Creator/JorgeLuisBorges. Notably, he at one point discusses a play that serves as a PerspectiveFlip of the myth of the Minotaur, portraying the beast as an innocent deformed boy locked away in a cage by a cruel stepfather and slain by vicious brute named Theseus… which is almost an exact description of one of Borges' most famous stories, ''Literature/TheHouseOfAsterion''.

[[folder:The Minotaur]]

The most enigmatic character in the book, one who may not even exist. A terrifying monster associated with shadows and darkness, which bears some relation to the [[GothicHorror House]]. Zampanò fears it and goes to great lengths to try and conceal its existence.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: As if it wasn't mysterious enough, even its morality is called into question a few times. While it's superficially a vicious and sadistic beast that kills without mercy, there's some discussion of the Minotaur myth that flips around the perspective and depicts the Minotaur as a misunderstood and deformed child that is murdered by Theseus…

* BeastInTheMaze: Its initial base portrayal is being this to the [[BrainBleach House]], as a monster that lurks within its labyrinth to hunt and torment those who dare enter. It quickly escalates into something even more terrifying.

* TheDragon: ''Maybe'' plays this role to the [[EldritchAbomination House]], depending on your interpretation.

* EnigmaticMinion: If you thought the [[SanitySlippage House]] was hard to get a read on, the Minotaur is even more baffling.
* EvilerThanThou: The [[MindRape House]] is bad enough. The Minotaur is much more directly and actively malicious.

** It maybe butchers all of Zampanò's cats while hunting him, just ForTheEvulz. Notable, as the [[{{Sadist}} House]] itself went out of its way to ''not'' harm the Navidsons' pets.
** The way it chews and scratches up and ruins the expedition teams' supply caches serves no practical purpose, especially when you consider the metamorphic nature of the labyrinth. Nor does its constant roaring and growling that echoes through the maze and freaks out anyone who hears it. The Minotaur seems to do both just to fuck with the heads of the humans, assuming it even thinks at all.

* MindScrew: Hoo boy. The simplest way of putting it is that the Minotaur is like some kind of Schrödinger's Cat character; it simultaneously does and doesn't seem to exist in the narrative and can be included or removed by the reader. It gets way more complicated from there.
* MythicalMotifs: The Minotaur and labyrinth of Greek myth, of course. It is also implicitly compared at points to Nidhogg from Norse mythology to go along with the [[BigBad House's]] Yggdrasil. Whether either of these go beyond mere comparison or symbolism is another question.
* NoNameGiven: "The Minotaur" is more an "out of universe" title bestowed on it by Zampanò. The characters in ''The Navidson Record'' never give it a name, largely because they have no idea what it even is, and the monster itself obviously never gives a preferred title.
* UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat: This concept applied to an entire character. The book's narrative functions with or without the inclusion of the Minotaur, with its presence or absence completely altering the possible meaning of things.

* SoreLoser: [[spoiler:If you interpret Holloway's corpse being torn to shreds as the Minotaur being '''really''' pissed it didn't get to personally kill him.]]
* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Johnny takes on some qualities of the Minotaur — both this one and the mythological one — as the story goes on. Whether it's this trope or something else entirely is as up to interpretation as the rest of the book.]]

* HisOwnWorstEnemy: Assuming that the Minotaur isn't real, then the only real source of problems in Johnny's life is his own behavior and flaws that he refuses to ever work on, plus his obsessiveness towards Zampanò's work.

* TheParanoiac: Becomes an increasingly worse one as the story goes on, obsessing over the possibility he's being hunted by the Minotaur.

* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:He winds up taking on a number of qualities of the Minotaur as the plot progresses. What these means is up for debate, but isn't with this book?]]

* DeafComposer: He's a ''blind film reviewer''. Good luck figuring out how that works.

* AnimalLover: Bizarrely enough. It's terrorizing of the Navidsons and anybody relating to them doesn't extend to their pets, which are entirely left alone and even safely deposited outside if they go near the labyrinth itself. Whether this is some kind of strange PetTheDog thing or its powers simply don't affect animals isn't clear.

* BigBad: It's unknown if it's sentient or even ''real'', but it certainly plays this role for ''The Navidson Record'', Johnny's discovery of which ends up being a BrownNote that drives him into the abyss.

* HauntedHouse: If by "haunted", you mean "terrifying eldritch monstrosity". Intriguingly, it doesn't appear to have always been a [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm house]]; the Spanish explorers from colonial times who explored the land where it would eventually stand never see a building, but they do find the spiral stairs leading to the labyrinth, possibly implying the [[SurrealHorror House]] proper is just a shell that the labyrinth wears to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood and/or lure in victims. Either way, it being haunted is probably the least frightening potential explanation for its actions.

* EvilCounterpart: Evil is a strong word, but he's functionally this to Will, as someone who likewise lets an obsession with the [[BreakingTheFourthWall House]] take over his life. But whereas Will overcomes this through CharacterDevelopment, Holloway [[spoiler:is destroyed by it.]]

* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: A rather tragic deconstruction and exploration of this trope. His InferioritySuperiorityComplex causes him to become obsessed with proving his explorer credentials by conquering the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace House]] like he has many mountains before, which naturally leads to nothing but pain.

* AmbiguousInnocence: Whether or not it's actually malicious in a way that humans can understand is as unclear as everything else about it. Some scenes possibly suggest that it is actively antagonistic and sadistic towards the people inside it, while others suggest that it simply doesn't think like we do or is even trying to help it's inhabitants in it's own strange way. At the minimum, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality it's completely disconnected from human concepts of morality and behavior]].

* AppleOfDiscord: It has an eerie tendency to play this role towards it's inhabitants and those who try to study it, driving them mad or letting the stress of the investigation rip open old wounds.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: A possible interpretation of it is that it's actually trying to help or communicate with the Navidsons and other humans, but operates in ways incomprehensible to mortals. A lot of what the [[EldritchAbomination House]] does can be interpreted as [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor a twisted and clumsy attempt at wish fulfillment]], for instance.

* DisproportionateRetribution: If you interpret certain actions it takes as being retaliatory, then it's '''insanely''' vindictive towards those who anger it and inflicts absolutely horrifying punishment on them. Most notably, [[spoiler:it might have killed Tom just for teasing it]].
* EldritchLocation: Putting it mildly. The [[JackassGenie House]] only looks like a normal building from the outside. On the inside, [[BiggerOnTheInside it's inner dimensions are completely out of wack]] and it's most defining feature is a massive, constantly changing labyrinth that might have some kind of monster in it.

* JackassGenie: See AmbiguousInnocence. A possibly interpretation of its behavior is that [[BlueAndOrangeMorality it's genuinely trying to help the people inside it by giving them what they want, but doesn't understand how humans work]]. Another is that it understands perfectly and is actively taunting and tormenting the humans by twisting their desires in nightmarish ways. Either way, it's "wish granting" is terrifying.

* MysteriousPast: It's origins are an enigma, unsurprisingly.

* YourMindMakesItReal: Maybe. Zampanò speculates that the [[BlueAndOrangeMorality House]] alters it's maze based on the desires and thoughts of it's inhabitants, noting that Holloway (who wanted an adventure) got a much longer and more complex labyrinth than Will (who just wanted to find what he needed and get out).

* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler:Their love for one another is what ultimately saves them from the [[BeastInTheMaze House]] and it's torment.]]

* AntiHero: Even before [[spoiler:going nuts]], he's kinda aloof, smug, and hard to get along with.
* AssholeVictim: Averted hard. [[spoiler:While he was kind of a jerk, his fate is so horrifying that it's impossible to not feel sympathy for his plight.]]

* DirtyOldMan: Downplayed. He insists on exclusively being read to by attractive young women, but never comes onto them. It's really just a way for him to try and alleviate some of his crushing loneliness.

The most enigmatic character in the book, one who may not even exist. A terrifying monster associated with shadows and darkness, which bears some relation to the [[GothicHorror House]]. Zampanò fears it and goes to great lengths to try and conceal it's existence.

* BeastInTheMaze: It's initial base portrayal is being this to the [[BrainBleach House]], as a monster that lurks within its labyrinth to hunt and torment those who dare enter. It quickly escalates into something even more terrifying.

** The way it chews and scratches up and ruins the expedition teams' supply caches serves no practical purpose, especially when you consider the metamorphic nature of the labyrinth. Nor does it's constant roaring and growling that echoes through the maze and freaks out anyone who hears it. The Minotaur seems to do both just to fuck with the heads of the humans, assuming it even thinks at all.
* LivingShadow: Maybe it's true form or the closest humans can picture to its true form, if you think [[spoiler:Holloway's death scene]] is an actual appearance from it.

* MythicalMotifs: The Minotaur and labyrinth of Greek myth, of course. It's also implicitly compared at points to Nidhogg from Norse mythology to go along with the [[BigBad House's]] Yggdrasil. Whether either of these go beyond mere comparison or symbolism is another question.

* BrokenBird: He's already one at the start, and becomes even worse as the story takes it's toll on him.

* ToxicFriendInfluence: He and Johnny seem to get into difficult situations every time they hang out. [[spoiler:However, if Johnny's life is a trainwreck with Lude in it, it's even worse when he's removed from the equation.]]

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: While his trauma from his time as a soldier might be a contributing factor in his abuse of Johnny, the book goes out of it's way to make clear it is no excuse for it.

* StylisticSuck: Her letters are about as messy and hard to decipher as you'd expect for something written by a schizophrenic gradually losing her mind. That said, her early letters are actually pretty normal; it's only later in her life as her disease progresses and gets worse that her writing starts becoming bizarre and hard to understand as her illness bleeds into her words.

* AmbiguousSituation: One of the biggest examples in the book. Whether they're actually the monsters that Pelafina portrays them as in her letters or not is impossible to say. On one hand, Pelafina herself certainly seems to think it's for real. On the other hand, well, she's schizophrenic. And has motive to lie besides as she clearly wants out of the Institute. Furthermore, the letters they personally send Johnny give no indication that they're anything less than strict professionals… but then again, they'd certainly not admit their criminality, if any, in such letters.

The many bizarre characters in ''[[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm House]] of Leaves'', divided based on which [[NestedStory layer of story]] they inhabit.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Unlike most people who get obsessed with the [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs House]], Reston knows to back off from it when it becomes obvious that the "building" is too dangerous to study safely.

* ToxicFriendInfluence: He and Johnny seem to get into difficult situations every time they hang out. [[spoiler:However, if Johnny's life is a trainwreck with Lude in it, it's [[UpToEleven even worse]] when he's removed from the equation.]]

* JackassGenie: See AmbiguousInnocence. A possibly interpretation of it's behavior is that [[BlueAndOrangeMorality it's genuinely trying to help the people inside it by giving them what they want, but doesn't understand how humans work]]. Another is that it understands perfectly and is actively taunting and tormenting the humans by twisting their desires in nightmarish ways. Either way, it's "wish granting" is terrifying.

* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: He's a ''blind film reviewer''. Good luck figuring out how that works.

!!Truant's Journal

[[folder:Johnny Truant]]

A deeply troubled tattoo shop apprentice who finds Zampanò's manuscript one night, after which his life begins to decline in truly horrific ways as he attempts to finish and annotate the work.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: The son of a schizophrenic woman who tried to murder him as an infant and was subsequently raised by an abusive foster father who would beat him senseless, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. He's a mess of a human being, but it's surprising when you learn what his childhood was like. [[UnreliableNarrator Assuming he's telling the truth]].

** Him declaring that Zampanò had graphomania. Given how obsessive his own writing gets as the story progresses…
** Likewise, for all the crap he (rightfully) gives Zampanò about research mistakes, the Editors have to correct ''Johnny's'' mistakes quite a few times.

* ToxicFriendInfluence: He and Lude really seem to bring out the worst in each other, when they aren't getting one another in trouble.
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:His final entry insists he's turning his life around and afterwards the Editors note that he has disappeared and they can't locate him. What became of Johnny is left completely unaddressed. Some interpretations suggest [[MindScrew he never even existed to begin with]].]]

* ReallyGetsAround: [[UnreliableNarrator According to Johnny]], at least.

* AbusiveParents: Towards Johnny, though not intentionally; she's mentally ill in a way that makes her a danger herself and others, and Johnny was no exception. She does love him, but she also nearly killed him in one of her manic episodes, which led to her incarceration. [[spoiler:And she might have succeeded, [[MindScrew depending on your interpretation]].]]

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:What she ultimately does or intends to do.]]

[[folder:The Orderlies]]

* AmbiguousSituation: One of the biggest examples in the book. Whether they're actually the monsters that Pelafina portrays them as in her letters or not is impossible to say. On one hand, Pelafina herself certainly seems to think it's for real. On the other hand, well, she's schizophrenic. And has motive to lie besides as she clearly wants out of the Institute.

* DevilsAdvocate: As part of their role as neutral, outside editors, they often end up playing this role to Johnny and Zampanò, giving arguments against their assertions. Most notable is the "Contrary Evidence" section of the appendix, in which they lay out their own research into ''The Navidson Record'' that goes much more in-depth than Johnny did and contradicts a lot of his findings, to the point of including [[spoiler:a film still that may very well come from the movie.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Minotaur]]

The most enigmatic character in the book, one who may not even exist. A terrifying monster associated with shadows and darkness, which bears some relation to the [[GothicHorror House]].
----
* AmbiguouslyEvil: As if it wasn't mysterious enough, even its morality is called into question a few times. While it's superficially a vicious and sadistic beast that kills without mercy, there's some discussion of the Minotaur myth that flips around the perspective and depicts the Minotaur as a misunderstood and deformed child that is murdered by Theseus…
* AmbiguousSituation: Might well be the AnthropomorphicPersonification of this trope.
* BeastInTheMaze: It's initial base portrayal is being this to the [[BrainBleach House]], as a monster that lurks within its labyrinth to hunt and torment those who dare enter. It quickly escalates into something even more terrifying.
* DarkIsEvil: It's strongly associated with shadows and darkness, while also being a vicious monster that hunts and kills people while driving them to madness.
* TheDreaded: Everyone who knows anything about it at all is absolutely terrified of it. Holloway is the sole exception [[spoiler:and pays dearly for it]].
* EldritchAbomination: A being of darkness that seems to exist (if it even does) for no reason but to drive people to madness and death.
* EnigmaticMinion: If you thought the [[SanitySlippage House]] was hard to get a read on, the Minotaur is even more baffling.
* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: It's never shown to either the characters or the audience, with the only indication that it even exists being the horrific growl heard inside the labyrinth and the apparent destruction of any object that gets left behind. As a matter of fact, Zampanò seems to have made a concerted effort to erase any evidence of its existence at all. Seeing as its defining aspects, as described by Johnny, are darkness, silence, and the obliteration of meaning, it wouldn't make sense for it to ever appear; it's quite literally the metaphysical incarnation of nothing. [[MindScrew Maybe]].
* KickTheDog: It maybe butchers all of Zampanò's cats while hunting him, just ForTheEvulz. Notable, as the [[{{Sadist}} House]] itself went out of it's way to ''not'' harm the Navidsons' pets.
* MindScrew: Hoo boy. The simplest way of putting it is that the Minotaur is like some kind of Schrödinger's Cat character; it simultaneously does and doesn't seem to exist in the narrative and can be included or removed by the reader. It gets way more complicated from there.
* MythicalMotifs: The Minotaur and labyrinth of Greek myth, of course.
* UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat: This concept applied to an entire character. The book's narrative functions with or without the inclusion of the Minotaur, with it's presence or absence completely altering the possible meaning of things.
* TheScottishTrope: Zampanò goes out of his way to try and avoid invoking it or the darkness in general.
* SoreLoser: [[spoiler:If you interpret Holloway's corpse being torn to shreds as the Minotaur being '''really''' pissed it didn't get to personally kill him.]]
* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Johnny takes on some qualities of the Minotaur — both this one and the mythological one — as the story goes on. Whether it's this trope or something else entirely is as up to interpretation as the rest of the book.]]

* AmbiguousInnocence: Whether or not it's actually malicious in a way that humans can understand is as unclear as everything else about it. Some scenes possibly suggest that it is actively antagonistic and sadistic towards the people inside it, while others suggest that it simply doesn't think like we do or is even trying to help it's inhabitants in it's own strange way. Even at best, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality it's completely disconnected from human concepts of morality and behavior]].
* AmbiguousSituation: Literally everything about it. The [[RiddleForTheAges House]] defies any and all attempts to explain it or it's behavior and every answer given to it's nature just raises more questions.
* AnimalLover: Bizarrely enough. It's terrorizing of the Navidsons and anybody relating to them doesn't extend to their pets, which are entirely left alone and even safely deposited outside if they go near the labyrinth itself. Whether this is some kind of strange PetTheDog thing or it's powers simply don't affect animals isn't clear.

* EvilIsPetty: When Tom at one point mocks the [[LivingLabyrinth House]] while alone the top of the spiral staircase, the [[CosmicFlaw House]] seems to maliciously contort the staircase in a way designed to frighten and threaten Tom. It's also implied that this taunting might be why [[spoiler:it later [[DisproportionateRetribution kills Tom]].]] The rampage where it does so may itself have been prompted by the [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow House]] being pissed off over Hook managing to escape the labyrinth instead of [[spoiler:dying with Jed and Holloway]].

* PetTheDog: Maybe, if you interpret [[spoiler:Will's escape from the labyrinth at the climax]] as the [[BrownNote House]] taking mercy on the Navidsons for some reason. Even more ambiguously, while it's seemingly hostile to humans, that hostility doesn't appear to extend to animals given that the Navidson's pets don't even acknowledge the labyrinth and just end up safely outside of they go in it.

The main characters of ''The Navidson Record'', a supposedly average family made up of the Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Will Navidson, his supermodel partner Karen Green, their two children, and their pets. The family moves into a new [[RealityWarper house]], hoping to come together. [[{{Understatement}} It doesn't go well]].

* CharacterDevelopment: [[spoiler:From a DysfunctionJunction with deep-seated and hidden problems to a genuinely loving family that has made peace with their pasts and flaws by learning to depend on one another. Of the book's protagonists, they definitely get the happiest ending.]]

* MaskOfSanity: They're introduced as a very normal, well-adjusted family. The events of the story end up exposing them as actually being ''deeply'' screwed up, or at least, as prone to ignoring their problems rather than facing them.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Will is clearly modeled heavily on real life photojournalist [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]], who struggled with depression and mental health issues after traumatic experiences he went through while reporting in warzones and ultimately took his own life. Deconstructed, as Johnny points to this trope as evidence that ''The Navidson Record'' can't exist, since Will is blatantly less a real person and more a generic fictional stand-in for a celebrity who just so happened to be in the news when Zampanò wrote his thesis, while also pointing out how sleazy and insensitive this trope is, considering Carter's very real trauma and suicide.

* SanitySlippage: Will becomes increasingly mentally unwell as he becomes obsessed with studying the [[DarkIsEvil House]].

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He agree to help the Navidsons with their investigation out of a desire for the ultimate adventure that would secure his name in the history books. He gets his wish, unfortunately for him.

* MuggingTheMonster: His certainty that he can conquer the [[EldritchLocation House]] like any other dangerous animal or location he's dealt with over the years gets him into ''a lot'' of trouble.

* AnimalLover: He has a lot of cats that he seems to love a lot… cats which may or not have been butchered by the Minotaur as it hunts him down.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: He's an obvious send-up of Creator/JorgeLuisBorges.

* MysticalMotifs: The Minotaur and labyrinth of Greek myth, of course.

The titular location around which the narrative of ''The Navidson Record'' — and possibly the whole book — is focused around. While it is superficially just a normal [[HauntedHouse house]] from the outside, on the inside it is slowly revealed to be a terrifying and eldritch object or being with a physics-defying labyrinth at it's center. It's nature and motivations are inscrutable at best, madness-inducing at worst… for the characters and reader alike.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kirby "Wax" Hook and Jed Leeder]]
[[/folder]]

!!Zampanò's Dissertation

[[folder:Zampanò]]

The blind old man who wrote the manuscript examining ''The Navidson Record''. An erratic, capricious, and mysterious person, much about him is unknown.

* AnimalLover: He has a lot of cats that he seems to love a lot… cats which may or not have been butchered by the Minotaur as it hunts him down.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: He's a ''blind film reviewer''. Good luck figuring out how that works.
* DirtyOldMan: Downplayed. He insists on exclusively being read to by attractive young women, but never comes onto them. It's really just a way for him to try and alleviate some of his crushing loneliness.
* DyingAlone: He dies alone in his apartment one night, due to having no real friends or family.
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Let's just say that, despite the lofty certainty he writes with, Zampanò makes ''a lot'' of mistakes, which would be excusable if he acknowledged being an amateur writer but he acts as if he's anything but. One of his amanuenses says he writes like a freshman who'd get a C- at best.
* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:He ''might'' be Johnny's real dad, depending on how you interpret some scattered hints. At the very least, he knew Pelafina.]]
* MagicalRealism: He generally prefers to focus on the characterization and psychology of ''The Navidson Record'', treating the [[CosmicHorrorStory House]] as just this thing that's happening.
* MysteriousPast: Johnny is unable to determine much about Zampanò as a person. The most he's able to find out is that the guy became blind in the 1950s, was approximately eighty when he died, probably had graphomania, and may have been a veteran of the French retreat from Vietnam that sparked the Vietnam War.
* ShellShockedVeteran: He was seemingly a veteran of the French retreat from Vietnam, and the experience clearly left marks on him. His wartime diary entries are broken rambles.
* UnreliableNarrator: The first of many in the book. For one thing, the movie he's supposedly reviewing doesn't exist. [[MindScrew Or does it?]]

!!Truant's Journal

[[folder:Johnny Truant]]

A deeply troubled tattoo shop apprentice who finds Zampanò's manuscript one night, after which his life begins to decline in truly horrific ways as he attempts to finish and annotate the work.

* AntiHero: A NominalHero at best.
* BrokenBird: He's already one at the start, and becomes even worse as the story takes it's toll on him.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: The son of a schizophrenic woman who tried to murder him as an infant and was subsequently raised by an abusive foster father who would beat him senseless, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. He's a mess of a human being, but it's surprising when you learn what his childhood was like. [[UnreliableNarrator Assuming he's telling the truth]].
* FreudianExcuse: A lot of his more unsavory qualities are implied to stem from his awful childhood and the abuse he suffered from all his parental figures.
* TheHedonist: His main goals in life are doing drugs and getting laid.
* HiddenDepths: Beneath his sleazy punk demeanor, he shows a surprising amount of knowledge regarding art, poetry, and mathematics. Furthermore, the poetry he personally writes is pretty damn good.
* HypocriticalHumor:
** He engages in some rather disgusting SlutShaming directed at the women he and Lude sleep with, imagining up nightmarish and depressing backstories for them and in doing so, insinuating they're only having the sex because they're "broken". Leaving aside the absurdity of [[ReallyGetsAround someone who claims to get laid as often as him]] judging people for it, he himself is far from well-adjusted.
** Him declaring that Zampanò had graphomania. Given how obsessive his own writing gets as the story progresses…
* KavorkaMan: One of the many indications that his account is questionable is how he insists constantly that he bangs tons of hot women despite being a string bean drug addict with massive mental issues, an unlikable personality, and horrific burn scars, all of which combined make it unlikely most women would even speak to him let alone let him touch them. Notably, only ''one'' of his romantic or sexual experiences is supported as having happened by the evidence found by the Editors.
* LadykillerInLove: A serial womanizer, but he falls helplessly in love with Thumper.
* {{Jerkass}}: He's even a jerk to the reader sometimes!
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Some of the ways he talks about women can get ''really'' uncomfortable and cringeworthy. In particular, he [[SlutShaming slings self-righteous judgment at the women he sleeps with]] despite [[HypocriticalHumor having sex with them to begin with]].
* SanitySlippage: He already had a lot of problems, but the more he works on Zampanò's dissertation and tries to investigate ''The Navidson Record'', the more unhinged and dysfunctional he becomes.
* SirSwearsALot: He talks like a drunk sailor half the time. He even lampshades it at one point, mocking the reader for not noticing that a fabricated section of his journal was fake based on the fact that he doesn't swear in it.
* ToxicFriendInfluence: He and Lude really seem to bring out the worst in each other, when they aren't getting one another in trouble.
* UnreliableNarrator: He openly admits to lying to the reader on several occasions just to fuck with them, contradicts himself more than once, is severely mentally ill, and in general, a lot of his claims are easy to poke holes in.

[[folder:Lude]]

[[folder:Thumper]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gdansk Man]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Raymond]]
[[/folder]]

!!The Whalestoe Letters

[[folder:Pelafina Heather Lièvre]]

A schizophrenic woman remanded to the Three Attic Whalestoe Institute who writes letters to her son, Johnny Truant.

* AbusiveParents: Towards Johnny, though not intentionally; she's mentally ill in a way that makes her a danger herself and others, and Johnny was no exception. She does love him, but she also nearly killed him in one of her manic episodes, which led to her incarceration. [[spoiler:And she might have succeeded, [[MindScrew depending on your interpretation]].]]
* AxCrazy: A tragic example. Her schizophrenia manifests in violent ways.
* InsaneEqualsViolent: Her schizophrenia takes on some frighteningly violent forms, and she was institutionalized after trying to strangle her infant son to death.
* MadwomanInTheAttic: She certainly seems to feel that she's treated like this. The truth is harder to discern, given her unreliable narration. On one hand, she ''definitely'' has every reason to be in Whalestoe. On the other, if she's telling the truth about the place being a BedlamHouse, then it's really not helping her.
* MamaBear: Despite the abuse she afflicted on Johnny due to her illness, Pelafina is also ferociously defensive of her son and casts a curse on Raymond for sending him to the hospital, one which [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may have]] resulted in the man dying a horrific death via cancer.
* MoodSwinger: Owing to her mental illness, she can fly from kindly one moment, terrifying the next.
* UnreliableNarrator: The most unreliable one in the entire book, and that's saying something. Her severely unwell and ever-declining mental state mean that basically nothing she says in her letters to Johnny can be taken at face value.

[[folder:The Orderlies]]
[[/folder]]

!!Other

[[folder:The Editors]]

The good men and women at the Pantheon and Random House publishing houses given the unenviable task of piecing together this book.

* TheComicallySerious: If they had any reaction to or opinions on the utterly crazed manuscript they are editing, they never show it in their writing, maintaining an air of professionalism that never wavers, even during the most insane parts of the novel.
* DevilsAdvocate: As part of their role as neutral, outside editors, they often end up playing this role to Johnny and Zampanò, giving arguments against their assertions. Most notable is the "Contrary Evidence" section of the appendix, in which they lay out their own research into ''The Navidson Record'' that goes much more in-depth than Johnny did and contradicts a lot of his findings, to the point of including [[spoiler:a film still that may very well come from the movie.]]
* NotSoAboveItAll: At one point, they get into an argument in the footnotes over which Bible verse Zampanò quotes.
* OnlySaneMan: The only narrators in the book that aren't completely off their rockers.
* StraightMan: Their general role. Compared to all the other narrators, they're succinct, competent, professional, neutral, and generally seem like they're just trying their best to convey this beast to the reader in a semi-coherent way and give all the available facts.
* UnreliableNarrator: Averted… maybe. Unlike the other narrators, they seem perfectly sane and coherent, as well as a neutral third party unaffected by the madness of the book. But if anything, their attempts to apply a MindScrewdriver to things just makes it all even more inscrutable.