History YMMV / Gormenghast

* MagnificentBastard: Steerpike was once a kitchen boy who rose to become of the [[FromNobodyToNightmare most powerful figures in Gormenghast]]. Scheming to overthrow the Groan family, Steerpike sets fire to Earl Sepulchrave Groan's beloved library, resulting in the Earl's insanity and eventual suicide, setting himself up as a hero who rescued everyone else within. Steerpike burns the master of ritual, Barquentine, to death to steal his position and steadily either discredits or murders those who stand in his path while also seducing Fuchsia Groan, Sepulchrave's daughter. Steerpike then kills Sepulchrave's twin sisters by sealing them in a room and leaving them to starve, murdering the former servant Flay when he and Young Earl Titus catch Steerpike gloating to the corpses years later. Escaping into the castle, Steerpike decides to destroy everyone he can if he cannot rule the castle, being defeated only when a flood ruins his hiding place, dying with a [[DefiantToTheEnd last snarl of hatred at Titus Groan]].

* DumbIsGood: With the exception of Prunesquallor, the intellectual characters are depicted as cold, calculating and ruthless, most notably Steerpike and Cheeta.
** Or detached, like Lord Sepulchrave.

* OrWasItADream: Cheeta's mind games near the end of ''Titus Alone'' are convincing enough to trouble even the reader, [[spoiler:who saw the castle Gormenghast through a narrator's eyes in ''Titus Groan'' and ''Gormenghast'']]. The marked discontinuity between [[spoiler:the archaic medieval nightmare of Gormenghast itself and the CrystalSpiresAndTogas of the outside world combined with the fact that Titus ultimately turns away rather than returning home in the end leaves the reader wondering if Steerpike, Fuchsia, Prunesquallor and all the others ever existed in the first place]].

%%* DracoInLeatherPants: Steerpike.
** Though even the biggest leather pants fetishist may have second thoughts when they read what Steerpike planned to do to Fushsia...

* CrazyAwesome: Titus, Steerpike, ''and'' Fuchsia!
* CreatorsPet: Titus.
* DracoInLeatherPants: Steerpike.

* CompleteMonster: [[AmbitionIsEvil Steerpike]] is a vicious [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who [[FromNobodyToNightmare was once a kitchen boy but rose to become of the most powerful figures in Gormenghast]]. Steerpike sets fire to Earl Sepulchrave Groan's beloved library, resulting in the Earl's [[DrivenToMadness insanity]] and [[DrivenToSuicide eventual suicide]], setting himself up as a hero who rescued everyone else within. Steerpike [[ManOnFire burns]] the master of ritual, Barquentine, to death to steal his position and steadily either discredits or murders those who stand in his path while also seducing Fuchsia Groan, plotting to dispose of her as well. Steerpike kills Sepulchrave's twin sisters by sealing them in a room and leaving them to starve, murdering the former servant Flay when he and Young Earl Titus catch Steerpike gloating to the corpses years later. Escaping into the castle, Steerpike decides to destroy everyone he can if he cannot rule the castle. Described as having forsaken any conscience he might once had possessed, Steerpike will lie, cheat and murder, stopping at nothing to claim power he feels should be his.

** In the third book, he gets some competition for Complete Monsterhood from Veil, a [[ANaziByAnyOtherName concentration camp guard]] who casually murders people, abuses [[BrokenBird Black Rose]] physically, psychologically and sexually, and displays no hint of any gentler emotions.

* CrazyAwesome: Titus, Steerpike, ''and'' Fuchsia!

** In the third book, he gets some competition for Complete Monsterhood from Veil, a [[ANaziByAnyOtherName concentration camp guard]] who casually murders people, abuses [[TheWoobie Black Rose]] physically, psychologically and sexually, and displays no hint of any gentler emotions.

** Black Rose in the third book is a still young woman who saw her lover murdered, was imprisoned in a concentration camp, then freed by the guard Veil, only to suffer even worse abuse at his hands. [[spoiler:Titus frees her, only for her to [[LetThemDieHappy die happy]] the moment she's in a safe place.]]

* NightmareFuel: In the second book, Steerpike's murder of [[spoiler:Barquentine]] by setting him on fire, and the ensuing events in which [[spoiler:the burning Barquentine grabs hold of him, and Steerpike only survives by diving into the moat and ends up permanently scarred.]]

* ParanoiaFuel and NightmareFuel: The companion novella ''Boy in Darkness''. In its entirety.

* MoralEventHorizon: Steerpike, the murder of the twins.

** The "Thing" was essentially ''born'' into Woobiehood, [[spoiler: although she dies too soon for Peake to really showcase this much.]]

* TheWoobie: Nannie Slagg. She's eighty years old, three feet tall, and perpetually on the verge of tears. Also, her husband died of a stroke on their wedding night.

* MagnificentBastard: If Steerpike had only had a Manga/DeathNote, the books would have been over very, ''very'' quickly.

** It's more the [[FilmOfTheBook BBC Adaptation]] version of Steerpike who gets this treatment, and seems to encourage some fans to interpret the character differently. Although he was still [[MagnificentBastard pretty damn evil]], he was deliberately portrayed as genuinely loving Fuchsia (albeit in a warped and very disturbing way) and given a great stinking FreudianExcuse to boot [[note]] - a sob story wherein he had been abandoned at the age of six, sent to work in the kitchens and abused (emotionally, physically and sexually) throughout his childhood. In the novel, Steerpike, at seventeen, had arrived in the kitchens only a few months ago, so Swelter could not have abused him as a child. Peake tells us absolutely nothing about Steerpike's upbringing or origins (beyond the fact that he came from beyond Gormenghast) so we don't actually know if he has a tragic past to explain his extreme sociopathy[[/note]]. Casting the rather handsome Creator/JonathanRhysMeyers -- who ''really'' [[AdaptationalAttractiveness doesn't fit the picture of the ugly, hunch-backed albino]] Peake described -- apparently didn't hurt either.
** Bear in mind that this was EXACTLY THE POINT, as Fuschia was a young girl looking for escape in the arms of an outsider to her world. Steerpike is an unredeemable monster, that he's sociopathic enough to think playing to the girl's fantasies will get him ahead in life, he'll do it, with aplomb.

** Steerpike was a bit of a woobie early on, particularly when you consider his non-person status among the other members of the castle. And most especially when you consider that Swelter was not only tremendously abusive to the kitchen boys (including Steerpike), but it is implied that he also sexually molested and cannibalised them. A childhood like that has to mess you up a little. Even if he didn't fit his leather pants quite so well, Steerpike would have started out as a SympatheticVillain, at least until his first or second MoralEventHorizon.

*** A lot of the aristocracy also deserve Woobie status, because although they are completely batshit insane and a little stupid, they aren't bad people. The [[TheOphelia Opheliac]] CreepyTwins Cora and Clarice didn't deserve such a prolonged and brutal death at Steerpike's hands. And Fuschia was just in love and insanely sheltered, with the hereditary insanity that seems to possess everybody in her family. You've got to feel a little sorry for her, too.

** It's more the [[FilmOfTheBook BBC Adaptation]] version of Steerpike who gets this treatment, and seems to encourage some fans to interpret the character differently. Although he was still [[MagnificentBastard pretty damn evil]], he was deliberately portrayed as genuinely loving Fuchsia (albeit in a warped and very disturbing way) and given a great stinking FreudianExcuse to boot [[note]] - a sob story wherein he had been abandoned at the age of six, sent to work in the kitchens and abused (emotionally, physically and sexually) throughout his childhood. In the novel, Steerpike, at seventeen, had arrived in the kitchens only a few months ago, so Swelter could not have abused him as a child. Peake tells us absolutely nothing about Steerpike's upbringing or origins (beyond the fact that he came from beyond Gormenghast) so we don't actually know if he has a tragic past to explain his extreme sociopathy[[/note]]. Casting the rather handsome JonathanRhysMeyers -- who ''really'' [[AdaptationalAttractiveness doesn't fit the picture of the ugly, hunch-backed albino]] Peake described -- apparently didn't hurt either.

** It's more the [[FilmOfTheBook BBC Adaptation]] version of Steerpike who gets this treatment, and seems to encourage some fans to interpret the character differently. Although he was still [[MagnificentBastard pretty damn evil]], he was deliberately portrayed as genuinely loving Fuchsia (albeit in a warped and very disturbing way) and given a great stinking FreudianExcuse to boot [[hottip:*: - a sob story wherein he had been abandoned at the age of six, sent to work in the kitchens and abused (emotionally, physically and sexually) throughout his childhood. In the novel, Steerpike, at seventeen, had arrived in the kitchens only a few months ago, so Swelter could not have abused him as a child. Peake tells us absolutely nothing about Steerpike's upbringing or origins (beyond the fact that he came from beyond Gormenghast) so we don't actually know if he has a tragic past to explain his extreme sociopathy]]. Casting the rather handsome JonathanRhysMeyers -- who ''really'' [[AdaptationalAttractiveness doesn't fit the picture of the ugly, hunch-backed albino]] Peake described -- apparently didn't hurt either.

* ParanoiaFuel and NightmareFuelUnleaded: The companion novella ''Boy in Darkness''. In its entirety.

* MagnificentBastard: If Steerpike had only had a DeathNote, the books would have been over very, ''very'' quickly.

* CreatorsPet: [[YourMileageMayVary According to some fans]], Titus.

** Steerpike was a bit of a woobie early on, particularly when you consider his non-person status among the other members of the castle. And most especially when you consider that Swelter was not only tremendously abusive to the kitchen boys (including Steerpike), but it is implied that he also sexually molested and cannibalised them. A childhood like that has to mess you up a little. Even if he didn't fit his leather pants quite so well, Steerpike would have started out as a SympatheticVillian, at least until his first or second MoralEventHorizon.