| 1 | [[quoteright:337:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/strange456_8703.jpg]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ->''"Can a magician kill a man by magic?" Lord Wellington asked Strange.\ |
| 4 | Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. "I suppose a magician might," he admitted, "but a gentleman never could."'' |
| 5 | |
| 6 | ''Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell'' is the highly acclaimed first novel by Susanna Clarke, published in 2004. The story shows, in historical fashion, the involvements of magicians and [[TheFairFolk fairies]] in [[AlternateHistory alternate]] [[GaslampFantasy Britain]] of the [[RegencyEngland Regency era]]. Being [[DoorStopper nearly 1000 pages long]], the book is well-known (and well-loved) for skillfully combining political intrigue, elaborate academic footnotes and [[GenreThrowback sweet charcoal illustrations]]. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | Centuries ago, magic thrived in England. The Raven King, a human who had been raised in the LandOfFaerie, waged war against England and took the northern half for his kingdom. The Raven King was the greatest magician to ever live, and his 300-year reign was the golden age of magic in both halves of England -- the union of fairy power and human organization. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | By 1806, England has been reunited, and magic is primarily the domain of scholars and theorists. The Learned Society of York Magicians sets out to discover ''why'' magic is no longer practiced in England, and finds that there is one practicing magician: the reclusive Mr Gilbert Norrell, who has very particular views on what is and is not proper for an English magician. Norrell's life revolves about his deep love and reverence for academic books, and he feels that it is his duty to restore English Magic and to employ its power in the war effort against France. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | When Mr Norrell chooses to go public, this sets in motion a chain of events. In his efforts to ingratiate himself to the London upper class, he secretly calls upon the aid of a fairy: a gentleman with thistle-down hair. Although their encounter is but a brief one, this gentleman soon takes renewed interest in England and comes to deeply love Stephen Black, the servant of government minister Sir Walter Pole. Mr Norrell, oblivious to this particular development, convinces Sir Walter Pole that English Magic might restore the glory of the Kingdom and claim Britannia's victory against Napoleon Buonaparte. Aiding Norrell's political career are two socialite leeches, Mr Christopher Drawlight and Mr Henry Lascelles, who take it upon themselves to guide Norrell -- a SociallyAwkwardHero at the best of times -- through the intricacies of political etiquette. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Meanwhile, a young [[IdleRich landowner]] named Jonathan Strange discovers that he has a natural talent for magic, and begins practising as an amateur. He becomes Mr Norrell's first and only student, but as Strange begins to rival Norrell in ability, their differences in opinion intensify until something must give. And as the war effort progresses, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair becomes convinced that Jonathan Strange is his worst enemy. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | [[Series/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell Adapted into a BBC drama]], with Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan in the title roles. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Osprey Games published a TabletopGame called ''Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Board Game of English Magic''. |
| 19 | ---- |
| 20 | !!Contains examples of: |
| 21 | * AFeteWorseThanDeath: Played With. The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair holds a anniversary party for when he threw the children of his enemy of a tower in lost hope. This may have also been done at a party though it's not clear. That said he's completely able to hold a party to kill people, he describes the hunting of a wolf as a party for example. |
| 22 | * AgeGapRomance: A very mild example between Strange and Arabella, with six years between them. [[spoiler: Flora Greysteel is also noted as having had a serious crush on him, to the point of being interested in marrying him after Arabella's apparent death, despite the fact that she's 18 and by that point he was about 36. However, while he liked her, saw her as a MoralityPet, and enjoyed her company (in the early noted theme of Strange generally preferring the company of intelligent women), he wasn't interested - largely because he'd correctly deduced that Arabella was still alive - and they remain JustFriends.]] |
| 23 | * AlcoholInducedStupidity: Vinculus's late father tended to suffer from this, the most notable incident being when he accepted a drunken wager to [[spoiler:eat a priceless book of magic allegedly written by the Raven King himself, which resulted in the contents of the book being indelibly marked on the skin of the child he fathered a few years later, as well as his own execution by hanging for "book murder."]] |
| 24 | * AmbiguouslyGay: Oh, Mr Drawlight... |
| 25 | ** It's also never specified to what extent the gentleman with the thistle-down hair loves Stephen Black. Certainly their interaction never goes beyond the platonic, but the gentleman's behaviour is solidly that of a StalkerWithACrush. Ambiguously bisexual, in this case, given his far clearer interest in Arabella. |
| 26 | ** Mr. Norrell himself, who is unmarried, and seemingly obsessed with Strange at their first meeting, jealous of his wife, and deeply frustrated at the thought of him leaving to help with the war effort. An aside in a footnote about an old magician's love letters to his unisex-named lover mentions that Mr Norrell is much more comfortable with the idea of a gay magician than a female magician. |
| 27 | * AmplifierArtifact: Several are mentioned, apparently created by a magician infusing their own power into objects, such as rings. |
| 28 | * AndTheAdventureContinues: The book ends with [[spoiler: Strange and Norrell about to embark on exploration of magical realms, Childermass and Vinculus teaching York magicians the Raven King's book of magic, and Stephen beginning his reign and reform of Lost-Hope.]] |
| 29 | * AnimalMotifs: The raven for the Raven King, obviously. |
| 30 | * AnotherDimension: Faerie, kept separate from Earth presumably by the Raven King. Hell is mentioned as another separate realm, with another realm beyond that where the Raven King possessed a third mysterious kingdom. It's implied that there may be many others. |
| 31 | * AntiHero: Norrell is an old-fashioned example; Strange is a Byronic one (who is actually - eventually - on good terms with Lord Byron, and attributes his going particularly Byronic at one point to an extended acquaintanceship with his Lordship.) |
| 32 | * ApologeticAttacker: [[spoiler: In the novel, Stephen Black apologizes to the Gentleman right before he calls on all the powers of the earth to kill him.]] |
| 33 | * ArcSymbol: The raven in flight, the heraldic symbol of the Raven King. |
| 34 | * ArcWords: Vinculus's prophecy of the return of English magic in general, but particularly the phrase "the nameless slave". |
| 35 | * AsYouKnow: Many of the footnotes reference facts "everyone" knows about the history of British magic. |
| 36 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Jonathan Strange, much to his detriment later on. [[spoiler: His insanity exacerbates this.]] |
| 37 | * AxCrazy: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Though being a fairy his [[MoodSwinger moods shift wildly]] and he can sometimes be talked out of murder. Sometimes. Do not count on this. |
| 38 | * BackFromTheDead: Miss Wintertowne's resurrection is a major event which has huge ramifications for the rest of the plot, of which only the first is Norrell making his name in the capital. Strange resurrects deceased soldiers with Black Magic, although they are rotting. [[spoiler: Vinuculus is also resurrected by the Raven King after being hanged.]] |
| 39 | * BadLiar: The gentleman, in one of the several ways he is not quite as superior to others as he imagines. |
| 40 | * BadassAbnormal: Childermass. He would be, and was, a dangerous and capable man without magic. His secret magical skills make him even more formidable. |
| 41 | * BadassBookworm: |
| 42 | ** Jonathan Strange. He plays a vital role in Wellington's campaign, armed with nothing more than chests of books and memories of fairytales. |
| 43 | ** Norrell as well, although with more bookworm and less badass. He can after all with some murmuring of spells safeguard an entire stretch of coast against invasion. |
| 44 | * TheBeautifulElite: The residents of Lost-Hope. Fairy society is a very dark parody of Imperial aristocracy; effete, shallow, literally detached from the real world, unconcerned with their effect on lesser beings and capable of extraordinary evil while thinking they're helping humanity. |
| 45 | * BeautyEqualsGoodness: The Gentleman states this is the case, to explain part of his regard for Stephen. |
| 46 | * BeCarefulWhatYouSay: So, so much. Mr Norrell resurrects Ms Wintertowne by [[spoiler: summoning a fairy, namely, the gentleman with the thistledown hair,]] and offering him [[spoiler: half her life. Mr Norrell thinks this means she'll die in her 40s, but instead the gentleman takes her to a fairy ball every night, forcing her to dance all night instead of sleeping.]] Later, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair [[spoiler: places a curse of Darkness]] on Strange, naming him as "the English magician". Since he failed to be more specific, [[spoiler: the Darkness also begins to affects Norrell once Strange reaches him, and the two are bound together until the curse can be broken.]] The second instance is of major importance to the fate of England and its English Magic: [[spoiler: Norrell and Strange address "the nameless slave" in their spell, hoping to reach the Raven King. The spell finds Stephen Black instead.]] In the latter case, this is [[GambitRoulette almost certainly by the Raven King's design]]. |
| 47 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Played straight when Norrell deals with the gentleman with thistle-down hair, but when he tries to invoke this against Strange it goes horribly wrong. |
| 48 | * BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: According to a fairy tale in a footnote, Julius Caesar only became a conqueror because he asked to rule the world as a reward for presiding as a judge in Faerie. |
| 49 | * BenevolentMageRuler: A possible, and most likely, interpretation of the Raven King, and certainly how he's remembered OopNorth. Even when he abandoned his kingdom in England, it is suggested that he did so to guard its magical borders from otherworldly threats. |
| 50 | * BigBad: The Gentleman with thistle-down hair |
| 51 | * BigGood: [[spoiler: The Raven King]] |
| 52 | * BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Arabella, Lady Pole and Stephen are released from their enchantment, Stephen kills the Gentleman with the thistle-down hair, and magic is fully restored to England. But Stephen is utterly disillusioned with his life in England and leaves to become the new king of Lost-hope, and Strange and Norrell are trapped in eternal darkness for the foreseeable future. While this doesn't bother Norrell so much, Jonathan and Arabella are separated and uncertain of when they will meet again. But until then Norrell and Strange can happily practice magic and explore realms.]] |
| 53 | * BlackComedy: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair is ''built'' on this trope, particularly when he nonchalantly entertains the idea of killing strangers for imagined slights. |
| 54 | * BlackMagic: Strange practices some during the Napoleonic Wars, using it to raise slain Neapolitans from the dead as horrible, sapient zombies in order to get information from them. They are finally burned "alive" after the living soldiers are too creeped out to be around them - although, to his credit, Strange does try several times to reverse the spell on them (tragically, the reversal was quite simple, but no one remembered how). As a rather dark HistoricalInJoke, this act is suggested to have inspired the artist Creator/FranciscoDeGoya's production of hellish paintings of war and witchcraft. |
| 55 | * BloodKnight: [[spoiler:It can be inferred that the new champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart will be more enthusiastic about his duties than the previous one, seeing as Lascelles murdered Drawlight and the old Champion quite willingly. Alternatively, it's an implied deconstruction of BloodKnight mixed in with FridgeHorror; it's implied that the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart's champion begins by murdering the previous one and continues on with nothing to do but to kill or be killed until they've forgotten their own name.]] |
| 56 | * BloodMagic: As Mr Norrell has hoarded all of the magical texts in existence, Jonathan is forced to resort to this, in addition to many other strange tactics, in his attempt to summon a fairy. It is explicitly mentioned as an obscure and primeval form of magic, capable of powerful feats such as [[spoiler: raising the dead as zombies]]. |
| 57 | * BlueAndOrangeMorality: The moralities of fairies and humans are entirely incomprehensible to each other. The gentleman with the thistledown hair is guided by values that are utterly opaque to the humans around him. He kills a number of people to find Stephen's name and is perfectly willing to kill King George even though he likes him. The gentleman is also charmed by Stephen's beauty and doesn't understand why he can't be King of England. The footnotes mention this trend as well, relating how fairies were terrified that humans would, for some inscrutable reason, accuse them of stealing a pair of boots that someone left in one of their castles. |
| 58 | * BlueCollarWarlock: Childermass and Vinuclus act as interesting contrasts to Strange and Norrell, subverting Norrell's preference for [[GentlemanWizard respectable magic]]. The former is a servant, the latter is a beggar, and both have pasts as common criminals. |
| 59 | * BoringButPractical: Strange's first act of magic during the war (that Wellington is enthusiastic about) is to create roads for the British soldiers to travel on. It's noted that Strange specifically has to get to know the common soldiers, and understand their needs and wants, in order to create magic that the army can actually ''use.'' His flashy and dramatic suggestions are dismissed as worse than useless: a rain of frogs on a starving army of ''[[TrademarkFavouriteFood French]]'' soldiers? |
| 60 | * BrokenPedestal: |
| 61 | ** Norrell means well, but it doesn't change that fact that he's a secretive, mousy, banal and ''incredibly'' selfish man who is pretty much lacking in sympathetic traits, is [[DeadpanSnarker constantly sarcastic, of a condescendingly, backhanded sort]] and spends his time making sure he is the ''only'' magician in Britain. Namely by using his connections to the people in power to have other magicians (even theoretical scholars) outlawed, as well as using his magic to destroy all copies of the book about the Raven King that Strange has published after his estrangement with his former mentor. |
| 62 | ** In turn, Norrell explains to Strange in an attempt to reconcile why he behaves the way he does, especially about the Raven King. Namely, he held the King in the same regard that Strange did, once upon a time, but the King's apparent disinterest in his old Kingdom has led him to conclude that he is unworthy of reverence and should be expunged from magical discussion. Of course, as events make clear, the Raven King isn't ''quite'' so disinterested as he appears... |
| 63 | * ByronicHero: After a while, Strange becomes so Byronic that his dear friend Lord Byron himself ''starts taking notes''. [[spoiler: He gets over it by the novel's conclusion.]] |
| 64 | * TheCaligula: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair. Just when you think he can't get more terrifying and degenerate, he'll surprise you - and Stephen - with some new misdeed. |
| 65 | * CameBackWrong: |
| 66 | ** Lady Pole, although that's more the fault of the gentleman with the thistle-down hair constantly taking her away to Lost-Hope and enchanting her so she can't tell anyone about it - [[spoiler:once Mr Segundus breaks the enchantment on her, she's fully back to her old self again]]. |
| 67 | ** A more straight example is [[spoiler: the seventeen dead soldiers that Strange drags back from Hell, as they come back as rotting corpses which he can't put down again.]] |
| 68 | * {{Camp}}: Mr Drawlight. |
| 69 | * CantArgueWithElves: In all his actions, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair is absolutely ''convinced'' that his beloved humans enjoy his games as much as he does. The idea that they are consistently horrified by their slavery on his account is so far removed from his own frame of reference that they just can't convey the notion to him. |
| 70 | * CardsOfPower: Childermass has a pack of magic tarot cards that he can use to read the future and divine truths, if he asks them the right questions. |
| 71 | * CassandraTruth: Vinculus, who alternates between giving true prophesies and being a charlatan - something implied to be because, as Childermass notes, he's all talent and no training. [[spoiler:He also happens to be ''a walking prophecy nobody can read''.]] |
| 72 | * CastingAShadow: One of the very few spells others witness Childermass perform. |
| 73 | * ChangelingTale: The Raven King is a straight example, but somewhat subverted in the bittersweet story of Stephen Black. PlayedStraight with [[spoiler: Arabella]]. |
| 74 | * ChemicallyInducedInsanity: Mr. Strange {{Invoke|dTrope}}s this on himself: realizing that TheFairFolk are [[ByTheEyesOfTheBlind visible to madmen]] even when they're making themselves InvisibleToNormals, he creates an {{alchem|yIsMagic}}ical distillation of insanity and spends a few days wandering around Venice in a hallucinatory stupor. It even lets him find the [[BigBad Gentleman with Thistledown Hair]], to the Gentleman's considerable surprise, though he's too loopy to realize it until after the fact. |
| 75 | * TheChessmaster: John Uskglass aka the Raven King. It's implied that the plot of the whole book has been one long game for him. |
| 76 | * TheChosenOne: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, as prophesied by Vinculus. Although it's up for debate... |
| 77 | * CleverCrows: The motif of the {{Chessmaster}} Raven King -- although he's also decidedly {{Creepy|Crows}}. |
| 78 | * ClippedWingAngel: [[spoiler: While in his death throes, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair starts taking on what we are to assume is a terrifying true form. Given that all the rocks, trees, earth, water, and shadows in England are working together to kill him, it doesn't make a difference.]] |
| 79 | * CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Drawlight and Lascelles are darker versions of this, profitting from being corrupt go-betweens for Norell. |
| 80 | * ComicallySerious: The gentleman when he is not in a rage. |
| 81 | * ControlFreak: One of Norrell's key flaws, tied into his characterisation as the Order part in the dynamic with Strange, is that he simply can't bear to allow the development of English magic beyond his control and outside of his perception of what it should be. He also goes to great efforts to destroy or discredit other magicians. The sole exception to this is Strange, the one man he sees as a peer, and he eventually tries that, too, when Strange formally breaks with him. |
| 82 | * CoolButInefficient: A recurring trait in Strange's magic. His sand horses take too long to drag a stuck ship and rearrange the coast. In his war campaigns his images of dragons and angels sometimes scare Wellington's own troops rather than the French. |
| 83 | * CouldntFindAPen: Briefly discussed and deconstructed, when Childermass attempts to carve [[spoiler: the prophecy on Vinculus's body]] into his own skin in order to preserve it. He decides against it, as he notes the blood makes the work too unclear, the pain makes it too slow, and he is likely to bleed to death before he finishes. |
| 84 | * CourtMage: Several are mentioned in the footnotes, such as Elizabeth I's personal wizard (John Dee, who was real and a skilled astrologer and physician). Strange and Norrell act as updated versions, serving Parliament and politicans. |
| 85 | * CrazyCatLady: Mrs Delgado. [[spoiler:Strange gives her what she wants most in exchange for the key to madness - he transforms her into a cat]]. |
| 86 | * CrossoverCosmology: An interesting variation - only some myths are true, Merlin was explicitly stated to be true while magic mirrors are false (any mirror will do). The characters themselves aren't sure which myths are true. Beings from Christian theology and ancient religions also show up in this universe; the Raven King is said to have been on good terms with most angels and demons, but quarrelled with Zadkiel and Alrinach. Also in a footnote, Merlin is described as being half-demon. Hermes (Trismegistus, specifically) also has a passing mention near the end as the "God of all magicians" implying that while Christian theology is focused on, there may be other realms that Christians are unaware of, ignore or simply lump in with Faerie. |
| 87 | * DancesAndBalls: PlayedForHorror Stephen and Lady Poole end up spending '''years''' dancing the night away at Lost Hope as the "guests", read hostages, of the its master the gentleman with the thistle-down hair which leaves them utterly exhausted. |
| 88 | * DarkIsNotEvil: |
| 89 | ** The Raven King is mysterious and a bit alien, but seems ultimately benevolent. (Certainly compared to other natives of Faerie.) Similarly Childermass is enigmatic in his loyalties and purposes, but also one of the morally better people in the story. |
| 90 | ** Dark is also morally ambiguous with regard to Strange's reanimating the dead Neapolitans; it's only Lascelles (not a magician, and intending to slander Strange) who calls it Black Magic, and when the Raven King did the same magic in the Middle Ages the only problem his friend had with it was how he treated the man he reanimated. |
| 91 | * DeadpanSnarker: |
| 92 | ** Lascelles and Childermass. Some of Norrell's less dull dialogue is this, as well, in a very dry sort of way, though it usually shows up in his writing (and is particularly condescending). |
| 93 | ** Strange is a much lighter and more animated snarker, though he has his deadpan moments. It's later noted that the ideal image of a magician is TallDarkAndSnarky, which, barring his dark auburn hair, Strange fits like a glove. |
| 94 | * DecadentCourt: Lost-hope, and most of Faerie by extension. Death, child murder, and wars of the worst kind are treated blithly. |
| 95 | * DealWithTheDevil: Norrell makes a deal with the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, to bring Lady Pole back from the dead in exchange for half the remaining years of her restored life. What he doesn't realise is that [[LiteralGenie the Gentleman would take that time at present by imprisoning her in his Kingdom every night, rather than off the end of her life as Norrell assumes.]] |
| 96 | * DeathByChildbirth: Stephen's mother, in the hold of a slave ship. She doesn't even live long enough to tell anybody what she wants to name him. |
| 97 | * {{Deconstruction}}: The story explores the nature of magic through the lens of Georgian society, and vice-versa, and it is not wholly optimistic. The plot particularly deconstructs typical fairy tale elements to show just how horrible they would be through the eyes of the gentleman's victims; meanwhile, aristocratic British society is parodied by the way the "Gentleman" pretends to love, cherish and protect Stephen and Lady Pole while actually magically enslaving and silencing them. |
| 98 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: Casual classism, sexism and racism appear repeatedly, appropriate for Georgian society. Some characters are [[FairForItsDay better than others]]. |
| 99 | ** Strange in his respect for women, servants and Jews (he criticises the DoubleStandard of SlutShaming, considers his Jewish student to be the most talented of the lot, is amiably respectful of Childermass and offers to take him on as a student and an equal, and and states explicitly that if not for [[spoiler: Arabella's apparent death]], he'd take female students too - unfortunately, propriety would require chaperones etc). The women part is at least partially implied to be down to the fact that the happy parts of his childhood were spent growing up with his well-educated female cousins in Scotland, with Segundus noting in his later biography that Strange preferred the company of intelligent women. |
| 100 | ** The Poles taking good care of Stephen and giving him privileged employment. While it's pointed out that Walter did this in part to show off his liberal credentials, it's also pointed out that he trusts Stephen as his general [[HypercompetentSidekick factotum]] to handle all his business behind the scenes too, that he paid for Stephen's education when he could barely afford to, and when he was an ImpoverishedPatrician, he and Stephen slept by the same fire and ate the same food. As a result, it's indicated that while Stephen has a significant amount of highly justified bitterness towards the English, including Sir Walter's family, he has absolutely nothing against Sir Walter himself. |
| 101 | ** Norrell, on the other hand, is typically conservative, even for the time - yet another point of contrast with Strange. |
| 102 | * DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler: Arabella's apparent death, for Strange.]] |
| 103 | * DirtyCoward: Drawlight, who bitterly admits to being afraid all the time after encountering Strange in Venice. Lascelles also wrongly considers Childermass to be this, which fuels much of their bitter rivalry. |
| 104 | * DisabilitySuperpower: The mad can see and talk to fairies even without the use of magic, often granting them special favour. When Strange realises the full implications of this, he [[spoiler: willingly destroys his own sanity, temporarily but with some lingering after-effects]]. |
| 105 | * DiscOneFinalBoss: The French army and eventually [[spoiler: Norrell]] for Jonathan Strange. |
| 106 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Stephen Black and Lady Pole are silenced and enslaved to the whims of the (very pale and aristocratic) gentleman with thistle-down hair, who fetishes both for their beauty, and Stephen for his [[NobleSavage exotic]] skin. |
| 107 | * DoorStopper: Don't drop the hardcover version of this book on your foot. |
| 108 | * DoubleStandard: At one point, Lascelles has an affair with a married woman, Maria Bullworth, who believes he will run away with her. Of course he does nothing of the sort, and when the affair becomes public her reputation is ruined, her husband casts her off and she is forced to live on her father's charity, secluded in the country. Lascelles, naturally, gets off scot free without any judgement from polite society. You can hardly blame Mrs. Bullworth for wanting to get revenge on him with magic, and Strange certainly does not, remarking that he is entirely sympathetic to the desire (and profoundly dislikes the social double-standard) even if it's not the sort of magic he would ever willingly practice. |
| 109 | * EldritchLocation: All magicians' houses become this at one point or another, with the Shadow House being a particular example. It's also the exception to the rule that magicians' houses tend to vanish after they either die or disappear. |
| 110 | * EncyclopediaExposita: This is done a ''lot,'' with characters often debating the relative merits of the various books. |
| 111 | * EnigmaticMinion: Norrell's "Man of Business" Childermass is loyal but shows a surprising degree of autonomy, and his motives aren't quite clear - though it's suggested that it has something to do with the restoration of English magic and the return of the Raven King. He even learns a few spells, a couple that Norrell taught him (and conveniently forgot about until Childermass pointedly reminded him), and more secretly; it'd be hard not to, after working for a magician for over twenty years. Plus, there's his rather odd set of Tarot Cards... |
| 112 | * EnslavedTongue: People under the influence of the Fairies who attempt to tell anyone about it will instead recount random stories they do not know. |
| 113 | * EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: For all his selfishness and violence, the gentleman does seem to care for Stephen Black in his own way. |
| 114 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: Henry Lascelles is a thoroughly unlikable BloodKnight, but he vehemently despises cowardice. However he has a rather idiotic view of what that entails doing dangerous things for the sake of it. |
| 115 | * ExactWords: [[spoiler:When the gentleman with thistle-down hair predicts that Stephen will become the king of a kingdom he has already been to, he assumes that means England. It doesn't appear to occur to him that Stephen has been to one other kingdom: Lost-Hope.]] |
| 116 | * TheFairFolk: Fairies live in a realm that's only magically connected to England, and during the rule of John Uskglass in the Middle Ages constantly came to the mortal realm to charm and beguile humans away for nefarious purposes. They're so self-centered and hedonistic that if it wasn't for their powerful magic they'd quickly end up extinct; it's debatable whether the gentleman with the thistle-down hair even understood the concept that other people might have different opinions. It's stated that Julius Caesar once served as judge of the Fairies, because at the time ''every Faerie alive'' stood accused of some crime or had close ties to an accused, so none were fit to stand in judgment. Despite being a key element of the story, only two members appear in the narrative proper, although many of the aureate magicians of the past were known to employ them as servants. |
| 117 | * FairyCompanion: More common in the past than the novel's setting. |
| 118 | * FauxAffablyEvil: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair. |
| 119 | * FictionalColour: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair puts Lady Pole's little finger in a box that is the "color of heartache". Many other such colours are seen in Faerie. |
| 120 | * FisherKing: Used many times over. |
| 121 | ** After Strange loses [[spoiler: Arabella]], he goes through a severe depression and begins writing on the walls and living in squalor. Once he properly [[spoiler: destroys his own sanity on purpose]], his house becomes a nightmarish lair. |
| 122 | ** After Stephen Black [[spoiler:kills the gentleman and takes his place, he restores beauty and order to the gentleman's kingdom of Lost-hope.]] |
| 123 | * {{Foil}}: |
| 124 | ** Strange and Norrell; Stephen and the gentleman with the thistle-down hair; Arabella Strange and Lady Pole. |
| 125 | ** Segundus and Honeyfoot are a two-man set of foils to Strange and Norrell: one young, enthusiastic and possibly with some latent magical talent; the other older, academically-minded and (by contract) rendered magically impotent by Norrell himself. By contrast, they are friendly and co-operative where the title characters are suspicious rivals, and by working together they achieve things they could not have managed alone. They even {{lampshade}} on hearing the two-magicians prophecy that "[[NameAndName Segundus and Honeyfoot]]" "sounds very well indeed!" |
| 126 | * FootnoteFever: And how! Some pages are actually more footnote than novel. The grand champion footnote takes up 4/5 each of ''four successive pages.'' And concerns a story of questionable historical accuracy regarding a misplaced magic ring and the person who found it, which has ''no relevance to the plot whatsoever.'' |
| 127 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: One of Norrell's objections to Vinculus's prophecy is that fortune-telling tends to be unreliable. Of course, some of his other objections are that it invokes the Raven King, that prophecies in general don't align with his idea of respectable English magic, and that Vinculus broke into his house to recite it to him, so that claim might come off as dubious. However, in this case he's entirely right: [[spoiler: it comes true because it's not a prophecy at all. It's the Raven King's [[TheChessmaster to-do list]].]] |
| 128 | * FriendlessBackground: A self-imposed one to some extent: the very awkward and introverted Norrell has isolated himself from all other magicians (to the point of actively preventing other people studying magic) and doesn't much like anyone else either. In the book, at least, he goes rather overboard once he decides that Strange is a worthy pupil; Strange for his part doesn't much like Norrell, but his mentor is oblivious. |
| 129 | * TheFriendNobodyLikes: Pretty much everyone merely tolerates Norrell's company at best, barring Childermass and Strange. Likewise, in Childermass' case, it's implied that while he respects and is loyal to Norrell, he mainly sees him as a means to an end, while Strange finds Norrell personally annoying, but is also his only academic peer. It gets to the point where despite both his great services to the country, Strange is denied a peerage on the grounds that Norrell would be entitled to expect one as well, and, "the idea of referring to Norrell as 'my lord' or 'Sir Gilbert' was somehow depressing." |
| 130 | * FunctionalMagic: The form of magic practiced by Norrell and Strange, and particularly promoted by the former. It functions through treaties set in place by the Raven King, who Norrell ironically criticises. |
| 131 | * GambitRoulette: The Raven King, and how! [[spoiler: According to Vinculus, the events of the entire book were orchestrated by him]], he's able to run three countries at the same time, one of which lies ''beyond Hell'', and he has enough magical power to rival Satan himself explicitly, including spells to foretell the future. |
| 132 | * GeniusLoci: Absolutely everything! Every single tree, river, stone and even odder things like the dawn or various winds. All magic comes from making deals and alliances with various GeniusLoci either directly or, in the case of most English magicians, indirectly thanks to deals made by the Raven King. The fact most humans don't realise these things are intelligent and thus don't learn how to talk with them is a serious impediment to their magical ability. |
| 133 | * GentlemanWizard: The titular characters, as well as the magic societies, if you consider them wizards despite their not actually ''doing'' any magic. Magic is considered the realm of the idle gentry, and Mr Norrell is not pleased to learn that Strange intends to teach a Jew. Even Strange's more liberal acquaintances are somewhat shocked at how casually he says that were it not for [[spoiler: Arabella's death and]] the requirement for chaperones for the sake of propriety, he'd teach women and girls too. |
| 134 | * TheGhost: The Raven King is only seen in flashbacks [[spoiler:until he finally has a short but impressive cameo in the third to last chapter, where he talks to Childermass (who is made to forget the incident right away) and brings Vinculus back to life. Strange and Norrell, who try to summon him, only get to see a [[FacelessEye giant raven eye]] instead.]] |
| 135 | -->''"...John Uskglass the Raven King, who is not in the title unless he is hiding behind the ampersand, but who hovers there still."'' -- Foreword by Neil Gaiman |
| 136 | * GhostlyWail: The undead soldiers that Mr. Strange [[{{Necromancer}} conjures up]] can only speak in a ghastly unintelligible shriek, which he eventually identifies as the BlackSpeech of {{Hell}}. |
| 137 | * GreyAndGreyMorality: |
| 138 | ** Strange and Norrell; neither is "good" in any conventional sense of the word. Norrell is rudely blunt, dismissive of other people and extremely selfish, determined to be the only magician in England, while Strange is impulsive, irresponsible and increasingly arrogant, and insists in meddling with darker forms of magic. |
| 139 | ** They both oppose the gentleman with thistledown hair, but he mostly acted out of friendship and perceived generosity, and is difficult to judge as evil by human standards due to his bizarre ethics. |
| 140 | ** In fact, few characters are entirely good and nice people and the ones who are don't have very large roles. |
| 141 | * HappilyMarried: Jonathan and Arabella; while they're less visibly passionate than in the miniseries adaptation, and Strange is somewhat thoughtless (which he later berates himself for), it's quite clear that they're devoted to each other. [[spoiler: Her apparent death ends up driving him insane.]] |
| 142 | * HeartbrokenBadass: [[spoiler: Jonathan Strange becomes even more impressive when he believes Arabella is dead, intentionally losing his mind and becoming much more powerful.]] |
| 143 | * HereThereWereDragons: At the novel's opening, magic has faded from Britain (it's still studied, but not practiced) and great magicians and fairy servants are only a memory. |
| 144 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: This is presumably the fate for [[spoiler: Norrell and Strange for the foreseeable future after the end of the novel. They are bound together by the Gentleman's curse until they find a way to defeat it but neither of them is in a hurry to do so.]] Also {{Implied}} to be [[spoiler: Childermass and Vinculus's fate as Childermass expressly tells Vinculus that he cannot let him out of his sight given that he now has the new prophecy written all over him but no one can as yet decipher what it is. Vinculus is none too pleased about having to stay with Childermass.]] |
| 145 | * HistoricalDomainCharacter: Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, is prominent in the chapters where Strange joins the army to fight Napoleon. King George III and Lord Byron appear too. |
| 146 | * HistoricalInJoke: So many. Particularly great is when both Strange and Lord Byron are in Switzerland, angrily writing to their publisher after having met and not liked one another much. Strange mentions in his letter that Byron is accompanied by Percy Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, Miss Claire Clairmont, and Dr. John Polidori. This is, of course, the summer of 1816... meaning that Strange met Polidori, the Shelleys, and Byron, right around the time they set their scary story writing contest, which would eventually produce ''the Vampyre'', and ''Frankenstein'' (and, in-universe, ''Manfred'' by Byron is written about the kind of magician he'd [[{{ByronicHero}} wanted Strange to be]]). |
| 147 | * HumanNotepad: [[spoiler: Vinuculus is covered (aside from his face and hands) in the prophecy of the Raven King. After it is fulfilled, it shifts into the magic book of the Raven King.]] |
| 148 | * HypocriticalHumor: The gentleman with thistle-down hair once tells Stephen, about Strange, "I have never heard anyone talk so much! He is quite the most conceited person I have ever met. People like that who must be continually talking themselves and have no time to listen to any one else are quite disgusting to me." This, of course, describes the gentleman precisely. |
| 149 | * IHaveManyNames: The Raven King, aka John Uskglass, aka the Black King of the North, aka the nameless slave (from his changeling childhood, though rarely used and [[spoiler: key to the climax of the novel]]), etc. This actually figures into the plot when [[spoiler: Strange and Norrell try to magically locate the Raven King but can't figure out which name to use in the spell. Norrell speculates that The Raven King did this on purpose, because names are such an important part of magic. Without his true name, it gets difficult to do anything related to the person you're trying to target. In the end, they just cast a spell asking for "the king", using as many items with connections to The Raven King as possible as ritual components, as a way of specifying which king they're talking about.]] |
| 150 | * IKnowYourTrueName: |
| 151 | ** A vital tool for precisely aiming magic at a target. Summoning and curses are two notable examples where knowing a name aids this. [[spoiler: The gentleman's curse on Strange has the side-effect of targeting other English magicians since the faerie did not bother to name Strange in it]]. Norrell also notes that the Raven King may well have deliberately avoided taking a true name in England to avoid this. [[spoiler:When Norrell and Strange have to summon the Raven King, they do so by casting a summoning asking for "The King", while using ritual components associated with the Raven King to specify ''which'' King.]] |
| 152 | ** Also, the gentleman with the thistledown hair learns Stephen Black's true name, given by his mother before her DeathByChildbirth, and intends to use it to make Stephen's fortune. [[spoiler: Later, his last trump card to prevent Stephen from destroying him is to say that if Stephen kills him, he'll never know his true name. Stephen is willing to live with this.]] |
| 153 | * IncurableCoughOfDeath: Miss Wintertowne is suffering from an appalling coughing fit when we first meet her. |
| 154 | -->''Finally [Sir Walter] coughed -- a brief clearing of the throat as if to suggest that everyone coughed -- [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial coughing was the most natural thing in the world -- coughing could never, under any circumstances, be cause for alarm.]]'' |
| 155 | * TheIngenue: Both Emma and Arabella already have shades of this, but Flora Greysteel ''breathes'' the trope. |
| 156 | * InHarmonyWithNature: Apparently what separates the great magicians from the present novices. |
| 157 | * InhumanlyBeautifulRace: Subverted with faeries. It is implied this is a result of their shapeshifting and vanity rather than natural looks. |
| 158 | * InsanityImmunity: The mad can see through cloaking spells. |
| 159 | * InsubstantialIngredients |
| 160 | * InSpiteOfANail: In spite of the fact that Northern England was formerly a separate country, ruled by a magician-king for 300 years, and that fairies were demonstrably proven to have existed, England and Europe at the time of the novel are almost exactly as they were in history. Sir Creator/WalterScott, UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington, Creator/FranciscoDeGoya, and Creator/LordByron all show up, and are shown or implied to be just as they were in RealLife. There also doesn't seem to be a tradition of magic in any other countries (such as France, which might otherwise have given Bonaparte an edge in the Peninsular War, or Ireland, which could have put a decided crimp in England's occupation of the country) even though it's shown that fairies are by no means confined to England. |
| 161 | * InternalReveal: After the muffle enchantment is lifted, [[spoiler:Lady Pole]] is able to reveal the backstory of the majority of the book's events to two key participants... almost ten years after the inciting incident. |
| 162 | * ItsAllAboutMe: |
| 163 | ** Norrell, who has an absolutely massive ego and self-importance, driven by the sense that only ''he'' can drive the return of English magic and arrange it to be "respectable." |
| 164 | ** The gentleman with the thistle-down hair. |
| 165 | --> Stephen thought rapidly. "But his return may have nothing to do with you at all, sir," he offered. "Consider how many enemies he has in England – human enemies, I mean. Perhaps he has come back to continue his quarrel with one of them." The gentleman looked doubtful. Any reasoning that did not contain a reference to himself was always difficult for him to follow. |
| 166 | * JerkassHasAPoint: Norrell is determined to stamp out magic beyond his control and which he does not approve of, and suppresses meaningful public access to magic. However magic is consistently shown as an incredibly dangerous and chaotic force, and if he had stuck to his principles and not summoned the gentleman, many characters' suffering would have been avoided. |
| 167 | * KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Norrell might be trapped in eternal darkness for the foreseeable future, but he really doesn't see this as a punishment, and he is never brought to justice for the horrible things he does to Lady Pole. The worst that could be said happens to him is that Strange was ultimately proven right, and Strangite magicians are implied to have the upper-hand (given that Hurtfew Abbey contained pretty much all the magic books in England).]] |
| 168 | * KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Lascelles, though his was more of a Karmic FateWorseThanDeath since he's now trapped into being the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart, killing challengers until someone kills him; the gentleman with thistle-down hair whose death ultimately ends up making Stephen into a King as he promised]], and Lawrence Strange. |
| 169 | * KickTheDog: |
| 170 | ** Drawlight once threw a cat out a third-floor window. |
| 171 | ** Mr Norrell's treatment of Arabella at the book auction; while she's in tears at having failed to buy even one of the magical books being auctioned for her husband because he's outbid her on every single one, he walks by with one of them in hand without so much as a word or glance for her. Even in-story, people thought that was pretty harsh. |
| 172 | ** Many of the gentleman's actions, even though he has no idea of the immorality of his actions, but his pursuit of Stephen's name is a new extreme. In his mission he kills all the women a man kissed, burned a house to the ground with women, children and the elderly inside, strangled a woman with her own pearl necklace, and broke into an elderly widow's home leaving her exposed to a bitter and probably lethal winter cold. |
| 173 | * KingInTheMountain: One of the legends that has grown up around the Raven King's disappearance is that he will return at the hour of his people's greatest need to lead them to victory and greatness once again. Sir Walter at one point remarks on increased 'Johannite' activity (analogous to Luddites, mixed with Northern English nationalism/pro Raven King sentiment), including flying of the Raven-in-Flight, Uskglass' banner... something which can't be stopped because legally, the King of Southern England is only a steward of Northern England, maintaining order until the [[RightfulKingReturns Raven King gets back]]. As he sourly notes, every country has such a legend, but only in England is it part of the constitution. |
| 174 | * KlingonPromotion: The reason the gentleman with the thistle-down hair wants Stephen to kill the King of England. Stephen tries to explain that the British monarchy doesn't work that way, or at least not any more. [[spoiler:But in the fairy world it does, so when Stephen kills the gentleman, he gets his kingdom.]] |
| 175 | * LandOfFaerie: Played with, as Strange hypothesizes that Faerie is more of a dimension than a homogenous kingdom. Several areas are mentioned or shown, such as the Raven King's realm, the gentleman's kingdoms (including Lost-hope), and the land beneath the King's Roads. |
| 176 | * LaserGuidedAmnesia: Mr. Segundus can't clearly remember his visit to Mr. Norrell's. |
| 177 | ** Childermass can't remember [[spoiler: his encounter with the Raven King.]] |
| 178 | * LastNameBasis: As would be expected of the period, most characters are known exclusively by their surname. |
| 179 | * LemonyNarrator: The Narration often speaks in first person, and is ''very'' snarky. |
| 180 | * LostPropertyLiveDrop: Magical example; as Stephen Black finds himself being slotted further into the role of the [[TheFairFolk Gentleman With The Thistle-Down Hair]]'s PuppetKing, people are supernaturally manipulated into giving him various kingly objects, often while convinced that they belong to him. Stephen has no choice but to accept them, to the point that his room ends up hopelessly cluttered with items. |
| 181 | * TheMagicComesBack: The main point of the book. |
| 182 | * MagicEnhancement: [[spoiler: Lady Pole]] is temporarily granted superhuman strength. |
| 183 | * MagicMirror: Averted, although mirrors are associated in-universe with magic, and they are used in several spells. However, it's repeatedly made clear that any mirror will do, and that there's no such thing as an inherently magical mirror. |
| 184 | * MagicRealism |
| 185 | * MakeAWish: The gentleman grants this to [[spoiler: Strange]] in a binding contract, although he refuses for selfish reasons to grant the first request. [[spoiler: Strange asks to be taught magic]]. |
| 186 | * MasterOfIllusion: Strange's go-to and earliest tactic in Wellington's battles is to create images of dragons and angelic hosts to scare the French. This becomes a problem at Waterloo, as Wellington's cobbled together army mostly isn't used to it, while Napoleon's veterans mostly are. |
| 187 | * MeaningfulName: Stephen Black. [[spoiler: Stephen means crown, a motif associated with the character.]] |
| 188 | * MentallyUnwellSpecialSenses: It's a plot point as after much study [[GentlemanWizard Jonathan Strange]] comes to realise that the insane can perceive TheFairFolk, even when they make themselves invisible and are the only things other than [[InvisibleToNormals other Fair Folk (and people they want to see them) that can]]. As such he spends days working on an [[ChemicallyInducedInsanity alchemical distillation of insanity]] (specifically taken from a particularly insane [[CrazyCatLady Mrs Delgado]]) to make himself temporarily insane and thus able to converse with them. |
| 189 | * MilitaryMage: The magician Jonathan Strange is sent to help the British effort in the Napoleonic wars, answering directly to Lord Wellington. He creates roads for the army to use, and illusions to confuse the enemy. |
| 190 | * MobileMaze: Norrell's house has one, particularly when one is attempting to reach the library. [[spoiler: When Strange arrives, he immediately hijacks it]]. |
| 191 | * ModestRoyalty: In his invasion of England, the Raven King dressed in rags and drank milk from a wooden cup while negotiating with Henry II. [[spoiler: When he appears in the novel's events, he is dressed instead in fashionable upper class clothing.]] |
| 192 | * MoralityPet: Flora Greysteel to Strange, after [[spoiler: Arabella's apparent death]]. While she more generally gets him to act like his old self, she also persuades him to stop [[spoiler: driving himself crazy with the distilled madness]] on the grounds of what it's doing to his health, and he trusts her to act as an anchor to ensure [[spoiler: Arabella]] returns safely from Faerie. |
| 193 | * MuggleWithADegreeInMagic: Until the revelation of the titular characters, ''all'' magic scholars are muggles, and have been for hundreds of years. |
| 194 | * MushroomSamba: Strange's experiences after drinking [[spoiler:distilled madness]] read as nothing so much as someone's first trip on acid. |
| 195 | * MysteriousPast: |
| 196 | ** The Raven King, who was abducted by fairies as a child and ''somehow'' managed to become both their king and a magician bordering on PhysicalGod. |
| 197 | ** Also Childermass. We don't even know why he puts up with being Norrell's servant. See EnigmaticMinion. |
| 198 | * NameAmnesia: The character called "Stephen Black" is apparently not actually named Stephen Black, or so it would seem according to the rules of magic, because 'Stephen' was a slave name and not his true name given to him by his mother at his birth, which has been lost. As such, Magic considers him to be "The Nameless Slave", which is problematic because there is also a historical figure prevalent in the story, the Raven King, who was also given a slave name that was not his real name, John Uskglass, and is also referred to as "The Nameless Slave". Spells meant to address the latter Nameless Slave accidentally affect the former Nameless Slave. Given the Raven King's [[GambitRoulette proclivity for the long game]], it is entirely possible that this was on purpose. |
| 199 | * NameAndName: Lampshaded by Mr. Honeyfoot in the series, at first saying that "John Segundus and Mr. Honeyfoot" is a good name for a partnership, but later acknowledging that "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" sounds even better. |
| 200 | * {{Narcissist}}: One of the gentleman's defining characteristics, perhaps even distinguishing him from other faeries. |
| 201 | * NiceGuy: |
| 202 | ** Childermass often tries to encourage Norrell's better nature, and acts only in the interests of English magic with zero self-interest - though he is indicated to have carried out a fair bit of Norrell's DirtyBusiness in the past. |
| 203 | ** Mr Segundus is such a nice guy that it's even called out by the Narrator, and spends most of his page-time prioritising English magic and Lady Pole's welfare over his own interests. |
| 204 | --->'''Narrator:''' For who can remain angry with Mr Segundus? I dare say there are people in the world who are able to resent goodness and amiability, whose spirits are irritated by gentleness - but I am glad to say that Jonathan Strange was not of their number. |
| 205 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: All throughout the book. |
| 206 | ** Norrell's summoning of the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, leading to Lady Pole and Stephen Black becoming enchanted. |
| 207 | ** Strange deciding to [[spoiler: use Black Magic]] during the war, simply to get some information on some rather unimportant cannons. |
| 208 | * NobilityMarriesMoney: Sir Walter Pole is a politician, but doesn't have much money. His marriage to the wealthy Emma Wintertowne solves that. |
| 209 | * NoNameGiven: |
| 210 | ** The gentleman with the thistle-down hair. |
| 211 | ** The author has stated that her intention was for the Raven King to have NoNameGiven, but in the end this was played with as [[IHaveManyNames he has many names]], though arguably, none are his "true name" but rather universally known nicknames or titles. |
| 212 | ** The knight of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart, because he cannot remember it. His mistress is similarly unnamed, as he has never even met her. |
| 213 | * NoodleIncident: English magical history has a number of occurrences that no one in the Nineteenth Century really understands, such as the time the Raven King "quarrelled with Winter and banished it from his kingdom, so that for four years Northern England enjoyed continual Summer." |
| 214 | * NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler:Vinculus after the hanging.]] He even makes a point of telling [[spoiler: the gentleman with the thistle-down hair]] that he's pretty hard to kill, but of course the fairy doesn't listen. |
| 215 | * ObliviouslyEvil: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair has no idea that what he's doing to his human "friends" is anything but kind and generous. |
| 216 | * OhMyGods: Fairies have little understanding of Christianity, but they did tend to venerate the saints, thinking they must be powerful magicians whose aid it would be useful to have. They therefore would randomly sprinkle various saints' names into their spells, which came to be called "florilegia." They taught these spells to English magicians, too, but when Catholicism was supplanted by Protestantism florilegia degenerated further into meaningless phrases that magicians would throw in, hoping to give their spells a little extra kick. (Norell finds florilegia worthless and tends to eliminate them from his spells.) |
| 217 | * OneOfTheGirls: Strange, up to a point. This is explained as being the result of being primarily raised by his mother's family, among his aunts and female cousins (who spoiled him somewhat to make-up for his father's ParentalNeglect). A footnote remarks that his future biographer would observe that while he has a number of male friendships, even in adulthood he prefers the company of clever women. It also explains why he's perfectly happy with the idea of theoretically teaching women and girls, the only obstacle being the need for a chaperone, something that startles even his more liberal friends. |
| 218 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted; there are [[https://www.tumblr.com/tellsadstoriesofthedeathofkings/177399328357/a-list-of-every-person-named-john-in-the-entirety 18 charcters named John or some variation thereof]]. This is [[ShownTheirWork more plausible]] than it might sound since [[https://www.galbithink.org/names.htm almost one in five men in the UK at the time were named John]], and given that the Raven King's name (assumed or otherwise) was John Uskglass, it would have had even more appeal. |
| 219 | * OopNorth: The Raven King formerly ruled Northern England as a separate kingdom from his capital at Newcastle. It's also stated that as a result of this the North of England is intrinsically more magical than the South. Both Norrell and Childermass are very proud Northerners. |
| 220 | * OrderVersusChaos: The conservative Norrell represents order, with the more likeable Strange being more allied with chaos, given his interest in fairies and willingness to move parts of Spain and Belgium while helping the British in the Napoleonic wars. However, despite his repellent personality and heavy-handed methods Norrell's viewpoint is shown to have merit: magic is dangerous and should be handled with care. The one time Norrell employs less predictable faerie magic causes untold misery for others. |
| 221 | ** There is also a linked theme of reason versus madness. Strange [[spoiler: deliberately goes mad for a long while]] to gain deeper insight. |
| 222 | * OurFairiesAreDifferent: They have incredible magical powers, due to being able to commune directly with the landscape. They are also nigh-immortal and can shapeshift. General racial characteristics include capriciousness, laziness and vanity. It is observed that if not for the previous powers, the latter characteristics would have rendered them extinct long ago. |
| 223 | * OutOfCharacterMoment: Norrell laughs with delight and is genuinely impressed when Strange demonstrates his mirror magic, a startling expression after several chapters acting like a dour, arrogant and fussy scholar with no joy beyond reading. |
| 224 | ** The Gentleman actually expresses fear when Strange visits Lost-Hope. |
| 225 | * {{Pastiche}}: Of [[RegencyEngland Regency-era fiction]], right up to using period-appropriate spelling and references. |
| 226 | * PerceptionFilter: How the gentleman's spells of concealment appear to work, as mad people can see straight through them. Strange can sense something is there, and hears muffled snippets of the gentleman's conversation with Stephen Black. |
| 227 | * PetTheDog: It's hard to dislike Jonathan Strange after he is kind to a mother cat during one of the battles with the French. |
| 228 | ** The Raven King [[spoiler: heals Childermass' cut cheek as an afterthought, having already resurrected Vinuculus into his custody to aid in the resurrection of English magic. The action is described as almost paternal, and was probably a reward for having helped the process of restoring English magic, even risking his life for it (taking a bullet to save Norrell) and for declaring himself a loyal subject to the Raven King.]] |
| 229 | * ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Until Norrell and Strange stepped forward, the typical English wizard didn't actually do any magic, they just spent their days studying old books about magic from before it went away, recompiling the contents into new papers, and critiquing each other's papers, thus making the typical Magical Society more of a genteel book club with a constrained topic list than a group of mages. Despite that, Norrell holds them in contempt and seeks their abolition. |
| 230 | * PossessionImpliesMastery: Subverted. Strange only has access to books ''about'' magic while Norrell owns all the books ''of'' magic, yet Strange proves himself to be Norrell's equal (if not his superior) in magical power. Also, both men are portrayed as having an inflated perception of their magical prowess which is minimal compared to earlier English magicians. |
| 231 | * PowerLimiter: Several things are mentioned to disrupt a magician's powers, or his concentration needed to do so. Rowan branches, consecrated pieces of the Host and illness all weaken magicians, prompting some historical magicians to invest their powers into artefacts. |
| 232 | * PowerBornOfMadness: Insanity has several advantages to a magician, however there are other methods that don't require actual madness. |
| 233 | * ProphecyTwist: Doubly subverted. At first, it's quite clear that "the nameless slave" is [[spoiler: Stephen Black]], until Vinculus [[spoiler: flat-out tells Black that the line refers to the Raven King]]. But when Norrell and Strange attempt to use this moniker to [[spoiler: contact the Raven King]], the spell accidentally (or possibly ''not at all'' accidentally considering [[spoiler: the Raven King's apparent proclivity for the Gambit Roulette]]) [[spoiler: finds Stephen instead]]. Similarly, it's ambiguous whether the prophesy about two magicians returning magic to England refers to [[spoiler: Strange and Norrell]] or [[spoiler: Vinculus and Childermass]] or possibly both sets of individuals, although Strange and Norrell unsurprisingly believe the former. |
| 234 | * PsychoSerum: Strange deliberately drinks essentially [[spoiler:"distilled madness"]] out of the logic that since lunatics can see fairies without relying on the fairies revealing themselves, he needs to [[spoiler:become insane to be able to see the gentleman with thistle-down hair.]] (Strange's summoning spells worked, as the gentleman himself admits to Stephen, but since the gentleman did not wish to speak to Strange he remained invisible to him. [[spoiler:The madness allows Strange to see past the glamour, to the gentleman's great shock.]]) |
| 235 | * PullingHimselfTogether: Attempted by [[spoiler:the gentleman with the thistle-down hair]] after being defeated, but prevented by the magic of the land. |
| 236 | * TheQuest: The way magicians went off for a year and a day to find what they were looking for inspires the original effort to find a practical magician. |
| 237 | * TheQuietOne: The Raven King was known for being very soft-spoken and rarely talked when it wasn't necessary. In the BBC series, [[spoiler: he doesn't speak at all during his cameo.]] |
| 238 | * RealityWarper: The very strongest magicians and faeries operate on this level, with the Raven King being the chief example. To note but two examples, he once made the moon travel through the rivers and streams of Northern England for no apparent reason, and banished Winter from his kingdom for four whole years. |
| 239 | * ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: The Raven King is seven hundred years old, almost exactly, by normal time - and that's not counting any further ageing caused by time in Faerie. He also looked about 25, if that, by the end of his 300 year reign [[spoiler: and continues to do so, another 400 years later]]. Since every other magician seems to age pretty normally, this is considered one of the more puzzling things about him. |
| 240 | * RedOniBlueOni: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Drawlight and Lascelles, too. |
| 241 | * ReducedToRatburgers: Mrs. Delgado eats the dead birds and rodents her cats bring home. [[spoiler: In this case, it's only partly out of hunger, as she genuinely wants to ''be'' a cat.]] |
| 242 | * ReflectiveTeleportation: Magicians can step through mirrors into a distorted otherworld that serves as an ExtradimensionalShortcut. As [[TheMagicComesBack magic is restored]], it becomes clear that these "King's Roads" have more entrances than mirrors and more exits than the physical world, like the LandOfFaerie. |
| 243 | * ReligionIsMagic: Throwaway lines indicate that religion shares some characteristics with magic. Hell and Heaven are apparently accepted as existing, and Strange mentions that a piece of the Host diminishes his powers. An InUniverse footnote wryly notes that magicians are more interested in how they can make use of Angels, Demons, and Fairies than their moral alignment while priests are scarcely interested in anything else. Its state that the Church was ''very'' quick to crush magic related heresies. |
| 244 | * RevealingCoverup: Lady Pole's enchantment by the gentleman is not fool-proof, as Segundus and Honeyfoot coach her through working around her silencer. Segundus asks her to talk generally about her predicament, leading her to babble on about folk stories more relevant to her condition: namely humans making deals with faeries that lead to others' suffering. Honeyfoot figures out that the stories she tells are altered versions of folktales: the stories from faeries' perspectives. Combined with Segundus' magical senses [[spoiler: and Childermass' aid, they realise what has occurred.]] |
| 245 | * RitualMagic: The most common form seen, and certainly Norrell's preference. However it weakened over the centuries as the natural world forgot its treaties with the Raven King. [[spoiler: Strange brings back English magic by reminding them]]. Some forms are stricter in their requirements for proper form and ritual to impose certainty, particularly summoning. |
| 246 | * SanitySlippage: [[spoiler: Strange, once he shatters his own sanity]]. |
| 247 | * ShadowArchetype: John Childermass towards Jeremy Johns; the trope is eventually acknowledged by Strange. |
| 248 | * ShoutOut: Maria Bullworth, the lady who wants to get revenge on Lascelles for abandoning her after their affair, is in straits incredibly similiar to Maria Betram from ''Literature/MansfieldPark''; cast off by their husbands and being forced to subsist in the isolated countryside, dependent on their family's charity. |
| 249 | * ShellShockedVeteran: In the series Strange is much more adversely affected by his second war, particularly because he had to kill a man with magic. |
| 250 | * [[ShownTheirWork Shewn Their Work]]+PaintingTheMedium: The book is written in a faux 19th century style and uses historical persons and events. In universe, the text is annotated in order to give context to artifacts or persons mentioned in passing. The style is a first-rate emulation of Creator/JaneAusten's at many points, down to the variant spellings ("shew", "surprize", "chuse", and so on). |
| 251 | * SignatureMove: The Raven King's Chaos of Ravens, where he creates a flock of ravens from nearby objects or thin air as a weapon or to announce his presence. [[spoiler: Norrell is impressed and excited to witness this historically significant piece firsthand.]] |
| 252 | * SmugSnake: Lascelles, very much so. He mistakes caution as cowardice, and [[spoiler: receives a horrific curse as a result.]] |
| 253 | * SmugSuper: The gentleman with thistle-down hair considers himself superior to Strange and Norrell due to his greater magical powers. This leads directly to his downfall when Strange accidentally outsmarts him. |
| 254 | * SnipeHunt: Jonathan Strange's father does this to his new servant to punish him for talking back. He sends the poor guy out into extremely bad weather to deliver a supposed message to someone who died years ago. |
| 255 | * SociallyAwkwardHero: |
| 256 | ** Norrell dresses well, wears a wig (albeit an old-fashioned one) and is able to conduct himself in polite society, but is entirely incapable of conveying his plans to people. He has a habit of going into long, exceedingly boring historical anecdotes and does not even ''care'' whether or not his audience is interested. It takes many months for him to even realise that most people do not believe in practical magic and that he needs to actually show them a spell in order to convince them. Drawlight and Lascelles first discover him behind a bookcase, engrossed in literature, at a party thrown ''in his own honour'' and take it upon themselves to become his social proxies. |
| 257 | ** To a much lesser extent, Jonathan Strange. He's pretty socially viable, but is easily distracted by magic and theology, and doesn't even realize the suffering that he causes his wife by neglecting her and embarking on dangerous things until they argue about the mirror paths. After, he gets better, though as he notes with self-deprecating amusement, Arabella should remember him as he usually is: with his nose in a book. (His TV counterpart is better about this.) |
| 258 | * TheSociopath: A likely interpretation of [[spoiler: Lascelles]], as he acts impulsively and violently, cares only for his own interests, and is capable of only superficial charm. |
| 259 | * SpellBook: Many, both books ''about'' magic and books ''of'' magic. Norrell is hoarding the latter, on the grounds that magic is very dangerous, but also out of a love of study and a jealous fear that others would learn and surpass him. As events show, his fears [[JerkassHasAPoint can be valid]]. |
| 260 | * SquishyWizard: No magician shows durability beyond a normal person. Indeed Norrell requires being bundled in many layers to go out into the snow. Childermass is exceptionally tough, but that's implied to be a result of his stoicism. |
| 261 | * StalkerWithACrush: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair, to Stephen Black. It's unknown if his love is romantic in a conventional sense or simply beyond human understanding. He makes frequent comments about Stephen's attractiveness, but then it's heavily implied that as one of TheBeautifulElite (and a dark parody of aristocracy), attractiveness and gentility are almost ''all he cares about''. |
| 262 | * StealthPun: The general who dubs his right-hand magician "Merlin"? That [[ShroudedInMyth semi-mythical]] English leader, ''[[Myth/ArthurianLegend Arthur]]'' Wellesley. |
| 263 | * SuccessThroughInsanity: The eponymous Strange must drink a bottle of distilled madness (causing him to lose his mind) in order to be able to see and interact with TheFairFolk on their own terms. |
| 264 | * SuicideByCop: [[spoiler:When Lascelles fights the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart, it seems to Lascelles that the Champion deliberately missed.]] |
| 265 | * SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: Magic is treated both as a mysterious force and an unusual field of study. The actual nuts and bolts of the magic are largely glossed over, since the story is character-driven, but we learn enough to know that it is really complicated. There are, however, significant hints as to how magic really works; and the gentleman with the thistle-down hair even says so outright in a blink and you'll miss it moment. [[spoiler:Magic all comes down to making requests of genius loci (everything is a genius loci). The gentleman with the thistle-down hair and some Aureate magicians cultivate friendships with genius loci; most English magicians make use of the Raven King's treaties and alliances instead.]] |
| 266 | * SummonMagic: How one deals with faeries. This can be very productive due to faeries' natural affinity for magic, caused by their ability to directly speak with the natural world. However it is extremely dangerous and requires diplomacy, cunning and reputation to use effectively. |
| 267 | * SuperStrength: [[spoiler: Lady Pole]] knocks down several men with ease despite being a delicate young woman when [[spoiler: attempting to assassinate Norrell]]. It is implied to be an empowerment from the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, considering Childermass' magical senses going haywire. |
| 268 | * SupernaturalSensitivity: One of the few magical abilities that can emerge with no training when magic is in its dormancy, and are retained by some even with training. Childermass (who has either had training of a sort from Norell or learnt by himself) and Segundus (who's had no training whatsoever) almost faint when in the presence of strong magic. |
| 269 | * TallDarkAndHandsome: The Raven King, and many of his fairy warriors. Childermass is also tall and dark but [[TallDarkAndSnarky snarky]] rather than good-looking. (His face is described as bent, like a branch that grew the wrong way.) All of them get bonus points for having long hair and wearing [[BadassLongcoat long black coats]]. |
| 270 | ** It should be noted that magicians are expected to be TallDarkAndSnarky. One reason Strange is more popular than Norrell is because he fits the classic image of a magician, particularly [[spoiler: in mourning for his wife]]. He only misses being a classic example by having dark auburn hair. |
| 271 | * TaughtByExperience: Expressed by many characters to be the best way to learn magic. It is one of Strange's motivations to go to war, so he has the chance to practice new kinds. |
| 272 | * TechnicalPacifist: Strange is reluctant to kill with magic, as one of his more famous quotes illustrates. Yet he is perfectly happy to use magic to cause the death of others, as when he creates earthen hands to pull down French cavalry, allowing their compatriots to ride over them and giving the English a easier opportunity to shoot them. |
| 273 | * TechnicianVsPerformer: Another contrast between Strange and Norrell, highligthed in their spells at Portsmouth. |
| 274 | ** Norrell (the technician) whispers some spells, and then declares the coast defended against foreign invasion, with no visible change. A politician later notes that it may be worth altering the spell to give it some visual effects to remind the British public of magic's value. |
| 275 | ** Strange (the performer) pulls a stranded ship free by animating the beach Horse Sand into horses made of sand, then lashes them to the ship to pull it free. It takes longer than expected, half of the horses disintegrate, and the coast is changed- unhelpful to the local sailors. But despite this it impresses onlookers much more (particularly in the TV series). |
| 276 | * TeleportationSickness: Childermass experiences this [[spoiler: when Lady Pole is around, causing him (or his perceptions) to travel between this world and Faerie]]. Segundus suffers similar episodes, indicating that they have naturally strong magical senses. |
| 277 | * TextileWorkIsFeminine: When the theoretical magicians had to give up their society, many of them were a nuisance while their female relatives were doing needlework. |
| 278 | * ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Norrell makes it his special project to make sure no one practices magic except him. Even the theoretical magicians who meet in York are apparently too much of a threat. When he meets Strange, though, he is genuinely delighted - and even after their rift, it's implied that he misses him. However, the aesop doesn't sink in and he continues squashing everyone else. |
| 279 | * ThoseTwoGuys: Honeyfoot and Segundus. They pop up every so often after the introductory chapters and Segundus eventually starts doing magic, but they're very much secondary to the plot. |
| 280 | * TitleDrop: Honeyfoot does this in the second episode of the miniseries. |
| 281 | * TongueTied: Emma Pole and Stephen Black are cursed by the Gentleman with the Thistle-down Hair to be unable to speak of their enslavement. If they try to tell anyone, they end up telling nonsensical fairy tales instead. |
| 282 | * TookALevelInBadass: The heartbreak of [[spoiler: his wife's supposed death]] coupled with the gentleman's attempts to drive him crazy allow Strange to turn from a nice [[Literature/LordPeterWimsey Peter Wimsey]]ish guy into a powerful and frightening Byronic badass. This is kind of lampshaded, as after [[spoiler:rescuing his wife from Fairyland]], he becomes a bit more like himself and attributes his earlier behavior to spending too much time around Creator/LordByron. |
| 283 | * ToxicFriendInfluence: The gentleman's relationship toward Stephen Black, ruining his life and encouraging his resentment of Englishmen. Drawlight and Lascelles similarly drive away any possible influences on Norrell other than themselves, to his detriment. |
| 284 | * TrailersAlwaysLie: The hardcover book-flap acts as though Strange is dangerously ambitious and obsessed with the Raven King right from the start. In reality, the dangers of his magic have more to do with his being careless and showoffish (while he does do BlackMagic on the Continent, it's as a last resort--most of his war magic is moving bits of the landscape to suit British forces) and he's not so much ''obsessed'' with the Raven King as naturally curious and frustrated by Norrell's continual stonewalling. He only starts going to excess after [[spoiler:the apparent death of Arabella]]. |
| 285 | * TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside: Arabella Strange is described as only pretty, instead of beautiful. But her good humour and vivacity make her incredibly attractive to those around her. |
| 286 | * TrueLovesKiss: [[spoiler:In the BBC series, Strange releases Arabella from her enchantment with a BigDamnKiss, appropriately for a fairy tale.]] |
| 287 | * UnableToSupportAWife: When first introduced, Drawlight is describing how he broke up such a love match for a richer one. |
| 288 | * UnderestimatingBadassery: Lascelles is incapable of perceiving just how dangerous Childermass is, partly because he refuses to think of the lower classes in a favourable light, and because of his own inflated ego. Lascelles does [[spoiler: pin Childermass to a wall and cut his face but only because the latter let him in order to pick his pocket.]] |
| 289 | * UnknownRival: Strange to the gentleman. [[spoiler: Strange only becomes the gentleman's nemesis when he accidentally discovers Arabella at Lost-hope.]] |
| 290 | * UnwantedAssistance: It's dangerous to have a fairy mad at you, but a fairy who ''likes'' you is hardly any better. At best, they're generous but clueless at gift-giving, ranging from "nice but useless" (one fairy gave a favorite mortal a diamond-encrusted sailboat) to "actively a problem" (the Gentleman tries to give Arabella a pet tiger). At worst, they're, well, the Gentleman With the Thistledown Hair. He genuinely believes that his vict--er, dear friends--need to be "rescued" from people and situations they in fact like very much, and spirited away to the torm--er, joys--of Lost-Hope, and in the meantime, would Stephen care to be an Archbishop? |
| 291 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: John Segundus sets practically the ''entire'' plot in motion. Who knew the desire to learn why magic was gone from England would cause ''so'' much trouble? [[spoiler: Or possibly it all came about by the Raven King's design...]] |
| 292 | * TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: [[spoiler: The Library at Hurtfew]]. |
| 293 | * VictorianNovelDisease: Miss Wintertown dies of this. [[spoiler: She gets better.]] |
| 294 | * WarIsHell: Strange remarks on this in Spain, and the soldier accompanying him is forced to agree with him. But his experiences in France are even worse. |
| 295 | * WeakButSkilled: Segundus and Childermass are considerably weaker magicians than the two main characters, but their magical senses are far more acute, particularly Childermass'. This is shown by them both becoming disoriented and almost fainting when encountering the gentleman's magic. |
| 296 | * WellDoneSonGuy: Strange in the series, who is looking for respect from someone: he doesn't get it from his father, he doesn't really get it from Norell, Wellington's approval is muted [[TruthInTelevision as he came to regret in later life]], and even his wife doubts him at first. When the soldiers all but salute him near the end of episode three, his expression shows how much it means to him. |
| 297 | * WhamEpisode: The short final chapter of book two: "Arabella", where [[spoiler: the Gentleman spirits her away while faking her death.]] |
| 298 | * WhamLine: In the mini-series: '' "Someone is doing magic here." '' With that line, and with what follows, Childermass reveals that not only can he [[spoiler: sense magic, but perform it as well]], (in the TV version, much to Drawlight and Lascelles' bewilderment). |
| 299 | * WhereIWasBornAndRazed: At the end of the novel, [[spoiler:Strange destroys his house before journeying into Faerie with Norrell. Technically, both Strange's and Norrell's houses become "lost", not destroyed. Sometimes people claim they can see Norrell's house from afar, while Strange's cat still finds Strange's house, slipping between the neighboring houses into another realm where humans can not follow]]. |
| 300 | * WhiteHairBlackHeart: The gentleman with the thistle-down hair. |
| 301 | * WildMagic: Implied to be the true form of magic. All of the more ritualised forms humans use may just be the wild magic of the natural world summoned under the treaties of the Raven King. |
| 302 | * WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: It's noted how fairies who have the most powerful magic often have the same level of sanity as humans in madhouses. On the other hand, Norrell and Strange weren't insane when they performed their greatest feats of magic, and neither were the Aureate magicians of the time of the Raven King... but at the same time, the Aureates were often noted as being a bit odd by modern standards, and Strange only gets more powerful the madder he gets. |
| 303 | * WorldBuilding: A focus of the footnotes. |
| 304 | * AYearAndADay: In Aureate times, magicians would go on quests for this long. The Raven King vanished for that long, once. It caused a lot of consternation because he only told one person he was going. That person didn't hear him right, and reported that he would be gone for ''a day.'' |
| 305 | * YearOutsideHourInside: Time passes differently in other realms, and is a danger that characters recognise when discussing passing between them. |
| 306 | * YouAreWorthHell: A rather sweet non-romantic example between Strange and Norrell. [[spoiler: They consent to spending many years in the Darkness together, and both realise that they're rather excited about the prospect of being locked up in eternal Night while continuously doing magic together.]] |
| 307 | * YouKillItYouBoughtIt: [[spoiler: Lascelles eventually follows a fairy bridge and ends up in Faerie, where he kills the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart to prove he is braver than Childermass but instead is forced to take up the knight's place until someone kills him.]] |
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