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Characters / Night Watch

Characters from the Russian fantasy series. For the Discworld novel, see Characters.Discworld.

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    The Night Watch 

The forces of not-quite good Light in the series. An organization of Light Others who oversees that (mostly, but Light Others belongs here too) Dark Ones are to follow the Treaty.

Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky)

The protagonist (and most of the time) narrator of the series.
  • Badass Bookworm: Well-read and actually joined Night Watch as a programmer before being transferred to field work.
  • Battle Couple: With Svetlana.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Becomes a human in the end of Sixth Watch.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: While he's an unambiously good guy, he's become really cynical since he learnt that his boss, Geser, is just as manipulative as Zabulon, his semi-evil counterpart, if not more.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Good Is Not Nice: Anton can be a real jerk and he has become very cynical in his views on his work and world itself.
  • Happily Married: To Svetlana.
  • Headphones Equal Isolation: Often listens to Suspiciously Apropos Music on them. Because of his Other powers, he doesn't really need his ears.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Offers himself as a sacrifice to the Two-in-One. He survives, but is Brought Down to Normal.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: Gets really cynical in his internal narration.
  • One of Us: Plays (or at least used to play) computer games (mentions Heretic and Hexen by name and references Planescape: Torment once), reads Strugatskys and Pratchett and references Star Wars.
  • Papa Bear: To his daughter in later books.
  • Platonic Life Partners: With Olga.
  • Take a Level in Badass: His power level grows enormously throughout the series, to the point that he becomes a Beyond Classification level mage. Until he is turned into a human in Sixth Watch.
  • Tranquil Fury: When he kicks Edgar into groin after the latter reveals that nuclear missile that Last Watch launched upon Moscow, has already detonated, he feels no emotion. Fortunately, Arina prevented nuclear strike.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Often to Geser and/or Zabulon. Or Arina.
  • Vodka Drunkenski: Anton and a lot of the other Others likes a drink, and he's actually The Alcoholic in the movies.

Semyon

Anton's main friend in the Night Watch. First-level Light mage.
  • Badass Grandpa: As a level one magician, he's one of the more powerful and experienced agents of the Night Watch.
  • Combat Pragmatist: One of the few agents to learn martial arts on top of his magical skills to give himself an edge in combat.
  • Cool Old Guy
  • Drives Like Crazy: Especially in the movies.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Keeps up the appearance of being nothing more than a simple working class man from some village. Appearance is a key word.
  • Old Soldier: Fought in multiple wars in his lifetime.
  • Weak, but Skilled: When compared to Greater Others, what he lacks in raw power, he makes up for with more than a century of experience.

Boris Ignatyevich/ Gesar

The head of the Night Watch and the mentor to Anton.

Olga

A powerful light sorceress and Boris Ignatyevich's lover.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Was forced into the body of a stuffed owl, had most of her powers confiscated and was only allowed to become human again for half an hour each day during times of war.
  • Depowered: For some time after she was partially absolved from her punishment.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Has this effect on a class of male students while her body was occupied by Anton.
  • Platonic Life Partners: With Anton.

Svetlana Gorodetskaya (nee Nazarova)

A seemingly human woman who is revealed to be a Light Other of immense power.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: In first part of Night Watch.
  • Happily Married: To Anton.
  • Mama Bear: Do not threaten her daughter. She's absolutely unstoppable when it comes to protecting Nadya.
  • Meaningful Name: The Light Other with most potential since Jesus wore diapers is named "Light". Didn't see that one coming...
  • Your Cheating Heart: Back before they were married, she cheated on Anton with Ignat once, out of spite towards Anton's attitude. It's never brought up again after it happens.

Tiger Cub

Bear

Ignat

A handsome and charming Night Watch operative.

Las

A rock musician who befriends Anton in the third book. Gets turned into a weak Light Other by Kostya

    The Day Watch 

The forces of / not-quite-evil Darkness. An organization of Dark Others who oversees that Light Ones are to follow the Treaty.

Zabulon

The head of the Day Watch, Grand Dark mage.
  • Affably Evil: He's remorseless evil bastard, but is good at putting on a facade of being a sensitive, charming guy.
  • Badass Grandpa: Is heavily implied to be as old as Gesar, and definetely just as poweful and experienced.
  • Benevolent Boss: Is stated to respect his subordinates rights and freedoms. But he is also...
  • Bad Boss: He ruthlessly sacrifices his followers once they've outlived their usefulness and is fond of seducing female followers. Just ask Alisa Donnikova.
  • Big Bad: Sort of - he's the leader of the forces of Darkness in Russia, but he's actually rarely the main antagonist, and will often cooperate with the Light Others when something bad happens that doesn't suit his goals.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Likes to play this part sometimes.
  • Chessmaster: Only slightly worse than Gesar. In Day Watch he managed to outwit him.
  • Enemy Mine: Does this freguently, when something bad appears. Later shown to be...
  • Friendly Enemy: Despite being the leader of Day Watch, he is shown to enjoy his fight with Gesar, who reciprocates. See also his Affably Evil.
  • Fantastic Racism: Heavily dislikes Ukranians and Lithuanians, according to Arina. It seems to be true, as Vycheslav Rogoza and Edgar's fates show.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Is revealed to be Anton's grandfather at the end of the last book.
  • Giggling Villain
  • Manipulative Bastard
  • One-Winged Angel: While he appears to be a sensitive glasses-wearing intellectual, his Twilight form (his "true form") is a snake demon with a tail and spiked penis.
    • His other true form, seen briefly in Night Watch looks more like some sort of a giant insect.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: When he's first introduced, Anton suspects him of casting the Moscow-threatening curse on Svetlana. Zabulon's answer is "We don't need this. Only a savage kills an elephant to get a small steak for his breakfast."
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Also translated as Zavulon.
  • Worthy Opponent: To Gesar, who feels the same.

Konstantin (Kostya) Saushkin

A young, idealistic vampire whom Anton befriended before joining the Nightwatch.

Alisa Donnikova

A witch of the Day Watch and Zabulon's lover.

Arina

The Grand Dark witch, who first appears in Twilight Watch.
  • Amicable Exes: Implied to be with Gesar in Sixth Watch.
  • Affably Evil: To the point of turning into Light Other.
  • And I Must Scream: New Watch ends with her getting trapped in the inescapable Sarcophagus of Times for all eternity. Tiger frees her in Sixth Watch to help Anton with Two-in-One.
  • Anti-Villain: It's even arguable how evil she really is.
  • Badass in Charge: She is the head of Witches' Conclave, and is incredibly powerful and skilled Other.
  • Big Bad: [[spoiler: In Last Watch and in New Watch.
  • Despair Event Horizon: When she learnt that she probably screwed Russia with her intefering. She seems to get better in Sixth Watch.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: She has no respect to Zabulon whatsoever, and isn't afraid to show it. Justified, as she's equal to him in power.
  • Friendly Enemy: Despite her deeds, she is polite and cordial to Anton and his family.
  • Graceful Loser: After Anton outgambits her at the end of New Watch and make her stay for all eternity in Sarcophagus of Times, she takes it rather well, and when Anton returns in Sixth Watch and asks for help, she gladly does it.
  • Heel–Face Turn: She becomes a Light Witch in Last Watch, although it doesn't change her personality nor her intentions. She's more of...
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door.
  • Knight Templar: While crossing Despair Event Horizon in New Watch, she started planning a destruction of Twilight by Nadya in order to stop it from interfering and causing catastrophes.
  • Light Is Not Good: She becomes more villainous when becoming a Light Other.
  • Manipulative Bastard: She did a good job of manipulating Anton in New Watch.
  • Shoot the Dog: She disrupted the experiment of Watches and Inquisition because of the Bad Future, which Gesar convinced her to avert.
  • Unrequited Love: Turns out to have this to Anton.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Twilight Watch reveals she had sabotaged an experiment, conducted by the Inquisition with the purpose of giving Russian people communist ideas. It worked much sooner than it was supposed to, resulting in countless deaths and leaving Russia in its current unfortunate economic condition. The reason? Had she not, humans would have discovered the existence of the Others among them, leading to a world-wide witch hunt. And then Gesar reveals that the experiment was doomed to fail anyway, causing numerous nuclear wars across the world.
    • In New Watch, Arina seeks to destroy Twilight itself in order to stop the prophecy which foretells Russia's destruction.
  • Wicked Witch: Zig-Zagged. More like semi-amoral witch.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Played with. She did threaten to kill Nadya and even trapped her with a grenade inside a magic barrier once, but she warned Anton just in time so he could disassemble it and save his daughter. Later, Gesar assures Anton he is acquainted with her well enough that he knows she'd never hurt a little kid.

    The Inquisition 

The Balance Between Good and Evil organization, which leads and controls both Watches.

Maxim

A Light Other introduced early in the novel Night Watch who is initially unaware of The Masquerade and as a result, kills Dark Others who he wrongly believes to be pure evil.

Witezslav

A Higher vampire and Dark Other. Seems to be one of the highest ranked Inquisitors.
  • Affably Evil: Supports Dark creed, but is reasonable and fair as an Inquisitor.
  • Retired Monster: He became a Higher Vampire though killing several young girls and feels no remorse, but has sort of "mellowed" to the extent that he left the Day Watch to become an Inquisitor.
  • Worf Effect: He is defeated by Kostya after he gets Fuaran, though being - possibly- equal to Geser and Zabulon. Justified, as the Kostya became an Absolute Other.

Edgar

A Dark Other Mage who started out on the Day Watch (in the eponymous novel), but later joined the Inquisition.

    Neutral Characters 
Humans and characters not affiliated with the organizations above.

The Tiger

An entity created by the Twilight to prevent certain prophecies from being heard.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Performs this in Sixth Watch, to help heroes to gain more time to deal with Two-in-One.
  • Humanoid Abomination: In New Watch, he was an avatar of Twilight, whom people see as their reflection; his power is equal to this of Absolute Light Other Nadya. As time passes, he becomes more and more humanoid.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: In Sixth Watch.

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