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    Stephanie Edgley / Valkyrie Cain 
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Stephanie Edgley, who later takes the name "Valkyrie Cain", is the protagonist of the series, who is unintentionally thrown into the hidden world of magic after her uncle Gordon's death. She learns the ways of sorcery from Skulduggery Pleasant, eventually becoming a powerful sorcerer in her own right.


  • Action Survivor: In the first book.
  • Action Girl: Slowly becomes one Book 2 onwards, by taking training lessons from Tanith and Skulduggery. It's fully cemented in Dark Days when she starts going on missions on her own, after Skulduggery is sucked into the Faceless Ones' dimension.
  • Addictive Magic: Magic in itself isn't addictive, but the lifestyle she adopts and the way she uses it is treated as such. Les calls her out at the end of Midnight for putting her family in danger, saying Valkyrie should stop doing magic. Valkyrie, obviously, is too addicted to magic and to Skulduggery to stop. More seriously, in Phase I it's all but stated that she's addicted to the power high that being Darquesse gives her. In Phase II, she's long reined in this tendency and is generally more reluctant to use magic, but for a book or two takes 'Splashes', doses of raw magic in tab form to cope with depression and PTSD. Eventually she goes through a period of enforced cold turkey and comes to terms with many of the underlying issues.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: She grew discontented with her safe, normal relationship with Fletcher, who kept reminding her of the realistic consequences of being a sorceror, and cheated on him with the decidedly unsafe and inhuman Caelan. Predictably, the thrill wears off and Valkyrie much regrets starting the relationship in the first place.
  • Amazonian Beauty: By Phase 2, being six foot tall and both notably beautiful and muscular, though there are elements in Phase 1 - cue Fletcher's dribbling.
  • The Antichrist: Valkyrie was hoping to be an Anti Anti Christ. In the end, she and Darquesse become separate entities.
    • In Bedlam she's revealed to be a Child of the Faceless rather than of the Ancients, so the jury is still out. After being Activated in Dead or Alive to protect Alice and the world, and apparently letting out millions of Faceless Ones, she seems to be stuck in the Anti-Christ role, before being deprogrammed in Until The End.
  • Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: How her Power Copying seems to work. At least with healing, she can quickly regenerate things the original healer wouldn't be able to do, implicitly because of her vastly greater raw power.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Has shades of this in earlier books when her internal monologue shows her being distracted by stuff or pointing out irrelevant details. This becomes more sinister in later books when you realize that the voice is Darquesse pointing things out to her.
  • The Atoner: In Phase Two after killing her own sister and giving in to Darquesse.
  • Anti-Hero: Vacillates between this and Pragmatic Hero as a result of Skulduggery's influence - and unlike him, until Phase Two, she doesn't try to be more heroic.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: The destiny of Darquesse, but semi-sort of subverted - on the one hand, she doesn't follow that destiny. On the other hand, Darquesse is/was part of her and, on being separated, becomes a suitably apocalyptic threat. Later, it turns out that she's still this as a Child of the Faceless Ones, especially after being Activated in Dead or Alive.
  • Aura Vision: One of her new powers after going through the Surge.
  • Barrier Warrior: She can use her lightning to block fireballs.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: At the end of Dead or Alive, when she's been Activated as a Child of the Faceless Ones. She's deprogrammed in Until The End, though there's a certain degree of Brainwash Residue.
  • Breaking the Bonds: When she lets herself be captured by actors who want to sacrifice her, she uses her lightning to burn through the ropes.
  • Break the Haughty: Last Stand of Dead Men. First she finds out about Ghastly. Then Stephanie tries to kill her and drives her out of the house. Then she kills someone in a fight. Then Darquesse takes over, seemingly for good. By Phase II, she's a shadow of her former self - and even once she gets back in the saddle, she's a much more subdued and cautious figure.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: When cornered by two members of The Wild Hunt, she offers them a million euros each. When the master of the hunt turns her down, the other kills him and asks for two million before helping Valkyrie escape.
  • Broken Bird: Has become this as of the end of The Dying of the Light, and it's taken even further in Resurrection when it's made clear that she's experiencing PTSD. She gets better, for the most part.
  • Broken Pedestal: When she finds out that Skulduggery is Lord Vile.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Happens to her briefly in The Dying of the Light, to the point that she considers leaving the world of magic behind. Then she has her surge.
  • Casting a Shadow: She could do this as part of her necromancy training.
  • The Chosen One: The necromancers think she is their savior, the Death Bringer. They later find a new one. The Remnants also see her, or at least Darquesse, as theirs.
  • Clothing Damage: Flying with her lightning powers for more than a few seconds burns her clothes, at least at first.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Even without any combat experience, she instinctively knows to attack her opponents weak spot. She puts it to good use when stuck alone in a cell with Scapegrace.
  • Combo Platter Powers:
    • Pre-Surge, she's an Elemental trained by one of the most powerful Elementals in the setting, even if her Earth-manipulation is non-existent and her water is less precise, and a Necromancy prodigy (death-sense, shadow manipulation, potentially short range teleportation) whose rate of progress is compared to Lord Vile himself (and he had the advantages of a) being a centuries old genius when he turned to necromancy, b) being a dead man wielding death magic, which provides a significant power boost) and who's strong enough that she needs an adult level focus for her necromancy despite not having reached her Surge yet.
    • Post-Surge, her discipline is unique owing to the circumstances - she lost her True Name because it became a Literal Split Personality and ended up with a direct tap to the Source of Magic. Despite the fact that her lack of willingness to study it and risk it being weaponised means she's Unskilled, but Strong, she's basically the diet version of a True Name Sorcerer. This means she's eventually a Flying Brick with lightning powers that can even destroy ghosts, Eye Beams, some degree of Magic Enhancement, capable of Power Copying via vast Psychic Powers, has Aura Vision, is somewhat precognitive, and after she absorbs the power of the Sceptre of the Ancients, a living Godkiller. And it's heavily implied that she's just scratching the surface - for one thing, no one's yet figured out how she teleported away from the Necropolis. Not for nothing is Leibniz!Mevolent, who Darquesse herself reckoned was second only to her and Argeddion, both openly admiring of her powers and willing to frankly admit that he needed to resort to a trap to be sure of beating her.
  • Cool Big Sis:
    • Despite being two years younger she ends up briefly taking this role for Carol.
    • Later to her sister Alison.
    • To Omen.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Most of her dialogue, especially around Skulduggery.
  • Defence Mechanism Super Power/Death Activated Super Power: Her Superpowered Evil Side automatically comes to fore when she's on the very edge of death.
  • Descent into Addiction: Valkyrie has an addictive personality. Her taste of the power high associated with being Darquesse is treated like this in Phase I. In Phase II, she leans on the music box to help her with her depression and PTSD (when it basically just numbs her into apathy), and later the Splashes for similar ends. She manages to deal with both of the latter and recognises that they're a problem.
  • Determinator: She's incredibly stubborn, for good or ill, which is most notable in Dark Days, when she rescues Skulduggery.
  • Discard and Draw: She loses her elemental magic and necromancy when Darquesse breaks free, is temporarily Brought Down to Normal... then her Surge happens and owing to the unique circumstances, she's got a tap to the source of magic, which mostly manifests as white lightning, Flight, Power Copying, some Soul Power, serious precognitive power (with aids), and the high end Psychic Powers required to enable the Power Copying. Also Eye Beams, and she later demonstrates some form of Magic Enhancement. Oh, and an attempt at Mental Time Travel results in actual physical time travel. Even effectively untrained, her raw power is immense, and both Abyssinia and Leibniz!Mevolent are genuinely impressed by how strong she is, with the latter openly admiring her and admitting he can only beat her through experience and guile. It's hinted she could learn to do a lot more with it, but she is very unwilling to explore it, pointing out that they have enough superpowered mages as it is and her power set is potentially phenomenally dangerous.
  • Dissonant Serenity: She was totally fine after being tortured by Melancholia. It was implied that Darquesse was the one calming her down.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Frequently. Dexter Vex is a common culprit, although Valkyrie greatly appreciates muscles in general.
  • Elemental Powers: Skulduggery teaches her elemental magic, though she's only good at using wind and fire. Skulduggery often ends up reminding her that studying water manipulation is just as important.
    • Picks up Necromancy in Dark Days.
    • She loses her magic when Darquesse is forced out of her body, but when she gets her Surge, she gains "White Lighting". And that is the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.
  • Enemy Within: Darquesse
  • Enemy Without: The Reflection. Which has started calling itself Stephanie Edgley. Seriously.
    • And even Darquesse gets upgraded to this in The Dying of the Light, turning into a ghost- sorry, an "untethered entity"- and possessing the body of Stephanie.
  • Evil Feels Good:
    Skulduggery: Power is intoxicating.
    Valkyrie: That's a good word for it.
  • Eye Beams: Shoots two beams of energy at Abyssinia in Bedlam. She's drained of all power afterwards, it isn't specified if this ability specifically drains her or if it was the whole fight beforehand - given that she uses it a bit more freely later on, it was probably the latter.
  • The Fighting Narcissist: From Death Bringer onwards, though following her fairly spectacular Break the Haughty when Darquesse takes over, she drops this.
  • Flying Brick: When Darquesse takes over in Phase I, and later in Phase II she figures out how to do this with her post-Surge power set.
  • Freudian Trio: After the reflection/Stephanie takes on a life of her own then her various personalities make her one by herself - Darquesse is the Id, being impulsive, curious, and childish (an unfortunate combination with a toddler's Lack of Empathy, a supernatural intellect, and vast power), Stephanie is the more rational and logical (... mostly) superego and Valkyrie is the ego.
  • Foil: Is increasingly becoming one to Skulduggery. Whereas Skulduggery is working hard, partially thanks to her influence, to redeem himself and become a better person (and it seems to be working—contrast his actions in the first war to the one in The Last Stand of Dead Men), Valkyrie is taking several levels of jerkass, and seems to be attempting to emulate the person he was, rather than the man he's trying to be, as Fletcher points out. They're also foils in how they deal with their Superpowered Evil Side. Whereas Skulduggery appears to be more or less in control of Lord Vile as of The Last Stand of Dead Men, in which he uses powerful Necromancy without his armour, and even before that took steps to lessen its influence, Valkyrie's alter-ego has taken complete control of her and refuses to change.
  • Future Me Scares Me:
    • Has visions of herself as Darquesse.
    • Gets attacked by her future harpy self in the Bad Future in Dead Or Alive.
  • Giving The Necromancer Cane To An Elemental: Turns out that she had a natural talent.
  • Harping on About Harpies: In the Bad Future in Dead Or Alive resisting the activation to make her the Child of the Faceless Ones, causes her to turn into an insane harpy that terrorises Roarhaven.
  • Healing Factor: One of the first magical disciplines she learns to copy. Notably she was also able to heal herself by reading Nye's mind for his medical knowledge even though he has no magic.
  • Healing Hands: At the end of Seasons Of War she copies a healer's power and attempts to regrow Leibniz!Serpine's hand. It works, eventually and backfires, as one attempt generated an entirely new Serpine, which got possessed by the dead main Serpine.
  • Hearing Voices: Probably not a good sign. They continue after Darquesse is gone.
    • One of them turns out to be a fragment of Darquesse's ghost that calls itself Kes.
  • Heroic BSoD: Has a minor breakdown in Last Stand of Dead Men after Stephanie tries to kill her and drives her out of the house, but she goes practically catatonic after killing a woman in a fight. Darquesse takes full advantage.
    • Suffers another after the end of The Dying of the Light due to having had to kill her own sister. Even once the story is over, she leaves her home and lives in America for five years in an attempt to recover. She's still showing signs of this by Resurrection.
    • Happens again at the end of Midnight once she discovers that, even after reviving her dead sister, she grew up without a soul because of Valkyrie's actions.
    • And again at end of Bedlam when she discovers that she's a Child of The Faceless Ones.
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: In Phase Two. The citizens of Roarhaven (and pretty much everyone else in the magic community) blames her for Darquesse's actions in Dying of the Light. It improves with time.
  • Heroic Lineage: Zig-Zagged. She's a descendant of the Ancients, but it's implied they became power hungry and wiped each other out after defeating the Faceless Ones.
    • In Bedlam it's revealed she's actually a descendant of The Faceless Ones.
  • Holding Back the Phlebotinum: China wants to study her discipline but Valkyrie thinks there are enough powerful mages around without teaching people her magic. She eventually trains it with Skulduggery and Tanith's encouragement, but she's still unwilling to expand beyond her current repertoire.
  • Hormone-Addled Teenager: Davina Marr accuses her of this and being smitten with Skulduggery in Dark Days, but it's more prominent from Death Bringer onward.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Caelan. Caelan. Caelan. Usually, she's pretty good, but that example bears noting.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Her primary motivation for joining Skulduggery. Deconstructed, because...well... Darquesse. She gets called out on it, hard.
  • Immortal Breaker: Her lightning can kill ghosts which is implied to be otherwise impossible. After the Sceptre of the Ancients breaks and she absorbs it, she can kill anything that isn't Obsidian.
  • I'm Mr. [Future Pop Culture Reference]: Not time travel but when she was interrogated on an alternate Earth with No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture, she pretended her name was Marilyn Monroe and that she lived in Graceland with Elvis Presley.
  • In a Single Bound: She used to use wind magic to jump in and out of her bedroom window when sneaking out at night. Her later power set proves similarly helpful, until she learns how to fly.
  • I Never Said It Was Poison: She tricks one of Cadaverous' duplicates in the Midnight Hotel by saying he used to live in Missouri. He says he never lived in St Louis and she points out she said Missouri.
  • Instant Armor: Her necronaut suit can instantly collapse into and unfold from a brooch.
  • It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Specifically, it leads to nearly dying a lot, seeing the ones you love suffer, and a whole boatload of PTSD.
  • Just a Kid: Gets this a lot in the first couple of books. Sometimes it's justified, and she agrees with it in retrospect, being very, very reluctant to let Omen get involved in Phase II on the grounds that it left her a wreck.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: When the Scepter of the Ancients bonds with Alice, Valkyrie is forced to kill her in order to use it. She later revives her with a sunburst, but is left traumatized by her actions.
  • Kid Detective: With Skulduggery through most of Phase 1. By Phase 2, she's in her mid-twenties.
  • Kid Sidekick: Was Skulduggery's in the first few books. Sebastian complains about this in Dead Or Alive, asking why Skulduggery put a 12 year old in so much danger and why nobody tried to stop him.
  • Little Miss Badass: By the time she's 14, she's capable of fighting adults (though not exactly with ease).
  • Lineage Comes from the Father: Her father's family are descendants of Ancients, the first sorcerers. In Phase Two it's revealed they are actually Children of the Faceless Ones.
  • Meaningful Name: See Name of Cain.
  • Morality Chain: She and Skulduggery are mutual ones for each other. He's talked her out of becomes Darquesse three times now and it was the thought of her that stopped him from becoming Lord Vile.
  • Morality Pet: For Skulduggery and, strangely, China. Unfortunately, association with both has the opposite effect on her.
  • Mouthy Kid: At first, before she grows up.
  • My Future Self and Me: Persuades her future self to cause a diversion so she can get in to see China Sorrows, promising to change the future in exchange.
  • Name of Cain: She chose it after Skulduggery mentioned she shared his penchant for "raising cain". Not to mention that she ended up killing her own sister.
  • The Needless: She doesn't need to eat, drink or breathe when wearing her necronaut suit.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Post-Surge, her discipline drifts into this on the grounds that no one actually knows how it works. Later books show that she's essentially Hope Summers, with added Psychic Powers (to enable the Power Copying) and the vast raw magic to power it. It also turns her into a Flying Brick with white lightning blasts and some Magic Enhancement. And she once teleported out of the Necropolis, though no one's sure how. This is justified by the fact that her powers are utterly unique and potentially vast, being implied to be a tap straight to Source of Magic, making her a watered down True Name Sorcerer. Given her Power Copying, Skulduggery theorises she's potentially not simply an ambidextrous sorcerer, but omnidextrous. This is exactly why she doesn't want anyone studying them.
  • New Superpower: After her Surge, she has never before seen Shock and Awe powers among other things.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: It's not entirely clear how powerful she is post-Surge, but considering that she even with limited training in her unique discipline she can go toe to toe with Abyssinia and Leibniz!Mevolent, even outfoxing Abyssinia with her Psychic Powers, Abyssinia's particular area of expertise, albeit mostly by accident, it's easy to say she's strong. The former was a sufficient threat to both Mevolent and the heroes that the Dead Men and the Diablerie had to team up to bring her down - and even then, it only worked because China took Abyssinia's son hostage and forced her to surrender. The latter was... Mevolent, powerful enough that he was the boss of Lord freaking Vile, and through raw power and a specially designed weapon, capable of going toe to toe with Darquesse and coming closer than anyone to killing her with his bare hands. Despite this, he admitted to Valkyrie that her strength was such that he had to resort to cunning and trickery to beat her, openly admiring her power and sincerely commending her as a Worthy Opponent. Skulduggery states that he believes that she's potentially the most powerful sorcerer of all time (possibly not counting True Name sorcerers), and Cadaver, who's better placed than most to know, doesn't disagree.
  • Pet the Dog: She starts being a little nicer to her reflection in Kingdom of the Wicked.
  • Play-Along Prisoner: Seasons Of War starts with a Batman Cold Open where she allowed herself to be drugged in a bar and kidnapped by some Hollywood actors who intended to sacrifice her in order to be successful.
  • Power Copying: Her new discipline lets her copy other mages' powers temporarily. It's suggested she could do a great deal more than that if she worked at it, including by Crepusucular, who has mastered anywhere between twenty disciplines and 'all of them', and states that they have the same fundamental power set, but she's generally pretty wary about exploring that side of her powers because she doesn't want to see them replicated.
  • The Power of Love: She temporarily turned Cadaverous Gant good by telepathically placing her memories of her parents' love for her into his head.
  • Power of the Void: Removing Darquesse from Valkyrie leaves her with no True Name; and direct access to the Source of Magic in the form of white lightning.]]
  • Precocious Crush: Davina Marr accused her of having one of these on Skulduggery in Dark Days. Valkyrie's response is to try and hit her.
  • Psychic Powers: How the Power Copying aspect of her Post-Surge powers primarily works, though that's far from all she can do with them.
  • Rage Against the Mentor: In book six. More sulking than actual rage.
  • Recruitment by Rescue: Skulduggery stopped one of Serpine's men from killing her, and the rest is history.
  • The Red Mage: Up until her Surge, she has Elemental and Necromancy magic.
  • Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Well, nice partner to be more accurate. Valkyrie is noticeably nicer than Skulduggery, at least early on.
    Skulduggery: I don't like you.
    Caelan: Ok.
    Skulduggery: I don't like vampires as a rule. I don't trust them. I don't trust you.
    Valkyrie (sighs): I told you to be nice.
    Skulduggery: Well, I haven't shot him yet.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Sealing her name pretty much gave Darquesse free reign when a Remnant tried to possess Valkyrie. Thankfully, it didn't last.
  • Sanity Slippage: In Bedlam after she's gassed with a magical hallucinogen and starts seeing things. She more or less manages to get over it by the end of the book. It happens again in Dead or Alive, when she's activated as a Child of the Faceless - though that's revealed to be more a case of Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Explicitly in Phase 2, and why she is very reluctant to get Omen involved.
  • Split-Personality Takeover: In Last Stand of Dead Men.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Grows up to be both stunningly attractive and six feet tall - plus, her muscles shift her into Amazonian Beauty territory.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: Darquesse, oh so much.
  • Superpower Lottery: As a fairly powerful Elemental and arguably the most talented necromancy student since Lord Vile (with even her doubters admitting that she could well become one of the strongest necromancers around), she wins this fairly early on. Then Darquesse comes on the scene. Finally, after a case of Discard and Draw, she wins again with her unique new powers, but it takes her a long time to even start figuring them out, as no one's seen anything like them before - and given how dangerous they are, she really isn't eager to study them so they can be repeated. Even without more than basic training, she can go toe to toe with Mevolent in a slugging match, a performance only matched by Darquesse, and he outright states that he had to use trickery to beat her. Skulduggery, for his part, thinks she could become the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever seen, and Crepuscular Vies, who's mastered at least twenty disciplines, if not all of them, implies that they have the same power set. Even that doesn't count True Name sorcerers like Darquesse and Argeddion, that's still saying a lot.
  • Tagalong Kid: At first. By the end of the first series, she's not a kid anymore, and definitely no tagalong.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: According to Fletcher, she's become this. As she admits herself, it sort of rings true.
  • Thanatos Gambit: When cornered by Lord Vile, she gets Melancholia to kill her on purpose. Darquesse comes to play instead.
  • Took a Level in Badass: While she was always competent even as a normal 12 year old, once she discovers her magic and gets trained up by an Action Girl, a Guile Hero and a Necromancer she becomes quite formidable. Then she becomes Darquesse for two minutes and becomes terrifying. Post-Surge, while she's not on the same level as Darquesse, she's one of the very few who can contend, and in Phase Two, Skulduggery remarks to Cadaver that the raw potential of her powers is such that her believes she can become the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever seen. Given that by this point he's encountered Darquesse, Argeddion, and even leaving aside True Name Sorcerers, Lord Vile, Mevolent, and Abyssinia, that is saying a lot.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: While she isn't intentionally cruel, she's had an increasing number of Kick the Dog moments from Death Bringer onwards. Later, after realising this and undergoing a brutal case of Break the Haughty (several, in fact), she becomes a kinder person.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Post-Surge, her white lightning powers are immensely strong and have a vast range of applications, including Power Copying, to the point where even Leibniz!Mevolent is deeply and sincerely impressed and it's assumed that she's more or less the one person who can go one on one with him. However, since they're utterly unique, she flatly refuses to study them in any detail on the grounds that she's afraid (with good reason) that they'll be replicated then weaponised, and she spent six years in depressed isolation without training them/needing them, it's a while before she even figures out the Power Copying. The same principle applies to that - she copies Tannith's ability to walk along ceilings but can't manage her acrobatic skills, on the grounds that she can borrow the knowledge but hasn't been trained in it. Skulduggery and Cadaver both believe that she could one day be the most powerful mage the world has ever seen.
  • Wall Run: She can temporarily copy Tanith's ability to walk up walls and ceilings.
  • The Watson: One of the features of being raised as a mortal. She's usually the one to ask who someone is, how magic works, what a magical artifact does, what the vague backstory that everyone's alluding to is, and, in general what the hell is going on, so the audience doesn't have to.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Fletcher giver her a pretty epic calling out in "Death Bringer", pointing her similarities to Skulduggery - and not the good ones.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Kills her baby sister to give her control of the Sceptre of the Ancients. She brings her back to life instantly, though she still feels terrible about it. This act, while Necessarily Evil, leaves her traumatised for most of the second phase and when she does get back in the game, she's desperately trying to make up for it.

    Skulduggery Pleasant 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/skulduggery_1594.jpg
I'm sophisticated, charming, suave, and debonair, Professor. But I have never claimed to be civilized.

The titular Skeleton Detective, a centuries-old sorcerer with endless charm and wit. When his old friend Gordon Edgley dies under mysterious circumstances, Skulduggery's investigation leads to him taking Stephanie under his wing, eventually becoming her mentor and partner.


  • Action Dad: Though his child is long dead. Though his possible child by Abyssinnia lives on... Until Bedlam, where it's revealed that Cassion was actually the son of Mevolent. The last book, however, reveals that Solace is actually his daughter by China, and he has a whole bunch of grandchildren.
  • Alliterative Name: In the Bad Future in Dead Or Alive, he goes by the name Cadaver Cain.
  • Amnesiac Hero: He doesn't remember everything he did as Lord Vile. This later turns out to be a good thing, as remembering those things in a Bad Future turned him into Cadaver Cain.
  • Annoying Patient: Grouse dubs him "my grumpiest patient." Skulduggery's response to being treated by Nye is much more vitriolic.
  • Anti-Hero: As Valkyrie soon learns, Skulduggery isn't exactly an Ideal Hero and often commits immoral acts for the greater good.
    • He starts out as a Pragmatic Hero but slides down the scale later on. After being tortured by the Faceless Ones for almost a year he briefly slips into Unscrupulous Hero-territory and almost shoots a Sanctuary spy for tailing him in Dark Days. He calms down considerably in the Darquesse Trilogy, which is best demonstrated when he decides against killing a rabid Werewolf at the beginning of Kingdom of the Wicked, going to great pains to non-lethally restrain him. He generally acts more stable from that point forward.
  • Aroused by Their Voice: It's often commented to sound as smooth as velvet, with a "warm arrogance" to it. Valkyrie "could listen to that voice all day." She's not the only one who comments on it.
  • The Anticipator: So far as Cadaver Cain is concerned, anyway, to the point where the two negotiate a deal for the latter's cooperation without even speaking, because they know exactly what the other is thinking. This would be because Cadaver Cain is the Bad Future version of Skulduggery who remembers all of what he did as Vile - among other things - and cracked as a result. Temper is rather grumpy that he is by far the dumbest person in the room.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: Shows shades of this in Bedlam.
    Skulduggery: [...] And I believe that life is arbitrary and when time moves on it will be as if we never existed. Do you want any pie?
  • Atonement Detective: His entire thing, not that anyone knows it. In Death Bringer we find out what he was atoning for. He was Lord Vile.
  • Awesome Ego: In-Universe. Valkyrie notes his "warm arrogance", and even his siblings, calling him on a risky decision, remark that he is a "terrifyingly intelligent" man.
    Skulduggery: Don't be jealous of my genius.
  • Ax-Crazy: While he seems perfectly normal (aside from the obvious lack of flesh and organs) a few people, including Skulduggery himself, have alluded to him becoming a bit of psycho after his family died. It started to show after Dark Days. Lord Vile definitely fits this - and fittingly, his experiences and return in Dark Days caused him to snap, just a bit, leading to the Vile persona reanimating the armour. Hell Breaks Loose shows him a decade or so after his family's death, and the contrast between the witty and affable Skulduggery we know and the soft-spoken humourless psychopath he is at this point is terrifying - especially since he's entirely aware of how unstable he is, pointing out that trusting him in this state is incredibly naive.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: He's very particular about his nice suits, and he's appalled that at some point, Cadaver Cain stopped wearing them.
  • Badass in Distress: Every now and then. Being in a torture dungeon with Serpine stands out. This is lampshaded towards the end of the series and it's speculated that he can put himself in a kind of safe mode.
  • Badass Longcoat: Has a tan overcoat as part of his disguise and is unquestionably a badass, though he rarely wears it after the first few books.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: A key part of his tactic when bluffing his way past someone or into something, that Valkyrie adopts, is basically to bamboozle them with a rapid flurry of information that leaves most people both compliant and very confused.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: Right down to a change of name. Skulduggery Pleasant became Lord Vile.
  • Broken Ace: He's incredibly intelligent, exceptionally powerful and that when his second discipline is mostly confined to his Superpowered Evil Side, highly cultured, quite charming (when he bothers), and a brilliant leader (when he chooses to be). He's an excellent singer, and if Cadaver Cain is anything to go by, he's also a superb painter. He also never entirely recovered from losing his family, something which sent him down such a dark path that (admittedly with a hearty shove from Abyssinia) led to his becoming Lord Vile, and he retains a simmering capacity for terrifying rage.
  • Black Comedy: He doesn't spare himself, either; twice he's made jokes about his dead family.
  • Blood Knight: Suggested to be one, and pretty much confirmed by Death Bringer. The Vile part of him definitely is.
  • Byronic Hero: He's essentially this. He's cultured, moody, Tall, Dark, and Snarky, and if you're lucky you might catch him brooding. Though the latter only happens when Valkyrie is missing/hurt/kidnapped.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: While nice is sometimes stretching it, he's usually a jovial, friendly man. If you piss him off (usually by hurting his friends or God forbid, his partner) however, he will snap. Hard. And when he does that, he cuts loose with everything he has. Pray to whatever religion you follow that you weren't the one who smashed his Berserk Button.
  • Celeb Crush: On Grace Kelly.
  • Coat Hat Scarf of Asskicking: His disguise, until China makes him the façade.
  • Combat Pragmatist:
    Baron Vengeous: Only a heathen brings a gun to a sword fight.
    Skulduggery: Only a moron brings a sword to a gun fight.
  • Cowboy Cop: Despite being the Sanctuary's Prime Detective, Skulduggery has a tendency to go rogue. This gets him fired when he accuses Grandmage Guild of treason in Playing with Fire. He gets rehired later on. He quits in Phase Two and joins the Arbiter Corps, who work without having to follow the laws of The Sanctuary.
    Skulduggery: You're under arrest for multiple counts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defense?
  • Cultured Badass: Wears exquisitely-tailored suits, drives a Bentley, sings rather well, Cadaver Cain implies that he's a superb painter, he knows how to ballroom dance, and whistles 'The Girl from Ipanema' while waiting to be rescued from a torture dungeon.
  • Creepy Good: He's a living skeleton with a somewhat quirky personality and a terrifying capacity for soft-spoken rage which we glimpse from time to time in the series, most prominently through Lord Vile.
  • Crusading Widower: Fits this trope to a T - and more than his friends could possibly have imagined.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Yeah. He participated in an awful war, he was tortured, his wife and child got killed, which led to him getting killed... And that's just what we hear of it in the first book!
  • Dark Secret: He's Lord Vile.
  • The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: More a case of rage will make you hate indiscriminately and join your enemies just so you have more targets to kill. And going by Hell Breaks Loose, which is set in the early 18th century an early transformation into Vile thanks to time-travel related interference means it happens almost instantly after assuming the Vile persona - though he spent most of the book on the verge of snapping.
  • The Dead Can Dance: Being a suave, four hundred year old badass and all.
  • Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments.
    Wreath: Billy-Ray Sanguine? What would he want with a Soul Catcher?
    Skulduggery: This is just a guess but maybe he wants to use it to catch a soul.
  • Dead Guy on Display: Serpine used his dead body as an example after he murdered him. He got better. Then he got angry.
  • The Dreaded: With only a very few exceptions, such as Kenspeckle Grouse, everyone seems to either respect him or be terrified of him. Or both. Skulduggery points this out as part of why he would be a truly terrible choice for an Elder. Aside from his track record, the prequel, Hell Breaks Loose, does an excellent job of showing exactly why he is so feared.
  • Defective Detective: Skulduggery is considered to be the greatest detective around in-universe. He's also an absolute cesspool of mental issues.
  • Dem Bones: He's an animated skeleton.
  • Determinator: While Tenebrae made it possible, it was through sheer will alone that Skulduggery came back to life as a skeleton.
  • Elemental Powers: He can manipulate all four elements, and starts teaching Valkyrie as well. Additionally, while being an elemental is the standard power set for mages who didn't decide on anything else, Skulduggery is shown to be one of the most powerful elementals in the series, surpassed only by Mevolent himself - and like Mevolent, he developed the discipline far beyond the basics.
  • Enemy Within: Lord Vile.
  • Enemy Without: Lord Vile's armour can animate itself when Skulduggery is feeling unstable.
  • Evil Me Scares Me: To be fair, Lord Vile terrifies everyone.
  • The Exotic Detective: The whole skeleton thing.
  • Fallen Hero: He got better. Thank merciful heavens.
  • Foil: Is increasingly becoming one to Valkyrie. Whereas Skulduggery is working hard, partially thanks to her influence, to redeem himself and become a better person (and it seems to be working—contrast his actions in the first war to the one in The Last Stand of Dead Men), Valkyrie is taking several levels of jerkass, and seems to be attempting to emulate the person he was, rather than the man he's trying to be, as Fletcher points out. They're also foils in how they deal with their Superpowered Evil Side. Whereas Skulduggery appears to be more or less in control of Lord Vile as of The Last Stand of Dead Men, in which he uses powerful Necromancy without his armour, and even before that took steps to lessen its influence, Valkyrie's alter-ego has taken complete control of her and refuses to change.
  • Forced to Watch: Serpine forced him to watch his family being murdered. Serpine trying to pull the same on Valkyrie results in Skulduggery shooting him.
  • Good Is Not Soft: He's nice enough as long as you stay on his good side. If not...
  • Guile Hero: He's very powerful even when he's not Lord Vile, perhaps the most powerful Elemental in the series barring only Mevolent, but he mostly uses his exceptional intellect to plan traps and work out mysteries.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: During the war with Mevolent, he and his fellow Dead Men had a certain notoriety (though they drew the line at what the Exigency Mages were willing to do), and it's explicitly stated that the war showed people sides of themselves they didn't want to - in Skulduggery's case, it showed him his terrifying capacity for rage. Even long after, he's got a reputation as The Dreaded, with more than one person calling him out for his influence on Valkyrie. And that's without knowing that he was Lord Vile.
  • Heroic BSoD: For most of Dark Days. Given that he spent most of a year with the Faceless Ones, this is unsurprising.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Milked it for all it was worth, regarding the willing sacrifice of a soul to Accelerator. Then, hilariously subverted it. As it turns out, the soul has to be willingly sacrificed. Nobody ever said that the person willingly sacrificing it also had to be the person being sacrificed, so he just chucked Ravel into the Accelerator.
  • Hero's Classic Car: Drives a 1950s Bentley. It's been magically repaired so many times it is said that if it takes so much as a scratch, it will implode. But he won't adopt any other for his daily driver; only ever using other cars when he needs to avoid Metallicar Syndrome.
  • Horrifying Hero: Most people are utterly terrified of him, at least before getting to know him.(And even then...) Even Val fainted the first time she saw him, sans disguise - though a large part of that was shock at surviving a murder attempt.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: Implied in Last Stand of Dead Men. He goes on a lot about how smart he is (and even people dressing him down admit that he's "terrifyingly intelligent"), but there's a suggestion that it's covering up a lot of issues.
  • I Hate Past Me: He's really not proud of a lot of the things he did pre-series. Don't even get us started on Vile.
  • Innate Night Vision: He doesn't need light to see.
  • Insufferable Genius: In an endearing way; he's exceptionally clever, and he won't hesitate to remind people of it, in a tone of "warm arrogance".
  • Jekyll & Hyde: Lord Vile, with the latter explicitly being another - and very dangerous - personality.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: As Lord Vile, though Abyssinia gave him a hearty shove.
  • Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Sacrificing someone else's soul to turn off the Accelerator would have been a real dick move if it wasn't Ravel.
  • Magnetic Hero: Before he "died". China comments on how he "inspires loyalty." Even after, he inspires deep respect from those who don't loathe him.
  • Meaningful Name: "Skulduggery" means "underhanded or unscrupulous behaviour", and he's certainly known for besting his foes through trickery rather than fighting fair. However, he rarely fails to be impolite or "pleasant" at the same time.
    • Meaningful Rename: After the deaths of his family and his resurrection, he was so broken and so full of hate, he just wanted to kill things. He didn't care who had to suffer, or what, even he was killing. He just wanted to slaughter everything he could. And what did he call himself during this phase? Vile.
  • Morality Chain: Valkyrie is this for him but it turns out that he's one for her too.
    • His family was his Morality Chain before he "died". Taking them away ended... badly.
      • It went so badly that he switched sides with the sole motivation of being able to kill things. Mevolent's other generals believed that bring back the Faceless Ones was the correct thing to do. Vile wanted them back so he could try and kill a God
  • Mysterious Past: We don't know a lot about Skulduggery's past, apart from the fact that his wife and child were murdered during the War. We occasionally get bits and pieces like the fact he had numeros siblings, including an older brother who's revealed to still be alive.
  • Names to Run Away From: Skulduggery Pleasant might not sound so bad but "The Skeleton Detective" is a little more ominous. Most sorcerers have heard of his reputation and would rather surrender than face him.
  • Non P.O.V. Protagonist: He's the only main character to never have his own narrative. The story goes through great lengths to avoid showing us his thought process, even when he's at the forefront of what's currently happening. In Bedlam there's even a chapter narrated from the perspective of someone he's about to Mercy Kill.
  • Occult Detective: He's a sorcerer detective that chases magical criminals.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally, he never shuts up. If he's not making snarky remarks, the situation is pretty serious, which is one of the things that makes the soft-spoken Skulduggery of Hell Breaks Loose, a distant prequel, so disturbing. But if he stops talking altogether? Run for your fucking life.
  • Our Liches Are Different: They wear suits, drive nice cars, solve cases and snark.
  • Parental Issues: In Bedlam he tells Omen that he had "disagreements" with his father. Later he flat out admits that he never loved him. Given his father was a monster who murdered his mother and corrupted several of his siblings, things only went downhill from there.
  • The Power of Hate: He managed to come back to life through sheer will and hatred. Best demonstrated when he's Lord Vile.
  • Quizzical Tilt: A habit of his.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Four hundred and fifty-ish.
  • Redemption Demotion: Lord Vile can (and has) beaten the crap out Skulduggery. This is Justified in that Lord Vile's armour acts as a vessel for Skulduggery's necromancy. Without it he can't use necromancy anywhere near as well.
  • The Red Mage: Was capable of using Necromancy even before he died and can use it even without Lord Vile's armour. Hell Breaks Loose reveals that contrary to Tenebrae's belief, he was always aware of his talent for Necromancy, studied it as a young man, and kept tinkering with it enough that it remained an option.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: His weapon if choice is a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver. It's revealed he has two in Playing With Fire.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: At first it seems like this was Skulduggery for a period of a few weeks after his family's death and according to China he disappeared for five years, doing whatever he had to do in order to calm down. In Death Bringer it's revealed he spent the entire time as Lord Vile, with the whole world as his target.
  • Rousing Speech: Used to be quite good at these apparently. Not so much anymore, though he still has his moments.
    Skulduggery: I used to be so good at these...
    Skulduggery: I don't know where this speech is going but I know where it started and that's what I want you all to take from it. Has anyone seen my hat?
  • Sad Clown: Skulduggery does love his wisecracks, but is also one of the most screwed up characters in the series. Some of his jokes tend to be rather dark. His "fun for the whole family" remark after Serpine decides to torture him comes to mind.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man: He likes wearing suits.
  • Skeletal Musician: He sings "Me and Mrs Jones" to Valkyrie and is apparently a very good whistler.
  • The Sleepless: He doesn't sleep but does meditate.
  • Split Personality: Lord Vile is this to him.
  • Split-Personality Merge: Unlike Valkyrie with Darquesse, Skulduggery is more or less in control of Lord Vile in The Last Stand of Dead Men and employs him as a sort of Godzilla Threshold when fighting Darquesse in The Dying of the Light.
  • Summon to Hand: Valkyrie once took his hat off him and threw it out the window. She wasn't surprised when he used wind magic to bring it back to his head.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: See Lord Vile for details. No. Really.
  • That Face Is Dead: Why his façade tattoo generates a new face each time.
  • Theseus' Ship Paradox: It's not clear how much of the original Skulduggery is actually left. His skull at the start of the series isn't his original one and he has a room full of spare bones he can add to himself to replace damaged or lost ones. In Hell Breaks Loose, it transpires that if he uses his necromancy, he might not even need any.
  • Tranquil Fury: When he's feeling homicidal.
    Skulduggery: You're waiting to see if I'm angry.
    Ghastly: I already know you're angry. You're sitting very still and you're talking very quietly. You're getting ready to kill someone.
    Skulduggery: I just need a name.
    • Everyone has heard of Skulduggery's temper and the fact that he stops talking after pretending to kill Valkyrie really scares Scapegrace.
    • The fact that he was famously so quiet as Lord Vile, never speaking above a whisper, shows just how angry he was after his family's death
  • Unstoppable Rage: Famous for this. They weren't kidding.
  • Warrior Undead: Skulduggery retains his skill in magic, firearms and martial arts despite being a skeleton.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Kenspeckle has given him a few verbal lashings for putting Valkyrie in danger.
    • He got this from Valkyrie in Death Bringer after she finds out about Lord Vile.
    • Dexter Vex tears into him after finding out about Darquesse.
    • Melissa Edgley calls him out for putting her daughter in danger. She later apologises and admits that, while she was right, the good outweighed the bad.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The deaths of his wife and child lead to him snapping and becoming Lord Vile - though only after a few more years of war and Abyssinia playing The Corrupter.
  • Would Hurt a Child: He attempts to shoot Kitana out of necessity more than anything else in Kingdom of the Wicked. He is, however, unwilling to use lethal force on the young recruits that the American Sanctuary has blocking their path in Last Stand of Dead Men.

    Ghastly Bespoke 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghastly_bespoke.jpg
"Fashion—it's life or death."

A kindly tailor and former boxer, and longtime ally to Skulduggery. He has carried gruesome scars all over his head since birth.


  • Badass Adorable: He may be scary to look at, but he's a big softie. Particularly when trying to ask Tanith out on a date.
  • Back from the Dead: In "Until the End", one of Darquesse's little tweaks as she fixes the universe is to bring him back.
  • Best Friend: To Skulduggery. Word of God says they've known each other since they were teenagers.
  • Big Brother Mentor: For Fletcher, particularly after a nasty breakup.
  • The Big Guy: Which is why Skulduggery always drags him along when he needs back up during a case.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Badass boxer and tailor. And later Elder to his chagrin. He hates the outfit
  • Day in the Limelight: Hell Breaks Loose is almost entirely from his point of view.
  • Elemental Powers: Is an Elemental Sorcerer but prefers fighting with his fists.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Heavily scarred, and one of the nicest and most moral characters in the series.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: How his alternate meets his end at the hands of Lord Vile.
  • Heartbroken Badass: Becomes this after Tanith is taken over by a Remnant.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Doesn't have the highest opinion of magic and would rather live a normal life.
  • In the Back: At the hands of Ravel.
  • Killed Off for Real: In Book 8 - though in Book 15, Darquesse brings him back.
  • Meaningful Name: "Ghastly" could be used to describe his scarred, intimidating face, while "bespoke" refers to his profession as a tailor.
  • Morality Chain: It's implied that Skulduggery came back to his senses when Vile tried to kill Ghastly after killing Ghastly's mother - though Cadaver Cain claims that it was seeing the future and realising he needed to be Skulduggery again to pull off his long-term omnicidal plan.
  • Nice Guy: He is shown to be somewhat stubborn but is nonetheless one of the nicest character in the series.
  • Really 700 Years Old: He's at least as old as Skulduggery, both being around 400.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: As an Elder.
  • Slashed Throat: How Ravel kills him at the end of the infamous Chapter 51.
  • Stylish Protection Gear: Makes these for a living.
  • Taken for Granite: He has to do it to himself in order to escape death. He gets better in the third book.

    China Sorrows 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/china_sorrows_6.jpg
"War is a delicate thing."

A librarian and magical researcher who always seems to have her own agenda. Fluent in the language of magic, and so ethereally beautiful that anyone who lays eyes on her can't help but fall in love immediately. She becomes the new Grand Mage at the end of Last Stand of the Dead Men.


  • Action Girl: When it suits her, she can kick your ass in a second.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: She loves the one person who doesn't love her back. Skulduggery. She is entirely aware of the irony.
  • Aloof Ally: She serves as this to Valkyrie and Skulduggery, and points it out more than once.
  • Ambiguously Evil: She's on Valkyrie and Skulduggery's side. Allegedly. Maybe? "Please don't tell me you're trusting her these days." Later, it becomes more sincere, though it's also worth remembering that she's always got her own agenda.
  • The Arch Mage: She becomes Supreme Mage of the High Sanctuary.
  • Badass Bookworm: Runs a library full of books that she adores, and while she usually dislikes doing it, is an exceptional fighter.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Beauty is a fast healer at least - though in the Bad Future, the harpy's claws leave permanent scars. The events of Until The End leave her, physically, as an old woman.
  • Berserk Button: She really doesn't like it when you accidentally disintegrate her books with the Sceptre of the Ancients.
  • Break the Haughty: The end of Death Bringer functions as this.
  • Cain and Abel: With Mr. Bliss for some time, the Cain to his Abel. Apparently they tried to kill each other several times.
  • Combat Pragmatist: She has very few scruples to begin with, and absolutely zero in a fight.
  • Cool Big Sis: Replaces Tanith as this for Valkyrie after Tanith is possessed by a remnant, splicing it with Parental Substitute. It hits something of a hiccup, but in the absence of Tanith she's arguably the predominant female figure in Valkyrie's life and more than willing to give her sisterly/motherly advice, and as Valkyrie jokingly remarks in Phase 2 - in respect to how it didn't stick - tried to teach her to be a Proper Lady. China's response that as far as she is concerned, a proper lady is entirely self-possessed, and in that respect, Valkyrie has always been a lady.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Her magic is based on sigils which she has carved into her apartment, her furniture, her library, tattooed all over her body (and even on her horse) which range from creating energy beams to making her stronger or even throwing all the furniture at her attacker. When Skulduggery came back, Mevolent had her carve one onto her torso that would ensure that he would really stay dead.
  • Dark Secret: One she's willing to kill for.
    Crux: China Sorrows, China Sorrows. She's the one, she's the one. Nefarian Serpine killed Skulduggery Pleasant, but China Sorrows led his family into the trap.
    • As of Death Bringer, the secret is out.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She can go snark for snark with Skulduggery.
  • Defector from Decadence: Used to be a fanatical worshipper of the Faceless Ones, leading the Diablerie, who were arguably Mevolent's elite troops. She defected and has absolutely no interest in turning back.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Well, maybe 'defrosting' is too strong a word, but she's definitely becoming warmer towards Skulduggery and Valkyrie... until Death Bringer, that is. Even after, she remains very fond of both of them.
  • Even Morally Ambiguous Pragmatists Have Loved Ones: Despite attempting to murder him several times, she does love Mr Bliss. She's also very fond of Valkyrie and in love with Skulduggery. And, despite her many flaws, she really did love Caisson.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Gender has no impact on having every character fall madly in love with her.
  • Femme Fatale: She's drop-dead gorgeous, and extremely dangerous. Even her closest friends don't trust her as far as they can throw her. She can, however, be a Heroic Seductress when it suits her.
  • Future Loser: Is extremely subservient to Malice and the Faceless Ones in the Bad Future.
  • Geometric Magic: Sigils and the languages of magic are kind of her thing, and very effective they are too.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: She gets shot in Dark Days and uses her symbols to heal herself. She spends the rest of the book recovering though.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Delivers an epic one to Prave, explaining his utter insignificance.
  • The Heretic: In the eyes of worshippers of the Faceless Ones, given that she's an apostate. She really doesn't care.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted in Last Stand of Dead Men. China uses a particular spell devised by Mevolent, of all people, to burn herself alive in an attempt to take down Madame Mist, which succeeds. However, even after a Dying Declaration of Love to Skulduggery, she survives thanks to Darquesse's intervention.
  • Hot Librarian: She runs a library and is perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world.
  • Hot Witch: Her entire discipline revolves around making people fall in love with her and her looks back it up.
  • Icy Blue Eyes: "Blue as ice and twice as cold."
  • If I Can't Have You…: Implied to be the reason she stayed a disciple of the Faceless Ones and went after Skulduggery's family. She deeply regrets it.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: She likes her horse for this reason. It could possibly be the reason she's so fond of Valkyrie and Skulduggery.
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit: Falls victim to this occasionally. She briefly considers wearing leather like Tanith Low but comes to her senses. "Class is a gift that gives eternally."
  • It's All About Me: She is ridiculously self-centered. She knows it, too.
  • Keeping the Handicap: Grows to find her facial scars beautiful in the Bad Future and decides to keep them.
  • Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: While she distinctly prefers not to use violence, she is - as with everything else - excellent at it. She is also exquisitely well-dressed at all times, though she bemoans the damage this does to her clothes and their impracticality, at one point briefly considering leathers like Tanith... before firmly dismissing it. In her opinion, class is the gift that gives eternally.
  • Knowledge Broker: Her function for much of the series. People tell her things, one way or another.
  • Lady of War: Elegant, charming, classy, and utterly deadly in personal combat.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: China is neutral to use her own word. But when she fights... she really fights.
  • Magic Librarian:
    • She owns and runs a Magical library until it gets destroyed.
    • Gets a new one that hovers over Roarhaven in the Bad Future. The nasty twist is that she's lost her ability to read.
  • Mama Bear:
    • In her own way, she was very protective of both Caisson and Solace, her foster-son and her daughter by Skulduggery. Given that she sold out the former to protect the latter, and they'd fallen in love, and she stuck the latter in an oubliette, this is perhaps the sort of maternal protectiveness that they could have done without.
    • She extends a more classical version towards Valkyrie; she's unwilling to kill Darquesse because it would mean killing Valkyrie, she risks her life on more than one occasion to protect Valkyrie (and this from a woman who loathes taking any side but her own), including getting herself captured and risking everything to undo Valkyrie's brainwashing as a result of being the Child of the Faceless Ones, giving her life in the Bad Future to give her a critical piece of information, and her sole reaction to Valkyrie technically betraying her by giving Caisson an incredibly valuable piece of information in order to save her sister is to order her put under house arrest. When she finds out that Val was instead a) stuck in a cell, b) nearly beaten to death, c) healed slowly and painfully, her reaction is a cold fury, and when Val gives her reason she tells her that she should have come to her for help.
  • Manipulative Bitch: Isn't above using her magic to make people fall hopelessly in love with her just so she gets what she wants.
  • Meaningful Name: "China" refers to her beautiful facade (which has been known to shatter and reveal the ruthless woman beneath), while "sorrows" hints at the pain she feels at being unable to be with the man she loves.
  • Morality Pet: Skulduggery to an extent, but definitely Valkyrie. She muses at least once that, somewhat to her surprise, she finds herself wanting to be the kind of person they'd call friend.
  • Mysterious Past: A lot of her history is unknown, with parts only being revealed in the last book. Such as the fact that her daughter, Solace, is also Skulduggery's. Some parts, even she doesn't know, such as the fact that she's a grandmother. Her reaction is hilarious.
  • No Sympathy: She's not particularly empathetic, though she extends most of her compassion to Val, and in turn does not expect any when things go wrong for her.
  • Not So Stoic: She has a Heroic BSoD when Skulduggery is dragged into the alternate dimension and is decidedly less than stoic when apologising to Skulduggery in Last Stand of Dead Men.
  • Off with Her Head!: Malice yanks it off as Valkyrie escapes the Bad Future.
  • Parental Substitute: She raised Caisson, being his foster-mother, though she was fairly distant even before she sold him out to protect Solace, her daughter. More classically, she acts surprisingly maternal towards Valkyrie in Phase 1 in particular, providing the kind of motherly advice that Valkyrie can't turn to her then-uninformed mother for (including sorcerer stuff that her mother won't have perspective on), taking a certain joy in dressing her up for occasions like the Requiem Ball and making sure to sincerely compliment her on how she looks, being dangerously protective of her, can't bring herself to kill Darquesse just because Darquesse is wearing Valkyrie's face, and in the sequel series, sacrificing her life for her in a Bad Future despite being otherwise utterly broken by Malice and having exhausted every effort to cure that future's Valkyrie from her Fate Worse than Death, and in the present, risking everything to free her from her Child of the Faceless Ones brainwashing.
  • Pet the Dog: Acts this way towards Valkyrie every now and then, who is arguably her main soft spot, as she seems to see as something of a mentee/surrogate daughter. China being China, her emotional reserves aren't overflowing, but she always tends to make time for Valkyrie and her advice, while often ruthlessly practical, is kindly meant, and when Valkyrie is seriously hurt in custody by corrupt cops, it's one of the few times when we see her properly furious. She even hesitates in killing Darquesse.
  • Put on a Bus: In Kingdom of the Wicked. But her Alternate Universe counterpart plays a prominent role.
  • Really 700 Years Old: She's somewhere around Skulduggery's age.
    Skulduggery: I have to admit, she wears it better! [laughs]
    [Beat.]
    Skulduggery: Because I'm a skeleton.
  • Ship Tease: There was loads of it between her an Skulduggery in Death Bringer. In Last Stand of Dead Men it turns out her feelings for him are (mostly) unrequited. In the last book they don't, but it's revealed that at one point, they did, and she had a daughter - Solace.
  • Shipper on Deck: Seems to ship Skulduggery and Valkyrie - or at least, is resigned to the fact that everyone and everything comes second to Valkyrie, so far as Skulduggery is concerned.
  • Shoot the Dog: Arguably with Remus Crux, given that he's hopelessly insane. On the other hand, he's also a phenomenal Asshole Victim, so it could be considered a case of Kick The Son Of A Bitch.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: She's tall, dark haired, and with a dry, razor-sharp wit.
  • The Tease: Her power is to make people fall in love with her, but she never actually promises anything.
  • Token Evil Teammate: She has, by far, the shoddiest morals of the main characters. Her sympathy comes from the fact that she's aligned against true evil, she's kind(ish) to the main characters, and she is entirely up-front about what she is.
  • The Vamp: Has her moments, though mostly she just uses her sexy powers to get stuff she wants. May have been one before she turned "neutral."
  • We Used to Be Friends: As of Death Bringer, Skulduggery is seriously pissed off with her to say the least. Valkyrie's not too thrilled with her either. She's amicable with Valkyrie by Last Stand of Dead Men and seems to have reached some kind of understanding with Skulduggery - he can't forgive her, but he's done a fair few unforgivable things himself, and as he says, he's no hypocrite.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: Has no issues with using lethal force against possessed people, on the grounds that it's her or them.
  • Woman Scorned: Implied to be the reason behind going after Skulduggery's family.
  • World's Most Beautiful Woman: Stated to be so numerous times. She ends up looking far older than she should at the end of the series, but has come to terms with it.
  • Wound That Will Not Heal: Has three scars on her face left by Harpy Valkyrie in the Bad Future that can't be healed by magic.
  • Yandere: Towards Skulduggery in the back story. If her attitude towards Valkyrie is any indication, she's mellowed considerably since.

    Tanith Low 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tanith_low.jpg
"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

An English woman who is a skilled sword-wielder. Forms a close friendship with Stephanie after they meet in China's library.


  • Abhorrent Admirer: Non-sexual variant after she's merged with a Remnant. Specifically, Remnant Tanith knows that Valkyrie is Darquesse and like all Remnants sees her as a messiah. Valkyrie is understandably freaked out
  • Action Girl: Oh, yes! She's an extremely capable fighter, even by the standards of this series, and until she's infected with a remnant, is Valkyrie's main combat instructor and personal trainer.
  • Best Friend: She's Valkyrie's until she's possessed by a Remnant. They become close again in Phase 2, though owing to certain issues with China, she's not seen as much.
  • Book Ends: Combined with Mythology Gag. She was supposed to have been killed by the White Cleaver in the first book. Derek Landy was told that too many people were dying; so she was given a different fate instead. Finally, in the last book; she faces what it turned into, the Black Cleaver; and comments that she may have originally been destined to die during their first fight.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In Bedlam she's described as being as silent as a ghost, agile as a cat and as deadly as a cat ghost.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Frequently the victim of this because the author wasn't allowed to kill her off in the first book. This happened less as time went on, and instead she mostly just ended up in the most brutal fights - which, given her up-close combat style, made a degree of sense.
  • Cool Big Sis: A surrogate sister for Valkyrie, being one of her main combat trainers and mentors, as well as giving her the kind of advice a big sister might.
  • Creator's Pest: Landy intended to kill her off in the first book but was forced to let her live due to his publisher's Executive Meddling. Because of this, she tends to take a severe beating in any book she appears in, though since he's warmed up to her, this mostly ends up as the kind of brutal fight other protagonists get into rather than the Cold-Blooded Torture she previously underwent.
  • Demonic Possession: Of all the people who could have gotten permanently possessed by a remnant.
  • Dude Magnet: Fletcher, Ghastly, Sanguine, Ravel, Saracen Rue (who at least appreciates the view), Fergus (whose eyes pop out on stalks - though that might be because he recognises her), Frightening Jones, Oberon Guile, and even Skulduggery finds her head-turningly attractive... albeit when he's forced to possess what he grumpily refers to as "a meat-puppet" and is hit by - among other things - a functioning libido for the first time in over 300 years. She's a little smug about it.
  • Ethical Slut: She Really Gets Around, while also being a kind, considerate, and loyal person, as well as a Cool Big Sis towards Valkyrie.
  • Face–Monster Turn: Spends half the first series as a bad guy because of that remnant, but undergoes a Heel–Face Turn in The Dying of the Light, shortly before losing her Remnant.
  • Fangirl:
    • Really, really loved Gordon's work. When Echo!Gordon confirms that one of her adventures inspired one of his stories, her grin is described as so wide that it looks like she's about to swallow her own head.
    • When informed that Val is about to time travel, she has to be reprimanded to stop her a) bouncing in place and giggling, b) humming the Doctor Who theme.
  • Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Golden blonde hair, noble heart, even with a profound ruthless streak. It gets a bit tarnished when she's merged with a remnant.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Dresses up in all leather outfits, because they're practical, and because she looks good in them.
  • Immortal Immaturity: She's the first obvious example of this theme we come across in the series. She's nearly 80 when we first meet her, and per Valkyrie, "looks about 22 and acts about 4." By her own account/acknowledgement, sorcerer teenage years can extend well into someone's 50s.
  • Iron Butt-Monkey: She gets abused a lot, but she (usually) bounces back.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Swords are her usual weapon of choice.
  • Light Is Not Good: Zig-zagged. After her Face–Monster Turn she mostly still looks like a pretty blonde woman, but every so often she lets the inner darkness show through by turning her lips and veins black.
    Tagline of The Maleficent Seven: And she's the bad guy
  • Magic Knight: Where most of the mages in the series use their powers as direct offense, Tanith tends to get in close and chop things up with her sword. Mr Bliss (another example) comments on this in her first appearance, remarking that even most Adepts don't go for such physical disciplines.
  • Meaningful Name: While training to be an assassin, her fellow trainees made fun of her for being "highborn" - Tanith chose the name "Low" as a rejection on their insults. Meanwhile, "Tanith" was the name of the first person she ever killed.
  • Older Than They Look: While this applies to all sorcerers, given her close relationship with Valkyrie, she's one of the most startling examples of this. That is to say, she looks and acts like a young woman in her twenties, with a sometimes giggly sisterly friendship with a teenager, then twenty-something. Or, as Valkyrie puts it, she looks 22 and acts about 4. When we meet her, she's actually in her late seventies. She lampshades this in her internal monologue, noting that she knows from her personal experience that thanks to the slowed ageing process, with sorcerers, teenage years can extend well into someone's fifties.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough".
  • Proud Beauty: She's hot and she knows it. Her reaction to discovering that Saracen has X-Ray Vision is to grin and spread her arms out wide, saying she's not ashamed, and when Skulduggery briefly experiences life with a libido and she realises what's going on, her response is to grin and shamelessly add an extra sway to her stroll away.
  • Psycho for Hire: Becomes a mercenary along with Sanguine, after being possessed.
  • Put on a Bus: Is mysteriously absent in Resurrection.
  • Really Gets Around: Both Davina Marr and Sanguine have commented on it. She has absolutely no shame about it.
    Sanguine: You seem to have dated everyone else...
  • Secret-Keeper: After their adventures in the Leibniz Universe, Tanith is one of the handful of people who knows that Skulduggery is Lord Vile.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: The root of her attraction to Ghastly, and to a degree, Oberon Guile.
  • Slut-Shaming: From characters like Marr and Sanguine. No one else seems to really care all that much, especially given that most sorcerers seem to really get around.
  • The "I Love You" Stigma: Possibly only after Ghastly and Sanguine's deaths, but saying "I love you" tends to lead to her breaking up with someone.
  • Tyke Bomb: Revealed to be trained as an assassin since the age of eight.
  • Unholy Matrimony: With Sanguine, when she's merged with a remnant. Tragically, he really did fall in love with her, and actually started acting as her conscience, encouraging her to be a better person again, pointing out that she wanted to be. As a result, when he dies, something in her wrenches even though she doesn't remember their relationship, and the second series, where it's implied she's regained her memories, has her remember him with some sadness and regret, referring to him by his first name.
  • Villain Protagonist: In her spinoff book The Maleficent Seven.
  • Wall Run: Her main magic power.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Has shades of this in the first book. She feels really guilty about sending Cleavers to their deaths to save Skulduggery, something that Skulduggery and Ghastly have come to accept.

    Fletcher Renn 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fletcher_7500.jpg

An English boy who becomes the Last of His Kind in The Faceless Ones when all the other Teleporters are hunted down and killed. He is brought under the protection of Skulduggery and Valkyrie, later joining their team as a fully-fledged member.



  • Amicable Exes: Eventually with Valkyrie - by Phase II they discuss their relationship, and other relationships, with each other freely, and are genuinely good friends.
  • Anime Hair: It defies both logic and reason.
  • Batter Up!: When fighting Nero, he disappears and comes back with a baseball bat. He also employs this tactic in Death Bringer.
  • Break the Haughty: His experiences in The Faceless Ones knock a great deal of the stuffing out of him.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Puts it to great use with fighting Pennant and Caelan.
  • Dating Catwoman: Mostly by accident. So far his love interests include Darquesse (the harbinger of the apocalypse) when she was still a part of Valkyrie, Myra (an Australian assassin who is trying to kill him), and Stephanie (a murderous Ambiguously Evil reflection who's in the process of growing a conscience). Dude cannot catch a break, something he miserably lampshades after the latter.
  • Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: With Stephanie. Although he's not thrilled when he finds out about Carol, to put it mildly. He discusses this with Valkyrie, wondering if he likes Stephanie for her or just because she's a version of Valkyrie that likes him back. And Stephanie hears him. While being murdered, slowly, invisibly, several feet away by Darquesse. When they find her body, and realise that she overheard, he teleports away to have a breakdown.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Deconstructed, as he ends up not having much of a life outside of being Valkyrie's boyfriend, and it's one of the reasons why they split up.
  • Distressed Dude: He gets thrown into danger a lot, and he's not as equipped to handle it as Valkyrie. This fades as time goes on, with even Darquesse considering him one of the deadliest people on the battlefield thanks to his powers, but he's never the best close combatant.
  • Hostage for MacGuffin: After the Diablerie captures the Grand Mage. Naturally, both sides try to double cross each other.
  • Hot Teacher: Becomes a Teacher at Corrival Academy in Phase Two, and remains rather handsome.
  • I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: When China asks him to kill Nero, he says he's a teacher not a killer.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: In Phase One, he's very smug about being the world's only teleporter, but he's mostly hiding a lot of insecurities - including several related to Valkyrie, who he not unjustly accuses of treating him as an amusing puppy.
  • Informed Attribute: At least, according to all of his official illustrations, which depict his hair as fairly normal.
  • It's All About Me: Especially in The Faceless Ones, being a smug teenager born with power at his fingertips and able to do more or less whatever he likes. Cue a fairly brutal Break the Haughty.
  • Jerkass: Again, in The Faceless Ones, albeit of the relatively harmless and utterly self-centred variety. He grows out of it.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's not really a bad person, once you get past the parts that make you want to punch him. By the time of Death Bringer he's much more of a Nice Guy, his annoyance at Valkyrie being because he's concerned for her dangerous lifestyle. Given her rampant PTSD in the second series, and bluntly informing Omen that if she had her time over she would have walked away from magic, you can see his point - especially as while she reconciles and heals, more or less, she's never quite the same.
  • Last of His Kind: He's the only surviving Teleporter as of The Faceless Ones but ends up teaching a class on it at Corrival Academy.
  • Living MacGuffin: In The Faceless Ones, the Diablerie need him in order to open a gateway to the Faceless Ones dimension - and it needs to be specifically him, because an older and stronger teleporter would be too hard to control.
  • Mars Needs Women: He gets kidnapped by the Brides of Blood Tears coven because they want to breed more teleporters. When he realises that this is what they want him for, he seriously considers staying.
  • Meaningful Name: "Fletcher" is the word for someone who makes arrows, while "Renn" comes from the German verb for "to run" - both refer to his speed as a teleporter.
  • Non-Action Guy: He begrudgingly acknowledges he's the gang's mode of transport rather than a true member. Later, he makes his own life and becomes much more comfortable with occasionally being transport.
  • Not That Kind of Mage: Does this to himself when he tries to imitate Nero by teleporting Skulduggery and Valkyrie without touching them. Skulduggery points out that Nero's a neoteric with an unknown discipline.
  • Only Friend: He's Valkyrie's only friend around her age range (he's about 3 years older than her). After they break up she realises how much she misses him.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: He wants The Masquerade broken so mages can teleport people everywhere instead of vehicle emissions damaging the environment.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: With Valkyrie. Their romance starts based on mutual snarking, and how it goes more or less deconstructs that sort of relationship.
  • Supernatural Sensitivity: Can detect when Nero is using his powers nearby and was able to tell he was straining himself teleporting large numbers of people.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Becomes increasingly more competent and independent as the series goes on, eventually choosing to leave Valkyrie and Skulduggery's inner circle and find his own. Best demonstrated at the end of Death Bringer when he effectively fights a vampire. Later, none other than Darquesse considers him the greatest threat on the battlefield, and he successfully overloads Nero, a younger rival teleporter with more unpredictable - but less stable - powers.
  • Teleport Spam: He's capable of this both to troll people, demonstrated early on with Valkyrie, and for more deadly purposes when fighting a vampire. China flat out states that Valkyrie does not want to get involved when he and Nero are fighting, because it will get her killed, possibly without them even noticing, and Darquesse notes this as part of why he is the deadliest threat on the battlefield.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Valkyrie briefly wonders if it's problems with his father that causes Fletcher to try and get Skulduggery's approval.

    Omen Darkly 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/omen_darkly.jpg
"I'm not really the Darkly you want."
A teenager attending Corrival Academy, and the newest member of the team in Resurrection. He is the brother of the famous Chosen One, Auger Darkly, who is prophesied to save the world from a great evil.

  • Ambiguously Bi: Mostly feels attraction to women, but his genderfluid friend Never makes him question this. He's entirely unbothered, just puzzled, as this is fairly standard for sorcerers (per Word of God, "after four hundred years, there is no straight."), and a little gloomy about the prospect of being one of the few sorcerers who's either entirely straight or gay, as it dramatically cuts down his romantic options.
  • Book Dumb: He often forgets his timetable and annoys his teachers. However, he's remarkably good at thinking on his feet in crisis situations.
  • Broken Pedestal: Towards Crepuscular, and separately, Valkyrie and Skulduggery - though in the latter case, he's able to accept that they're not perfect and just doing their best, whereas Crepuscular is an all around Manipulative Bastard.
  • Chew Toy: Born several minutes too late to be the Chosen One, instead his life becomes a never-ending spiral of poor luck.
  • Crisis Makes Perfect: He can never manage his Twin Telepathy with Auger until he's trying to escape from the American naval base.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: As is pointed on more than one occasion, he got all the training his brother did, and while a lot of it was serving as a punchbag, being able to take a hit is one of the key components in fighting (his combat teacher picks up on this and pushes him to actually try. When he does, he's winning spars against his peers more or less effortlessly). He's also considerably smarter than he seems. The main problem is his catastrophically low self-esteem related to being the brother of the Chosen One. Auger is a genuinely great brother, very supportive, and very protective. Unfortunately, Omen gets zero attention from his parents save to a) tell him he's screwed up, b) pass on a message to Auger (who in turn gets treated as a cash cow by his parents). This means that once he realised that his parents wouldn't pay attention to him, he stopped trying. Once he's persuaded to make an effort, he's remarkably competent.
  • Distressed Dude: Abyssinia has his former classmates kidnap him in Bedlam.
  • Groin Attack: Avoids fighting Lapse by threatening to do this to him and ends up punching Lilt in the balls.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: Owing to the lack of respect shown to him by most everyone who meets him, Omen tends to put himself down a lot. One of his friends points out to him in Midnight that he doesn't think of himself as "someone worth worrying about". Uther Peccant of all people pinpoints this as part of why he's not living up to his potential (which exasperates him). He also thinks of himself as plain, and while he's implied to be a bit chubby as a kid, he grows up into someone reasonably handsome.
  • Hidden Depths: Given his horrible self-esteem and very laidback demeanour, it isn't immediately clear that he's actually a potentially very good fighter (having had all his brother's training), with remarkable courage, quick-thinking under pressure, and buried talents for leadership.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Gets one with Crepuscular Vies, until the Broken Pedestal moment.
  • Kid Hero: By the time he enters the narrative in Phase Two, even Valkyrie has reached adulthood, making him the youngest of the main cast. Valkyrie's own experiences of this and her resultant horrible PTSD are why she is very unenthusiastic about involving him, but she eventually comes around to the idea - though she tries very hard to protect him from the worst.
  • The Leader: As the series progresses, Omen finds himself taking charge more and more, whether it's organising the theft of the Obsidian Blade or the uprising at Corrival.
  • Meaningful Rename: At the end of 'Until the End', he chooses to follow Auger's example and change his name to Sebastian Tao.
  • Morality Pet: To Crepuscular, of all people. Unfortunately, this only extends so far, and Crepuscular doesn't exactly get why Omen is bothered by certain things.
  • Nice Guy: Omen is nice to everyone. Which is why everyone likes him.
  • Non-Action Guy: An odd variant in that he generally prefers not to fight, but even early on, he's actually relatively competent when he tries, having had all the same training his brother has, and been his sparring partner. When he puts in a serious effort, he's a genuinely good fighter.
  • No-Respect Guy: He gets none from his parents and he's eternally in the shadow of his brother, but only the parental neglect bothers him - it helps that his brother does genuinely respect him, and a lot of people really do like him.
  • They Would Cut You Up: When Jenan explains Abyssinia's plan to attack an American military base and leave Omen behind to take the blame, he says he hopes they experiment on him before they kill him.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Finding himself in trouble forces him to become reasonably formidable - though mentorship from Crepuscular Vies (who, for all his flaws, is supportive of Omen and a surprisingly good teacher) helps.
  • Twin Telepathy: Miss Wicked pushes him and Auger into working together in her Sensitive class because telepathy is usually easier between twins.
  • The Unchosen One: His brother, Auger, is The Chosen One, while Omen grew up largely ignored. In this way, the heroics he eventually accomplishes in Resurrection are entirely due to his own merit.
  • The Un Favourite: His parents love his brother and mostly see Omen as a disappointment.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: His parents care little for him, showering all their affection on Auger instead (though as it turns out, they mostly just care about being the parents of The Chosen One and how they can exploit it). It's implied that his desire to have adventures of his own stems from wanting attention from them. Over the course of the series however, he comes to hate his parents for how they raised him and his brother.

Corrival Academy

Students

    Auger Darkly 
The Chosen One, destined to fight the King of the Darklands. Ultimately gets transformed into Obsidian, the living incarnation of the Obsidian Blade.

  • Black Swords Are Better: His Obsidian Blade is black.
  • Bring My Brown Pants: Mentions that he wet the bed while recovering in hospital from Jacen's attack.
  • Broken Ace: He's notably embittered and traumatised after killing The King of the Darklands, calling out his parents for not only shaping him into a Laser Guided Tyke Bomb, but profiting off it and trying to get him to repeat the trick as a career adventurer so they can live off that, too. He also tears into them for how they've treated Omen.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: When he killed The King Of The Darklands, he swallowed a shard of the Obsidian Blade which is slowly killing him, and ultimately transforms him into Obsidian.
  • Captain Ersatz: Being a Chosen One in a Wizarding School makes him a jock parody of Harry Potter.
  • Cessation of Existence: If the Obsidian Blade succeeds in killing him, even his soul will fade to nothing.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: He berates his parents in Dead Or Alive for using him as a means to advance their social status and ignoring Omen.
  • The Corruption: A shard of the Obsidian Blade is slowly killing him but is transforming him into a superpowered Humanoid Abomination.
  • Cursed with Awesome: The Obsidian Blade shard that's killing him makes him immune to Cadaver's clairvoyance. Then, it turns him into Obsidian, who's at least as powerful as Darquesse and ultimately ends the universe.
  • Chosen One: Obviously.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of The Chosen One, especially when it comes to what happens next.
  • Distressed Dude: Gets kidnapped in Seasons Of War and held ransom for the Obsidian Blade.
  • Fireball: Shoots some at Abyssinia to lead her away from Valkyrie when she can't see him.
  • Hero of Another Story: Gets up to various shenanigans off-page.
  • Humanoid Abomination: An unwilling version, thanks to The Corruption. At the end of Dead Or Alive, he becomes "Obsidian" where his entire body is jet black, including his eyes and the inside of his mouth.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Looks forward to having a normal life when his fight against The King of The Darklands is over, and actually wants to be a healer.
  • Man of Kryptonite: He is one for The King of The Darklands when he wields the Obsidian Blade.
  • No Indoor Voice: Tends to shout and run everything into one long word when communicating telepathically.
  • Immune to Fate: Having a shard of the Obsidian Blade inside him makes him a lacuna. Meaning that Cadaver Cain can't see him in his future premonitions.
  • Plot Armour: In-universe. He is basically immortal until he fights the King of the Darklands. Then all bets are off.
  • Super-Strength: Gets a limited degree of this and Super-Speed alongside his Plot Armour as part of being the Chosen One. As he points out, however, this does not make him immune to severely debilitating injuries or, you know, pain.
  • Thinking Up Portals: When he becomes Obsidian he tears a hole in the air and goes off somewhere else.
  • Twin Telepathy: Eventually develops this with Omen.
  • Victory Is Boring: A PTSD-riddled variant. He gets depressed in the months after the King of The Darklands is defeated, not knowing what to do with himself, and because he's haunted by how he had to do it.

    Never 
He is Omen's best friend, and is a genderfluid teleporter. She uses male and female pronouns interchangeably.
  • Amicable Exes: In Dead or Alive with Auger.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Compulsively, targeting everyone - but particularly Omen, in a non-malicious kind of way.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Is uncharacteristically nasty to Valkyrie, responding to her admittance of suicidal thoughts by telling her she should have killed herself. Given what Darquesse did to Never's family, however, it's understandable, and she warms up to Valkyrie over time.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: The most talented of Fletcher's students, being a natural teleporter like him.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Probably never going to be best friends with Valkyrie, but ends up drawing a line between Valkyrie and Darquesse.

Staff

    Militsa Gnosis 
A Scottish Necromancer. Ginger. Teaches Magical Theory.

  • Badass Bookworm: She's a brilliant researcher of magical theory and while she's not the greatest fighter, she can if she has to, and she's got Nerves of Steel.
  • Casting a Shadow: Standard with necromancers, though she mostly uses her powers to beat the traffic.
  • Cool Teacher: She's very popular with her students, being nice, friendly, and comparatively down to Earth - it helps that she's actually in her twenties, rather than merely looking that way.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Just because she doesn't like fighting and isn't very well trained in it, doesn't mean that she can't, such as when she defended herself from Coda Quell, a former Cleaver.
  • Mama Bear: She's very protective of her students.
  • Mundane Utility: Is a Necromancer. Mostly uses the shadow-walking aspect of her powers to ease her morning commute.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Accidentally kills Coda Quell when he attacks her, a shadow-wielding necromancer, in the middle of the night on a day where every sorcerers' power is enhanced, next to a death field. The stress of having killed someone leads to her having a breakdown that is partially responsible for her later break up with Valkyrie.
  • Nice Girl: One of her default characteristics, contrasting her with her girlfriend, Valkyrie.
  • Pitbull Dates Puppy: She's the puppy, being the nice one, though she's more than willing to put her foot down with Valkyrie - who in turn tends to listen to her.
  • Token Heroic Orc: She's a necromancer, but is quite pleasant and dates Valkyrie from Bedlam onwards.

    Uther Peccant 
A teacher at Corrival Academy, who dislikes Omen. Skulduggery Pleasant's brother.

  • Back from the Dead: In between the first series and the second, along with all his other siblings bar Skulduggery, who was never dead. Or already was, depending on how you look at it. No, no one has any idea how.
  • Berserk Button: He has his brother's severe intolerance for fools, and more generally he's deeply annoyed by those who don't live up to their potential.
  • Big Brother Instinct: According to Skulduggery, he has this towards all of his siblings, which is probably why his younger brother's reckless actions get on his nerves so much. Conversely, this is part of what made his younger brother respect him.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Again, something he has in common with his brother, though his is much more deadpan, as shown with his confrontation with Duenna.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Responsible to Skulduggery's Foolish, berating him for confronting his father and getting three of their other siblings captured.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Saves Omen when he falls out a window and was apparently friends with Ghastly.
    • Oh, and while not named initially, when described by his otherwise irreverent brother, the description is genuinely respectful.
    • He's also an ambidextrous sorcerer, like the rest of his family, and implicitly as powerful as his little brother, Skulduggery, being capable of Flight.
  • Not So Above It All: He shares his brother's proclivity for Malicious Misnaming when it comes to adults who annoy him, e.g. Duenna.
  • Red Mage: He's an ambidextrous sorcerer, like the rest of his family. It's unclear what his other discipline is, but he's an Elemental capable of flight.
  • Sadist Teacher: According to Omen. This turns out to be a little exaggerated - while he does have something against Omen specifically, it's impatience with his refusal to live up to his potential.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Of all the candidates to be Skulduggery's brother, he is the absolute least likely.
  • Stern Teacher: While Omen sees him as a Sadist Teacher, he comes off as more this trope, being sternest with those that he does not believe are living up to their potential. In Omen's case, because he's a self-deprecating daydreaming slacker with vast unrealised potential (who became so because he's Overshadowed by Awesome and realised that hard work wouldn't get his parents to give him the time of day, let alone love him), and to an extent with Valkyrie. While she's not his student, he knows very well who she is, and likely that she's done the bare minimum in respect to training her vast post-Surge power set (though in her case, that's a wariness of what might happen if others try to replicate it).

    Miss Wicked 

Psychic teacher at Corrival academy. Ex-girlfriend of Militsa. Hasn't moved on.



  • Astral Projection: She tells Omen's class that she plans to teach it later in the year.
  • Badass Teacher: She saves Omen from being choked to death.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Squares up to Valkyrie telling her she intends to steal her girlfriend.
  • Dirty Mind-Reading: She quite bluntly informs her class that they need to clean up their minds. Omen, who has a bit of a crush on her, ends up in a panicked spiral of dirty thoughts starring her, with his frantic attempts to suppress them spawning more. Auger, who's reading his mind as part of an experiment in Twin Telepathy, finds it hilarious. Miss Wicked is less impressed. Omen, meanwhile, finds it mortifying.
  • Expy: Extremely attractive badass blonde telepath with an icy demeanour, who's in a Love Triangle with a brunette and a redhead? She's basically Emma Frost if she was into women (and dressed even remotely appropriately for a school environment).
  • Hot Teacher: According to Omen.
  • Non-Indicative Name: She is actually quite nice.
  • Psychic Powers: She's a powerful Sensitive, with Telepathy (including mind-reading and outright Mind Control) and Astral Projection in her repertoire - and going by implications of what else she's going to teach, telekinesis and pyrokinesis are also there.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Is said to be a very tall woman.
  • Telepathy: She can read the minds of and control her students.

    Mr. Chicane 

The Dead Men

    Dexter Vex 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dextervex_6343.jpg

    Saracen Rue 

  • Author Avatar: Derek Landy has confirmed via Q&A at a book signing that Saracen Rue would be his taken name. His power of "knowing things" is him simply knowing what's coming up next in the book at convenient times seeing as he's the author.
  • The Casanova: Despite being a little out of shape, he's been around the block a few times.
  • Drama Queen: Downplayed, but it is considered notable when he's not the first one to complain about something.
  • Killed Off for Real: In Seasons of War, after becoming a Zombie Infectee and being given a Mercy Kill by Skulduggery and Dexter.
  • Power Perversion Potential: He chose the discipline of X-ray vision so he could see through peoples' clothes. As he observes somewhat sourly, it was much less fun in practice as everyone's bodies are weirdly compressed by clothing.
  • Psychic Powers: Apparently not, but he "knows things". Only Ravel knows what exactly his power is. In fact, he secretly poisoned Saracen to persuade him to confess and potentially prevent him from blowing the lid off of his plans, before stopping when he found out what it was. It's eventually revealed that his real power is X-Ray Vision.
  • Really Gets Around:
    Saracen: Remember the psycho sisters? What were their names? [...]
    Shudder: Did you seduce them too?
    Saracen: No! Well, not at the same time...
  • Whatevermancy: His magical discipline is X-Ray Vision. A mage who can do this is called a Lynceus.
  • X-Ray Vision: What his discipline is revealed to be.
  • Zombie Infectee: He is bitten by draugar in Seasons of War and his only hope of recovery - Valkyrie - doesn't catch up with him in time to save him.

    Leibniz Universe Nefarian Serpine 
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Nefarian Serpine's counterpart from the Leibniz Universe who snuck over to Skulduggery's one hidden amongst mortal refugees. He accompanies the Dead Men back to his own universe to lead them to Mevolent.

  • An Arm and a Leg: Skulduggery sacrifices his Red Right Hand to some necromancers in exchange for their lives. The book ends with Valkyrie trying to grow him a new one. She eventually succeeds, but not before accidentally creating one that turns into another Serpine.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: He is legitimately offended when Skulduggery and Valkyrie describe his main-earth counterpart as Evil!Serpine.
  • Deadpan Snarker: At the expense of everyone around him, mostly because he's not remotely bothered with pretending that he isn't evil.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Is annoyed at having to be in hiding after it was him who closed the portals to the Leibniz Universe.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: After spending almost a year together stuck in the Leibniz dimension, Serpine and the Dead Men (particularly Valkyrie) become friends... sort of. He's still Serpine, but Tanith expresses concern when they have to cut his hand off, and Valkyrie tries to grow him a new one.
  • Hand Blast: With his Restraining Bolt he's stuck to using his original Energy Thrower discipline.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Much though he likes to insist otherwise, he slowly starts becoming a genuinely decent person. His main universe counterpart body-jacks him and remarks that he finds it disgusting.
  • Laughably Evil: While his counterpart was a sadistic Knight of Cerebus, this Serpine is a bit more snarky, comical, and prone to humiliation.
  • Power Limiter: His allies force him to wear a metal glove preventing him from using his Red Right Hand.
  • Punch-Clock Hero: Is only helping the others take down Mevolent so he can get amnesty and a house. He gets somewhat more altruistic is time goes by, but not much.
  • Red Right Hand: Like his counterpart, he has a literal red right hand that causes death to anyone he points at. Since no one trusts him he's forced to cover it up most of the time, and eventually loses it to some Necromancers.
  • The Resistance: Took over the resistance against Mevolent in his own universe. After killing their previous leader, of course.
  • Restraining Bolt: As none of the Dead Men trust him, and rightfully so, Skulduggery has a magic stone that makes Serpine lose control of his nervous system when he presses it against a rune.
  • The Starscream: He's introduced as a "guest" of the resistance, having gone on the run after trying to overthrow Mevolent. He later successfully kills his world's China and takes over the resistance.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The other Dead Men despise him and want to kill him, to an almost laughable degree. They eventually warm up to him (as much as one can) after spending almost a year together.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: China ordered Skulduggery to kill him after their mission was done, though fortunately for him Skulduggery didn't comply.

Major Villains

    Nefarian Serpine 
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A former general of the sorcerer Mevolent, responsible for the deaths of Skulduggery Pleasant's wife and child, as well as Skulduggery himself. The Big Bad of the first book in the series, who tries to bring back the Faceless Ones by obtaining the Book of Names.
  • And Your Little Dog, Too!: His go-to operandi when dealing with Skulduggery is to kill someone he loves so that his rage will prevent him from thinking. He managed to kill him in the first place by murdering his family, and tries to do it again with Valkyrie.
  • Arch-Enemy: While he dies in the first book, he easily remains Skulduggery's most hated foe for killing both him and his family.
  • Axe-Crazy: He has a disturbing knack for torture and murder, and can switch moods at a frightening pace.
  • Back from the Dead: In Until The End, having spent most of the series after his death as a lingering spirit before creating a new body for himself.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: A Victorian suit. They don't get much nicer than that!
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Initially, anyway. He not only managed to kill Skulduggery's wife and child, but Skulduggery himself. Too bad for him, Skulduggery's death had been rigged.
    • In Until The End he successfully resurrects himself by possessing his alternate counterpart's spare body and ends up framing him for a murder. Even when the truth is discovered, he gets away clean.
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: See Red Right Hand below. Not even the most extreme Anti-Hero could pull that off...
  • Big Bad: The main antagonist of the first book, and Skulduggery's Arch-Enemy.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Quite proudly describes himself as the villain to Skulduggery’s hero while reintroducing himself to him in Until The End.
  • Co-Dragons: Was one of Mevolent's Three Generals alongside Lord Vile and Vengeous, and the main one of the the three, Vile being an Omnicidal Maniac and Vengeous being a religious zealot.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: One of his personal favorite pastimes, apparently.
  • Complexity Addiction: He has "too many plans" according to Skulduggery. This is Lampshaded by Eliza Scorn in Death Bringer when she points out that the way he killed Skulduggery and his family was needlessly complicated.
  • The Dragon: While he technically shared the role with Vengeous and Vile, Nefarian was unquestionably considered as Mevolent's second-in-command. This might have been because Vengeous was a zealot and Vile was solely concerned with killing as many people as possible.
  • Dragon Ascendant: With Mevolent dead, Vengeous imprisoned, and Vile missing, Serpine is effectively the face of the worshippers of the Faceless Ones at the start of the story.
  • Evil Gloating: You can totally tell that his conversations with Skulduggery are the most fun he's had in years.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Lampshaded.
    Nefarian: So here we are again, detective. You, at my mercy, me, merciless.
    Skulduggery: You, talking. I thought you'd have grown out of the whole villainy thing by now, Nefarian.
  • Falsely Reformed Villain: Presents himself as, at least, a Retired Monster. He's anything but.
  • Fatal Flaw: See Complexity Addiction above.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Re-read the part where he's having his little moment with Skulduggery. If it weren't for the fact that Skulduggery was chained to a chair, it almost would seem like they really are, as Skulduggery puts it, "two guys chatting."
  • The Fundamentalist: Not so much as Vengeous, but he's a fanatical believer in the Faceless Ones who seeks their return (unlike his Leibniz Universe self, who believes but isn't particularly interested in seeing them back).
  • Hero Killer: Responsible for the death of Larrikin of the Dead Men during the war, and Skulduggery himself. In the latter case, it didn't stick.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Doubles with Exact Words - by turning himself undead, the Sceptre of the Ancients (which cannot be used unless the last owner is dead) will respond to him, and anyone else who uses it, and Skulduggery is able to use it to kill him .
  • I Shall Taunt You: One alternate timeline version does this to Skulduggery in 1703 in Hell Breaks Loose. Cue the first sight of Lord Vile, who promptly impales and dismembers Serpine.
  • Karma Houdini: After seemingly getting his well-deserved death at the end of the first book, his spirit manages to possess the spare body of his alternate counterpart and escapes with the promise of terrorizing Skulduggery once again.
  • Killed Off for Real: By Skulduggery, using the Sceptre of the Ancients. It doesn’t stick.
  • Meaningful Name: "Nefarian" comes from "nefarious" (ie. "evil"), while "serpine" comes from "serpent" - suitable for a snakelike villain.
  • Our Liches Are Different: While making himself undead doesn't seem to affect his magic he becomes impervious to harm and immune to pain. Aside from that he's no different than a usual sorcerer. It backfires when it turns out that being technically dead means that the Sceptre hasn't truly bonded with him.
  • Psycho Supporter: Pre- first book to Mevolent, who is fairly Affably Evil as these things go. Serpine, meanwhile, is a total sadist and a gleeful monster.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Like the vast majority of sorcerers, he's centuries old, being at least as old as Skuldugerry.
  • Red Right Hand: Literally, his right hand is bloody and skinless. It's apparently a Necromancy technique, and allows him to inflect "agonizing death" on any he points at. As it turns out, High Priest Tenebrae taught him, but tweaked it so that if he ever used it on Skulduggery, he wouldn't stay dead. This wasn't to any benevolent purpose - Tenebrae was mostly just curious to see if it would work.
  • Would Hurt a Child: He was perfectly willing to kill Valkyrie to get to Skulduggery, even though she was twelve when they met. Not to mention what he did to Skulduggery's child in the backstory...
  • Wound That Will Not Heal: The scars from his straight-razor never fade.

    The Faceless Ones 

A race of formless beings who enslaved humanity thousands of years ago, ruling over them as gods. They were sealed away into another dimension by the Ancients.


  • Always Chaotic Evil: No Faceless One shown so far has displayed anything resembling redeeming qualities, gathering a reputation as barbaric monsters. While their descendants receive some depth and sympathy, they're generally still depicted as evil once they embrace their heritage (which mostly involves brainwashing them).
  • Arc Villains:
    • The first three books of the series consist of the Faceless Ones' cultists trying to bring them back to Earth. While they and their cultists are still prominent parts of the setting, later books put more focus on different, more immediate threats.
    • They seem to be set up as this for the fifth trilogy as well. Their greatest worshipper, Mevolent, finally becomes the Big Bad and launches an invasion of the normal universe in Seasons of War, and Damocles Creed successfully activates the Child of the Faceless Ones in Dead or Alive.
  • Back for the Finale: After being sidelined for most of Phase One by Darquesse, they return in The Dying of the Light as she's tricked into entering their dimension.
  • Body Horror: Those that are possessed by the Faceless Ones have their faces melted off.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Inflicted on Skulduggery after he's dragged into their reality at the end of The Faceless Ones.
  • Demonic Possession: When Finbar tries to find the Diablerie's portal, the Faceless Ones briefly possess him to give an ominous warning about how they cannot be stopped.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: They’re ultimately defeated by Obsidian about two thirds into Until The End, leaving him and Crepuscular as the main antagonists for the remainder of the book.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Faceless Ones are incomprehensible monstrosities that melt the faces off of people when they possess them, and to look upon their true form means going insane.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: They're the Faceless Ones. So, naturally, the faces of the people they are possessing melt off.
  • Final Boss: Three are summoned to Earth at the end of, well, The Faceless Ones, possessing the Diablerie. They seem to be set up as this for Phase Two as well, given the end of Dead or Alive.
  • For the Evulz: The Faceless Ones are given no reason for their evil, they simply want to destroy and conquer.
  • Giant Spider: One of the ones Sebastian finds has car-sized spiders crawling over it.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Upon catching a mere glimpse of one, Valkyrie reasons that one would go insane upon looking at them for too long. She's soon proven right, as after Crux sees one he goes completely insane. The Eliza Scorn from the Leibniz universe also loses it upon seeing one, becoming even more fanatical than usual.
  • God Is Evil: The Faceless Ones are the closest thing to an all-powerful creator in the series (before the introduction of their precursors in the Grimoire), and are most decisively not good.
  • God of Evil: They regularly commit genocide and enslave races, with even other races of Gods fearing their brutality.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: They serve as this for the first three books of Phase One, as each of the main villains in these books are trying to bring them back—though the Faceless Ones themselves never get directly involved, at least until the end of their titular book. While they gradually get shunted aside to make way for Darquesse, their worshippers are still big players, and they seem to be making a comeback as the main antagonists of Phase Two through Damocles Creed.
  • The Grotesque: The aptly named Grotesquery is made, in part, of a human-form Faceless One.
  • Humanoid Abomination: When they possess humans, their hosts' faces melt off and become little more than puppets for their immense power. There's also the Child of the Faceless Ones, who upon being activated develop an intense fanatacism for the gods and are able to summon them.
  • Hydra Problem: Darquesse tears the head off one of them, which immediately starts to grow back. The head also starts to grow a new body, until she hurls it into the distance.
  • Kill the God:
    • The Sceptre of the Ancients is so far the only weapon that's ever managed to kill some of them, which the Ancients used to drive them away in the first place. Valkyrie uses it to kill two more.
    • The Faceless Ones themselves apparently managed to wipe out all but a few of their rival gods, with only the three Apocalypse Kings and the Viddu De known to have survived.
  • Mind Rape: Besides the time they possessed Finbar, when a Child of the Faceless Ones is activated they apparently gain a fanatic reverence for the gods, as shown with Malice and Valkyrie.
  • Multiversal Conquerors: The Faceless Ones have taken over entire universes in their attempts to return to their home world, and are apparently running out of worlds to conquer by the time of Dark Days..
  • Omnicidal Maniac: They've slaughtered entire universes in their quest to return to their homeland, and while Dead or Alive shows they're willing to allow their worshippers to live they'll gladly help enslave the rest of the populace.
  • Possession Burnout: Their hosts usually die after their possessors change hosts.
  • Religion of Evil: While they've long been gone, many sorcerers still reverently worship them, and enforce what they see as the Faceless Ones' will of sorcerer supremacy.
  • Transformation of the Possessed: Let's just say that the effects of their Demonic Possession is....noticeable.
    • Bedlam reveals that they slightly change the DNA of people they possess and leave, which is then passed on if they depart before someone's face melted. Now one in seven people on Earth have Faceless One DNA.
  • You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Described as "impossibility made manifest, the formless given form." Looking upon them will drive one insane. Unless you're a Child of the Faceless Ones, though if you are, you're pretty nuts anyway.

    Lord Vile 

The last of Mevolent's three generals to appear, the most powerful, and by far the most feared. A feared Necromancer of peerless power, he held all of his magic in his suit of armour, which is eventually found by Baron Vengeous. Vile's own whereabouts are a long-running mystery. Until it turns out he was right under everyone's nose: he's really Skulduggery Pleasant, whose rage after his family's death led to him becoming a Necromancer after being resurrected as a skeleton.


  • Adaptive Armor: It changes shape at his will. He's used this to chop people's hands off.
  • Alternate Self:
    • Another Lord Vile is still active in the Leibniz Universe. Then, Valkyrie vaporises him with the Sceptre of the Ancients at the end of Seasons of War.
    • Vile manifests early in one other timeline in Hell Breaks Loose, but is presumably erased along with the rest of the timeline.
  • Always a Bigger Fish: The Leibniz Universe version is this to the main version, as he's been Vile for centuries, as opposed to just a few years before snapping out of it.
  • Animated Armor: When he reappears, thanks to Skulduggery getting a bit too close to it while his subconscious was a tad unhinged. It takes a sorcerer of Melancholia's power to fight it off. When the real Vile is inside it, the only sorcerers in the series who we know can stand up to him are Darquesse and Mevolent.
  • Arc Villain: Of the second trilogy of books. While the more immediate threat is the Necromancers and their attempts at initiating the Passage with the Death Bringer, the possibility of Vile returning for his revenge is mentioned and built up from the very start. The Necromancer order themselves are Big Bad Wannabes and quickly lose control of Melancholia, who proves to be a much weaker fighter as Vile becomes the Final Boss of the trilogy.
  • Axe-Crazy: In a very calm, methodical way - he's out to kill everyone. The entire universe, in fact, going by Dead or Alive. It's notable that when a future version of Skulduggery remembers everything from that time, he becomes the similarly nuts Cadaver Cain.
  • Back from the Dead: Well, technically. He was never exactly alive to begin with.
  • Beware the Quiet Ones: Vile says very little, to the point of almost being The Voiceless - only his very brief conversation with Skulduggery and a passing thought by Baron Vengeous confirms that he ever spoke at all. It's one of the many things that makes him profoundly unsettling.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: With Melancholia in Death Bringer. While Melancholia is more actively dangerous to the world at large, the threat of Vile remains a constant background worry. Vile winds up as the Final Boss, with the climax mostly consisting of Valkyrie trying to stop him from killing a depowered Melancholia and get Skulduggery back in control.
  • Black Knight: Vile is always wrapped in his black armor, giving off the appearance of a knight.
  • Blood Knight: He doesn't fight for any particular cause; he just wants to cause as much bloodshed as he possibly can, to the point where he turned off his Combat Clairvoyance because it made things too easy.
  • Breakout Villain: Upon his introduction, Vile quickly became one of the most popular characters in the series for his sheer badassery and nature as Skulduggery's Superpowered Evil Side. Possibly as a response to this, Phase Two of the series heavily increases his impact on lore through the introduction of Abyssinia, his Leibniz universe counterpart once again becoming Death Bringer, and the reveal of his deal with the Viddu De making him the Greater-Scope Villain in Dead or Alive.
  • Casting a Shadow: Like all necromancers, and like everything else about him, it's dialled up to eleven. For instance, Leibniz Vile creates living shield of his screaming victims with shadow Combat Tentacles.
  • Co-Dragons: With Serpine and Vengeous to Mevolent.
  • Combat Clairvoyance: Was unbeatable in a fight due to his ability to see possible futures - though apparently he stopped doing this fairly quickly because he found it boring. He erased his own memory to stop being able to see the future when he became Skulduggery.
  • Combat Pragmatist: He can make a show of things, but he mostly just defaults to the most brutally effective means of killing someone. As a result of this, his skill, and his vast raw power, he's the only one consistently able to give Darquesse a fight, and Argeddion outright admits that despite his own incalculable power, Vile's strength and killer instinct would be enough to take him.
  • Deceptive Disciple: Towards the Necromancers. He went to them for power, but had no interest in being the Death Bringer - and, indeed, planned to kill any candidate. Why? Because the Death Bringer was supposed to end death and Vile wants to kill everyone. The Leibniz version, by contrast, embraced it with his own unique spin. He created a variant on the zombie virus, infected all the necromancers, and created Zombie Apocalypse with every intention of doing it to the entire multiverse.
  • Dimensional Traveller: The necromancers had him exploring dead dimensions in a necronaut suit.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Mevolent wanted to bring back the Faceless Ones because he worshipped them. Lord Vile wanted to bring back the Faceless Ones so he could kill a god.
  • The Dreaded: The most feared man during the war, perhaps even more so than Mevolent, casting a long shadow over the story centuries later. He was the only one the Dead Men feared after he spent one of their missions toying with them in the most horrifying way possible for a fortnight. The mere idea of his return has powerful sorcerers shaking, the mere sight of him breaks Skulduggery, and his every appearance entirely justifies this fear.
  • Eviler than Thou: Pulls this on Melancholia on his return, effortlessly demoting her to Big Bad Wannabe and a semi-sympathetic victim. The Leibniz version also pulls this on Mevolent - all he wanted to do was conquer mortals and rule, and he's pretty Affably Evil. Vile is a would-be Multiversal Conqueror and Omnicidal Maniac.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Honestly, in terms of ultimate ambitions, he's arguably even worse than the Faceless Ones. On the other hand, he isn't particularly inclined towards sadism... usually. When he is, like everything else about him, it is utterly horrifying.
  • Face–Heel Turn:
    • He's the Superpowered Evil Side of Skulduggery Pleasant, who snapped after all that had happened to him - though as even he admitted, Abyssinia gave him a hearty shove over the edge.
    • Hell Breaks Loose shows that in another timeline, he didn't necessarily need Abyssinia to do it, though some extremely strained circumstances involving Serpine did the job instead.
  • Face Stealer: Alternate Lord Vile does this in The Dying of the Light. China Sorrows isn't around to make him a pretty façade so he cuts off some guys face. It looks like he's smiling.
  • Fallen Hero: When Skulduggery confronts Leibniz Vile, he accuses him of giving into his rage instead of fighting and becoming a better person, something Skulduggery managed to do in his own timeline. Cue Leibniz Vile attempting to murder him horribly.
  • Fighting a Shadow: His appearances from his return up until Death Bringer mix this with Actually a Doombot - it's simply the reanimated armour powered by what is essentially Vile's ghost, a.k.a. Skulduggery's somewhat unhinged subconscious. He still casually slaughters Tesseract, effortlessly beats the crap out of Skulduggery, and scares Melancholia witless until she realises how powerful she is. When Vile himself is in the armour, Darquesse is the only living sorcerer who even has a hope of fighting him. As Vile himself puts it...
    Skulduggery: That is not Lord Vile. [armours up] This is Lord Vile.
  • Flying Brick: He hits like a truck, he's incredibly durable, and unlike other Necromancers, he can fly, fast, with Darquesse comparing him to a bullet.
  • From a Single Cell: Hell Breaks Loose reveals that he's capable of this, right from the start, and pretty much on instinct - he gets disintegrated and re-forms himself as a shadow construct.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: He's at least partially the result of Auron Tenebrae's Gambit Roulette and experiment, which he gloats about. Given Vile's general temperament, this probably means it's a good thing that Melancholia killed he first.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: His deal with the Viddu De allowed him to see every possible future, which he used to manipulate events so that his future self could be given the chance to kill everyone.
  • The Heavy: He was Mevolent's most feared commander and enforcer in the backstory, and in the Leibniz universe he remains this - and in both cases, mixes it with Dragon with an Agenda.
  • Hero Killer: The most notorious in-universe example (even more so than Mevolent).
  • Implacable Man: Vile is ruthless, methodical, and he does. Not. Stop.
  • Instant Expert: Zig-Zagged. He's a Necromancy prodigy and he absorbed the advanced lessons at a terrifying rate. However, it's revealed in Hell Breaks Loose that he studied necromancy when he was young, and kept his hand in over the years, just in case. On the other hand, he never noticeably used it in a fight before becoming Vile, and even without extra study, Hell Breaks Loose shows him to be all but unstoppable, immediately figuring out a) how to fly, b) to reassemble himself as a shadow construct, entirely on instinct.
  • The Last Man Heard a Knock...: How he first met the Viddu De. He was enjoying the fact he was the only living creature in a dead dimension until he realized he was being watched.
  • Magic Knight: A Black Knight variant, who's just as comfortably conducting shadows like an orchestra to slice you into tiny pieces, or snapping your neck, or beating you to death with his bare hands.
  • Meaningful Name: Vile is a completely remorseless and unstoppably powerful mass-murderer, making his appellation entirely suitable. Notably, it also contrasts with his previous taken name - "Pleasant".
  • Memetic Badass: Described by Ghastly as one In-Universe, remarking that at times it's hard to separate the fact from the fiend. Everyone was scared to fight him, and SOP when fighting him was to get an army and hope someone got lucky. He more or less lives up to his reputation - he's quite literally the only person who's even remotely a match for Darquesse in a straight fight.
  • Memory Gambit: He erased his own memory so Skulduggery won't remember his deal to help the Viddu De wipe out all life in the universe.
  • Menacing Stroll: While capable of moving incredibly fast, Vile tends to move at a steady, implacable, and unhurried pace, carving his way through anything in his way.
  • Mirror Match: The main Vile and Leibniz Vile go to war in Seasons of War. Given that the latter has been Vile for centuries, and is supercharged by a Zombie Apocalypse, the result is a brutal Curbstomp Battle and Leibniz Vile absorbs main Vile's armour. It's unclear whether the main Vile still exists afterwards.
  • More Despicable Minion: Even after the war, Mevolent still has those who see him as their messiah, and even Serpine has supporters he can call upon. Ditto Vengeous. No one, however, even remotely wants to witness the return of Lord Vile. For one thing, as the Leibniz universe shows, as awful a tyrant as Mevolent can be, he's genuinely Affably Evil. Vile, by contrast, is a coldly understated and downright inhuman Omnicidal Maniac.
  • Mysterious Past: In-Universe, the number of people who know who he really is and where he really came from can be counted on both hands with finges to spare. As Ghastly puts it bluntly, he popped up out of nowhere, became the most feared man in the war and one of Mevolent's Generals, then vanished, all in the space of five years. A little less mysterious as of Death Bringer, though bits are still being unfolded right up to the penultimate book, Dead or Alive, and the prequel, Hell Breaks Loose, which reveals that Skulduggery always knew about his talent for necromancy, experimented with it as a young man, and while he technically set it aside, kept up with it enough that it remained an option.
  • Neck Snap: When faced with some of the monsters in the caves under Gordon's house, which are immune to magic, he still disposes of them comfortably, pulling this on one of them. As Valkyrie's narration puts it...
    Lord Vile had hundreds of ways to take a life.
  • Necromancer: Barring Darquesse - who is only very technically a necromancer - he's the single most powerful one in the series. It took a constantly looped Surge to get the Deathbringer even close to his level, and a) her powers are completely unstable, b) she is not even remotely a match for him in a fight. It's very strongly implied that Valkyrie could have done it, as her development was tracking with his, despite being pre-Surge, plus his experience, genius intellect, and being dead, but Darquesse forced her to pull a Discard and Draw. The Leibniz version is even more powerful, brutally curbstomping his main counterpart simply because that Vile had only been Vile for a few years - the Leibniz version had been Vile for centuries (though being powered up by a Zombie Apocalypse probably helped).
  • Not in This for Your Revolution: Villainous example. Mevolent, Serpine and Vengenous wanted to return their Gods to the world. Vile just wanted to make the world pay - he didn't even really believe in the Faceless Ones, though he was perfectly fine with them returning, as he was up for killing them too. And going by Dead or Alive, the world is just where he'd have started - he was planning to wipe out the universe.
  • Oh, Crap!: The response to his return, or, indeed, any appearance of him is for practically everyone to spontaneously crap themselves. It is shown to be entirely justified each time, and in one alternate timeline in Hell Breaks Loose, his early manifestation draws this from Valkyrie, of all people, who's one of the few to have faced Vile and lived (even killing one version).
  • Omnicidal Maniac: He would have been all good with Mevolent bringing back the Faceless Ones because it meant that he had something else to kill. As Dead or Alive reveals, his long term plan was to work with the Viddu De to wipe out the entire universe. The Leibniz version was planning to go multiversal..
  • One-Man Army: He's capable of carving through entire armies of powerful sorcerers with little effort, to the point where it's an open question in the Leibniz universe whether he or Mevolent is the more powerful.
    Ghastly: We had a rule back in the day. You never went up against Lord Vile alone. You waited till there was an army at your back and hoped one of you got lucky.
  • Our Liches Are Different: They wear magic armor and are seemingly driven by rage. Oh, and pretty much nothing short of a God-Killer has a prayer of putting them down for good.
  • Powered Armour: He's already physically strong, but the armour magnifies his strength significantly.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Outside of Darquesse, Argeddion, and possibly Mevolent, he's the single most powerful sorcerer in the series - by his own account, he absorbed enough power from the death in the Mevolent War that he could have cracked the Earth wide open. Even without that boost, he's capable of fighting Darquesse to a standstill, Argeddion freely admits that his power and killer instinct combined with Argeddion's own pacifism mean that Vile is one of the few people who could kill him, Leibniz Vile outright kills Mevolent (it doesn't stick), and he tears straight through everyone else.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: He's an Omnicidal Maniac, but he has absolutely no problem cooperating with others to eliminate a mutual threat, as Kitana's gang and Darquesse both found out.
  • Quizzical Tilt: A trait he shares with Skulduggery. Used hilariously in Kingdom of the Wicked, where he sees Skulduggery and looks baffled for a moment as Skulduggery waves.
  • Run or Die: The general plan of attack when facing Lord Vile. As Ghastly put it, you got an army, then hoped one of you got lucky.
  • Silent Antagonist: While he did apparently talk occasionally back in the day, with Vengeous' inner monologue noting that wearing the armour even makes him sound like Vile, he has only ever said four words in the entire series. "Valkyrie" and "Let her out." It's also unclear which personality was in charge when he said that, so Vile may not have said anything. He also whispers to Skulduggery at the end of Mortal Coil, informing him that he was going to kill the Death Bringer as soon as he was strong enough, but technically no one was in the armor..
  • Spikes of Villainy: His armour develops spikes, though mostly as a practical defensive measure if anyone tries to grapple with him - or as a sign that he is particularly pissed off.
  • Split Personality: He's this to Skulduggery, and very hard to control.
  • Squishy Wizard: One of the major aversions, and unlike Mister Bliss, it's not his whole discipline. This, and experience, are part of what separate him from Melancholia and allow him to brawl with Darquesse on her level.
  • Strong and Skilled: He's perhaps the most powerful necromancer in history - Valkyrie never chose to become a full Necromancer, and the other Death Bringer ( Melancholia) is artificially boosted, unstable, and not even close to a match for him. Even as a simple Animated Armour he casually disposes of the practically unstoppable assassin, Tesseract. When Skulduggery is in the armour, he can go through everyone short of Darquesse like wet paper, with Argeddion admitting that partly thanks to his own pacifism Vile could very well kill him, and even against Darquesse (who has no such compunctions), his skill makes up the power gap.
  • Suddenly Voiced: He doesn't say a word for most of the series, until...
    "Valkyrie," Lord Vile said. His voice was a whisper.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: He's Skulduggery's, and a very hard to control one at that, which is why he's essentially the Godzilla Threshold.
  • Technician Versus Performer: This really shows up when he's facing the likes of Melancholia, Darquesse, or Kitana and her gang post Accelerator boost, who are on his level or beyond it. They have all the vast box of tricks or flashy moves, whereas he simply makes the most ruthlessly pragmatic move possible with maximum efficiency, frightening or whittling away at them.
  • Teleport Spam: He rarely needs to do this, but when he feels like it he can demonstrate just how dangerous shadow-walking can really be.
  • Tin Tyrant: In his signature armour.
  • Touched by Vorlons: He got his ability to see the future after meeting a race of Eldritch Abominations called the Viddu De. However, he never really used it much, with an amused Cadaver describing Vile as "arrogance personified."
  • Tragic Villain: The sequence of events that turned him from Skulduggery into Lord Vile in the first place would have broken more or less anyone.
  • Tranquil Fury: He exists in a permanent state of this. He speaks twice in the entire series, and only in one case is it really him speaking. He never shows any signs of anger, or makes any real sound at all, at a contrast to the very chatty protagonists.
  • Uncertain Doom: In-Universe, his fate is one of the great unknowns of the war - Skulduggery states that he died alone, Vengeous finds his fully charged armour buried under a mountain, but the necromancers are terrified that he's alive, in hiding, and prepared to take his revenge. When fighting his alternate self in Seasons of War, the Leibniz Vile manages to absorb the normal Vile's armor before being disintegrated by the Scepter of the Ancients. Whether this means the prime Vile personality is also dead has yet to be acknowledged.
  • The Unsolved Mystery: Who he was, where he came from, and what happened to him. Both of Mevolent's other Generals are accounted for, as is pretty much every major figure... except for Vile, the single most feared individual in the entire war. It's hinted as early as the second book that he might not be dead, given that his armour is still fully functional, and Solomon Wreath very much suspects (correctly) that he is a) alive, b) going to come back to kill the Death Bringer. The Reveal confirms this as he's Skulduggery, but In-Universe only Tenebrae, Valkyrie, Darquesse, Melancholia, Argeddion, China (who figured it out when Skulduggery was forced to resort to necromancy to beat the Black Cleaver), Abyssinia, and Tanith (who sees Vile transform) are confirmed to know.
  • Unstoppable Rage: In a very calm, very methodical way, this is exactly what makes him so dangerous, as he exists in a constant state of Tranquil Fury.
  • Villainous Rescue: He stops Melancholia when she's gone full Death Bringer in the titular book.
  • The Voiceless: He doesn't say much. The only thing that Lord Vile said in Death Bringer was "Valkyrie" and "Let her out", before Skulduggery properly reasserts himself. Which was... strangely heartwarming.
  • Walking Spoiler: It's really hard to talk about his role in Death Bringer without giving away a huge chunk of the plot. And that's not even counting his reappearances in later books due to the Godzilla Threshold being crossed.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Has no qualms whatsoever about beating Darquesse, Melancholia or Kitana into a bloody pulp.

    Leibniz Universe Mevolent 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mevolent_character_card.jpg
"I've never eaten a newborn that didn't have it coming."
The very same sorcerer who tried to conquer the world centuries ago, albeit a version from a timeline in which he succeeded. An Elemental sorcerer of incredible power and skill, and follower of the Faceless Ones.
  • Actually A Doom Bot: Valkyrie manages to kill him but it turns out to be a reflection.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: When Valkyrie asks him if they can hug after she asks if they could have been friends in another life, he points out with some amusement that he can see the knife she's holding, and cracks up when she asks him for a hug anyway.
  • Affably Evil: Surprisingly enough, while he's most definitely a genocidal warlord, he's nothing but polite to his enemies. When it looks like he's about to win, he softly congratulates Valkyrie over the fight she put up, helps her to her feet so she can Face Death with Dignity and promises to allow her family to see her face again once she's dead. Later, he is genuinely impressed by her magic, and has a fairly pleasant psychic conversation with her.
  • Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: He managed to take over the world when the main universe Mevolent was killed.
  • Apologetic Attacker: He tacitly apologises to Valkyrie for the fact that he has to kill her in Seasons of War, and you get the impression that he means it - he genuinely seems to like her and certainly admires her, he just recognises that she's just too powerful and dangerous to let live.
  • The Arch Mage: Darquesse says he's the third most powerful mage she's ever seen after Argeddion and herself. And unlike either of them, he hasn't unlocked his True Name.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: The ruler of his universe and one of the strongest characters in the series.
  • Axe-Crazy: Even Darquesse seems kind of shocked at how violent he is.
  • Big Bad: After sharing the role in Kingdom of the Wicked, he ascends to full Big Bad status in Seasons of War as the Dead Men are sent to assassinate him.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: While he poses a far greater threat than Argeddion in Kingdom of the Wicked, the fact that he's stuck in another universe means he has to share the spotlight. He also receives a bit of competition from the King of the Darklands and his universe's Vile in Seasons of War.
  • BFS: Is stated to be as long as Darquesse is tall from head to toe and it even looks big in his hands which is saying something since he's around 8 feet tall.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Knows he can't take Darquesse in a straight fight. So he hits her with a Power Nullifier and damn near kills her, forcing to cut and run. Likewise, in Phase II he suspects that Valkyrie is too dangerous to be sure of beating one on one, so he lures her into a trap, tacitly apologising by explaining that he is "old and patient".
  • Dimension Lord: He controls his universe's version of Earth.
  • Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: He ends up getting with the Serafina from Skulduggery's world, who died in his universe.
  • The Dreaded: He is Lord Vile's boss for a reason.
  • Due to the Dead: After he beats her, he willingly acquiesces to Valkyrie's requests to allow her to die on her feet and to leave her face undamaged so her family can see her one last time. Thankfully, he's then distracted by the King of the Darklands.
  • Eats Babies: ... Possibly? In response to rumors that he eats babies, Mevolent simply states that he's never eaten a baby that hadn't had it coming. Whether this was a jest or not isn't made clear.
  • Elemental Powers: Possibly the most powerful elemental of all time.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Serafina, to the point he was willing to be sealed in the Eternity Gate if it saved her life.
  • Evil Is Bigger: He towers over everyone at around 8 foot.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is described as deep but flat and generally unimpressive.
  • Friendly Enemy: In Seasons of War, when it looks like his victory is assured, he and Valkyrie have a surprisingly pleasant chat. They wonder whether they could have been friends under different circumstances, he helps her to her feet so she can Face Death with Dignity, and he's prepared to honor her request to not destroy her face so her family can see her again. When they talk again later, it's similarly pleasant, and he expresses open admiration of her gifts.
  • Flight: Presumably by controlling wind like Skulduggery does.
  • Flying Brick: Has the flight, the strength and invincibility.
  • Graceful Loser: He folds when Serafina is dying, consenting to be sealed in the Eternity Gate, and politely thanking Destrier for doing so.
  • A Lighter Shade of Black: In his universe, he killed most of the mortals and enslaved the rest. His brother-in-law, Damocles Creed, denounced him for going too soft, and in the Bad Future where Creed won mortals are no better than cattle for the Faceless Ones' pets.
  • The Lost Lenore: His world's Serafina Dey is long-dead, and part of his motivation for invading the prime universe is to unite with their world's still-alive version of her.
  • Meaningful Name: "Mevolent" is clearly derived from "malevolent", meaning "evil" or "sinister".
  • Memetic Badass: In-Universe. People claim he's 10 foot tall, has dragon wings and eats babies. In truth he's only 8 foot tall, he does not have dragon wings and in his own words "only eats babies that had it coming".
  • Multiversal Conqueror: His new goal is to conquer Skulduggery's universe, then the rest of The multiverse.
  • Never Found the Body: Turns out it was smuggled to Skulduggery's universe to be resurrected by Serafina.
  • Nonchalant Dodge: When two assassins come for him with a sword and an axe, he casually dodges every hit.
  • No-Nonsense Nemesis: When it comes to fights, he doesn't mess around, dismantling his opponents with brutal efficiency. He also has no compunction about using misdirection and tactics. That, his raw power, and preparation with the magic-sucker are how he very nearly kills Darquesse.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: We're talking about someone who can go one-on-one with Darquesse - even if he needs a Power Nullifier for the second round, he's formidable as hell.
  • Resurrective Immortality: Puts himself through a daily ritual of being killed and coming back to life, supposedly to teach death that he is its master. His followers in the prime dimension use this to bring him back after he's killed by Lord Vile.
  • The Starscream: He's implied to have killed The King of The Darklands in his universe like the one in the main universe tried to do.
  • Super-Strength: Can punch The King Of The Darklands halfway across Roarhaven.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Derek Landy joked that his second favourite song is "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" from Frozen (2013).
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Ends up being trapped in the Eternity Gate with a dying Serafina.
  • They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: He's eight foot tall and slightly yellow tinged, but other than that Valkyrie is taken aback out how normal he seems.
  • Victory Is Boring: Tells Skulduggery and Tannith that he's missed having enemies until they came along.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • Darquesse outright states that she misses him due to how close he got to killing her.
    • In turn, he considers Valkyrie to be this in Phase II, owing to her raw (and unique) power and cunning, openly admiring her and freely admitting that he felt the need to resort to trickery to beat her. After doing so, he then acquiesces to her last request and ensures that she will be able to Face Death with Dignity before he's distracted by the King of the Darklands.

    Darquesse 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darquesse.jpg
A sorcerer of unstoppable power, predicted to destroy the world and lay waste to humanity. The ultimate Big Bad of Phase One of the series. She is the true name of Valkyrie Cain, and manifests as a remorseless, murderous personality that begins to wrestle control of Valkyrie's body away from her as time goes on. Then she splits off, stealing Stephanie's body. Most recently, she's decided to try understanding the world and see if it's worth saving by giving birth to herself and growing up in the care of the Plague Doctor a.k.a. Sebastian Tao.
  • A God Am I: Since she's a match for the Faceless Ones, before surpassing them entirely, it's justified.
  • All-Loving Hero: To general astonishment, she becomes this at the end of the second series, sacrificing herself to restore the universe.
  • Ax-Crazy: In a Psychopathic Woman Child sort of way, in her early appearances. Surprisingly, a long stint fighting the Faceless Ones has considerably mellowed her out.
  • The Antichrist: Complete with ominous visions of mass destruction and murder, which she more than lives up to. She ends up being the Anti Anti Christ, becoming a Messianic Archetype.
  • Arc Villain: Of the third trilogy, building up to her prophesized doomsday.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Darquesse could have done some serious damage to the Jitter Girls but didn't because she got bored. Darquesse got bored mid fight with Lord Vile and chased a helicopter. She also got distracted by her reflection in Tanith's sword. She grows out of this, with time.
  • Big Bad: The overall villain of Phase One of the series, taking center stage in The Dying of the Light.
  • Blood-Splattered Warrior: Her introduction.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Even after she mellows out, her views on morality are... odd. She doesn't take death very seriously, for instance, mostly because she sees things like consciousness as mere 'fluff' and death as simply a transformation of atoms from one quantum state to another.
  • Body Surf: Does this in order to survive as an untethered entity (a.k.a. ghost) before eventually settling down in Stephanie's body.
  • Combat Sadomasochist: Darquesse seems to enjoy having Lord Vile beat the crap out of her, though it's framed as part of her general fascination with experiences and sensations.
  • Cruel Mercy: How Darquesse deals with Ravel. Everyone agrees it's appropriate.
    Darquesse: What mercy?
  • Dark Action Girl: Even without her magic, Darquesse still has the same training Valkyrie does.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Even after being separated from Valkyrie she still has her moments.
  • Defence Mechanism Super Power/Death Activated Super Power: For Valkyrie initially. Later, she's a bit more proactive.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: With the series continuing after her defeat, she's no longer final boss of the whole series. In fact, she's the one who ultimately saves the universe, destroying it and restoring it as a it was.
  • Enemy Without: Eventually she's forced out of Valkyrie and possesses Stephanie's corpse instead.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Darquesse gets pretty pissed off with Ravel for murdering Ghastly and goes out of her way to punish him in The Dying of the Light and she eventually resurrects Ghastly as one of the 'tweaks' she makes to reality when she restores it. She's also in love with Skulduggery. This does not stop her from trying to maim/kill him, but she does feel bad afterwards. She also genuinely loves Sebastian Tao a.k.a. the Plague Doctor, her adoptive father.
  • Final Boss: She's the final boss of Dying of the Light and of Phase 1 as a whole.
  • For the Evulz: Initially. She could easily win most fights from a distance without getting her hands dirty but she enjoys pointless violence, murder and chaos. Later, she evolves past this, into being more indifferent to life and death. It is far, far more disturbing.
  • Giant Woman: Her new form as of Bedlam, although she chooses to return to her mortal shell once she's persuaded to come back to the Prime Dimension.
  • Giving the Sword to a Noob: Hilariously averted, when Darquesse tries fighting with the God Killer.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: It's a good thing that Darquesse can heal otherwise her fights with Lord Vile and Mevolent would have been remarkably one sided.
  • Heel–Face Turn: In the form of "Kes", a fragment of herself she leaves behind in her home dimension who only Valkyrie can see and hear. While initially seeming antagonistic as usual, she soon settles into a Spirit Advisor type role.
    • And when Darquesse herself returns to the prime dimension with Sebastian Tao, it takes Kes merging with her (and thus sharing her memories and experiences with her) for Darquesse to really begin to undergo this trope full-time, before being raised by Sebastian finishes the job.
  • How Much More Can She Take?: A lot, as it turns out.
    • Lord Vile slits Darquesse's throat, shoves his thumb in her eye and generally delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that leaves her on the brink of death. She pretty much walks it off. On one hand... yay! Skulduggery didn't kill Valkyrie! On the other hand... Darquesse. Just. Doesn't. Die.
    • In Kingdom of the Wicked she survives her heart being crushed, her jaw being burnt off and beheading.
  • It Amused Me: Having fun and experiencing new things is pretty much the motivation for everything she does, without the slightest care or second thought as to the consequences of her actions. This changing is a significant marker in her Character Development.
  • Killed Off for Real: Subverted. She crosses over to the Faceless Ones' dimension at the end of The Dying of the Light and is believed by everyone in the Prime Dimension to have been killed by them. When Sebastian Tao tracks her down in Bedlam, he finds only her dead body - only to then discover that she's merely absconded her human form and become a giant godlike being of pure light.
    • At the end of the series, she sacrifices herself to essentially become the new universe.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: Finbar defeats her by trapping her in a psychic illusion where she succeeded in wiping out all life in the universe.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: Her response to having her head cut off is simply, "Oh, hell." Given that she can put herself back together (though she cut that one fine), this isn't entirely surprising.
  • Multiversal Conqueror: She goes to the Faceless Ones' universe after thinking she's wiped out all life in her original one.
  • Mystical Pregnancy: She decides to have a baby after developing the desire to experience more of what the world has to offer and, being a Reality Warper, impregnates herself and later gives birth also to herself.
  • Not Worth Killing: Darquesse considers Ravel this. On the other hand, she is entirely willing to make him suffer. No one really complains.
  • Off with Her Head!: Courtesy of Mevolent. It mostly just annoys her.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Darquesse is prophesied to be this, but has mainly restricted herself to tearing apart people who are trying to kill her or in her way. She outright stated that she doesn't want to destroy the world because "it's funny." She goes all the way in The Dying of the Light. Thankfully, it's a trick - and after her Character Development, she actually ends up saving the universe, or at least, resurrecting it from its last metaphorical save point, restoring quite a few people who were previously dead in the process.
  • One-Man Army: Darquesse literally takes out an entire army in Last Stand of Dead Men.
  • Pet the Dog: Darquesse saves China after the latter hesitates in trying to kill her.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: She starts at this level and works her way up.
  • Psychopathic Woman Child: Fits type B to a tee - she's got a very childish outlook and her behaviour is mostly based on curiosity and amusement.
  • Reality Warper: Not only can Darquesse fly, create massive blasts of energy and generally bend the laws of psychics to her will she has demonstrated the ability to use black fire to erase things and people from existence fundamentally breaking the conservation of energy law. Eventually, she becomes God. Literally, she recreates the universe from scratch and merges with it.
  • Sadist: She admits to getting satisfaction and pleasure from fighting, killing and destroying.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: To Valkyrie. Then, after a long period of Character Development, she becomes an All-Loving Hero.
  • Teens Are Monsters: She's 18 by the end of the first series and a psychotic, omnicidal mass murderer. However, by the time she's reborn and re-ages herself up to her mid 20s, she's actually an All-Loving Hero.
  • Walking Spoiler: Not so much in later books, but knowing her identity spoils The Stinger in Dark Days.

    Cadaverous Gant 

A member of the anti-Sanctuary, and loyal servant to Abyssinia. His old appearance hides great strength, which is only magnified when he's fighting in his "domain".


  • Anti-Magic: Other mages' magic is useless in Gant's home.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: It's implied he did as a child as the part of the Mental World depicting his childhood has a small table covered in dead animals.
  • Big Bad: Sick of her caring more about her son than him, he betrays Abyssinia for his own revenge scheme in Midnight.
  • Bigger on the Inside: Can make his home vastly bigger inside.
  • Cell Phones Are Useless: Phones don't work inside his home.
  • The Dragon: To Abyssinia, being her longtime and most loyal servant. At first, that is. Once he realises that she ''doesn't plan to destroy the Sanctuaries in favour of restoring her son to power, he plots to turn on her.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's very fond of his partner-in-crime, Jeremiah, whom he treats like his own son. He even swears a personal vendetta against those he sees as responsible for his death - Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain.
  • Evil Old Folks: Was already in his seventies when he received the power of magic. As a result, while his aging greatly slowed as it does for every sorcerer, his old age has already taken its toll on his body.
  • Fisher King: Has Reality Warper level of control over his home when he takes over the Midnight Hotel, turining it into his own Mental World.
  • Freudian Excuse: His father's abuse and murder of his mother broke something inside of him.
  • Killed Off for Real: By Alice Edgley.
  • Meaningful Name: "Cadaver" means "corpse", and Cadaverous undoubtedly created many corpses throughout his career as a serial killer.
  • Mental World: What the interior of his second home essentially is. Being based on parts of his life and subconscious.
  • Patricide: Killed his abusive father because he feared his father would kill him.
  • Post-Final Boss: His first appearance is in Dying of the Light, taking place 5 years after Darquesse's defeat.
  • The Starscream: Betrays Abyssinia and kidnaps her son, Caisson, once he learns that she has been lying about her motives.
  • Villain Respect: He's genuinely, if grudgingly, impressed by how Valkyrie turns the Midnight Hotel against him in Midnight, as well as her general creativity and resilience.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Kidnaps seven year old Alice in Midnight and forces Valkyrie to play a "game" to try and rescue her, promising to kill Alice if Valkyrie breaks any of the rules.

    Crepuscular Vies 

A mysterious, scarred sorcerer who acts as a secret adviser to the United States President and works from within the shadows of the White House. He harbors a hatred for Skulduggery Pleasant.


  • Affably Evil: He's perfectly cheerful and friendly. Quite a nice guy, actually.
  • All Your Powers Combined: Each of his twenty siblings was trained in a different magical discipline in order to work together to end mortal civilization should mortals become a threat to sorcerers. He was trained in all twenty of those disciplines so he could serve as a substitute for any sibling who couldn't fulfil their duty.
  • Antagonistic Offspring: He hates his parents Solace and Caisson because he and his siblings were only born as offerings to a cult that trained and brainwashed them. His plans to free his siblings also put him in direct opposition to his grandparents Abyssinia, China, and Skulduggery.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The Man Behind the Man to the Blackbrook mercenaries working for Abyssinia in Bedlam.
  • Chekhov M.I.A.: He's Skulduggery's old partner who Skulduggery claimed was dead in the first book.
  • The Chessmaster: By taking advantage of Martin Flanery's ambitions and Omen Darkly's insecurities, he's been secretly controlling the events of the revival series to execute his own agenda.
  • Clothing Reflects Personality: Befitting his role as The Chessmaster, he frequently wears a checkerboard-pattern suit.
  • Court Mage: Is Flannery's personal mage though Flannery is a president rather than a king, and Vies is transparently the Man Behind the Man.
  • Dead Sidekick: Claims to be Skulduggery's former partner, who's believed to be dead.
  • Deceptive Disciple: As Fregoli Cleft, he became Skulduggery's partner knowing that Skulduggery was his grandfather in order to study Skulduggery's methods and eventually put those methods to use as part of his greater plans.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Despite all the build up he ultimately ends up as this to Obsidian in ''Until The End'‘.
  • Enigmatic Minion: He makes it very clear that, although he works for Martin Flanery, he has absolutely no respect for the man and is just manipulating the president for his own goals. He refuses to explain what his actual agenda is to his employer, merely goading Flanery along so that Flanery's actions will lead to his desired results.
  • Evil Counterpart: Seems to be this to Skulduggery. He's an eccentric, suit-wearing, snarky man with Dark and Troubled Past. This is a very big hint as to who he is - Skulduggery's former partner, and, latterly, his grandson.
  • Evil Former Friend: Reveals to have been this to Skulduggery in Seasons of War.
  • Evil Mentor: To Omen, though it's not exactly obvious that he's evil.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He cares deeply about his twenty siblings, who were brainwashed by a cult called the Hosts and sealed away, to only be unleashed if mortal civilization becomes a threat to sorcerers. His plan is to expose magic to mortals and incite a war so that his siblings will be released and he can have a chance to free them.
  • Godzilla Threshold: His siblings are supposed to be awakened if mortals become too much of a threat to sorcerers, so he's been trying to engineer a scenario that will force them to be set loose so he can free them from their confines.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Only appears in a few chapters in Bedlam, but is the driving force behind the Blackbrook half of the Big Bad Ensemble and easily derails Abyssinia's own scheme.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Gets pretty close to Omen Darkly of all people as part of his plan of surpassing Skulduggery by making Omen his own Valkyrie equivalent.
  • Long-Lost Relative: Until the End reveals that he's the grandson of Skulduggery and China via Caisson and Solace. This explains a great deal about his attitude towards Skulduggery.
  • Luke, You Are My Father: As his plans come to fruition, he reveals that he's the son of China's daughter Solace and Abyssinia's son Caisson, making China and Abyssinia his grandmothers. Then he later reveals that Solace is Skulduggery's daughter, making him Skulduggery's grandson.
  • Man Behind the Man: He manipulates American president Martin Flanery in order to start a war between mortals and sorcerers so that his siblings, the Twenty, will be released from their confinement and bring down mortal civilization.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings: He is the middle child of twenty-one children, born and raised to be a small army called the Twenty that would rise up and end mortal civilization should the sorcerer world come under mortal attack. As the middle child, he was a spare.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • "Crepuscular" refers to an animal that comes out during dusk or evening time - suitable for a man who operates from the shadows.
    • His original taken name, Fregoli Cleft, refers to Fregoli delusion, a disorder that causes someone to believe that multiple people are a single person who changes appearance for deceptive purposes. His body is meant to serve as a conduit for his other siblings to work through, turning him into a single person who actually is twenty-one different people.
    • His given name, Reynard, refers to Reynard the Fox, a series of allegorical fables staring a trickster fox, further highlighting his deceitful nature.
  • Meaningful Rename: His given name was Reynard, which he changed to Fregoli Cleft when he took a new name. He changed it again to Crepuscular Vies after Skulduggery left him for dead.
  • Middle Child Syndrome: His desire to prove himself stems from him being the middle child of twenty-one siblings. His siblings were raised as an army to defend the sorcerer world from mortals, while he's a spare in case any of them turned out to not be suitable for their assigned role.
  • Nightmare Face: His face is completely skinless, giving him a constant toothy grin and bulging eyes.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: He can usually discreetly enter and leave with nobody noticing, hinting to his discipline as a Teleporter.
  • Split Personality: He reveals himself to be the dark side of President Flannery's personality that only he can see, then admits that he's joking.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: Thanks to being a descendant of one of the most powerful sorcerers to ever live (Mevolent), an individual with god-like powers that defy the regular magic system (The King of the Darklands) and an actual god in mortal form (Abrogate Raze), he possesses twenty magical disciplines, more than any known sorcerer outside those who've learned their True Names and possibly Valkyrie - he certainly hints that he's got the same power set as she does, but that unlike her, he "worked for it".
  • Tangled Family Tree: His father Caisson is the son of Mevolent, the series' Predecessor Villain, and Abyssinia, the Arc Villain of books 10 through 12. Abyssinia is the daughter of the King of the Darklands, who trained Mevolent. His mother is Solace, the daughter of China Sorrows, who was also Caisson's adopted mother, and Skulduggery Pleasant, who was Abyssinia's boyfriend when he was Lord Vile. Skulduggery is the son of Abrogate Raze, the mortal form of Gog Magog, god of the apocalypse. This also makes Crepuscular the great-nephew of China's brother Mr. Bliss and Skulduggery's nine brothers and sisters.
  • Unknown Rival: He wants revenge on Skulduggery for being left for dead, but since he's changed his name Skulduggery has no idea who he is or what he wants. This is by design, since he wants to prove himself first.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Flanery intends to have him killed after he helps him get reelected. Before that happens, Crepuscular leaves Flanery and replaces himself with another sorcerer, Perfidious Withering, to keep controlling Flanery while he continues with other plans elsewhere.

    Cadaver Cain 
A future version of Skulduggery.
  • Affably Evil: He's a future version of Skulduggery, with the same kind of personality that was revealed when the latter was corrupted by Smoke. Accordingly, he's friendly, charming, and very likely to stab you in the back with no warning.
  • The Alleged Car: Having lost all his modern day Cool Cars, he drives a contraption that's little more than two bucket seats and a steering wheel.
  • The Alleged House: Lives in a tiny dump of a house that he claims is his summer home.
  • Alliterative Name: Changed it to Cadaver Cain after Cadaverous Gant and Valkyrie.
  • Axe-Crazy: The same way Vile was, though it's less obvious.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: With Creed in Dead or Alive.
  • Can't Live Without You: He can't kill Skulduggery without wiping himself from existence. At least, until the Activation is sent out. After that, all bets are off.
  • Combat Clairvoyance: Can see possible futures which helps him in fights. However, he has one or two blindspots...
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Doesn't like being called Skulduggery.
  • Flying Car: The one redeeming feature of his bare bones car.
  • Future Badass: Not that Skulduggery wasn't badass already, it's notable that he and the harpy are the only ones who can evade Malice's capture and can even kill her temporarily.
  • Glamour Failure: Skulduggery immediately recognises him by his voice patterns.
  • Grand Theft Me: Possessing Valkyrie's body was the only way for him to travel back to the past. He also disembodies Skulduggery and steals his skeleton with the intention of using it as a spare.
  • Invisibility Cloak: He uses a Cloaking Sphere to evade detection from the future government.
  • Mental Time Travel: Has to have his soul possess Valkyrie then construct a new body from Skulduggery's spare bones when he reaches the past.
  • Multiversal Conqueror: He's helping the Viddu De invade our universe. After that fails, it's unclear what his objectives are.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Turns out to be helping the Viddu De wipe out all life in the universe.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Skulduggery doesn't enjoy his company whatsoever, bemoaning his awful fashion sense. Other people just think it's karma, as he now has to experience what it's like dealing with, well, him.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: He follows Valkyrie back to the present in order to stop the Bad Future from happening. Of course, his idea of stopping it involves killing the entire universe.
  • Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Wins the fight with his past self by threatening to shoot Valkyrie in the head while possessing her.
  • Super-Empowering: Was able to give his ability to see timelines to Uriah Serrate.
  • Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: His outfits are not nearly as snazzy or well-coordinated as Skulduggery, highlighting his more unhinged nature.

Secondary Villains

    Dusk 

A vampire who is hired by Baron Vengeous to assist in his plans. Clashes with Valkyrie in Playing With Fire, swearing revenge against her after she permanently scars his face.


    Doctor Nye 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sp5white_6.jpg
A mysterious and infamous scientist who sided with Mevolent during the Great War. Valkyrie visits it in order to have her True Name sealed, but it takes advantage of her helpless state to experiment on her body.
  • Alliance of Alternates: During "Until The End", he's working together with Professor Nye as part of agreements with Martin Flannery. Professor Nye eventually decides to eat its brain, consuming its knowledge, making itself invaluable, and providing a useful method of building up good credit with the heroes in case it needs it.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Nobody is sure whether it's a he/she/whatever. It eventually turns out that Nye's species doesn't have genders.
  • And I Must Scream: Perpetrator and victim. Its eyes and mouth have been sewn shut at one point and someone cut off its nose.
  • Ax-Crazy: Certainly seems unstable from time to time.
  • Deadpan Snarker: It has it's moments.
  • Dirty Coward: Openly admits to running away from its fair share of conflicts.
  • Forgot About His Powers: It's not clear why the Crenga are a Dying Race when Word of God says they're capable of asexual reproduction but given Nye's For Science! attitude, he likely doesn't care about repopulating his race.
  • For Science!: It only agreed to give Scapegrace a body to see if it could do it. It sort of succeeded - it managed to put Scapegrace's brain into a new body, but not the one he wanted.
  • Friendly Enemy: Seems to be on these terms with Valkyrie after the operation. Well, for a given value of friendly. It'll be helpful to her because that's usually the quickest way to get rid of her.
  • Graceful Loser: After operating on Valkyrie during life-threatening circumstances, it seems to take it rather well considering the fact that it lost an opportunity to look for a soul (And y'know, the fact that it threatened to kill her).
  • Hydra Problem: When asked on Twitter, Derek Landy says that Nye's race breeds by drinking alcohol until body parts fall off and grow new Crenga.
  • Killed Off for Real: He ends up eaten alive by Professor Nye during "Dead or Alive", who has grown sick of him and decides to switch sides.
  • The Medic: Replaces grandfatherly and grumpy Kenspeckle in Death Bringer.
  • Miniature Senior Citizens: Gets smaller in later books as Crengarrion get shorter as they get older.
  • No Biological Sex: The Crenga are an asexual race with no gender.
  • Noodle People: One of the few things described. It's seemingly "Spider-like".
  • The Noseless: A bloody scab where it should be.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Barely described. Whatever is described seems... inhuman.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Nye spends most of its time in Mortal Coil being condescending, sick and twisted, and is not at all intimidated by Valkyrie, even when she's alive with her magic. When she is dead with necromancer magic, on the other hand, it's practically wetting itself with fear. This is a hint that Lord Vile is also dead
  • Shout-Out: When it dissects the conscious Valkyrie on the operating table, it's very reminiscent of Claire Bennet's trials and tribulations in Heroes.
  • Smug Snake: It's generally quite smug when it has people Strapped to an Operating Table. Oh, and especially if they're technically dead. Then Valkyrie used necromancy on it.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: It does this to Valkyrie after sealing her name.
  • Torture Technician: Nye laments the fact that the undead people it experiments on cannot feel the pain of the procedure.

    Leibniz Universe Nye aka Professor Nye 
Nye's counterpart in the Leibniz Universe who works for Mevolent.
  • Alliance of Alternates: During "Until The End", he's working together with Doctor Nye as part of agreements with Martin Flannery. He later ends the alliance by eating his main counterpart to prevent Valkyrie and Skulduggery from killing him due to absorbing Doctor Nye's memories.
  • Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Its Leibniz Universe counterpart is a lot smarter. It's a trained professor who can design Magitek devices such as interdimensional portals as well as being an accomplished doctor.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Can create various Magitek as well as being a doctor.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He gets a Shunter to take him to another dimension to avoid Valkyrie blackmailing him.

    Eliza Scorn 

The head of the Church of the Faceless Ones, and longstanding rival to China Sorrows. She plots to bring her organisation back to its former glory.


    The Viddu De 
A race of Eldritch Abominations that previously lost a war to the Faceless Ones.
  • Eldritch Abomination: They haven't been described yet but can only live in dead dimensions and can't survive in our universe.
  • First Contact: It's thought that Lord Vile was the first living creature they'd encountered apart from the Faceless Ones.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The backers behind both Lord Vile and Cadaver Cain. Unsurprising, given that they're two different versions of the same person.
  • Hostile Terraforming: Want to turn out universe into one like theirs that can't sustain life.
  • Multiversal Conqueror: Are trying to invade our universe.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: If they succeed then all life in our universe will die.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Justified somewhat as they live in a distant dimension and fought the Faceless Ones eons ago, and Lord Vile purposefully hid the memories from himself.
  • Super-Empowering: Gave Lord Vile the ability to see the past and the future.

The Edgley Family

    Desmond Edgley 

Valkyrie's father, and younger brother of Gordon and Fergus. A bumbling but caring figure who rarely seems to take anything seriously.


  • Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: To Valkyrie.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Desmond is normally the nicest chap you could ever hope to meet. Then a thief hits Melissa. Desmond throws him into a pharmacy window.
  • Bumbling Dad: He's very nice and means well, but he did drop Valkyrie into a penguin enclosure as a child.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: So much. This is the man who frequently loses track of a) his clothes, b) his own building sites.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: A faintly ridiculous man who nevertheless responds to his wife being mugged by chucking the man responsible through a window.
  • Destination Defenestration: Throws Moore through a window.
  • Genius Ditz: Melissa points out that he is still a talented engineer, despite his cluelessness.
  • Imaginary Friend: Had one as a child called Barry who always got him into trouble.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: He's the only one of his three brothers who isn't aware that the stories their grandfather told them about sorcerers and magic are real, until Valkyrie reveals the truth to him and Melissa in The Dying Of The Light.
  • Love at First Sight: He and Melissa fell in love the moment they met. Much to Gordon's disappointment.
  • Nice Guy: He's incredibly kind and loving.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While it takes a lot - and usually threats to his family - to get him properly angry, when he does, the silliness vanishes, and suddenly, you see where Valkyrie gets her temper from.
  • Parental Obliviousness: An odd example. He misses stuff that's right under his nose, but while Melissa is usually the less quirky of the two, he's the one who notices that there's something a little off about his daughter in the first book and notes that it's something he once saw in Gordon. He's remarkably near the mark.
  • Parents Know Their Children: Despite being unaware of what his daughter's been getting up to in the last few days in The Sceptre of the Ancients, he notices that there's something different about her that he once saw in Gordon and talks to her about it. Valkyrie is privately unsettled by how close he is to the truth.
  • Papa Wolf: See Beware the Nice Ones. He can be a bit odd, but it's quite easy to see where Valkyrie gets her hurt-my-loved-ones-and-die streak from, given what he did to Moore for hitting his wife.
  • So Proud of You: Once he finds out the truth, he doesn't want Valkyrie risking her life anymore than Melissa but is extremely proud that she does it anyway.

    Melissa Edgley 

Valkyrie's mother, who cares greatly for her daughter and does her best to reign in her husband.


  • Love at First Sight: She saw Desmond, and that was it. Her heart was gone.
  • Mama Bear: Verbally tears Skulduggery a new one when she finds out what's been happening. Her entire opposition to Valkyrie being a sorcerer is because of how dangerous the job is.
  • Only Sane Man: Easily the most normal member of the Edgley family. May have something to do with the fact that she married in. She's still definitely somewhat quirky, though, and it comes out around her husband.
  • Stepford Smiler: Only at the Edgley family reunion - and given the family in question, this is understandable.

    Beryl Edgley 

Valkyrie's snobbish aunt, the wife of Fergus and mother of Carol and Crystal.


  • Jerkass: Though as it turns out, she's got considerable Hidden Depths.
  • Hidden Depths: Well, if being a closet Trekkie counts...
    • Later books reveal that she's entirely aware of how awful and shallow she's been, and that it's left her with no friends whatsoever - Melissa Edgley, her sister-in-law (who tolerates her at best), is the closest thing she has to a friend and the only one she can confide in.
    • It seems at first like she's going to be homophobic when Valkyrie comes out to her family and introduces Militsa. Actually, she just wants to know when they're going to get married, as she doesn't really get the opportunity to wear fancy hats any more.
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Carol's Reflection describes her as such.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: In the later books.

    Fergus Edgley 

Beryl's meek husband, and brother to Desmond and Gordon.


  • Elemental Powers: Kept hidden away all these years
  • Jerkass: He mostly acts like this, however, it's not entirely without reason - he's perfectly aware of the world of magic and has tried to protect his family, starting with Desmond, from it for his entire life. And when Valkyrie's secret comes out, he supports her and explains the truth to Desmond.
  • Henpecked Husband: Beryl quite clearly rules the roost in his household, though this doesn't mean he can't get assertive when he has to.
  • Hidden Depths: Seriously. Turns out, he's well aware of Gordon's involvement in the magic world and somewhat aware of Valkyrie's, and before her was the only other member of the Edgley family than their grandfather who could use magic. He gave up learning more because he saw the effect it had on his family. He also actually cares a lot about his brothers, trying to shield Desmond from the truth and privately regretting that he and Gordon never made up before his death. It's also hinted quite strongly that he's worked out that Carol has been replaced and is trying to figure out what happened.
  • Papa Wolf: He blows up at Valkyrie when he catches her teaching Carol and Crystal magic, stating that they wouldn't be able to cope with it like she can. He throttles back a little when she explains that they saw her use some magic and haven't stopped badgering her since, so she's been trying to put them off, but still tells her he'll hold her responsible if anything happens to them.
  • Parents Know Their Children: He knows that something is wrong with Carol - in fact, he's the first to figure it out - though it's not clear whether he knows if her reflection has replaced her, with Beryl noting at one point amongst their family struggles that he's spent all his time reading Gordon's old books - which, while the details are fiction, are an essentially accurate depiction of the magical world. On a more prosaic level, he loves his daughters very much, but he's entirely aware that they're not up to the magical world the same way that Valkyrie is.
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He's more upset about Gordon's death than he lets on.
  • Sticky Fingers: Pockets Gordon's silverware after the funeral.

    Crystal and Carol Edgley 

A pair of sisters Valkyrie labels "the Toxic Twins", the children of Beryl and Fergus, who act nothing but rude to their cousin. As the series goes on, their attitudes towards Valkyrie soften however, and they become closer.


  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Both of them, to begin with.
  • Character Development: They get this in spades, Carol especially. And then she dies.
  • Dumb Blonde: They're... not bright, to say the least. One of many reasons Gordon couldn't stand them.
  • Elemental Powers: Carol can manipulate fire.
  • Formerly Fat: Crystal. Carol is worried that she's going too far in the other direction and even made a point of comparing her to Skulduggery.
  • Hidden Depths: Carol, at least, had some degree of magic. Then Stephanie murdered her to power up the Sceptre of the Ancients.
  • Jerkass: Both of them initially. It's later implied that this is because of profound insecurity.
  • Kill and Replace: Carol is a victim of this trope.
  • Killed Off for Real: Carol.
  • Nothing but Skin and Bones: Carol describes Crystal as this, comparing her to Skulduggery. It's Played for Drama.
  • Properly Paranoid: In Midnight it is mentioned that Crystal is getting treated for capgras delusion - the belief that someone close to you has been replaced by an imposter.
  • Spoiled Brat: They're extremely annoyed that Gordon Edgley left them a car and a boat, while Valkyrie got a house.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Not so much a level, more of a small step, but hey... they saved Valkyrie from a Remnant.
  • The Unfavorite: Gordon had no children, but he made it very clear he preferred Stephanie to these two. Really, can you blame him?

    Alice Edgley 
Valkyrie's younger sister.
  • Alice Allusion: When choosing a mage name, her future self considered changing her surname to "In Wonderland" but figured it's better not to choose a name that makes people laugh.
  • Bland-Name Product: Plays with a toy fairy called Sparkles that's a parody of The Elf On The Shelf.
  • Came Back Wrong: It turns out she came back to life without a soul.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Skulduggery and Nye suggest that it might be better to leave her without a soul if she's happy all the time but Valkyrie's having none of it.
  • Damsel in Distress: Has been kidnapped by both the Remnants and Cadaverous Gant.
  • Do Not Call Me "Paul": Tells Valkyrie to call her Malice instead of Alice in the Bad Future.
  • Face Hugger: Desmond once walked around with baby Alice stuck to his face, pretending she was a xenomorph from the Alien franchise.
  • Forced Sleep: Valkyrie uses I Know Your True Name to put Alice to sleep before reattaching her soul.
  • Future Badass: Valkyrie gets a premonition of a 16 year old Alice getting ready to have a final showdown with some enemy.
  • Mental Time Travel: Malice, her Bad Future self briefly travels back into her present self's body at the end of Dead Or Alive. It's a rare case of this trope being seen from another character's perspective and is treated more like Demonic Possession.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: She had to be temporarily killed so Valkyrie could get the Sceptre of The Ancients.
  • The Soulless: Has no soul as a result of coming back from the dead. Always seems happy, thinks nothing of lying and has no aura that Valkyrie's Aura Vision can detect. Valkyrie later rectifies this, though Malice, at least, holds a grudge.
  • Statuesque Stunner: In the future she grows to be quite attractive and taller than Valkyrie - who's already six foot.
  • Troubled Child: After regaining part of her soul, she begins having nightmares and crying fits triggered by seemingly insignificant things, such as the possibility of being late for dance class. A psychologist diagnoses her as suffering from repressed trauma, implied to be a delayed reaction to all the trauma she witnessed while she didn't have her soul.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: She stays happy during a kidnapping and when her pet dies.
  • Unfazed Everyman: The fact that she wasn't bothered by Cadaverous Gant kidnapping her makes Valkyrie and Skulduggery realize something is wrong.

Others

    Frightening Jones 

A sorcerer and old friend (and previous lover) of Tanith Low's.


  • Amicable Exes: He and Tanith are still on good terms, and he frequently checks on her to make sure she's alright.
  • Batman in My Basement: In Until the End, he's attacked in America and saved by a mortal boy named Tyler, whose family hides him in their farmhouse basement while he recovers. After the universe is reset and all mortals' recent memories of magic are erased, Frightening pays them back by posing as a bank employee to save their farm from foreclosure.
  • Eye Beams: He has the ability to fire energy blasts from his eyes.
  • Logical Weakness: Firing beams of energy from his eyes leaves him temporarily blinded for a few moments while his eyes readjust.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Don't let the name fool you. He's actually quite nice.

    The Monster Hunters (Donegan Bane and Gracious O'Callaghan) 

A pair of men who make a name for themselves by hunting down dangerous creatures and writing about their exploits.


  • Beware the Silly Ones: They're a bit weird and decidedly dorkish, but they're incredibly capable in a fight.
  • Hand Blast: Bane fires off a couple here and there.
  • Lovable Nerd: They're complete dorks, and one of them has an astonishing collection of nerd shirts, but they're very lovable.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Their idea of a perfect kid's book is a version of Where's Wally? where the Wally figure is hidden is a pile of corpses.
  • Super-Strength: Gracious is strong enough to knock the ten-foot slab of meat that is Charivari on his ass.
  • Those Two Guys: Introduced as part of Dexter Vex's team in The Maleficent Seven and have yet to be seen apart.


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