Line #173 Characters/HouseOfLeaves


1	The many bizarre characters in ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'', divided based on which [[NestedStory layer of story]] they inhabit.
2
3	[[foldercontrol]]
4
5	!!The Navidson Record
6
7	[[folder:The [[blue:House]]]]
8	!!The [[blue:House]]
9	The titular location around which the narrative of ''The Navidson Record'' -- and possibly the whole book -- is focused. While it is superficially just a normal [[blue:house]] from the outside, on the inside it is slowly revealed to be a terrifying and eldritch object or being with a physics-defying labyrinth at it's center. Its nature and motivations are inscrutable at best, madness-inducing at worst... for the characters and reader alike.
10	----
11	* AlienGeometries: The fact that it's BiggerOnTheInside is arguably the ''least'' weird thing about it.
12	* AmbiguousInnocence: Whether or not it's actually malicious in a way that humans can understand is as unclear as everything else about it. Some scenes possibly suggest that it is actively antagonistic and sadistic towards the people inside it, while others suggest that it simply doesn't think like we do or is even trying to help its inhabitants in its own strange way. At the minimum, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality it's completely disconnected from human concepts of morality and behavior]].
13	* AmbiguousSituation: Literally everything about it. The [[blue:House]] defies any and all attempts to explain it or its behavior and every answer given to its nature just raises more questions.
14	* AnimalLover: Bizarrely enough. Its terrorizing of the Navidsons and anybody relating to them doesn't extend to their pets, which are entirely left alone and even safely deposited outside if they go near the labyrinth itself. Whether this is some kind of strange PetTheDog thing or its powers simply don't affect animals isn't clear.
15	* AntagonistTitle: It is the [[blue:house]] of the title and its malign influence infects every level of the story from ''The Navidson Record'' upward.
16	* AppleOfDiscord: It has an eerie tendency to play this role towards its inhabitants and those who try to study it, driving them mad or letting the stress of the investigation rip open old wounds.
17	* BigBad: It's unknown if it's sentient or even ''real'', but it directly plays this role for ''The Navidson Record'', and is something of a GreaterScopeVillain for Johnny's side of the story.
18	* BiggerOnTheInside: The first weird thing discovered about it. Its inner dimensions do not match its outer dimensions, with the inside of the [[blue:House]] being a few inches bigger than the outside. It gets worse from there.
19	* BlueAndOrangeMorality: A possible interpretation of the house is that it is actually trying to help or communicate with the Navidsons and other humans, but operates in ways incomprehensible to mortals. A lot of what the [[blue:House]] does can be interpreted as [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor a twisted and clumsy attempt at wish fulfillment]], for instance.
20	* BrownNote: ''Everybody'' who sets foot in or interacts with it in any way suffers some kind of adverse effects — both physical and mental — and the book even includes a chart discussing these effects and noting that they seem to depend on level and length of exposure.
21	* ColorMotif: Blue, obviously. Black to a lesser extent.
22	* DisproportionateRetribution: If you interpret certain actions it takes as being retaliatory, then its '''insanely''' vindictive towards those who anger it and inflicts absolutely horrifying punishment on them. Most notably, [[spoiler:it might have killed Tom just for teasing it]].
23	* EldritchLocation: Putting it mildly. The [[blue:House]] only looks like a normal building from the outside. On the inside, [[BiggerOnTheInside its inner dimensions are completely out of wack]] and its most defining feature is a massive, constantly changing labyrinth that might have some kind of monster in it.
24	* EvilIsDeathlyCold: The labyrinth within it is repeatedly noted to always be extremely cold regardless of the temperature in the [[blue:House]] proper or outside. [[spoiler:This becomes a rather terrifying plot point when Will gets trapped in said labyrinth in the climax. He ends up losing several body parts to hypothermia and frostbite.]]
25	* EvilIsPetty:
26	** When Tom at one point mocks the [[blue:House]] while alone at the top of the spiral staircase, the [[blue:House]] seems to maliciously contort the staircase in a way designed to frighten and threaten him. It's also implied that this taunting might be why [[spoiler:it later [[DisproportionateRetribution kills Tom]].]] The rampage where it does so may itself have been prompted by the [[blue:House]] being pissed off over Hook managing to escape the labyrinth instead of [[spoiler:dying with Jed and Holloway]].
27	** The book has an interpretation that, if the House/Minotaur killed Zampano, it psychologically tortured and then murdered a lonely old man solely for the crime of writing about it.
28	* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: [[spoiler:One interpretation is that, either directly through the [[red:Minotaur]] or indirectly by driving both insane, the]] [[LivingLabyrinth house]] [[spoiler:kills both Johnny and Zampanò despite not technically ''existing''. And near the end, Johnny seems pretty convinced that it does exist in some capacity]].
29	* GodIsEvil: In his unhinged letter to Karen, Will opines that the [[blue:House]] is God. There's frankly little reason to doubt him, given it makes as much sense as any other explanation offered.
30	* HauntedHouse: If by "haunted", you mean "terrifying eldritch monstrosity". Intriguingly, it doesn't appear to have always been a [[blue:house]]; the explorers from colonial times who explored the land where it would eventually stand never see a building, but they do find the spiral stairs leading to the labyrinth, possibly implying the [[blue:House]] proper is just a shell that the labyrinth wears to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood and/or lure in victims. Either way, it being haunted is probably the least frightening potential explanation for its actions.
31	* JackassGenie: See AmbiguousInnocence. A possibly interpretation of its behavior is that [[BlueAndOrangeMorality it's genuinely trying to help the people inside it by giving them what they want, but doesn't understand how humans work]]. Another is that it understands perfectly and is actively taunting and tormenting the humans by twisting their desires in nightmarish ways. Either way, its "wish granting" is terrifying.
32	* LaserGuidedKarma: If you think it's malevolent and wants people in it to torment. [[spoiler:After Navidson's final expedition, it winds up cordoned off, sealed up, and abandoned to rot, hopefully ensuring that it will have no more victims.]]
33	* LivingLabyrinth: An especially terrifying and possibly malevolent one that breaks the very laws of physics in the name of tormenting those who dare to enter.
34	* MindScrew: Everything about it is mind-breakingly horrific and increasingly nonsensical.
35	* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Those who survive its torture tend to come out the other end stronger. Whether this is intentional on the part of the [[blue:House]] or not is up for debate.
36	* MysteriousPast: Its origins are an enigma, unsurprisingly.
37	* PetTheDog: Maybe, if you interpret [[spoiler:Will's escape from the labyrinth at the climax]] as the [[blue:House]] taking mercy on the Navidsons for some reason. Even more ambiguously, while it's seemingly hostile to humans, that hostility doesn't extend to animals given that the Navidson's pets don't even acknowledge the labyrinth and just end up safely outside if they go in it.
38	* TimeAbyss: It might very well be ''older than the solar system''. At the very least, its labyrinth has existed since colonial times, if the De La Warr account Johnny finds is to be believed.
39	* VillainousBreakdown: After Holloway's disastrous expedition, the [[blue:House]] freaks the fuck out and begins actively attacking the Navidsons and their friends, [[spoiler:killing Tom]] and prompting everyone to frantically escape. Why it does this is unexplained, like everything else about it.
40	* WorldTree: The novel repeatedly hints at the [[blue:House]] having ''some'' kind of connection to Yggdrasil, the world-linking tree of Norse mythology, as either its branches or its roots. Whether this is intended as an explanation of its nature or just yet another MindScrew is unclear.
41	* YourMindMakesItReal: Maybe. Zampanò speculates that the [[blue:House]] alters its maze based on the desires and thoughts of its inhabitants, noting that Holloway (who wanted an adventure) got a much longer and more complex labyrinth than Will (who just wanted to find what he needed and get out).
42	[[/folder]]
43
44	[[folder:The Navidsons]]
45	The main characters of ''The Navidson Record'', a supposedly average family made up of the Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Will Navidson, his supermodel partner Karen Green, their two children Chad and Daisy, and their pets. The family moves into a new [[blue:house]], hoping to come together. [[{{Understatement}} It doesn't go well]].
46	----
47	* AmbiguousSituation:
48	** Will's reasons for [[spoiler:returning to the [[blue:House]] are astonishingly unclear, to a point that even he doesn't seem sure why he's doing it.]]
49	** Karen may or may not have been molested by her stepfather, which might be what gave her crippling claustrophobia. The evidence given by the book could go either way.
50	* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:Will loses multiple body parts to frostbite in his final delve into the labyrinth. He loses his right hand, his left eye, patches of skin on his face, an ear, and must walk with a crutch for life due to a shattered hip.]]
51	* {{Applicability}}: In-universe. Karen shows ''The Navidson Record'' to numerous experts and analysts in an attempt to [[spoiler:make sense of what's happened to her from a non-literal perspective. They're not helpful -- the men do little more than hit on her, and the women are too caught up in academic theory to help Karen.]]
52	* TheAtoner: Will is secretly this for [[spoiler:not saving Delial, a starving little girl he took a photo of that made his career.]]
53	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The Navidsons move into the [[blue:House]] seeking to come together as a family. [[spoiler:It works. They're terrorized and traumatized to the brink of madness, Will is left crippled and deformed, and innocent people die in the process, but you can't deny that they're together by the end.]]
54	* BrokenAce: Karen and Will are both famous and successful in their fields, but at the cost of deep-seated personal issues that haunt them almost as much as the terrifying HauntedHouse they move into.
55	* CharacterDevelopment: [[spoiler:From a DysfunctionJunction with deep-seated and hidden problems to a genuinely loving family that has made peace with their pasts and flaws by learning to depend on one another. Will in particular goes from a cold, aloof man struggling to connect with others and prone to being judgmental to a kinder, humbler, more empathetic individual. Of the book's protagonists, they definitely get the happiest ending.]]
56	* {{Claustrophobia}}: Karen suffers from it, which obviously brings her a lot of grief when it comes to the [[blue:House]].
57	* CreepyChild: The Navidson children respond in ''especially'' unsettling ways to the eldritch nature of the [[blue:House]], such as [[NightmareFuelColoringBook drawing bizarre pictures of their home represented as a black block surrounded by monsters]], earning their parents a visit from a concerned teacher. Up to a point, they're seemingly indifferent to a lot of the [[blue:House]]'s behavior and oddities. [[spoiler:Daisy barely escapes the [[blue:House]]'s attack on the family and spends the entire time screaming, while Chad generally self-isolates to cope with stressful situations, making him come across as aloof and detached.]]
58	-->"Daddy, I wanna play hallways!"
59	* DysfunctionJunction: Beneath their cheery nuclear family image, they're a boiling pot of flaws and dysfunction. Will's cold professionalism interferes with his attempts to connect to others, a problem made worse by untreated PTSD. Karen may or may not be a rape victim and is definitely claustrophobic to a crippling extent. The kids are just plain bizarre. All of them are struggling to bond as a family. This is all ''before'' they move into the [[blue:House]].
60	* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: Karen is so hot that men and women alike tend to flirt with her.
61	* HeroicSecondWind: As the Navidsons are packing up to leave the [[blue:House]] for good, [[spoiler:Will hears Karen screaming from inside, as the ceiling and walls begin moving to crush her. Billy Reston points out that, despite suffering from several days of dehydration, exhaustion and the injuries accumulated escaping the labyrinth, Will drops everything and sprints back into the house without regard for his own condition.]]
62	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Will is a deeply flawed man, but ultimately a good one and the reader's sympathy will definitely remain with him, if only because the [[blue:House]]'s idea of "punishing" him is so horrific and disproportionate.
63	* MaskOfSanity: They're introduced as a very normal, well-adjusted family. The events of the story end up exposing them as actually being ''deeply'' screwed up, or at least, prone to ignoring their problems rather than facing them.
64	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Will is clearly modeled heavily on real life photojournalist [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter Kevin Carter]], who struggled with depression and mental health issues after traumatic experiences he went through while reporting in warzones and ultimately took his own life. Deconstructed, as Johnny points to this trope as evidence that ''The Navidson Record'' can't exist, since Will is blatantly less a real person and more a generic fictional stand-in for a celebrity who just so happened to be in the news when Zampanò wrote his thesis. He also points out how sleazy and insensitive this trope is, considering Carter's very real trauma and suicide.
65	* OnlyKnownByHisNickname: Will is so consistently referred to by his nickname of "Navy" that one may occasionally forget that's not his actual name.
66	* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler:Their love for one another is what ultimately saves them from the [[blue:House]] and its torment.]]
67	* SanitySlippage: Will becomes increasingly mentally unwell as he becomes obsessed with studying the [[blue:House]]. The kids as well, to a lesser but more profoundly unsettling extent; their behavior gets weirder and weirder while the family is in the [[blue:House]].
68	* ShellShockedVeteran: Will is all but explicitly stated to suffer from untreated PTSD over traumatic experiences he suffered in his time as a photojournalist in war-torn countries. Before that, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for bravery in Vietnam, but returned it to the president -- along with a photo of his first kill -- in protest of the war.
69	* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Against all odds, they survive the whole ordeal and come together as a family, gaining newfound appreciation for one another and life in general while also confronting their mistakes and pasts to move past them.]]
70	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The family includes a dog and a cat, but they just kinda disappear from the plot after a bit, with no mention of what happened to them, which gets lampshaded by Zampanò.
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder:Tom Navidson]]
74	Will Navidson's fraternal twin brother, a handyman and contented underachiever with no fixed residence or attachments. He and Will were estranged for some time prior to the events of ''The Navidson Record'', but reunite as Tom assists Will in his investigation of the [[blue:House]].
75	----
76	* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Part of why he and Will were estranged. Tom has always felt stuck in his brother's shadow and like he'll never be as respected as Will, and acts the part of the family jokester to compensate for it.
77	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He always wanted to be as respected as his Pulitzer-winning brother and felt under-appreciated. [[spoiler:He does eventually gain the respect he craves… at the cost of his life.]]
78	* CowardlyLion: He accompanies Will and Billy for their second incursion into the [[blue:House]], but fear prevents him from descending the Grand Staircase, forcing him to provide radio support instead. After things go sideways, [[spoiler:Tom leaves the maze, and Navy assumes he fled in fear. He was actually gathering materials to make a gurney and pully system to lift the explorers to safety.]]
79	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Beneath his doofy slacker demeanor is a surprisingly badass guy who'll do anything to protect his family and friends.
80	* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler:Tom's last act is to help Daisy escape the attacking [[blue:House]]. As Tom reaches for rescue, the [[blue:House]] slams the walls on his outstretched arms, mangling his hands and downing Tom long enough for the floor to fall away beneath him.]]
81	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:He gets killed when the [[blue:House]] freaks out and starts directly attacking the family, heroically pushing Daisy to safety at the cost of his own life.]]
82	* {{Irony}}: Despite his desire to be as professionally respected as Will, the story clearly indicates that Tom is the one who's much more ''personally'' well-liked amidst the family and their social group.
83	* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:His corpse is never found, falling into a sinkhole while the [[blue:House]] attacks the Navidsons. But given everything the [[blue:House]] does, it's almost certain that he's dead once he disappears.]]
84	* NiceGuy: Compared to Will's cold professionalism, Tom is significantly more likable and laidback.
85	* TemptingFate: He's initially rather skeptical about the [[blue:House]] and the danger it poses, being prone to mocking it. In turn, the [[blue:House]] seems to palpably hate Tom on a level it doesn't feel towards the rest of the Navidsons, [[spoiler:and it's implied his taunting of it [[DisproportionateRetribution might be why it later kills him]].]]
86	* VindicatedByHistory: InUniverse. [[spoiler:After his death, Will gains a newfound respect for Tom, admitting he was wrong about him being an underachieving loser and that Tom was the true hero of the family all along.]]
87	[[/folder]]
88
89	[[folder:Billy Reston]]
90	Will's best friend and an engineering professor at the University of Virginia, rendered paraplegic by a construction site accident near Hyderabad. Engrossed by the mysterious nature of the [[blue:House]], Reston helps the Navidsons in their investigations.
91	----
92	* BadassNormal: He's just a normal dude and a paraplegic at that, but he's also a total badass who arguably handles the horrors of the [[blue:House]] the best out of everyone.
93	* BlackBestFriend: To Will, though his ethnicity has zero bearing on the story. The two are nearly inseparable, and repeatedly endanger their lives to help one another. He sticks up for Will in more mundane situations, too, calling into a radio show to berate the host for accusing Will of being a lousy husband.
94	* CrazyPrepared: When Holloway [[spoiler:succumbs to paranoia and starts shooting, Billy immediately returns fire with a concealed handgun before Navidson can even react. He says he brought a gun because the house is [[{{Understatement}} "scary"]].]]
95	* HandicappedBadass: Being in a wheelchair does little to stop him from being totally awesome. Case in point, he leaves his chair and crawls down the Grand Staircase without hesitation -- something he had every reason to think was a miles-long climb, and which [[AlienGeometries ended up]] being about nine stories.
96	* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Unlike most people who get obsessed with the [[blue:House]], Reston knows to back off from it when it becomes obvious that the "building" is too dangerous to study safely.
97	* NightmareFetishist: Very downplayed in comparison to others, but he has an undeniable fascination with the [[blue:House]]. Unlike others who develop similar interest, he's smart enough to abandon the chase when it becomes clear how dangerous the place is. He's prone to calling radio shows to argue with people who make disparaging remarks about the Navidsons and their haunted [[blue:House]].
98	* OnlySaneMan: For the cast of ''The Navidson Record''. He's just about the only one with both a healthy attitude towards the [[blue:House]] and no major psychological issues.
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Holloway Roberts]]
102
103	An accomplished professional hunter and explorer who is contacted by Reston to lead the explorations in Navidson's place. He proceeds to lead explorations of the labyrinth within the [[blue:House]], which he develops an unhealthy obsession over.
104	----
105	* AntiHero: Even before [[spoiler:going nuts]], he's aloof, smug, and hard to get along with.
106	* AssholeVictim: Averted hard. [[spoiler:While he was kind of a jerk, his fate is so horrifying that you'd feel sympathy for his plight.]]
107	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He agrees to help the Navidsons with their investigation out of a desire for the ultimate adventure that would secure his name in the history books. He gets his wish, unfortunately for him.
108	* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: [[spoiler:Lost in the maze with no hope of rescue and the [[red:Minotaur]] probably closing fast on him, Holloway opts to shoot himself in the heart. Whether he does it to avoid whatever horrific fate the [[blue:House]] had in store for him, to deny it the satisfaction of personally killing him, or simply out of pure despair is hard to say.]]
109	* DarknessEqualsDeath: In a horrifically literal sense. [[spoiler:After he dies, the shadows in the maze seem to come alive and literally consume him.]]
110	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:His ultimate fate.]]
111	* EvilCounterpart: Evil is a strong word, but he's functionally this to Will, as someone who wants to be in control, and likewise lets an obsession with the [[blue:House]] and his potential fame and fortune take over his life. But whereas Will overcomes this through CharacterDevelopment, Holloway [[spoiler:is destroyed by it.]]
112	* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:From heroic explorer to crazed gunman hunting his own friends.]]
113	* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: For a famous explorer and hunter, he comes off as rather insecure a lot of the time.
114	* InstantDeathBullet: [[spoiler:Repeatedly averted. Billy notices Jed keeps breathing for some time after Holloway reduces his head to slurry, despite being mortally wounded, and Wax survives being shot in the shoulder. When he's DrivenToSuicide, he takes nearly three minutes to finally bleed out in the dark.]]
115	* LegacySeeker: His biggest desire is to be famous and well-remembered.
116	* MeaningfulName: His name is a play on "hallway" and "hollow way", both significant [[spoiler:as a man whose inner emptiness ultimately causes him to die ignominiously in an endless labyrinth of hallways]].
117	* MuggingTheMonster: His certainty that he can conquer the [[blue:House]] and the [[red:Minotaur]] like any other dangerous animal or location he's dealt with over the years gets him into ''a lot'' of trouble.
118	* NoBodyLeftBehind: [[spoiler:The cameras seemingly record the darkness and shadows slashing out at Holloway's dead (or dying) body while his emergency flares go out. His gun, camera, and other equipment are relocated intact to the staircase where Navidson finds them, but no trace of Holloway's remains are ever found.]]
119	* SanitySlippage: [[spoiler:The [[blue:House]] drives him steadily insane, until he snaps completely and starts hunting the other explorers before committing suicide out of despair.]]
120	* SitcomArchNemesis: Develops this relationship with Will, as he covets Will's fame and success, while Will resents the idea of "giving up" his discovery to someone else.
121	* TheWorldsExpertOnGettingKilled: A rather tragic deconstruction and exploration of this trope. His InferioritySuperiorityComplex causes him to become obsessed with proving his explorer credentials by conquering the [[blue:House]] like he has many mountains before, which naturally leads to nothing but pain as it does not obey the rules of said areas... and actively refuses to do so.
122	[[/folder]]
123
124	[[folder:Kirby "Wax" Hook and Jed Leeder]]
125
126	Holloway's assistants, a pair of fellow explorers who take part in the expeditions to explore the labyrinth.
127	----
128	* AffectionateNickname: Hook is usually referred to as "Wax" by his friends.
129	* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:How Jed dies.]]
130	* ButtMonkey: Nothing goes right for poor Jed. Deconstructed, as he doesn't deserve an ounce of it and none of it is funny.
131	* FatalFamilyPhoto: Jed is introduced talking about his family, complete with photo. [[spoiler:Perhaps predictably, he dies.]]
132	* TheLancer: They initially play this role to Holloway, [[spoiler:until the [[blue:House]] drives him insane and he begins hunting them.]]
133	* SoleSurvivor: [[spoiler:Hook is the only member of the trio to survive the expedition.]]
134	* ThoseTwoGuys: Rarely seen apart from one another.
135	[[/folder]]
136
137	[[folder:Jenny Antipala]]
138
139	An eccentric architect friend of Karen's who takes part in the investigation via interview.
140	----
141	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: She's a little… special, to say the least.
142	* MotorMouth: Karen can barely get a word in edgewise with her.
143	* NightmareFetishist: PlayedForLaughs. Not only is she immediately accepting of the bizarre nature of the [[blue:House]], she's downright fascinated by the idea of it and tries to figure out how the physics could work.
144	* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: She's a major cuddlebug, much to Karen's annoyance.
145	* SkewedPriorities: Her main reaction to learning about the [[blue:House]] is to do equations to try and figure out how the physics of it work.
146	[[/folder]]
147
148	!!Zampanò's Dissertation
149
150	[[folder:Zampanò]]
151
152	The blind old man who wrote the manuscript examining ''The Navidson Record''. An erratic, capricious, and mysterious person, much about him is unknown.
153	----
154	* AnimalLover: He has a lot of cats that he seems to love a lot… cats which may or may not get butchered by the [[red:Minotaur]] as it hunts him down.
155	* BunnyEarsLawyer: What associates and colleagues of his that Johnny can find all describe him as eccentric at best, erratic in behavior at worst. Though whether that translates into him also being good at what he does is… rather up for debate.
156	* CunningLinguist: Played with. He's impressively knowledgeable on a variety of languages, but the way he uses this talent in his writing just adds to his general pretentiousness.
157	* DeafComposer: He's a ''blind film critic''. Good luck figuring out how that works.
158	* DirtyOldMan: Downplayed. He insists on exclusively being read to by attractive young women, but never comes onto them. It's a way for him to try and alleviate some of his crushing loneliness.
159	* DyingAlone: He dies alone in his apartment one night, due to having no real friends or family.
160	* HiddenDepths: For all his pompous pretentiousness, a lot of his observations of and insights on ''The Navidson Record'' and other subjects are genuinely gripping and fascinating, and he is remarkably well-read even if the way he uses his dense knowledge in the text leaves much to be desired. He's also a very impressive linguist, bordering on being an {{Omniglot}}. Further, his personal anecdotes reveal him to be a rather sensitive soul deep down who suffers from debilitating loneliness and emotional woes beneath his self-absorbed academic persona.
161	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: As much of an erratic, egotistical nutcase as he seems to be, the few people who do interact with him tend to find him enjoyable enough as company.
162	* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Let's just say that, despite the lofty certainty he writes with, Zampanò makes ''a lot'' of mistakes, which would be excusable if he acknowledged being an amateur writer but he acts as if he's anything but. One of his amanuenses says he writes like a freshman who'd get a C- at best.
163	* LukeIAmYourFather: [[spoiler:He ''might'' be Johnny's real dad, depending on how you interpret some scattered hints. At the very least, he knew Pelafina.]]
164	* MagicalRealism: He generally prefers to focus on the characterization and psychology of ''The Navidson Record'', treating the [[blue:House]] as just this thing that's happening.
165	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's never revealed what precisely killed him. On one hand, the dude was eighty and in poor physical and emotional health; it's far from unbelievable that he simply died of natural causes. On the other hand, it's quite possible (and Johnny believes that) the [[red:Minotaur]] finally got him. If the [[red:Minotaur]] [[MindScrew is even real]].
166	* MyBiologicalClockIsTicking: A male example, PlayedForDrama. One of Zampanò's greatest regrets is never having a son. [[spoiler:Or, perhaps, never having a relationship with his son…]]
167	* MysteriousPast: Johnny is unable to determine much about Zampanò as a person. The most he's able to find out is that the guy became blind in the 1950s, was approximately eighty when he died, probably had graphomania, and may have been a veteran of the French retreat from Vietnam that sparked the Vietnam War.
168	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: He's an obvious send-up of Creator/JorgeLuisBorges. Notably, he at one point discusses a play that serves as a PerspectiveFlip of the myth of the [[red:Minotaur]], portraying the beast as an innocent deformed boy locked away in a cage by a cruel stepfather and slain by vicious brute named Theseus… which is almost an exact description of one of Borges' most famous stories, ''Literature/TheHouseOfAsterion''.
169	* SanitySlippage: He doesn't appear to have been all good in the head, just like pretty much everyone else in the narrative.
170	* ShellShockedVeteran: He was seemingly a veteran of the French retreat from Vietnam, and the experience clearly left marks on him. His wartime diary entries are broken rambles.
171	* SmallNameBigEgo: Zampanò is not the big shot brilliant philosopher and art critic he seems convinced he is. His work has a lot of writing mistakes that even the most amateur of writers wouldn't make, and he regularly gets basic facts wrong that even the most simple of research would've corrected. Not to mention that he's basically just some old guy with no friends, families, or significant colleagues and barely anybody even knows who he is.
172	* StylisticSuck: He tries to act the part of an accomplished scholar and RenaissanceMan, and tends to fail catastrophically. His writing consists largely of conveying his scanty insights in a tone of smug certainty, out-of-place basic summaries of well-known subjects, attempting to impress with irrelevant precision and lengthy quotations, and in general b.s.-ing for all he's worth, all of which Johnny calls out. And he makes a ton of spelling and formatting errors, or rather, his amanuenses do and he rarely bothers to fix it. At least part of it is attributable to the manuscript Johnny finds being an unfinished rough draft, but most is just Zampanò acting like he's more important than he really is.
173	* TrueArtIsAngsty: InUniverse. He's a big downer about the Navidsons' SurprisinglyHappyEnding, clearly believing there's more to it and drawing heavy attention to the more bittersweet aspects of the resolution in a way that reeks of this attitude.
174	* UnreliableNarrator: The first of many in the book. For one thing, the movie he's supposedly reviewing doesn't exist. [[MindScrew Or does it?]]
175	* TheVietnamVet: Not of the more famous American war, but of the French retreat.
176	[[/folder]]
177
178	[[folder:The [[red:Minotaur]]]]
179	The most enigmatic character in the book, one who may not even exist. A terrifying monster associated with shadows and darkness, which bears some relation to the [[blue:House]]. Zampanò fears it and goes to great lengths to try and conceal its existence.
180	----
181	* AmbiguouslyEvil: As if it wasn't mysterious enough, even its morality is called into question a few times. While it's superficially a vicious and sadistic beast that kills without mercy, there's some discussion of the [[red:Minotaur]] myth that flips around the perspective and depicts the [[red:Minotaur]] as a misunderstood and deformed child that is murdered by Theseus…
182	* AmbiguousSituation: Might well be the AnthropomorphicPersonification of this trope.
183	* BeastInTheMaze: Its initial base portrayal is being this to the [[blue:House]], as a monster that lurks within its labyrinth to hunt and torment those who dare enter. It quickly escalates into something even more terrifying.
184	* DarkIsEvil: It's strongly associated with shadows and darkness, while also being a vicious monster that hunts and kills people while driving them to madness.
185	* TheDragon: ''Maybe'' plays this role to the [[blue:House]], depending on your interpretation.
186	* TheDreaded: Everyone who knows anything about it at all is absolutely terrified of it. Holloway is the sole exception [[spoiler:and pays dearly for it]].
187	* EldritchAbomination: A being of darkness that seems to exist (if it even does) for no reason but to drive people to madness and death.
188	* EnigmaticMinion: If you thought the [[blue:House]] was hard to get a read on, the [[red:Minotaur]] is even more baffling.
189	* EvilerThanThou: The [[blue:House]] is bad enough. The [[red:Minotaur]] is much more directly and actively malicious.
190	* HeWhoMustNotBeSeen: It's never shown to either the characters or the audience, with the only indication that it even exists being the horrific growl heard inside the labyrinth and the apparent destruction of any object that gets left behind. As a matter of fact, Zampanò seems to have made a concerted effort to erase any evidence of its existence at all. Seeing as its defining aspects, as described by Johnny, are darkness, silence, and the obliteration of meaning, it wouldn't make sense for it to ever appear; it's quite literally the metaphysical incarnation of nothing. [[MindScrew Maybe]].
191	* KickTheDog:
192	** It maybe butchers all of Zampanò's cats while hunting him, just ForTheEvulz. Notable, as the [[blue:House]] itself went out of its way to ''not'' harm the Navidsons' pets.
193	** The way it chews and scratches up and ruins the expedition teams' supply caches serves no practical purpose, especially when you consider the metamorphic nature of the labyrinth. Nor does its constant roaring and growling that echoes through the maze and freaks out anyone who hears it. The [[red:Minotaur]] seems to do both just to fuck with the heads of the humans, assuming it even thinks at all.
194	* LivingShadow: Maybe its true form or the closest humans can picture to its true form, if you think [[spoiler:Holloway's death scene]] is an actual appearance from it.
195	* MindScrew: Hoo boy. The simplest way of putting it is that the [[red:Minotaur]] is like some kind of Schrödinger's Cat character; it simultaneously does and doesn't seem to exist in the narrative and can be included or removed by the reader. It gets way more complicated from there.
196	* MythicalMotifs: The [[red:Minotaur]] and labyrinth of Greek myth, of course. It is also implicitly compared at points to Nidhogg from Norse mythology to go along with the [[blue:House]]'s Yggdrasil. Whether either of these go beyond mere comparison or symbolism is another question.
197	* NoNameGiven: "The [[red:Minotaur]]" is more an "out of universe" title bestowed on it by Zampanò. The characters in ''The Navidson Record'' never give it a name, largely because they have no idea what it even is, and the monster itself obviously never gives a preferred title.
198	* UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat: This concept applied to an entire character. The book's narrative functions with or without the inclusion of the [[red:Minotaur]], with its presence or absence completely altering the possible meaning of things.
199	* TheScottishTrope: Zampanò goes out of his way to try and avoid invoking it or the darkness in general.
200	* SoreLoser: [[spoiler:If you interpret Holloway's corpse being torn to shreds as the [[red:Minotaur]] being '''really''' pissed it didn't get to personally kill him.]]
201	* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:Johnny takes on some qualities of the [[red:Minotaur]] — both this one and the mythological one — as the story goes on. Whether it's this trope or something else entirely is as up to interpretation as the rest of the book.]]
202	[[/folder]]
203
204	!!Truant's Journal
205
206	[[folder:Johnny Truant]]
207	A deeply troubled tattoo shop apprentice who finds Zampanò's manuscript one night, after which his life begins to decline in truly horrific ways as he attempts to finish and annotate the work.
208	----
209	* AntiHero: A NominalHero at best.
210	* BrokenBird: He's already one at the start, and becomes even worse as the story takes its toll on him.
211	* DarkAndTroubledPast: The son of a schizophrenic woman who tried to murder him repeatedly as an infant, lost his birth dad in a car accident, drifted from home to home, was partly raised by an abusive foster father who would beat him senseless, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. He's a mess of a human being, but it's surprising when you learn what his childhood was like. [[UnreliableNarrator Assuming he's telling the truth]].
212	* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:One theory about his character is that he actually did die in the incident from his childhood where Pelafina tried to kill him, and the "Johnny" who writes his journal is a character thought up by Zampanò or Pelafina as a representation of what they imagine he could've grown up to be.]] It makes about as much sense as any other guess.
213	* FreudianExcuse: A lot of his more unsavory qualities are implied to stem from his awful childhood and the abuse he suffered from all his parental figures.
214	* TheHedonist: His main goals in life are doing drugs and getting laid. [[spoiler:Until it's not enough to dull his paranoid anymore, then he [[ColdTurkeysAreEverywhere goes sober in an attempt to cleanse his psyche.]] It doesn't help.]]
215	* HiddenDepths: Beneath his sleazy punk demeanor, he shows a surprising amount of knowledge regarding art, poetry, and mathematics. Furthermore, the poetry he personally writes is pretty damn good.
216	* HisOwnWorstEnemy: Assuming that the [[red:Minotaur]] isn't real, then the only real source of problems in Johnny's life is his own behavior and flaws that he refuses to ever work on, plus his obsessiveness towards Zampanò's work.
217	* HypocriticalHumor:
218	** He engages in some rather disgusting SlutShaming directed at the women he and Lude sleep with, imagining up nightmarish and depressing backstories for them and in doing so, insinuating they're only having the sex because they're "broken". Leaving aside the absurdity of [[ReallyGetsAround someone who claims to get laid as often as him]] and is in love with a stripper judging people for that sort of thing, he himself is far from well-adjusted.
219	** Him declaring that Zampanò had graphomania. Given how obsessive his own writing gets as the story progresses, that's a little rich. Likewise, for all the crap he (rightfully) gives Zampanò about research mistakes, the Editors have to correct ''Johnny's'' mistakes quite a few times. In general, really, he's prone to periodically repeating the same screw-ups he gets on Zampanò's case for.
220	* KavorkaMan: One of the many indications that his account is questionable is how he insists constantly that he bangs tons of hot women despite being a string bean drug addict with massive mental issues, an unlikable personality, and horrific burn scars, all of which combined make it unlikely most women would even speak to him let alone let him touch them. Notably, only ''one'' of his romantic or sexual experiences is supported as having happened by the evidence found by the Editors.
221	* LadykillerInLove: A serial womanizer, but he falls helplessly in love with Thumper.
222	* LovingAShadow: He realizes that this is all he has of [[spoiler:Thumper, after he realizes he knows almost nothing about her, and after he realizes he's declined a date with her so he can spend more time with ''The Navidson Record''.]]
223	--> ''In spite of her shocking appeal, any longing I should have felt vanished when I saw, and accepted, how little I knew about her. The portrait in my head, no matter how erotic, hardly sufficing.''
224	* {{Jerkass}}: He's even a jerk to the reader sometimes!
225	* MissingTime: As his madness worsens, he begins losing large stretches of time and noticing big gaps in his memory. This first comes to his attention when he walks into work one day and is met with shock by his coworkers, who inform him that they haven't seen him in ''weeks'' and that they thought he was either dead or had split town. He claims the lone clock in his apartment either runs slow or fast, and it's all but stated that he's spending every waking hour working on ''The Navidson Record'' with no connection to the outside world.
226	* OnlyKnownByHisNickname: It's casually revealed towards the end that his last name isn't actually "Truant". That's just a nickname. His true last name is never used and he actually specifically asks the Editors not to use it.
227	* TheParanoiac: Becomes an increasingly worse one as the story goes on, obsessing over the possibility he's being hunted by the [[red:Minotaur]]. [[spoiler:Johnny begins suffering panic attacks, which he associates with an impossibly deep, gnawing darkness. He eventually barricades his windows to keep the darkness out, sells all his furniture to measure the walls of his spartan apartment, and installs amateur soundproofing on his walls to muffle an imaginary(?) silence.]]
228	* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Some of the ways he talks about women can get ''really'' uncomfortable and cringeworthy. In particular, he [[SlutShaming slings self-righteous judgment at the women he sleeps with]] despite [[HypocriticalHumor having sex with them to begin with]].
229	* TheQuincyPunk: Has a lot of stereotypical aspects of punks, but it's surface level at best and he has no real political opinions or care about anything in life beyond his vices and completing Zampanò's book.
230	* ReallyGetsAround: According to himself and pretty much nobody else. See KavorkaMan above.
231	* SanitySlippage: He already had a lot of problems, but the more he works on Zampanò's dissertation and tries to investigate ''The Navidson Record'', the more unhinged and dysfunctional he becomes.
232	* SirSwearsALot: He talks like a drunk sailor half the time. He even lampshades it at one point, mocking the reader for not noticing that a fabricated section of his journal was fake based on the fact that he doesn't swear in it.
233	* StylisticSuck: His writing starts out pretty sensible and coherent, but gets much worse as his SanitySlippage progresses, becoming prone to long, rambling diatribes that bleed together and getting much sloppier in terms of spelling and formatting, plus his personal journal entries increasingly overtaking both his annotations and Zampanò's paper.
234	* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler:He winds up taking on a number of qualities of the [[red:Minotaur]] as the plot progresses. What these means is up for debate, but isn't with this book?]]
235	** [[spoiler:Johnny begins drawing comparisons between his own life and Zampanò's writings, sending him into an existential crisis as he questions the deeper implications.]]
236	* ToxicFriendInfluence: He and Lude really seem to bring out the worst in each other, when they aren't getting one another in trouble. [[spoiler:Except it turns out to maybe be the other way around, as Johnny becomes worse than ever after Lude dies, suggesting they were each others' rocks.]]
237	* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:His final entry insists he's turning his life around, but afterwards the Editors note that he has disappeared and they can't locate him. What became of Johnny is left completely unaddressed. Some interpretations suggest [[MindScrew he never even existed to begin with]].]]
238	* UnreliableNarrator: He openly admits to lying to the reader on several occasions just to fuck with them, contradicts himself more than once, is severely mentally ill, and in general, a lot of his claims are easy to poke holes in.
239	[[/folder]]
240
241	[[folder:Lude]]
242	Johnny's best friend who initiates the events of the story by directing Truant to Zampanò's apartment.
243	----
244	* BookDumb: He is not very intelligent, to put it mildly.
245	* CharacterDeath: [[spoiler:He gets killed in a motorcycle accident towards the end of the book, which is around when Johnny's life really goes to hell.]]
246	* TheHedonist: Lives a life of seemingly nonstop partying, drugs, and sex.
247	* MeaningfulName: Aside from sounding like "[[ReallyGetsAround lewd]]", his name also alludes to quaaludes, another term for meth.
248	* OnlyOneName: He's only ever called Lude. If that's even his real name, it's the only one we know of.
249	* ReallyGetsAround: [[UnreliableNarrator According to Johnny]], at least, though amusingly, the Editors actually find evidence to support it with Lude, unlike with Johnny's claims of his own bodycount.
250	* ShooOutTheClowns: [[spoiler:His death is the point where things REALLY begin falling apart for Johnny, and his absence from the remainder of the narrative darkens the already-eerie tone significantly.]]
251	* SmallRoleBigImpact: He really isn't ''that'' important to the plot, but it wouldn't have happened at all if not for him and [[spoiler:his exit from it sends Johnny's already crumbling life into the abyss]].
252	* ToxicFriendInfluence: He and Johnny seem to get into difficult situations every time they hang out. [[spoiler:However, if Johnny's life is a trainwreck with Lude in it, it's worse when he's removed from the equation.]]
253	[[/folder]]
254
255	[[folder:Thumper]]
256	A beautiful stripper that Johnny falls in love with.
257	----
258	* DidNotGetTheGirl: Despite his infatuation with her, things never work out between Johnny and Thumper.
259	* EthicalSlut: A stripper and all-around sex positive person, plus a truly kind and friendly person.
260	* {{Foil}}: In some ways to Johnny and Lude, as she seems to have a similar "[[TheHedonist live life to the fullest]]" attitude to them, but is an actually normal person about it rather than an unhinged moron or BrokenBird.
261	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Well, stripper, but she's still easily the most moral, well-adjusted, and dependable person in Johnny's social group.
262	* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]]: She's just a really cool person in general by all accounts.
263	* NoNameGiven: Thumper is, obviously, just her stage name/nickname. We never learn her real name. Johnny does, [[TheUnreveal but never tells us]].
264	* OnlySaneMan: For Johnny's layer of the story, being the only person in his consistent social circle who's got their life together in any sense.
265	[[/folder]]
266
267	[[folder:Gdansk Man]]
268	A total {{Jerkass}} who causes Johnny and Lude a lot of problems. He's Kyrie's physically and emotionally distant boyfriend, who spends most of his time overseas.
269	----
270	* HateSink: As far as [[UnreliableNarrator Johnny]] represents things, he's just a belligerent, vindictive asshole and bully.
271	* {{Jerkass}}: To the point he makes Johnny and Lude look mature and likable in comparison.
272	* KickTheDog: [[spoiler:His absolutely savage beating of Lude, which ends up having horrible consequences for the latter.]]
273	* NoNameGiven: He's just "Gdansk Man". Evidently, Johnny can't be bothered to learn his name.
274	[[/folder]]
275
276	[[folder:Johnnie]]
277	A woman Johnny encounters at a bar one night.
278	----
279	* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: She takes a sick Pekingese from a street corner, but prevents Johnny from keeping it as a pet. After dropping Truant off at home, she throws the dog from the car [[SurrealHorror hard enough to mangle its skeleton]].
280	* PlasticBitch: Her physical appearance is described as "grotesque" and Johnny dwells on the amount of saline and "corpse fat" that holding her body together, saying that while she looked like she could be in her 20's, she was [[Really700YearsOld equally likely to be 6,000]]. She's also vapid, cruel and violent.
281	* WastedBeauty: Lude and Johnny are quick to notice her extensive cosmetic surgery, particularly her generous rack. Once he actually speaks to her, Johnny quickly realizes how little she has going on in her head, her lousy conversational skills, and her disconnect from reality. Even before she [[KickTheDog kills an animal out of pique]], Johnny describes her in broadly negative terms, comparing her physique to an apocalyptic storm.
282	[[/folder]]
283
284	[[folder:Raymond]]
285	Johnny's abusive stepfather, who is dead before the story begins.
286	----
287	* AbusiveParents: His treatment of Johnny as a child is, to put it bluntly, disgusting.
288	* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: While his trauma from his time as a soldier might be a contributing factor in his abuse of Johnny, the book goes out of its way to make clear it is no excuse for it.
289	* HateSink: Compared to most of the other human antagonists. While there's hints of a FreudianExcuse, it doesn't come close to justifying anything about Raymond's behavior, and he's ultimately just a vindictive, selfish abuser.
290	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: His death from cancer was either just random cancer or the result of a curse placed on him by Pelafina in retaliation for his treatment of Johnny.
291	* ShellShockedVeteran: He's a military vet and it's suggested he may have had untreated PTSD.
292	[[/folder]]
293
294	!!The Whalestoe Letters
295
296	[[folder:Pelafina Heather Lièvre]]
297	A schizophrenic woman remanded to the Three Attic Whalestoe Institute who writes letters to her son, Johnny Truant.
298	----
299	* AbusiveParents: Towards Johnny, though not intentionally; she's mentally ill in a way that makes her a danger herself and others, and Johnny was no exception. She does love him, but she also nearly killed him in one of her manic episodes, which led to her incarceration. [[spoiler:And she might have succeeded, [[MindScrew depending on your interpretation]].]] Notably, the unintended abuse is both physical and emotional; during manic episodes, she's as likely to try and guilt trip and harangue Johnny into helping her as she is to attack him.
300	* AxCrazy: A tragic example. Her schizophrenia manifests in violent ways.
301	* ColorMotif: Johnny associates her with the color purple. Notably, one of the only times in the book that [[PaintingTheMedium purple text]] appears is when Johnny recalls a story he heard about [[spoiler:a mother trying to care for her brain-damaged child in a hospital before it dies]]. Make of that what you will.
302	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:What she ultimately does to get out of the Institute.]]
303	* InsaneEqualsViolent: Her schizophrenia takes on some frighteningly violent forms, and she was institutionalized after trying to strangle her infant son to death.
304	* MadwomanInTheAttic: She certainly seems to feel that she's treated like this. The truth is harder to discern, given her unreliable narration. On one hand, she ''definitely'' has every reason to be in Whalestoe. On the other, if she's telling the truth about the place being a BedlamHouse, then it's really not helping her.
305	* MamaBear: Despite the abuse she afflicted on Johnny due to her illness, Pelafina is also ferociously defensive of her son and casts a curse on Raymond for sending him to the hospital, one which [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may have]] resulted in the man dying a horrific death via cancer.
306	* MoodSwinger: Owing to her mental illness, she can fly from kindly one moment, terrifying the next.
307	* TheParanoiac: She seems to specifically suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, and it shows in how she becomes more and more paranoid and anxious as her illness gets worse. At the start of the letters, she is on cordial terms with the staff and especially the Old Director, but as she gets older and her treatments fail, she begins seeing the New Director and orderlies as captors or enemies to be outmaneuvered.
308	* SanitySlippage: She's already schizophrenic at the start, but over the course of the Whalestoe Letters her condition gradually and severely worsens, as for some reason or another her treatments fail to take.
309	* StylisticSuck: Her letters are about as messy and hard to decipher as you'd expect for something written by a schizophrenic gradually losing her mind. That said, her early letters are actually pretty normal - it's only later in her life as her disease progresses and gets worse that her writing starts becoming bizarre and hard to understand as her illness bleeds into her words.
310	* UnreliableNarrator: The most unreliable one in the entire book, and that's saying something. Her severely unwell and ever-declining mental state mean that basically nothing she says in her letters to Johnny can be taken at face value.
311	[[/folder]]
312
313	[[folder:The Directors and Orderlies]]
314	The people who run the Three Attic Whalestoe Institute. Pelafina has an adversarial relationship with them, convinced that they are abusing her.
315	----
316	* AmbiguousSituation: One of the biggest examples in the book. Whether they're actually the monsters that Pelafina portrays them as in her letters or not is impossible to say. On one hand, Pelafina herself certainly seems to think it's real. On the other hand, well, she's schizophrenic. And has motive to lie besides as she clearly wants out of the Institute. Furthermore, the letters they personally send Johnny give no indication that they're anything less than strict professionals… but then again, they'd certainly not admit their criminality, if any, in such letters.
317	* BedlamHouse: According to Pelafina's letters, Whalestoe is this under their watch. Whether or not it's true is another matter.
318	* BitchInSheepsClothing: If Pelafina's stories of them being villainous are true.
319	* BrutalHonesty: The New Director is as sympathetic and gentle as he can be in his letters to Johnny about Pelafina's deteriorating condition and later [[spoiler:suicide]], but also bluntly honest. The former in particular has him state very frankly that he doesn't believe Pelafina will live much longer and that he thinks Johnny should make his peace with her in-person while he still can, [[spoiler:and he's proven right as she hangs herself not very long after]]. It's possible this is why Pelafina takes such a dislike to said New Director; he's too blunt with ''her'' and isn't willing to indulge her hallucinations and whims like the Old one did.
320	* ForTheEvulz: Pelafina claims the only reason they do the horrific things she claims they do to her is because they want to break her in body and soul.
321	* LegacyCharacter: The director of the Institute gets replaced over the course of Pelafina's long stay. The Old Director retires and the New Director is in charge from that point on. This makes things worse with Pelafina's treatment, as for whatever reason she finds the Old Director trustworthy but not the New, and she becomes much more adversarial and paranoid of the staff.
322	* NiceGuy: Contrary to how Pelafina portrays him, when the New Director personally messages Johnny, he comes off as a perfectly nice man who is sympathetic to both Pelafina's plight and Johnny himself. He also claims that a lot of the staff at the Institute really like Pelafina, in complete contradiction to her accusations towards them in her letters. Whether that's an act or what he's really like — with Pelafina's view of him as a villain a delusion — is unrevealed.
323	* NoNameGiven: We never learn the names of any of them, either because Pelafina doesn't bother to mention them in her letters, or her illness means she has trouble remembering.
324	* OrderliesAreCreeps: [[UnreliableNarrator Pelafina says they are at least]], accusing them — in rather nightmarish detail — of constantly raping and torturing her just to try and break her spirit.
325	[[/folder]]
326
327	!!Other
328
329	[[folder:The Editors]]
330	The good men and women at the Pantheon and Random House publishing houses given the unenviable task of piecing together this book.
331	----
332	* TheComicallySerious: If they had any reaction to or opinions on the utterly crazed manuscript they are editing, they never show it in their writing, maintaining an air of professionalism that never wavers, even during the most insane parts of the novel.
333	* DevilsAdvocate: As part of their role as neutral, outside editors, they often end up playing this role to Johnny and Zampanò, giving arguments against their assertions. Most notable is the "Contrary Evidence" section of the appendix, in which they lay out their own research into ''The Navidson Record'' that goes much more in-depth than Johnny did and contradicts a lot of his findings, to the point of including [[spoiler:a film still that may very well come from the movie.]] They also get interviews and emails with people Zampanò and Johnny claimed to have interacted with, which frequently expose apparent lies that they told in their journals; an email from Hailey that they publish, for example, contradicts Johnny's account of their night and shows her to be significantly different than her depicted.
334	* NotSoAboveItAll: At one point, they get into an argument in the footnotes over which Bible verse Zampanò quotes.
335	* OnlySaneMan: The only narrators in the book that aren't completely off their rockers.
336	* StraightMan: Their general role. Compared to all the other narrators, they're succinct, competent, professional, neutral, and generally seem like they're just trying their best to convey this beast to the reader in a semi-coherent way and give all the available facts.
337	* StylisticSuck: Inverted. Unlike all the other narrators, their writing is actually competent, as you'd expect given they're sane, uninvolved in the central mystery, and professional editors; they deliver information in the most efficient and succinct manner possible, never make mistakes or engage in weird PaintingTheMedium antics, and generally make a sincere effort to help the reader discern what's being said.
338	* UnreliableNarrator: Averted… maybe. Unlike the other narrators, they seem perfectly sane and coherent, as well as a neutral third party unaffected by the madness of the book. But if anything, their attempts to apply a MindScrewdriver to things just makes it all even more inscrutable.
339	[[/folder]]

Context Characters / HouseOfLeaves