Characters / Leviathan

Characters from the novel series by Scott Westerfeld:

Clankers

The Central Powers are Germany, Austria-Hungary and The Ottoman Empire. They use machinery for everything and largely believe that the genetically engineered animals of Darwinists are godless monsters.

• A Mech by Any Other Name: Clanks.
• Big Bad: As with real life, the Clankers have used the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to enact a war that has quickly swallowed up the entirety of Europe.
• Defector from Decadence: The Ottoman Empire, after a revolution forces the pro-Clanker Sultan into exile in Persia, causing the country to become a neutral republic.
• For Want Of A Nail: The Clankers ultimately failed to get to Alek before he fled the Hapsburg castle, allowing him to escape in a Stormwalker, which in turn allowed him to quickly flee to Switzerland, where he wound up joining the Leviathan after it was shot down by the Germans, and repaired the airship with his walker's engines, allowing them all to escape to the Ottoman Empire where Alek and Deryn helped breach Istanbul's defenses to allow an uprising to topple the Sultan and keep the Ottoman's out of the war while simultaneously saving Russia's war effort. In the end, Alek rescinds his claim to the Austro-Hungarian throne by the end of Goliath, meaning the Germans wasted their resources hunting him down all for nothing.
• Humongous Mecha: Their war machines, but also several civilian ones, are big enough that they tend to rip up trees just by taking a single step.
• Lightning Gun: The Tesla Cannon, which serves a major plot point in Behemoth. Nikola Tesla himself built an even bigger one in America, Goliath, though that one is unaligned due to America's neutrality.
• More Dakka
• Steampunk / Diesel Punk: A given for being set in 1914.

His Serene Highness Prince Aleksandar Von Hohenberg

Alek for most people, Aleksandar is the only child of archduke Franz Ferdinand. Duchess Sophia, his mother, was enough of a commoner to exclude him from inheriting the Austro-Hungarian throne, but after his parents' assassination, he is taken away with the intent of eventually being returned to claim the throne once Emperor Franz Joseph, his grandfather dies.

• Ace Pilot: Can pilot a Stormwalker easily - and at night, too. (Not a common skill. You can't SEE at night.)
• Cannot Tell a Lie: He is a very poor liar up until the third book. After that he finds it distressingly easy.
• Celibate Hero: Alek started out as this because of his title.
• Cultured Badass: The "cultured" part is of no use on an airship, much to his annoyance. Granted, it does allow him to speak with a Russian officer and learn of Nikola Tesla.
• Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: Before he meets Lilit and gets some Character Development, anyway.
• Emo Teen: Lampshaded by Volger.
• Guilt Complex: Struggles with blaming himself for literally all of World War I happening.
• Impoverished Patrician: At first he's actually quite well off in spite of being on the run, having been given several bricks of gold by his father before fleeing his home, but by midway through Goliath is down to a single shaving from a single brick.
• Emperor Incognito: Potentially; the old Emperor is still alive. It does make Alek a target for assassins and opportunists.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Being the Prince - and an unapproved one - has limited his pool of potential "friends" to his much-older teachers.
  • On a more historical note, Alek is an only child, as none of the Archduke's three real-life children exist in the Leviathan universe.
• Noble Fugitive: Spends the majority of the series on the run due to his status as a potential heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Deryn's Red.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: He's always doing things that make him conspicuous - using the wrong words, having too much money, etc. He doesn't know how to buy a newspaper. He's been sheltered and therefore very naive in dealing with other people. However, behind the levers of a Stormwalker or coming up with battle plans, he's a certified genius. Hell, he's compared to Mozart.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: When he flees into the countryside at the start of Leviathan, it's the first time he's been among common people.
• Shipper on Deck: For "Dylan"/Lilit.
• Spanner in the Works: For the Clanker powers. For Volger. For basically everyone, since his actions tend to upset the best-laid plans.
• Stupid Good: While Alek's highly educated and actually pretty intelligent, he has a strong tendency to do the right thing over the smart or necessary one, especially early in the series. Which makes it even more heartwrenching when he kills Tesla to protect Deryn.
• Warrior Prince: He's well-trained in fencing and walker piloting, although it sounds like his mother would not have allowed him in actual combat situations if she had survived.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: To Count Volger, whom he sees as something of a father (and certainly a mentor).

Wildcount Ernst Volger

A low-level noble, Volger is Alek's fencing tutor and his father's strongest supporter. After Franz Ferdinand's assassination he whisks Alek out of his family estate and becomes the de-facto leader of the fugitive group. He's trying to his best to protect Alek and his inheritance, stopping at next-to-nothing to achieve his goals.

• Beta Couple: With Dr. Barlow.
• Defector from Decadence: He's given up everything to ensure Alek's survival, to the point where he's effectively been branded a traitor.
• Fascinating Eyebrow: Has very notable eyebrows, though they ultimately wind up getting burned off by Tesla during the climax of Goliath.
• Guile Hero: He's very crafty and tries a number of things to keep his own people secure while on a nominally hostile ship, such as concealing his fluency in English.
• Noble Fugitive
• Parental Substitute: Because Alek's parents are dead.
• Pragmatic Hero: Alek's safety is really his only priority and he's wiling to do anything from sacrifice himself to let the crew of the Leviathan freeze to death if he has to. But he's ultimately a good person and doesn't play dirty without a reason.
• The Strategist: He's been involved in the plan to keep Alek safe for years and plots their way through many dangers. Not that it always helps when dealing with Alek.
• Stern Teacher: He has very little patience for Alek's moodiness and selfless shenanigans.

Otto Klopp

Klopp [centre] with Hoffman and Bauer

Alek's mechaniks and Walker-piloting tutor.

• Ace Pilot: Alek considers him the best mechanic in Austria-Hungary.
• Cool Old Guy
• The Engineer: His mastery of machinery is second-to-none, to the point where he was able to convert the engines of the Stormwalker, a ground machine, into viable airship engines!
• Old Master
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In his relationship with Alek, he's red to Volger's blue.

Corporal Hans Bauer

A Stormwalker gunner who joins Alek's group after the assassination of his father.

• Conveniently an Orphan: Bauer believes he was chosen for the mission because he had no family, which would make it easier for him to undertake a mission that would cause him to be labeled a traitor.
• Only One Name: Until halfway through the Behemoth, Alek didn't even know that Bauer has a name.

Hoffman

An engineer who helps Alek escape Austria-Hungary.

• The Engineer
• Conveniently an Orphan: Invoked. Like Bauer, he was chosen because he had no family left.

Lilit

Daughter of the Ottoman revolutionary movement's leader, Lilit is a definite Action Girl whose cause for revolution is achieving equal rights for women.

• Action Girl: She's a skilled tracker and combatant, both on foot and in a walker.
• Braids of Action
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to her father's Blue.
• Samus Is a Girl: When she first shadows Alek in an all-concealing outfit, he can't decide if she's male or female due to the combination of small size, agility, fearlessness, and strength. He decides that she must be a very acrobatic boy until Zaven says that she's his daughter.
• Self-Made Orphan: She allows her father to sacrifice himself in order to destroy the German's Tesla cannon.

Zaven

Leader of the Committee for Union and Progress, the Ottoman revolutionary movement, and Lilit's father.

• Cloudcuckoolander: Is thought of as being this, due to his cheery personality and belief in women's rights and equality, which would be considered unusual for 1914.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Zaven electrocutes himself in his mech to bring down the Tesla cannon, thus saving Deryn, Alek, and everyone aboard the Leviathan.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Lilit's Red.

Nikola Tesla

A brilliant scientist and creator of Goliath, the world's first Weapon of Mass Destruction. Much like in Real Life, he's an idealist, and believes he has a moral obligation to end the war - whatever the cost.

• Badass Boast: Again, much like in Real Life, about the capabilities of his Goliath superweapon. He claims it caused The Tunguska Event. It's believed that this was untrue, and that Tesla kept the remains of the meteorite in his luggage to hide this fact. Though it might be that his weapon summoned the meteorite in the first place.
• Badass Bookworm: Nikola Tesla. How badass? He takes on three fighting bears, at the same time, with an electrified walking stick he invented himself, and wins.
• Big Eater: He likes ordering lavish multi-course meals.
• Cloudcuckoolander: But he plays up his eccentricities (such as pigeons and his thing about the number three) so that people find them more charming than strange.
• Foil: To Alek. Both wish to end the war, but have completely different ideas of how to do it. Alek wants to take the Austro-Hungarian throne in the hopes of negotiating peace with the Darwinists. Tesla wants to use Goliath to strongarm the Clankers into surrendering with the threat of mass casualties.
• Foreshadowing: In his first scene we find out that to stop the warbears around his camp from starving, he fed them his airship, which is seen as quite horrible by everybody in the air force. He's explanation is that he couldn't stand seeing them suffer, so he let nature take its course. The entire situation foreshadows his plan to end the war.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: The plans for his Death Ray bear fruit in this story. While he's not evil, it does make him extremely dangerous. He eventually decides to use it on Berlin, but Alek kills him and it's believed that it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
• Insufferable Genius
• Knight Templar: He believes that he must stop the war, whatever the cost and however many people must die to achieve it.
• Mad Scientist: It's agreed by everyone that he's bonkers. Barlow wonders later if he might have genuinely believed Goliath would work.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Germans believe in Tesla's claims of Goliath's power, and so launch an amphibious assault on the tower with a trio of Water-Walkers. Tesla answers with preparing Goliath to fire on Berlin, with the full intention of decimating the city to scare Germany into surrendering. With the Leviathan too close to Goliath to have a chance at surviving the firing, Alek is forced to kill Tesla while one of the walkers ends up getting electrocuted with all of Goliath's stored energy, frying the tower's systems in the process.

Darwinists

The Entente powers. The most prominent here are Russia, France and The British Empire. They use genetically modified animals, since Charles Darwin also discovered the "threads of life" (DNA) in this timeline. Darwinists consider themselves superior, as they use clean technology and, according to them, have no prejudices, in opposition to the so-called "monkey-Luddites", who believe that beasties are the works of Satan.

• Attack Animal: The beasties.
• Bears Are Bad News: Russian fighting bears are 'taller than a house'', and often eat their handlers (at least according to Mr. Rigby, the man in charge of the middies). In short, terrifying.
• Bio Punk
• Eldritch Abomination: What the Clankers see the Beasties, in particular the more horrific ones, like the Krakens and Behemoth.
• Alternate History Slang: At least as far as British English is concerned: Boffins (genetic engineers), beasties (genetically modified animals), curses like "barking spiders" and words like "clart" (crap).
• Mirroring Factions: They're no more saintly than the Clankers, or less likely to use dirty strategies. Also, while Clanker industry is seen as a great source of pollution, a few people (like Count Volger) point out that Darwinist fabricated animals have escaped into the wild many times and pose a danger to natural species.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Most of them are mash-ups of two or more creatures.

Midshipman Deryn Sharp

Daughter of balloon flyer from the pre-Darwinist era, she always wanted to fly. However, as women are not permitted in the military, she disguises herself as a boy. With the aid of her brother Jaspert, she joins the Royal Air Service, posing as her nonexistent cousin Dylan Sharp and arrives on the Leviathan when one of her flight exams goes wrong.

• Action Girl: Blisters, is she ever.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Alek and Lilit both think this.
• Brave Scot
• Catchphrase: "Barking spiders!"
• Deuteragonist: She's the second viewpoint character in the books, having many adventures separately from Alek.
• Fascinating Eyebrow
• The Gadfly: Annoys Dr. Barlow by taking advantage of the rule that passengers were to be reminded of anti-smoking regulations whenever the crew thought necessary, even though it's "barking obvious".
• Huge Schoolgirl: The setting's wrong, but at "not quite 15", and about 6'4" (193 cm), give or take 2 inches, she definitely qualifies.
• Jackie Robinson Story: A minor example. She mentions several times how she hates being "stuffed in skirts."
• The Lad-ette: Not that anyone knows about the "ette" part.
• One Head Taller: Described as being this to the next tallest recruit in her introductory chapter. For context, her competition includes older transfers from other branches, leading to Huge Schoolgirl above.
• One of the Boys: She quickly figures out how to match her behavior with that of the lads and rather enjoys it.
• Plucky Middie: Running around with exiled princes, leading dangerous expeditions, getting medals for heroism....
• Recursive Crossdressing: Wears a dress to the costume party in the Bonus Chapter.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red Oni to Alek's Blue.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: While she's not a bad-looking boy, she's quite striking in a dress in the bonus chapter.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Has to disguise herself as "Dylan" Sharp so she can be in the Air Service.
• Tomboy: She's always been interested in flying, much to her mother and aunts' chagrin.
• Wholesome Crossdresser

Doctor Emma Nora Barlow

Granddaughter of the Charles Darwin. She works at the London Zoological Society, which is More than Meets the Eye, and appears aboard the Leviathan on a mission to Turkey, which kickstarts most of the plot.

• Beta Couple: With Volger, apparently.
• Dashingly Dapper Derby: Justified, as she's a boffin. The boffins wear bowlers.
• Dull Surprise Deliberately; it's useful for a diplomat to appear in control when there are shocking developments. She admits that her ability to maintain it is quite strained when Deryn reveals her gender.
• Historical Domain Character: Nora Barlow really lived, and she was a noteworthy scientist, just... not like this.
• Lady of Adventure: Although she's a non-combatant, her participation is crucial; she accompanies and assists the Leviathan through its many adventures.
• The Professor: She's not a Mad Scientist, but she is an expert biologist and genetic engineer, not to mention multilingual and a trained diplomat.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  "Nascient Fixation sounded vaguely sinister, even if it was something baby ducks did."
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: She's the Head of the London Zoo, which seems to give her diplomatic authority and her suggestions have force with Captain Hobbes - Deryn finds it all quite puzzling until Barlow points out that being a "zookeeper" in a Darwinist society means a lot more than finding room for a tiger habitat.

Midshipman Newkirk

The other midshipman left on the Leviathan after Doctor Barlow moved in, he wants to participate in war, but doesn't like beasties very much.

• Butt-Monkey: If something happens to a midshipman, this midshipman will be Newkirk.
• One Name Only: We never learn what's Newkirk's first name.

Other

Eddie Malone

American journalist. He first appears in Istanbul in Behemoth, chronicling the Clanker-Darwinist conflict in the city, and then in Goliath to write about Nikola Tesla.

• Beware the Nice Ones: He's very friendly and can be quite helpful, but he is very good at finding out things that people don't want known, and if he thinks his editors would like it in a story, he's going to send it to them.
• Historical Domain Character: Eddie Malone was a real journalist who worked for New York Times and specialized in "yellow journalism", that is, he cared only about stories that would sell.
• Human-Interest Story: His article about the Sharp family.
• Intrepid Reporter: He lives in conflict-boiling Istanbul and then dresses as an airport worker to get aboard the Leviathan, even though he might have been badly mauled if the airport staff found out.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Finding out things is his job, and he's very good at it. He's even willing to delay or not publish some of his more troublesome stories if he's offered something just as interesting.
• Purple Prose: Alek regards his writing as this.
• Shoulder Teammate: Rusty travels on Eddie's shoulder.
• Spanner in the Works: He's the reason the C.U.P.'s plan actually succeeded, as he inadvertently warned Alek about the giant Tesla cannon (He thought they were building a wireless tower) the Germans were building, which would have destroyed the Leviathan and left the rebels vulnerable to the Goeben and Breslau.
• Tagalong Reporter: In Behemoth and, to some extent, in Goliath.
• Wild Card: He has no loyalty to either the Clankers or the Darwinists, and is just there for the story. He likes the protagonists and has no objection to helping them, but his newspaper has to come first.

Bovril

Bovril is one of Nora Barlow's creations, the "Nycticebus perscitus" ("smart lemur") or Perspicacious Loris. It was originally supposed to be gift for the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, but after hatching in Alek's presence, it bonds with the prince and accompanies him and Deryn.

• Bond Creatures: It bonds with the first person it sees after hatching - Alek in this case - but has a strong bond with Deryn as well.
• Clever Crows: Lemur variation, actually.
• Creepy Child: Bovril's actually very young (barely few months by the end of the story) and its speaking freaks Alek out.
• Flawed Prototype: Nora considers it this, as the events of Leviathan may have damaged it - for example, it bonds with two people and acts oddly sometimes. Alek and Deryn consider it rather a Super Prototype, though.
• Intelligent Gerbil: It's probably the most intelligent beastie of the crew (they're called "perspicacious" for a reason) and it talks, although it mostly repeats relevant words that it's previously heard.
• Nonindicative Name: "Bovril" is a type of Scottish meat-extract paste. Lilit named it, explaining that it's the only British thing she likes.
• Shoulder Teammate: It travels on Deryn's or Alek's shoulder.
• Sole Survivor: Out of over ten loris that were travelling aboard Leviathan, only Bovril and Nora's survive to hatching.
• Team Pet: After Alek and Deryn reunite, Bovril becomes one.

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Characters from the webcomic/webnovel by Project Moon:

Vergilius's Office

Virgilius

Denver

Rikako

Nanseul

Lan Yen

Garnet

Vergilius's Orphanage

In General

• Gemstone Motifs: Each of the orphans are named after gemstones.

Lapis

Carnelian

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