Characters / The Boxtrolls

Eggs

Played By: Isaac Hempstead-Wright

An orphaned boy who was raised by the boxtrolls.

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• Break the Cutie: Snatcher doesn't give one ounce of shit that Eggs is a human boy, one who he himself seemingly orphaned. He sees him as a boxtroll, and to him, boxtrolls ought to be exterminated.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He shares a knack for tinkering with his adoptive family, the boxtrolls. He seems to have inherited it from his biological father, Mr. Trubshaw.
• Happily Adopted: Even though he is reunited with his biological father at the end and didn't know he was an orphan (or even a human) until Fish tells him a decade after his adoption, Eggs lives a very happy life with Fish and his adopted boxtroll family, and loves them all very much. He's devastated when Snatcher kidnaps and nearly kills all of them.
• Heroic BSoD: When Fish — the boxtroll who raised Eggs for ten years and his adoptive father — is finally captured by Snatcher, Eggs seems to shut down for a little while, before ultimately deciding to rescue him, thus finally taking action against Snatcher for the first time.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: He briefly becomes convinced of this after his disastrous attempt to blend in with civilized people and Lord Portley-Rind's refusal to help or believe him.
• Implied Love Interest: With Winnie. The two share several bonding moments, and are shown to really enjoy dancing with each other at one point, but nothing is confirmed by the end of the movie.
• Interspecies Adoption: He is a human orphan reared since infancy by the eponymous boxtrolls, and for a long time he thinks he really is one.
• Kid Hero: He is the main hero of the story, and he's 11 years old.
• Missing Mom: In the course of the film, we are introduced to both his adoptive father and his biological father, but we never learn about the whereabouts of his mother. Not even in any of the flashbacks does she get so much as a face, name, or voice.
• Nice Guy: What Eggs lacks in social skills, he more than makes up for in genuine sweetness.
• No Name Given: We only know his adopted name, but not his original name. It may be Herbert Trubshaw Jr., since "The Boxtrolls Song" gives his fathers name as "Trubshaw Sr.".
• No Social Skills: Having been raised by the boxtrolls, human social standards are completely alien to him, and he needs to have simple greetings like handshakes explained to him.
• Oblivious Adoption: Eggs believes completely that he is a boxtroll until Winnie shows him midway through the movie that he is a human.
• Raised by Wolves: He is a Cheesebridge orphan raised since infancy by the eponymous boxtrolls, to the point he considers himself one of them... up until he meets Winnie, that is.
• Unkempt Beauty: The poor hygiene conditions of the underground lair in which he has lived his entire life do not make him any less adorable.

Winifred "Winnie" Portley-Rind

Played By: Elle Fanning

Eggs's first human friend.

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• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Winnie is enraptured by the nasty, violent legends of the boxtrolls her high-society parents try to shelter her from. When she first encounters the "monstrous" boxtrolls, she thinks they intend to devour her flesh and drink her blood, and tells them (rather melodramatically) to do it quickly. When they turn out not to have any interest in her, she's quite put out.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Averted and downplayed. She's more of a Big, Cute Beautiful Girl.
• Cute Bruiser: Winnie is very cute, but also very sassy.
• Fat and Skinny: The Fat to Eggs' Skinny.
• Fiery Redhead: She's very outspoken.
  Winnie: You're the worst pickpocket I've ever seen! Here! [tosses him a coin] Buy a book on how to be a better thief!
• Freudian Slip: When she first meets Eggs, she excitedly asks if all the grisly stories she's heard of boxtrolls are true, then why they let him live, then whether they devoured his family, then "did they let you watch?!" She then hastily backpedals, "I-I mean... did they make you watch?" Nightmare Fetishist, indeed!
• Girlish Pigtails: She wears her curly, red hair in pigtails.
• Implied Love Interest: With Eggs. The two share several bonding moments, and are shown to really enjoy dancing with each other at one point, but nothing is confirmed by the end of the movie.
• In-Series Nickname: She's often called "Winnie".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As bratty and macabre as she is, she helps Eggs to save the boxtrolls even though it puts her in significant danger.
• Little Miss Badass: She defies a dangerous machine that towers over her with spirit.
• Lonely Rich Kid: She seems to have no friends until she meets Eggs, and her parents are emotionally distant. This is especially true of her father, who is too obsessed with his hat and fancy cheeses to pay her any mind at all.
• Nightmare Fetishist: She is fascinated by all the gory tales of the boxtrolls and their rivers of blood... and very disappointed when they turn out to be untrue. In the end, she's seen performing a stage show about the final confrontation with Mr. Snatcher, and rather gleefully describes how he exploded into a cloud of guts and innards.
• Pink Means Feminine/Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Her default dress is pink mixed with purple.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's outspoken, a Little Miss Badass, and a Nightmare Fetishist. She also wears a pink dress and likes to dance.
• Vocal Dissonance: Her voice sounds far more mature than her youthful appearance would suggest, owing to Elle Fanning being 16 at the time of the film's release.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: She very much wants her father's attention and approval.

Fish

Played By: Dee Bradley Baker

Eggs' adoptive boxtroll father.

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• Good Parents: Although he parents by boxtroll standards (probably not bathing their children and feeding them bugs), Fish has been a very loving and caring father to Eggs nonetheless.
• Lovable Coward: Like every boxtroll, Fish always hides and cowers in his box whenever there's any danger — unless you harm Eggs, in which case the Papa Wolf comes out.
• Papa Wolf: Despite instinctively hiding in his box at any threat of danger, everything changes the moment his kid is harmed. For a brief moment after the Red Hats hurt Eggs, we see an uncharacteristic display of aggressiveness from Fish, baring his teeth and growling at the exterminators. Though he's knocked out almost instantly, it's still an incredibly brave act for a shy little boxtroll.
• Parental Substitute: For Eggs. Eggs indirectly calls him his father at one point.

Archibald Penelope Snatcher

Played By: Ben Kingsley

A pest exterminator obsessed with moving up in the world. After a baby boy is apparently kidnapped by the boxtrolls, Snatcher makes a deal with Lord Portley-Rind: in exchange for exterminating every last boxtroll in town, Snatcher will be rewarded a spot in Portley-Rind's inner circle and everything that goes with it: power, a nice hat, and all the fancy cheese he can eat.

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• Ambition Is Evil: He is obsessed with climbing the social ranks by rounding up and exterminating all of the boxtrolls. His obsession drives him to spread outrageous lies about the boxtrolls being savage baby-eating monsters, threaten children, mistreat his lackeys, and eat cheese despite his violent allergies to the stuff.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Snatcher's "cheese fits" do not behave like food allergies do in Real Life. For example, allergic reactions don't turn people into surly "drunks", and if there is swelling, it's much less severe than the tumorous Body Horror Snatcher goes through. And while it is possible to die from an allergy, it's shock or suffocation — not big cheesy explosions — that does it.
• Ax-Crazy: Post-Villainous Breakdown, as he rampages through the city. Not that he was really sane before, though.
  Snatcher: I have been reasonable, but I can be unreasonable!
• Bad Boss: He refers to his lackeys as "stooges" and threateningly confronts Mr. Pickles after he brings up his cheese allergy.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Though he doesn't actually succeed in slaying the boxtrolls, and though it causes his death, he does get a white hat, and he does sample a fine cheese in the tasting room in the end.
• Beware the Silly Ones: At first, he appears to be a comically bumbling villain, but it's clear that there's no act he won't commit in order to achieve his ambitions, no matter how morally questionable. We also find out that in the past he apparently killed Egg's father with a wrench. While he didn't actually kill him, he kept him prisoner for years and drove him to madness.
• Big Bad: He's the leader of the Red Hat boxtroll exterminators.
• Body Horror: Snatcher's "cheese fits" cause him to swell up horribly. At the end of the movie, after being crushed by a massive wheel of Brie, he's barely recognizable as human — his torso is grown to twice its normal size, his right foot has burst clear out of his boot, his right eye is swollen entirely shut, his lower lip is huge, red and protruding, and his body is covered in irregular tumorous swellings.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: Landing in the Briehemoth sends him into a massive cheese fit that makes him look monstrous. Not only is it caused by allergies, but eating a single piece of cheese afterward while he's still swollen kills him in a massive explosion.
• Creepy Crossdresser: He performs as Madame Frou-Frou to spread fear of the boxtrolls.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: His Madame Frou-Frou disguise shows that Snatcher is a competent actor to fool the entire town and has an impressive singing voice. He could earn the fame and fortune he desires if he went into entertainment, but he's too fixated on earning a White Hat to see it.
• Daddy Issues: One part of his rant while bloated by cheese at his lair is that his father used to always tell him that if you work hard enough, you earn a White Hat, but said father still ended up with nothing prior to his death despite all his hard work. This might be a prime motivator for Archibald feeling he has to rise above the mediocrity of his status and get a White Hat at any cost.
• Death by Gluttony: He is obsessed with cheese-eating as a sign of status, even though he has a violent cheese allergy that causes him to swell up and develop a nasty rash. At the film's end, he blackmails his way into Lord Portley-Rind's tasting room and, despite already suffering from a nasty "cheese fit" after landing on a giant wheel of Brie, devours a sample of Portley-Rind's rarest cheese. After a Delayed Reaction long enough for Snatcher to feign cheese expertise, a Distant Reaction Shot shows he messily exploded in a cloud of cheese-y mist.
• Death by Irony: He gets done in by the accomplishment of his ultimate objective — tasting gourmet cheese in the White Hats' tasting room, which provokes a fatal allergic reaction.
• Delusions of Eloquence: He desperately wants to be part of posh, elegant high society and apes it at every opportunity, but he doesn't really understand any of the social trappings he aspires to. He tries to say elegant things about the taste of fancy cheeses, but can't come up with anything himself and is only able to belatedly agree with Mr. Trout's more poetic description; in the climax, he repeats this word-for-word even though he's eating an entirely different cheese that that's not an accurate evaluation of. He also has no patience for ceremony, and angrily cuts off Lord Portley-Rind's introduction of the cheese they're about to taste so that he can get to the eating.
• Drunk on Milk: Well, milk byproduct at least; cheese makes him act like a surly drunk.
• Evil Brit: He's voiced by Ben Kingsley, and he's the main antagonist, so naturally he is one.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He already has a deep voice, but when Drunk on Milk, it gets even deeper.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards the boxtrolls. He often refers to them as parasites, and has dedicated his life to exterminating every last one of them.
• Fat Bastard: He has a disgusting pot belly and the personality to match.
• Fatal Flaw: His ambition to become one of the White Hats leads him to not only seek the genocide of the Boxtrolls, but to also keep eating cheese and ignore his dangerous allergies to them. While he does finally get to become one of the White Hats in the end, his decision to keep eating cheese despite already being swollen from getting covered in Briehemoth ends up causing his self-inflicted death.
• Faux Affably Evil: He always acts nice and polite in public, and can be a bit goofy at times. Too bad he's a manipulative and unscrupulous psychopath under the lighthearted facade.
• Feigning Intelligence: When he finally gets a white hat and into the tasting room to try an extremely rare cheese, he only uses words from his henchman Mr. Trout used to describe extra mild cheddar. This proves that he doesn't actually care about the cheese like the white hats do, or for that matter any of the sophisticated high society trappings that he tries to copy, but only the power and status that it represents in society.
• Freudian Excuse: Hinted at. He mentions at one point how his father used to always tell him that if you work hard enough, you earn a White Hat, but said father still ended up with nothing prior to his death despite all his hard work. This might be a prime motivator for Archibald's feeling that he has to rise above the mediocrity of his status and get a White Hat at any and all costs.
• Glory Hound: Apparently his only raison d'etre is to obtain fortune and fame at any cost.
• G-Rated Drug: He is obsessed with cheese as a status symbol, even though eating it causes a violent allergic reaction that not only makes his face swell up in a nasty fashion, but causes him to act like a surly drunk and even hallucinate at one point. One of his lackeys, Mr. Pickles, even warns him "You know what cheese does to you..."
• The Heavy: He's responsible for almost every conflict in the movie.
• It's All About Me: He wants to become the most important man in Cheesebridge, and everyone around him is an expendable pawn in those ambitions.
• Jerkass: Kind of a given, considering he's the Big Bad.
• Karmic Death: He achieves the exact goal he wanted, and it ends up sucking for him big time.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: His last words: "Aromatic, oakey, with an undertone of a mother's— (BOOM!)
• Knight of Cerebus: Despite being Laughably Evil, his ruthlessness and greed makes him a genuinely dark and dangerous villain for a kids' movie.
• Large Ham: His vocal inflections are rather bizarre, and he tends to draw out words and shout a lot.
• The Last Straw: He's already so bloated from falling in the remains of the Briehemoth that one more piece of cheese causes him to explode.
• Manipulative Bastard: He leads the citizens of Cheesebridge into believing that all boxtrolls are vicious murderous monsters, when he's actually framing them for a crime he effectively committed. He also takes advantage of Lord Portley-Rind's love of cheese by making him believe that the boxtrolls will come after said food next in order to convince him to give him a white hat if he'll kill all the boxtrolls in town.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Archibald Snatcher. Although the Embarrassing Middle Name of "Penelope" dampens the effect somewhat.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: At first, he looks like an humorous and eccentric Egomaniac Hunter, but he's also overly cruel and remorseless. Towards the end, he even gets this close to wiping out the entire boxtroll populace.
• Obviously Evil: His name alone should fill you in. If somehow it doesn't, his spider-like movement and snake-like voice will.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Snatcher only came to Trubshaw intending to coerce the inventor into building the boxtroll catching machine. When Trubshaw gave his baby son to Fish to keep him safe, Snatcher saw this as a chance to frame the creatures as child eaters.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: His "Madame Frou-Frou" disguise doesn't really hide his true identity to the viewer. It's just him wearing a dress, wig, and lipstick and putting on a absurd high-pitched voice. In-Universe though, it fools everyone.
• Plot Allergy: His severe allergies (he swells up grotesquely from eating a tiny sliver of extra mild cheddar) is part of what prevents him from joining the White Hats and eventually leads to his Karmic Death.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The taste of cheese he eats in the end is the final straw that causes his allergy (along with the rest of his built-up allergic reaction) to do him in.
• Red Is Violent: He's dressed in red and he's very brutal and homicidal once his affable facade drops.
• Redemption Rejection: "I have made me, boy. This is my destiny!"
• The Resenter: Snatcher despises the White Hats for looking down on him and people like him, and has spent his entire life scheming in hopes of reaching the top.
• Selective Obliviousness: He absolutely refuses to accept or even acknowledge his extreme dairy allergy and gets furious if someone brings it up. This is probably because acknowledging that he can't eat cheese would mean also acknowledging his dream of being a high-class cheese taster is impossible to achieve. This ends up doing him in the end, when his adamant refusal to stop eating cheese kills him.
• Self-Disposing Villain: His obsession with upward mobility and insistence on cheese-tasting despite his violent allergies causes him to explode into a cloud of nasty yellow mist.
• Slasher Smile: He shows this every time he's gloating or he's truly happy.
• Smug Snake: He repeatedly makes himself out to be a bigger, brighter, and more important man than he truly is.
• Social Climber: The entire motivation for his schemes. He resents being just one of the masses, and all he wants in life is to become a White Hat and sample fine cheeses with the highest of Cheesebridge high society.
• The Sociopath: The only things that matter to him are power and greatness. Trying to exterminate an entire race of peaceful creatures and sacrifice children or anyone else he sees as a threat to his plans is not a problem for him.
• Sore Loser: His reaction after his plan to obtain a White Hat fails? To go into a chaotic rampage, endangering everyone around him, trying to obtain what he wants by brutal force.
• Too Dumb to Live: Really, Archibald, you know that you're deathly allergic to cheese... and you're so hell-bent on joining the White Hats that you STILL insist on eating it? It's not like he wasn't warned, either.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Subverted with cheese. He's incredibly allergic to the stuff, and the fact that he gives two different pieces the same description (stolen from Mr. Trout, no less) implies that he only considers cheese tasting to be a show of status.
• Twitchy Eye: He has one after Mr. Trout corrects him about everything "we've worked for" rather than "I've worked for".
• The Unfettered: He's willing to commit the genocide of innocent little monsters and killing anyone who stands in his way if that would mean obtaining an high position in the society.
• Verbal Tic: Snatcher has a habit of dragging out his vowels for a lo-o-o-o-ong ti-i-i-i-i-i-ime for emphasis.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: He's easily the darkest part of the film, being singlehandedly responsible for its most intense scenes.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • He is correct when he says the boxtrolls don't aspire to be anything more than weak pests.
  • During a pseudo-drunken rant, he gripes about how all Lord Portley-Rind and his fellow White Hats do is sit around and waste taxpayers' time and money on eating fancy cheeses, which is a startlingly accurate description from someone who aspires for nothing less than becoming one of them.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Eggs and Winnie reveal all his evil deeds to the population, Snatcher becomes furious and goes on a destructive rampage through the city, laughing maniacally, in order to force Lord Portley-Rind to give him his hat.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Before Eggs and Winnie reveal his lies, he's rather popular in Cheesebridge, as the entire population sees him as their protector against the "evil" boxtrolls, and his Madame Frou-Frou alter ego is a popular entertainer. At one point, the entire town pressures Lord Portley-Rind into giving him a white hat.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Played for Laughs. To the audience, his Madame Frou-Frou disguise is very much Squick-inducing. However, In-Universe, several men are shown to find Madame Frou-Frou very sexy.
• Wicked Pretentious: He tries to pretend that he's of the upper class, but in all honesty he isn't as cultured as he pretends to be, like when he and his henchmen discuss the flavor of cheese.

Snatcher: I say, old chaps, it's quite, ummm... it's ummm... it's quite...
Mr. Trout: Aromatic? Oaky? With an undertone of a mother's smile on a warm spring day?
Snatcher: Yes. Those things, et cetera, et cetera, big words, chummy banter.

• Would Hurt a Child: He has no qualms with attempting to kill Eggs on multiple occasions, as well as Winnie when She Knows Too Much.
• You Monster!: Eggs calls him the true monster in his Shut Up, Hannibal! moment.

Lord Portley-Rind

Played By: Jared Harris

Winnie's father and leader of the White Hats.

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• Adults Are Useless: If it's not about cheese, he has absolutely no interest.
• Authority in Name Only: He and his fellow White Hats. They appear to be the ruling body of Cheesebridge, but are obsessed with cheese and their hats to the point that they neglect their duties to the city... and in his case at least, his family.
• Break the Haughty: Having Snatcher reveal himself outright to be Madame Frou-Frou, nearly getting killed by his machine, and finally being forced to give up your hat for your daughter's safety would do that to you.
• Berserk Button: Any harm to his cheese stores will get him pissed.
• Establishing Character Moment: At the start of the movie, Archibald Snatcher comes to his house in the middle of the night to tell him (falsely) the boxtrolls have stolen a child. He says it can wait till morning. Archibald then says they've broken into his cheese stores. He's instantly horrified, then promises Archibald whatever means he needs to protect his cheese. This highlights his disregard for human life, selfishness, and his unholy obsession with cheese at the same time.
• Hat of Authority: As a member of the White Hat Council, the ruling body of Cheesebridge, he wears a very tall white hat as a status symbol. The white hat is perhaps the only thing other than cheese that can catch his attention.
• Heel–Face Turn: At the end, he's seen cheering Winnie on at her show, a far cry from every other appearance of his in the movie, where he ignores her unless she mentions cheese or his white hat.
• Jerkass: He ignores his daughter, uses funds for a children's hospital to build a wheel of cheese, looks down on everyone, including his fellow white hats, and pretty much cares only about cheese.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed, but He does indeed care about Winnie, and gives up his white hat for her...after thinking it over and trying to weasel out of it. He also does become more supportive of her by the end.
• Karma Houdini: Lord Portley-Rind doesn't really suffer any consequences for being an awful father, a waster of taxpayers' money, a possible adulterer, a Jerkass, and an idiot. Unless you count having his white hat snatched from him and smacking into Snatcher's machine.
• Mirror Character: Like Snatcher, he spends a lot of time wearing his hat and eating cheese with his three cronies.
• Not Now, Kiddo: He ignores his daughter in favour of cheese or his white hat.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: He freely admits the only reason he's a White Hat is that he's rich and more or less bought the government position.
• Skewed Priorities: His Establishing Character Moment has him brush off the (false) news that the boxtrolls kidnapped a child, then become concerned only when told they could get into his cheese stores. He also uses civic funds to commission a massive wheel of cheese instead of building a children's hospital. In fact, his obsession with cheese puts a serious cramp in his relationship with his daughter Winifred, and at one point blinds him to the fact that she's trying to warn him of the Big Bad's evil plan.
• Too Dumb to Live: He continues to belittle Snatcher and tries to get out of his deal with him even after Snatcher shows up piloting a giant Tripod Terror that could easily squash him. It comes back to bite him once Snatcher has his Villainous Breakdown.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cheese. It's the one thing that he openly loves... even more than his daughter.
• Underestimating Badassery: He sees Snatcher more as an annoyance than as an actual threat. Not only does Snatcher have him completely fooled as Madame Frou-Frou, but it takes Snatcher's Villainous Breakdown and holding Winnie hostage for him to finally see just how dangerous Snatcher really is.
• Upper-Class Twit: Never before has one man so perfectly embodied Hanlon's Razor.
• Villain of Another Story: Let's make a list. He wastes taxpayers' money and time just sitting around eating rare cheese, completely ignores his daughter in favor of his hat and cheese, spends charity money for a children's hospital on a large wheel of cheese that most likely only he and the other White Hats would have eaten, completely ignores Eggs' public confession, tries to get out of his deal with Snatcher, when it is revealed the Boxtrolls are alive he flat out rubs it into Snatcher's face that he will never get what he wants, and even when his daughter is caught by Snatcher and he has to trade his hat to save her he tries to negotiate with him for another price. If Snatcher wasn't such a monster, Lord Portley-Rind could have easily been the villain of this story.

Mr. Trout, Mr. Pickles, and Mr. Gristle

Played By: Nick Frost (Trout), Richard Ayoade (Pickles), and Tracy Morgan (Gristle)

Snatcher's henchmen. Trout and Pickles aren't bad men, and are convinced they're doing Cheesebridge a service by getting rid of the "evil" boxtrolls (though Mr. Trout starts to have some doubts about this as the movie goes on). The same cannot be said, however, for the vicious and sadistic Mr. Gristle.

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• Ax-Crazy: Mr. Gristle takes considerably more delight in the unpleasant parts of his job than Trout and Pickles.
• Bald of Evil: All three of them have their heads shaved.
• Bantering Baddie Buddies: Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles have several philosophical debates about whether or not they're actually the good guys like they believe, and eventually they pull a Heel–Face Turn.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Gristle is short, Trout is big, and Pickles is thin.
• Captain Obvious: Much of Mr. Gristle's dialogue is him describing what he's doing. "I'm flying on a cage!" "I'm swinging on a chain!"
• Curse Cut Short: At the climax, Mr. Gristle lets out an "Oh sh-" right before he's crushed to death by the falling remains of Snatcher's Tripod Terror.
• Depraved Dwarf: Mr. Gristle is the shortest member of the bunch and is the most morally bankrupt.
• Fat and Skinny: Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles respectively.
• Fat Idiot: Beautifully averted with Trout. He seems to be the smart one of the trio, being able to identify the tastes of cheese poetically. His official bio states that he enjoys Shakespeare and French poetry.
• Friend to All Children: Mr. Trout feels regretful for trapping Winnie so Snatcher can kill her. After he and Pickles' Heel–Face Turn, they assist Winnie in keeping the white hat away from Snatcher through a game of keepaway.
  Mr. Trout: Perhaps we can be of some assistance, miss!
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Mr. Gristle wears glasses and is a sadistic and unquestioning stooge for Snatcher.
• Gonk: Mr. Gristle isn't very easy on the eyes.
• Heel Realization: It eventually dawns on Trout and Pickles that they're not the good guys, and all it takes to get them to rebel against Snatcher is an Armor-Piercing Question from Winnie.
• Minion with an F in Evil: All three of them are, if in different ways. Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles start out convinced they're keeping the streets safe from "monsters", but grow increasingly concerned with their and Mr. Snatcher's actions as the movie progresses, leading to their Heel–Face Turn in the climax. Mr. Gristle, on the other hand, lacks the intelligence to be capable of any form of calculated evil, just mindlessly destroying whatever Snatcher orders him to.
• Mook–Face Turn: Done by Mr. Pickles and Mr. Trout. Averted with Mr. Gristle.
• Obliviously Evil: Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles, who both believe they are the good guys and the boxtrolls are evil. They waver throughout the movie, though, and eventually switch to the side of good, for good, in the final showdown.
• Oh, Crap!: Mr. Gristle only has enough time to mutter "Oh Sh-" and futilely try to get to safety before he's crushed to death by Snatcher's Tripod Terror.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Mr. Gristle may be the smallest henchman of the three, but he's by far the most dangerous, due to his relentless bloody-mindedness, not to mention a surprising deal of agility.
• Redemption Earns Life: While Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles redeem themselves and get to live, Mr. Gristle doesn't and gets crushed to death.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Mr. Trout, as part of his end of the Bantering Baddie Buddies deal.
• Shorter Means Smarter: Inverted. Mr. Gristle is the shortest of the lot and the most unintelligent (being, as he is, a mindless destroyer).
• Smarter Than You Look: Mr. Trout, played for laughs.
• The Sociopath: Mr. Gristle is a very low-functioning example of one.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: While humoring their boss's desire to replicate the White Hats' cheese tasting table, Trout and Pickles assure him point-blank that there's "nothing horrifying" about his cheese-eating, and they aren't just telling him what he wants to hear because they're afraid of him.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles react this way when Snatcher decides to eat cheese, knowing about his "cheese fits". Mr. Gristle averts this, finding his boss' cheese allergy amusing.
• Token Evil Teammate: Trout and Pickle show some disgust in following Snatcher's orders and express remorse more than once. Mr Gristle is more willing to cause harm, but seeing that he's a total psychopath with very little connection to reality, it's debatable if he's genuinely evil or not.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Trout and Pickles are convinced they're the good guys fighting the forces of evil, but as the movie goes along they begin to doubt this perspective.

The Boxtrolls

Played By: Dee Bradley Baker, Steve Blum, Nika Futterman, Pat Fraley, Fred Tatasciore

A group of trolls that wear boxes as clothes and only come out at night.

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• Benevolent Monsters: They are friendly monsters, not evil baby-eating thieves like Snatcher would have the people of Cheesebridge believe. They only collect human trash to create machines for their own quality of life.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Their first instinct when confronting danger is to hide in their boxes, even when hiding is useless and running would be a better option. Also, while they love each other, they also tend to shrug it off when one of them is captured and resume going on with their lives without much mourning.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Their eyes glow at night. This comes in handy, since they do their scavenging at that time.
• Dark Is Not Evil: They may be trolls, but they're a benevolent species.
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: Sweets wears a set of human dentures, although they keep falling out.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Their area of expertise is making inventions out of trash.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Shoe, the second-most prominent boxtroll, is snappish and greedy about his scavenged loot, but he's as friendly as the rest when it counts. He even tries to comfort Eggs when Fish is captured.

Herbert Trubshaw

Played By: Simon Pegg

The father of the child who was abducted by the boxtrolls ten years before the events of the movie. He's said to have gone mad with grief and to have chased after the boxtrolls, only to meet a grisly end.

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• Break the Cutie: After being held prisoner by Snatcher for ten years, he's been left a broken lunatic. He gets better, though.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He's an inventor.
• Good Parents: In the flashback to ten years ago, he's shown to be a good parent to Eggs before he gave him to Fish to protect him from Snatcher. And even after ten years of Sanity Slippage, he still has the capacity to listen to Eggs' plea for help and inspire him to inspire the boxtrolls to move past their timid nature.
• Loved by All: Implied Trope. The townspeople clearly remember him not as the "Trubshaw who forgot to lock his door", but as "Trubshaw the inventor" after he reveals himself to be alive. He was revered enough by the townspeople for them to want to kill the boxtrolls for seemingly killing him, and when it turns out Snatcher lied about Trubshaw getting killed by boxtrolls, they immediately turn against Snatcher for this.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He's Eggs' biological father.
• Nice Guy: He saw past the boxtrolls' monstrous appearance and found them to be kindred spirits due to their shared love of inventing. Off his rocker though he may be ten years of captivity later, he still retains his kindness, inspiring his son Eggs to inspire the boxtrolls to escape Snatcher's crusher and move past their timid nature.
• Papa Wolf: He risks his life to protect his son from Snatcher through giving him to Fish and the boxtrolls. Even after being off his rocker ten years later, he still goes out with the boxtrolls to save his son from being burned to death.
• Posthumous Character: He's said to have died ten years before the events of the film. Subverted when it turns out that this was a lie spread by Snatcher.
• The Power of Love: The realization that the boy before him is his long-lost son snaps Trubshaw back to lucidity.
• Sanity Slippage: Having been kidnapped and dangled upside down by his ankles for ten years straight "scrambled his noodles good." He gets a little better in the end.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He's a grown up version of Eggs, with the same spindly body shape, messy brown hair and hazel eyes.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Jelly. According to a flashback, he was a lover of jelly even before losing his marbles.
• Walking Spoiler: As is obvious from the amount of this entry that's blanked out, he is one. It's hard to talk about him without revealing that he's still alive or that he's Eggs' biological father.

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