Characters / Children of the Red King: Enemies

The Bloors

Ezekiel Bloor

Ezekiel Bloor

The head of the Bloor family. He is over a hundred years old and is an incompetent magician.

• Antagonistic Offspring: His son, Bartholomew, turned his back on his family after his wife died and became an explorer.
• Big Bad: He is the Big Bad of the series, until Harken comes along.
• Control Freak: He likes to be in control, particularly of the endowed children and Septimus Bloor's wealth.
• *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": An example very much not played for laughs.

• Evil Cripple: Was crippled for life and put in a wheelchair by Lyell Bone, though no one can deny that he deserved it.
• Evil Is Petty: He held a grudge against Henry Yewbeam for 100 years, because Henry finished a puzzle he was working on.

• Greed: His main reason for supporting Count Harken and trying to stop Maybelle's will from being found.

• It's All About Me: Doesn't care about anyone else but himself.
• Jerkass: He’s the one Dr. Bloor and Manfred learned it from.
• Killed Off for Real: At the end of Red Knight, in a very ironic fashion. He (or rather his wheelchair) is pushed down the stairs by his own dog, crushing Manfred to death as well.

• Moral Event Horizon: Achieves this at the ripe old age of eleven years old, when he gives his cousin Henry a push into the time stream without knowing when or where the poor kid would end up. The crime that warranted this act? Henry finished a puzzle Ezekiel had been working on.
• Never My Fault: Has this mentality when it comes to the crimes he's instigated. He refuses to admit his guilt in Lyell Bone's disappearance, even though he's at least partly to blame for it. Even Manfred admits that Ezekiel isn't innocent of that.
• Old Master: What Ezekiel would like to be. Instead, he’s described in-universe as a “flawed” or “failed” magician.
• Parental Substitute: To Dr. Bloor after Bartholomew vanishes.
• Pet the Dog: The only creature Ezekiel is shown to truly care about and not to harm in some way is his dog, Blessed. In fact, he gets downright angry whenever anyone so much as looks at Blessed wrong.
• Wheelchair Antics: Engages in this at least once. In Hidden King, he attaches sparklers to the back of his wheelchair and rides around through a crowd like that.
• Would Hurt a Child: He hits Charlie with his cane a couple of times, and is more than OK with extreme measures of discipline for those who break the rules. Though he actually commits very few of the acts against the kids, he condones and goads on those who do it, and probably only doesn’t join in for lack of the physical ability to.
  • He's also responsible for a good chunk of the problems Charlie and his friends wind up facing.

Dr Harold Bloor

Dr. Harold Bloor

The son of Bartholomew Bloor, and grandson of Ezekiel. He is the headmaster of Bloor's Academy.

• The Bore: He isn't a very good public speaker, at least compared to Mrs Tilpin. During the nighttime meeting in Red Knight, she gets much more applause and attention than he does, much to his chagrin.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Charlie describes his gray eyes as cold and stone-like.
• Control Freak: He makes it his job to keep all of the endowed children under his and his family's control.
• Dean Bitterman: He rules Bloor's Academy with an iron fist. None of the children like him.

• A Lighter Shade of Black: He's by no means a good guy, but he's often not involved in some of the especially horrible things Ezekiel and Manfred do, and it's likely why he's the only one of them to survive at the end of the series.
• Perpetual Frowner: He almost never smiles.
• Raised by Grandparents: After his father Bartholomew's disappearance. He moved into Bloor's Academy under the care of Grizelda Bone and Ezekiel Bloor and was quite happy that way.
• Stepford Smiler: Is this at times, justified as he is a headmaster and needs to keep up appearances. Most notable when he speaks to Amy Bone in the first book about Charlie's first week at Bloor's— Charlie notes that his smile seems forced.

Manfred Bloor

Manfred Bloor

Manfred is the son of Dr. Bloor, the great-grandson of Ezekiel Bloor, and the Head Boy at the Academy. He later graduates and becomes a teaching assistant. He like all Bloors are descended from Borlath, with Manfred inheriting most of his ancestor's likeness, including his endownments of hypnotism and pyromancy.

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• Arch-Enemy: The closest Charlie has to one, with the two having the most personal antagonism towards each other out of all the good and evil endowned. While Ezekiel is the Big Bad, it is Manfred who primarily crosses paths with Charlie and is the one who does most of the dirty work. Both also deeply hate each other, with Charlie for all the awful things Manfred has done to him and his friends, while Manfred despises Charlie for resisting his hypnotism and later proving to be a constant thorn in his side.
• At Least I Admit It: He is unrepentant about brainwashing Lyell Bone and has a brief Servile Snarker moment when Ezekiel makes a Never My Fault comment about how Charlie blames the Bloors for what happened.
• The Bully: He bullies the children in Bloor's Academy often, and no one dares to stand up to him as he is the headmaster's son and a hypnotist.
• Butt-Monkey: He is subjected to quite a bit of humiliation over the course of the series. Whenever he tries to steal Charlie's wand, it always results in him getting hurt or his office blowing up. He ends up slipping on on orange peel that Olivia had left scattered around the school. He also has his face exposed to an exploding street lamp, leaving it scarred until he utilizes magic to get it healed.
• Daddy's Little Villain: He follows the evil ways of his great-grandfather and his father, being the former's sidekick of sorts.
• Deuteragonist: Of the antagonistic variety. He is the primary point-of-view character from the villains' side, with the readers getting a very good look into his thought process.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: When Dorothy Bloor escapes through the Time Twister, Manfred is heard to call out 'Mommy!' This hints that Manfred had loved his mother after all, despite having deliberately crushed her hand in a door to stop her from leaving the Academy years earlier.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He may be fine with bullying his enemies or letting his allies do so, but gets annoyed in Book 4 when a brainwashed Tancred makes it rain on several good students as they do their homework, telling him to stop, seemingly due to how this is interfering with classes.
• Faux Affably Evil: While primarily an open jerkass the majority of the time, he is capable of putting on a polite facade when trying to manipulate others.
• The Heavy: While he ostensibly has less authority than his father and his great-grandfather, Manfred is the one who Charlie most consistently faces in the open and has a It's Personal with the Dragon relationship with.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Manfred's original power, though it begins to wane to make way for a newer, much more destructive one.
• If I Can't Have You…: Non-romantic version. Manfred views Asa as "his" wolf—a creature who will do his bidding without question—and Asa bemoans when trying to get away from the Bloors, Manfred "will never let [him] go", as he'd rather see him dead.
• In the Blood: Is noted to be very alike his ancestor Borlath, more so than any other Bloors. Manfred is the oldest and cruelest of the endowned children at the Academy, and has an identical power-set of hypnotism and pyromancy, with both also possessing a Hot-Blooded, childish nature and being prone to temper tantrums.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Ezekiel may be the Big Bad, but Manfred has far more personal animosity with Charlie than any of his other enemies, with him being the closest Charlie gets to an Arch-Enemy.
• Jerkass: He is very cruel and overbearing to the good endowed children.
• Kids Are Cruel: He hypnotizes Lyell Bone and Emma Tolly for life, and crushes his own mother's hand in a door, just when he is nine years old.
• Killed Off for Real: Seems to be this at the end of Hidden King, but turns out to have survived, albeit horrifically scarred and crippled. He gets better. And then finally achieves this for real at the end of Red Knight.
• Lack of Empathy: He displays no empathy at all towards the people he hurts.
• Perpetual Frowner: He is noted by others to never smile, and has little success on the rare attempts he tries to do so. Everyone is shocked when he genuinely smiles under the influence of Joshua Tilpin's magnetism, with them describing "getting a smile out of Manfred was like getting jam out of a rock".
• Pet the Dog:
  • Downplayed in The Hidden King, where he gives Billy and Charlie the tour of a ballroom where a prestigious party is about to be held. He is clearly just eager for a chance to show off, but he has a noticeably warmer and more gracious countenance than normal throughout the scene.
  • In Charlie Bone and the Shadow, he repeatedly gets upset whenever anyone insults or damages his great-great-great grandmother's portrait and calls her a "very brave woman."
• Playing with Fire: Upon losing his hypnotism power, he begins instead to develop fire powers like his ancestor Borlath. This is especially terrifying for the younger kids when the only other firestarter in the series was a cruel, brutal tyrant whose greatest sport was stated to be torture.
• Sadist: He is shown to enjoy inflicting suffering upon others.
• Tantrum Throwing: Has a very short fuse and when things don't go his way he is quick to snap and get violent. When Charlie first blocks his hypnotic trance, he starts screaming "Stop it!" and begins throwing items on his desk at Charlie.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: It is very disturbing to think of a nine-year-old child hypnotizing two people for life and having no guilt whatsoever about it, and breaking his mother's fingers in a door.
• With Friends Like These...: He doesn't like Asa, and the feeling is mutual, but they're essentially best friends by virtue of the fact that no one else will even tolerate their presence.
• Would Hurt a Child: He has no problem hurting, threatening, burning, or hypnotizing the young students in his control.

Endowed Children

Billy Raven

Billy Raven

See Children of the Red King: Charlie and His Friends

Dagbert Endless

Dagbert Endless

The son of Lord Grimwald and descended from Petrello, Dagbert can manipulate water.

• Accidental Murder: Dagbert claims that his drowning Tancred was this.
• Arch-Enemy: He's described as this to Tancred, both being descended from Petrello. It comes true by the end of the same book, as they have a showdown, if it can be called that—it was more of a Curb-Stomp Battle on Tancred's end, prompting Dagbert to drown him in the next book in revenge.
• Archnemesis Dad: A curse on Dagbert Endless' family ensures that when he turns thirteen, he will have to battle his father, Lord Grimwald, to the death. He wins.
• Deadpan Snarker: Gets shades of this in the series.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Dagbert's alignment changes with the moon. Literally, as according to him, he turns nasty whenever the moon is covered by clouds. At the end, he seems to have finally settled somewhere on the "good" spectrum.
• I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Dagbert claims this when he drowns Tancred. He says that he only meant to scare him but lost control.
• I Have Many Names: Said by Lord Grimwald about Dagbert. During the series Dagbert is called Dagbert Endless, because his name is as endless as the ocean.
• Making a Splash: Subverted with Dagbert, who drowns people by simulating the ocean. Somehow. It's implied he will inherit his father's water powers upon killing him, however.
• Offing the Offspring: What Lord Grimwald intends to do to Dagbert, due to their family's curse.
• Self-Made Orphan: Dagbert kills his father.

Zelda Dobinski

Zelda Dobinski

A telekinetic, and descended from Olga. She comes from a line of Polish magicians. She is related to Idith and Inez Branko. She leaves Bloor's Academy after the third book to attend university as she is a mathematical genius.

• Huge Schoolgirl: Zelda is described as tall with a big nose.
• Ice Queen: Zelda is aloof and disdainful.

• Lack of Empathy: She doesn't seem to care if anyone gets hurt because of her actions.
• Lean and Mean: Zelda is thin and mean towards others.
• Mind over Matter: Zelda is telekinetic.
• Put on a Bus: After the third book. She leaves Bloor's to attend university at a young age, as she is a genius mathematician.
• Would Hurt a Child: Zelda doesn't hesitate at attacking Olivia when she finds her in the ruin, wanting to tie her to a tree and leave her there.

Beth Strong

Beth Strong

A telekinetic. She leaves Bloor's after the second book.

• Huge Schoolgirl: Beth is described as really tall with frizzy hair.

• Mind over Matter: She's telekinetic.
• Put on a Bus: After the second book, for reasons unknown.
• Would Hurt a Child: She doesn't hesitate at attacking Olivia when she finds her in the ruin, wanting to tie her to a tree and leave her there.

Dorcas Loom

Dorcas Loom

Descended from Lilith, Dorcas can sew magical clothes. She was originally neutral, but joined the evil side after Belle/Yolanda corrupted her.

• Cheerful Child: Before her Face–Heel Turn, she is often described as this. She never stops smiling.
• Corrupt the Cutie: In the third book, she is corrupted by Yolanda Yewbeam, who is posing as a young schoolgirl called Belle.
• Face–Heel Turn: Previously Dorcas was neutral, and even hinted to be a good person. It wasn't until Yolanda came around that she became bad.
• Formerly Fat: She is a bit plump near the beginning of the series, though she does lose some weight after she befriends Belle/ Yolanda.

• Perpetual Frowner: After the third book, Dorcas is said to be a sullen child who rarely smiles.
• Perpetual Smiler: Before she becomes evil.
• Primal Fear: Dorcas is afraid of most animals, possibly because of the fact that her two brothers keep a group of ferocious Rottweilers at home. She seems to have no problem with birds, though.

Idith and Inez Branko

Idith and Inez Branko

A pair of telekinetic twins who are distantly related to Zelda Dobinski. They are introduced in Castle of Mirrors.

• Creepy Twins: They both look exactly the same, and show no emotion whatsoever on their faces. The only time they smile is when someone is in trouble. And to make it worse, they're telekinetic.

• Mind over Matter: They're both telekinetics.
• Mysterious Past: Nothing is known about their home life or past, until the eighth book.
• Perpetual Frowner: They only smile when someone is in trouble.

• Sadist: They enjoy causing chaos in the schoolyard.
• The Stoic: They never show any emotions on their faces, except when someone is in trouble.

Joshua Tilpin

Joshua Tilpin

A small scrawny boy with a strange magnetic talent who is first introduced in book four. At first his origins are unknown, but it is discovered that he is descended from Lilith and Count Harken Badlock, and Ms. Chrystal/Titania Tilpin is his mother.

• Charm Person: Joshua is a human magnet in every sense of the word.
• Constantly Curious: Joshua has quite a few questions for Lord Grimwald in the last book.
• Mommy’s Little Villain: He’s the apple of his mother’s eye, and is accordingly immature and spoiled.
• Foil: For Charlie. He’s a charismatic young boy who gains friends/allies easily and is the descendant of both the Red King and another powerful magician. However, he’s an awful little brat and beyond his magnetism power, is pretty incompetent. He also has much less plot importance than one might expect with this development.

• Momma's Boy: To the point that his mother has to come rescue him from an altercation that he himself started.
• Mook Descendant: Is this for Count Harken, who doesn’t seem to care about or be at all impressed with him.
• Mysterious Past: Nothing is known about him or his past until the fifth book. He just appeared on the doorstep of the Academy with the permission and funds to attend school there.
• Selective Magnetism: He attracts everything, so much so that he’s noted to have bits and pieces of leaves, pencil shavings, paper, and more sticking to him at any given time. As noted above, this power also extends to his personality, giving him a good helping of charisma despite being noted as a horrible brat by several characters.

• Weak, but Skilled: He can dish it out, but one good punch from Charlie has him screaming like a banshee.

Eric Shellhorn

Eric Shellhorn

Stepson to Venetia after her marriage to Arthur Shellhorn in the sixth book. He can manipulate stone.

Asa Pike

Asa Pike

Descended from Cafall, Asa is one of the Merromal people and becomes a werebeast at dusk. Asa is originally evil, but turns good near the end of Hidden King.

• Animal Eyes: Asa's most distinct feature is his wolfish yellow eyes.
• Animals Hate Him: As they can sense that he isn't quite right, being somewhere between animal and human.
• Body Horror: Asa when he changes from human to beast, or vice versa.
• Book Dumb: Justified, since children of Merromals reportedly have academic difficulties despite their love of books and storytelling.
• The Bully: For most of the series, he is Manfred's sidekick and takes part in Manfred's activities.
• Butt-Monkey: He does most of the Bloors' hard labour and receives little recognition in return, and even Charlie feels a rare twinge of sympathy when Manfred ridicules him in front of the other endowed for failing his exams. Asa also tends to suffer various injuries while he's performing errands for the Bloors in his transformed form (such as being chased by dogs or having musical instruments thrown at him) and sports various injuries whenever he's next seen in his human state.

• The Dreaded: He's one of the most dangerous (and certainly one of the most feared) endowed, to the extent that even Manfred, for all that he's not very kind to Asa, is wary of actually getting on his bad side.
• Heel–Face Turn: It's implied that Count Harken's arrival in the fifth book is what starts Asa off on this - being a Merromal and were-beast, he senses things the way animals do, and likely was in his beast mode when Harken awakened. He spends the rest of the book gradually drifting away from the Bloors until he rescues Emma from Joshua and the Branko twins, and then acts as the tenth child that must walk around the Red King at the end. He pays for his change of heart dearly.
  • It's also implied that Asa actually might have rejoined the Bloors, had they not seen fit to lock him up for a few months in a cave, later on without light (which is what he requires in order to be human). In other words, they deprived him of his humanity for several weeks and nearly starved him to death in the process. Their actions also led to his father being shot and killed by local hunters. It's no wonder he turned his back on them completely after that.
    • Changing alignment is apparently just part of his endowment, having been inherited from his ancestor Cafall the Changer. Though it seems he, like Dagbert, has made the decision to settle more or less on the “good” spectrum.
• Immune to Mind Control: It's implied that in beast form, he's this, which is part of why Manfred fears him.
• Involuntary Shapeshifting: With a sufficient light source, Asa is human. But in the dark, he cannot retain that shape, instead automatically transforming into a beast — the eponymous "Wilderness Wolf" of the sixth book. Being trapped as an animal for too long can also have a bad effect on his sanity, though luckily he manages to hold himself together enough to not rip apart his rescuers when they come for him.
  • His mother even refers to his power as less of an endowment than it is an affliction.
• Jerkass: Due to Asa's nature as a changer, he can be more of a jerkass at certain times than others.
• My Instincts Are Showing: Asa at times. Especially prominent where Yolanda was concerned, as he was attracted to her specifically because her powers were similar to his.
  • He’s also got the tendency to dig in the dirt when he’s in his beast form.
• Mysterious Past: Next to nothing is known about Asa's family or past until the sixth book.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: He's fond of disguising himself, even if it's incredibly ineffective. For those who know him, his red hair and yellow eyes are a dead giveaway, and for those who don't, he's still obviously a kid pretending to be an old man.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Is this at certain places. He doesn’t seem to care beyond simple curiosity why Charlie is hiding outside Venetia’s house in Blue Boa, and shrugs the whole encounter off.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the end of The Wilderness Wolf, where he and his mother escape the conflict altogether (though for good reason, as it's not only the Bloors they have to fear, but the entire city now).
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: He's easily identified by his wolfish yellow eyes.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Not from his parents, but from the Bloors. In The Castle of Mirrors, when he points out how much he's done for them and Ezekiel dismissively tells him to take a day off, Asa replies that he just wants acknowledgment, not a break. In hindsight, it becomes clear why this matters to him when it's revealed that he and his family are outsiders, and that working for the Bloors is how he belongs.
• With Friends Like These...: He and Manfred don't even like each other, but stay with each other because everyone else hates them.

Other antagonists

Yolanda Yewbeam

Yolanda Yewbeam / Belle

A hundred-year old shapeshifter, she is a major antagonist in the third book. She is heartless and evil, and lives in Yewbeam Castle.

• Daddy's Girl: Through and through. Yolanda is the apple of her father’s eye.

• Hypnotic Eyes: Yolanda has the power to hypnotize.
• Killed Off for Real: Yolanda is electrocuted by Paton Yewbeam after he realizes that she had a role in the attempted murder of Miss Ingledew through use of an enchanted belt.
• Lack of Empathy: She has no empathy for anyone or anything.
• The Corrupter: Yolanda seems to be both fond of and very good at corrupting people. First, before the series begins, she corrupts Paton's four sisters into what they are now, and in the third book, she turns Dorcas Loom to the evil side.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Yolanda can shapeshift into anything or anyone. Even though she is now over a hundred years old, she can still take the form of a twelve-year-old girl.

Yorath Yewbeam / Tantalus Ebony

Yorath Yewbeam / Tantalus Ebony

A sadistic shapeshifter, Yorath is the father of Manley and Yolanda. He is so old he can no longer retain his own shape and must borrow from other beings in order to survive.

In the fourth book he emulates three different men, with two of them being Tantalus Wright and Vincent Ebony, and an unknown third party, to form his newest identity, while holding his base models captive. He arrives at Bloor Academy and replaces Mr Pilgrim, teaching Music, Mime and Medieval History.

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• The Assimilator: Yorath is able to assimilate multiple bodies and personalities into one. He uses this talent when he goes to Bloor's Academy and poses as a teacher there.
• The Dreaded: Paton is absolutely terrified by him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For as awful a person he is, his love for his daughter is genuine and he will hunt down anyone who harms her.
• Evil Teacher: In Castle of Mirrors. Charlie and Gabriel both sense that something is not quite right about him.
• Killed Off for Real: He's killed by Christopher Crowquill, who sacrifices his own life by pushing him off the edge of a cliff.
• Papa Wolf: Hurt Yolanda and he'll make you pay.
  • He swears vengeance on Paton Yewbeam after learning of his daughter's death at his hands, and will stop at nothing to see Paton dead.

• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Yolanda is killed by Paton, Yorath is determined to have his revenge on him.
• Sadistic Teacher: As Tantalus Ebony, he is noted to be a very horrible teacher.
• Shapeshifting: Yorath is a shapeshifter who feeds on and takes the shapes and personalities of his victims.

Count Harken Badlock

Count Harken Badlock

See Children of the Red King: Residents of Badlock

Bloor's Academy Staff

Miss Chrystal

Miss Chrystal/Titania Tilpin

A music teacher at the Academy, teaches strings. She is later revealed to be an evil witch and counterpart to Alice Angel.

• Basement-Dweller: After she is outed as a witch, she is forced into hiding in a basement in Bloor's Academy.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: At first, Miss Chrystal appears to be an attractive, nice, open-minded person who is always on the side of the children. She shows her true colors later on when she brings Count Harken Badlock into the world.
• The Determinator: And how. After Lyell rejects her, she waits fourteen years to have her revenge and brings Count Harken into the world. Then, after the enchanter is banished, and the Mirror of Amoret is broken, she hides in the Academy and keeps trying to fix the Mirror and find a way to bring Harken back.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Becomes increasingly ugly once she is outed as a witch and goes deep into evil.
• Evil Teacher: She's a violin teacher at Bloor's Academy who turns to evil after discovering that she is descended from Count Harken Badlock.
• Friend to All Children: At first played straight, then ultimately averted.
• Hidden Depths: At first, Miss Chrystal seems so nice and open and is considered a friend to the good endowed. Come Hidden King, and it's discovered that she is really an evil witch who has sworn revenge on Lyell Bone for rejecting her long ago.
• Hot Teacher: It is frequently said that Ms. Chrystal is quite attractive and easy to confide in.
• Love Makes You Evil: Lyell's rejection of her love is what turns her to evil.
• Mama Bear: While she was likely ready to drop the act to begin with, she starts showing her true colours to the children first when Charlie beats up her son, Joshua.
• Mysterious Past: Next to nothing is know about her past, except that she might have attended Bloor's or one of the other schools that harbor endowed kids due to her endowment and her talent as a violinist, fell in love with and was rejected by Lyell Bone, and swore revenge on him in any way possible.
• Not Good with Rejection: She was deeply in love with Lyell Bone and was convinced he loved her, but he rejected her and married Amy Jones instead. It did not go down well with her.
  • It’s also implied that her eventual husband, Matthew Tilpin, leaving her due to his fear of Joshua’s endowment exacerbated all of this.
• Unrequited Love: For Lyell.
• Woman Scorned: She bears Lyell a grudge for rejecting her for Amy and is determined to have her revenge on him. In the fifth book, she brings Count Harken into the world and tries to make sure Lyell doesn't wake up from his trance.

Weedon

Mr. Weedon

The gardener, handyman, driver, chauffeur and porter at Bloor's Academy. He is a bald, well muscled man who is one of Count Harken Badlock's followers, and works for the Bloors.

Bertha Weedon

Bertha Weedon

Weedon's wife. She runs the green cafeteria and is disliked by all students for being grumpy and mean. Is also stated to be a lover of thriller novels and a horrible cook.