History Characters / NorthangerAbbey

* HateSink: He is James Morland's friend and a boorish GoldDigger who seeks to marry Catherine Morland, mistakenly believing her to be a rich heiress. Desiring to have Catherine all to himself, Thorpe makes repeated attempts to sabotage her attempts to make friends with the Tilney family, making shameless lies to force her to spend time with him. Thorpe also lies to General Tilney about Catherine’s wealth to get him to drive up his own prospects. When this backfires with the General pushing Catherine towards his son Henry, Thorpe slanders Catherine to General Tilney by projecting his own situation onto Catherine’s family, prompting him to throw Catherine, who is staying with the Tilneys at this point, out of the house in the dead of night. A shameless liar who talks of nothing but carriages and horses and [[SirSwearsALot speaks with crude language]], John Thorpe is the closest thing to a BigBad in Creator/JaneAusten’s novels.

* PutOnABus: Doesn't appear in the second half of the novel.

* ShipperOnDeck: During Catherine's stay, he starts alluding to the possibility of her marrying Henry with such little subtlety that even she notices, and it makes her uncomfortable.
* UngratefulBastard: As the narrator wryly points out, the General is grateful to John Thorpe for informing him about Catherine's circumstances as ''undoubtedly'' a very wealthy heiress, and then immediately sets about trying to put his own son in Thorpe's way. Given how [[{{Jerkass}} Thorpe]] is, it might fall under KickTheSonOfABitch.

* TooDumbToFool: Catherine may be naïve, but to contrast other Austen heroines she correctly pegs John Thorpe as somebody not to trust early on (compare with [[Literature/PrideAndPrejudice George Wickham]] and [[Literature/SenseAndSensibility John Willoughby]], whose true natures as reprobates are not known to the audience until well into the novel).

Catherine's elder brother.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Unlike Catherine, James thought John Thorpe was a good friend. It went downhill from there.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: Although she's quick to befriend Catherine and treat her as a sister, she has little regard for her feelings and disposes of the Morlands as soon as she sees more profitable prospects.

* IfICantHaveYou: see MaliciousSlander.

* SmallNameBigEgo: He's always inflating tales of his own adventures and prowess, and he's prone to exaggeration in general.

* OppositesAttract: He's clever, worldly, and sarcastic, and falls in love with naïve, SarcasmBlind Catherine.

* GoodCounterpart: To Isabella Thorpe.

* JerkassHasAPoint: "But we must first suppose Isabella to have had a heart to lose...in that case, she would have met with very different treatment." In other words, Isabella was definitely flirting with him, though she's engaged.

* JerkassHasAPoint: “But we must first suppose Isabella to have had a heart to lose...in that case, she would have met with very different treatment.” In other words, Isabella was definitely flirting with him, though she's engaged.

* CloudCuckooLander: Catherine has a rather... 'odd' interpretation of the nuances of society - or rather an incredibly naive and innocent one: she doesn't think that anyone is capable of outright lying and manipulating other people and situations and could never do such a thing herself. To make matters worse, half the time her mind is with her Gothic Novels and a little departed from reality - with an unhealthy slab of WrongGenreSavvy. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, she comes up with a ''lot'' of [[ArmorPiercingQuestion Armor-Piercing Questions]] that she'll ask A) without realising that they are in fact armor-piercing, and B) without realising that the question is extremely uncomfortable. She ends up feeling very confused when the person she's talking to suddenly changes the subject.

* ObliviousToLove: She has no idea that John Thorpe is trying to woo her. When he approaches proposal in a rather oblique fashion, she innocently gives him a flat refusal. (Though it should be noted that Thorpe, like Isabella, isn't in love but a GoldDigger.)

* SelectiveObliviousness: Good grief. She's a fangirl of Gothic novels and imagines things accordingly. But she misses the fact that her best friend, Eleanor, is the living embodiment of the stereotypical Gothic heroine -- estranged lover, dead mother, overbearing father, lives in an abbey with said father and the creatures of the forest, always wears white. Well, she notices but falsely assumes SHE'S the heroine (and is correct, just for the wrong book).

* GoldDigger: She throws over James Morland once she realizes he's not as rich as she supposed (and certainly not as much as the Tilneys).

* LaserGuidedKarma: Isabella carelessly mistreats her fiance James by flirting with Captain Tilney. This results in James breaking the engagement, and it turns out that Captain Tilney is a careless flirt ''himself'', meaning he's not about to propose to her.

* TheGhost: Doesn't appear in the second half of the novel.

* {{Jerkass}}: Not only is he crude in manners, he's a shameless liar who tries to sabotage Catherine's acquaintance with the Tilneys and then misrepresents the family all over. He is also rude, controlling and entitled towards Catherine, all the while being convinced that she must want nothing but spend her time with him.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Early on he disparages a novel for no other reason than that the author married a French emigé[[note]]refugees from the French Revolution were common targets of xenophobia[[/note]] and throws around the phrase "rich as a Jew" whenever he's discussing someone's wealth.

* OppositesAttract: He's clever, worldly, and sarcastic, and falls in love with naive, SarcasmBlind Catherine.

* SnarkKnight: Henry Tilney derives a lot of amusement by poking fun at the people around him and much of his early attraction to Catherine is because her earnest responses to his witticisms entertain him (although his "quizzing" is more refined and less malicious than Thorpe's). He does this with literature too; although he enjoys novels, he also enjoys pointing out and playing up their cliches.
* WhatTheHellHero: When he finds Catherine snooping around Mrs. Tilney's old rooms, he reminds her that they're living in civilized times, not a Gothic novel, and that just because the General isn't moping around the place doesn't mean he didn't grieve for Mrs. Tilney.

* BearerOfBadNews: The General gives her the task of saying that Catherine will have to leave almost at the crack of dawn for a seventy-mile journey with no escort because of a "forgotten previous engagement." Eleanor is so obviously miserable that Catherine feels just as sorry for her as she does for herself.

* TheCasanova: Henry describes him as "well enough, sowing his wild oats".

Catherine’s elder brother.

James Morland’s intended, Isabella is beautiful and ambitious for a good match.

* ThatLiarLies: After Captain Tilney loses interest, she writes to Catherine full of assurance that she still loves Catherine like a sister and that James has misunderstood the situation with her and Tilney, and downplays it as a minor tiff rather than an entirely broken engagement. Catherine sees through it at this point and decides not to write back.

A friend of Catherine’s brother James and Isabella’s brother.

* BigBad: The main source of Catherine's problems. He does his best to drive a wedge between Catherine and Henry and later slanders her to the General.

* TheGhost: Doesn’t appear in the second half of the novel.

* HateSink: He is James Morland’s friend and a boorish GoldDigger who seeks to marry Catherine Morland, mistakenly believing her to be a rich heiress. Desiring to have Catherine all to himself, Thorpe makes repeated attempts to sabotage her attempts to make friends with the Tilney family, making shameless lies to force her to spend time with him. Thorpe also lies to General Tilney about Catherine’s wealth to get him to drive up his own prospects. When this backfires with the General pushing Catherine towards his son Henry, Thorpe slanders Catherine to General Tilney by projecting his own situation onto Catherine’s family, prompting him to throw Catherine, who is staying with the Tilneys at this point, out of the house in the dead of night. A shameless liar who talks of nothing but carriages and horses and [[SirSwearsALot speaks with crude language]], John Thorpe is the closest thing to a BigBad in Creator/JaneAusten’s novels.

* JerkAss: Not only is he crude in manners, he's a shameless liar who tries to sabotage Catherine's acquaintance with the Tilneys and then misrepresents the family all over. He is also rude, controlling and entitled towards Catherine, all the while being convinced that she must want nothing but spend her time with him.

Henry and Eleanor’s elder brother and heir to Northanger Abbey.

* TheCasanova: Henry describes him as “well enough, sowing his wild oats”.

* TallDarkAndHandsome: The first thing mentioned when he first appears is that he’s well-dressed and handsome.

* SnarkKnight: Henry Tilney derives a lot of amusement by poking fun at the people around him and much of his early attraction to Catherine is because her earnest responses to his witticisms entertain him (although his "quizzing" is more refined and less malicious than Thorpe's). He does this with literature too; although he enjoys novels, he also enjoys pointing out and playing up their cliches.* WhatTheHellHero: When he finds Catherine snooping around Mrs. Tilney's old rooms, he reminds her that they're living in civilized times, not a Gothic novel, and that just because the General isn't moping around the place doesn't mean he didn't grieve for Mrs. Tilney.