History Characters / TheBoneSeasonSeries

* ThemedAliases: Four of the Seven Seals are named for the HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: the White Binder (Conquest, the white rider); the Red Vision (War, the red rider); the Black Diamond (Famine, the black rider); and the Pale Dreamer (Death, the pale rider).

[[folder: Nicklas Nygård]]
----
->''Soothsayers always said that about Nick when they saw him, that he was like snow.''
----

* LeParkour: Nick, himself an accomplished traceur, taught Paige how to run and climb and cleverly avoid the authorities on the streets.
* StraightGay: Nick is portrayed without a single gay stereotype.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Seven Seals]]

** Kornephoros is a binary star and the brightest in the constellation Herculis (Heracles).

* PsychicRadar: This seems to be Paige's primary function in the Seven Seals at the start of the series. She detaches her spirit from her body and floats around the district, ostensibly to keep an eye on anyone who might have moved in without Jaxon's permission.

[[folder: The Seven Seals]]
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: The Seven Seals are set up as a badass criminal gang, but they don't seem to do any actual crime aside from selling sketchy paintings.
* ThemedAliases: Four of the Seven Seals are named for the HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: the White Binder (Conquest, the white rider); the Red Vision (War, the red rider); the Black Diamond (Famine, the black rider); and the Pale Dreamer (Death, the pale rider).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Jaxon Hall]]

->''"I'm a mime-lord, O my lovely, not a mime-peasant."''

[[folder: Paige Mahoney]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sketch_paige_small_7.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:By [[https://midnightsnapdragon.tumblr.com/post/640422318528741376/i-recently-commissioned-the-illustrious#notes phantomrin]] on tumblr]]

-> ''"One day they'll call this country by its name again."''

* AppropriatedAppellation: The new alias Paige chooses for herself, Black Moth, is a MeaningfulEcho of the speech Gomeisa Sargas gave her about how [[HumansAreInsects humans are like moths]]. At the time, he was pointing out the weak, pitiful, self-destructive nature of humanity, but she appropriates it for the allusion to a short-lived life that ends in fire, matching her determination to bring down Scion even if it means sacrificing herself.
* BirdsOfAFeather: Paige and Warden are of different species and from vastly different worlds, yet they are both proud, emotionally guarded, and deeply loyal to their respective causes. They also share a love for twentieth-century music and a strong sense of responsibility to the people who depend on them.
** Highlighted in a particularly poignant passage from ''The Mime Order.''
--> And I had the strange sense that I belonged. Not in the material sense, as I belonged to Jaxon, as I had once belonged to the Rephaim. This was belonging of a different sort, as things that are alike belong ''with'' one another.
* DeadpanSnarker: Paige is a chronic backtalker, and her narration often peppered with snippy little comments for the reader's delight.
** Turned up to eleven in the 10th anniversary edition of ''The Bone Season.''
---> '''Warden''': Do you think me incapable of joy?
---> '''Paige''': Since you have one facial expression and one tone of voice, I really can't tell.
---> '''Warden''': Perhaps you lack perspicacity.
---> '''Paige''': Perhaps you lack a personality.
* DefiantCaptive: In ''The Bone Season,'' when she's made a slave in the penal colony, she refuses to lie down and take it. She talks back to her keeper, scuffles with the Overseer and the red-jackets, breaks into the House, brings the harlies food and supplies, and makes a break for it at the first opportunity. When that fails, she plots a mass jailbreak with the other prisoners, and they stage their revolt on the very day that the Sargas were supposed to celebrate the consolidation of their power.
* {{Determinator}}: Paige gets injured a fair amount in every book, yet no matter how exhausted she is or how much physical pain she's in, she always [[HeroicResolve gets back up and keeps going]].
** In ''The Bone Season,'' after getting beaten up by her own gang in Trafalgar Square, she manages to run all the way to the bridge before collapsing from Nick's gunshot.
** In ''The Mime Order,'' by the time her duel with [[spoiler: Jaxon]] is drawing to a close, she has sustained a staggering number of painful injuries and jumped out of her body half a dozen times. She barely has the strength to keep fighting, but she knows that [[XMustNotWin everything depends on her victory]], so she throws everything she's got left at him: her spirit, her fists, a random chair from the audience, etc.
** Special mention goes to ''The Song Rising.'' [[spoiler: After having been tortured for weeks in the Archon, Paige manages to escape her cell, sneak into Victoria Tower and face down both Hildred Vance and the Senshield poltergeist]]. Needless to say, the experience nearly kills her.
* FamedInStory: Although Scion declares her a wanted fugitive in ''The Mime Order,'' she only achieves true infamy in ''The Song Rising'' after broadcasting Black Moth's call-to-arms to every clairvoyant within a four-hundred-mile radius of London. Scion even makes a ballet production about her to celebrate their takedown of the most dangerous unnatural since the Bloody King himself.
* GiveMeLibertyOrGiveMeDeath: Paige is fiercely independent and believes that all clairvoyants have the right to freedom; part of what drives her throughout the series is the resolve to destroy Scion's doctrine of tyranny or die trying. We see this aspect of her character as early as in the first book, when she refuses to be grateful for her relatively comfortable situation in the penal colony, risking her life again and again to escape.
* HardHead: Paige spends a good two books jumping out of her body in spirit form while her body slumps to the ground, presumably hitting her head on whatever she was standing on at the moment -- concrete, asphalt, cobblestones, etc. It's always [[HandWave brushed off as mildly painful]], but by all rights, she should have returned to a concussed head by now.
* InformedAbility: In the first book, Paige says that keeping a low profile -- "head down, eyes open" -- is her M.O. for staying alive, but the more disrespect she shows the rules of the penal colony, the less believable this becomes. Each subsequent installment wipes out any delusions we might have had left about Paige being good at keeping her head down.
* PsychicNosebleed: Paige tends to cause these in herself and the people around her when she's in distress, a result of her spirit exerting pressure on their dreamscapes.
* PsychicRadar: This seems to be Paige's primary function in the Seven Seals at the start of the series. She detaches her spirit from her body and floats around the district, ostensibly to keep an eye on anyone who might have moved in without Jaxon's permission.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: A defining aspect of her character. Both in Sheol I and in the syndicate, Paige is told to adhere to strict rules if she doesn't want to find herself trimmed at the neck, but she never listens. She would rather risk her life fighting for what she and her fellow voyants deserve than keep her head down and be grateful for what she's got.
* TookALevelInBadass: Paige gets better at using her gift with every installment. At the very beginning, the most she can do is passively float around in the æther in spirit form, but gradually she learns how to kill people with her spirit, knock them unconscious, and even possess them.
** She also gets more daring and proactive as the series goes on. In ''The Bone Season,'' she's mostly just reacting to her new environment and trying to get back home. In ''The Mime Order,'' she decides to go for [[spoiler: Underqueen in order to take control of the syndicate]] and warn everyone about the Rephaim, in the spirit of "If you want something done, you've got to do it yourself." By the time ''The Song Rising'' rolls around, she's ready to break into Scion military compounds, bust death row inmates out of jail, and even [[spoiler: suffer torture and execution]] if it will save her people from extinction.
* WellDoneDaughterGirl: Though by the time the series begins she has developed a far more sober view of his nature, Paige once felt this way about Jaxon. He was, in many ways, everything to her [[ParentalSubstitute that her true father could never be]]; he took her in, made her his heir, taught her about clairvoyance, opened to her an entire underworld in which she could freely be herself, and all the while showered her with the pride and attention Colin Mahoney never gave her. Paige's loyalty to him sours quickly once he makes it clear that he considers her his property, but her affection for him dies much harder -- if at all.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: She tends to doubt herself on many levels, especially once she becomes [[spoiler: Underqueen]] and has to deal with all the pressures and responsibilities that come with it. Throughout the series, it's Warden who reminds her that she's stronger and more capable than she believes herself to be -- first regarding her clairvoyant abilities, and later her leadership skills and resolve in dismantling Scion.

[[folder: Nicklas Nygård]]
----
->''Soothsayers always said that about Nick when they saw him, that he was like snow.''
----
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Nick is pale blond and one of the kindest characters in the series, always putting the happiness of others above his own.
* LeParkour: Nick, himself an accomplished traceur, taught Paige how to run and climb and cleverly avoid the authorities on the streets.
* StraightGay: Nick is portrayed without a single gay stereotype.

* WellDoneDaughterGirl: Though by the time the series begins she has developed a far more sober view of his nature, Paige once felt this way about Jaxon. He was, in many ways, everything to her that her true father could never be; he took her in, made her his heir, taught her about clairvoyance, opened to her an entire underworld in which she could freely be herself, and all the while showered her with the pride and attention Colin Mahoney never gave her. Paige's loyalty to him sours quickly once he makes it clear that he considers her his property, but her affection for him dies much harder -- if at all.

* OffscreenTeleportation: Apparently a Rephaite talent, first displayed by Arcturus and Lucida in Edinburgh and then again by Arcturus in the Passage des Voleurs. When Paige remarks dryly that one day he'll have to tell her how they do that, he plays coy about it.

* ManipulativeBastard: Jaxon is a cunning ConsummateLiar who plays mind games with his direct subordinates. He is heavily implied to have used false promises to get Zeke and Nadine to stay at Seven Dials. He keeps his gang financially and emotionally dependent on him. He blackmails Paige into keeping her silence in front of the Unnatural Assembly. In ''The Song Rising,'' he sows discord in the Mime Order by [[BreakThemByTalking suggesting to Paige that Warden doesn't truly care for her]] and that she's become an instrument of Terebell's control, which cleverly plays on her existing fears.

* TermsOfEndagerment: His use of "O my lovely" becomes this whenever any member of his gang displeases him, particularly Paige after she [[spoiler: turns against him in the Rose Ring]].

* SugaryMalice: He can make each of his trademark endearments -- darling, dearest, O my lovely -- sound quite menacing when he wants to.

** Turned up to eleven in the 10th anniversary edition of the first book.

* FamedInStory: Although Scion declares her a wanted fugitive in ''The Mime Order,'' she only achieves true infamy in ''The Song Rising'' after broadcasting Black Moth's call-to-arms to every clairvoyant within a fifty-mile radius of London. Scion even makes a ballet production about her to celebrate their takedown of the most dangerous unnatural since the Bloody King himself.

* StealthyColossus: We never see him try to sneak up on anyone, but he's quick and graceful enough to catch a butterfly in his hands, as well as maintain a few clandestine habits in the penal colony.
--> For a giant, he could move like a shadow.

* {{Touche}}: One way in which he likes to graciously acknowledge a point scored against him in conversation.

--> '''Warden''': It's a ''cup'' of coffee. With ... no handle.

* StarfishLanguage: Glossolalia, the Rephaite tongue, is the [[PrimordialTongue ancient language of the æther]] and the language of spirits. It's implied to be impossible for humans to speak, with the exception of julkers -- a type of fourth-order clairvoyant.

* {{Touche}}: One way in which he graciously acknowledge a point scored against him in conversation.
** In ''The Bone Season,'' Paige remarks that if he dislikes modern music so much, he should thank the Scion censor, which wouldn't exist if not for the Rephaim. In response to which he raises his glass and says "Touché."

** In ''The Mime Order,'' when they speak for the first time at the doss-house.
--> '''Warden''': I did wake for long enough to read your note. Touché.

* NoSympathy: The Ranthen -- particularly Terebell and Errai -- toward Paige, both before and after the Mime Order is established. Rather than trust her to do her job, as someone who understands the London syndicate far better than they ever could, and rather than listen when she tells them why something can't be done, they insist that she must be obstructing them on purpose and threaten to kill her and/or disband the alliance at almost every turn.

* StarfishLanguage: Glossolalia, the Rephaite tongue, is the [[PrimordialTongue ancient language of the æther]] and the language of spirits. It's implied to be impossible to learn for humans, with the exception of julkers -- a type of fourth-order clairvoyant.

* AppropriatedAppellation: The new alias Paige chooses for herself, Black Moth, is a MeaningfulEcho of the speech Gomeisa Sargas gave her about how humans are like moths. At the time, he was pointing out the weak, pitiful, self-destructive nature of humanity, but she appropriates it for the allusion to a short-lived life that ends in fire, matching her determination to bring down Scion even if it means sacrificing herself.

* BigBadEnsemble: With Scion, Rag and Bone Man and [[spoiler:The Abbess]] in ''The Mime Order''.