History Characters / TheMagicians

* CrossingTheBrokenBridge: When he first returns to Brakebills, he's very vocal in proclaiming himself superior to Dean Fogg and everyone else at the school, clearly believing that he's never going to be back there ever again. After [[spoiler: getting kicked out of Fillory]], he's forced to eat his words and ask the Dean for a job; to his immense relief, Fogg actually gives it to him.

* DeanBitterman: He's not necessarily mean ''per se'', but he's definitely blunt and obstinate.

* VodkaDunkenski: Notably steals half of Quentin's glass of vodka during the mid-lesson break before letting him have a drink. ''The Magician's Land'' confirms that he's an alcoholic, though vodka isn't always available to him, so he makes do by creating moonshine from lichens.

* MoodSwinger: Known for swinging wildly between periods of excitability and crippling depression as the series continued.

* ChekhovMIA: Much like Martin, she eventually fell out of contact with the rest of her family and went AWOL. [[spoiler: She turns out to have been the Watcherwoman all along, trying to save Fillory from the Beast that Martin ultimately became.]]
* TheQuietOne: Known for being quite withdrawn as a five-year-old; her one-sentence response to Martin's first visit to Fillory was considered quite wordy by her standards.

* CallingCard: The Clock Trees.
* ChekhovsGunman
* TheChessmaster

* [[spoiler: HiddenAgendaVillain: Well, if you can call her a villain at all...]]
* [[spoiler: HotWitch]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: As the Watcherwoman she's supposed to be bringing about a variation of this where the world will be permanently at sunset.
* NoOntologicalInertia: After her watch is destroyed she starts aging really quickly.
* [[spoiler: NotEvilJustMisunderstood]]

* TimeMaster
* TheWatchmaker

* CynicalMentor

* FatBastard
* GentlemanWizard

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: To Quentin in the second book, anyway.

* BreakTheHaughty: What Quentin tries to do to him by sabotaging one of his spells.[[spoiler: [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Instead, the spell gets the Beast's attention, resulting in the entire class being frozen in time, and one of the students being eaten alive.]] Smooth move, Quentin.]]

* HotTeacher

* TheAloner: What he apparently spends his spare time as.

* CynicalMentor
* DareToBeBadass: Delivers at least two of these kind of speeches to his students.
* DragonRider: Quentin remembers Mayakovsky telling him that he road on the back of a dragon when they stormed the Neitherlands. But Quentin can't remember if he actually said this or if it was a drunk hallucination.
* TheExile: His reassignment is treated more like exile given that he's essentially banished to a remote outpost, alone except for the fourth-year students that are sent to learn from him, and unable to leave — or at the very least, unable to return to Brakebills' main campus except to make sure that the portal returning the fourth-year students has worked properly.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold
* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong
* PerpetualMotionMachine: Has built one.

* SadistTeacher: Having the entire attending class muted so as to stop them from being distracted was just ''one'' of his ways of tormenting students. True, he does have [[PetTheDog sympathetic moments]], but still...

* SoProudOfYou: To Quentin at the end of the final exam.

* NotSoAboveItAll: As aloof as he may be, he occasionally reveals that he's not above enjoying the company of others and other things he normally considers beneath him. In [[spoiler: the second book]], upon unexpectedly getting kissed, Penny actually cracks a smile.]]

* BrutalHonesty: One of his specialties. In fact, almost immediately after Quentin awakes from passing the entrance exam, Fogg barely gives him a minute to rub the sleep out of his eyes before dropping bombshells on him. Then, after Quentin and Penny have just recovered from beating the crap out of each other, he shows up to provide a lecture on what would happen if they'd been stupid enough to use combat magic thoughtlessly.

* ApocalypticLog: Writes his own instalment of the ''Fillory'' series while waiting to die in World War II, adding a barbed ending in the dim hope that Ember and Umber might save him.

* TheFundamentalist: After Fillory, she moved to Texan and spent the rest of her days as a Christian Evangelist.

* [[spoiler: SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]

* {{Escapism}}: As he spent more time in Fillory, he grew more and more contemptuous of the real world, fixating on Fillory's positive elements to the exclusion of all else - never realizing the CrapsaccharineNature of the place - to the point that he fled into the wilderness of Fillory and never came back.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. [[spoiler: Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.]]

* FreeRangeChildren: Saddled with a guardian who could barely spare a glance in their direction and living in a time before social services would have intervened, the Chatwin children took to roaming around the neighbourhood at will in search of new portals to Fillory. In fact, they met Christopher Plover by happening to barge into his house one day; [[spoiler: deconstructed - this lack of supervision resulting in Martin getting mollested by Christopher Plover.]]

** In the third book, he fires Quentin for failing to banish a Niffin that's been haunting the school; though Quentin had a good reason for refusing to do so - [[spoiler: namely that said Niffin was Alice]] - Fogg was more than justified for being pissed off with him, given how destructive Niffins can be. Perhaps recognizing this, Quentin doesn't protest the dean's ruling at all.

* PetTheDog: A very odd sort; during a particularly grueling stage of Quentin's exercises, Mayakovsky appears with a tray of food and drink and allows him time to recover. Then, just before Quentin digs in, he slaps him across the face and says, "That was for doubting yourself."

* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: It's a mild case, but he tends to think of himself superior to the inhabitants of whatever world he just left behind; when he's accepted into Brakebills, he looks down on {{Muggles}}; when he aces his exam and enters second year early, he looks down on the fist years; when he leaves the magical world, he believes himself more sensible and mature than the magicians who fund his new lifestyle; when he returns to Brakebills after a long stay in Fillory, he gets very vocal in the belief that he and Julia are better than any of the faculty there.

* JumpedAtTheCall: Once he learns what Brakebills really is, he barely gives it a moment's thought before catapulting himself into the wizarding school of his dreams. [[spoiler: Subverted when it comes to Fillory, which he's much more cautious about; it takes his growing dissatisfaction with life and the collapse of his relationship with Alice to get him enthusiastic about the journey.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: When he walks naked to the South Pole. He levels up again after he [[spoiler: studies magic by himself in the Centaur monastery]].
* TookALevelInJerkass: After graduating, Quentin's growing lack of purpose leads him into a hedonistic period where [[spoiler: he drunkenly cheats on Alice; then when Alice gets fed up with him and screws Penny, he turns extremely petulant and starts making everyone around him miserable - most prominently threatening Penny.]] It takes the disastrous aftermath of his first journey to Fillory and his encounter with Emily Greenstreet to clean up his act.

* NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech: Delivers one of these to herself in ''Alice's Story,'' finally overcoming her inner lack of confidence while on the UltimateFinalExam and challenging the world to "stand aside and watch me burn."
* NotQuiteBackToNormal:
** Following the transformation classes at Brakebills South - during which Alice and Quentin have sex while in arctic fox form - Alice experiences another dramatic spike in confidence, turning down Mayakovsky's ingredients and tackling the finale exam on her own. She attributes this to having a few fox traits left over from the transformation.
** Much, ''much'' later, [[spoiler: Alice's transformation into a Niffin is undone, returning her to human form. In the final pages of ''The Magician's Land,'' though, Quentin notices that Alice's eyes are now a very intense shade of blue, indicating that she still retains a tiny bit of her Niffin self.]]

* UnderestimatingBadassery: Fogg is considered a bit of a joke by the students, who don't get to see him perform much magic over the course of an average day; as such, they're rather startled when he leads the rescue attempt, organising the teachers with great efficiency. The ceremony in which he [[spoiler: summons a bevvy of Cacodemons into the graduating students]] just about seals the deal.

[[folder: Amanda Orloff]]

!!Denizens of Fillory

[[folder: Ember]]

[[folder: The Watcherwoman]]
!!The Watcherwoman AKA [[spoiler: "the paramedic"]], AKA [[spoiler: Jane Chatwin.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees.
* ChekhovsGunman
* TheChessmaster
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. [[spoiler: Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* HarmlessVillain: Adult readers of the Fillory books see her as a bit of a joke, with no real villainous actions to her name apart from her goal of freezing time in Fillory. [[spoiler:In fact, the only reason why she's seen as a villain in the first place is because her experiments in time travel were ultimately misinterpreted by the Chatwin children.]]
* [[spoiler: HiddenAgendaVillain: Well, if you can call her a villain at all...]]
* [[spoiler: HotWitch]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: As the Watcherwoman she's supposed to be bringing about a variation of this where the world will be permanently at sunset.
* NoOntologicalInertia: After her watch is destroyed she starts aging really quickly.
* [[spoiler: NotEvilJustMisunderstood]]
* [[spoiler: SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* TimeMaster
* TheWatchmaker

[[folder: Dint]]

[[folder: Fen]]
* KungFuWizard

[[folder: The Beast]]
!! The Beast, AKA [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin]]

* ABeastInNameAndNature: Named "the Beast" by the Brakebills faculty for want of a better title - as absolutely nothing is known about him when he first appears; the title itself is a reference to the fact that he's believed to be an extension of a full-blown EldritchAbomination hidden in another world... but also to the fact that he eats [[spoiler: Amanda Orloff]] alive in his first appearance.
* BigBad: The true villain of the first book, around which the story secretly revolves.
* TheCaligula: Having declared himself the unofficial ruler of Fillory, he's this from beginning to end.
* CloudCuckoolander: Very dark example, needless to say; he spends most of his first appearance acting on every single random impulse that crosses his mind, paring his fingernails with a knife, testing magic spells, pausing to [[spoiler: devour Amanda Orloff alive]] and leaving whilst singing a nursery rhyme.
* CountryMatters: Refers to the Watcherwoman as one.
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler:''The Magician's Land'' reveals that his monstrous aspect is actually due to him making a deal with Umber, exchanging his humanity for a permanent stay in Fillory.]]
* DeathlyUnmasking: [[spoiler: In the final confrontation at Ember's Tomb, he finally does away with the leafy branch covering his face, revealing himself to be none other than Martin Chatwin. Soon after, the branch ends up getting burned away along with the rest of his clothes during the climactic WizardDuel between him and Alice, and after finally making use of a DeadlyUpgrade, his opponent is able to rip his head off.]]
* DyingAsYourself: Not exactly. [[spoiler: He's seen in the afterlife in the second book. He's turned back into a normal human schoolboy.]]
* EldritchAbomination: It's believed that the Beast is just a protrusion of something much worse inspecting our world. [[spoiler: This is eventually proven wrong, but to be honest, [[HumanoidAbomination the reality isn't much better]].]]
* [[spoiler: EvilBrit]]
* TheFaceless: The Beast always appears with a leafy branch hovering just in front of his face, and only removes it during the final battle.
* FreudianExcuse: Close to the end of the novel, [[spoiler: Jane Chatwin]] tells us that [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin was molested as a child — by the future author of the Fillory series — and only entered Fillory in an attempt to escape]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: [[spoiler: Started off as an ordinary kid with a little experience with Fillory, before his unaddressed traumas drove him to flee into Fillory and never return.]]
* FullFrontalAssault: Though his body itself isn't so easily destroyed, his clothes are burned away during the magical barrage of the final battle, leaving the Beast to continue his attack stark naked.
* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: Eats Amanda Orloff alive; later, bites off Penny's hands and swallows them whole. Not long after, he admits to have developed quite a taste for sapient meat, and then starts taking bites out of Quentin.]]
* [[spoiler: HumanoidAbomination]]
* KnightOfCerebus: Each of his appearances leads to the story taking a far darker turn, with consequential character deaths.
* ManBitesMan: [[spoiler: What he does to Penny's hands and Quentin's collarbone]].
* MoodSwinger: Goes from playing around with spells to punching a clock, from [[spoiler: eating Amanda Orloff alive]] to exiting with a song. Plus, in his second appearance, his mood turns on another dime and he begins screaming in rage, even dropping a C-bomb. [[spoiler: As it happens, Martin Chatwin was known to suffer from mood swings and fits of depression when he was still human, likely stemming from his abuse at the hands of Christopher Plover.]]
* NighInvulnerable: The Beast is just about unstoppable in combat; the Physical Kids might be able to knock him about and burn his suit away, but even Alice's library of spells can't kill him. [[spoiler: Hence why she has to resort to becoming a Niffin.]]
* PsychopathicManchild: Notable for his exceptionally childlike behaviour, even leaving the scene of his first appearance while singing a lullaby; fitting, considering that [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin was — at the most — an adolescent when he ran away from home.]]
* RedRightHand: The Beast appears completely human except for three or four extra fingers on each hand.
* SizeShifter: Magically increases his size to keep up with Alice's transformations, turning the whole thing into a ShapeshifterShowdown.
* SorcerousOverlord: [[spoiler: One of the most powerful hedge-wizards in the entire series, ruling over Fillory as its king in all but name; once Quentin summons him into Ember's Tomb, he's able to claim the crown and make it official.]]
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: Under the branch, he looks more like an accountant than anything else.
* TimeStandsStill: Makes his entrance by stopping time for everyone in a lecture hall of Brakebills.
* TunelessSongOfMadness: The earliest hint that he has a human intellect with a very tenuous grasp of sanity is when he begins idly singing "Bye, Baby Bunting" not long after killing [[spoiler: Amanda Orloff.]]
* [[spoiler: WasOnceAMan]]

!! The Real World

[[folder: Julia]]
!! Julia Wicker

One of Quentin's oldest friends. Originally introduced in the first book as a tertiary character, she becomes a protagonist in the second.

* AmnesiaMissedASpot: Took the entrance exam to Brakebills alongside Quentin, only to fail and have her memory erased with all the other failing applicants. However, thanks to an out-of-character alibi provided for her, she soon uncovers her real memories of what happened.
* AscendedExtra: In the first book she was a background character, and something of a mystery. In ''The Magician King'' the narrative is split between Quentin in the present day and what happened to her during the first book.
* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: Already having become a demi-goddess, she eventually goes on to travel to the other side of Fillory, a world yet to be created that is to Fillory as Fillory is to Earth.]]
* BenevolentMageRuler: Serves as one of the four monarchs of the land, and despite her grim demeanour, the people absolutely love her.
* BlackEyesOfEvil: At one point in the second book, she ends up casting a spell with the side-effect of turning her eyes black — permanently. When she returns to the real world, she has to cover them with a pair of sunglasses.
* BloodMagic: Cuts her thumb and puts it to the ignition in order to magically hotwire a car.
* BrokenBird
* TheCallPutMeOnHold
* CantStayNormal: After realizing that she'll never be admitted to Brakebills, Julia finally decides to admit defeat and opt to pursue a normal life with what little remains of her mundane potential... only to end up blundering directly into a magical safehouse, plunging herself right back into the lifestyle of an obsessive hedge-magician.
* ChildhoodFriends: With Quentin.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: We can tell almost from her re-introduction in the first book that she is pretty badly traumatized, but the full cause is not revealed until close to the end of the second.
* DarkMagicalGirl
* DespairEventHorizon: Julia finally abandons her attempts to study magic after her meeting with Quentin in the cemetery, having realized that he's fallen in love with someone else and has found somewhere that he can be happy - somewhere that she can never reach. Giving in to her depression, she miserably accepts that she's never going to learn magic and opts to recover her mundane life. She eventually recovers from this initiative-crushing moment when she makes contact with the magical safehouses... though perhaps "recovery" [[SanitySlippage might not be the right word to use under the circumstances.]]
* UsefulNotes/{{Depression}}: After uncovering the truth behind her missing memories and growing obsessed with Brakebills, Julia begins suffering brutal attacks of depression that leave her too crushed to function - especially once she believes that she's failed. She eventually starts attending an online support group known as the Free Trader Beowulf Group... which just so happens to be her ticket back into the world of magic.
* TheDeterminator: She is going to learn magic, dammit, no matter what it takes. Even if it means abandoning all opportunities for a prosperous life in the mundane world, disappointing her family and [[spoiler: prostituting herself to hedge-wizards.]]
* DrowningMySorrows: During the second book, Julia demonstrates an ability to drink incredible quantities of booze; as he learns more about her past traumas, Quentin begins to suspect that she's trying to anesthetize herself or cauterize a wound. Unfortunately, Julia can't get drunk anymore.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: She starts to look this way when she dyes her hair black and loses a lot of weight after being rejected from Brakebills.
* GothGirlsKnowMagic: After she's rejected from Brakebills and still remembers, she dyes her hair and starts wearing black.
* HappinessRealizedTooLate: Julia finds herself participating in the Free Trader Beowulf Group's attempt to [[spoiler: summon a goddess in order to attain ultimate truth and happiness]]. However, just as the ritual is on the verge of completion, she realizes that she doesn't actually want or need anything this final experiment could provide: she's already perfectly happy as a member of the FTB; she has friends who understand her, she has all the intellectual challenges she could ever want, and best of all she's studying magic as she always dreamed of doing... but by now, it's too late to protest. [[spoiler: The ritual ends up summoning a monstrous Trickster God who slaughters most of Julia's friends, then grants her the knowledge that the group wanted - by brutally raping her and tearing her soul out.]]
* HopeSpot: In ''The Magician King,'' Julia has several moments when it looks like she might be able to recover from her obsessions and be happy... only for things to blow up in her face.
** First, she uncovers a working spell from the Internet ''and'' manages to conclusively prove to herself that she isn't insane when she manages to get Quentin to admit that Breakbills is real. Unfortunately, Quentin turns down her requests for help.
** After this, she manages to recover one of her college offers, repair her relationship with her family, get a job, and even find a place in a support group. For a while, it looks as if she'll be able to stay normal, happy and sane... and then one of her rambling walks takes her right onto the doorstep of a magical safehouse. Back into obsession she goes...
** Finally, her time with the Free Trader Beowulf group in Murs is the happiest time in her life: she has magic, she has intellectual challenges to keep her stimulated, and she has a new family that understands and loves her. [[spoiler: And then Renard comes along and kills all but one of the FTB group, then rapes Julia for good measure.]]
* InhumanEyeConcealers: Early in ''The Magician King,'' Julia casts a spell that turns her eyes pitch-black as a side-effect. All well and good up while she's in the magical land of Fillory, but when Quentin and Julia end up accidentally returning to Earth, she's forced to acquire a pair of sunglasses so unexpecting Muggles aren't freaked out.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: After hitting the DespairEventHorizon in her efforts to learn magic, she decides to cut her loses and rejoin the normal world, making amends for disappointing her parents, even studying hard to reclaim a place at one of the colleges she previously rejected.
* MarkOfTheSupernatural: During ''The Magician King,'' the physical side-effects of Julia's spells linger and in many cases remain permanent; initially, this is a simple case of BlackEyesOfEvil, but then her heart begins glowing in the dark so brightly that it can be seen through her body, and then a spell to enhance her height for a major battle results in her turning into a giant full-time. [[spoiler: As a dryad, she looks much more human - except for her skin, which is like pale wood.]]
* MegaNeko: Rides a giant talking civet in Fillory.
* NatureSpirit: [[spoiler: Ends up getting turned into a dryad with her own tree by Our Lady Underground.]]
* NeverGetsDrunk: Noted for her ability to tolerate inhuman quantities of alcohol in the second book, ultimately revealing that she can't get drunk at all.
* OutDamnedSpot: In ''The Magician King,'' Eliot mentions that Julia was in the habit of obsessively taking steam-baths at the spa where they first met, often cranking up the heat so high that nobody could bear to be in the same room as her. [[spoiler: This ultimately turns out to be a consequences of her traumatic encounter with Renard, which resulted in Julia being raped and all but one of her friends murdered; for good measure, Julia left this encounter covered in blood.]]
* RapeAsBackstory: After witnessing Julia's descent into depression, her mother actually has to ask if she's been raped. [[spoiler: And then, horrifically enough, Julia actually ''does'' end up getting raped by Renard the Fox, resulting in her ongoing transformation into a borderline HumanoidAbomination.]]
* RapeLeadsToInsanity: Justified. [[spoiler: Julia goes completely bonkers after Reynard the Fox rapes her, but that has as much to do with him stealing her soul in the process as the rape itself.]]
* RefusedByTheCall
* TheResenter
* SanitySlippage: Given that the memory wipe only ''partially'' worked, Julia is lumbered with an entire memory running contrary to both reality and what had supposedly happened on the day of her exam; as a result, she ends up becoming depressive, paranoid, and so fixated on the magical world that she disregards almost all of her college offers. Then, after a brief return to normality, she dives headlong into the deep end of Hedge-Wizardry and joining the Free Trader Beowulf group, which opens her up to further sanity slippage.
* SexForServices: At her lowest point in the first book, she offered to sleep with Quentin in exchange for magical secrets. [[spoiler:He refuses, but we find out in the second book that she later successfully made similar deals with several men in the safehouse scene.]]
* SpockSpeak: In Quentin's parts of the novel, Julia tends to speak in short, clipped sentences, often without contractions. [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed that this is one of the side effects of her continuing transformation into a demigod.]]
* ThatManIsDead: [[spoiler: When she finally manages to recover from her trauma and ascend to the level of a dryad, she makes it clear that as positive as this transformation is, she can't go back to the happy-go-lucky girl she once was; the old Julia is dead and isn't coming back.]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Made clear when she shows up at the end of the first book as a Hedge-Witch powerful enough to join Eliot and Janet in flying off to retrieve Quentin. The extent of her power and its origins aren't made clear up until the second book, though.
* WanderingWalkOfMadness: After being denied her chance to learn magic and setting out to rebuild her life, Julia Wicker took to obsessively walking across town, usually while remaining glued to her smartphone and instinctively dodging obstacles. Quite apart from being the first indication that her apparent recovery from depression wasn't so successful as it first seemed, her walking ultimately led her to a Hedge-Wizard safehouse, and from there, right into learning serious magic - resulting in even more SanitySlippage.
* YouthfulFreckles: Julia has them. It’s mentioned that they clash with her {{Goth}} appearance later on. [[spoiler: As a dryad, she no longer seems to possess them, further driving home the fact that her old self is gone forever.]]

[[folder: Emily Greenstreet]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Styles herself as a sweet girl who was just a victim of evil magic, yet strung along Alice's brother for no good reason and ended up using him as a healing resource instead of seeking out professional help - getting him effectively killed in the process. For good measure, she has no problem living a parasitic existence dependent on the funding of the magicians she claims to hate and mistrust.
* CareerRevealingTrait: Quentin instantly recognizes Emily as a fellow Brakebills alumnus by the overdeveloped musculature of her hands and fingers, acquired as a result of years spent practicing ridiculously complex gestures.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Subverted — she only ''thinks'' she's one of these. In reality, she's just making excuses for just how miserable she really is.
* FacialHorror: Accidentally inflicted this on herself while trying to pretty herself up for Mayakovsky. The novel doesn't go into much detail, though the brief glimpse we get in ''Alice's Story'' indicates that her nose was destroyed. According to Janet, even after having her face repaired, Emily looks quite different today.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Seems quite content to go through life believing that magic and its practitioners are the source of all the world's ills while at the same time working a job provided for her by Dean Fogg and enchanted to disguise the fact that she does absolutely nothing.
* NeverMyFault: Emily blames the death of her boyfriend on magic, claiming that it would have happened regardless of what she did; however, it's made clear that Charlie's death was due to her a) stringing him along while pining for Mayakovsky, b) accidentally disfiguring herself while trying to make herself more attractive for Professor Sexypants, and c) Charlie trying to heal her but being too upset to work magic calmly and transforming into a Niffin. She even serves as an enabler to Quentin's own version of this trope, before he finally realizes he can't blame magic and he can't stop dodging the blame for a disaster he helped cause, and leaves her.
* TheSlacker: Not only does she spend her days pretending to hold down a real job while under full support of the Brakebills old boys' network, but she's too lazy to even make her idea of TheUnmasquedWorld a reality.
* VainSorceress: A failed version, having disfigured herself with magic.
* WindmillCrusader: Apparently believes that Bakebills is populated entirely by human nuclear bombs waiting to go off, and believes that someone has to break the {{Masquerade}} and bring the whole thing into the public eye... and judging by her frankly delusional idea of what magic is, it's best not to imagine what she hopes would happen next. Not only does Emily not have the ambition to make her demented beliefs a reality, but she's completely wrong: [[spoiler: when the big apocalyptic disaster ''does'' occur, it's not due to the Brakebills crowd at all - who actually instruct their students ''not'' to screw around with forbidden knowledge - but due to a group of Hedge-Wizards.]]
* WrongGenreSavvy: Emily seems to be under the impression that she's the virtuous hero of a story in which the brave DefectorFromDecadence leaves pure evil magic and all its EvilSorcerer practitioners behind before they can cause an apocalypse, and finds love in the arms of a fellow defector. In reality, most magicians are too busy wasting time to bother with an apocalypse, and Quentin ends up so turned off by her attitude that he can't stand to remain in her presence.

! Introduced in ''The Magician King''
!! Magicians
[[folder: Warren]]

[[folder: Poppy]]
!! Poppy
* AwesomeAussie: An Australian magician with a thing for dragons, a go-getter attitude and an impressive ability to adapt. After witnessing Poppy flourishing in her first battle, Quentin assumes she grew up fighting dingoes.
* BrutalHonesty: One of her main traits is that she always speaks the truth about a situation, but she never does it in a cruel manner or mean spirit.
* LeeroyJenkins: Tends to just charge in when others are moving cautiously. For example, when Josh and Julia are still discussing what they should be doing in the swamp, she just jumps right in, not knowing this is what they were supposed to do to reach Castle Blackspire.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Despite her BrutalHonesty, she will engage in whimsical activities such as jumping into the river with Quentin to contact the dragon, for the simple reason of it doubling their chances, even though the river is disgusting. She also becomes Quentin's second major love interest, but ends up with Josh after Quentin is forced to leave Fillory by Ember at the end of the second book.
* NervesOfSteel: Proves astonishingly calm under fire, especially in her first battle; by contrast, Quentin and the other Physical Kids spent their first battle struggling to be of any use.
* OnlySaneMan: Regards Quentin’s obsession with Fillory as bizarre and slightly unhealthy, pointing out that he’s ignoring the better parts of reality by accentuating the disappointing elements. For his part, Quentin has trouble believing that someone so practical could ever become a magician.

!!The Free Trader Beowulf group

[[folder: Asmodeus]]
!! Asmodeus, AKA [[spoiler: Betty]]

* FemmeFatale: [[spoiler: Adopts this as her persona while working in the magical underworld after her run in with Reynard.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler: After acquiring the knife with Quentin’s help, she leaves the story with the goal of hunting down Renard.]]
* ImprobableAge: She is the youngest member of Free Trader Beowulf, at around seventeen. Julia wonders a few times how she managed to become a hedge witch so young, and where her parents are.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler:Asmodeus eventually uses the knife from the heist to gut Reynard like a fish, as told by Julia near the end of the trilogy]].
* RageAgainstTheHeavens: [[spoiler: After the encounter with Reynard, Asmodeus begins looking for a way to get revenge on him.]]

[[folder: Pouncy Silverkitten]]
!! Pouncy Silverkitten

* BrokenAce: A handsome, intelligent and successful young man who’s also a powerful magician but [[spoiler:he has suffered from terrible clinical depression all his life, to the point where he has given up on finding happiness on earth and only hopes that the deity the group is trying to summon will take him with her into heaven.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Known for his “acid sarcasm.” It turns out to be of the [[StepfordSnarker Stepford]] variety.
* HeavenSeeker: [[spoiler: Wants to summon a goddess for the sole purpose of escaping his depression-plagued life and being taken to Heaven.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Tragically subverted, Reynard the Fox wounds him, and then he offers to give his life to save Asmo and Julia. Reynard dismisses it, saying he’s dying anyway.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: His desire to summon a deity ends up getting him and most of his enclave killed, getting Julia raped and deprived of her soul, and leaving Asmodeus horribly traumatised. Worse still, his experiments end up getting the attention of the Gods and prompting them to “fix” reality - an act that would have wiped out magic everywhere and destroyed Fillory.]]
* NonIdleRich: Is the one who funds the Murs enclave, and one of the driving forces behind finding out how to harness the magic of the Gods.
* TheTeamBenefactor

[[folder: Failstaff]]
!! Failstaff
* BigFun: Failstaff's main character traits are that he is large, and he is one of the nicest members of Free Trader Beowulf

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Bingles]]
!! Bingles
* BarehandedBladeBlock: Distinguishes himself in the tournament by catching his opponent’s sword between the palms of his hands.
* CoolSword: Gains a magic sword during his adventures at sea.
* DramaQueen: Prone to making melodramatic statements.
* MasterSwordsman: A brilliant swordfighter and the last man standing in the tournament Quentin arranges. He’s so skilled that he’s capable of keeping pace with Julia.

[[folder: Benedict]]
!! Benedict]]
* EmoTeen: An angsty teenager who reminds Quentin a lot of himself when he was younger. Grows out of it while searching for Quentin on the Muntjac, and seems much happier when he meets up with Quentin again a year later.
* MoodSwinger: [[spoiler: Stranded in the afterlife, he swings wildly from nihilistic despair to bitter hatred of Quentin and everything he stands for, from pitiable begging to selfless efforts to save the day.]]
* UndignifiedDeath: [[spoiler: Shot in the throat before he can even join his first battle. Even Benedict's shade thinks this was a pretty humiliating way to die.]]

[[folder: Abigail the Sloth]]

[[folder: Elaine]]

[[folder: Eleanore]]

!! Gods and Other Entities
[[folder: The Grand Canal Dragon]]

[[folder: Renard]]

[[folder: Our Lady Underground]]

[[folder: The Old Gods]]

! Introduced in ''The Magician's Land''
!! The Heist Team
[[folder: Plum]]

[[folder: The Blackbird]]

[[folder: Lionel]]

[[folder: Pushkar]]

[[folder: Stoppard]]

[[folder: "Betsy"]]

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Vile Father]]

[[folder: The Prince of the Mud]]

* DefectorFromDecadence: Subverted — she only ''thinks'' she's one of these. In reality, she's just making excuses for just how miserable sh really is.

! Introduced in ''The Magician's Land

The protagonist of the story, but certainly not the hero. Intelligent but childish, imaginative but oblivious to the feelings of others, he is deeply dissatisfied with reality (and pretty much anywhere else he ends up sooner or later). Quentin believes that becoming a magician or finding Fillory will solve all his life's problems and make him happy. It doesn't.

* BenevolentMageRuler: In Fillory. It's how the second book got its name.

** LovableAlphaBitch: What she is most of the time; though bossy and promiscuous, she binds the group together in celebration and work alike.
* BenevolentMageRuler: In Fillory.

* CharacterDevelopment: Janet got some of this during her time as regent; a chapter of the third book has her detailing a three-month trip to [[ItMakesSenseInContext annex a desert]] that led to much introspection.

* OutOfFocus: Out of all the Physical Kids, she arguably got the least amount of focus in the first book, lacking the serious one-on-one moments of vulnerability of Alice, Josh and Eliot; even her biggest scene features her talking about someone else.

[[folder: Anaïs]]
!!Anaïs
* AdaptedOut: Doesn't appear in ''Alice's Story.''
* BloodKnight: After the first fight, she starts to enjoy killing things with magic a little too much.
* HotWitch
* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: From one of the European schools, she's first introduced as the captain of another team during the Welters tournament. Her accent is described as Pan-European, and all of the boys of the welters teams and [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer some of the girls]] are immediately smitten with her.
* ShockAndAwe: Makes use of lightning-based magic in the final battle.

[[folder: Richard]]
!!Richard
* AdaptedOut: Makes no appearance in ''Alice's Story.''
* ChangedMyMindKid: During the journey to Fillory, Richard decides that the place is too dangerous for them and resolves to stay behind at the inn while the others journeyed to Ember's Tomb. Though Quentin is unconscious at the time, he eventually learns that Richard had a change of heart not long after and rescued them from the maze of tunnels after the final battle, essentially saving the day.
* TheComicallySerious: A rather blunt, humorless type, he ends up setting the stage for one of the funnier parts of the first book by getting completely shitfaced and proposing the idea that magic is divine in origin.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Joyless stick in the mud though he may be, Richard is right in pointing out that the journey through Fillory is a really stupid idea that's probably going to get somebody hurt or killed. [[spoiler: By the end of the journey, Quentin has been chewed on, Penny is missing his hands, and Alice is a Niffin and thus effectively dead.]]
* NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus: Subverted — Richard believes that magic is "The Tools of God." True to the trope, though, nobody takes this very seriously, partly because Christianity isn't very popular among most magicians, but mostly because of the logical problems of the argument. [[spoiler: He's actually more or less right though, it's just that there are more gods than he counted on.]]
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After it becomes clear that the group is seeking an extremely dangerous quest instead of exploration, Richard parks his ass in the tavern and refuses to join them. [[spoiler: As it turns out, he had the right idea all along, though he changes his mind just long enough to save Quentin and the others from Ember's Tomb.]]
* StraightMan: Appropriately enough, he acts as this to Eliot during one notable argument.
* TheStoic: During arguments, anyway.

!!The Brakebills Faculty
[[folder: Dean Fogg]]
!!Henry Fogg
* BrutalHonesty: One of his specialties. In fact, almost immediately after Quentin awakes from passing the entrance exam, Fogg barely gives him a minute to rub the sleep out of his eyes before dropping bombshells on him. Then, after Quentin and Penny have just recovered from beating the crap out of each other, he shows up to provide a lecture on what would happen if they'd been stupid enough to use combat magic thoughtlessly.
* ChekhovsClassroom: He introduces the concept of Niffins, which comes in handy later in the book.
* ChekhovsGift: [[spoiler: The Cacodemons he gives to graduating students as a defense mechanism.]]
* CynicalMentor
* DeanBitterman: He's not necessarily mean ''per se'', but he's definitely blunt and obstinate.
* FatBastard
* GentlemanWizard
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: To Quentin in the second book, anyway.
* UnderestimatingBadassery: Fogg is considered a bit of a joke by the students, who don't get to see him perform much magic over the course of an average day; as such, they're rather startled when he leads the rescue attempt, organising the teachers with great efficiency. The ceremony in which he [[spoiler: summons a bevvy of Cacodemons into the graduating students]] just about seals the deal.

[[folder: Professor March]]
!! Professor March

* BreakTheHaughty: What Quentin tries to do to him by sabotaging one of his spells.[[spoiler: [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Instead, the spell gets the Beast's attention, resulting in the entire class being frozen in time, and one of the students being eaten alive.]] Smooth move, Quentin.]]
* FatBastard: Quentin expects he might be a BigFun type, but after enduring a few of his classes, comes to realize that March is actually kind of a hardass.
* FieryRedHead
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: The Beast's attack on his class shook him up so badly that he eventually resigned and fled Brakebills altogether.]]
* SternTeacher

[[folder: Professor Sunderland]]
!! Pearl Sunderland

* ExtraOreDinary: Apparently, her magical discipline is concerned with metallurgy.
* HotTeacher
* HotWitch
* [[IntangibleMan Intangible Woman]]: When the Faculty was attempting to break the Beast's hold on Professor March's classroom, Sunderland apparently tried to phase herself through the wall to reach the students. [[spoiler: It didn't work, which was probably for the best, considering that none of the Faculty would have been able to do much against the Beast had they managed to get into the building.]]

[[folder: Professor Bigby]]
!!Professor Bigby

* CoverBlowingSuperpower: Both his wings and his arcane Pixie magic.
* TheExile: Implies that he is a political refugee, ousted from power by a conspiracy in his home country.
* OurFairiesAreDifferent: Short, generally human in appearance, capable of powerful magic, and with a large set of concealable wings.
* PintsizedPowerhouse
* WingedHumanoid: Though when not in use, Bigby's four dragonfly wings stay invisible.

[[folder: Professor Mayakovsky]]
!!Professor Mayakovsky

* TheAloner: What he apparently spends his spare time as.
* TheArchmage: One of the most powerful magicians in the entire story.
* BadSanta: Quentin briefly wonders if he's some kind of Anti-Santa living at the South Pole, having his elves make lumps of coal for Anti-Christmas.
* CynicalMentor
* DareToBeBadass: Delivers at least two of these kind of speeches to his students.
* DragonRider: Quentin remembers Mayakovsky telling him that he road on the back of a dragon when they stormed the Neitherlands. But Quentin can't remember if he actually said this or if it was a drunk hallucination.
* TheExile: His reassignment is treated more like exile given that he's essentially banished to a remote outpost, alone except for the fourth-year students that are sent to learn from him, and unable to leave — or at the very least, unable to return to Brakebills' main campus except to make sure that the portal returning the fourth-year students has worked properly.
* HollywoodAcid: Invented a universal solvent that eats through any container you put it in so it has to be kept magically floating in mid-air.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold
* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong
* PerpetualMotionMachine: Has built one.
* PetTheDog: A very odd sort; during a particularly grueling stage of Quentin's exercises, Mayakovsky appears with a tray of food and drink and allows him time to recover. Then, just before Quentin digs in, he slaps him across the face and says, "That was for doubting yourself."
** Another, more straightforward variety appears at the end of Quentin's final exam, when Mayakovsky actually hugs him.
* PolarMadness: Not only inflicts this on students during their time trapped with him Antarctica, it's heavily implied that he's been personally suffering from this trope. Stories and flashbacks in the novels and comics alike indicate that he used to be much more relaxed prior to his reassignment. ''Now'' his only company is the band of Fourth-Year students sent to him every year, leaving him alone in the mind-numbing polar hellscape for long periods, and he's not allowed to leave except to check that the portal back to the main campus is working. With this in mind, it's perhaps no surprise that he's degenerated into the perfection-obsessed maniac he is today.
* PowerFloats: Emphasizes his first scene in ''Alice's Story,'' by very casually levitating above his newest students and floating out the door.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Literally, in this case. Despite being the most powerful magician on the entire faculty, Professor Myakovsky gets reassigned to "Brakebills South" in Antarctica after the debacle with Emily Greenstreet.
* ReedRichardsIsUseless: Simply doesn't care about using his inventions to help the world.
* ResignedInDisgrace: Following his disastrous affair with Emily Greenstreet, Mayakovsky was given a choice between resigning with his reputation in tattered, or being reassigned. Either out of pride or simply because he knew how purposeless his life would be without work, he opted to spend the rest of his career exiled to Antarctica.
* SadistTeacher: Having the entire attending class muted so as to stop them from being distracted was just ''one'' of his ways of tormenting students. True, he does have [[PetTheDog sympathetic moments]], but still...
* SevenLeagueBoots: [[UpToEleven Seven thousand league boots]] are among his inventions.
* ShockAndAwe: Told Quentin that he used lightning magic to shatter the bell jar over the Neitherlands. Quentin isn't sure if this happened, like the dragon riding mentioned above but it would explain why the Neitherlands suddenly has weather at the end of the second book.
* SoProudOfYou: To Quentin at the end of the final exam.
* TeacherStudentRomance: With Emily Greenstreet, portrayed in a non-romantic fashion born out of childish infatuation on Emily's part and a mid-life crisis on the part of Mayakovsky. According to Janet, it's not known just how far they took this little affair, though flashbacks in ''Alice's Story'' features them kissing while in various stages of undress, so it's likely they really did take it all the way into sex... up until Mayakovsky got cold feet and ended their affair.
* ThinkingUpPortals: How he gets students back to Brakebills.
* TrainingFromHell: The official provider of said training.
* WaxOnWaxOff: The first training exercises that Mayakovsky gives his students involve repeating a spell to hammer a nail into a piece of wood, eventually moving on to the next permutation of the spell once the first has been well and truly memorised. Quentin even references the Trope by name.

!!Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: The Watcherwoman]]
!!The Watcherwoman AKA [[spoiler: "the paramedic"]], AKA [[spoiler: Jane Chatwin.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees.
* ChekhovsGunman
* TheChessmaster
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. [[spoiler: Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* HarmlessVillain: Adult readers of the Fillory books see her as a bit of a joke, with no real villainous actions to her name apart from her goal of freezing time in Fillory. [[spoiler:In fact, the only reason why she's seen as a villain in the first place is because her experiments in time travel were ultimately misinterpreted by the Chatwin children.]]
* [[spoiler: HiddenAgendaVillain: Well, if you can call her a villain at all...]]
* [[spoiler: HotWitch]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: As the Watcherwoman she's supposed to be bringing about a variation of this where the world will be permanently at sunset.
* NoOntologicalInertia: After her watch is destroyed she starts aging really quickly.
* [[spoiler: NotEvilJustMisunderstood]]
* [[spoiler: SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* TimeMaster
* TheWatchmaker

[[folder: Dint]]

[[folder: Fen]]
* KungFuWizard

[[folder: The Beast]]
!! The Beast, AKA [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin]]

* ABeastInNameAndNature: Named "the Beast" by the Brakebills faculty for want of a better title - as absolutely nothing is known about him when he first appears; the title itself is a reference to the fact that he's believed to be an extension of a full-blown EldritchAbomination hidden in another world... but also to the fact that he eats [[spoiler: Amanda Orloff]] alive in his first appearance.
* BigBad: The true villain of the first book, around which the story secretly revolves.
* TheCaligula: Having declared himself the unofficial ruler of Fillory, he's this from beginning to end.
* CloudCuckoolander: Very dark example, needless to say; he spends most of his first appearance acting on every single random impulse that crosses his mind, paring his fingernails with a knife, testing magic spells, pausing to [[spoiler: devour Amanda Orloff alive]] and leaving whilst singing a nursery rhyme.
* CountryMatters: Refers to the Watcherwoman as one.
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler:''The Magician's Land'' reveals that his monstrous aspect is actually due to him making a deal with Umber, exchanging his humanity for a permanent stay in Fillory.]]
* DeathlyUnmasking: [[spoiler: In the final confrontation at Ember's Tomb, he finally does away with the leafy branch covering his face, revealing himself to be none other than Martin Chatwin. Soon after, the branch ends up getting burned away along with the rest of his clothes during the climactic WizardDuel between him and Alice, and after finally making use of a DeadlyUpgrade, his opponent is able to rip his head off.]]
* DyingAsYourself: Not exactly. [[spoiler: He's seen in the afterlife in the second book. He's turned back into a normal human schoolboy.]]
* EldritchAbomination: It's believed that the Beast is just a protrusion of something much worse inspecting our world. [[spoiler: This is eventually proven wrong, but to be honest, [[HumanoidAbomination the reality isn't much better]].]]
* [[spoiler: EvilBrit]]
* TheFaceless: The Beast always appears with a leafy branch hovering just in front of his face, and only removes it during the final battle.
* FreudianExcuse: Close to the end of the novel, [[spoiler: Jane Chatwin]] tells us that [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin was molested as a child — by the future author of the Fillory series — and only entered Fillory in an attempt to escape]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: [[spoiler: Started off as an ordinary kid with a little experience with Fillory, before his unaddressed traumas drove him to flee into Fillory and never return.]]
* FullFrontalAssault: Though his body itself isn't so easily destroyed, his clothes are burned away during the magical barrage of the final battle, leaving the Beast to continue his attack stark naked.
* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: Eats Amanda Orloff alive; later, bites off Penny's hands and swallows them whole. Not long after, he admits to have developed quite a taste for sapient meat, and then starts taking bites out of Quentin.]]
* [[spoiler: HumanoidAbomination]]
* KnightOfCerebus: Each of his appearances leads to the story taking a far darker turn, with consequential character deaths.
* ManBitesMan: [[spoiler: What he does to Penny's hands and Quentin's collarbone]].
* MoodSwinger: Goes from playing around with spells to punching a clock, from [[spoiler: eating Amanda Orloff alive]] to exiting with a song. Plus, in his second appearance, his mood turns on another dime and he begins screaming in rage, even dropping a C-bomb. [[spoiler: As it happens, Martin Chatwin was known to suffer from mood swings and fits of depression when he was still human, likely stemming from his abuse at the hands of Christopher Plover.]]
* NighInvulnerable: The Beast is just about unstoppable in combat; the Physical Kids might be able to knock him about and burn his suit away, but even Alice's library of spells can't kill him. [[spoiler: Hence why she has to resort to becoming a Niffin.]]
* PsychopathicManchild: Notable for his exceptionally childlike behaviour, even leaving the scene of his first appearance while singing a lullaby; fitting, considering that [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin was — at the most — an adolescent when he ran away from home.]]
* RedRightHand: The Beast appears completely human except for three or four extra fingers on each hand.
* SizeShifter: Magically increases his size to keep up with Alice's transformations, turning the whole thing into a ShapeshifterShowdown.
* SorcerousOverlord: [[spoiler: One of the most powerful hedge-wizards in the entire series, ruling over Fillory as its king in all but name; once Quentin summons him into Ember's Tomb, he's able to claim the crown and make it official.]]
* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: Under the branch, he looks more like an accountant than anything else.
* TimeStandsStill: Makes his entrance by stopping time for everyone in a lecture hall of Brakebills.
* TunelessSongOfMadness: The earliest hint that he has a human intellect with a very tenuous grasp of sanity is when he begins idly singing "Bye, Baby Bunting" not long after killing [[spoiler: Amanda Orloff.]]
* [[spoiler: WasOnceAMan]]

!! The Real World

[[folder: Julia]]
!! Julia Wicker

One of Quentin's oldest friends. Originally introduced in the first book as a tertiary character, she becomes a protagonist in the second.

* AmnesiaMissedASpot: Took the entrance exam to Brakebills alongside Quentin, only to fail and have her memory erased with all the other failing applicants. However, thanks to an out-of-character alibi provided for her, she soon uncovers her real memories of what happened.
* AscendedExtra: In the first book she was a background character, and something of a mystery. In ''The Magician King'' the narrative is split between Quentin in the present day and what happened to her during the first book.
* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: Already having become a demi-goddess, she eventually goes on to travel to the other side of Fillory, a world yet to be created that is to Fillory as Fillory is to Earth.]]
* BenevolentMageRuler: Serves as one of the four monarchs of the land, and despite her grim demeanour, the people absolutely love her.
* BlackEyesOfEvil: At one point in the second book, she ends up casting a spell with the side-effect of turning her eyes black — permanently. When she returns to the real world, she has to cover them with a pair of sunglasses.
* BloodMagic: Cuts her thumb and puts it to the ignition in order to magically hotwire a car.
* BrokenBird
* TheCallPutMeOnHold
* CantStayNormal: After realizing that she'll never be admitted to Brakebills, Julia finally decides to admit defeat and opt to pursue a normal life with what little remains of her mundane potential... only to end up blundering directly into a magical safehouse, plunging herself right back into the lifestyle of an obsessive hedge-magician.
* ChildhoodFriends: With Quentin.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: We can tell almost from her re-introduction in the first book that she is pretty badly traumatized, but the full cause is not revealed until close to the end of the second.
* DarkMagicalGirl
* DespairEventHorizon: Julia finally abandons her attempts to study magic after her meeting with Quentin in the cemetery, having realized that he's fallen in love with someone else and has found somewhere that he can be happy - somewhere that she can never reach. Giving in to her depression, she miserably accepts that she's never going to learn magic and opts to recover her mundane life. She eventually recovers from this initiative-crushing moment when she makes contact with the magical safehouses... though perhaps "recovery" [[SanitySlippage might not be the right word to use under the circumstances.]]
* UsefulNotes/{{Depression}}: After uncovering the truth behind her missing memories and growing obsessed with Brakebills, Julia begins suffering brutal attacks of depression that leave her too crushed to function - especially once she believes that she's failed. She eventually starts attending an online support group known as the Free Trader Beowulf Group... which just so happens to be her ticket back into the world of magic.
* TheDeterminator: She is going to learn magic, dammit, no matter what it takes. Even if it means abandoning all opportunities for a prosperous life in the mundane world, disappointing her family and [[spoiler: prostituting herself to hedge-wizards.]]
* DrowningMySorrows: During the second book, Julia demonstrates an ability to drink incredible quantities of booze; as he learns more about her past traumas, Quentin begins to suspect that she's trying to anesthetize herself or cauterize a wound. Unfortunately, Julia can't get drunk anymore.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: She starts to look this way when she dyes her hair black and loses a lot of weight after being rejected from Brakebills.
* GothGirlsKnowMagic: After she's rejected from Brakebills and still remembers, she dyes her hair and starts wearing black.
* HappinessRealizedTooLate: Julia finds herself participating in the Free Trader Beowulf Group's attempt to [[spoiler: summon a goddess in order to attain ultimate truth and happiness]]. However, just as the ritual is on the verge of completion, she realizes that she doesn't actually want or need anything this final experiment could provide: she's already perfectly happy as a member of the FTB; she has friends who understand her, she has all the intellectual challenges she could ever want, and best of all she's studying magic as she always dreamed of doing... but by now, it's too late to protest. [[spoiler: The ritual ends up summoning a monstrous Trickster God who slaughters most of Julia's friends, then grants her the knowledge that the group wanted - by brutally raping her and tearing her soul out.]]
* HopeSpot: In ''The Magician King,'' Julia has several moments when it looks like she might be able to recover from her obsessions and be happy... only for things to blow up in her face.
** First, she uncovers a working spell from the Internet ''and'' manages to conclusively prove to herself that she isn't insane when she manages to get Quentin to admit that Breakbills is real. Unfortunately, Quentin turns down her requests for help.
** After this, she manages to recover one of her college offers, repair her relationship with her family, get a job, and even find a place in a support group. For a while, it looks as if she'll be able to stay normal, happy and sane... and then one of her rambling walks takes her right onto the doorstep of a magical safehouse. Back into obsession she goes...
** Finally, her time with the Free Trader Beowulf group in Murs is the happiest time in her life: she has magic, she has intellectual challenges to keep her stimulated, and she has a new family that understands and loves her. [[spoiler: And then Renard comes along and kills all but one of the FTB group, then rapes Julia for good measure.]]
* InhumanEyeConcealers: Early in ''The Magician King,'' Julia casts a spell that turns her eyes pitch-black as a side-effect. All well and good up while she's in the magical land of Fillory, but when Quentin and Julia end up accidentally returning to Earth, she's forced to acquire a pair of sunglasses so unexpecting Muggles aren't freaked out.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: After hitting the DespairEventHorizon in her efforts to learn magic, she decides to cut her loses and rejoin the normal world, making amends for disappointing her parents, even studying hard to reclaim a place at one of the colleges she previously rejected.
* MarkOfTheSupernatural: During ''The Magician King,'' the physical side-effects of Julia's spells linger and in many cases remain permanent; initially, this is a simple case of BlackEyesOfEvil, but then her heart begins glowing in the dark so brightly that it can be seen through her body, and then a spell to enhance her height for a major battle results in her turning into a giant full-time. [[spoiler: As a dryad, she looks much more human - except for her skin, which is like pale wood.]]
* MegaNeko: Rides a giant talking civet in Fillory.
* NatureSpirit: [[spoiler: Ends up getting turned into a dryad with her own tree by Our Lady Underground.]]
* NeverGetsDrunk: Noted for her ability to tolerate inhuman quantities of alcohol in the second book, ultimately revealing that she can't get drunk at all.
* OutDamnedSpot: In ''The Magician King,'' Eliot mentions that Julia was in the habit of obsessively taking steam-baths at the spa where they first met, often cranking up the heat so high that nobody could bear to be in the same room as her. [[spoiler: This ultimately turns out to be a consequences of her traumatic encounter with Renard, which resulted in Julia being raped and all but one of her friends murdered; for good measure, Julia left this encounter covered in blood.]]
* RapeAsBackstory: After witnessing Julia's descent into depression, her mother actually has to ask if she's been raped. [[spoiler: And then, horrifically enough, Julia actually ''does'' end up getting raped by Renard the Fox, resulting in her ongoing transformation into a borderline HumanoidAbomination.]]
* RapeLeadsToInsanity: Justified. [[spoiler: Julia goes completely bonkers after Reynard the Fox rapes her, but that has as much to do with him stealing her soul in the process as the rape itself.]]
* RefusedByTheCall
* TheResenter
* SanitySlippage: Given that the memory wipe only ''partially'' worked, Julia is lumbered with an entire memory running contrary to both reality and what had supposedly happened on the day of her exam; as a result, she ends up becoming depressive, paranoid, and so fixated on the magical world that she disregards almost all of her college offers. Then, after a brief return to normality, she dives headlong into the deep end of Hedge-Wizardry and joining the Free Trader Beowulf group, which opens her up to further sanity slippage.
* SexForServices: At her lowest point in the first book, she offered to sleep with Quentin in exchange for magical secrets. [[spoiler:He refuses, but we find out in the second book that she later successfully made similar deals with several men in the safehouse scene.]]
* SpockSpeak: In Quentin's parts of the novel, Julia tends to speak in short, clipped sentences, often without contractions. [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed that this is one of the side effects of her continuing transformation into a demigod.]]
* ThatManIsDead: [[spoiler: When she finally manages to recover from her trauma and ascend to the level of a dryad, she makes it clear that as positive as this transformation is, she can't go back to the happy-go-lucky girl she once was; the old Julia is dead and isn't coming back.]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Made clear when she shows up at the end of the first book as a Hedge-Witch powerful enough to join Eliot and Janet in flying off to retrieve Quentin. The extent of her power and its origins aren't made clear up until the second book, though.
* WanderingWalkOfMadness: After being denied her chance to learn magic and setting out to rebuild her life, Julia Wicker took to obsessively walking across town, usually while remaining glued to her smartphone and instinctively dodging obstacles. Quite apart from being the first indication that her apparent recovery from depression wasn't so successful as it first seemed, her walking ultimately led her to a Hedge-Wizard safehouse, and from there, right into learning serious magic - resulting in even more SanitySlippage.
* YouthfulFreckles: Julia has them. It’s mentioned that they clash with her {{Goth}} appearance later on. [[spoiler: As a dryad, she no longer seems to possess them, further driving home the fact that her old self is gone forever.]]

[[folder: Emily Greenstreet]]
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Styles herself as a sweet girl who was just a victim of evil magic, yet strung along Alice's brother for no good reason and ended up using him as a healing resource instead of seeking out professional help - getting him effectively killed in the process. For good measure, she has no problem living a parasitic existence dependent on the funding of the magicians she claims to hate and mistrust.
* CareerRevealingTrait: Quentin instantly recognizes Emily as a fellow Brakebills alumnus by the overdeveloped musculature of her hands and fingers, acquired as a result of years spent practicing ridiculously complex gestures.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Subverted — she only ''thinks'' she's one of these. In reality, she's just making excuses for just how miserable sh really is.
* FacialHorror: Accidentally inflicted this on herself while trying to pretty herself up for Mayakovsky. The novel doesn't go into much detail, though the brief glimpse we get in ''Alice's Story'' indicates that her nose was destroyed. According to Janet, even after having her face repaired, Emily looks quite different today.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Seems quite content to go through life believing that magic and its practitioners are the source of all the world's ills while at the same time working a job provided for her by Dean Fogg and enchanted to disguise the fact that she does absolutely nothing.
* NeverMyFault: Emily blames the death of her boyfriend on magic, claiming that it would have happened regardless of what she did; however, it's made clear that Charlie's death was due to her a) stringing him along while pining for Mayakovsky, b) accidentally disfiguring herself while trying to make herself more attractive for Professor Sexypants, and c) Charlie trying to heal her but being too upset to work magic calmly and transforming into a Niffin. She even serves as an enabler to Quentin's own version of this trope, before he finally realizes he can't blame magic and he can't stop dodging the blame for a disaster he helped cause, and leaves her.
* TheSlacker: Not only does she spend her days pretending to hold down a real job while under full support of the Brakebills old boys' network, but she's too lazy to even make her idea of TheUnmasquedWorld a reality.
* VainSorceress: A failed version, having disfigured herself with magic.
* WindmillCrusader: Apparently believes that Bakebills is populated entirely by human nuclear bombs waiting to go off, and believes that someone has to break the {{Masquerade}} and bring the whole thing into the public eye... and judging by her frankly delusional idea of what magic is, it's best not to imagine what she hopes would happen next. Not only does Emily not have the ambition to make her demented beliefs a reality, but she's completely wrong: [[spoiler: when the big apocalyptic disaster ''does'' occur, it's not due to the Brakebills crowd at all - who actually instruct their students ''not'' to screw around with forbidden knowledge - but due to a group of Hedge-Wizards.]]
* WrongGenreSavvy: Emily seems to be under the impression that she's the virtuous hero of a story in which the brave DefectorFromDecadence leaves pure evil magic and all its EvilSorcerer practitioners behind before they can cause an apocalypse, and finds love in the arms of a fellow defector. In reality, most magicians are too busy wasting time to bother with an apocalypse, and Quentin ends up so turned off by her attitude that he can't stand to remain in her presence.

! Introduced in ''The Magician King''
!! Magicians
[[folder: Poppy]]
!! Poppy
* AwesomeAussie: An Australian magician with a thing for dragons, a go-getter attitude and an impressive ability to adapt. After witnessing Poppy flourishing in her first battle, Quentin assumes she grew up fighting dingoes.
* BrutalHonesty: One of her main traits is that she always speaks the truth about a situation, but she never does it in a cruel manner or mean spirit.
* LeeroyJenkins: Tends to just charge in when others are moving cautiously. For example, when Josh and Julia are still discussing what they should be doing in the swamp, she just jumps right in, not knowing this is what they were supposed to do to reach Castle Blackspire.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Despite her BrutalHonesty, she will engage in whimsical activities such as jumping into the river with Quentin to contact the dragon, for the simple reason of it doubling their chances, even though the river is disgusting. She also becomes Quentin's second major love interest, but ends up with Josh after Quentin is forced to leave Fillory by Ember at the end of the second book.
* NervesOfSteel: Proves astonishingly calm under fire, especially in her first battle; by contrast, Quentin and the other Physical Kids spent their first battle struggling to be of any use.
* OnlySaneMan: Regards Quentin’s obsession with Fillory as bizarre and slightly unhealthy, pointing out that he’s ignoring the better parts of reality by accentuating the disappointing elements. For his part, Quentin has trouble believing that someone so practical could ever become a magician.

!!The Free Trader Beowulf group

[[folder: Asmodeus]]
!! Asmodeus, AKA [[spoiler: Betty]]

* FemmeFatale: [[spoiler: Adopts this as her persona while working in the magical underworld after her run in with Reynard.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler: After acquiring the knife with Quentin’s help, she leaves the story with the goal of hunting down Renard.]]
* ImprobableAge: She is the youngest member of Free Trader Beowulf, at around seventeen. Julia wonders a few times how she managed to become a hedge witch so young, and where her parents are.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler:Asmodeus eventually uses the knife from the heist to gut Reynard like a fish, as told by Julia near the end of the trilogy]].
* RageAgainstTheHeavens: [[spoiler: After the encounter with Reynard, Asmodeus begins looking for a way to get revenge on him.]]

[[folder: Pouncy Silverkitten]]
!! Pouncy Silverkitten

* BrokenAce: A handsome, intelligent and successful young man who’s also a powerful magician but [[spoiler:he has suffered from terrible clinical depression all his life, to the point where he has given up on finding happiness on earth and only hopes that the deity the group is trying to summon will take him with her into heaven.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Known for his “acid sarcasm.” It turns out to be of the [[StepfordSnarker Stepford]] variety.
* HeavenSeeker: [[spoiler: Wants to summon a goddess for the sole purpose of escaping his depression-plagued life and being taken to Heaven.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Tragically subverted, Reynard the Fox wounds him, and then he offers to give his life to save Asmo and Julia. Reynard dismisses it, saying he’s dying anyway.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: His desire to summon a deity ends up getting him and most of his enclave killed, getting Julia raped and deprived of her soul, and leaving Asmodeus horribly traumatised. Worse still, his experiments end up getting the attention of the Gods and prompting them to “fix” reality - an act that would have wiped out magic everywhere and destroyed Fillory.]]
* NonIdleRich: Is the one who funds the Murs enclave, and one of the driving forces behind finding out how to harness the magic of the Gods.
* TheTeamBenefactor

[[folder: Failstaff]]
!! Failstaff
* BigFun: Failstaff's main character traits are that he is large, and he is one of the nicest members of Free Trader Beowulf

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Bingles]]
!! Bingles
* BarehandedBladeBlock: Distinguishes himself in the tournament by catching his opponent’s sword between the palms of his hands.
* CoolSword: Gains a magic sword during his adventures at sea.
* DramaQueen: Prone to making melodramatic statements.
* MasterSwordsman: A brilliant swordfighter and the last man standing in the tournament Quentin arranges. He’s so skilled that he’s capable of keeping pace with Julia.

[[folder: Benedict]]
!! Benedict]]
* EmoTeen: An angsty teenager who reminds Quentin a lot of himself when he was younger. Grows out of it while searching for Quentin on the Muntjac, and seems much happier when he meets up with Quentin again a year later.
* MoodSwinger: [[spoiler: Stranded in the afterlife, he swings wildly from nihilistic despair to bitter hatred of Quentin and everything he stands for, from pitiable begging to selfless efforts to save the day.]]
* UndignifiedDeath: [[spoiler: Shot in the throat before he can even join his first battle. Even Benedict's shade thinks this was a pretty humiliating way to die.]]

[[folder: Elaine]]

[[folder: Eleanore]]

!! Magicians

[[folder: Fen]]
* KungFuWizard

[[folder: The Watcherwoman]]
!!The Watcherwoman AKA [[spoiler: "the paramedic"]], AKA [[spoiler: Jane Chatwin.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees.
* ChekhovsGunman
* TheChessmaster
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. [[spoiler: Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* HarmlessVillain: Adult readers of the Fillory books see her as a bit of a joke, with no real villainous actions to her name apart from her goal of freezing time in Fillory. [[spoiler:In fact, the only reason why she's seen as a villain in the first place is because her experiments in time travel were ultimately misinterpreted by the Chatwin children.]]
* [[spoiler: HiddenAgendaVillain: Well, if you can call her a villain at all...]]
* [[spoiler: HotWitch]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: As the Watcherwoman she's supposed to be bringing about a variation of this where the world will be permanently at sunset.
* NoOntologicalInertia: After her watch is destroyed she starts aging really quickly.
* [[spoiler: NotEvilJustMisunderstood]]
* [[spoiler: SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* TimeMaster
* TheWatchmaker
[[/folder]]

!! The Beast, AKA [[folder: Martin Chatwin

!!The Watcherwoman AKA [[spoiler: "the paramedic"]], AKA Jane Chatwin.]]

!! Introduced in ''The Magicians''

[[folder: The Physical Kids]]

!!Quentin Coldwater

!!Alice

!!Eliot

!!Josh

!!Janet

[[folder: Other Student Magicians]]
!! Penny

[[folder:The Brakebills Faculty]]
!!Dean Fogg

!!Professor March

!!Professor Sunderland

[[folder:Denizens of Fillory]]

!!Fen

!!The Beast AKA [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin]]

!!The Watcherwoman AKA [[spoiler: "the paramedic" AKA Jane Chatwin.]]

[[folder:The Real World]]
!! Emily Greenstreet
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Styles herself as a sweet girl who was just a victim of evil magic, yet strung along Alice's brother for no good reason and ended up using him as a healing resource instead of seeking out professional help - getting him effectively killed in the process. For good measure, she has no problem living a parasitic existence dependent on the funding of the magicians she claims to hate and mistrust.
* CareerRevealingTrait: Quentin instantly recognizes Emily as a fellow Brakebills alumnus by the overdeveloped musculature of her hands and fingers, acquired as a result of years spent practicing ridiculously complex gestures.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Subverted — she only ''thinks'' she's one of these. In reality, she's just making excuses for just how miserable sh really is.
* FacialHorror: Accidentally inflicted this on herself while trying to pretty herself up for Mayakovsky. The novel doesn't go into much detail, though the brief glimpse we get in ''Alice's Story'' indicates that her nose was destroyed. According to Janet, even after having her face repaired, Emily looks quite different today.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Seems quite content to go through life believing that magic and its practitioners are the source of all the world's ills while at the same time working a job provided for her by Dean Fogg and enchanted to disguise the fact that she does absolutely nothing.
* NeverMyFault: Emily blames the death of her boyfriend on magic, claiming that it would have happened regardless of what she did; however, it's made clear that Charlie's death was due to her a) stringing him along while pining for Mayakovsky, b) accidentally disfiguring herself while trying to make herself more attractive for Professor Sexypants, and c) Charlie trying to heal her but being too upset to work magic calmly and transforming into a Niffin. She even serves as an enabler to Quentin's own version of this trope, before he finally realizes he can't blame magic and he can't stop dodging the blame for a disaster he helped cause, and leaves her.
* TheSlacker: Not only does she spend her days pretending to hold down a real job while under full support of the Brakebills old boys' network, but she's too lazy to even make her idea of TheUnmasquedWorld a reality.
* VainSorceress: A failed version, having disfigured herself with magic.
* WindmillCrusader: Apparently believes that Bakebills is populated entirely by human nuclear bombs waiting to go off, and believes that someone has to break the {{Masquerade}} and bring the whole thing into the public eye... and judging by her frankly delusional idea of what magic is, it's best not to imagine what she hopes would happen next. Not only does Emily not have the ambition to make her demented beliefs a reality, but she's completely wrong: [[spoiler: when the big apocalyptic disaster ''does'' occur, it's not due to the Brakebills crowd at all - who actually instruct their students ''not'' to screw around with forbidden knowledge - but due to a group of Hedge-Wizards.]]
* WrongGenreSavvy: Emily seems to be under the impression that she's the virtuous hero of a story in which the brave DefectorFromDecadence leaves pure evil magic and all its EvilSorcerer practitioners behind before they can cause an apocalypse, and finds love in the arms of a fellow defector. In reality, most magicians are too busy wasting time to bother with an apocalypse, and Quentin ends up so turned off by her attitude that he can't stand to remain in her presence.

[[/folder]]

!! Introduced in ''The Magician King''

[[folder: Magicians]]
!!Julia Wicker

!! Poppy - an Australian magician
* AwesomeAussie: An Australian magician with a thing for dragons, a go-getter attitude and an impressive ability to adapt. After witnessing Poppy flourishing in her first battle, Quentin assumes she grew up fighting dingoes.
* BrutalHonesty: One of her main traits is that she always speaks the truth about a situation, but she never does it in a cruel manner or mean spirit.
* LeeroyJenkins: Tends to just charge in when others are moving cautiously. For example, when Josh and Julia are still discussing what they should be doing in the swamp, she just jumps right in, not knowing this is what they were supposed to do to reach Castle Blackspire.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Despite her BrutalHonesty, she will engage in whimsical activities such as jumping into the river with Quentin to contact the dragon, for the simple reason of it doubling their chances, even though the river is disgusting. She also becomes Quentin's second major love interest, but ends up with Josh after Quentin is forced to leave Fillory by Ember at the end of the second book.
* NervesOfSteel: Proves astonishingly calm under fire, especially in her first battle; by contrast, Quentin and the other Physical Kids spent their first battle struggling to be of any use.
* OnlySaneMan: Regards Quentin’s obsession with Fillory as bizarre and slightly unhealthy, pointing out that he’s ignoring the better parts of reality by accentuating the disappointing elements. For his part, Quentin has trouble believing that someone so practical could ever become a magician.

[[folder: The Free Trader Beowulf group]]

!! Asmodeus
* FemmeFatale: [[spoiler: Adopts this as her persona while working in the magical underworld after her run in with Reynard.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler: After acquiring the knife with Quentin’s help, she leaves the story with the goal of hunting down Renard.]]
* ImprobableAge: She is the youngest member of Free Trader Beowulf, at around seventeen. Julia wonders a few times how she managed to become a hedge witch so young, and where her parents are.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler:Asmodeus eventually uses the knife from the heist to gut Reynard like a fish, as told by Julia near the end of the trilogy]].
* RageAgainstTheHeavens: [[spoiler: After the encounter with Reynard, Asmodeus begins looking for a way to get revenge on him.]]

!! Pouncy Silverkitten
* BrokenAce: A handsome, intelligent and successful young man who’s also a powerful magician but [[spoiler:he has suffered from terrible clinical depression all his life, to the point where he has given up on finding happiness on earth and only hopes that the deity the group is trying to summon will take him with her into heaven.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Known for his “acid sarcasm.” It turns out to be of the [[StepfordSnarker Stepford]] variety.
* HeavenSeeker: [[spoiler: Wants to summon a goddess for the sole purpose of escaping his depression-plagued life and being taken to Heaven.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Tragically subverted, Reynard the Fox wounds him, and then he offers to give his life to save Asmo and Julia. Reynard dismisses it, saying he’s dying anyway.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler: His desire to summon a deity ends up getting him and most of his enclave killed, getting Julia raped and deprived of her soul, and leaving Asmodeus horribly traumatised. Worse still, his experiments end up getting the attention of the Gods and prompting them to “fix” reality - an act that would have wiped out magic everywhere and destroyed Fillory.]]
* NonIdleRich: Is the one who funds the Murs enclave, and one of the driving forces behind finding out how to harness the magic of the Gods.
* TheTeamBenefactor

!! Failstaff
* BigFun: Failstaff's main character traits are that he is large, and he is one of the nicest members of Free Trader Beowulf

[[folder: Denizens of Fillory]]
!! Bingles - the best swordsman in Fillory and Quentin's bodyguard.

!! Benedict - sullen teenage cartographer

!! Elaine - Fillorian customs agent

!! Eleanore - Elaine's daughter

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: Delivers one of these to herself in ''Alice's Story,'' finally overcoming her inner lack of confidence while on the UltimateFinalExam and challenging the world to "stand aside and watch me burn."

* KnightOfCerebus: Each of his appearances leads to the story taking a far darker turn, with consequential [[CharacterDeath character deaths]].

* DeathlyUnmasking: [[spoiler: In the final confrontation at Ember's Tomb, he finally does away with the leafy branch covering his face, revealing himself to be none other than Martin Chatwin. Soon after, the branch ends up getting burned away along with the rest of his clothes during the climactic WizardDuel between him and Alice, and after finally making use of a DeadlyUpgrade, his opponent is able to rip his head off.

* DespairEventHorizon: Julia finally abandons her attempts to study magic after her meeting with Quentin in the cemetery, having realized that he's fallen in love with someone else and has found somewhere that he can be happy - somewhere that she can never reach. Giving in to her depression, she miserably accepts that she's never going to learn magic and opts to recover her mundane life. She eventually recovers from this initiative-crushing moment when she makes contact with the Free Trader Beowulf group... though perhaps "recovery" [[SanitySlippage might not be the right word to use under the circumstances.]]
* UsefulNotes/{{Depression}}: After uncovering the truth behind her missing memories and growing obsessed with Brakebills, Julia begins suffering brutal attacks of depression that leave her too crushed to function - especially once she believes that she's failed. She eventually starts attending an online support group known as the Free Trader Beowulf group... which just so happens to be her ticket back into the world of magic.

** Finally, her time with the Free Trader Beowulf group in Murs is the happiest time in her life: she has magic, she has intellectual challenges to keep her stimulated, and she has a new family that understands and loves her. [[spoiler: And then Renard comes along and kills all but one of the FTB group and rapes Julia for good measure.]]

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: After hitting the DespairEventHorizon in her efforts to learn magic, she decides to cut her loses and rejoin the normal world, making amends for disappointing her parents and studying hard to reclaim a place at one of the colleges she previously rejected.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Quentin's childish attempt at a prank accidentally summons the Beast, traumatizing Professor March for life and getting Amanda Orloff killed; later, [[spoiler: he summons the Beast again in his attempts to play at being a hero, resulting in Penny's hands getting chewed off and forcing Alice to sacrifice her life to save the day.]]

* MagicLibrarian: [[spoiler: After the first book he works looking after a LibraryOfBabel in the Neitherlands.]]

* MoodSwinger: [[spoiler: Stranded in the afterlife, he swings wildly from nihilistic despair, to bitter hatred of Quentin and everything he stands for, from pitiable begging to selfless efforts to save the day.]]