History Characters / TheMagicians

* [[Characters/TheMagiciansFillory Fillory]]

!!Denizens of Fillory

[[folder: Ember]]
!! Ember
One of the two great rams that oversee Fillory.

* CrystalDragonJesus: One of the gods of Fillory and treated with much the same reverence as the Judeo-Christian God - to the point that Helen Chatwin's experiences with him led to her becoming an Evangelical Christian.
* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler: In contrast to his brother, Ember chickens out of sacrificing himself to save Fillory, forcing Quentin to kill him.]]
* {{Expy}}: A pretty obvious stand-in for Aslan, especially given the premium he places on human innocence, his increasingly limited involvement in the series except at pivotal moments, and his talk of "deep/deeper magic."
* GodsHandsAreTied: Often proves to be unable to do certain things due to the "Deeper Magic," an element that Quentin is extremely skeptical of.
* JerkassGods: Generally gives the impression of being a sanctimonious, condescending, self-important killjoy who casually boots the Chatwin children back to the real world on the grounds of ill-defined rules and never bothers to explain himself. [[spoiler: Plus, when the time comes to sacrifice his life to save Fillory, he chickens out and has to be killed in order to end the apocalypse.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: Arrogant tosser though he may be, he's ''exactly'' right when he points out that Quentin is a reckless, self-destructive idiot.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler: After Ember's refusal to sacrifice himself nearly dooms Fillory, Quentin is empowered by Alice and Mayakovsky's coin to slay the Ram-god once and for all.]]
* TheWorfEffect: Virtually omnipotent and omniscient across Fillory; the fact that the Beast is able to sucker-punch him unconscious is a good indication of just how powerful the monster really is.

[[/folder]]

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

* AdaptationalVillainy: In-universe: [[spoiler: With the Chatwins oblivious to what the Watcherwoman really wanted, Plover came up with her villainous motivations. Jane is not amused.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees. [[spoiler: She's even raising a farm of them in the final book.]]
* CallToAgriculture: [[spoiler: Once her gambit is complete, she retires to a small farm and raises Clock Trees.]]
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: Has been orchestrating a spectacular plan to stop the Beast, prodding the Physical Kids into the roles needed to accomplish the scheme years in advance.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler: Turns out to have been manipulating history most commonly by ensuring that her chosen champions end up in exactly the right place at the right time; the comic reveals that the only reason why Alice stuck around long enough to get involved in the mission to Fillory, become a Niffin and kill the Beast was because Jane was there to make sure she didn't make it to the airport.]]
* 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.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: [[spoiler: Well, if you can call her a villain at all; her real goal is actually to stop the Beast through a complicated time-travelling scheme.]]
* HotWitch: Is actually quite attractive under her veil, though only Quentin discovers this when she introduces herself to him in the finale of the first book, [[spoiler: during which it turns out that she was secretly that cute paramedic he met early in the book.]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: [[spoiler: Despite being biologically an old woman by the events of ''The Magician's Land,'' she wades into the fray to hold back the hordes unleashed by the end of Fillory - and survives.]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: Her goal is supposedly to trap the world permanently at sunset on a rainy day. [[spoiler: Turns out that Plover just made this up, the Chatwin having no idea what her real goals were. Now that she knows what was going on, Jane doesn't regard the artistic license charitably.]]
* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler: After she destroys her watch, she reverts to her true age almost overnight; she's surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing.]]
* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: [[spoiler: She's not actually a villain; indeed, she arguably qualifies as more of a BigGood than Ember and Umber, having been trying to set Fillory right through a decades-long quest across time and space.]]
* RetiredBadass: [[spoiler: By the events of the third book, Jane has settled down to enjoy her old age and is living out the rest of her days on a clock tree farm somewhere in the wilds of Fillory. However, she's still willing to join the carnage if the situation to requires it.]]
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: [[spoiler: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* SolitarySorceress: [[spoiler: Has spent most of her adult life isolated from everyone by her mission, and after having retired from the role of Watcherwoman, she lives on an isolated farm deep in the wilderness of Fillory.]]
* SympathyForTheDevil: [[spoiler: Asks Quentin not to judge Martin too harshly, knowing what Plover did to her brother and the lengths he went to find happiness.]]
* TimeMaster: Possesses a watch with the power to travel through time and warp the space-time continuum. [[spoiler: At the end of the story, she smashes it before Quentin can try to use it.]]
* WalkingSpoiler: Suffice it to say her true identity and nature are kept secret until the end.]]
* TheWatchmaker: Her obsession with clocks and watches mirrors her mastery of time [[spoiler: and the plan she's orchestrated across the story.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Dint]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fen]]
* KungFuWizard
[[/folder]]

[[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.
* CessationOfExistence: [[spoiler: His ultimate fate in ''The Magician's Land'' when Quentin destroys the poorly-thought-out afterlife of Fillory and finally allows the imprisoned dead to rest.]]
* 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.
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: [[spoiler: All Martin Chatwin wanted was to stay in Fillory forever so he could be happy and never have to face the trauma that ruined his life... but after selling his humanity to Umber, he no longer felt any affinity for the Fillory he fell in love with and ultimately set out to seize control of it. In the present, he is motivated entirely by his own twisted hunger for stimulation and carnage.]]
* 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]].]]
* EvilBrit: Speaks in Received Pronounciation and faintly posh English mannerisms. [[spoiler: This isn't just an affectation, by the way; he ''is'' English.]]
* TheFaceless: The Beast always appears with a leafy branch hovering just in front of his face, and only removes it during the final battle.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Demonstrates a chatty, boyish attitude around his victims, acting as if the whole grisly sham has been nothing more than a parlour game he's just beaten them at... though the speech is peppered with obscenities, gloating proclamations of triumph, and sudden brutality. He even cheekily refers to Penny as "dear boy" [[spoiler: right before he bites the guy's hands off.]]
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: Close to the end of the novel, Jane Chatwin reveals that that Martin Chatwin was molested as a child — by the future author of the Fillory series — and sought a permanent escape from both the abuse and his own trauma in the land of Fillory]].
* 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.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: Appears largely human except for the additional fingers and his eerily fluid movements, prompting Dean Fogg to believe that he might actually be a humanoid proxy of some Lovecraftian deity. [[spoiler: In reality, he's what happens when someone sells their humanity for happiness.]]
* 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.
* TheSociopath: Lacks empathy, demonstrates glib speech, is easily bored and often acts on spur-of-the-moment thoughts, is incapable of feeling emotional attachment, and thinks only of himself. [[spoiler: That's what happens when you sell your humanity.]]
* 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]]
[[/folder]]

!! 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]]

[[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]]

[[folder: Abigail the Sloth]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Elaine]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Eleanore]]
[[/folder]]

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

[[folder: Renard]]
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Julia notes that [[TheTrickster trickster gods]] tend not to be very fucking funny. Reynard's joke appears to have been something like "You thought you were summoning a benevolent deity, but instead you got me! And the punchline is I'm going to kill you all!"
* FoxFolk: A giant hairy fox-human hybrid. The effect in an otherwise non-furry real world is [[EldritchAbomination horrifying...]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Our Lady Underground]]
An ancient, powerful, and benevolent mother-goddess – and, as it turns out, the end-goal of the Free Trader Beowulf Group’s ambitions.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Old Gods]]
A mysterious group of entities believed to be the only true gods to be void anywhere in the multiverse; impossibly powerful, they can be found roaming the Neitherlands, “correcting” any flaws they find in the fabric of reality.
[[/folder]]

! Introduced in ''The Magician's Land''

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Vile Father]]
The champion of the Lorian army invading Fillory at the start of the third book.

* Acrofatic: Surprisingly fast and agile despite his paunch.
* FatBastard: Obese and complicit in the murder of civilians and the theft of their property.
* LightningBruiser: On top of being strong and resilient, he’s also incredibly fast on his feet – to the point that even Eliot is briefly caught off-guard.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Lorians are a Viking-like race of conquerers, and Vile Father is no exception, gladly duelling Eliot to a standstill for the right to invade Fillory.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: Spends the entirety of his scenes stripped to the waist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Prince of the Mud]]
A giant turtle dwelling in the swamplands of Fillory, sought after for knowledge of the apocalypse by Eliot and Janet.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Umber]]
Ember’s brother and the other Ram-God of Fillory. Thought to be dead at the hands of the Beast, though the effects of his actions linger long after his apparent demise…
[[/folder]]

!! The Heist Team
[[folder: Plum]]
A former Brakebills student and illusionist expelled for trespassing on a restricted area of the school. She joins the team alongside Quentin and shares the spotlight with him for most of the novel.

* AlliterativeName: Her full name is Plum Polson Purchas.
* ArbitraryScepticism: Despite being a senior Brakebills student with full awareness of the magical world, Plum firmly refuses to acknowledge that Fillory and her family's adventures there might have actually been real all along, believing them to be symptoms of mental illness; she even believes that digging too deep into this line of thinking will only result in suffering, so she resolves to suppress such thoughts as best as she can. [[spoiler: As such, she's left utterly shell-shocked when the heist concludes with her and Quentin getting their hands on her great-grandfather's ApocalypticLog, revealing to her that Fillory was actually real.]]
* FamousAncestor: Is actually the great-granddaughter of Rupert Chatwin, and grew up with the baggage and dramas of the collapsed family.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: Variant - Plum's mother rejected her Chatwin ancestry and did her best to get as far away from her past as possible, and though she married a magician and fully accepts the fact that her daughter is a magician, she was insistent on not letting Plum read ''any'' of the Fillory books. As such, though Plum has been able to read the first book on the sly, she's inherited her mother's belief that Fillory was a delusion that ultimately destroyed the family.
* ForWantOfANail: The incident that led to Plum being expelled and Quentin being fired occurred mainly because Plum was looking for the secret door to the wine closet so she could complete her prank on Wharton - only to accidentally pick the wrong wall panel, instead sending herself into the highly-dangerous restricted area. Without this series of events, the events of the novel would probably never have happened.
* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler: After learning the truth about Fillory, she has a very quiet meltdown in private as she realizes that the fantasy world that ruined her family's life was real all along and she's going to have to confront it head-on, until she finally finds herself admitting to Quentin that Fillory is real.]]
* InTheBlood: Thanks to the aforementioned FantasyForbiddingParent, Plum is convinced that she's inherited a perverse desire to learn more about Fillory and is predestined to die young.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After a very traumatizing night ends with her being expelled, Plum is offered a glass of wine by Wharton - and very nearly skulls the whole thing in one gulp, her SommelierSpeak taking a nostalgic, near-heartbroken tone.
* PluckyGirl: Though she comes from a very troubled family, was pushed hard to excel by her parents, is expelled from Brakebills, is nearly killed on several occasions, and has her worldview completely shattered at one point, Plum continuously bounces back from her many misfortunes with seemingly boundless energy. She's not a full-blown version of ThePollyanna, given that she suffers from brief spells of depression, but she launches herself back into her work with such aplomb that even Quentin can't help but be impressed.
* ThePrankster: At Brakebills, she was the head of the League, a small but dedicated all-female group of practical jokers. Their prime target - before Plum was expelled - was Wharton, who earned the group's wrath for watering their wine at dinner; unfortunately, the last stage of the prank ended in Plum accidentally trespassing on a restricted area, getting the attention of [[spoiler: Alice]] the Niffin, nearly getting herself killed, and earning a swift expulsion. Away from school, she's a lot more mature.
* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: After spending roughly half of the novel convinced that Fillory was just a tall tale, she finds herself tearfully acknowledging the reality of the place after finding Rupert's last testament complete with a priceless god-killing knife.]]
* TeenGenius: Even by Brakebills standards, Plum excels in this field, having been tutored in magic for years in advance prior to being enrolled. With this in mind, it's the main reason she manages to keep up with a caper crew of professional magicians.

[[folder: The Blackbird]]
A talking animal who just happens to be mysterious client behind the heist.

[[folder: Lionel]]
The owner of the bookstore where the team assembles, and the Blackbird's right-hand man.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Pushkar]]
A formally-trained magician specializing in enchantments.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Stoppard]]
A petulant young hedge-magician specializing in artificing and other technomagic; hired specifically to tackle the target’s security.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: "Betsy"]]
[[/folder]]

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Vile Father]]
The champion of the Lorian army invading Fillory at the start of the third book.

* Acrofatic: Surprisingly fast and agile despite his paunch.
* FatBastard: Obese and complicit in the murder of civilians and the theft of their property.
* LightningBruiser: On top of being strong and resilient, he’s also incredibly fast on his feet – to the point that even Eliot is briefly caught off-guard.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Lorians are a Viking-like race of conquerers, and Vile Father is no exception, gladly duelling Eliot to a standstill for the right to invade Fillory.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: Spends the entirety of his scenes stripped to the waist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Prince of the Mud]]
A giant turtle dwelling in the swamplands of Fillory, sought after for knowledge of the apocalypse by Eliot and Janet.
[[/folder]]

!!The Chatwin Children
[[folder: Overall Tropes]]
The protagonists of the highly-popular ''Fillory And Further'' novels; starting out as a small group of young siblings sent to their home of their aunt during the chaos of World War I, they were the first to stumble upon Fillory and have adventures there - later to be documented and published by Christopher Plover.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Chatwin family was a dysfunctional mess when they first stumbled upon Fillory, and only got worse as time went on; the father was a casualty of WWI, the mother suffered a mental breakdown, the aunt never took responsibility for the children in her care, Martin was prone to mood-swings and ran away from home, Helen got so devoted to Ember and Umber that she became a religious fanatic, and Jane ran away as well.
* {{Expy}}: For the Pevensies; in particular, Martin becomes the recognized stand-in for Peter as both are the eldest siblings and both become the High Kings of their respective fantasy realms. Meanwhile, Fiona Chatwin remains the only member of the family to forget about Fillory and move on with her life, making her a stand-in for Susan.
* 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 resulted in Martin getting molested by Plover while alone at his house.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: The Chatwins were all heroes in their own adventures in Fillory, the full extent of which remain unknown thanks to Plover's artistic license. [[spoiler: Jane took it to the next level by waging a secret war against the Beast over the course of her entire adult life.]]
* KidHero: All of them had their adventures when they were very young - and weren't allowed to return to Fillory once they grew up.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: After returning from their adventures, they had to pretend to be less adept at what they'd learned in Fillory in order to avoid attracting attention. Not all of the children could keep up the façade, though.
* ParentalNeglect: The Chatwins' aunt had zero interest in actually paying attention any of them, and was usually more preoccupied in entertaining her huge entourage of potential suiters at various parties. As a result, the kids had to learn to look after themselves.
* RealAfterAll:
** Though widely known as the protagonists of a popular children's fantasy series, the Chatwins were actually real people living in the early 20th century, much to Quentin's surprise.
** Even among people who know that the Chatwins were real ''and'' are aware that magic exists, Fillory is believed to be just a tall tale made up by Christopher Plover. Even Plum - [[spoiler: Rupert Chatwin's great-grandaughter]] - initially believed that the whole thing was due to mental illness.

[[folder: Martin]]
!! Martin Chatwin
The oldest of the siblings and the first High King of Fillory.

* BigBrotherInstinct: Even in his lowest moods, he still did his best to keep Rupert safe by [[spoiler: warning him not to end up alone in Plover's house.]]
* BrokenAce: The High King of Fillory, a brave warrior and an intrepid adventurer, not to mention a natural athlete back in the real world... and yet, none of it meant anything to him by the end, overshadowed as it was by his own depression.
* ChildMage: Went out of his way to learn magic in the hopes of finding a way back into Fillory.
* ChekhovMIA: Mysteriously vanishes after fleeing into the depths of Fillory; among those who aren't aware that Fillory is real, it's widely believed that he simply ran away from home. [[spoiler: He's actually none other than the Beast.]]
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: Eventually revealed to have made a deal with Umber, exchanging his humanity for a permanent stay in Fillory. Unfortunately, without his humanity, he gradually trandformed into the Beast - and ended up becoming so dangerous that he forced both Ember and Umber into hiding.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler: Took revenge for Plover's repeated molestation by murdering him not long after becoming the Beast.]]
* EmoTeen: Known for being moody, bitter and prone to mood swings towards the end of his time in Fillory. His younger siblings took this as a sign that he was just going through a dodgy adolescence, and little sympathy is afforded him in Plover's books. [[spoiler: He was actually being molested by Plover.]]
* {{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 that the place was a CrapsaccharineWorld - to the point that he fled into the wilderness of Fillory and never came back.
* {{Foil}}: To Quentin, both being known for obsessing over a fantasy world where happiness is always within reach and ruining what they had in their attempts to achieve contentment.
* TheHighKing: As the eldest of the kids, serves as the High King of Fillory.
* MoodSwinger: Known for swinging wildly between periods of excitability and crippling depression as the series continued. [[spoiler: Retains this trait as the Beast.]]
* OnlyThePureOfHeart: [[spoiler: With Fillory insisting on total innocence among those who visit, Martin was the first to be excluded from the land - not just because he was growing up, but because of Christopher Plover molesting him.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: With both parents absent and the aunt having no interest in caring for the children in her care, Martin had to look after his younger siblings himself.
* TragicDream: All he wanted was to escape the horrors of the real world and stay in Fillory forever... [[spoiler: but the very reason why he wanted to stay was the same reason why Fillory wouldn't let him return.]]
* UsedToBeASweetKid: Used to be the sweet-natured responsible member of the family, doing his best to keep his brothers and sisters happy; then he got addicted to Fillory [[spoiler: and Plover started raping him behind closed doors.]] By the end of his time on Earth, Martin was so bitter he could scarcely pretend to give a damn about his family or the real world. [[spoiler: And then he became the Beast.]]

[[folder: Fiona]]
The second-eldest member of the siblings; joined Martin on his journey to Fillory.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: After what happened to Martin, Fiona gradually drifted away from Fillory and did her best to pretend that it never existed.
* MasterArcher: Became a brilliant archer in Fillory, though she was forced to play dumb when she took archery classes back in the real world for a time - until, like the rest of her siblings, she gave up on seeming ordinary altogether.

[[folder: Rupert]]
Martin's younger brother. The middle child of the family.

* AdultFear: As an adult, Rupert was deathly afraid of what would happen to his wife and child if the Allies were to lose the war, to the point that he actually called upon the power of Ember and Umber to bring the fight to Hitler - though it didn't work. [[spoiler: Thankfully, his family survived the war, eventually resulting in the birth of Plum Polson Purchas, Rupert's great-granddaughter.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Writes his own instalment of the ''Fillory and Further'' series while waiting to die in World War II, adding a barbed ending in the dim hope that Ember and Umber might save him.
* {{Blackmail}}: Threatened to reveal the existence of Fillory - and by extension, magic - to the entire world if Ember and Umber didn't end World War II. Tragically, it didn't work.
* InnocentInaccurate: [[spoiler: As a child, he completely misinterpreted Martin's warning not to be alone around Christopher Plover, believing that Martin enjoyed being the man's protégé and was just jealous of anyone who might take his place. As an adult, Rupert realizes his mistake, now understanding that Martin had been sexually assaulted by Plover and was trying to prevent the same thing from happening to Rupert.]]
* JadeColoredGlasses: All the Chatwin kids had their innocence crushed over time, but Rupert arguably plunged deeper into cynicism than any of the others; as an adult, he cast aside any nostalgia for Fillory, gave up all hope of the Allies winning World War II, and even became convinced that his family would be doomed if he didn't go so far as to blackmail the gods of Fillory.
* PosthumousCharacter: Killed in World War II, only being known as a character due to the autobiography he leaves in his wake.
* RichReclusesRealm: Having gotten rich from the royalties granted to him by Christopher Plover, Rupert bought a spectacular manor in the countryside and almost never left until World War II, having been consumed with guilt over the events of Martin's disappearance.
* ShellShockedVeteran: His experiences in World War II destroyed what little hope and idealism Rupert had left, to the point that he was fully convinced that the Allies would lose.
* TheShutIn: Apparently spent most of his adult life as a guilt-ridden recluse before joining the army.

[[folder: Helen]]
* TheFundamentalist: Known for being a devout worshipper of Ember and Umber, to the point that she actually hid the magical buttons that would have allowed the children to return to Fillory of their own accord, believing that they were against the laws of the Rams. After Fillory, she moved to Texas and spent the rest of her days as a Christian Evangelist.

[[folder: Jane]]
The youngest of the siblings.

* TheBabyOfTheBunch: The youngest of the siblings, the last of them to visit Fillory, and known for getting overruled by her older brothers and sisters - especially Helen.
* BewareTheQuietOnes: The shyest member of the family, but no less heroic for it. [[spoiler: As an adult, she's the one to orchestrate Martin's death.]]
* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: When Martin descended into corruption and became the Beast, Jane was entrusted with the only power that could eventually ensure his death; though she tried to prevent him from ever selling his humanity to Umber, she found that history simply couldn't be rearranged that way, leaving her no choice but to pit the Physical Kids against him.]]
* ChekhovMIA: Much like Martin, she eventually fell out of contact with the rest of her family and went AWOL. [[spoiler: She's actually the taxi driver that got Alice to Brakebills and the paramedic that gave Quentin ''The Magicians'' in the first place... and most shockingly of all, she turns out to have been the Watcherwoman all along, trying to save Fillory from the Beast that Martin ultimately became.]]
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.
* FutureSelfReveal: [[spoiler: Having already discovered that she was actually the past version of the Watcherwoman decades ago, Jane ultimately appears before Quentin to reveal that she was once the most famous characters of the ''Fillory And Further'' series.]]
* HurtingHero: [[spoiler: Her big brother ran away after several months of being molested by a trusted family friend, her family fell apart, ''she'' was recruited for the task of stopping the monster said big brother became, and spent almost her entire adult life travelling back and forth across time - with the end goal being the brutal murder of the man who used to a supportive ParentalSubstitute to her. Yeah, Jane has not had a fun life.]]
* 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.
* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler: By the end of the first book, she's the last surviving member of the Chatwin siblings, having outlived most of them and arranged for the violent death of Martin.]]

!!Denizens of Fillory

[[folder: Ember]]
!! Ember
One of the two great rams that oversee Fillory.

* CrystalDragonJesus: One of the gods of Fillory and treated with much the same reverence as the Judeo-Christian God - to the point that Helen Chatwin's experiences with him led to her becoming an Evangelical Christian.
* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler: In contrast to his brother, Ember chickens out of sacrificing himself to save Fillory, forcing Quentin to kill him.]]
* {{Expy}}: A pretty obvious stand-in for Aslan, especially given the premium he places on human innocence, his increasingly limited involvement in the series except at pivotal moments, and his talk of "deep/deeper magic."
* GodsHandsAreTied: Often proves to be unable to do certain things due to the "Deeper Magic," an element that Quentin is extremely skeptical of.
* JerkassGods: Generally gives the impression of being a sanctimonious, condescending, self-important killjoy who casually boots the Chatwin children back to the real world on the grounds of ill-defined rules and never bothers to explain himself. [[spoiler: Plus, when the time comes to sacrifice his life to save Fillory, he chickens out and has to be killed in order to end the apocalypse.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: Arrogant tosser though he may be, he's ''exactly'' right when he points out that Quentin is a reckless, self-destructive idiot.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler: After Ember's refusal to sacrifice himself nearly dooms Fillory, Quentin is empowered by Alice and Mayakovsky's coin to slay the Ram-god once and for all.]]
* TheWorfEffect: Virtually omnipotent and omniscient across Fillory; the fact that the Beast is able to sucker-punch him unconscious is a good indication of just how powerful the monster really is.

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

* AdaptationalVillainy: In-universe: [[spoiler: With the Chatwins oblivious to what the Watcherwoman really wanted, Plover came up with her villainous motivations. Jane is not amused.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees. [[spoiler: She's even raising a farm of them in the final book.]]
* CallToAgriculture: [[spoiler: Once her gambit is complete, she retires to a small farm and raises Clock Trees.]]
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: Has been orchestrating a spectacular plan to stop the Beast, prodding the Physical Kids into the roles needed to accomplish the scheme years in advance.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler: Turns out to have been manipulating history most commonly by ensuring that her chosen champions end up in exactly the right place at the right time; the comic reveals that the only reason why Alice stuck around long enough to get involved in the mission to Fillory, become a Niffin and kill the Beast was because Jane was there to make sure she didn't make it to the airport.]]
* 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.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: [[spoiler: Well, if you can call her a villain at all; her real goal is actually to stop the Beast through a complicated time-travelling scheme.]]
* HotWitch: Is actually quite attractive under her veil, though only Quentin discovers this when she introduces herself to him in the finale of the first book, [[spoiler: during which it turns out that she was secretly that cute paramedic he met early in the book.]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: [[spoiler: Despite being biologically an old woman by the events of ''The Magician's Land,'' she wades into the fray to hold back the hordes unleashed by the end of Fillory - and survives.]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: Her goal is supposedly to trap the world permanently at sunset on a rainy day. [[spoiler: Turns out that Plover just made this up, the Chatwin having no idea what her real goals were. Now that she knows what was going on, Jane doesn't regard the artistic license charitably.]]
* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler: After she destroys her watch, she reverts to her true age almost overnight; she's surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing.]]
* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: [[spoiler: She's not actually a villain; indeed, she arguably qualifies as more of a BigGood than Ember and Umber, having been trying to set Fillory right through a decades-long quest across time and space.]]
* RetiredBadass: [[spoiler: By the events of the third book, Jane has settled down to enjoy her old age and is living out the rest of her days on a clock tree farm somewhere in the wilds of Fillory. However, she's still willing to join the carnage if the situation to requires it.]]
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: [[spoiler: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* SolitarySorceress: [[spoiler: Has spent most of her adult life isolated from everyone by her mission, and after having retired from the role of Watcherwoman, she lives on an isolated farm deep in the wilderness of Fillory.]]
* SympathyForTheDevil: [[spoiler: Asks Quentin not to judge Martin too harshly, knowing what Plover did to her brother and the lengths he went to find happiness.]]
* TimeMaster: Possesses a watch with the power to travel through time and warp the space-time continuum. [[spoiler: At the end of the story, she smashes it before Quentin can try to use it.]]
* WalkingSpoiler: Suffice it to say her true identity and nature are kept secret until the end.]]
* TheWatchmaker: Her obsession with clocks and watches mirrors her mastery of time [[spoiler: and the plan she's orchestrated across the story.]]

[[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.
* CessationOfExistence: [[spoiler: His ultimate fate in ''The Magician's Land'' when Quentin destroys the poorly-thought-out afterlife of Fillory and finally allows the imprisoned dead to rest.]]
* 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.
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: [[spoiler: All Martin Chatwin wanted was to stay in Fillory forever so he could be happy and never have to face the trauma that ruined his life... but after selling his humanity to Umber, he no longer felt any affinity for the Fillory he fell in love with and ultimately set out to seize control of it. In the present, he is motivated entirely by his own twisted hunger for stimulation and carnage.]]
* 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]].]]
* EvilBrit: Speaks in Received Pronounciation and faintly posh English mannerisms. [[spoiler: This isn't just an affectation, by the way; he ''is'' English.]]
* TheFaceless: The Beast always appears with a leafy branch hovering just in front of his face, and only removes it during the final battle.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Demonstrates a chatty, boyish attitude around his victims, acting as if the whole grisly sham has been nothing more than a parlour game he's just beaten them at... though the speech is peppered with obscenities, gloating proclamations of triumph, and sudden brutality. He even cheekily refers to Penny as "dear boy" [[spoiler: right before he bites the guy's hands off.]]
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: Close to the end of the novel, Jane Chatwin reveals that that Martin Chatwin was molested as a child — by the future author of the Fillory series — and sought a permanent escape from both the abuse and his own trauma in the land of Fillory]].
* 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.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: Appears largely human except for the additional fingers and his eerily fluid movements, prompting Dean Fogg to believe that he might actually be a humanoid proxy of some Lovecraftian deity. [[spoiler: In reality, he's what happens when someone sells their humanity for happiness.]]
* 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.
* TheSociopath: Lacks empathy, demonstrates glib speech, is easily bored and often acts on spur-of-the-moment thoughts, is incapable of feeling emotional attachment, and thinks only of himself. [[spoiler: That's what happens when you sell your humanity.]]
* 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: By the time she meets Quentin again rouhgly halfway through ''The Magicians,'' Julia has suffered an awful lot of depression and self-doubt not helped by the damage the failed memory wipe did to her sanity. However, it's not until the second book that we realize just how much she's suffered.
* 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.
* 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.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: After her rape and the loss of all her friends, it takes a long, hard journey back from despair, but eventually she manages to cast off her BrokenBird self and be reborn as a dryad.]]
* 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. It doesn't stick.
* LadyOfBlackMagic: A powerful, attractive magician with a gift for dark and disturbing spells that most of the group have never seen before. She's also rather casual about sex.
* 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.
* NightmareOfNormality: The few memories of magic and her potential were erased upon failing the Brakebills entrance exam... but thanks to a mistake on the part of the faculty, she ends up figuring out the truth.
* 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: Initially believed by Julia's mother. [[spoiler: Julia really does go 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: Had a chance to get into Brakebills and experience all the fantastical things that Quentin did, only for a mistake in her entrance exam to send her back to New York empty-handed.
* TheResenter: Quietly resented Quentin for getting into Brakebills where she failed, at least prior to their next meeting in the cemetery.
* 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.]]
* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: Shocks Quentin by casually showing up at the door of her cabin topless and clearly not giving a damn. [[spoiler: It's heavily implied that this is a low-level version of RapeLeadsToPromiscuity.]]
* 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: The Paramedic / The Driver]]
A strange woman that keeps bumping into Quentin and Alice at various stages of the story, sometimes serving as a paramedic, sometimes working as a taxi driver.

* AllPowerfulBystander: Despite being powerful enough to wander in and out of Brakebills as she please, she doesn't involve herself directly in the affairs of the main characters except to encourage them to take certain courses of actions. [[spoiler: She's actually the Watcherwoman and orchestrating the events of the entire first book from behind the scenes.]]
* BlueCollarWarlock: A powerful witch currently working as either a paramedic or a taxi driver, even providing the conversation expected of the average cabbie.
* ChekhovsGunman: Initially just seems to be unknowingly responsible for getting Quentin and Alice in contact with Brakebills... then she begins cropping up at Brakebills - and Dean Fogg seems to know about her. [[spoiler: She's actually Jane Chatwin, the Watcherwoman.]]
* TheTaxi: Moonlights as a taxi driver. In ''Alice's Story,'' she helps get Alice to the outskirts of Brakebills, and later "coincidently" turns up at exactly the right time to pick Alice up on the way to the airport - giving her the opportunity to talk her out of leaving Quentin.

[[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.
* PregnantBadass: By the third books, she's pregnant [[spoiler: with Josh's baby]], but she hasn't slowed down in the slightest - joining the journey to Castle Blackspire and enthusiastically participating in the final battle.

!!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

[[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]]

[[folder: Elaine]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Eleanore]]
[[/folder]]

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

[[folder: Renard]]
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Julia notes that [[TheTrickster trickster gods]] tend not to be very fucking funny. Reynard's joke appears to have been something like "You thought you were summoning a benevolent deity, but instead you got me! And the punchline is I'm going to kill you all!"
* FoxFolk: A giant hairy fox-human hybrid. The effect in an otherwise non-furry real world is [[EldritchAbomination horrifying...]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Our Lady Underground]]
An ancient, powerful, and benevolent mother-goddess – and, as it turns out, the end-goal of the Free Trader Beowulf Group’s ambitions.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Old Gods]]
A mysterious group of entities believed to be the only true gods to be void anywhere in the multiverse; impossibly powerful, they can be found roaming the Neitherlands, “correcting” any flaws they find in the fabric of reality.
[[/folder]]

! Introduced in ''The Magician's Land''
!! The Heist Team
[[folder: Plum]]
A former Brakebills student and illusionist expelled for trespassing on a restricted area of the school. She joins the team alongside Quentin and shares the spotlight with him for most of the novel.

* AlliterativeName: Her full name is Plum Polson Purchas.
* ArbitraryScepticism: Despite being a senior Brakebills student with full awareness of the magical world, Plum firmly refuses to acknowledge that Fillory and her family's adventures there might have actually been real all along, believing them to be symptoms of mental illness; she even believes that digging too deep into this line of thinking will only result in suffering, so she resolves to suppress such thoughts as best as she can. [[spoiler: As such, she's left utterly shell-shocked when the heist concludes with her and Quentin getting their hands on her great-grandfather's ApocalypticLog, revealing to her that Fillory was actually real.]]
* FamousAncestor: Is actually the great-granddaughter of Rupert Chatwin, and grew up with the baggage and dramas of the collapsed family.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: Variant - Plum's mother rejected her Chatwin ancestry and did her best to get as far away from her past as possible, and though she married a magician and fully accepts the fact that her daughter is a magician, she was insistent on not letting Plum read ''any'' of the Fillory books. As such, though Plum has been able to read the first book on the sly, she's inherited her mother's belief that Fillory was a delusion that ultimately destroyed the family.
* ForWantOfANail: The incident that led to Plum being expelled and Quentin being fired occurred mainly because Plum was looking for the secret door to the wine closet so she could complete her prank on Wharton - only to accidentally pick the wrong wall panel, instead sending herself into the highly-dangerous restricted area. Without this series of events, the events of the novel would probably never have happened.
* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler: After learning the truth about Fillory, she has a very quiet meltdown in private as she realizes that the fantasy world that ruined her family's life was real all along and she's going to have to confront it head-on, until she finally finds herself admitting to Quentin that Fillory is real.]]
* InTheBlood: Thanks to the aforementioned FantasyForbiddingParent, Plum is convinced that she's inherited a perverse desire to learn more about Fillory and is predestined to die young.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After a very traumatizing night ends with her being expelled, Plum is offered a glass of wine by Wharton - and very nearly skulls the whole thing in one gulp, her SommelierSpeak taking a nostalgic, near-heartbroken tone.
* PluckyGirl: Though she comes from a very troubled family, was pushed hard to excel by her parents, is expelled from Brakebills, is nearly killed on several occasions, and has her worldview completely shattered at one point, Plum continuously bounces back from her many misfortunes with seemingly boundless energy. She's not a full-blown version of ThePollyanna, given that she suffers from brief spells of depression, but she launches herself back into her work with such aplomb that even Quentin can't help but be impressed.
* ThePrankster: At Brakebills, she was the head of the League, a small but dedicated all-female group of practical jokers. Their prime target - before Plum was expelled - was Wharton, who earned the group's wrath for watering their wine at dinner; unfortunately, the last stage of the prank ended in Plum accidentally trespassing on a restricted area, getting the attention of [[spoiler: Alice]] the Niffin, nearly getting herself killed, and earning a swift expulsion. Away from school, she's a lot more mature.
* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: After spending roughly half of the novel convinced that Fillory was just a tall tale, she finds herself tearfully acknowledging the reality of the place after finding Rupert's last testament complete with a priceless god-killing knife.]]
* TeenGenius: Even by Brakebills standards, Plum excels in this field, having been tutored in magic for years in advance prior to being enrolled. With this in mind, it's the main reason she manages to keep up with a caper crew of professional magicians.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Blackbird]]
A talking animal who just happens to be mysterious client behind the heist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Lionel]]
The owner of the bookstore where the team assembles, and the Blackbird's right-hand man.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Pushkar]]
A formally-trained magician specializing in enchantments.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Stoppard]]
A petulant young hedge-magician specializing in artificing and other technomagic; hired specifically to tackle the target’s security.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: "Betsy"]]
[[/folder]]

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Vile Father]]
The champion of the Lorian army invading Fillory at the start of the third book.

* Acrofatic: Surprisingly fast and agile despite his paunch.
* FatBastard: Obese and complicit in the murder of civilians and the theft of their property.
* LightningBruiser: On top of being strong and resilient, he’s also incredibly fast on his feet – to the point that even Eliot is briefly caught off-guard.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Lorians are a Viking-like race of conquerers, and Vile Father is no exception, gladly duelling Eliot to a standstill for the right to invade Fillory.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: Spends the entirety of his scenes stripped to the waist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Prince of the Mud]]
A giant turtle dwelling in the swamplands of Fillory, sought after for knowledge of the apocalypse by Eliot and Janet.
[[/folder]]

!! Other Student Magicians
[[folder: Penny]]
!! "Penny"
A young magician enrolled at the same time as Quentin; brilliant, brusque and anti-social, he clashes with Quentin in his early years at Brakebills. Following graduation, he is the first to propose the expedition to Fillory.

* AmbiguousDisorder: On top of being highly intelligent, Penny is well-known for being tactless, blunt, seemingly arrogant, humourless, and prone to making poorly-thought-out assumptions about those around him. Plus, on top of acing his entrance exam, he spent his remaining time testing the limits of the magical system to see just how many glasses of water he could order before finding a pre-set limit.
* AncientTradition: [[spoiler:Has joined the Order, the group that built and maintains the Neitherlands, when Quentin meets him in Book 2.]]
* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:During the climax, Martin Chatwin bites Penny's hands off.]]
* ArrowCatch: Casts a spell to speed up his reflexes and catch an arrow when the gang are shot at shortly after they get to Fillory.
* ArtificialLimbs: [[spoiler: Has been fitted with a very fancy set of prosthetic arms by the events of ''The Magician's Land.'']]
* BlackMage: The first of the team to consider using highly-illegal battle magic in order to combat the dangers in Fillory, having prepared several rudimentary attack spells prepared in advance. Alongside Alice, he's the most skilled of the Brakebills graduates - and unlike Alice, he has no overwhelming aversion towards violence. [[spoiler: It's for this reason that the Beast chews off his arms, leaving the group's first line of offence crippled.]]
* BreakTheHaughty: [[spoiler: His attempt to fight the Beast goes very badly, resulting in Penny's hands being brutally chewed off, leaving him bleeding out on the floor right next to Quentin. Deprived of magic and seemingly broken-spirited, his last scene in the first book features him unceremoniously drifting into the Neitherlands and vanishing.]]
* BroughtDownToNormal: [[spoiler:Without his hands, Penny loses the capacity for spellcasting. The Order teaches him how to cast spells using the muscles of his body instead.]]
* CantTakeAnythingWithYou: His discipline lets him take a few things he can carry to the Neitherlands but not other people.
* CripplingTheCompetition: [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin chews Penny's hands off in order to deprive the group of their primary battle magician.]]
* DimensionalTraveller: His unique discipline lets him do this, but he can only get to the Neitherlands and back again rather than explore other worlds in their entirety.
* FirstNameBasis: Refers to his teachers by their first name, as a sign that he considers himself their equal.
* GenderBlenderName: Of course, it's not his real name.
* GivenNameReveal: During the final battle, the Beast offhandedly reveals that Penny's real name is actually William.
* GradeSkipper: Alongside Quentin and Alice, he was considered brilliant enough to skip the first year - though he ultimately failed to qualify. ''Alice's Story'' reveals that this was actually due to Penny being distracted by the collapse of his relationship with Alice.
* GuardianOfTheMultiverse: [[spoiler: Basically what The Order does.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler: While Quentin and Poppy return to Fillory to search for the remaining Keys, Penny and the Order stay in the Neitherlands to hold off the Gods with an army of dragons.]]
* IneffectualLoner: All in all, Penny's attempts at keeping himself to himself for the majority of his post-graduate life went somewhat awry once he realized that his profoundly important magical studies had left him deeply lonely and discontented.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Upon bumping into him [[spoiler: during the second book]], Quentin has to admit that Penny's monumental arrogance is tempered by his ''innocence''; as astonishing as it might sound, he doesn't mean to offend people most of the time.
* InsufferableGenius: The only other first-year student who's remotely on the same level as Quentin and Alice, and he isn't shy about showing it off. Following graduation, he's quick to show off his discoveries concerning the Neitherlands, and during his discussion of his powers, actually reveals that he refers to his teachers on a first-name basis - which is not only presumptuous but more than a little rude.
* {{Jerkass}}: Blunt, arrogant, and more than a little clueless around people, Penny shares Quentin's habit of making poorly-thought-out assumptions of his fellow students - but crosses the line into assholishness a lot earlier by physically assaulting Quentin. He seems to have grown up a bit following his graduation, but he's not above putting his foot in it from time to time.
* MagicLibrarian: [[spoiler: After the first book, he is employed by the Order to care for a MagicalLibrary in the Neitherlands.]]
* NoSocialSkills: Probably even more clueless in social settings than Quentin, given that he often completely misinterprets the meaning of certain actions whereas Quentin will more often fail to notice them. However, where Quentin stumbles and backtracks in the face of failure, Penny charges headlong in with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
* NoSenseOfHumor: Attempts at comedy bounce off Penny without even leaving a dent.
* NotSoAboveItAll: As aloof as he may be, he occasionally reveals that he's not above enjoying the company of others, along with other things he normally considers beneath him. In [[spoiler: the second book]], upon unexpectedly getting kissed, Penny actually cracks a smile.
* OddFriendship: Was actually a good friend of Alice for a little while; given Alice's quiet nature and Penny's boisterousness, you'd be hard-pressed to imagine a more diametrically-opposed pair. Tragically, the relationship fell to bits after Penny became convinced that Alice was in love with him, resulting in accidental offence on both sides.
* PowerFloats: [[spoiler: He tends to levitate rather than walk after joining The Order.]]
* PutOnABus: On the way back through the Neitherlands, he leaves the party for another world. [[spoiler: In the second book, TheBusCameBack]]
* TheQuincyPunk: Right down to the Mohawk and the nasty attitude, though it's more out of an attempt to annoy people than a genuine lifestyle choice. For good measure, Lev Grossman reveals that he actually grew up in a Southern California gated community, making him a prime example of the "[[UpperClassTwit crusty trusty]]" punk.
* TooMuchAlike: Lev Grossman indicates that he and Quentin are a lot more alike than they're prepared to admit, including the same oblivious near-childish nature, one of the many reasons why they can't get along. Among other things, the fact that Quentin and Penny both end up gung-ho to explore Fillory ''really'' annoys Quentin, to the point that he actually tells him not to agree with him.

[[folder: Amanda]]
!! Amanda Orloff
* DefiantToTheEnd: Amanda is the only member of her class who was able to escape the Beast's influence and try to retaliate, continuing her spell-casting even while the Beast turned his powers against her.
* EatenAlive: Devoured by the Beast while still conscious, leaving a bloody mess in her wake.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Because Quentin wasn't looking at her when time froze in the classroom, he's not able to see what the Beast does to her, only hear it. Judging by the amount of blood left on the floor in ''Alice's Story,'' it was a very messy process.
* SacrificialLamb: After a few scenes (at the most) with Quentin, ends up getting brutally murdered by the Beast.

[[folder: Gretchen]]

[[folder: Surrendra]]
!! Surrendra
* BollywoodNerd: Of Indian descent - and is just as much of a TeenGenius as the other Brakebills students.
* NamedWeapons: Played for laughs; when given the traditional marble to practice his magic upon, Surrendra names his "Rakshasa," after the demons of Hindu folklore.

[[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: Noted for being quite attractive and drawing attention from both sexes.
* 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
A former member of the Physical Kids, a regular guest of the post-graduate parties, and another member of the expedition to Fillory.

* 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 Chatwin Children
[[folder: Overall Tropes]]
The protagonists of the highly-popular ''Fillory And Further'' novels; starting out as a small group of young siblings sent to their home of their aunt during the chaos of World War I, they were the first to stumble upon Fillory and have adventures there - later to be documented and published by Christopher Plover.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Chatwin family was a dysfunctional mess when they first stumbled upon Fillory, and only got worse as time went on; the father was a casualty of WWI, the mother suffered a mental breakdown, the aunt never took responsibility for the children in her care, Martin was prone to mood-swings and ran away from home, Helen got so devoted to Ember and Umber that she became a religious fanatic, and Jane ran away as well.
* {{Expy}}: For the Pevensies; in particular, Martin becomes the recognized stand-in for Peter as both are the eldest siblings and both become the High Kings of their respective fantasy realms. Meanwhile, Fiona Chatwin remains the only member of the family to forget about Fillory and move on with her life, making her a stand-in for Susan.
* 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 resulted in Martin getting molested by Plover while alone at his house.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: The Chatwins were all heroes in their own adventures in Fillory, the full extent of which remain unknown thanks to Plover's artistic license. [[spoiler: Jane took it to the next level by waging a secret war against the Beast over the course of her entire adult life.]]
* KidHero: All of them had their adventures when they were very young - and weren't allowed to return to Fillory once they grew up.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: After returning from their adventures, they had to pretend to be less adept at what they'd learned in Fillory in order to avoid attracting attention. Not all of the children could keep up the façade, though.
* ParentalNeglect: The Chatwins' aunt had zero interest in actually paying attention any of them, and was usually more preoccupied in entertaining her huge entourage of potential suiters at various parties. As a result, the kids had to learn to look after themselves.
* RealAfterAll:
** Though widely known as the protagonists of a popular children's fantasy series, the Chatwins were actually real people living in the early 20th century, much to Quentin's surprise.
** Even among people who know that the Chatwins were real ''and'' are aware that magic exists, Fillory is believed to be just a tall tale made up by Christopher Plover. Even Plum - [[spoiler: Rupert Chatwin's great-grandaughter]] - initially believed that the whole thing was due to mental illness.

[[folder: Martin]]
!! Martin Chatwin
The oldest of the siblings and the first High King of Fillory.

* BigBrotherInstinct: Even in his lowest moods, he still did his best to keep Rupert safe by [[spoiler: warning him not to end up alone in Plover's house.]]
* BrokenAce: The High King of Fillory, a brave warrior and an intrepid adventurer, not to mention a natural athlete back in the real world... and yet, none of it meant anything to him by the end, overshadowed as it was by his own depression.
* ChildMage: Went out of his way to learn magic in the hopes of finding a way back into Fillory.
* ChekhovMIA: Mysteriously vanishes after fleeing into the depths of Fillory; among those who aren't aware that Fillory is real, it's widely believed that he simply ran away from home. [[spoiler: He's actually none other than the Beast.]]
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: Eventually revealed to have made a deal with Umber, exchanging his humanity for a permanent stay in Fillory. Unfortunately, without his humanity, he gradually trandformed into the Beast - and ended up becoming so dangerous that he forced both Ember and Umber into hiding.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler: Took revenge for Plover's repeated molestation by murdering him not long after becoming the Beast.]]
* EmoTeen: Known for being moody, bitter and prone to mood swings towards the end of his time in Fillory. His younger siblings took this as a sign that he was just going through a dodgy adolescence, and little sympathy is afforded him in Plover's books. [[spoiler: He was actually being molested by Plover.]]
* {{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 that the place was a CrapsaccharineWorld - to the point that he fled into the wilderness of Fillory and never came back.
* {{Foil}}: To Quentin, both being known for obsessing over a fantasy world where happiness is always within reach and ruining what they had in their attempts to achieve contentment.
* TheHighKing: As the eldest of the kids, serves as the High King of Fillory.
* MoodSwinger: Known for swinging wildly between periods of excitability and crippling depression as the series continued. [[spoiler: Retains this trait as the Beast.]]
* OnlyThePureOfHeart: [[spoiler: With Fillory insisting on total innocence among those who visit, Martin was the first to be excluded from the land - not just because he was growing up, but because of Christopher Plover molesting him.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: With both parents absent and the aunt having no interest in caring for the children in her care, Martin had to look after his younger siblings himself.
* TragicDream: All he wanted was to escape the horrors of the real world and stay in Fillory forever... [[spoiler: but the very reason why he wanted to stay was the same reason why Fillory wouldn't let him return.]]
* UsedToBeASweetKid: Used to be the sweet-natured responsible member of the family, doing his best to keep his brothers and sisters happy; then he got addicted to Fillory [[spoiler: and Plover started raping him behind closed doors.]] By the end of his time on Earth, Martin was so bitter he could scarcely pretend to give a damn about his family or the real world. [[spoiler: And then he became the Beast.]]

[[folder: Fiona]]
The second-eldest member of the siblings; joined Martin on his journey to Fillory.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: After what happened to Martin, Fiona gradually drifted away from Fillory and did her best to pretend that it never existed.
* MasterArcher: Became a brilliant archer in Fillory, though she was forced to play dumb when she took archery classes back in the real world for a time - until, like the rest of her siblings, she gave up on seeming ordinary altogether.

[[folder: Rupert]]
Martin's younger brother. The middle child of the family.

* AdultFear: As an adult, Rupert was deathly afraid of what would happen to his wife and child if the Allies were to lose the war, to the point that he actually called upon the power of Ember and Umber to bring the fight to Hitler - though it didn't work. [[spoiler: Thankfully, his family survived the war, eventually resulting in the birth of Plum Polson Purchas, Rupert's great-granddaughter.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Writes his own instalment of the ''Fillory and Further'' series while waiting to die in World War II, adding a barbed ending in the dim hope that Ember and Umber might save him.
* {{Blackmail}}: Threatened to reveal the existence of Fillory - and by extension, magic - to the entire world if Ember and Umber didn't end World War II. Tragically, it didn't work.
* InnocentInaccurate: [[spoiler: As a child, he completely misinterpreted Martin's warning not to be alone around Christopher Plover, believing that Martin enjoyed being the man's protégé and was just jealous of anyone who might take his place. As an adult, Rupert realizes his mistake, now understanding that Martin had been sexually assaulted by Plover and was trying to prevent the same thing from happening to Rupert.]]
* JadeColoredGlasses: All the Chatwin kids had their innocence crushed over time, but Rupert arguably plunged deeper into cynicism than any of the others; as an adult, he cast aside any nostalgia for Fillory, gave up all hope of the Allies winning World War II, and even became convinced that his family would be doomed if he didn't go so far as to blackmail the gods of Fillory.
* PosthumousCharacter: Killed in World War II, only being known as a character due to the autobiography he leaves in his wake.
* RichReclusesRealm: Having gotten rich from the royalties granted to him by Christopher Plover, Rupert bought a spectacular manor in the countryside and almost never left until World War II, having been consumed with guilt over the events of Martin's disappearance.
* ShellShockedVeteran: His experiences in World War II destroyed what little hope and idealism Rupert had left, to the point that he was fully convinced that the Allies would lose.
* TheShutIn: Apparently spent most of his adult life as a guilt-ridden recluse before joining the army.

[[folder: Helen]]
* TheFundamentalist: Known for being a devout worshipper of Ember and Umber, to the point that she actually hid the magical buttons that would have allowed the children to return to Fillory of their own accord, believing that they were against the laws of the Rams. After Fillory, she moved to Texas and spent the rest of her days as a Christian Evangelist.

[[folder: Jane]]
The youngest of the siblings.

* TheBabyOfTheBunch: The youngest of the siblings, the last of them to visit Fillory, and known for getting overruled by her older brothers and sisters - especially Helen.
* BewareTheQuietOnes: The shyest member of the family, but no less heroic for it. [[spoiler: As an adult, she's the one to orchestrate Martin's death.]]
* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: When Martin descended into corruption and became the Beast, Jane was entrusted with the only power that could eventually ensure his death; though she tried to prevent him from ever selling his humanity to Umber, she found that history simply couldn't be rearranged that way, leaving her no choice but to pit the Physical Kids against him.]]
* ChekhovMIA: Much like Martin, she eventually fell out of contact with the rest of her family and went AWOL. [[spoiler: She's actually the taxi driver that got Alice to Brakebills and the paramedic that gave Quentin ''The Magicians'' in the first place... and most shockingly of all, she turns out to have been the Watcherwoman all along, trying to save Fillory from the Beast that Martin ultimately became.]]
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.
* FutureSelfReveal: [[spoiler: Having already discovered that she was actually the past version of the Watcherwoman decades ago, Jane ultimately appears before Quentin to reveal that she was once the most famous characters of the ''Fillory And Further'' series.]]
* HurtingHero: [[spoiler: Her big brother ran away after several months of being molested by a trusted family friend, her family fell apart, ''she'' was recruited for the task of stopping the monster said big brother became, and spent almost her entire adult life travelling back and forth across time - with the end goal being the brutal murder of the man who used to a supportive ParentalSubstitute to her. Yeah, Jane has not had a fun life.]]
* 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.
* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler: By the end of the first book, she's the last surviving member of the Chatwin siblings, having outlived most of them and arranged for the violent death of Martin.]]

!!Denizens of Fillory

[[folder: Ember]]
!! Ember
One of the two great rams that oversee Fillory.

* CrystalDragonJesus: One of the gods of Fillory and treated with much the same reverence as the Judeo-Christian God - to the point that Helen Chatwin's experiences with him led to her becoming an Evangelical Christian.
* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler: In contrast to his brother, Ember chickens out of sacrificing himself to save Fillory, forcing Quentin to kill him.]]
* {{Expy}}: A pretty obvious stand-in for Aslan, especially given the premium he places on human innocence, his increasingly limited involvement in the series except at pivotal moments, and his talk of "deep/deeper magic."
* GodsHandsAreTied: Often proves to be unable to do certain things due to the "Deeper Magic," an element that Quentin is extremely skeptical of.
* JerkassGods: Generally gives the impression of being a sanctimonious, condescending, self-important killjoy who casually boots the Chatwin children back to the real world on the grounds of ill-defined rules and never bothers to explain himself. [[spoiler: Plus, when the time comes to sacrifice his life to save Fillory, he chickens out and has to be killed in order to end the apocalypse.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: Arrogant tosser though he may be, he's ''exactly'' right when he points out that Quentin is a reckless, self-destructive idiot.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler: After Ember's refusal to sacrifice himself nearly dooms Fillory, Quentin is empowered by Alice and Mayakovsky's coin to slay the Ram-god once and for all.]]
* TheWorfEffect: Virtually omnipotent and omniscient across Fillory; the fact that the Beast is able to sucker-punch him unconscious is a good indication of just how powerful the monster really is.

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

* AdaptationalVillainy: In-universe: [[spoiler: With the Chatwins oblivious to what the Watcherwoman really wanted, Plover came up with her villainous motivations. Jane is not amused.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees. [[spoiler: She's even raising a farm of them in the final book.]]
* CallToAgriculture: [[spoiler: Once her gambit is complete, she retires to a small farm and raises Clock Trees.]]
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: Has been orchestrating a spectacular plan to stop the Beast, prodding the Physical Kids into the roles needed to accomplish the scheme years in advance.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler: Turns out to have been manipulating history most commonly by ensuring that her chosen champions end up in exactly the right place at the right time; the comic reveals that the only reason why Alice stuck around long enough to get involved in the mission to Fillory, become a Niffin and kill the Beast was because Jane was there to make sure she didn't make it to the airport.]]
* 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.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: [[spoiler: Well, if you can call her a villain at all; her real goal is actually to stop the Beast through a complicated time-travelling scheme.]]
* HotWitch: Is actually quite attractive under her veil, though only Quentin discovers this when she introduces herself to him in the finale of the first book, [[spoiler: during which it turns out that she was secretly that cute paramedic he met early in the book.]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: [[spoiler: Despite being biologically an old woman by the events of ''The Magician's Land,'' she wades into the fray to hold back the hordes unleashed by the end of Fillory - and survives.]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: Her goal is supposedly to trap the world permanently at sunset on a rainy day. [[spoiler: Turns out that Plover just made this up, the Chatwin having no idea what her real goals were. Now that she knows what was going on, Jane doesn't regard the artistic license charitably.]]
* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler: After she destroys her watch, she reverts to her true age almost overnight; she's surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing.]]
* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: [[spoiler: She's not actually a villain; indeed, she arguably qualifies as more of a BigGood than Ember and Umber, having been trying to set Fillory right through a decades-long quest across time and space.]]
* RetiredBadass: [[spoiler: By the events of the third book, Jane has settled down to enjoy her old age and is living out the rest of her days on a clock tree farm somewhere in the wilds of Fillory. However, she's still willing to join the carnage if the situation to requires it.]]
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: [[spoiler: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* SolitarySorceress: [[spoiler: Has spent most of her adult life isolated from everyone by her mission, and after having retired from the role of Watcherwoman, she lives on an isolated farm deep in the wilderness of Fillory.]]
* SympathyForTheDevil: [[spoiler: Asks Quentin not to judge Martin too harshly, knowing what Plover did to her brother and the lengths he went to find happiness.]]
* TimeMaster: Possesses a watch with the power to travel through time and warp the space-time continuum. [[spoiler: At the end of the story, she smashes it before Quentin can try to use it.]]
* WalkingSpoiler: Suffice it to say her true identity and nature are kept secret until the end.]]
* TheWatchmaker: Her obsession with clocks and watches mirrors her mastery of time [[spoiler: and the plan she's orchestrated across the story.]]

[[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.
* CessationOfExistence: [[spoiler: His ultimate fate in ''The Magician's Land'' when Quentin destroys the poorly-thought-out afterlife of Fillory and finally allows the imprisoned dead to rest.]]
* 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.
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: [[spoiler: All Martin Chatwin wanted was to stay in Fillory forever so he could be happy and never have to face the trauma that ruined his life... but after selling his humanity to Umber, he no longer felt any affinity for the Fillory he fell in love with and ultimately set out to seize control of it. In the present, he is motivated entirely by his own twisted hunger for stimulation and carnage.]]
* 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]].]]
* EvilBrit: Speaks in Received Pronounciation and faintly posh English mannerisms. [[spoiler: This isn't just an affectation, by the way; he ''is'' English.]]
* TheFaceless: The Beast always appears with a leafy branch hovering just in front of his face, and only removes it during the final battle.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Demonstrates a chatty, boyish attitude around his victims, acting as if the whole grisly sham has been nothing more than a parlour game he's just beaten them at... though the speech is peppered with obscenities, gloating proclamations of triumph, and sudden brutality. He even cheekily refers to Penny as "dear boy" [[spoiler: right before he bites the guy's hands off.]]
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: Close to the end of the novel, Jane Chatwin reveals that that Martin Chatwin was molested as a child — by the future author of the Fillory series — and sought a permanent escape from both the abuse and his own trauma in the land of Fillory]].
* 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.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: Appears largely human except for the additional fingers and his eerily fluid movements, prompting Dean Fogg to believe that he might actually be a humanoid proxy of some Lovecraftian deity. [[spoiler: In reality, he's what happens when someone sells their humanity for happiness.]]
* 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.
* TheSociopath: Lacks empathy, demonstrates glib speech, is easily bored and often acts on spur-of-the-moment thoughts, is incapable of feeling emotional attachment, and thinks only of himself. [[spoiler: That's what happens when you sell your humanity.]]
* 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: By the time she meets Quentin again rouhgly halfway through ''The Magicians,'' Julia has suffered an awful lot of depression and self-doubt not helped by the damage the failed memory wipe did to her sanity. However, it's not until the second book that we realize just how much she's suffered.
* 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.
* 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.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: After her rape and the loss of all her friends, it takes a long, hard journey back from despair, but eventually she manages to cast off her BrokenBird self and be reborn as a dryad.]]
* 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. It doesn't stick.
* LadyOfBlackMagic: A powerful, attractive magician with a gift for dark and disturbing spells that most of the group have never seen before. She's also rather casual about sex.
* 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.
* NightmareOfNormality: The few memories of magic and her potential were erased upon failing the Brakebills entrance exam... but thanks to a mistake on the part of the faculty, she ends up figuring out the truth.
* 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: Initially believed by Julia's mother. [[spoiler: Julia really does go 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: Had a chance to get into Brakebills and experience all the fantastical things that Quentin did, only for a mistake in her entrance exam to send her back to New York empty-handed.
* TheResenter: Quietly resented Quentin for getting into Brakebills where she failed, at least prior to their next meeting in the cemetery.
* 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.]]
* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: Shocks Quentin by casually showing up at the door of her cabin topless and clearly not giving a damn. [[spoiler: It's heavily implied that this is a low-level version of RapeLeadsToPromiscuity.]]
* 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: The Paramedic / The Driver]]
A strange woman that keeps bumping into Quentin and Alice at various stages of the story, sometimes serving as a paramedic, sometimes working as a taxi driver.

* AllPowerfulBystander: Despite being powerful enough to wander in and out of Brakebills as she please, she doesn't involve herself directly in the affairs of the main characters except to encourage them to take certain courses of actions. [[spoiler: She's actually the Watcherwoman and orchestrating the events of the entire first book from behind the scenes.]]
* BlueCollarWarlock: A powerful witch currently working as either a paramedic or a taxi driver, even providing the conversation expected of the average cabbie.
* ChekhovsGunman: Initially just seems to be unknowingly responsible for getting Quentin and Alice in contact with Brakebills... then she begins cropping up at Brakebills - and Dean Fogg seems to know about her. [[spoiler: She's actually Jane Chatwin, the Watcherwoman.]]
* TheTaxi: Moonlights as a taxi driver. In ''Alice's Story,'' she helps get Alice to the outskirts of Brakebills, and later "coincidently" turns up at exactly the right time to pick Alice up on the way to the airport - giving her the opportunity to talk her out of leaving Quentin.

[[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.
* PregnantBadass: By the third books, she's pregnant [[spoiler: with Josh's baby]], but she hasn't slowed down in the slightest - joining the journey to Castle Blackspire and enthusiastically participating in the final battle.

!!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]]
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Julia notes that [[TheTrickster trickster gods]] tend not to be very fucking funny. Reynard's joke appears to have been something like "You thought you were summoning a benevolent deity, but instead you got me! And the punchline is I'm going to kill you all!"
* FoxFolk: A giant hairy fox-human hybrid. The effect in an otherwise non-furry real world is [[EldritchAbomination horrifying...]]

[[folder: Our Lady Underground]]
An ancient, powerful, and benevolent mother-goddess – and, as it turns out, the end-goal of the Free Trader Beowulf Group’s ambitions.

[[folder: The Old Gods]]
A mysterious group of entities believed to be the only true gods to be void anywhere in the multiverse; impossibly powerful, they can be found roaming the Neitherlands, “correcting” any flaws they find in the fabric of reality.

! Introduced in ''The Magician's Land''
!! The Heist Team
[[folder: Plum]]
A former Brakebills student and illusionist expelled for trespassing on a restricted area of the school. She joins the team alongside Quentin and shares the spotlight with him for most of the novel.

* AlliterativeName: Her full name is Plum Polson Purchas.
* ArbitraryScepticism: Despite being a senior Brakebills student with full awareness of the magical world, Plum firmly refuses to acknowledge that Fillory and her family's adventures there might have actually been real all along, believing them to be symptoms of mental illness; she even believes that digging too deep into this line of thinking will only result in suffering, so she resolves to suppress such thoughts as best as she can. [[spoiler: As such, she's left utterly shell-shocked when the heist concludes with her and Quentin getting their hands on her great-grandfather's ApocalypticLog, revealing to her that Fillory was actually real.]]
* FamousAncestor: Is actually the great-granddaughter of Rupert Chatwin, and grew up with the baggage and dramas of the collapsed family.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: Variant - Plum's mother rejected her Chatwin ancestry and did her best to get as far away from her past as possible, and though she married a magician and fully accepts the fact that her daughter is a magician, she was insistent on not letting Plum read ''any'' of the Fillory books. As such, though Plum has been able to read the first book on the sly, she's inherited her mother's belief that Fillory was a delusion that ultimately destroyed the family.
* ForWantOfANail: The incident that led to Plum being expelled and Quentin being fired occurred mainly because Plum was looking for the secret door to the wine closet so she could complete her prank on Wharton - only to accidentally pick the wrong wall panel, instead sending herself into the highly-dangerous restricted area. Without this series of events, the events of the novel would probably never have happened.
* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler: After learning the truth about Fillory, she has a very quiet meltdown in private as she realizes that the fantasy world that ruined her family's life was real all along and she's going to have to confront it head-on, until she finally finds herself admitting to Quentin that Fillory is real.]]
* InTheBlood: Thanks to the aforementioned FantasyForbiddingParent, Plum is convinced that she's inherited a perverse desire to learn more about Fillory and is predestined to die young.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After a very traumatizing night ends with her being expelled, Plum is offered a glass of wine by Wharton - and very nearly skulls the whole thing in one gulp, her SommelierSpeak taking a nostalgic, near-heartbroken tone.
* PluckyGirl: Though she comes from a very troubled family, was pushed hard to excel by her parents, is expelled from Brakebills, is nearly killed on several occasions, and has her worldview completely shattered at one point, Plum continuously bounces back from her many misfortunes with seemingly boundless energy. She's not a full-blown version of ThePollyanna, given that she suffers from brief spells of depression, but she launches herself back into her work with such aplomb that even Quentin can't help but be impressed.
* ThePrankster: At Brakebills, she was the head of the League, a small but dedicated all-female group of practical jokers. Their prime target - before Plum was expelled - was Wharton, who earned the group's wrath for watering their wine at dinner; unfortunately, the last stage of the prank ended in Plum accidentally trespassing on a restricted area, getting the attention of [[spoiler: Alice]] the Niffin, nearly getting herself killed, and earning a swift expulsion. Away from school, she's a lot more mature.
* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: After spending roughly half of the novel convinced that Fillory was just a tall tale, she finds herself tearfully acknowledging the reality of the place after finding Rupert's last testament complete with a priceless god-killing knife.]]
* TeenGenius: Even by Brakebills standards, Plum excels in this field, having been tutored in magic for years in advance prior to being enrolled. With this in mind, it's the main reason she manages to keep up with a caper crew of professional magicians.

[[folder: The Blackbird]]
A talking animal who just happens to be mysterious client behind the heist.

[[folder: Lionel]]
The owner of the bookstore where the team assembles, and the Blackbird's right-hand man.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Pushkar]]
A formally-trained magician specializing in enchantments.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Stoppard]]
A petulant young hedge-magician specializing in artificing and other technomagic; hired specifically to tackle the target’s security.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: "Betsy"]]
[[/folder]]

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Vile Father]]
The champion of the Lorian army invading Fillory at the start of the third book.

* Acrofatic: Surprisingly fast and agile despite his paunch.
* FatBastard: Obese and complicit in the murder of civilians and the theft of their property.
* LightningBruiser: On top of being strong and resilient, he’s also incredibly fast on his feet – to the point that even Eliot is briefly caught off-guard.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Lorians are a Viking-like race of conquerers, and Vile Father is no exception, gladly duelling Eliot to a standstill for the right to invade Fillory.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: Spends the entirety of his scenes stripped to the waist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Prince of the Mud]]
A giant turtle dwelling in the swamplands of Fillory, sought after for knowledge of the apocalypse by Eliot and Janet.
[[/folder]]

* Characters/TheMagiciansThePhysicalKids

!!The Brakebills Faculty
[[folder: Dean Fogg]]
!!Henry Fogg
The current Dean of Brakebills.

* BenevolentBoss: He's surprisingly accepting of the notion of Quentin as a junior professor, giving him a place at Brakebills in spite of Quentin's shitty behaviour during their last meeting. That said, Fogg will not stand for any nonsense: as soon as he finds that a professor has endangered the students by letting a Niffin run rampant, he's fired.
* 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: While nowhere near as bitter or nihilistic as Mayakovsky, Fogg takes a somewhat gloomy view of his students, the school and even magic itself.
* DeanBitterman: Downplayed; he's not necessarily mean ''per se'', but he's definitely blunt, obstinate, and somewhat condescending.
* FatBastard: Quite rotund and more than a bit of a jackass - though he can be reasoned with, thankfully.
* GentlemanWizard: In keeping with Brakebills' anglophile stylings, Fogg likes to look the part of a gentleman with his suits and fine cigars.
* JerkassHasAPoint:
** Stonewalls Quentin's investigation in the second book - but then again, Quentin ''was'' asking for confidential information and acting like an entitled prick.
** 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 that Niffins are remorseless killers with near-infinite magical power and this one posed a direct threat to literally everyone in the school ''including the students''. Perhaps recognizing this, Quentin doesn't protest the Dean's ruling at all.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: To Quentin in the second book, denying him vital information.
* ParentalSubstitute: One of three prominent figures that Quentin regards as a replacement for his disappointing father during the third book, to the point that Fogg even gives him the prodigal son treatment when Quentin comes crawling back after insulting him.
* PetTheDog:
** Lets Quentin become a professor at Fillory, even after all the insults Quentin dumped in his lap on his last visit.
** In the comic series, he opens up Fillory to hedge-witch students and even enters into a surprisingly genial relationship with the hedge-witch mentor.
* 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 attempt to save the students frozen in time by the Beast, 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 Van der Weghe]]
!! Melanie Van der Weghe

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

* BreakTheHaughty: What Quentin tries to do to him by sabotaging one of his spells. [[spoiler: 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. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero 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: Quentin ends up harboring a crush on her throughout his early years at Brakebills.
* 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
The sole teacher at Brakebills South, Mayakovsky presides over the students sent there in their fourth year, teaching them how to internalize the spellcasting mechanics that they have studied in previous semesters. Unfortunately, his teaching style is not known for being especially gentle or compassionate, and his lessons walk a fine line between education and torture...

* TheAloner: Unable to leave Brakebills South due to an incorporate bond, he spends his time between semesters completely alone, either experimenting or getting completely shitfaced.
* 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: An unimaginably bitter, foul-tempered and pessimistic individual nonetheless determined to show his students the path to full magical mastery, likely because they're his only company throughout the year. For good measure, he's quite apathetic about their chances of actually getting anything right.
* DareToBeBadass: Spurs his students on with monologues that neatly mix insults and inspiration.
* DragonRider: In the third book, Quentin remembers Mayakovsky telling him that he rode 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 drunken 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. ''The Magician's Land'' confirms that Mayakovsky can't leave the area due to an incorporate bond.
* FamousAncestor: The son of a past Dean of Brakebills, Quentin and Eliot immediately connect Mayakovsky's name to his legendary father.
* GargleBlaster: Has been making his own Antarctic moonshine; upon noticing the radiator fluid-like smell, Quentin speculates that it was brewed from lichens, if only because the alternatives are unthinkable. Drinking it results in a very confusing night out.
* GeniusSlob: When not attending to the annual class of fourth-years, Mayakovsky spends a good deal of his time tinkering with highly-theoretical forms of magic, usually while hungover and wearing clothes he hasn't bothered to wash.
* TheHermit: Despite having worked out a method of cancelling out the Inchoate Bond keeping him trapped in Brakebills South, he chooses to remain there out of disgust for humanity and - more prominently - a fear of risking connections with other people again.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: During Book 3, he drunkenly hints that he took part in the Order's battle against the Old Gods back in the previous novel; Quentin can't tell if he's being serious or not.
* 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.
* InsufferableGenius: Mayakovsky is among the most brilliant characters in the entire series, capable of creating things that most magicians can only dream of and performing feats that can only be eclipsed by Gods and Niffins... but unfortunately, he is also an arrogant jackass who is not afraid to flaunt his superiority in front of demoralized students and graduates.
* JadedWashout: ''The Magician's Land'' reveals him to be this; having lost all interest in doing anything meaningful with his life since his humiliating reassignment, he's content to experiment, get pissed, and provide his own sadistic brand of education to fourth-year students. It's not even his exile that's upsetting him anymore: by now, he's stored up the magical power to escape Brakebills South anytime he likes, not to mention enough inventions to change the world in any way he likes - he just doesn't give a shit anymore.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Though undoubtedly an asshole, Mayakovsky still maintains a few redeeming traits in spite of himself; among other things, he expresses admiration for students who excel and genuinely push boundaries; he provides food and breaks to his class, despite his vocal contempt for them; most surprisingly of all, he regards Quentin and Alice with almost paternal pride.
* MadScientistLaboratory: Book three reveals that he's maintaining a laboratory at Brakebills South; here, he keeps his most impressive creations, most of which would revolutionize the magical world if he only shared them.
* MirrorCharacter: When the two of them meet again in ''The Magician's Land'', Quentin realizes that Mayakovsky is essentially stuck in the same reclusive, self-indulgent state he was in at the end of the first book; they both lost someone close to them ([[spoiler: Alice]] for Quentin, Emily for Mayakovsky), they both retreated from the world to a refuge of their own choosing, and they vowed never to risk anything ever again. However, where Quentin was eventually rescued from his own delusions by his friends and learned to move on with his life and take risks again, Mayakovsky hasn't left his shell; for the last few years, he's been perfectly comfortable tinkering with concepts and never risking anything by sharing his genius with the rest of the world.
* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong: Son of a magician recruited from a remote Siberian village, and easily one of the toughest and most brutal teachers on the entire faculty - not to mention the craziest.
* ParentalSubstitute: In ''The Magician's Land,'' Quentin realizes that he's been subconsciously treating a number of authority figures as substitutes for his disappointing father, Mayakovsky being one of the more prominent of them - perhaps exacerbated by the pride Mayakovsky demonstrated when Quentin passed the UltimateFinalExam.
* PerpetualMotionMachine: Has built one and keeps it in the laboratory of Brakebills South.
* PetTheDog:
** Allows Quentin to sleep in before beginning the first lesson at Brakebills South, even allowing him to have breakfast.
** 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; throughout the year, he keeps them isolated, humiliates them through shapeshifting exercises, and even slaps Quentin in the chops for doubting himself. 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: Expresses such sentiments to Quentin and Alice 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. However, ''The Magician's Land'' suggests that he might not be quite done with his attraction with Emily, given that the magical coins that he gives to Qunetin have Emily's face on the head side.
* ThinkingUpPortals: How he gets students back to Brakebills.
* TrainingFromHell: The official provider of said training, kicking off by muting his students and putting them to work in isolated cells, and providing respite only to humiliate them in shapeshifting classes.
* VodkaDrunkenski: 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.
* 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.

!!The Chatwin Children
[[folder: Overall Tropes]]
The protagonists of the highly-popular ''Fillory And Further'' novels; starting out as a small group of young siblings sent to their home of their aunt during the chaos of World War I, they were the first to stumble upon Fillory and have adventures there - later to be documented and published by Christopher Plover.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Chatwin family was a dysfunctional mess when they first stumbled upon Fillory, and only got worse as time went on; the father was a casualty of WWI, the mother suffered a mental breakdown, the aunt never took responsibility for the children in her care, Martin was prone to mood-swings and ran away from home, Helen got so devoted to Ember and Umber that she became a religious fanatic, and Jane ran away as well.
* {{Expy}}: For the Pevensies; in particular, Martin becomes the recognized stand-in for Peter as both are the eldest siblings and both become the High Kings of their respective fantasy realms. Meanwhile, Fiona Chatwin remains the only member of the family to forget about Fillory and move on with her life, making her a stand-in for Susan.
* 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 resulted in Martin getting molested by Plover while alone at his house.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: The Chatwins were all heroes in their own adventures in Fillory, the full extent of which remain unknown thanks to Plover's artistic license. [[spoiler: Jane took it to the next level by waging a secret war against the Beast over the course of her entire adult life.]]
* KidHero: All of them had their adventures when they were very young - and weren't allowed to return to Fillory once they grew up.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: After returning from their adventures, they had to pretend to be less adept at what they'd learned in Fillory in order to avoid attracting attention. Not all of the children could keep up the façade, though.
* ParentalNeglect: The Chatwins' aunt had zero interest in actually paying attention any of them, and was usually more preoccupied in entertaining her huge entourage of potential suiters at various parties. As a result, the kids had to learn to look after themselves.
* RealAfterAll:
** Though widely known as the protagonists of a popular children's fantasy series, the Chatwins were actually real people living in the early 20th century, much to Quentin's surprise.
** Even among people who know that the Chatwins were real ''and'' are aware that magic exists, Fillory is believed to be just a tall tale made up by Christopher Plover. Even Plum - [[spoiler: Rupert Chatwin's great-grandaughter]] - initially believed that the whole thing was due to mental illness.

[[folder: Martin]]
!! Martin Chatwin
The oldest of the siblings and the first High King of Fillory.

* BigBrotherInstinct: Even in his lowest moods, he still did his best to keep Rupert safe by [[spoiler: warning him not to end up alone in Plover's house.]]
* BrokenAce: The High King of Fillory, a brave warrior and an intrepid adventurer, not to mention a natural athlete back in the real world... and yet, none of it meant anything to him by the end, overshadowed as it was by his own depression.
* ChildMage: Went out of his way to learn magic in the hopes of finding a way back into Fillory.
* ChekhovMIA: Mysteriously vanishes after fleeing into the depths of Fillory; among those who aren't aware that Fillory is real, it's widely believed that he simply ran away from home. [[spoiler: He's actually none other than the Beast.]]
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: Eventually revealed to have made a deal with Umber, exchanging his humanity for a permanent stay in Fillory. Unfortunately, without his humanity, he gradually trandformed into the Beast - and ended up becoming so dangerous that he forced both Ember and Umber into hiding.]]
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler: Took revenge for Plover's repeated molestation by murdering him not long after becoming the Beast.]]
* EmoTeen: Known for being moody, bitter and prone to mood swings towards the end of his time in Fillory. His younger siblings took this as a sign that he was just going through a dodgy adolescence, and little sympathy is afforded him in Plover's books. [[spoiler: He was actually being molested by Plover.]]
* {{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 that the place was a CrapsaccharineWorld - to the point that he fled into the wilderness of Fillory and never came back.
* {{Foil}}: To Quentin, both being known for obsessing over a fantasy world where happiness is always within reach and ruining what they had in their attempts to achieve contentment.
* TheHighKing: As the eldest of the kids, serves as the High King of Fillory.
* MoodSwinger: Known for swinging wildly between periods of excitability and crippling depression as the series continued. [[spoiler: Retains this trait as the Beast.]]
* OnlyThePureOfHeart: [[spoiler: With Fillory insisting on total innocence among those who visit, Martin was the first to be excluded from the land - not just because he was growing up, but because of Christopher Plover molesting him.]]
* ParentalSubstitute: With both parents absent and the aunt having no interest in caring for the children in her care, Martin had to look after his younger siblings himself.
* TragicDream: All he wanted was to escape the horrors of the real world and stay in Fillory forever... [[spoiler: but the very reason why he wanted to stay was the same reason why Fillory wouldn't let him return.]]
* UsedToBeASweetKid: Used to be the sweet-natured responsible member of the family, doing his best to keep his brothers and sisters happy; then he got addicted to Fillory [[spoiler: and Plover started raping him behind closed doors.]] By the end of his time on Earth, Martin was so bitter he could scarcely pretend to give a damn about his family or the real world. [[spoiler: And then he became the Beast.]]

[[folder: Fiona]]
The second-eldest member of the siblings; joined Martin on his journey to Fillory.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: After what happened to Martin, Fiona gradually drifted away from Fillory and did her best to pretend that it never existed.
* MasterArcher: Became a brilliant archer in Fillory, though she was forced to play dumb when she took archery classes back in the real world for a time - until, like the rest of her siblings, she gave up on seeming ordinary altogether.

[[folder: Rupert]]
Martin's younger brother. The middle child of the family.

* AdultFear: As an adult, Rupert was deathly afraid of what would happen to his wife and child if the Allies were to lose the war, to the point that he actually called upon the power of Ember and Umber to bring the fight to Hitler - though it didn't work. [[spoiler: Thankfully, his family survived the war, eventually resulting in the birth of Plum Polson Purchas, Rupert's great-granddaughter.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Writes his own instalment of the ''Fillory and Further'' series while waiting to die in World War II, adding a barbed ending in the dim hope that Ember and Umber might save him.
* {{Blackmail}}: Threatened to reveal the existence of Fillory - and by extension, magic - to the entire world if Ember and Umber didn't end World War II. Tragically, it didn't work.
* InnocentInaccurate: [[spoiler: As a child, he completely misinterpreted Martin's warning not to be alone around Christopher Plover, believing that Martin enjoyed being the man's protégé and was just jealous of anyone who might take his place. As an adult, Rupert realizes his mistake, now understanding that Martin had been sexually assaulted by Plover and was trying to prevent the same thing from happening to Rupert.]]
* JadeColoredGlasses: All the Chatwin kids had their innocence crushed over time, but Rupert arguably plunged deeper into cynicism than any of the others; as an adult, he cast aside any nostalgia for Fillory, gave up all hope of the Allies winning World War II, and even became convinced that his family would be doomed if he didn't go so far as to blackmail the gods of Fillory.
* PosthumousCharacter: Killed in World War II, only being known as a character due to the autobiography he leaves in his wake.
* RichReclusesRealm: Having gotten rich from the royalties granted to him by Christopher Plover, Rupert bought a spectacular manor in the countryside and almost never left until World War II, having been consumed with guilt over the events of Martin's disappearance.
* ShellShockedVeteran: His experiences in World War II destroyed what little hope and idealism Rupert had left, to the point that he was fully convinced that the Allies would lose.
* TheShutIn: Apparently spent most of his adult life as a guilt-ridden recluse before joining the army.

[[folder: Helen]]
* TheFundamentalist: Known for being a devout worshipper of Ember and Umber, to the point that she actually hid the magical buttons that would have allowed the children to return to Fillory of their own accord, believing that they were against the laws of the Rams. After Fillory, she moved to Texas and spent the rest of her days as a Christian Evangelist.

[[folder: Jane]]
The youngest of the siblings.

* TheBabyOfTheBunch: The youngest of the siblings, the last of them to visit Fillory, and known for getting overruled by her older brothers and sisters - especially Helen.
* BewareTheQuietOnes: The shyest member of the family, but no less heroic for it. [[spoiler: As an adult, she's the one to orchestrate Martin's death.]]
* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: When Martin descended into corruption and became the Beast, Jane was entrusted with the only power that could eventually ensure his death; though she tried to prevent him from ever selling his humanity to Umber, she found that history simply couldn't be rearranged that way, leaving her no choice but to pit the Physical Kids against him.]]
* ChekhovMIA: Much like Martin, she eventually fell out of contact with the rest of her family and went AWOL. [[spoiler: She's actually the taxi driver that got Alice to Brakebills and the paramedic that gave Quentin ''The Magicians'' in the first place... and most shockingly of all, she turns out to have been the Watcherwoman all along, trying to save Fillory from the Beast that Martin ultimately became.]]
* EnsembleDarkhorse: In-universe example. Out of all the Chatwin children, Jane is a fan-favourite, mainly because her thoughtful attitude sets her apart from the others.
* FutureSelfReveal: [[spoiler: Having already discovered that she was actually the past version of the Watcherwoman decades ago, Jane ultimately appears before Quentin to reveal that she was once the most famous characters of the ''Fillory And Further'' series.]]
* HurtingHero: [[spoiler: Her big brother ran away after several months of being molested by a trusted family friend, her family fell apart, ''she'' was recruited for the task of stopping the monster said big brother became, and spent almost her entire adult life travelling back and forth across time - with the end goal being the brutal murder of the man who used to a supportive ParentalSubstitute to her. Yeah, Jane has not had a fun life.]]
* 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.
* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler: By the end of the first book, she's the last surviving member of the Chatwin siblings, having outlived most of them and arranged for the violent death of Martin.]]

!!Denizens of Fillory

[[folder: Ember]]
!! Ember
One of the two great rams that oversee Fillory.

* CrystalDragonJesus: One of the gods of Fillory and treated with much the same reverence as the Judeo-Christian God - to the point that Helen Chatwin's experiences with him led to her becoming an Evangelical Christian.
* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler: In contrast to his brother, Ember chickens out of sacrificing himself to save Fillory, forcing Quentin to kill him.]]
* {{Expy}}: A pretty obvious stand-in for Aslan, especially given the premium he places on human innocence, his increasingly limited involvement in the series except at pivotal moments, and his talk of "deep/deeper magic."
* GodsHandsAreTied: Often proves to be unable to do certain things due to the "Deeper Magic," an element that Quentin is extremely skeptical of.
* JerkassGods: Generally gives the impression of being a sanctimonious, condescending, self-important killjoy who casually boots the Chatwin children back to the real world on the grounds of ill-defined rules and never bothers to explain himself. [[spoiler: Plus, when the time comes to sacrifice his life to save Fillory, he chickens out and has to be killed in order to end the apocalypse.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: Arrogant tosser though he may be, he's ''exactly'' right when he points out that Quentin is a reckless, self-destructive idiot.
* KillTheGod: [[spoiler: After Ember's refusal to sacrifice himself nearly dooms Fillory, Quentin is empowered by Alice and Mayakovsky's coin to slay the Ram-god once and for all.]]
* TheWorfEffect: Virtually omnipotent and omniscient across Fillory; the fact that the Beast is able to sucker-punch him unconscious is a good indication of just how powerful the monster really is.

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

* AdaptationalVillainy: In-universe: [[spoiler: With the Chatwins oblivious to what the Watcherwoman really wanted, Plover came up with her villainous motivations. Jane is not amused.]]
* BigBad: Of the original Fillory novel, but during the time of the Beast, she appears to have gone into decline.
* CallingCard: The Clock Trees. [[spoiler: She's even raising a farm of them in the final book.]]
* CallToAgriculture: [[spoiler: Once her gambit is complete, she retires to a small farm and raises Clock Trees.]]
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: Has been orchestrating a spectacular plan to stop the Beast, prodding the Physical Kids into the roles needed to accomplish the scheme years in advance.]]
* EvilSorcerer: [[spoiler: Technically, she's a hedge-witch, and not exactly evil, anyway.]]
* TheFaceless: Always wears a veil.
* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler: Turns out to have been manipulating history most commonly by ensuring that her chosen champions end up in exactly the right place at the right time; the comic reveals that the only reason why Alice stuck around long enough to get involved in the mission to Fillory, become a Niffin and kill the Beast was because Jane was there to make sure she didn't make it to the airport.]]
* 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.]]
* HiddenAgendaVillain: [[spoiler: Well, if you can call her a villain at all; her real goal is actually to stop the Beast through a complicated time-travelling scheme.]]
* HotWitch: Is actually quite attractive under her veil, though only Quentin discovers this when she introduces herself to him in the finale of the first book, [[spoiler: during which it turns out that she was secretly that cute paramedic he met early in the book.]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: [[spoiler: Despite being biologically an old woman by the events of ''The Magician's Land,'' she wades into the fray to hold back the hordes unleashed by the end of Fillory - and survives.]]
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: Her goal is supposedly to trap the world permanently at sunset on a rainy day. [[spoiler: Turns out that Plover just made this up, the Chatwin having no idea what her real goals were. Now that she knows what was going on, Jane doesn't regard the artistic license charitably.]]
* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler: After she destroys her watch, she reverts to her true age almost overnight; she's surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing.]]
* NotEvilJustMisunderstood: [[spoiler: She's not actually a villain; indeed, she arguably qualifies as more of a BigGood than Ember and Umber, having been trying to set Fillory right through a decades-long quest across time and space.]]
* RetiredBadass: [[spoiler: By the events of the third book, Jane has settled down to enjoy her old age and is living out the rest of her days on a clock tree farm somewhere in the wilds of Fillory. However, she's still willing to join the carnage if the situation to requires it.]]
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: [[spoiler: Her initial goal, which failed when it came to saving Martin from becoming the Beast.]]
* SolitarySorceress: [[spoiler: Has spent most of her adult life isolated from everyone by her mission, and after having retired from the role of Watcherwoman, she lives on an isolated farm deep in the wilderness of Fillory.]]
* SympathyForTheDevil: [[spoiler: Asks Quentin not to judge Martin too harshly, knowing what Plover did to her brother and the lengths he went to find happiness.]]
* TimeMaster: Possesses a watch with the power to travel through time and warp the space-time continuum. [[spoiler: At the end of the story, she smashes it before Quentin can try to use it.]]
* WalkingSpoiler: Suffice it to say her true identity and nature are kept secret until the end.]]
* TheWatchmaker: Her obsession with clocks and watches mirrors her mastery of time [[spoiler: and the plan she's orchestrated across the story.]]

[[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.
* CessationOfExistence: [[spoiler: His ultimate fate in ''The Magician's Land'' when Quentin destroys the poorly-thought-out afterlife of Fillory and finally allows the imprisoned dead to rest.]]
* 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.
* TheDarkSideWillMakeYouForget: [[spoiler: All Martin Chatwin wanted was to stay in Fillory forever so he could be happy and never have to face the trauma that ruined his life... but after selling his humanity to Umber, he no longer felt any affinity for the Fillory he fell in love with and ultimately set out to seize control of it. In the present, he is motivated entirely by his own twisted hunger for stimulation and carnage.]]
* 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]].]]
* EvilBrit: Speaks in Received Pronounciation and faintly posh English mannerisms. [[spoiler: This isn't just an affectation, by the way; he ''is'' English.]]
* TheFaceless: The Beast always appears with a leafy branch hovering just in front of his face, and only removes it during the final battle.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Demonstrates a chatty, boyish attitude around his victims, acting as if the whole grisly sham has been nothing more than a parlour game he's just beaten them at... though the speech is peppered with obscenities, gloating proclamations of triumph, and sudden brutality. He even cheekily refers to Penny as "dear boy" [[spoiler: right before he bites the guy's hands off.]]
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: Close to the end of the novel, Jane Chatwin reveals that that Martin Chatwin was molested as a child — by the future author of the Fillory series — and sought a permanent escape from both the abuse and his own trauma in the land of Fillory]].
* 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.]]
* HumanoidAbomination: Appears largely human except for the additional fingers and his eerily fluid movements, prompting Dean Fogg to believe that he might actually be a humanoid proxy of some Lovecraftian deity. [[spoiler: In reality, he's what happens when someone sells their humanity for happiness.]]
* 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.
* TheSociopath: Lacks empathy, demonstrates glib speech, is easily bored and often acts on spur-of-the-moment thoughts, is incapable of feeling emotional attachment, and thinks only of himself. [[spoiler: That's what happens when you sell your humanity.]]
* 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: By the time she meets Quentin again rouhgly halfway through ''The Magicians,'' Julia has suffered an awful lot of depression and self-doubt not helped by the damage the failed memory wipe did to her sanity. However, it's not until the second book that we realize just how much she's suffered.
* 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.
* 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.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: After her rape and the loss of all her friends, it takes a long, hard journey back from despair, but eventually she manages to cast off her BrokenBird self and be reborn as a dryad.]]
* 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. It doesn't stick.
* LadyOfBlackMagic: A powerful, attractive magician with a gift for dark and disturbing spells that most of the group have never seen before. She's also rather casual about sex.
* 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.
* NightmareOfNormality: The few memories of magic and her potential were erased upon failing the Brakebills entrance exam... but thanks to a mistake on the part of the faculty, she ends up figuring out the truth.
* 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: Initially believed by Julia's mother. [[spoiler: Julia really does go 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: Had a chance to get into Brakebills and experience all the fantastical things that Quentin did, only for a mistake in her entrance exam to send her back to New York empty-handed.
* TheResenter: Quietly resented Quentin for getting into Brakebills where she failed, at least prior to their next meeting in the cemetery.
* 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.]]
* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: Shocks Quentin by casually showing up at the door of her cabin topless and clearly not giving a damn. [[spoiler: It's heavily implied that this is a low-level version of RapeLeadsToPromiscuity.]]
* 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: The Paramedic / The Driver]]
A strange woman that keeps bumping into Quentin and Alice at various stages of the story, sometimes serving as a paramedic, sometimes working as a taxi driver.

* AllPowerfulBystander: Despite being powerful enough to wander in and out of Brakebills as she please, she doesn't involve herself directly in the affairs of the main characters except to encourage them to take certain courses of actions. [[spoiler: She's actually the Watcherwoman and orchestrating the events of the entire first book from behind the scenes.]]
* BlueCollarWarlock: A powerful witch currently working as either a paramedic or a taxi driver, even providing the conversation expected of the average cabbie.
* ChekhovsGunman: Initially just seems to be unknowingly responsible for getting Quentin and Alice in contact with Brakebills... then she begins cropping up at Brakebills - and Dean Fogg seems to know about her. [[spoiler: She's actually Jane Chatwin, the Watcherwoman.]]
* TheTaxi: Moonlights as a taxi driver. In ''Alice's Story,'' she helps get Alice to the outskirts of Brakebills, and later "coincidently" turns up at exactly the right time to pick Alice up on the way to the airport - giving her the opportunity to talk her out of leaving Quentin.

[[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.
* PregnantBadass: By the third books, she's pregnant [[spoiler: with Josh's baby]], but she hasn't slowed down in the slightest - joining the journey to Castle Blackspire and enthusiastically participating in the final battle.

!!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]]
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: Julia notes that [[TheTrickster trickster gods]] tend not to be very fucking funny. Reynard's joke appears to have been something like "You thought you were summoning a benevolent deity, but instead you got me! And the punchline is I'm going to kill you all!"
* FoxFolk: A giant hairy fox-human hybrid. The effect in an otherwise non-furry real world is [[EldritchAbomination horrifying...]]

[[folder: Our Lady Underground]]
An ancient, powerful, and benevolent mother-goddess – and, as it turns out, the end-goal of the Free Trader Beowulf Group’s ambitions.

[[folder: The Old Gods]]
A mysterious group of entities believed to be the only true gods to be void anywhere in the multiverse; impossibly powerful, they can be found roaming the Neitherlands, “correcting” any flaws they find in the fabric of reality.

! Introduced in ''The Magician's Land''
!! The Heist Team
[[folder: Plum]]
A former Brakebills student and illusionist expelled for trespassing on a restricted area of the school. She joins the team alongside Quentin and shares the spotlight with him for most of the novel.

* AlliterativeName: Her full name is Plum Polson Purchas.
* ArbitraryScepticism: Despite being a senior Brakebills student with full awareness of the magical world, Plum firmly refuses to acknowledge that Fillory and her family's adventures there might have actually been real all along, believing them to be symptoms of mental illness; she even believes that digging too deep into this line of thinking will only result in suffering, so she resolves to suppress such thoughts as best as she can. [[spoiler: As such, she's left utterly shell-shocked when the heist concludes with her and Quentin getting their hands on her great-grandfather's ApocalypticLog, revealing to her that Fillory was actually real.]]
* FamousAncestor: Is actually the great-granddaughter of Rupert Chatwin, and grew up with the baggage and dramas of the collapsed family.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: Variant - Plum's mother rejected her Chatwin ancestry and did her best to get as far away from her past as possible, and though she married a magician and fully accepts the fact that her daughter is a magician, she was insistent on not letting Plum read ''any'' of the Fillory books. As such, though Plum has been able to read the first book on the sly, she's inherited her mother's belief that Fillory was a delusion that ultimately destroyed the family.
* ForWantOfANail: The incident that led to Plum being expelled and Quentin being fired occurred mainly because Plum was looking for the secret door to the wine closet so she could complete her prank on Wharton - only to accidentally pick the wrong wall panel, instead sending herself into the highly-dangerous restricted area. Without this series of events, the events of the novel would probably never have happened.
* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler: After learning the truth about Fillory, she has a very quiet meltdown in private as she realizes that the fantasy world that ruined her family's life was real all along and she's going to have to confront it head-on, until she finally finds herself admitting to Quentin that Fillory is real.]]
* InTheBlood: Thanks to the aforementioned FantasyForbiddingParent, Plum is convinced that she's inherited a perverse desire to learn more about Fillory and is predestined to die young.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After a very traumatizing night ends with her being expelled, Plum is offered a glass of wine by Wharton - and very nearly skulls the whole thing in one gulp, her SommelierSpeak taking a nostalgic, near-heartbroken tone.
* PluckyGirl: Though she comes from a very troubled family, was pushed hard to excel by her parents, is expelled from Brakebills, is nearly killed on several occasions, and has her worldview completely shattered at one point, Plum continuously bounces back from her many misfortunes with seemingly boundless energy. She's not a full-blown version of ThePollyanna, given that she suffers from brief spells of depression, but she launches herself back into her work with such aplomb that even Quentin can't help but be impressed.
* ThePrankster: At Brakebills, she was the head of the League, a small but dedicated all-female group of practical jokers. Their prime target - before Plum was expelled - was Wharton, who earned the group's wrath for watering their wine at dinner; unfortunately, the last stage of the prank ended in Plum accidentally trespassing on a restricted area, getting the attention of [[spoiler: Alice]] the Niffin, nearly getting herself killed, and earning a swift expulsion. Away from school, she's a lot more mature.
* SkepticNoLonger: [[spoiler: After spending roughly half of the novel convinced that Fillory was just a tall tale, she finds herself tearfully acknowledging the reality of the place after finding Rupert's last testament complete with a priceless god-killing knife.]]
* TeenGenius: Even by Brakebills standards, Plum excels in this field, having been tutored in magic for years in advance prior to being enrolled. With this in mind, it's the main reason she manages to keep up with a caper crew of professional magicians.

[[folder: The Blackbird]]
A talking animal who just happens to be mysterious client behind the heist.

[[folder: Lionel]]
The owner of the bookstore where the team assembles, and the Blackbird's right-hand man.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Pushkar]]
A formally-trained magician specializing in enchantments.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Stoppard]]
A petulant young hedge-magician specializing in artificing and other technomagic; hired specifically to tackle the target’s security.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: "Betsy"]]
[[/folder]]

!! Denizens of Fillory
[[folder: Vile Father]]
The champion of the Lorian army invading Fillory at the start of the third book.

* Acrofatic: Surprisingly fast and agile despite his paunch.
* FatBastard: Obese and complicit in the murder of civilians and the theft of their property.
* LightningBruiser: On top of being strong and resilient, he’s also incredibly fast on his feet – to the point that even Eliot is briefly caught off-guard.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Lorians are a Viking-like race of conquerers, and Vile Father is no exception, gladly duelling Eliot to a standstill for the right to invade Fillory.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: Spends the entirety of his scenes stripped to the waist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: The Prince of the Mud]]
A giant turtle dwelling in the swamplands of Fillory, sought after for knowledge of the apocalypse by Eliot and Janet.
[[/folder]]

[[foldercontrol]]

! Introduced in ''The Magicians''

!! The Physical Kids

[[folder: Quentin]]
!! Quentin Makepeace Coldwater

The protagonist of the first book, 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.

* AbsentMindedProfessor: After taking a teaching position at Brakebills, he quickly gains a reputation among his students as an eccentric, as he spends all his time muttering to himself and working on a secret spell.
* 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. He's finally broken of this habit in ''The Magician King'' when he's forced to swallow his pride and ask for a job at Brakebills.
* AimlesslySeekingHappiness: His primary motivation and a FatalFlaw mentioned very early on in the novel: despite his academic success, he feels unfulfilled, and seeks the world of Fillory for the simple fact that it's meant to be always happy there. This remains with him throughout the novel, serving as the bedrock for every real mission he sets himself: his eagerness to excel at Brakebills, his search for a purpose in life after graduation, and his search for a heroic journey in Fillory; for good measure, it ends up getting himself and his friends seriously hurt, and often ends up ruining what happiness he'd already found. He finally grows out of this in Book 3.
* AllergicToRoutine: Quentin all but falls in love with Brakebills when he first arrives, and there are enough twists and turns to keep him interested in the first few years; however, by the final year, he's gotten very bored with the place. The same goes for his post-graduate life ''and'' his home life with his parents. Eventually, Alice has to call him out on these tendencies when he starts getting irritated with ''Fillory.'' The end of the novel eventually drives him to commit to something on a permanent basis.
* AmbiguouslyBi: Walked in on Eliot having sex with a guy, watched for a minute, and expressed that it bothered him that Eliot never came to him for such a thing before deciding he wouldn't have gone though with it. He also slept with Janet, and it's implied that he slept with Eliot as well, but he doesn't think about it.
* AscendedFanboy: He was obsessed with Fillory his entire life, and eventually becomes one of its kings.
* AsleepForDays: After the climactic battle with the Beast, Quentin ends up unconscious for the next six months while being healed and treated by centaurs.
* AuthorAvatar: According to Grossman, early-series Quentin was [[IHatePastMe a lot like himself as a teenager]].
* BenevolentMageRuler: In Fillory - to the point that it's how the second book got its name. Though hardly as responsible as the others, he's still praised for his benign rule over the land.
* BoringButPractical: Spent two weeks of his sword training learning how to sheath and unsheathe his sword.
* CharacterDevelopment: Throughout the first book and a big chunk of the second, Quentin is convinced that a carefree life of adventure and hedonism is the only way he can achieve happiness, and remains stuck in a pattern of thinking himself superior to whatever lifestyle he just left behind. However, after having his views dissected by Poppy and journeying through Cornwall, Quentin admits that the world is beautiful enough to live in, and begin to see the benefits of appreciating what he has instead of recklessly chasing thrills. Eventually, this paves the way for the ending [[spoiler: in which, upon getting kicked out of Fillory for good, Quentin reacts with optimism instead of his usual misery.]]
* ChildhoodFriends: With Julia. Of course, given the aforementioned AcquiredSituationalNarcissism, he dumps her and James not long after he enters Brakebills and doesn't think of her much until she abruptly re-enters his life as a hedge-witch.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Tends to take unnecessary risks in pursuit of heroic deeds, though for him it's less about the "helping people" part than it is his fantasy of being TheHero.
* CoolTeacher: Some kids in Brakebills see him as this because he uses an exotic kind of magic they've never seen before.
* CrossingTheBurntBridge: 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.
* {{Cyborg}}: After getting chewed on by the Beast during the final battle, Quentin has to have his right knee, right shoulder, right bicep, and about two thirds of his collarbone replaced with an enchanted wooden skin. He actually quite likes it.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: In his final year at Brakebills and the next few months of his life post-graduation, Quentin is anxious for something to do with his life, but doesn't know how to make it happen and quickly descends into unfulfilling hedonism. As such, once he gets past his initial concerns, he blithely flings himself into Fillory despite the risks, in the hope that he can find purpose in heroism and ruling over the country.
* DisabilityImmunity: During the second book, a swordsman manages to take Quentin by surprise and tries to cut him in half - only to end up getting his sword stuck in his prosthetic wooden collarbone, giving Quentin precious time to recover and retaliate.
* DiggingYourselfDeeper: Quentin ''really'' shouldn't be allowed to handle delicate social matters, as he will piss off everyone involved - and piss them off further by trying to row back from the edge. During ''The Magician King,'' a simple matter of trying to compliment Julia by saying she's too good for the hedge-witch crowd results in him accidentally insulting her; his efforts to make up for that results in him insulting all of Julia's fellow hedge-witches... and his attempt to make up for ''that'' results in him belittling all the effort she went to learn magic.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler: It takes a ton of effort, a lot of false starts, a lot of heartbreaks, humiliations, losses, and near-death experiences, Quentin achieves happiness by building a new world with Alice by his side; in the process, he is finally able to put aside his obsession with Fillory and use his magical powers to do something constructive with his life.]]
* TheEeyore: Played with; when his lifestyle begins to lose inertia, he tends to go through gloomy, borderline-depressive spells where he grows dissatisfied and pessimistic about everyone and everything. In fact, he actually begins the story right in the middle of one, only to be snapped out of it by his arrival at Brakebills.
* ExecutiveExcess: Towards the end of the first novel, Quentin Coldwater decides to leave magic behind and get a job in the real world via the Brakebills' old boys network. As a result, he ends up in the position of associate management consultant at Gunnings Hunsucker Swann, and thanks to the enchantments placed on the job, he can waste as much time as he likes without repercussions. Most of his time is spent gaming, jacking off to internet porn, or getting shitfaced, to the point that his assistant has given up on trying to schedule him into meetings. Ludicrously enough, Quentin is actually able to delude himself into believing that he's become a happy, responsible adult member of society by doing this... until his old friends convince him to stop running away and become a magician again.
* FallenOnHardTimesJob: After [[spoiler: losing his throne and being banished from Fillory]], ''then'' being fired from his teaching position at Brakebills, Quentin finds himself becoming part of a heist crew - not because he actually needs the money, but simply to keep himself from going off the deep end like he did back in the first book.
* FatalFlaw: His childishness and obsessive desire for happiness.
* FreudianExcuse: In the second book, it's revealed that Quentin was an only child raised via HandsOffParenting; though his mother and father gave him plenty of freedom, the fact that they never asked anything of him gradually made him feel as if he had nothing worth giving, hence his arrested development, his aimless need for happiness, and his obsessive longing for self-worth.
* GracefulLoser: In the second book, Quentin finds himself trapped outside Fillory; after the initial frustration has faded, he begins to adjust - not by deluding himself into hating what he left behind, as he normally does, but by genuinely appreciating what he has. When his final attempt to return seemingly fails, he concedes gracefully, acknowledging that he can still be happy with his friends, his magic, and even the possibility of settling down. [[spoiler: Ultimately setting the stage for him being forced to leave Fillory... and reacting with optimism instead of despair.]]
* GradeSkipper: Skipped the first year at Brakebills alongside Alice.
* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: [[spoiler: His spell to create a MagicalLand in the third book wouldn't have worked without his near useless discipline.]]
* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Undergoes a humbling fall from grace in ''The Magician's Land,'' losing first the authority he had in Fillory then the respectable position he'd gained at Brakebills, reducing him to lurking around in strip-mall bookstores in search of criminal employment.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: The aftermath of his journey to Fillory and [[spoiler: Alice's death]] results in a depressive period in which he adopts this mindset, and goes on to believe himself superior to all magicians because of his ability to live in the real world... [[{{Hypocrite}} even though his new lifestyle is funded by magic]]. It takes his meeting with Emily Greenstreet to make him pull back from the edge.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: At the start of the book, anyway; alongside his overriding desire for happiness, Quentin desperately wanted something to leaven the mundanity of his life, to the point that he went so far as to master sleight-of-hand and conjuring tricks just to feel more magical - though the BoringButPractical reality of the subject turned him off a bit. As such, he jumps at the chance to attend Brakebills.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: At times, Quentin's childish attitude leads to him insulting or hurting people without meaning to. For instance, at one point in the second book, he tells Julia that she didn't miss a thing by failing the entrance exam to Brakebills... when Julia had been forced to endure several painful months of depression and SanitySlippage as a result of her failure, and had become so desperate to learn magic that she [[spoiler: prostituted herself to Hedge Wizards]] and ended up [[spoiler: having a traumatising encounter with a monstrous demigod who murdered her friends and raped her]]. True, Quentin didn't know most of this at the time, but it's still a bit presumptuous.
* 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. 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.
* LockedIntoStrangeness: After [[spoiler: witnessing Alice's HeroicSacrifice]] Quentin's hair turns pure white.
* LongingForFictionland: Quentin dreams of finding a way to Fillory, a fairytale kingdom where he can find the happiness he always desired. He eventually succeeds... but it's nothing like his expectations.
* MadDreamer: Along with his open longing for Fillory and his daydreams of unhindered happiness, Quentin is unusual because as Alice points out, he's probably the only magician who actually ''believes'' in magic: all others know it exists, but Quentin is the only one who honestly and truly believes in it - perhaps because he finds fiction more believable than reality.
* MageMarksman: Is good with a bow and arrow. Has mentioned that he could use magic to make the arrows easily hit their target but thinks it unsporting.
* ManChild: While holding all the intelligence his age and education would suggest, Quentin also has numerous childlike traits, including an aversion to the routine and the mundane, a tendency to act or speak without thinking, and, of course, his obsession with the Fillory book series (which were intended for children). Plus, the self-induced collapse of his relationship with Alice leaves him in an extremely sulky, petulant mood, to the point that even Alice herself calls him a child.
* MagiciansAreWizards: Quentin's first encounters with magic were in practicing sleight-of-hand, enough to get the attention of a talent scout working at the local novelty supply shop where Quentin bought his props. Later, one of his first inklings that the Brakebills entrance exam might be more than it seems is when, while performing for the professors, he accidentally makes a coin disappear for real.
* TheMillstone: For much of the first book, Quentin is more liability than asset; quite apart from all the times he ends up getting someone hurt due to his own bad behavior, he's also next to useless in fights. Thankfully, he grows out of this by the second book.
* 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.]]
* RelievedFailure: By the end of the first book, Quentin has failed every single adventurous goal he's set himself and, as a result of his depression, believes it was for the best; he even abandons magic to live a "normal" life of ExecutiveExcess, believing himself to be much more mature as a result. However, he eventually realizes that he isn't really happy or wiser at all, and he's just believing his own line of self-justifying bullshit.
* SupportingProtagonist: To Alice in first novel, and Julia in the second.
* ThisLoserIsYou: Serves as something of a veiled jab at people who actually wish they could live in a fantasy world, as it's continuously pointed out that these worlds are real places with real people and real drawbacks - not to mention the fact that Quentin's eagerness to live his fantasies ends up getting people hurt.
* TookALevelInBadass: He's mostly useless in combat throughout the first book, even after the UltimateFinalExam at Brakebills South (where he was soundly trounced by Alice anyway); however, after studying magic alone at the centaur monastery, he finally learns to actually apply himself of his own accord - so that when he joins the fray in ''The Magician King,'' he's practically unstoppable.
* 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... though he's still a little bit on the insensitive side every now and again.
* TookALevelInKindness: In sharp contrast to the thoughtless, narcissistic {{Manchild}} of books one and two, Quentin Coldwater begins ''The Magician's Land'' as a much wiser and much more sensitive human being.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Having learned the basics of taking on animal forms in the first book, ''The Magician's Land'' sees him finally make use of this by transforming himself and Plum into ''whales'' so that they can swim to Brakebills South.
* {{Whatevermancy}}: When Quentin finds out his Discipline is unclassifiable, he says "I'm a nothingmancer. I'm a squatmancer."
* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: He finds out in the third book that his discipline is [[spoiler: the ability to fix small objects]].
* WhatTheHellHero: Ends up on the receiving end of one of these from Alice when it looks as though he's going to become dissatisfied with the fantasy world he always wanted.
* WrongGenreSavvy: Quentin spends almost the entirety of the first book in the series imagining himself as the hero of a story, imagining that he'll be the big, bold world-saving hero of Fillory. It doesn't work out - in part because Alice is the ''real'' hero of the story. Afterwards, he deludes himself into thinking that the moral of the story is that he should never have tried to be happy in the first place, and later, that MagicIsEvil. Suffice to say, he's disabused of this notion by an encounter by someone even more deluded than he is.

[[folder: Alice]]
!! Alice Quinn

One of the most intelligent students in her year and one of Quentin's few real friends at Brakebills prior to joining the Physical Kids. Though shy and socially awkward, Alice is easily the best of the Physical Kids when it comes to spellcasting and magical theory, and as she slowly emerges from her shell, she becomes more and more inclined to show her strengths.

* ActionGirl: You do ''not'' mess with Alice. She's not only powerful and confident in fights, but when she was denied entry to Brakebills, she found out the location of the school and ''broke through its protective magical barrier herself''. She was literally admitted because they had no way of keeping her out.
* AliceAllusion: A girl who ran away to a magical world and [[spoiler: underwent a number of strange transformations before coming out the other side in one piece.]]
* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: Her father spends most of his time modifying the family home with magic and making it thoroughly uncomfortable in the process, while her mother spends most of her time working on fairy symphonies that probably don't exist. Alice dreads returning home to them, especially when Quentin decides to tag along, pointing out that both of them are prime examples of what happens to magicians who lose their way following graduation.
* ApologeticAttacker: In a moment of SympathyForTheDevil, she apologizes when she's about to kill [[spoiler:The Beast]].
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler: Her transformation into a niffin is portrayed like this in ''Alice's Story'', allowing her to venture beyond Fillory and explore all worlds at random.]]
* BadassBookworm: The most studious of the Physical Kids and undoubtedly the most effective in combat once she gets used to the stress of the battlefield, ultimately being the only member of the to [[spoiler: fight and win against the Beast in single combat.]]
* BarrierWarrior: Alice casts Fergus's Spectral Armory [[spoiler: when fighting The Beast]] which temporarily gives her phantasmal armor and a polearm which fade in and out of visibility.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Shy, quiet, gentle, and one of the best magicians in the entire series; mess with her friends and loved ones and she will ''fuck you up'' [[spoiler: as Martin Chatwin found out the hard way.]]
* BigBrotherWorship: She adored her older brother Charlie, being the last to see him off before he was teleported to Brakebills; his death left her deeply depressed, exacerbated by her parents' descent into eccentricity, and gradually destroyed what little confidence she had.
* BroughtDownToBadass: [[spoiler:Towards the end of the third and final book, Quentin manages to restore Alice's humanity... and even without the godlike power of a Niffin, Alice is ''still'' a better magician than Quentin will ever be — a fact that she proves by turning him into a dragon during the final battle.]]
* BuxomIsBetter: Quentin notes Alice's "heavy breasts" more than once, including while they're having sex, which is clearly depicted as part of her attractiveness.
* ChildMage: ''Alice's Story'' shows her first experiments with magic occurring when she was around ten years old; even though she only managed to move a coin by an inch or so, it's still an early sign of her precociousness, as most magicians don't - and often can't - begin learning magic until their teenage years.
* CommonalityConnection:
** She and Quentin share their first moment of real friendship when she reveals the loneliness and anxiety she's suffered as a result of her past, allowing Quentin to realize she's actually in the same boat as him in terms of limited confidence.
** In ''Alice's Story,'' her friendship with Penny begins when he notices that she's reading his favorite book in the Fillory series, drawing her into her first real conversation with a fellow Brakebills student.
* CynicismCatalyst: It's actually stated that the death of her older brother, Charlie, was what caused her parent's collapse into eccentricity, the loss of Alice's limited confidence, and her eventually running away from home. However, what she doesn't know — until Janet tells her the story — is that Charlie died in transforming into a Niffin shortly after trying to heal Emily Greenstreet.
* DeadlyUpgrade: [[spoiler:Alice uses the usually accidental niffin transformation this way in order to defeat the Beast.]]
* DemonOfHumanOrigin: [[spoiler: Is referred to as a demon several times when she's a niffin.]]
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: It's downplayed compared to Quentin, but she wants a purpose in life that she can apply her powers to and - more importantly - prevent her from ending up like her parents. In ''Alice's Story,'' it's revealed that witnessing their mutual descent into hedonism upset her so badly that she tried to walk out on the Physical Kids altogether, and suffered a breakdown in the back of a cab over it until the driver [[spoiler: AKA Jane Chatwin]] was able to talk her out of leaving.
* {{Determinator}}: If Alice wants something done, nothing will stop her from accomplishing it, even if she has to take astonishing personal risks to do so; among other things, she took an incredibly risky journey on her own all the way to upstate New York and walked the last five miles through heavily forested territory just to get into Brakebills for the entrance exam.
* FlashStep: [[spoiler: Part of her capabilities as a niffin: at one point in the third book, Quentin isn't sure if she teleported towards him or just flew at him really quickly.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Ends up passing the UltimateFinalExam in the Fourth Year by using a deliberately-botched spell that would have ended up killing her if she'd gotten it wrong... [[spoiler: thus setting the stage for when Alice deliberately botching another spell in the final battle as part of a HeroicSacrifice.]]
* GradeSkipper: Skipped the first year at Brakebills alongside Quentin.
* HeroicBSOD: In ''Alice's Story,'' the realization that she and Quentin have ended up just like her parents nearly shatters her confidence altogether, leading her to break down in tears after leaving them for the evening. [[spoiler: Returning home to find Quentin naked in bed with Janet and Eliot leaves her sitting catatonic at the end of the bed, completely broken.]] It takes the arrival of Penny to rekindle her energy.
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Combining DeadlyUpgrade with TakingYouWithMe, she becomes a niffin to destroy Martin.]]
* HesBack: [[spoiler: After being brought back to human form in ''The Magician's Land,'' she spends several chapters depressed and gradually being guided back towards reality, showing little sign of her studious, driven, slightly-eccentric self. However, when a disagreement between Quentin and Penny threatens to turn violent, Alice reacts by sucker-punching Penny in the face. From then on, Alice is back in action and ready to join Quentin in the final battle.]]
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Noted for being quite petite, she comes across as even smaller due to her lack of confidence, she often ends up paired with men far bigger than her - including the tall and willowy Quentin and the rather imposing Penny. Made all the more obvious in ''Alice's Story.''
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler: Her niffin form, a humanoid figure formed from luminous blue fire with no grasp of sanity and no interest in human life.]]
* IAmNotMyFather: Alice fears that one day, she'll be reduced to the same level of pointless, purpose-deprived existence as her parents, and makes Quentin swear that they'll never make the mistake of falling into that particular trap. Quentin, being Quentin, fails to live up to the promise. [[spoiler: Ironically, she ends up turning out like her brother instead.]]
* INeedAFreakingDrink: After [[spoiler: being restored to humanity in the third book]] and suffering a vicious case of depression, Alice requests a double scotch.
* ImprovisedGolems: During [[spoiler: the final battle with the Beast]], Alice uses sand to conjure up an improvised glass golem.
* KungFuWizard: Fergus's Spectral Armory temporarily gives her martial arts abilities.
* LightEmUp: Alice's magical discipline is a form of light-manipulation known as Phosphoromancy, which is used to burn a path into the Physical Kids' cottage.
* MadWomanInTheAttic: [[spoiler: The narration in the third book actually calls her this when she's a niffin living in the alternate version of Plum's house.]]
* MistakenForUndead: [[spoiler: Her Niffin form is mistaken for a ghost haunting Brakebills in ''The Magician's Land,'' and despite being treated as dead personality-wise, Alice is still very much alive.]]
* 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.]]
* OccultBlueEyes: [[spoiler: As a Niffin, Alice's eyes are as blue as the rest of her. Interesting, her eyes ''remain'' the same intense blue even after her humanity is restored.]]
* OddFriendship: ''Alice's Story'' reveals she was actually friends with Penny for a while; given Alice's ShrinkingViolet tendencies and Penny's overwhelming arrogance, it's hard to imagine a more unusual relationship. Unfortunately, it fell to bits when Penny made the mistake of believing that she was in love with him, resulting in the failure of their friendship, the temporary collapse of his morale and his failure to skip the first year at Brakebills - and from there, his punch-up with Quentin.
* OneWingedAngel: [[spoiler:Alice's transformation into a niffin: "Do you think you're the biggest monster in the room?" A rare example of this trope in that a) it's used by a good guy, and b) it actually wins the fight.]]
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Alice is generally a sweet-natured girl with no heart for serious hate and even less for physical violence, so the fact that she resorts to calling Janet a cunt after she reveals the Emily Greenstreet story is a sure sign of just how deeply the story hurt her. Likewise, Quentin is completely taken by surprise when Alice loses her temper with him and slugs him one square in the eye; [[spoiler: even more so when she goes so far as to have sex with Penny as revenge for Quentin's own infidelities.]]
* ParentalNeglect: Alice's parents could not care less about her, being too absorbed in their own pointless hobbies to pay even the slightest bit of attention to her. During ''Alice's Story,'' when she ran away to Brakebills they scarcely noticed, and after she was briefly sent home to await the start of term, they casually asked "where have you been?" as if she was out buying groceries a little longer than usual.
* PerpetualSmiler: Never stops smiling [[spoiler: once she's transformed into a niffin.]]
* PintSizedPowerhouse: More than makes up for her short status in sheer magical mastery, [[spoiler: especially once she becomes a Niffin.]]
* PosthumanNudism: [[spoiler: As an all-powerful Niffin, Alice is stark naked.]]
* PosthumousNarration: Variation. In ''Alice's Story,'' it's soon revealed that the reason why she's able to discuss things she didn't personally witness is because [[spoiler: she's narrating the story as an all-powerful omniscient niffin.]]
* PowerFloats: [[spoiler: As a Niffin, she just flies everywhere and doesn't bother walking.]]
* PureMagicBeing: [[spoiler: Is made of pure magical energy following her transformation into a niffin.]]
* ReasonYouSuckSpeech: After the full extent of Quentin's inability to live a stable adult life becomes apparent, Alice lets him have it and does not hold back. Even when he manages to summon up some indignation during the second round of the argument, Alice still manages to leave him flummoxed by pointing out that he's the one getting dissatisfied with the paradise that he always wanted.]]
* TheRunaway: After Brakebills failed to invite her, Alice ran away from home and travelled all the way to the campus— even going so far as to travel the last five miles ''on foot'' when public transport couldn't get her any closer. To the surprise of the faculty, she actually managed to find her way onto the school grounds, where they reluctantly gave her an entrance exam and accepted her.
* SenseLossSadness: [[spoiler: After being returned to human form, Alice suffers a brief but debilitating depression over the loss of her incredible abilities and senses; with Quentin's help, she manages to recover.]]
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In ''Alice's Story,'' it's revealed that she eventually had enough of the purposeless post-graduate life and tried to leave the Physical Kids altogether. In the end, her cab driver was able to talk her out of it and return her to their apartment... [[spoiler: just in time to discover Quentin's one-night stand with Janet.]]
* ShorterMeansSmarter: Arguably the smallest character at Brakebills next to Bigby, and undeniably the most intelligent and learned, a fact firmly demonstrated by the fact that she is one of only two pupils to skip the first year.
* ShrinkingViolet: Initially, Alice is almost chronically averse to showing her face in public and grows incredibly self-conscious the moment any attention is drawn to her; studying for her exams alongside Quentin and Penny encourages her to [[GrewASpine emerge from her shell and gain a little confidence.]]
* SympathyForTheDevil: [[spoiler: During the final battle against the Beast, she finally recognizes that the monster everyone's been afraid of is really just a child who never grew up and never recovered from the threat of being ousted from the one place that made him happy. Perhaps seeing a lot of Quentin in him, she actually chokes back a sob and apologises to the Beast - before transforming into a niffin and ripping his head off.]]
* TeenGenius: Out of a whole school full of geniuses, she's quickly judged to be one of the smartest out of all of them, having even mastered several advanced spells before her first term begins.
* TookALevelInBadass: Already having increased in confidence by leaps and bounds throughout the story, she reaches her pinnacle when she - out of all the magicians in the group - takes the fight to [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin and wins]].
* TurnOutLikeHisFather: It's believed that the Brakebills faculty refused to explain what happened to her brother or admit her to the college in case she ended up suffering the same MagicMisfire-induced death as Charlie. [[spoiler: In the end, she does - but as part of a HeroicSacrifice.]]
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Like all of the Brakebills students, she's learned how to transform into animals, but out of the entire cast, she's the only one who manages to weaponize it.
* WaifFu: Subverted. When her anger at Quentin finally boils over, she sucker-punches him in the face and hits him several times; because she's much smaller than Quentin and has even less combat training than him, they're all inexpertly aimed and largely ineffectual. However, the first blow to the orbital ridge '''really''' hurt. [[spoiler: Double subverted once she makes use of Fergus' Spectral Armory against the Beast.]]
* WeakButSkilled: She's a small and unimposing girl with no taste for violence; she doesn't have Janet's confidence, Eliot's natural gift for magic, Josh's massive surges of strength, or Penny's gift for battle magic. What she ''does'' have is knowledge and skill, making her more effective at pure spellcasting technique than any of the Physical Kids - to the point that she's the only one that can match [[spoiler: the UnskilledButStrong Beast move for move.]]

[[folder: Eliot]]
!! Eliott Waugh

Sophisticated, laid-back, too-cool-for-school and openly gay, Eliot is the first student magician Quentin meets and befriends upon arriving at Brakebills; he serves as his guide in his early days on campus, and when Quentin joins the Physical Kids, he becomes one of his closest - and most eccentric - allies.

* TheAlcoholic: Already a little inclined to drinking at Brakebills, having traded his desserts for extra glasses of wine and spending most of his spare hours seeking out new and interesting wine; after graduating, his lack of direction in life results in him turning into a petulant alcoholic with no objective other that to torture his liver to death. It takes Penny's arrival and the journey to Fillory to pull Eliot back from the transformation into a completely AddledAddict.
* BenevolentMageRuler: In Fillory, being the first of the Physical Kids to take the notion of ruling the kingdom seriously; alongside Janet, he's the one who actually returned to govern the place after everyone else had either died or given up on the idea entirely.
* BreakTheComedian: Eliot provides much-needed levity to the gruelling classwork at Brakebills with his trademarked snark and razor-sharp wit. Even his graduation-induced descent into alcoholism doesn't completely dampen his sense of humour. However, the disastrous events of the final battle in Fillory leave him completely crushed: Eliot's first response to [[spoiler: Alice's fatal transformation]] is to throw the Crown away with a howl of grief, eventually joining the others in splitting up the Physical Kids. However, he eventually reappears on Quentin's doorstep with a renewed sense of humour and an offer to bring him back into the magical lifestyle - which Quentin accepts.
* BrilliantButLazy: Seems to be a better magician than Alice but doesn't make any effort in school.
* CharacterDevelopment: Being the High King of Fillory allows him to grow from an egocentric, hedonistic cynic to a responsible, civic-minded monarch - though he's still a smartass.
* CulturedBadass: Manages the "cultured" part quite well throughout the novel, being very well-acquainted with art and fine wines, but he doesn't get to the "badass" part until the journey to Fillory.
* TheCynic: Doesn't think very highly of humanity and prefers to think himself apart from them, embittered from his years of being bullied for his homosexuality.
* DeadpanSnarker: A smartass from beginning to end, he's always very quick with a snappy quip if someone asks a stupid question or makes a silly argument, as Richard discovers.
* DrinkBasedCharacterization: A classy, too-cool-for-school snob, Eliot spends much of his time seeking out fine wines, and also likes occasionally cooking with them as well. However, after graduation, as he grows less classy and more dysfunctional, he begins drinking just about anything he can get his hands on, even chasing Dayquil with vodka when sick.
* {{Expy}}: WordOfGod says his character was significantly based on Sebastian Flyte from ''Literature/BridesheadRevisited''.
* FarmBoy: Eliot was actually brought up on a farm in Oregon.
* TheFightingNarcissist: After getting into his first real fight in Fillory, Eliot remarks that any damage to his hair will result in him bringing his opponents back to life so he can kill them again.
* FingerSnapLighter: Does this for Quentin one of the first times they met.
* TheGift: Has an intuitive grasp of magic, putting him above most of the Physical Kids except for Alice.
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: Chain-smokes Merit cigarettes, the only brand he can cope with, and though it's regarded as an unhealthy vice he remains a tentatively heroic figure. It actually becomes a CallingCard when Eliot leaves one of his smokes behind with his farewell letter to Quentin in the first book.
* TheGrotesque: Mild example — he's described as having a mouth twisted to the side in a permanent half-grimace, and some disfiguration to his jaw as well.
* TheHedonist: A chain-smoker and a wine-fancier in his teenage years, he's the quickest to adapt to the mindless hedonism of post-graduate life, drinking and shagging his way across Manhattan and paying little attention to his own health. He eventually clears up his act once he takes control of Fillory, however.
* TheHighKing: Ascends to the role of High King of Fillory.
* IHatePastMe: By ''The Magician's Land,'' he does not look kindly on his past self, believing that he didn't have any emotions that weren't ironic or chemically-induced, and is afraid that losing Fillory might cause him to revert to his old, alcoholic self.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: Drunk and at his most dysfunctional, he makes an exception to his usual sexual tastes by having sex with Janet.
* PowerGivesYouWings: Attains a pair of feathery wings at the conclusion.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Proves to be the first of the four monarch to actually do something ''practical'' instead of chasing adventures: not only does he set out to rescue Quentin when he goes AWOL in the second book, but he even goes so far as to lead Fillory's armies against the Lorian invasion and defeat the enemy champion single-handedly.
* SharpDressedMan: Wears expensive shirts with his Brakebills uniform, complete with cuff links, despite the latter being against the rules and getting him routinely punished. Also, apparently as a child he was once thrown into a dumpster by the other kids because his pants were pressed.
* SheIsTheKing: InvertedTrope. At the very end of the novel, Eliot jokes that he was considering being one of the two queens of Fillory instead being one of the two kings. However, rules are rules...
* StraightGay: Though a little bit hammy at times, he's not overtly camp despite being overtly homosexual. However, he does make an exception for Janet.
* TantrumThrowing: Dramatic variation; after seeing [[spoiler: Alice sacrificing herself to save them all from the Beast]], he throws the crown of Fillory away with a howl of rage and grief.
* UndiscriminatingAddict: While at [[WizardingSchool Brakebills]], Eliot's drugs of choice are restricted to fine wines and Merit cigarettes, but after graduating, he starts drinking just about anything he can get his hands on. After watching his friend slowly going to pieces over the next few months, even [[ManChild Quentin]] has to comment after finding Eliot mixing vodka with dayquil [[note]]which, incidentally, can result in hallucinations and serious liver damage [[/note]].

[[folder: Josh]]
!! Josh Hoberman

The most light-hearted of the Physical Kids; a amiable overweight magician most often found cracking jokes or jollying parties along, he's not among the academic high-flyers at Brakebills or even especially consistent in terms of spellcasting. However, what he lacks in finesse he makes up for in raw power.

* AscendedFanboy: During the final chapter of the first book, he's apparently using the Neitherlands to reach [[Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium Middle-Earth]], where he hopes to "bone an Elf."
* BeneathTheMask: His breakdown during the Welters finals reveals that, under his cheerful exterior, Josh is deeply unsure of himself and plagued by low self-esteem — especially at Brakebills, where he often worried that he'd be thrown out for poor grades.
* BenevolentMageRuler: [[spoiler: Becomes one of the kings of Fillory when Quentin gets booted out at the end of the second book.]]
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Regarded as a bit of a doofus, he's nonetheless still a Brakebills graduate and capable of feats that most people can only dream of; indeed, one of his accidental surges of power ended up ''annihilating'' the threat that was endangering the other Physical Kids.
* BigFancyHouse: [[spoiler: During the second book, it's revealed that he now lives in an extravagant Venetian palazzo as a result of selling one of the magic buttons.]]
* BigFun: A jolly, boisterous figure eager to join in the fun and encourage the merriment.
* TheBigGuy: On top of being one of the few members of the Physical Kids inclined to use his muscles to any significant degree, he's capable of immensely powerful surges of magic, allowing him to bring down TheBrute of the enemy force during the journey to Fillory.
* BoldlyComing: He wants to find Middle Earth specifically to get in an elf's pants, as stated above. The second book reveals that, amongst other things, he ended up having sex with [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies a Harpy]].
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Josh has the [[IneptMage worst grades of the Physical Kids]] and barely manages to graduate from Brakebills; for good measure, most of his spells either fail to work at all, or overload to a ridiculous extent. Then, in Fillory, he [[spoiler: destroys a massive burning demon that just killed Fen, the badass KungFuWizard of the group]] by [[spoiler: sucking it into an UnrealisticBlackHole.]]
* DitzyGenius: Magically inept, academically awkward and occasionally lacking in common sense, he’s still just as intelligent as any other Brakebills entrant. During the hunt for an alternate route to Fillory, he believes that Cornwall is in Canada and actually doubles down when corrected... only to then launch into a spiel on the astral folding technique he’ll use to get them there!
* DrunkWithPower / DrunkOnTheDarkSide: Played for laughs. Josh tends to get ''very'' excited when his spells actually work, especially in games of Welters, and eagerly brags about his power. Eliot jokingly compares it to someone being pleased a meal emerged looking like it did in a cookbook.
* FatIdiot: Though he fears he's turning into one of these due to his dodgy grades and unpredictable spells, he's ultimately cleverer and more capable than he appears.
* FriendInTheBlackMarket: [[spoiler: In ''The Magician King,'' Josh serves as a black-market operative to the legitimate magical community and the hedge magicians, providing the underground with vital magical supplies from the legit world and the Brakebills alumni with access to things no respectable merchants would be able to provide them with.]]
* GlobalIgnorance: Incorrectly guesses that Cornwall is in Canada, claims that England is part of Europe, and doesn't know that Penzance is a real place.
* GravityMaster: Can summon ''black holes'' in his magical power-surges.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Nervous over an incoming Welters tournament, Josh ends up drinking a little too much of the booze his parents sent him for his birthday, ending up late and too pissed to keep up his confident exterior.
* IneptMage: As mentioned, he's not the most capable spellcaster out of all the Physical Kids—in fact, his spells have a nasty habit of not working at all. However, when they do work, they're ridiculously overpowered. In one case, he spent twice as long as any other students did on getting his marble to move... but when it finally worked, the marble flew out of the building and embedded itself in a tree - where it remains to this day.
* NormalFishInATinyPond: In the sequel, he's made a name for himself [[spoiler: among the hedge magicians as "the Fixer," a bridge between the legitimate magical world and the underground communities.]] Though he's still on the bottom of the Brakebills food chain, his comprehensive education has made him more powerful and more knowledgeable than most of his current colleagues put together.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: [[spoiler: Takes Quentin's place on the throne after he and Julia leave the picture, and proves just as eager to work on the front lines as he did before.]]
* SadClown: His outward humour and jollity disguise an awful lot of depression and self-doubt.
* StepfordSmiler: Type A — he appears outwardly jolly and carefree, but is secretly hiding a lot of anxiety, depression and even burgeoning alcoholism, and fears he's going to be kicked out of Brakebills. He improves somewhat after he graduates, but it's not until the second book that he really loosens up.
* StoutStrength: Tall and overweight, he uses his physique in order to break up fights between students that actually resort to fisticuffs on Brakebills grounds.
* SquishyWizard: Subverted; while not exactly a combat specialist, Josh is strong enough to break up the fist-fight between Quentin and Penny.
* ThinkingUpPortals: Is the only member of the main gang to learn how to do this.
* TookALevelInBadass: In the sequel, he spent lot of his time between the novels on an adventure through the Neitherlands, exploring, falling in love, and even becoming a hero of sorts; upon his return to earth, he takes this even further by [[spoiler: setting himself up as the Fixer, helping to bridge the "official" practitioners of magic with the underground groups]]. Finally, [[spoiler: the ending sees him becoming one of the Kings of Fillory after Quentin is booted out of the country.]]
* UnrealisticBlackHole: Can conjure one that sucks in enemies.
* UnskilledButStrong: He's not much for the subtler points of magic, his skills are awkward at best and his grades are hardly the best at Brakebills... but Josh makes up for it in sheer, out-of-control power, to the point that most of the team start running as soon as they see him launching one of his big spells.

[[folder: Janet]]
!! Janet Puchinsky

The only other female member of the Physical Kids, she's known for her force of personality and her promiscuous attitude towards sex. Easily the most forceful of the group and probably the only one to take the group's direction seriously, she can usually be relied on to direct their energies to a concrete purpose and rally them around a specific goal.

* AlphaBitch: In her less-than-pleasant moments, she can come off as this, being aggressive, manipulative, vindictive and jealous - and all too willing to take out her frustrations on the targets of her envy.
* BenevolentMageRuler: In Fillory, she actually does the job of running the kingdom while everyone else is in the field.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Arguably; she's normally pretty likable, if a bit on the bossy side. However, in her moments of frustration, she isn't above lashing out in a way designed to leave serious emotional scars. Case in point, revealing the truth behind the death of Alice's brother - right to Alice's face.
* BoyishShortHair: In keeping with the trope, Janet's a tough and aggressive character all too willing to take charge of the group, especially in Welters.
* CatharticCrying: Janet doesn't like to express emotional vulnerability, so even when she's sick with worry over Fillory's worsening condition in the third book, she keeps her grief at bay. However, when [[spoiler: it looks like Fillory is done for]], she completely breaks down in floods of tears and has to be helped to safety by Julia.
* 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 on her part. Also, in sharp contrast to how she once treated it as just another adventure, its revealed that she's come to regard Fillory as her home.
* CombatPragmatist: Startles everyone by actually bringing a gun to Fillory and shooting one of her opponents.
* GossipyHens: Not above exchanging a little gossip every now and again for the purposes of entertainment, hence the scene where she gleefully reveals the story of Emily Greenstreet.
* GreenEyedMonster: During her fifth year, she's reportedly envious of the relationship between Quentin and Alice and upset over the fact that she herself can't get into a relationship with Eliot, resulting in her covertly jabbing at Alice's traumas.
* HeroicBSOD: ''Completely breaks down'' when it appears that [[spoiler: Fillory is well and truly doomed]], and is left sobbing helplessly as Julia spirits her away.
* AnIcePerson: Her discipline is ice magic, and she makes devastating use of it in ''The Magician's Land'' in shutting down the Prince of the Mud.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Variant - in the third book, Eliot admits that he used to speculate that Janet's anger and emotional armor might be concealing a wounded little girl who honestly just wants to be loved. However, after hearing the tale of her erupting with rage at the Foremost in much the same way she once went off at her father, he begins to wonder if the only thing she's concealing is ''even more anger'' and more layers of armour.
* TheLeader: Generally takes charge of the group in circumstances that require a clear head and bossy leadership, though she shares the position with Penny during the journey to Fillory. As such, she steps quite readily into the role of a queen in Fillory, and indeed seems to be more focussed on the work than any of the others.
* LovableAlphaBitch: What she is most of the time; though bossy and promiscuous, she binds the group together in celebration and work alike.
* MageMarksman: Brought a gun with her to Fillory and uses it to defend herself in Ember's Tomb.
* NeverMyFault: Even in the third book, she's unrepentant for shagging Quentin and breaking Alice's heart.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** Janet doesn't like to seem emotionally vulnerable, even reacting violently to more condescending displays of pity; as such, when she becomes distraught to the point of ''breaking down in tears'' at the sight of [[spoiler: Fillory coming to an end]], it's a sign of just how dire the situation has become.
** She also tends to keep people at arm's length, putting limits on her emotional interactions with them even if she counts them as her close friends; Eliot, her closest friend, didn't get to hear about her past until they were alone and facing down a potential apocalypse. As such, when she goes so far as to hug Julia - who she wasn't especially attached to - she's officially been pushed to her emotional threshold.
* 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. Likewise, the second book features her ruling Fillory while everyone else is off having adventures. ''Finally'' averted in the third book.
* ParentalNeglect: Her parents did not give her much attention when she was a child, packing her off to boarding school at the tender age of eight; in one notable instance, her dad failed to pick her up from school one afternoon and never called to provide an explanation of any kind, leaving her waiting for hours on end - until her teachers had to buy her some dinner just so she wouldn't go hungry while she was there. Needless to say, Janet does not have fond memories of her childhood, and reacts very badly when people attempt to treat her with anything akin to paternal concern.
* PersonalityPowers: Her ice-magic discipline matches her harsh, relentless, and sometimes-cruel personality.
* ReallyGetsAround: Well-known for being promiscuous. She even shagged Eliot.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: She's the one running the kingdom while everyone else is off having adventures or fighting wars.
* WarriorPrince: Despite being more admin for most of her reign, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty, to the point that she conducted ''an invasion'' between novels.
* WhatTheHellHero: Chides Quentin for recklessly pursuing adventure early in ''The Magician King,'' reminding him of what happened the last time he went looking for trouble in Fillory.

!! Other Student Magicians
[[folder: Penny]]
!! "Penny"
A young magician enrolled at the same time as Quentin; brilliant, brusque and anti-social, he clashes with Quentin in his early years at Brakebills. Following graduation, he is the first to propose the expedition to Fillory.

* AmbiguousDisorder: On top of being highly intelligent, Penny is well-known for being tactless, blunt, seemingly arrogant, humourless, and prone to making poorly-thought-out assumptions about those around him. Plus, on top of acing his entrance exam, he spent his remaining time testing the limits of the magical system to see just how many glasses of water he could order before finding a pre-set limit.
* AncientTradition: [[spoiler:Has joined the Order, the group that built and maintains the Neitherlands, when Quentin meets him in Book 2.]]
* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:During the climax, Martin Chatwin bites Penny's hands off.]]
* ArrowCatch: Casts a spell to speed up his reflexes and catch an arrow when the gang are shot at shortly after they get to Fillory.
* ArtificialLimbs: [[spoiler: Has been fitted with a very fancy set of prosthetic arms by the events of ''The Magician's Land.'']]
* BlackMage: The first of the team to consider using highly-illegal battle magic in order to combat the dangers in Fillory, having prepared several rudimentary attack spells prepared in advance. Alongside Alice, he's the most skilled of the Brakebills graduates - and unlike Alice, he has no overwhelming aversion towards violence. [[spoiler: It's for this reason that the Beast chews off his arms, leaving the group's first line of offence crippled.]]
* BreakTheHaughty: [[spoiler: His attempt to fight the Beast goes very badly, resulting in Penny's hands being brutally chewed off, leaving him bleeding out on the floor right next to Quentin. Deprived of magic and seemingly broken-spirited, his last scene in the first book features him unceremoniously drifting into the Neitherlands and vanishing.]]
* BroughtDownToNormal: [[spoiler:Without his hands, Penny loses the capacity for spellcasting. The Order teaches him how to cast spells using the muscles of his body instead.]]
* CantTakeAnythingWithYou: His discipline lets him take a few things he can carry to the Neitherlands but not other people.
* CripplingTheCompetition: [[spoiler: Martin Chatwin chews Penny's hands off in order to deprive the group of their primary battle magician.]]
* DimensionalTraveller: His unique discipline lets him do this, but he can only get to the Neitherlands and back again rather than explore other worlds in their entirety.
* FirstNameBasis: Refers to his teachers by their first name, as a sign that he considers himself their equal.
* GenderBlenderName: Of course, it's not his real name.
* GivenNameReveal: During the final battle, the Beast offhandedly reveals that Penny's real name is actually William.
* GradeSkipper: Alongside Quentin and Alice, he was considered brilliant enough to skip the first year - though he ultimately failed to qualify. ''Alice's Story'' reveals that this was actually due to Penny being distracted by the collapse of his relationship with Alice.
* GuardianOfTheMultiverse: [[spoiler: Basically what The Order does.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: [[spoiler: While Quentin and Poppy return to Fillory to search for the remaining Keys, Penny and the Order stay in the Neitherlands to hold off the Gods with an army of dragons.]]
* IneffectualLoner: All in all, Penny's attempts at keeping himself to himself for the majority of his post-graduate life went somewhat awry once he realized that his profoundly important magical studies had left him deeply lonely and discontented.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Upon bumping into him [[spoiler: during the second book]], Quentin has to admit that Penny's monumental arrogance is tempered by his ''innocence''; as astonishing as it might sound, he doesn't mean to offend people most of the time.
* InsufferableGenius: The only other first-year student who's remotely on the same level as Quentin and Alice, and he isn't shy about showing it off. Following graduation, he's quick to show off his discoveries concerning the Neitherlands, and during his discussion of his powers, actually reveals that he refers to his teachers on a first-name basis - which is not only presumptuous but more than a little rude.
* {{Jerkass}}: Blunt, arrogant, and more than a little clueless around people, Penny shares Quentin's habit of making poorly-thought-out assumptions of his fellow students - but crosses the line into assholishness a lot earlier by physically assaulting Quentin. He seems to have grown up a bit following his graduation, but he's not above putting his foot in it from time to time.
* MagicLibrarian: [[spoiler: After the first book, he is employed by the Order to care for a MagicalLibrary in the Neitherlands.]]
* NoSocialSkills: Probably even more clueless in social settings than Quentin, given that he often completely misinterprets the meaning of certain actions whereas Quentin will more often fail to notice them. However, where Quentin stumbles and backtracks in the face of failure, Penny charges headlong in with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
* NoSenseOfHumor: Attempts at comedy bounce off Penny without even leaving a dent.
* NotSoAboveItAll: As aloof as he may be, he occasionally reveals that he's not above enjoying the company of others, along with other things he normally considers beneath him. In [[spoiler: the second book]], upon unexpectedly getting kissed, Penny actually cracks a smile.
* OddFriendship: Was actually a good friend of Alice for a little while; given Alice's quiet nature and Penny's boisterousness, you'd be hard-pressed to imagine a more diametrically-opposed pair. Tragically, the relationship fell to bits after Penny became convinced that Alice was in love with him, resulting in accidental offence on both sides.
* PowerFloats: [[spoiler: He tends to levitate rather than walk after joining The Order.]]
* PutOnABus: On the way back through the Neitherlands, he leaves the party for another world. [[spoiler: In the second book, TheBusCameBack]]
* TheQuincyPunk: Right down to the Mohawk and the nasty attitude, though it's more out of an attempt to annoy people than a genuine lifestyle choice. For good measure, Lev Grossman reveals that he actually grew up in a Southern California gated community, making him a prime example of the "[[UpperClassTwit crusty trusty]]" punk.
* TooMuchAlike: Lev Grossman indicates that he and Quentin are a lot more alike than they're prepared to admit, including the same oblivious near-childish nature, one of the many reasons why they can't get along. Among other things, the fact that Quentin and Penny both end up gung-ho to explore Fillory ''really'' annoys Quentin, to the point that he actually tells him not to agree with him.

[[folder: Amanda]]
!! Amanda Orloff
* DefiantToTheEnd: Amanda is the only member of her class who was able to escape the Beast's influence and try to retaliate, continuing her spell-casting even while the Beast turned his powers against her.
* EatenAlive: Devoured by the Beast while still conscious, leaving a bloody mess in her wake.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Because Quentin wasn't looking at her when time froze in the classroom, he's not able to see what the Beast does to her, only hear it. Judging by the amount of blood left on the floor in ''Alice's Story,'' it was a very messy process.
* SacrificialLamb: After a few scenes (at the most) with Quentin, ends up getting brutally murdered by the Beast.

[[folder: Gretchen]]

[[folder: Surrendra]]
!! Surrendra
* BollywoodNerd: Of Indian descent - and is just as much of a TeenGenius as the other Brakebills students.
* NamedWeapons: Played for laughs; when given the traditional marble to practice his magic upon, Surrendra names his "Rakshasa," after the demons of Hindu folklore.

[[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: Noted for being quite attractive and drawing attention from both sexes.
* 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
A former member of the Physical Kids, a regular guest of the post-graduate parties, and another member of the expedition to Fillory.

* 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.