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The main characters.note 

Warning: Spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 are unmarked. Spoilers for Seasons 3, 4, and 5 are marked.

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Main Characters

    Quentin 

Quentin Coldwater/King Quentin the Moderately Socially Maladjusted

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_06_quentin.jpg
Played By: Jason Ralph / Tim Carlson (Brian) / Luca Padovan (young)

A depressed and medicated young man who finds a purpose after he discovers Brakebills. He is obsessed with the Fillory books, claiming they saved his life, and receives visions of Jane Chatwin from the books.


  • Adaptational Sexuality: Ambiguously Bi in the books, but is bi in the show.
  • Affectionate Nickname: His friends call him "Q". His father calls him "Curly Q," which would count as an embarrassing version, but Quentin himself shows to be fond of it.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Downplayed; a large chunk of his shoulder had to be replaced with magical wood following the fight against The Beast, but his arm managed to remain attached.
  • Ascended Fanboy: Eliot names him the second king of Fillory.
  • Broken Pedestal: His admiration of Christopher Plover goes out the window once he learns about the molestation of Martin Chatwin.
  • But Not Too Bi: His bisexuality seems to be the opposite of Eliot's. Whereas El prefers men but is able and occasionally willing to sleep with a woman, Quentin prefers the company of women but falls in love with Eliot after forming a deep emotional bond with him.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: With Julia in season 1, of the unrequited form. After he gets with Alice, he dismisses it as simple hormones and tries to forget about it. After season one, all romantic feelings are gone and they grow closer than before without the complicated feelings in the way, settling into a Platonic Life-Partners dynamic instead.
  • The Chosen One: Subverted, as Quentin deciding Alice would be better off as The Hero, since she's a much better magician, leads to the only iteration of the time loop in which the group doesn't get slaughtered.
  • Composite Character: Has shades of Josh from the books in that he's an Inept Mage who's terrified of getting kicked out of Brakebills.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Quentin did not take Alice's death well.
  • The Everyman: Lampshaded; Eliza notes that he's kind of boring, and only an average magician. His Discipline isn't even anything special, merely Repair of Small Objects.
  • Fanboy: He is a huge fan of the Fillory books and by extension Christopher Plover. He practically vibrates with glee whenever anything from the books shows up in the real world, even in horrible contexts.
  • Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: After Quentin had a threesome with Eliot and Margo, he claims he had no control because of the spell they were under. When Alice gets back at him by having sex with Penny, he considers it far worse.
    Quentin: I made a mistake. You aimed a weapon.
  • Good with Numbers: Quentin is the math whiz of the main characters, able to calculate large amounts of equations in just a few seconds. This is how he gets him, Eliot, Kady, and Penny out during the bank heist (with Niffin!Alice's assistance, though).
  • Grand Theft Me: When Alice was a Niffin, she coerced Quentin into letting her possess his body in timed excursions.
  • The Heart: Despite his insecurities and flaws, Quentin's greatest strength is bringing everyone together during times of crisis.
    Margo: You're honest about what you love. And underneath it all, it's inspiring.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Quentin, knowing full well the blowback would kill him, uses magic in the Mirror World in order to send the Monster into the Seam, killing Everett in the process. He's able to get Penny to save Alice in time, but not before Quentin himself is killed.
  • Hiding Behind Your Bangs: Quentin's default hairstyle is having a flop of hair partially covering his face, especially during season 1, which fits with the shy, socially awkward nature he has early on.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: His relationship with Eliot comes off as this. He has more onscreen sex partners than anyone else in the series, but the only man in that list is El.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: After finding out the existence of magic, Quentin starts having an entitled sense of importance. He himself admits he desires to be the hero of the story, but because of how big a threat of The Beast is, this humbles him and he admits the more knowledgeable and academic Alice would be the best candidate.
  • Ivy League for Everyone: He and Julia went to Columbia together.
  • Killed Off for Real: While other characters have come back from "death" in some way — Alice survives being a niffin, Penny-40 appears in the Underworld and is replaced by his alternate timeline version, Jane Chatwin survives in the Clock Barrens — Quentin is vaporized by his own minor mending spell inside the Mirror World, and then moves on from the Underworld.
  • Lemony Narrator: While writing his own Fillory book, he narrates the events of the episode sarcastically.
  • Longing for Fictionland: For most of his life, Quentin longed to be in Fillory, and was completely obsessed with the book series that took place there. After finding out it's real, he's able to get there, only for it to not live up to expectations.
  • The Lost Lenore: For both Alice and Eliot in Season 5 after his death in the finale of Season 4.
  • Meaningful Funeral: The gang sings A-ha's "Take On Me" while tossing mementos of their relationships with Q into a bonfire.
  • Morality Pet: Becomes this to Julia when she loses her Shade.
  • Motor Mouth: Once he gets rambling, he’s this.
  • One-Hour Work Week: When Quentin briefly gives up magic, Fogg arranges a sinecure of an office job for him.
  • Pick a Card: Quentin uses sleight of hand as a form of therapy during his worse bouts of depression. Before discovering magic, this was the closest he'd thought to use magic. This ends up being how he conjures magic for the first during the entrance exam by making a card castle.
  • Platonic Life-Partners:
    • After being on bad terms with Julia for most of season 1, they eventually become this, both of them remaining loyal to each other even when they're at odds.
      Julia: I’ll be burning in Hell right next to you, but hey, at least we’ll have each other.
  • Sticky Fingers: Quentin's fondness for sleight of hand makes him an expert pickpocket if he's close enough to a target.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: He is cruel to Julia after she is not accepted into Brakebills. He not only refuses to try and help her get back in (out of fear of getting expelled himself), but he also gets angry at her for never returning his feelings and always insisting on being better than he at everything. They end up not talking for a while, made worse when Julia traps him in a hallucination as revenge. He regrets this right after.
  • Whatevermancy: When Quentin finds out his Discipline is unclassifiable, he laments saying "I'm a nothingmancer. I'm a squatmancer."
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: He finds out in the fourth season that his discipline is minor mending, the ability to repair small objects. Subverted in the finale when he uses his power to repair the shattered mirror that was being used as a portal, allowing him to finally banish The Monster and kill Everett along with himself.
  • White Male Lead: Starts out as the everyman straight white male protagonist in the company of more diverse major characters. This is lampshaded by both Hyman and Derek, who acknowledge him as the traditional type of lead, and later played with since he is revealed to be bisexual and neurodivergent. Finally it is subverted when he dies and the show continues without him.
    Hyman: But Quentin, I mean, the outsider let into the inner sanctum of secret knowledge. As someone born in 1902, I find a heterosexual white male hero very relatable.

    Julia 

Julia Wicker/Our Lady of the Trees

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_07_julia_02.jpg
Played By: Stella Maeve / Emily Althaus (Kimber)

Quentin's best friend from childhood. She took the Brakebills entrance exam, but failed and had her memory erased. She managed to hold onto her memories, and became obsessed with finding magic again.


  • The Ace:
    • Quentin mentions that she's good at everything she sets her hand to, and it quickly becomes apparent that this includes magic. She devours everything the hedges provide for her, mastering every spell and demanding more. Despite her lack of formal training, she rivals a Brakebills student. In the timelines where she did attend Brakebills, she was apparently top of her class (alternate Josh compares her to Hermione) and a student of the Knowledge Discipline, which touches on every branch of magic.
    • This is part of why Quentin is a jerk to her for a little while after she fails the Brakebills entrance exam and comes to him for help, as he can finally hold being better than she is at something over her (though as it turns out, she only failed because of Jane Chatwin's intervention in the timeline).
  • Addictive Magic: She becomes obsessed with learning magic to the point of addiction. She even has sex in exchange for learning a spell, cheating on her boyfriend in the process. People actually think she is using drugs, and her family sends her to rehab. There she meets Chaplain Richard, a Brakebills graduate.
    Chaplain Richard: The reason you treat magic like a drug, is because the people that taught it to you act like drug dealers. They buy it and they sell it, and they fight and they fuck for it.
  • Ambiguously Human: When Julia asks Iris what she is, Iris notes that Julia has the immortality of a deity, being unable to be killed through conventional methods, but none of the power, being unable to use magic despite its return. The East River dragon, however, suggests she could regain her power.
  • Brought Down to Badass: As noted above. Because she used up all her power reforging the keys, she can't do miracles, but she also can't cast like a human. In season 4, she can't do magic, but is practically impossible to kill and unaffected by spells. In the S4 finale, she becomes human, but finds out she can still do magic (and has the same Master of All specialty) after Quentin's funeral.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: Quentin has been in love with her for a long time, but she doesn't share the same feelings for him and even had a fiancé. He supposedly gets over his feelings towards her when he enters a relationship with Alice.
  • Childhood Friends: She and Quentin go way back, and their relationship is strained and strengthened by the plot.
  • The Chosen One:
    • She's a "god-touched," one of the few people whom the gods still grant miracles to. When she pushes harder, a harvest goddess appears and speaks to her in person, something that hasn't happened in centuries.
    • Turns out she was actually chosen by Reynard the Fox, a trickster god. He kills everyone else (except Kady, who escapes) and rapes Julia. Turns out rape counts as a divine blessing, granting her certain privileges.
  • Dead Alternate Counterpart: The Julia of Timeline 23 is dead, which surprises her.
  • Deity of Human Origin: In the finale of season 3, she became a full goddess, but gives up her power to reforge the Seven Keys.
  • Determinator: Once she's fixated on something, she can't let it go.
  • Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: To Penny-23, who dated her in Timeline 23 before her death. They get together down the line, in spite of her vastly different life experiences compared to her other self. Penny-23 points out that the only thing she and her counterpart have in common is their ridiculous determination, however.
  • Enemy Mine: She sabotages the plan to kill the Beast and proposes an alliance with him to find a way to kill Reynard.
  • Face–Heel Turn: She betrays Quentin and the others by sabotaging their plan to kill the Beast.
  • Fake Memories: Marina gives her pleasant memories of Our Lady Underground giving the group blessings and missions. Jane is careful to leave the fake memories, but Ember just brutally "cures" her.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Despite their rough first meetings, she and Kady become this after she helps the latter escape from Reynard's assault. Besides her childhood friend Quentin, she's normally paired with Kady during her sides of the plot.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Zigzagged to the extreme. She was always a badass, but in the main timeline, she’s rejected from Brakebills, then rejected from the hedge witches, then raped and impregnated during a summoning trap, by a god who holds zero regard for life. The way she handles this misfortune ends the pregnancy and catapults her to god status. The way she handled this role seems to boost her capabilities even further, beyond that of the average god. She gets her ‘nightmare’ label in regards to how, unlike the other gods in this universe, she’s actually filling the "benevolent deity" role proper. This attracts followers and power. Both things the other gods want, but struggle to get.
  • Glowing Eyes: In season 3, her eyes glow whenever her "god-touched" powers manifest.
  • Ivy League for Everyone: Julia graduated from Columbia with Quentin and is specifically mentioned to have been accepted to Yale, which fits with her driven and intelligent characterization. Her witness protection identity Kimber graduated from Harvard at 19.
    Julia: [after explaining that she covered all the bases when dealing with a lamia] We weren't sure which legends were true.
    Lamia: I hate Ivy League girls.
  • Lady of Black Magic: A magician-in-training with the ambition and intelligence, and cold and destructive without her Shade. She's shown potential in spellcraft, having cast invisible fire and teleportation. She even becomes a demigod with the divine power of a god.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia:
    • When she is rejected from Brakebills, she is able to prevent them from erasing her memory of the school by cutting herself.
    • She has Marina erase her memory of being raped by Reynard.
  • Like Brother and Sister: With Quentin, her childhood best friend. While he initially had nebulous unresolved feelings for her, they move past it and re-settle into their close friendship.
  • Master of All: In the timelines where she's allowed into Brakebills, her specialty turns out to be Meta-Composition, aka Knowledge, a fundamental understanding of magic that touches upon every Discipline in order to deepen the understanding of magic as a whole.
  • Moral Sociopathy: Having her shade cut off causes her to temporarily become The Sociopath, but she relies on Kady and Quentin to act as her moral compasses during that time.
  • Mystical Pregnancy:
    • She was impregnated by Reynard, and would have given birth to a powerful demigod.
    • In Season Five, she's carrying Penny-23's Traveler baby. It's powerful, too.
  • Platonic Life-Partners: After being on bad terms with Quentin for most of Season 1, they eventually become this, both of them remaining loyal to each other even when they're at odds.
    Julia: I’ll be burning in Hell right next to you, but hey, at least we’ll have each other.
  • Rape and Revenge: Sets out to kill Reynard following her assault.
  • Resurrective Immortality: After sacrificing her godhood, she turns out to have some sort of residual power within her that brings her back if she's killed.
  • Semi-Divine: She is implanted with the magic essence of Reynard's divinity by Persephone, Our Lady Underground. She's technically a mortal with divine power of a god, making her a demigod.
  • Sex for Services: Eventually she becomes so obsessed with learning about magic that she uses Pete's attraction to her to manipulate him into giving her more information about the local hedge witches, shagging him in spite of still being engaged. When he makes overtures toward deepening their relationship, she uses her fiancé as an excuse to refuse.
  • Soul Jar: Temporarily houses Alice's Shade so that Alice can be turned back from a Niffin to a human being.
  • Supernatural Gold Eyes: As Reynard's divine seed (no, the other kind) develops within her body, her eyes occasionally flash gold as his does. Naturally, she finds this disturbing.
  • Superpowers For A Day: During her pregnancy with Penny's Traveler child, she becomes able to use her baby's natural Psychic Powers and Teleportation through their connection.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Richard teaches her about Theurgy, educating her in several spells, and they eventually end up in bed together, with signs of a nascent relationship...which makes what happened after the summoning ritual even worse.
  • Teen Genius: Her magical witness protection identity, Kimber, graduated from Harvard at nineteen.
  • Took a Level in Badass: After being given Reynard's seed, her powers grow exponentially.
  • Touched by Vorlons: She was raped by Reynard the Fox, which temporarily boosted her magic. After she spared his life, Persephone blessed her with the seed of Reynard's divinity, effectively making her a demigod. Now that she's gained the ability to hear prayers, divinely heal people (much safer than magical healing), and regrow whole forests, the "demi" part seems to be going out the window.
  • The Unchosen One: She was rejected from Brakebills, leading to her becoming obsessed with finding magic on her own. Turns out this was on purpose. All things being equal, she would have been allowed in, but Jane was fiddling with the time loop and had her kicked out into the cold in an effort to make her stronger.
  • Unwitting Pawn:
    • Marina uses her to get into Brakebills, then discards her when she's of no more use.
    • Reynard the Fox uses her to open the door so he can return to Earth, all while pretending to be a friendly harvest goddess.
  • Zero-Approval Gambit: While Shadeless, she burns down an obstructive sapient forest, banking upon the fact that Margo and Eliot can just write off her actions as coming from a crazed rogue agent. Things aren't that simple, though.

    Alice 

Alice Quinn/Queen Alice the Wise

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_05_alice.jpg

A skilled young woman from a magical family, who came to Brakebills trying to discover what happened when her brother disappeared a few years earlier.


  • Affectionate Nickname: After they start dating, Quentin starts calling her "Vix," referencing the time they were foxes.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie: Powers herself with so much magic to kill the Beast that she becomes a Niffin, and then has to be put down by Quentin. Taken further when it turns out that Quentin's cacodaemon wasn't able to kill her; instead it bound her into the magical tattoo on Quentin's back.
  • Badass Bookworm: While only slightly more competent compared to her peers, Alice is no slouch using her education to win fights and/or solve problems.
  • Berserk Button:
    • She gets violent when the subject of her brother and what happened to him comes up. She gets past this once she returns to Brakebills.
    • Cheating is shown to be a big one. Likely has to do with the fact that her father almost committed suicide over her mother cheating (before they decided to have an open marriage). When Quentin has sex with Eliot and Margo while the three of them are feeling the emotion-heightening side effects of a spell, Alice treats it as unforgivable despite the extenuating circumstances, breaks up with him, and has revenge sex with Penny.
  • Composite Character: Somewhat of book!Alice and book!Julia. In the books, Alice defeats the Beast but becomes a Niffin in the process and Julia becomes one of the four monarchs of Fillory; here, Alice becomes queen instead of Julia (who has whisked away the Beast to make a deal with him).
  • Deadpan Snarker: Alice developed a biting wit after her time as a Niffin.
    Quentin: All the clocks say 4:20.
    Alice: Well, it's not hell for Josh.
  • Evil Me Scares Me: In season 3, after nearly killing Julia, she becomes terrified of what she might do if she ever regained magic properly. This leads her to cut a deal with the Library to give them control of magic, and when that seems to fall through she tries to destroy the seven keys so magic will never be brought back. This continues in season 4, when an accident with mirror world magic splits her into her fearful and confident halves. Fearful Alice tries to seal her confident self in the mirror world, but when she has to retrieve her, Confident Alice calls her out, bluntly stating that everything she did that she regrets she did out of fear.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: She and Kady get a lot closer after they're both kidnapped by the Couple.
  • For Science!: As a Niffin, Alice's unethical methods of study helped her unravel all kinds of magical secrets...and earned her at least one obsessive enemy.
  • Freudian Excuse: She had a complicated childhood. Her parents liked to have massive orgies and were always very open about sex, but completely closed-off about everything else. This resulted in her being shy and anti-social, always struggling to keep her emotions in check.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Margo claims she is this, calling her a "package deal" with Quentin. Eliot agrees, though not in such harsh terms.
  • The Glasses Come Off: The only significant times Alice is without her glasses is when she fought The Beast and her "escapades" as a Niffin.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Due to the trauma from becoming a Niffin, doing horrible things, and then regaining her humanity and therefore feeling bad about all those things, Alice has lost all trust in herself, which leads to her spending most of season 3 flipping allegiances between the Physical Kids and the Library.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Knowingly overloads herself with godly magic power during the showdown with the Beast, letting herself turn into a Niffin just to make sure she can kill him.
  • Humanoid Abomination: She's this during her stint as a Niffin. A being of pure, pulsating light while able to maintain her human image.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: After being brought back to life by Quentin, she's desperate to regain her lost knowledge and power. She changes her mind after nearly killing Julia just to hold onto magic.
  • Jumped at the Call: The Dean specifically did not summon her for the Brakebills entrance exam, as he didn't want to give her family any more pain after what happened to her brother. She had to find the school herself.
  • Light 'em Up: Her specialty is phosphoromancy.
  • Loner-Turned-Friend: Zigzagged. She started out as shy and kept to herself, but she starts opening up during her relationship with Quentin. She even becomes friends (more or less) with the rest of the group. Especially Penny, who is a loner himself. In season 3, however, her actions leaves her shunned by almost everyone.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Often found wearing short skirts and tight sweaters.
  • Mythology Gag: At the Library, she is given a plate full of burnt, crispy bacon as her only breakfast, which she refuses to eat. In the books, Alice is Jewish.
  • Nerd Glasses: Wears these nearly all the time.
  • Noodle Incident: She states that she lost her virginity with all her clothes on.
  • No Social Skills: She is not very good with interacting with others, so she mostly keeps to herself.
  • One-Winged Angel: A somewhat heroic version of this. Desperate to use any kind of magic when fighting The Beast gifted with god-given powers, she overloads herself to become a Niffin, which ends up winning the fight in her favor. However, it quickly turns sinister when she tries to kill an injured Quentin right after.
  • Out of Focus: She disappears for a few episodes when she leaves the school after finding out what happened to her brother. She returns later after the Dean convinces her.
  • Pure Magic Being: During her time as a Niffin.
  • Reformed, but Rejected: After nearly screwing over everyone in season 3, she tries to be a better person and make up for her mistakes. However, the group has no inclination to trust her again, and even Quentin forces her to leave after she helps save his life because he has no faith that she'll remain on that path.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can:
    • When she tried to reverse Charlie's Niffin transformation, she kept a magic box on hand designed to seal Niffins as insurance. Quentin ended up using it, even though she insisted she was close to saving Charlie.
    • When she became a Niffin and Quentin set his cacodaemon on her, the cacodaemon couldn't kill her, so it bound her in the closest available receptacle—the magical tattoo on Quentin's back.
  • Sense Loss Sadness: After Quentin returns her to human form, Alice suffers a brief but debilitating depression over the loss of her incredible abilities, memory and senses; most of season 2 consists her of holing up in her room, trying to read all the knowledge she cannot fully remember. With Quentin's help, she manages to slowly recover, but not without remembering all she lost.
    Alice: Ever since Quentin dragged me back, I've just-I mean, what do people in limbo do? It's excruciating.
  • Sex for Solace: She has sex with Penny as revenge for Quentin cheating.
  • Sexy Sweater Girl: Alice dresses fairly conservatively, but her sweaters still show off her figure.
  • Ship Tease:
    • With Quentin. He immediately takes an interest in her after seeing her perform magic in front of the class. They eventually become an Official Couple until Quentin cheats on her with Margo and Eliot while under a spell.
    • With Penny. She sleeps with him to get back at Quentin for cheating on her. After they are shown to be close friends. Quentin even says that they would make a cute couple while under a spell that shuts off his emotions.
    • In Season 2, she gets more with Quentin after he convinces her to push the limits of her magic.
      Alice: [kisses him] We're not getting back together.
      Quentin: ...okay.
      Alice: [continues kissing him]
    • At the end of Season 3, she tells Quentin that she's still in love with him and they kiss...and then Quentin's memories are wiped and the Library imprisons her.
  • Slasher Smile: As a Niffin, Alice had no moral quandaries to do whatever she wanted, thus sporting chilling examples of these whenever something benefited her.
  • Stepford Smiler: To others regarding her parents. She pretends to not care about them, but in truth she hates them, their self-righteous attitudes, and their inability to see what a social train wreck they would be in the muggle world. Particularly her self-involved mother; she's fonder of her father, who's more well meaning. Which explains why she was so destructive when she was a Niffin; Alice specifically targeted families and small children under the pretense of gaining knowledge, which is actually a reflection of what she's been doing her whole life: using academia as an excuse to get away from any trace of her spoiled, passive-abusive parents. This would also explain her brother's behavior.
  • The Stoic: She always keeps her emotions in check. But she is also quite capable of anger, especially regarding anything to do with her family. Quentin cheating on her leads to a screaming fight.
  • Thanatos Gambit: Alice's plan to kill The Beast involved deliberately losing control of a spell in order to gain access to the power of a Niffin, destroying herself in the process. She didn't expect to get better.
  • That Man Is Dead: After coming back from being a Niffin, she says that the person she was before is gone.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: After she's human again, Alice is noticeably arrogant based on the knowledge she gained and lost as a Niffin. She humbles down somewhat.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Bacon.
  • Troll: After she becomes a Niffin and gives up those silly things like "restraint" and "forgiveness." She pretends to be a ghost to Quentin for a few days in order to get him to ask her parents for help in an Ancient Egyptian ritual to lay the dead to rest. Furthermore, this particular ritual forces her parents to confront several of the things that made them terrible parents, and her father ends up with a broken leg.
    Alice: We're going to have so much fun.
  • Twitchy Eye: Alice picks this up after her time as a Niffin. Notably, she does this after killing the Lamprey, watching the lights leave its body akin to the time she killed its family.
  • The Unchosen One: For the past thirty-nine loops, her only real purpose was to make Quentin stronger. Quentin decides that she'll make a much better hero than he, and passes the duty of slaying the Beast on to her. She accomplishes this, albeit at the cost of her own life.
  • Unstable Powered Woman: Turns out becoming a super-powerful Niffin came at the cost of her sanity, as Niffins don't have a Shade and are amoral and impulsive. She then proceeds to wreak havoc on and offscreen. Alice's emotions — specifically fear — are explicitly stated to play a role in her actions during and after this incident when her two personality selves conflict.
  • Unwanted Rescue: She liked being a Niffin, and Quentin bringing her back to life was not what she wanted.

    Eliot 

Eliot Waugh/High King Eliot the Spectacular

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_08_eliot.jpg
Played By: Hale Appleman

One of the senior members of the Physical House, he is a heavy drinker who has taken Quentin under his wing. Best friends with Margo.


  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Eliot’s description from the first book: “There was something off about Eliot’s face. His posture was very straight, but his mouth was twisted to one side, in a permanent half grimace that revealed a nest of teeth sticking both in and out at improbable angles. He looked like a child who had been slightly misdelivered, with some subpar forceps handling by the attending.” Eliot's portrayal in the series: by Hale Appleman with no additional disfigurement make-up.
  • And Then What?: When he married Fen, he clearly didn't expect to actually survive fighting the Beast, and thus wasn't worried about being a husband or king. Most of his problems in the second season stem from being woefully unprepared, but Dean Fogg offers to help him as much as possible, even calling in advisers.
    Dean: Your thesis project is: "How to save an entire god-damn world."
  • Armored Closet Gay: When he was young. As a kid, he helped beat up his friend for being gay despite being gay himself. It's unclear when exactly he came to terms with his own sexuality, but it has most certainly happened by the start of the series.
  • Arranged Marriage: The team agreed that the next High King of Fillory would marry the blacksmith's daughter in exchange for the knife. That king turns out to be Eliot. Except that because of magic, Fillorian marriages are permanent and you can never be with anyone else ever again. Fortunately, there's a loophole to this in that every Fillorian monarch is entitled to a wife and a husband, allowing him to enter into a concurrent Arranged Marriage with King Idri of Loria.
  • Brutal Honesty: During a death penalty trial when Eliot was captured by Fillory for crimes against all of Fillory, Eliot defends himself with a thorough "I. HATE. FILLORY. because it's backwards, insane, and proud of it, but it saved us when we needed it the most so I'm going to save it". It doesn't stick.
  • But Not Too Bi: While he intentionally acts as Camp Gay as possible, he is into women in a "sometimes" way. In addition to his threesome with Quentin and Margo, when he gets a naked harem of guards in the Fillorian castle, a few of them are women. When talking about his unhappy marital situation (only being able to have sex with Fen because of the magic of Fillorian wedding ceremonies) in "The Cock Barrens", he confirms that he has some interest in women, but vastly prefers men.
    Eliot: It's like if you like pussy in a sometimes kind of way, like Thai food, and now it's all Thai food all the time until you die.
  • Camp Gay: Turns out he does this intentionally; he's actually from a farm in Indiana and reinvented himself before coming to Brakebills.
  • Character Development: Throughout his rule of Fillory and with the backing of Margo, Fogg and other parties, Eliot slowly cares and tries to be a just king, instead of his usual hedonistic lifestyle.
  • The Chosen One: He's the next High King of Fillory. The exact mechanics of how the high king is chosen are unclear, but they have to be from Earth. At the time he's one of only half a dozen Earth humans in Fillory and the only one who passes the magic blood test.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Had an abusive, homophobic father and accidentally killed a boy who bullied him when he was fourteen using his telekinesis.
  • Distracted by My Own Sexy: In "The Flying Forest," he can't help admiring the naked body of his clone, much to Margo's disgust.
  • Drowning My Sorrows:
    • After he discovers that his new boyfriend is a meat puppet for the Beast (and then Elliot is forced to kill him), he turns to drink even harder than normal, making use of a flask that never runs dry. Six weeks later, he's turned to harder drugs.
    • His Timeline-23 self is an outright lush, owing to a much darker timeline.
  • Farm Boy: His self-admitted secret is he was born on a farm from Indiana. Because of his father, he reinvented himself in order to forget his past. This ends up being useful to help to introduce farming to Fillory, to his chagrin.
  • Fighting from the Inside: He fights to regain control of his body from The Monster long enough to let his friends know he's still alive. In order to do this, he has to confront his greatest trauma.
  • The Gadfly: Eliot and Margo share this role implicitly. Throughout the series, moreso in the first season, their enjoyment thrives on throwing glib comments to their friends and acquaintances. This lessens when they have to take their roles as rulers of Fillory seriously, but they will absolutely not hold back their thoughts over it.
  • Gay Best Friend: He is this to Margo. They are completely inseparable and spend most of their time drinking and making fun of their juniors.
  • Good Parents:
    • Although he didn't see Fray coming, he does his best to be a better and more supportive father than his own dad ever was. Even after Fray turns out not to be his.
    • He's also a good second dad to Quentin's son in the mosaic timeline.
  • Grand Theft Me: The Monster steals his body after he kills its old one at the end of Season Three. Season Four revolves around finding some way to beat The Monster as well as hopefully get him back.
  • The Hedonist: Early on, his interests mostly revolve around getting laid and drunk/high. This changes with Character Development, though he still enjoys indulging when he can. In the very first timeline, his vices actually kill him. That's the first thing Jane changed.
  • Henpecked Husband: His wife, Fen, quickly proves that she can make him do anything she wants just by making him feel a bit guilty.
    Eliot: Life is all about new experiences. I've never been pussy-whipped before.
  • Incompatible Orientation: He ends up married to the blacksmith's daughter. Worse, due to the magical nature of the marriage, there's no way out of it, and no chance of having sex with anyone else on the side.
  • Mind over Matter: His magic manifested at a young age as telekinesis, which appears to be his specialty.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After he used his telekinesis to pull his childhood bully in front of a school bus, he says that the worst person in his life changed from the bully to himself.
  • My Greatest Failure: Eliot's is turning down Quentin's suggestion of a relationship after their experience in "A Life in the Day".
  • The Not-Love Interest: While they were always Platonic Life-Partners, he especially fills this role to Margo in season 4. She's in a budding relationship with Josh but it's clear that Eliot's "death" by Monster possession affected her deeply: it's part of why she's in a bad mood while in Fillory. When she finds out he's still alive, she gives up her kingdom for the slim possibility of even rescuing him and goes on a quest to do so, rejoining the others afterwards. Her conscience even manifests as him.
  • One Head Taller: He is significantly taller than every main character but Penny, but especially with Margo and Quentin. He does the whole routine of resting his head on theirs when they hug on different occasions.
  • The One That Got Away:
    • He's very attracted to King Idri of Loria, and when he learns he can marry both a male and a female is much more eager to marry him than he was for Fen. Events conspire to keep this from happening, however. After magic goes away, they manage to hook up at least once.
    • When Quentin suggests they try to have a relationship in their current timeline after they fell in love and grew old together during a quest, Eliot rejects him, saying that he loves him but neither of them actually want to be together when they 'have a choice'. This turns out to literally be Eliot's greatest regret, and he admits that he rejected Quentin not because he didn't want to be with him, but because he was afraid.
  • Promoted to Love Interest: With Quentin.
  • Psychic Nosebleed: Had one when he first used his magic to kill a bully.
  • Really Gets Around: Openly pansexual and polyamorous. Cannot keep it in his pants. He even propositions a man in the middle of a duel to the death.
  • Safety in Indifference: When Quentin suggests that they try having a relationship in the main timeline, Eliot rejects him. When he's finally forced to come to terms with this incident, he admits that it's because he was scared.
    Eliot: Q, I'm sorry. I was afraid. And when I'm afraid, I run away. If I ever get out of here, Q, know that when I'm braver it's 'cause I learned it from you.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: His daughter is taken by the fairies after her birth. In her two month absence, she went from being a newborn to a teenager due to the fact that time passes more quickly there. Subverted as Fray is actually just a random human raised by the fairies, and his actual daughter was stillborn.
  • This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: When he becomes High King of Fillory, he finds that without magic automatically making the crops grow, no one in Fillory has the slightest idea how to farm. He is very annoyed that he has to delve into his childhood memories and teach them the most basic farming techniques.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Apparently, he's afraid of butterflies because he hates their unpredictable movements.

    Penny 

William "Penny" Adiyodi

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_10_penny.jpg
Played By: Arjun Gupta / Tarun Keram (Hansel)

Quentin's roommate and Kady's boyfriend. He has a natural talent for mind-reading, but his true skill is the exceptionally rare "Traveling," allowing him to teleport anywhere, including other worlds.

A crucial event midway through Season 3 greatly changes Penny and his role in the story. Spoilers are unmarked below this section.


  • Adaptational Personality Change: In the books he was an ambiguously autistic Cloud Cuckoolander who showed propensity for the obscure skill of interdimensional traveling - he was also frequently in solitude and later became a magical Obstructive Bureaucrat at the library. While the series keeps the interdimensional traveling and the association with the Library, his personality is changed to that of the constantly edgy and abrasive member of the team.
  • Ambiguously Human: Travelers are described as "hybrids" and Penny tells Julia at one point that he's not exactly a normal human. The specifics aren't clear, however.
  • An Arm and a Leg: The Beast magically cuts off both of his hands in the season 1 finale. He gets them reattached, but thanks to a curse they start malfunctioning and leaving him with no control over their actions.
  • Astral Projection: As part of his teleportation abilities, Penny can also project his consciousness while leaving his body behind.
  • Because Destiny Says So: After being told that he has a great destiny ahead of him, and that everything he'd done up to that point had moved him along the path, Penny-40 decides to stop fighting it and see where it leads.
  • Berserk Button: He states that he doesn't like being called a psychic. Generally, reading Quentin's mind angers him, as Quentin is terrible at shielding his thoughts so Penny always hears him.
  • Blessed with Suck: He doesn't appreciate being able to hear people's thoughts, or being vulnerable to psychic attacks, or the possibility of accidentally teleporting someplace that'll kill him. Also as a Traveler his presence forced his mother to have uncontrollable Psychic Powers that (as far as he knew) drove her irrevocably insane. This may have colored his opinions on his abilities a little bit.
  • Character Development: Starts out as a huge bully, albeit an amusing one. By the end of the series, Penny-40 has become a helpful guide to Quentin and acknowledges his growth.
  • Chekhov's Skill: His ability to enter dreams and being able to always hear Quentin's thoughts comes in handy multiple time. First, when Quentin gets trapped in a hallucination, he calls Penny for help. Second, when Penny gets trapped in another world, he uses Quentin's dream to communicate with him.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Kady notes that he was a remarkable tendency to throw his life at problems in order to solve them.
  • Cleavage Window: One of his favorite outfits is an open shirt that freely displays his chest hair.
  • Dimensional Traveler: His literal power. However, he has great difficulty mastering since it involves him wanting and knowing exactly where he would travel to.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: When Penny's body physically dies in season 3, he (justifiably) wonders how everyone will grieve him. When it turns out to be slightly sad to lukewarm at best, he's insulted no one is sobbing in his name.
  • Famed In-Story: It seems that several Librarians have read Penny-40's life-book and happen to be big fans of his as a result.
    Kathy: He "'supped" me! It's everything I ever dreamed!
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Hades says that the reason he keeps sacrificing himself for others is because he wants to remind people of how necessary he is to them.
  • Indentured Servitude: In return for getting back the use of his hands to do magic, Penny signs a contract with the Neitherlands Library to work a billion years for them, in his lifetime and afterward.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He doesn't like people in general, and is especially hostile to Quentin, if only because Quentin completely lacks a Psychic Block Defense (which he finds extremely annoying). He has shown a softer heart to Kady, however, and Quentin points out in season 1 that even though Penny hates him, he still jumped in front of a knife for him when the Beast (possessing Mike) attacked them.By the end of the series, there are two versions of Penny, both of whom have undergone traumatic experiences resulting in Character Development and a healthier attitude toward their peers.
  • Logical Weakness:
    • With his telepathy he can hear everything which gets on his nerves especially with Quentin and it can also make it hard for him to sleep.
    • His Traveling ability is noted to be both extremely powerful and extremely dangerous, as he could end up at the bottom of the ocean in the blink of an eye. He is initially given a tattoo to keep him anchored, but Mayakovsky cuts it off him and forces him to just learn.
  • Never My Fault: When he dies, he's upset that most of the group except Kady isn't particularly mournful. It never occurs to him that he alienated most of them with his brusque attitude, and their working together was more out of necessity than friendship.
  • Only Sane Man: He fills this role on more than one occasion, like when Eliot, Margo, Alice, and Quentin sit on the cursed thrones and try to kill each other. He's the only one who figures out that the thrones are cursed before it could affect him and thus spends the episode attempting to bring the four back to normal.
  • Psychic Powers: Travelers are telepathic, and have a psychic GPS that allows them to teleport safely.
  • Race Lift: In the books he is frequently described as a white punk rocker. In the television series, he is a South Asian hipster.
  • Sex for Solace: Has sex with Alice, who wanted revenge for Quentin cheating on her.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: He and Kady are this; whenever they are happy, something unfortunate either keeps them apart or miserable.
    Penny: (to Kady) I love you. I'm sorry we're cursed.
  • Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Is a snarky Jerk with a Heart of Gold most of the time, but shows that he can be genuine and caring occasionally, such as when he becomes friends with Alice in season 1 and when Quentin breaks down in season 2. With Kady in particular, he is very emotionally open and sweet. Penny 23 is the same with Julia.
  • Super-Empowering: Thanks to carrying a Traveler baby, his mother developed telepathic abilities that she couldn't control, which (as mentioned) had severely detrimental effects on her mental state. When he meets her as an adult, his very presence causes her to develop them again.
  • Telepathy: He has the ability to read minds and through this he can also enter a person's dreams which was shown when he did so with Quentin.
  • Teleportation: It is discovered that he is a Traveler. That means he has the ability to teleport/travel anywhere, including other worlds.
  • Time Abyss: Hades tells Penny-40 that after a thousand years of existence, he'll remember about as much of his mortal life has most people do their infancy.
  • Troubled, but Cute: Zelda identifies him as this when he tries to flirt with her, and that's not her type.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Hades explains to Penny-40 that everything he did to resist his destiny only propelled him towards it.
  • You Know I'm Black, Right?: He's prone to providing such lines, such as this moment in Season 2, Episode 4 ("The Flying Forest"):
    Penny [to Quentin]: "Let's go hunt the White Lady"? People like me get shot for saying shit like that.
  • Zero-G Spot: He and Kady have sex while levitating.

Penny-23

The version of Penny from Timeline 23, where most of the main cast was massacred by the Beast, including his girlfriend Julia. In "Twenty-Three", he travels back with Julia and Josh to the main timeline and eventually takes Penny-40's place.


  • Adaptational Nice Guy: Nicer than both the base book counterpart and Penny-40. In the 23rd timeline, Penny underwent Character Development much earlier and developed a more sensitive personality, while Penny in the 40th timeline takes a somewhat longer time to come around]].
  • Brought Down to Normal: In Season 5, Penny loses his psychic powers. He can still Travel but without any idea where he'll land, and is essentially a non-Traveler magician until the birth of his baby.
  • Character Development: He presumably started out very similar to the main Penny, but saw his friends die and developed a desire not to see the same thing happen to their 40th timeline counterparts.
  • Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: As a Traveler baby he inadvertently gave his mother Psychic Powers because of his presence. He spent most of his life convinced that he'd driven her completely insane, but it turns out she recovered while they were separated. At least, until they — or at least he and the Timeline 40 version of his mother — meet again.
  • Dead Alternate Counterpart: Inverted; Penny-23 is the living alternate counterpart to the deceased "main" Penny of Timeline 40. The latter later gives him permission to take over his life.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Penny-40's time in the Library and Penny-23's life experiences make them different enough for the former to get on the latter's nerves.
  • Replacement Goldfish: Defied. When Penny-40 is lost in the Underworld (and his body burned for good measure) and Penny-23 crosses over from his timeline, Kady gets upset with how accepting everyone is about 40's new circumstances now that they have a Traveler again, and 23 turns out to be different from 40 in a lot of ways]].
  • Secret-Keeper: Penny-23 keeps The Quickening secret from the others after hearing about it from Josh, though he does tell (threaten) Josh to get it sorted out so he doesn't hurt Julia.

    Margo 

Margo Hanson/High Queen Margo the Destroyer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_09_margo.jpg

Played By: Summer Bishil / Agam Darshi (Janet)

One of the senior members of the Physical House and Elliot's best friend. She has fun playing up the seductress angle, but in the end is often more helpful than Eliot. Margo is portrayed as both deeply insecure and surprisingly strong. She is outspoken and sometimes causes controversy, but is also fiercely loyal.


  • Adaptation Name Change: Her counterpart in the books is named Janet. This is given a Shout-Out in "Thirty-Nine Graves" when the Librarian in the Neitherlands mentions Margo's name was Janet in at least one previous iteration of the time loop.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Eliot calls her "Bambi".
  • Ambiguously Brown: Margo is obviously not white, but unlike Penny, her specific ancestry isn't mentioned. The actress who plays her alternate universe counterpart Janet, Agam Darshi, is of Indian descent, however, just like Summer Bishilnote . At the very least, it's probably safe to say Margo also has Indian heritage.
  • Ascended Fangirl: Like Quentin, Eliot crowns her as the High Queen of Fillory. Taken further when she wins the election and is then crowned High King.
  • Beneath the Mask: Margo's front of brashness hides a core of insecurity and low self-esteem, though she eventually starts on the path to truly being comfortable with herself.
  • Brutal Honesty: She has a habit of this. In the pilot, she tells Quentin everything that could happen to him if he gets expelled.
  • The Caligula: Depending on who you ask. Margo grows to care about Fillory, but she is still an impulsive, self-centered, and mercurial ruler who manages to piss off many of her subjects.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Margo is the most willing to fight dirty compared to the main gang. Even mundane guns are not off the table. Notably, during their first trip to the Neitherlands, she shot one of the guards after they are spotted.
  • Daddy's Girl: She was very close with her father when she was young, but they grew apart as she grew older. "All That Hard Glossy Armor" shows that she's nostalgic for those times.
  • The Exile: After learning that Eliot is still alive in season 4, she exiles herself from Fillory so she can obtain a weapon that could exorcise the Monster from him from a nomadic tribe that hates the kingdom.
  • Eyepatch of Power: After her deal with the fairies, she loses an eye and covers it up with a bevy of fashionable eyepatches throughout season 3. She gets a fairy eye as a replacement in "The Fillorian Candidate".
  • Fangirl:
    • Turns out she was a fan of the Fillory books. Not as devoted as Quentin, but she definitely knows what he's talking about whenever he goes off on a rant.
    • She's also actually read the A Song of Ice and Fire and Harry Potter novels, unlike Eliot, who's only read the wikis.
  • The Fashionista: Struts around in very fashionable outfits, moreso after gaining an Unlimited Wardrobe as High Queen of Fillory. Including eyepatches!
  • The Gadfly: She and Eliot share this role implicitly. Out of the two, however, she's the stronger example, especially during Eliot's reign.
  • Gay Best Friend: Eliot is hers. She starts to worry when he actually gets a serious boyfriend for once.
  • Giver of Lame Names: All the others give each other cool royal titles during the Awesome Moment of Crowning. She (intentionally) dubs Quentin "The Moderately Socially Maladjusted."
  • The Hedonist: Like Eliot, her interests mostly revolved around getting laid and drunk/high until Character Development gave her more depth.
  • Heroic Seductress: A few instances of her bonking dudes could be argued as qualifying, but there's no question bedding Josh (and willingly contracting lycanthropy as a result) to save him from the quickening is an example.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite seemingly being a superficial party girl, she is keenly observant and an expert magician. Her pragmatism often leads her to be the voice of reason in the group.
  • The High Queen: Played With. She dubs herself with this title and she and Eliot act as a mostly-platonic Ruling Couple, but Margo initially comes off as a capricious, self-centered, and mercurial ruler. However, as the show goes on, she genuinely comes to care about Fillory and steps up as a well-intentioned queen, and eventually wins the title of High King through an election.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: Her relationship with Eliot has implications of this, especially when they have a three-way with Quentin. It's implied they've had threesomes before.
  • Innocently Insensitive: The natural result of a tendency to speak her mind.
  • Logical Weakness: Margo's fairy eye can see otherwise invisible things, but she doesn't have fairy ears, so she can't hear them.
  • Lovable Alpha Bitch: Although Margo is often manipulative, mean-spirited, abrasive and, as previously mentioned, brutally honest, she is very capable of kindness and even sweetness. She sincerely wants to do right by Fillory and her subjects, even when they're technically not her subjects anymore. She also respects Muntjack's right to refuse sex with the pirate ship, even though it would be much more convenient for her not to. Most importantly, she is exceptionally loyal to the people she cares about.
Josh: The weird part was how you were so incredibly selfless and, no offense, sweet, which is -
Margo: - Not on brand? I know. Anyone who really knows me knows that I'll do anything if I love you.
  • Magical Eye: Eventually she gets a fairy eye to replace her lost one. Not only does it operate independently of Wellspring magic, but she can see all kinds of fun things with it.
  • Mythology Gag: When she needs to hide her identity, her alias of choice is "Janet Pluchinsky", the name of her counterpart in the novels the series is loosely based on.
  • Of Course I'm Not a Virgin: When Prince Ess arrives from Loria, he says he wants to unite the kingdoms by marrying Fillory's "virgin" Queen Margo. She turns to Eliot and basically growls, "Did he just call me a virgin?" When she confronts Ess later and he says it again, she cries, "Oh my God! I'm not a virgin!"
  • One True Threesome: She and Eliot take Quentin under their wing the moment he arrives at Brakebills. The three are rarely seen apart, culminating in an actual threesome while under the effects of an emotion spell.
  • Pop-Cultured Badass: A confident Magician who is capable of holding an entire strategy conversation with Eliot entirely in pop culture references.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Once she has a chance to be queen (when not under the effects of a curse), she proves to be forward-thinking, practical, and civic-minded. Though she's still acerbic, she's the one who tries to fix the Wellspring, keeps Eliot from building a monument to (believed dead) Alice with money they can't spare, and tries to help Eliot become a better king.
  • Scully Box: Summer Bishil is 5'3" and Hale Appleman (Eliot) is well over 6', so Margo wears a lot of tall heels.
  • Secret Test: She and Eliot were in charge of the trials for Quentin, Alice, Penny, and Kady. The point was for the four to figure out the secret solutions to seemingly impossible tasks.
  • Sex Goddess: She's very proud of her prowess in the bedroom and is quite offended when Prince Ess doubts it and quickly proves him wrong by quickly seducing him and screwing his brains out.
    Margot: I'm certain that I can bang circles around your boring little Lorian hoes, 'cause I'm a very smart, very liberated woman, and when I set my mind to something, I master it.
  • She Is the King: Gets crowned the High King of Fillory after winning an election as a write-in.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Margo likes to go after alpha-male types, but later develops a genuine romance with Josh, who is sweet, awkward, and nerdy (if hedonistic).
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: While everyone curses a fair amount, Margo has, by far, the filthiest mouth. Doubly so, whenever she's angry.
  • The Tease: She sometimes has fun pretending to seduce Quentin, but it never goes far. At least, not until the threesome. Later, she develops a habit of teasing Josh, at least until they become a bit more serious.
  • True Sight: Thanks to her fairy eye, she can see spirits and ghosts that the others cannot.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension:
    • Played for Laughs. When she learned that Penny died, she said she always thought they would bang — not that the show ever hinted they would particularly obviously.
      Penny: Me too, girl. Me too.
    • She flirts pretty hard with the (female) Pirate King, but it doesn't go anywhere.
  • Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Although her father told his "little princess" that she could be anything, as Margo grew older, he was disappointed with the outspoken, independent young lady he'd raised.

    Kady 

Kady Orloff-Diaz

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_11_kady.jpg

Played By: Jade Tailor / Leanne Lapp (Sam)

A tough, rebellious and sexy Brakebills student who attracts Penny's attention in and out of the classroom. She was secretly working for Marina to steal spells from the school and is forced to leave after a teacher discovers this. After she flees Brakebills, she joins a group of Magicians led by Richard and befriends Julia.


  • Action Girl: Knows a lot of hedge witch combat magic (and, notably, does not need to bottle her emotions to make it work), and throws a hell of a punch when magic's not an option.
  • Becoming the Mask: She was in Brakebills originally just to steal for Marina, but she eventually starts to fall for Penny and tried to stay at the school.
  • Blood-Splattered Innocents: "Innocent" may be a strong word, but she walks out of a room in shock and guilt, covered in Gaines' blood after he forces her to sacrifice him in order to ensure Reynard's demise.
  • The Cast Showoff: In a show full of talented singers, Jade Tailor is easily the best, and the producers never waste an opportunity to put her front and centre for a musical number. Lampshaded in "All That Hard Glossy Armor" where the main reason Margo's subconscious summons her for her hallucinatory musical numbers is her four-octave range.
    Margo: Showoff.
  • Combat Pragmatist: While she's a Magician like the main cast, Kady is quite willing to get the drop on somebody whether it's her bare hands or anything else.
  • Composite Character: Of Amanda Orloff (the student who fights the Beast in the beginning) and Asmodeus (a hedge witch who befriends Julia).
  • Descent into Addiction: After the slaughter of Richard and his group, Kady begins season 2 squatting in a heroin den. She's able to bounce back from this after Julia finds her, but relapses badly after Penny (physically) dies in season 3, narrowly dying until Julia saves her.
  • Fire-Forged Friends:
    • Despite the rocky first meeting between her and Julia, they become this after the latter saves her from being raped by Reynard. Their relationship still has their bumps, but they usually have each others' backs.
    • She and Alice get a lot closer after they're both kidnapped by the Couple.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: Notably, despite being a Magician, she uses her fists if magic is not enough.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • A talented singer and piano player along with having some music knowledge. This comes up when trying to decipher a medieval music sheet. Her mother taught her while she was "taking her clothes off for others." Kady fondly admits her mother was good at it.
    • She's also conversationally fluent in Hebrew and American Sign Language.
  • Ironic Nickname: “Ms. Sultry, but Damaged,” given to her by Mayakovsky. When things get bad enough, she doesn’t waste much time getting around to OD’ing on heroin. Also, roughly 1/4 of an episode in season 3 is committed to a burlesque show she performs.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kady is slightly abrasive and rebellious, but she's loyal to anyone who earns it.
  • The Mole: She's essentially Marina's slave, and her primary task is to steal as many spells from Brakebills as possible in order to pay off her mother's debt.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Tends to show the most skin of any female character in early season 1. During the trials, she tells Penny she's intentionally invoking this trope to get him to help her steal for Marina. Marina even tells her to "put all that hotness to work." She dresses more modestly after she stops working for her, but this pops back up when she does a burlesque number as a distraction in the party dimension.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: She does not take it well when Gaines magically compels Kady to sacrifice him and collect his magical energy so that she and Julia can destroy Reynard. Understandably, Kady is livid when Julia doesn't go through with it.
  • Odd Friendship: Develops one with Julia when they end up joining the same group. Julia even basically sacrifices herself to Reynard so that Kady could escape after he massacres the whole group.
  • Official Couple: With Penny, until she was forced to leave him when her deception is discovered. They maintain a steady relationship throughout seasons 2 and 3.
  • Out of Focus: She disappears for a while after being forced to leave Brakebills. She is put into Julia's storyline as part of the group trying to summon a goddess. This is lampshaded in the final episode when she says she can't help the group rebuild Fillory because she's the only character in the main cast (besides Fogg) who has never been there.
  • Passing the Torch: In a weird sort of way. In Season 4, once her true self is restored Kady covertly investigates the same cases her cover identity as a drug officer did.
  • Psychic Block Defense: She has a very strong one, which is why no one (including her psychic boyfriend) knew what she was doing at the school.
  • The Reliable One: As Zelda notes, she can be relied upon to make difficult decisions in the fairest manner possible no matter how personally painful it may be for her. Pete notes her strong sense of responsibility, and believes it will make her a good leader for the hedge witches.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Her and Penny are this throughout the series; never happy without having baggage keeping them apart.
  • Translator Buddy: Knows American Sign Language, and acts as a translator for the deaf Harriet.

    Josh 

Josh Hoberman/Josh the Fresh Prince

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_14_josh.jpg

Played By: Trevor Einhorn / Neil Grayston (Isaac)

A Natural Magical student who was part of the class that disappeared on a summer vacation to Fillory. Half Magic Chef, half drug dealer, and unrepentant party animal, he took to Brakebills because neither pursuit would get him witch-hunted there. Most of the time, he whips up pastries that use every form of magic (thaumaturgical or chemical, take your pick) to induce the final say in "magically baked".


  • Adaptation Species Change: He wasn't a werewolf in the books.
  • Age Lift: He was in the same year as Quentin and Alice in the books. Here, he's two years older.
  • Catchphrase: "Act out!" although he uses it less as time goes by.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: He is part of the mysteriously-vanished senior class, which is first mentioned offhand as a Noodle Incident in the premier episode, until he's discovered alive in the Neitherlands near the end of the season. He returns in the second season as a recurring character before getting promoted to the main cast in the third.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: During a temporary position as King of Fillory (because rules say only earthling wizards get to rule), Josh gets everyone baked on drugs singing "Hakuna Matata".
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: After being rescued, he spends some time as a bit of an outsider to the group dynamic, which leads to him calling out the others for brushing him off and ignoring him—though his timeline 23 self points out that that goes both ways. His relationship with the others improves over time.
  • The Hedonist: After Eliot and Margo's Character Development, he steps into this role with gusto, particularly when it comes to drugs.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Before becoming part of the main cast, he starts out as a secondary character compared to the rest of Team Brakebills, who are otherwise busy enough to exclude him, but he does get a few crazy moments in. As we learn in season 3 Josh is aware this is how the others see him, and it hurts him deeply. He's the sort of guy who would be a lonely nerd if not for his skill with magical drugs making him the Life of the Party, and he suffers when magic goes out.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: His Timeline-23 self has a darker, loner mindset. Josh-40 cools on him considerably after he and Marina-23 roofie him and Julia and plan to give them up to the Beast-23.
  • Pals with Jesus: Is friends with Bacchus, god of revelry.
  • Really Gets Around: As evidenced by the chart he created of everyone's hookups, which has no less than eleven lines connected to characters known and unknown. Including a threesome with two harpies. And this is before he gets together with Margo and Fen later on. Hyman describes him as a "Vagician".
  • The Social Expert: He's has a strong understanding of people, and seems to be able to make friends (and more) with just about anyone.
  • Supreme Chef: He's a talented cook (with or without "special" ingredients) and works as the head chef during stays at Fillory.
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: This would apply with any of his confirmed girlfriends, but in the fourth season he begins a relationship with the gorgeous and fashionable Margo, and they actually stay together through the rest of the series.
  • Wolf Man: In Season 2, due to a bout of "Sexually Transmitted Lycanthropy". Fortunately, the werewolf cycle works over a thirty year period, so it doesn't have much effect on his daily life outside of that short window.

    Fen 

Fen Waugh/High King Fen the Toeless

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_13_fen.jpg

Played by: Brittany Curran

The daughter of a Fillorian blacksmith, the team promised that she could marry the next High King in exchange for the Moonstone Blade. That turned out to be Eliot.


  • Adaptational Sexuality: Of a sort. In the books, Quentin thought she was a lesbian. In the show, she is clearly interested in men (though she could be bi).
  • Agony of the Feet: Loses her toes as a toll to pass from the fairy realm to Fillory. She later gets wooden blocks to replace them.
  • Badass Normal: She makes it clear on several occasions that she doesn't just know how to make knives.
  • The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: She's had a lot of knife-training.
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Gains the ability to dream the future from the Napster.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?:
    • Her cheerful and innocent nature sometimes leads the others to overlook her or take her for granted like a sidekick, something she eventually gets frustrated with.
    • She also gets offended on Fillory's behalf when people write it off as less important than Earth.
  • Fantastic Racism: Fairies took so much from her that she's got...issues...with them. That said, she empathizes with the enslaved ones on Earth, and eventually comes to understand the Fairie Queen well enough to cry at her beheading.
  • Got Volunteered:
    • She didn't get a lot of say in marrying a stranger, but she tries to make the best of it.
    • Margo gives her and Eliot's child away to the fairies then basically tricks her into consenting to the deal.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • She was an FU-fighter before she married Eliot, but now genuinely cares about him and wants him to succeed. She advises him to not release the assassin in the dungeon, as he's more dangerous than Eliot thinks.
    • She has an impressive knowledge of Fillorian flora and fauna.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Her dad didn't let her learn how to make knives because she was a girl, but he seems to have devoted her childhood to everything else knife-related, from throwing to fighting to appraising.
  • Incompatible Orientation:
    • Although Eliot is pansexual, he has a strong preference for men and also happens to be polyamorous, so he's not thrilled to be magically compelled into monogamy with an unfamiliar woman, although he does become very fond of Fen as a person.
    • For Fen's part, after Eliot learns that he can also marry a man if he wants, it's clear she's not entirely comfortable about being part of a polyamorous relationship (or at least not one with a former blood enemy), but raises no complaints.
  • Like a Duck Takes to Water: She loves Earth, and gets the hang of a smartphone almost immediately.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: She was a virgin before she married Eliot, but quickly discovers that she really likes sex.
    Fen: I don't know how to politely ask you to fuck me.
  • The Mole: Subverted. She was a member of Fillorians United, but cut ties when she married Eliot. The FU-fighters assume she's their woman on the inside, but she threatens to kill the agent who tries to get her help.
  • More Deadly Than the Male:
    • After Eliot spares a man who tried to assassinate him, Fen threatens to kill him herself.
    • When pirates attack her ship, she pulls out knives and prepares to defend her daughter, while making snarky comments about how Eliot is useless without magic.
  • Nice Girl: She just wants to make her husband happy and keep the people of Fillory safe. This is a bit of consternation for Eliot, as he clearly likes her as a person, but isn't quite on board with being married to her.
  • The Pollyanna: Her default is being cheerful and energetic. It's worrisome when she's not. And weird when she's a ghost hanging from the gallows.
  • Rags to Royalty: She was a peasant before she married Eliot, which was the whole point of the arranged marriage. She is still annoyed when the nobles rant about how unimportant peasants are, but they seem to have forgotten her humble origins.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: She was the one who organized the castle staff while the team were off collecting the crowns, and from there she pushes Eliot to actually be a good king instead of just waiting to get killed like all the others.
  • Sanity Slippage: In season 3, after giving up her baby to the fairies, she's gone into full denial and taken to swaddling a log (and in one case, a talking bunny) like a baby. Once she meets Fray, she immediately tosses the log aside and her sanity quickly recovers.
  • Silk Hiding Steel: Despite constantly insisting that her only goal is to serve her husband, she manages to get her way more often than not.
    Eliot: Life is all about new experiences. I've never been pussy-whipped before.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: Her daughter is taken by the fairies after her birth. In her two month absence, she went from being a newborn to a teenager due to the fact that time passes quicker there. Subverted as Fray is actually just a random human raised by the fairies, and her actual daughter was stillborn.
  • Tragic Stillbirth: She's led to believe that the fairies took her child away, but her daughter was actually stillborn. It's implied that the fairies killed the baby so they could plausibly bring Fray into the picture.

Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy

    Fogg 

Dean Henry Fogg

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s3_promo_mystical_keys_12_dean_fogg.jpg
Played By: Rick Worthy

The Dean of Brakebills. He is one of the few people who knows Quentin is The Chosen One, and gets his eyes ripped out by the Beast early on.


  • Adaptational Badass: In the books he is a stuffy Obstructive Bureaucrat who sees himself as a gatekeeper preventing students he deems unworthy from achieving their professional or academic goals. In the television series, he is more of a clever Trickster Mentor for whom Authority Equals Asskicking.
  • Adaptational Personality Change: He's far less stuffy and more involved in the events of the series, while his book counterpart was something like a Professor Umbridge lite.
  • The Alcoholic: He always had a fondness for drink, but after magic disappears, he sinks into this.
  • Bald of Authority: A bald man who is the leader of Brakebills.
  • Bittersweet Ending: At the end of the series he has recovered from blindness, and worked hard to overcome addiction, but a magical relapse leaves him incapacitated and unable to walk or talk without assistance.
  • Blind Black Guy: Following the Beast's attack on Brakebills, he is blinded, and wears magical sunglasses to help him see. As her goddess powers grow, Julia eventually restores his sight.
  • Blind People Wear Sunglasses: After Fogg is blinded in the early episodes, he takes to wearing sunglasses.
  • Character Development: Fogg is introduced as a confident leader who is in on a lot of plot-related secrets, but by the end of the series he is revealed to have numerous character flaws, including a tendency to carry on affairs that would be at least frowned upon at most real world colleges (if not an outright source of disciplinary action) and drink on the job due to alcoholism. At the end of the series, he has tried to overcome his flaws as best he can but becomes literally crippled by his addiction.
  • Child Prodigy: He mentions that he taught himself magic at age four with no help or prior instruction.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion: In his confrontation with the Beast he was able to temporarily subdue him with a surprise attack that knocks him back, but the confrontation ends with the Beast freezing him, breaking his fingers, ripping his eyes out, and almost killing him.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: In the pilot episode, he gets Quentin to use his magic by threatening to expel him and yelling at him.
    Dean: DO SOME GODDAMN MAGIC!
  • Eye Scream: Has his eyes ripped out by the Beast. The Beast places them on a desk and draws a smile under them.
  • Functional Alcoholic: To an extent.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: When the Beast ripped out his eyes and broke his hands, he got magic glasses that let him see vague outlines and colors.
  • Handicapped Badass: Despite getting his eyes ripped out and his hands broken, he is still very skilled in magic.
  • Luke, You Are My Father: The Fogg from Timeline 17 discovered that he had an adult Magician daughter that he had been unaware of. This may be the case for at least some of the others.
  • Political Overcorrectness: Fogg objects to the optics of Brakebills students from Earth ruling a magical kingdom in another world, commenting that "it reeks of Earth privilege".
  • Race Lift: He is described in the books as white, but is played by a black actor on the show.
  • Really Gets Around: He's got a ton of female connections, many of whom he "connected" with at some point.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After forty miserable timelines, Fogg-40 jumps at the chance to live permanently in the Etheric Realm. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't stick.
  • Secret-Keeper: He knows about the time loops and that Eliza is really Jane Chatwin.
  • Sink or Swim Mentor: This seems to be his teaching method, along with the other teachers. They allow the students to do dangerous spells in order to learn them. Many students die through this method.
  • Stealth Mentor: He is secretly trying to teach Quentin and the others how to defeat the Beast, since he is aware of the time loops.
  • Tricked-Out Gloves: After his hands were broken he had to wear a pair of healing gloves for a while.
  • Twofer Token Minority: The loss of magic (and his resultant job loss) becomes a source of self-deprecating humor about his race and disability status in season 3.
    Fogg: Just another unemployed black, blind man in America!

    Mayakovsky 

Professor Mischa Mayakovsky

Played by: Brian O Byrne

A renowned and powerful Magician who is the only teacher at the remote Brakebills South.


  • The Alcoholic: There's not a lot to do in Brakebills South besides get snozzled, experiment, and be rude to students.
  • Broken Bird: He seems like a tough badass but has a tragic past and is actually very frightened underneath it all, something which Quentin points out in the second season.
  • Crazy-Prepared: The only person who saw magic going away coming and prepared appropriately.
  • Forced Transformation: Spends a portion of Season 3 having been transformed into a bear by his jealous wife, using his own magical battery.
  • Insufferable Genius: He's a brilliant magician, able to instruct the cast on all their weak points, skilled enough to build and hoard several magical batteries, and is capable of constructing difficult magical equations on the fly, but he's also a complete jerk about it.
  • Kavorka Man: Had numerous affairs with students and kept at least one professor as a consistent side piece, in spite of being an average-looking man with an awful personality.
  • Ladykiller in Love: He ends up marrying Emily Greenstreet.
  • Luke, You Are My Father: One of his affairs led to a daughter by the name of Natasha who shows up in the fifth season. Apparently her showing up was quite a shock for him.
  • Mental Time Travel: Late in Season 4, it turns out he'd been working on a spell to do this. Unfortunately, he botched it and swapped his mind with his senile future self from far enough in the future that his non-senile self is physically incapable of spellcasting. This also marks his departure from the series.
  • Reassigned to Antarctica: Literally. As punishment for having an affair with a student, Mayakovsky is sent to teach at Brakebills South in Antartica.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: The whole reason he's stuck at Brakebills South is because he was sent there in disgrace after an affair with a student ended disastrously.
  • Tough Love: Professor Mayakovsky is a huge Jerkass, but this appears to all be part of his teaching method and several of his actions suggest that he's actually a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. His rather blunt approach forces Quentin’s and Alice’s ship to set sail, which could have otherwise stayed in port indefinitely if left up to them. He also genuinely comforts Kady about her mother's death, then prevents her from heading back to school and getting mind wiped.
  • Uncertain Doom: The series ends before we find out if his Mental Time Travel incident can be unraveled somehow, but people have come back from worse in this series.

    Sunderland 

Professor Pearl Sunderland

Played by: Anne Dudek

One of the Brakebills professors, who starts investigating the students' involvement in the Beast's attack.


  • Aborted Arc: Kind of. She's mentioned as having a specialty in Metallurgy, but with her being Out of Focus after Season Two, Lipson apparently inherits her arc about giving Mayakovsky living metal for his batteries during an affair with him.
  • Number Two: She serves as this to Fogg, at least while she was on the show, being effectively his right-hand woman.
  • Out of Focus: Disappears from the show entirely partway during Season Two (specifically after "Hotel Spa Potions"), and seems to be replaced as the go-to representative teacher by Professor Lipson. She does still get referenced occasionally, however.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Downplayed, but she and Penny engage in quite a bit of flirting.
  • Two-Teacher School: Although other professors are occasionally seen, she has the spotlight for Seasons One and Two, appearing to be Fogg's right-hand woman.

    Lipson 

Professor Eleanor Lipson

One of the Brakebills professors, who specializes in healing. She also works in the infirmary.


  • Despair Event Horizon: Crosses it when magic goes away. After a suicide attempt, she pulls back over the brink thanks to over a dozen pills each morning.
  • Driven to Suicide: Becomes severely depressed after the loss of magic in season 3, and nearly jumps off a building. Quentin has to talk her out of it.
  • I Was Never Here: She does not cast the illegal spell which puts the Dean's insanity into a cat.
  • Muggles Do It Better: Before she was a Magician, she was a trauma surgeon, a reliable set of skills she falls back on when magic isn't co-operating for whatever reason.
  • Number Two: After Sunderland disappears, she takes on her role as Fogg's confidant and right-hand woman.
  • Office Romance: In Season Three we find out that she had a long-standing one with Mayakovsky, which she took a lot more seriously than he ever did.
  • School Nurse: The closest thing to it shown in the series. Whenever someone winds up in the infirmary, she's seen tutting at them.
  • Stealing the Credit: She claims that Mayakovsky did this when he made the magic batteries, alleging that he'd have gotten nowhere without her.
  • Straw Nihilist: Becomes a bit of one after magic goes away, talking about how everyone's screwed.
  • Super Doc: She is proficient in all forms of magical healing and is usually called upon if one of the main characters is in trouble. In the absence of magic, it is revealed that she was a trauma surgeon before becoming a Magician, so she's good at mundane healing too.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The subplot with her having an affair with Mayakovsky and giving him living metal was probably supposed to go to Sunderland, whose specialty was Metallurgy, but Lipson inherited it after Sunderland went Out of Focus, presumably due to the fact that her specialty being Healing and the metal being living provided enough of an overlap.
  • Two-Teacher School: Although other professors are occasionally seen, she has the spotlight after Season Two, taking over from Sunderland as the most frequently seen professor. This leads to a bit of oddness like having the school nurse teaching a basic class on levitation.

    Todd 

Todd

Played By: Adam Di Marco

An eccentric student magician at Brakebills.


  • Butt-Monkey: Margo and Eliot order him around and otherwise exploit him for comedy.
  • Catchphrase: "New World Order".
  • Character Development: Handled subtly. He goes through a long phase of trying to imitate Eliot, and clearly believes his path to popularity is by emulating the main characters as much as he possibly can. By the end of the series, Todd appears wearing a plain polo shirt and nondescript trousers, rather than the vest and floral shirts that he spent much of the series wearing in an attempt to imitate the more popular students at the Physical Kids cottage. He also chooses to relinquish the quest to save Fillory, showing that he has moved beyond the need to ape the more popular protagonists for validation.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: He's a very quirky, awkward, and fun-loving magician.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He is a squirrelly weirdo, but perfectly capable of becoming the de facto Life of the Party when the more popular kids are away, and is entrusted to write Dean Fogg's memoirs in multiple timelines. His knowledge eventually saves Brakebills when evil versions of both Fogg and Todd appear from another timeline.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Is a relatively minor character in the series' "big picture", but his charming awkwardness makes him well-loved among the series' fans.
  • Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Todd pretty obviously craves Eliot's level of popularity, and (badly) apes Eliot's fashion choices. Eliot wants none of it. When the Librarians alter the timeline, Todd eagerly takes on Eliot's role as the quirky student ambassador for newcomers to Brakebills - much like Eliot, he introduces himself while reclining on a Brakebills monument sign and smoking a cigarette.
  • Life of the Party: Early-series, this role alternates between Josh and Todd. Todd becomes the life of the party when the more popular Eliot is away from the Physical Kids' cottage in Fillory - much to Eliot's chagrin on his return.
  • One-Steve Limit: Todd is his middle name, and his real name is Elliot. Eliot didn't want someone else with the same name running around, so he forced Todd to go by his middle name. And because Todd is such a Butt-Monkey, it seems like everyone just accepted this.
  • Refusal of the Call: Is recruited to save Fillory by Sir Effingham and rejects the assignment. In a subversion of the trope, he and everyone else agree it's the best possible decision.
  • Running Gag: His obsession with aping Eliot's mannerisms and style.

    Hyman 

Hyman Cooper

Played By: Dustin Ingram
A Brakebills student from the 1920's who lost track of his body while astrally projecting and became known as The Pervert Ghost Of Brakebills.
  • Astral Projection: He uses his power to spy on others without them noticing, though living at a school full of magicians means they caught on pretty quickly.
  • Boomerang Bigot: Makes a huge point of rejecting stories about or perspectives of people from demographic groups who are considered minorities or are outside of society's assumed default - but his name suggests Jewish heritage and by the end of the series he proves to be at least heteroflexible, if not bisexual.
  • Character Development: The other characters are eventually willing to hear him out, realizing that his unwanted and seemingly predatory behavior is the result of loneliness. He eventually makes friends with the students/alums from modern Brakebills, and ultimately finds a healthy and consensual outlet for his need for intimacy, as he allows Charlton to use his body while having sex with Eliot.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Says he relates to Quentin because he identifies with a "heterosexual white male" protagonist. However, Quentin is bisexual, and Hyman himself is enthusiastically heteroflexible.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: While he tells the story relatively chipperly, his mother suffered from mental health problems as a result of birthing a traveler - and was then subjected a lobotomy and likely other forms of medical abuse from the early 20th century's mental health system: apparently just as brutal, cruel, and primitive among magicians as it was among muggles. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest this contributed to some of Hyman's own issues.
  • Demonic Possession: Well, not "demonic", but he can put his consciousness into objects to move them. He tries to teach Penny this. He gets better with practice.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: One of the reasons he acted the way he did in life and was so drawn to the protagonists was because in life no one liked him and he was a deeply lonely person.
  • Innocently Insensitive: He is from a different time—but he also has No Social Skills, so he can't help it.
  • Loners Are Freaks: Appears to have no real friends even during his time at Brakebills in the 1920s.
  • Meaningful Name: "Hyman" sounds like "hymen" (which is lampshaded), and is pretty meaningful for a pervert ghost.
  • No Social Skills: No one liked him back in his day because he was a socially awkward person who had no filter. That hasn't changed in a hundred-plus years of observing people, either.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Unlike normal ghosts, who are trapped in a loop of bad memories, he's essentially a detached soul because someone hid his body while he was projecting.
  • Outdated Name: "Hyman" is a Hebrew name and perfectly fine for someone born in 1902. In the present, however, it's closer to unfortunate, which Penny lampshades.
    Penny: Did that mean something different when you were born?
  • The Peeping Tom: He's terminally horny and loves watching other people have sex, so much so that he became infamous for doing so and isn't selective about who he peeps on, what they're doing, or with or without whom. Eventually, after repeated incidents, someone deliberately moved his body while he was projecting his soul into a shower and it died. It turns out Penny and Plum put his body in stasis as part of a Stable Time Loop, not that he wasn't risking having it done to him maliciously.
  • Power Perversion Potential: He used his powers to spy on people in intimate situations.
  • Power Tattoo: When he gets his body back he has to get these in order to control his powers during his brief stint as the team's teleporter.
  • Sense Freak: After getting his body back he runs around fingering things—that is, touching them—and enjoys sandwiches with that newfangled sliced bread.
  • Sex by Proxy: Played With. When he gives his body to Charlton, he does so with the proviso that Charlton do perverted acts with it.
  • Shipper on Deck He becomes one for Penny-23 and Julia.
  • Telepathy: Like all Travelers.
  • Teleportation: In life he was a Traveller like Penny, though he never focused on that aspect of his powers and is in for a rather rude awakening when they get put to use in the present.
  • Willing Channeler: After getting his body back in season 5, he becomes sick of mortal life and jumps at the chance to donate his body to Charlton, since it means he can go back to spying on everyone with impunity.

    Plum 

Plum Merritt Chatwin

Played By: Riann Steele

A Traveler student who approaches Penny in Season 5.


  • Adaptational Name Change: Her name is changed to Plum Merritt Chatwin from her book counterpart's Plum Polson Purchas.
  • Brought Down to Normal: An encounter with wannabe Time Police in season 5 drains her of much of her time-traveling plasma, leaving her with enough juice for one jump — which she gives to the team in the finale.
  • Related Differently in the Adaptation: In the books she is Rupert's descendant; in the show she is descended from Rupert's sister Jane (to explain her time travel powers).
  • Same Surname Means Related: Her Adaptational Name Change changes her surname to Chatwin, to more easily denote that she is a Chatwin descendant. Penny instantly makes the connection when she tells him her full name.
  • Time Travel: Plum is a rare breed of Traveler who can travel through time.

Hedge Witches

    Pete 

Pete

Played By: David Call

The face of the best hedge witch safehouse in New York. He recruits Julia directly, and is as friendly to her as he can be despite her obsessive nature.


  • The Dragon: He's Marina's second in command, but he's just as scared of her as everyone else. In season 4, he joins up with Kady after she needs help finding something in the black market, because he sees her as someone who could be a proper leader to the hedges.
  • Friend in the Black Market: In season 4, he's working as an information dealer in the black market under the name of "Lovelady".
  • Legacy Character: As mentioned above he eventually takes on the identity of "Lovelady", which is apparently one of these. The previous Lovelady had been an Earl with his own island.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After Marina's abuse of Julia, he usurps her offscreen to prevent her from backstabbing her other 'friends'.
  • Motivated by Fear: Since magic spikes when the user is undergoing strong emotion, he attacks Julia as if he were going to rape her. Upon getting the results he was looking for he explains his motivations.
  • Number Two: He becames the right hand to Kady after she decides to lead the hedge witches in seasons 4 and 5.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • In a way, his erasing Julia's fiancé's memory of her is this, since he did it to protect the guy from getting involved in dangerous magic, though Julia didn't see it that way.
    • Even though it could get him in serious trouble with Marina, he gives Julia a bit of help after the former makes the latter persona non grata to her hedge group.
  • Protectorate: His main interest is doing what's best for the hedge witch community, and he'll be loyal to whichever leader can serve their best interests. That was Marina, it becomes Kady.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He implies he's going to rape Julia to get her to pull out her magic, but afterwards insists that he would never actually do it.
  • Really Gets Around: "Lovelady" is not an inappropriate moniker for him.
  • Sex for Services: Julia has a short-lived sexual relationship with him, in exchange for information on the city's hedge witches. She was the one who initiated it, though, and was only using his attraction to manipulate him, as she turns him down (citing her fiancé) when he wants more from their relationship.

    Marina 

Marina Andrieski

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/f31384e589e3e7b4f5d9ca68a6f78835.jpg
Played By: Kacey Rohl

Leader of the best hedge witch safe house in New York. She was thrown out of Brakebills three months before her graduation for unknown reasons and had all her memories of magic erased. She managed to claw her way back to the top of the hedge witches despite that, and ruthlessly exploits everyone under her.


  • Actually, That's My Assistant: At first, Marina appears to be another newbie witch who's thrown into a "test" against a revived corpse in a freezer by Pete. After Julia figures a way out, Marina reveals how she's really the one in charge and this was a test of a different sort.
  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After Reynard kills an equally-skilled colleague, Marina figures any port in a storm will do and comes to Dean Fogg for protection. He leaves her adrift.
  • Alone with the Psycho: She's left alone when Penny pulls Julia and the Beast into Fillory for a showdown with the latter. With nobody to maintain the trap, Reynard breaks free and kills her.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Her Timeline-23 self mentions sleeping with Dean Fogg (and is complimentary of his bedroom skills), though this may have been so she could steal stuff from him. She also seems to find "Hansel" attractive.
  • The Bus Came Back: The Marina from Timeline 23 decides to come to Timeline 40 in season 3.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Her: Killed Offscreen unceremoniously after being left alone with Reynard.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
    • She might be a bitch to her fellow man, but according to Reynard, even Marina had some affection in her heart to spare for "Cupcake", her black cat familiar. So Reynard killed it - very viciously.
    • Marina 23, for her part, has a girlfriend she intends to marry. (Of course, since this is Marina we're talking about, it's a little twisted. The lady in question is the timeline 40 version of The One That Got Away from 23; Marina's using her knowledge of the past relationship and the timeline jump to get a do-over.)
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • She's a power-hungry bitch and a Bad Boss, but when Julia calls her for help after Reynard massacred her friends and raped her, she comes without any hesitation, no strings attached. She even seems horrified at the idea that she might demand payment for fixing Julia's memory.
    • She also takes her responsibilities towards the hedge community seriously, working to protect them from Reynard when it's clear he's targeting them. She only ducks out of Julia and The Beast's plans to stop him when it becomes clear they intend to push all the risk onto her.
  • Good Is Not Nice: When Julia needed her, even though she'd threatened to kill her if she got into her shit, she was there and doing whatever she could to help, no questions asked, no payment wanted.
  • Heel–Face Brainwashing: For a little while in season 5, after her disastrous heist attempt upon the Nave Hotel, Marina-23 willingly undergoes a procedure that does this. Her girlfriend also wanted her to.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: She gets away mostly clean in the first season, the worst comeuppance being that Julia stole her cabinet full of spells. In the second season, Reynard starts hunting hedge witches, Dean Fogg is totally unsympathetic to her plight, and she's finally killed by Reynard after Julia's plan to trap and kill him goes awry. She's then brought back to life temporarily and her comments indicate she wound up in Hell for her actions.
  • Killed Offscreen: By Reynard, after Julia and the Beast have been pulled into Fillory. Julia comes back to find her grotesquely mutilated on the floor.
  • Lady of Black Magic: A cunning and bitchy hedge witch with a specialty in dangerous magic, capable of killing, telekinesis, banishment, etc. After retaining her memories from Brakebills she becomes even stronger.
  • Lipstick Lesbian: Marina 23, at least, who has a girlfriend she intends to marry. It's possible main-timeline Marina is a lesbian as well, though it's never actually confirmed.
  • Pet the Dog: When Julia is raped and her friends are murdered, Marina helps her despite spending the entire season tormenting her. She doesn't even ask for anything in return.
  • Put on a Bus: After getting kidnapped with Penny 23, Marina 23 dips out, presumably to visit her girlfriend for her birthday, as she talked about not wanting to miss it earlier in the episode, and never returns.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When The Monster shows up at her apartment, cutting through all her wards and setting off all her alarms, Marina-23 makes tracks.
  • Secret Test: Puts Julia through one by pretending to be a new hedge witch just like her and then gets locked in the freezer with her.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Marina-23 pulls off a non-time travel version of this, by hooking up with the Timeline 40 counterpart of her ex-girlfriend and not making the same mistakes she did with her own version. This ends as badly as you'd expect.
  • Token Evil Teammate: In season 4, reluctantly becomes this, after the mindwiped version of Kady has a run-in with one of Marina's minions and subsequent events suck her in.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: She tricks Julia into putting Quentin in a coma, uses her to break into Brakebills, gets everything she wants, and then exiles Julia for trying to save her friend.

Fillory

    Jane Chatwin 

Jane Chatwin

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/magicians_s1_101_image21.jpg
Young Jane Chatwin 
Played By: Esmé Bianco, Rose Liston (Young)
Aliases: Eliza, The Watcherwoman

Jane Chatwin is the sister of Martin and Rupert Chatwin and the hero from the Fillory and Further books. Adult Jane Chatwin uses the alias Eliza to interact with Quentin and Dean Fogg about dealing with The Beast. She is later revealed to also be the Watcherwoman, who was a villain in the Fillory and Further books.


  • …And That Little Girl Was Me: Eliza is revealed to be Jane Chatwin. She is trying to clean up the mistakes of her childhood by secretly watching over Quentin.
  • The Chosen One: It's implied she was in a similar position as Quentin once, but failed in her task. At the very least, she was supposed to kill the Beast, but obviously didn't. She's actually still trying, using a time loop to try again and again with different variations.
  • Place Beyond Time: She shows up after her death, having created a plane outside of time which allows her to exist and not exist at once.
  • Stealth Mentor:
    • She was secretly trying to teach Quentin and the others how to defeat the Beast by changing events in each different time loop. For instance, by making it so that Julia doesn't pass the Brakebills entrance exam in this most recent loop, forcing her to learn magic from hedges out in the world to toughen her up.
    • As the Watcherwoman, she was also this to herself by travelling back in time and playing the villain, inspiring young Jane Chatwin to learn magic to fight her.
  • Time Master: She was given a magic watch in Fillory that lets her "fuck with time on a cosmic scale." Exactly what it is capable of is unclear, but she uses it to loop time in an effort to find a way to destroy the Beast, working to make Quentin and Julia stronger with every iteration. The events of the show represent the fortieth loop. The previous thirty-nine ended in Quentin's death. This will be the last one, as the Beast finally managed to kill her.
  • The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): She's the single most knowledgeable character about the Beast, Fillory, and the plot in general. Unfortunately, she's gone through one time loop too many and gets killed off in her latest attempt to experiment her way to victory, which includes intentionally keeping the heroes in the dark.

    The Beast 

The Beast

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/martin_1.jpg
Played By: Charles Mesure, Anthony Marble (Faceless Form)
Aliases: Martin Chatwin (Real Name)

A monstrous creature from another world who appears in this one with his face obscured by moths. In reality, he's Martin Chatwin, turned into an evil and extremely powerful magician by the traumas of his childhood.


  • Animal Motif: Moths. Symbolic of both the childhood innocence that he could not return to and his transformation into something other than human.
  • Back from the Dead and Back for the Dead: He successfully dupes Rupert into releasing him from the Underworld only to be presented with Fillory being destroyed.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: As a child, he was repeatedly raped by Christopher Plover. The trauma from this affected him and his future, so Fillory began rejecting him. He found his way there anyway, and began draining the magic so that he would never have to leave.
  • Big Bad: Of Season 1. He is the big threat to Fillory and Brakebills. Quentin and the others were being taught magic so that they could find a way to defeat him. However, he doesn't survive past the third episode of the second season.
    • Big Bad Wannabe: In Season 5, he schemes a way out of the afterlife to return to his throne... just in time for the heroes to destroy Fillory, which effortlessly kills him off.
  • Calling Card: The Beast seems to like smiley-faces, first drawing one on the other side of a fogged-up mirror, then drawing one with Dean Fogg's blood and eyeballs.
  • Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Julia sabotages the plan to kill him by blackmailing him into helping her kill Reynard.
  • The Chain of Harm: Like some abuse victims, Martin became an abuser himself especially after he stripped of himself of Shade taking his ability to feel remorse or empathy. His behavior especially when it comes to children such as wishing to watch child at a park play is especially creepy and has sinister overtones.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: He's so powerful that mostly all the confrontations with him are this. Ultimately, he's on the receiving end of one from the powered-up Alice.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: Pretends to be his brother Rupert's deceased lover Lance in order to trick his way out of the Underworld.
  • Defiled Forever: By the standards of Ember and Umber, his molestation and trauma at the hands of Christopher Plover made him unfit to enter Fillory, thus robbing him of the only solace left to him.
  • Eccentric Mentor: The Beast becomes this for Julia. He’s still evil, but he helps her and shares his coping mechanisms with her.
  • Evil Mentor: Posing as a benevolent voice from another world, he secretly taught Penny how to control his psychic abilities in order to manipulate him into eventually lowering the wards of Brakebills.
  • The Faceless: His face is mostly shown being covered by a swarm of moths, at least until the Season 1 finale.
  • Faux Affably Evil: He's a friendly sort, always smiling and giving gentle jokes. Except his smiles are often drawn in the blood of his victims, and his jokes involve far too much blood.
    • His interactions with Julia lean more towards genuinely Affably Evil; while he's supernaturally compelled not to harm her, he does seem to respect her, and while his advice to her and his We Can Rule Together offer are evil, he appears to mean it genuinely. Notably, he does back down on removing her shade when she objects, and it doesn't seem as though the contract forced him to.
  • Freudian Excuse: He was molested by Christopher Plover and subsequently rejected by Fillory, the combined despair of which drove him into insanity and magic obsession.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: His story starts him as an orphaned child of unclear origin. Then he’s the victim of sexual abuse, which it's also implied blocked him from returning to Fillory without an artifact. By the end of his arc he can freeze a god and predict the actions of pretty much everyone around him in most cases.
  • The Gadfly: He's not allowed to harm Julia for the duration of their deal. That doesn't prevent him from singing at the top of his lungs day and night (with magical accompaniment) just to annoy her.
  • Grand Theft Me: He takes possession of Eliot's boyfriend, Mike McCormick, and uses him to infiltrate Brakebills. He eventually uses him to kill Eliza, who was really Jane, his sister.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The removal of his "shade" and draining of powerful magics from Fillory have turned him into one: he has six fingers on each hand, walks with stiff and crooked movements, and is perpetually surrounded by moths. In death, it's shown that his physical form is either filled with or entirely made of these moths.
  • Macabre Moth Motif: The Beast is usually announced by a moth and his unseen face is perpetually surrounded by a swarm of moths.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: He treats all the death and mayhem he causes as a fun parlor game.
  • Rasputinian Death: He has most of his left arm shredded by Alice's first attack, is cut off from the Wellspring, gets cut up to the point of being immobilized by the powered-up Alice, and finally has his chest torn open, upon which moths fly out and leave his empty body behind.
  • Red Herring: It seemed like Christopher Plover was the Beast, but he's actually Martin Chatwin, using techniques Plover came up with.
  • Red Right Hand: He added an extra finger to each hand so he could do more complex magic.
  • The Sociopath: He cut off his "shade", the part of his soul that let him feel love—and more importantly for him, fear and self-loathing.
  • The Unchosen One: Fillory started to reject him over time. When he finally managed to get back, he resolved to never leave again. Even if that meant draining the wellspring of Fillory's magic and fighting the gods.
  • Was Once a Man: He was once Martin Chatwin, one of the kids from the Fillory books. He was being raped by Christopher Plover and was being rejected by Fillory, and used Plover's own ideas and theories to improve his casting abilities.
  • We Can Rule Together: Tries to convince Julia to rip out her own shade so she joins him as a partner and they can rule-slash-terrorize Fillory together.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Martin was once a normal child who was raped repeatedly by Christopher Plover and rejected by Fillory because of it. He dedicated himself to growing powerful enough to stay in Fillory forever, fundamentally altering himself and removing his shade, becoming the extremely powerful and evil Beast.

    Christopher Plover 

Christopher Plover

The author of the Fillory and Further series, and Quentin's idol. In reality, he was using the Chatwin kids to access Fillory for him so he could both write the books and attempt to become a powerful magician. He was also molesting Martin Chatwin, inadvertently turning him into the Beast.


  • Abusive Parents: To the Chatwins, who were his adopted children — especially Martin, who was subjected to sexual abuse.
  • And I Must Scream: When Quentin finds him in Fillory, he's being kept alive by the Beast, perpetually being Eaten Alive by moths. Since Quentin knows by now what role he had in creating the Beast, he offers no help.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Used the information he got from the Chatwins to teach himself magic, and even devised a particular method which required twelve fingers.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: He claims the inverse happened and that his torture at Martin's hands made him rethink his life and regret all the terrible things he'd done. Nobody buys it.
  • Dirty Old Man: A pedophile who raped Martin Chatwin and abused the other siblings.
  • Healing Factor: The "age-suspension" spell Martin casts on him seems to be a time-based form of this, reverting his body to the point when it was cast so Martin can torture him over and over again.
  • Karma Houdini: He actually receives hefty doses of karma, but nothing really sticks:
    • Imprisonment by Beast - freed by the gang, no worse for wear and now ageless.
    • Thrown into Poison Room - age-suspending spell made him immune.
    • Lost in Fillory and infested by tongue-tiers for 300 years - he's still his old self with no trace of repentance.
    • Infested again and made a hobo in New-York - remains to be seen how this'll turn out.
  • Laser-Guided Karma:
    • He raped and abused Martin Chatwin to the point that Martin ripped out his "shade" and became the Beast, whereupon Martin subjected him to all of that pain and more in Fillory.
    • Later, when the gang killed the Beast he escaped Fillory, trying to find the world where he can be happy. Alice tricks him into going to Poison Room in Library. Without the ticket back.
    • Then he turns out alive again, flees to Fillory and is cursed by Dark King to be infested with speech-blocking bugs. For 300 years.
    • And then, after being cured and returned to Earth, he's infested again and thrown out on the street.
  • Mind Probe: He's able to read Martin's mind, thus violating even the most private part of him.
  • Murder by Inaction: Allowed, even encouraged his sister to drug and violently abuse children in order to keep them out of his way, leading to the deaths of two of them.
  • Muse Abuse: In a disgustingly literal sense, yes, having used the Chatwins in his books and physically abused them.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: He feels this way about his past and how people keep punishing him for it. Since the crime he wants people to forget is the rape of a child, which indirectly screwed over an entire planet for centuries, the other characters are unsympathetic, to put it mildly.
  • Punny Name: A nickname for "Christopher" is "Kit" or "Kid". "Plover" is pronounced the same as "hover".
  • Red Herring: He's suspected of being the Beast after Quentin and the others travel back in time and see how evil he was, but the Beast turns out to be Martin Chatwin instead.
  • Stealing the Credit: He rephrased the Chatwins' adventures in Fillory for his books and became a famous author.

    Rupert Chatwin 

Rupert Sebastian "Seb" Chatwin

Played by: Sean Maguire
The eldest of the Chatwin siblings a powerful magician in his own right, Rupert was a soldier in World War II who returned home for the summer after sustaining an injury. It was during that time his sister Jane, brother Martin, and himself discovered the world of Fillory and went on a number of adventures before returning to the war.
  • Been There, Shaped History: When he had to return to service, Rupert searched the Armory for a means to assist the Allies and found the Rhinemann Ultra. When trying to find the spell themselves, Alice and Quentin realize that Rupert would have taken part at the Battle of the Bulge shortly after. They are flabbergasted to realize that Rupert Chatwin had used the spell to secretly, and singlehandedly, win World War II.
  • Big Bad: Of Season 5, as the “Dark King” of Fillory.
  • The Ghost: He only ever gets referenced in relation to his time in Fillory as High King, and never makes an appear either in the past or the present. This makes him the only one of the Chatwin siblings who doesn't live to the present day given his book counterpart also died. He finally makes an appear in the episode "Be the Penny" revealing him to have found the Truth Key in Fillory and brought it to Earth. The same episode reveals that he attended Brakebills as a student and was in a relationship with fellow student Lance Morrison. Then subverted in Season 5 when he is revealed to be the true identity of the “Dark King”.
  • The Good King: And the last one Fillory had before his brother Martin became The Beast and terrorized it as ruler for decades, cursing and killing anyone from Earth who tried to become the next High King or challenge his power.
    • Evil Overlord: Then it's inverted when Rupert wakes up from a magically-induced coma centuries later, losing his mind after realizing everyone he loves is dead, and enslaves Fillory in a long-term attempt to resurrect the dead.
  • Place Beyond Time: Ends up in the same place as Jane after the destruction of Fillory.
  • Posthumous Character: Dead by the 21st century but is referenced numerous times throughout the series, usually involving his time in Fillory. In reality, he became the immortal "Dark King" after being cursed by his brother Martin while trying to stop him from destroying Fillory. He was placed into a cursed sleep, only woke up after the magic surges began, and now wants nothing more than to be reunited with his dead boyfriend Lance.
  • Sole Survivor: In-Universe he's regarded as this by the general public due to his siblings disappearing and no-one knew what became of them.

    Fray 

Frail Human "Fray" Waugh

Played by: Madeleine Arthur

The daughter of Eliot and Fen, raised in the Faerie Realm. Due to time moving faster there, she became a teenager in the two months she was missing.


  • Admiring the Abomination: She gets a little too into describing the horrific wounds that a shadowbat would give a human.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: While she starts out totally loyal to the Fairy Queen, after seeing how much Eliot and Fen truly care about her, Fray fesses up to not actually being their daughter, who was stillborn.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: She takes every opportunity to turn up her nose at her parents, which they find amusing.
  • Changeling Tale: She was stolen from her real parents and raised in the Fairy Realm.
  • Family of Choice: Although she's not actually their kid, Eliot and Fen become the closest thing to family she's ever had, particularly after the Fairy Queen (whom she had seen as family) threatens her.
  • Fish out of Water: Having been raised in the Faerie Realm, she's completely clueless about how the world works. When pirates raid the Muntjac, she doesn't think they should be allowed to because Eliot is king.
  • Interspecies Romance: With Humbledrum, a talking bear who is the proprietor of the tavern where she finds work as a barmaid.
  • Like Parent, Like Child: Despite Eliot's denial, she acts a lot like him. Margo specifically points out that she has the same unearned arrogance Eliot does—at least until Eliot earned it.
  • The Mole: Very openly a spy for the Fairy Queen.
  • Never Given a Name: The Faeries never bothered to name her, just calling her "Frail Human." She goes by Fray for short.
  • Parental Substitute: Although Eliot and Fen aren't actually her parents, it's clear that she develops respect and affection for them, and is clearly deeply touched when they approve of her relationship with Humbledrum.
  • Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Aged up to a young adult in the two months after she was taken from her parents. Eliot and Margo even discuss it by comparing it to other shows that used it (eg. Buffy), and Eliot wonders if she's really his daughter. He's right to be suspicious, since she isn't.
  • Stranger in a Familiar Land: Having been raised in the Fairy Realm, she doesn't fit in with human society on Fillory. And after betraying the fairies, she can't go back to them. Fortunately, she finds a place among the Talking Animals.

    Tick 

Tick Pickwick

Played by: Rizwan Manji

One of the Fillorian courtiers.


  • Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Despite his betrayal, Eliot and Margo leave him alive (though heavily guarded) because they still need his expertise to run the country.
  • Innocently Insensitive: It has to be explained to him that "mansplaining" is not a good thing.
  • It Runs in the Family: His family line have been courtiers for centuries, and during that time they've cultivated number of slightly dodgy skills that he's rather adept in.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: He's got a valid reason for being The Resenter, as outlined below.
  • The Resenter: The reason he betrays Eliot and Margo is, in part, because he resents the fact that any child from Earth is The Chosen One and can automatically become king even though he has far more experience and is vastly more qualified.
  • The Starscream: Eventually is all too willing to toss Eliot and Margo to the mob and become the next ruler of Fillory.
  • Sticky Fingers: His family has a reputation for being good pickpockets.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Even though Margo saved his life by not ratting him out to the Fairy Queen, he still turns on her.

    Rafe 

Rafe

Played by: Sergio Osuna

One of the Fillorian courtiers, and a translator.


    Lady Abigail 

Her Flealessness, Lady Abigail

One of the most competent Fillorian courtiers, she's a sloth who represents the Talking Animal faction of Fillory.


  • Brought Down to Normal: At one point, the pollen of a certain Loran flower renders her and the other talking animals mute until a cure is found.
  • Interspecies Romance: She and Rafe are in a relationship.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The harsh counterpart to the gentle Rafe.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Her plan to punish a criminal involved being drawn and quartered by four centaurs while a fifth, uh, impaled him.
  • Only Sane Employee: She may say creepy things, but she's highly intelligent and capable. Margo recognizes this and relies on her counsel on at least one occasion, knowing she's probably the smartest of her courtiers, and won't act like a vapid Yes-Man.
  • Opposites Attract: Abigail's a scary, scary sloth who advocates harsh punishments and torture, but Rafe is a Nice Guy. Somehow it works.
  • Out of Focus There's a Time Skip at the end of season 4, and later most of the royal court gets jumped forward 300 years...but, alas, not Abigail.
  • Talking Animal: Yup.

    Sir Effingham 
Played by: Sean Maguire

A questing beast of Fillory, who takes the form of a pig-man.


  • Call to Adventure: His role as a questing beast is to offer up new adventures to potential heroes.
  • Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: He is an overdressed, old-fashioned dandy with a condescending attitude towards women.
  • Gendered Insult: Nearly every line of dialogue.
  • Gender Scoff: He genuinely believes that Julia is not up to the task of saving Fillory because of her sex.
  • Good Old Ways: Although he's Fillorian, he expresses attitudes common of 18th and 19th century Earth.
  • He-Man Woman Hater: He is a literal sexist pig.
  • The Herald. Deconstructed. He seeks out Quentin to provide him with a Call to Adventure, but finds Julia instead since Quentin previously died - and refuses her help because of her sex. He then goes to Todd, who tells the group about his Refusal of the Call, which everyone agrees is the most favorable outcome. Ultimately, he's forced to accept Julia as The Hero.
  • Pig Man: A humanoid pig.
  • Punny Name: Due to his dramatic presentation, and the fact that he is a pig, he is an "f-ing ham."
  • Red Herring: He at first appears to be a significant character, quite possibly The Herald of a new Call to Adventure - but is ultimately treated as an annoyance by the protagonists.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Tells the men of the main cast to "control your sows!"
  • Straw Misogynist: Pretty much every antiquated, sexist social value known in the western world comes out of his mouth in some form - right down to suggesting that Julia cure her "hysteria" by masturbating.

Other Magicians

    Emily 

Emily Greenstreet

Played By: Abby Miller

A former Brakebills student who was in the same class as Alice's brother Charlie. She left the world of magic behind her and now works for a New York company.


  • Adaptational Personality Change: Neatly coupled with Took a Level in Kindness; during her brief appearance in the first book, Emily Greenstreet was openly contemptuous of magic and openly blamed everything wrong in her life on magic, and the only reason why she was able to have a civil conversation with Quentin is because he'd given up on magic at the time. In the series, Emily is far more subdued and infinitely less judgmental, coming across as troubled and grief-stricken more than anything else; plus, she's able to converse with two practising magicians without making any references to them being nuclear bombs waiting to go off.
  • All for Nothing: Casting a spell to change her appearance led to her good friend Charlie Quinn turning into a Niffin, and it turns out Mayakovsky was still in love with her anyway, as he finds and marries her in Season 3, meaning the whole thing was pointless.
  • Body Horror: Emily tried to improve her looks using magic, but this ended up warping her face horribly instead.
  • I Just Want to Be Beautiful: After Mayakovsky broke off their affair, she cast a dangerous spell to make herself more attractive in the hopes of winning him back and ended up wrecking half her face.
  • Last Girl Wins: She seems to have been the last student Mayakovsky had a relationship with, and left enough of an impression for him to eventually marry her.
  • Oblivious to Love: Charlie Quinn loved her enough to cobble together a risky spell in order to fix her face, but she seems to have been unaware of his feelings.
  • One-Hour Work Week: Her office position is basically a sinecure arranged by Brakebills which allows her to live peacefully without magic, and without having to do much of anything.
  • Out of Focus: always a bit character, she disappears from the plot after Season Three. This stands out a bit, considering Mayakovsky appears a few more times, manages to swap his senile future mind with his present one, and even has an adult daughter turn up, all without even one mention of Emily—y'know, his wife?
  • Sex for Solace: She and Quentin engage in this while under a spell to give each the appearance of the one the other wanted to be with the most.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Had an affair with Mayakovsky as a student, and still has unresolved feelings for him. In Season 3 he marries her, which seems to settle things, but she sees him with Professor Lipson and uses his own magic battery to turn him into a bear.

    Richard 

Chaplain Richard

Played By: Mackenzie Astin

A Brakebills graduate Julia meets in rehab, he works to help addicts of all kinds. One way he does that is by teaching magicians other, safer ways of using magic.


  • Accidental Murder: Richard's baby died in a hot car during his drug addict days.
  • The Atoner: Everything he's done since getting clean has been in the interest of making up for the death of his son.
  • Grand Theft Me: Reynard takes over his body after killing him.
  • The Leader: The Mastermind type, having assembled a hedge witch group with disparate problems and one common goal: to summon The Lady Underground. Julia even notes that he's a planner.
  • Mercy Kill: He kills Kira by giving her an overdose of morphine because she is in a vegetative state and he was told by Julia that she requested her to kill her and she refused.
  • Mistaken Identity: Thanks to Reynard tricking him, he thought that the portents he was receiving were leading him on the path to summon Persephone.
  • My Greatest Failure: Years ago he was a drug addict, and he left his six-month old son in the car on a hot day, where he died. He's trying to summon a god to gain enough power to turn back time and fix his mistake.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: As remorseful as he is, the afterlife has him tagged as the murder of his son, and he's not allowed to see the boy. He's working on a plan to get around that.
  • Religion is Magic: He is the first to introduce theurgy, entreating gods for power.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: He believed that summoning The Lady Underground would allow him to go back and prevent the death of his child.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Richard teaches Julia about Theurgy, as well as several spells, and the two of them end up sleeping together, with signs that they may be forming a more solid relationship. Well, until the summoning ritual.
  • Time Travel: He wants to do this, and is ecstatic when the hedge group manages to turn time back a bit.

    Mike 

Mike McCormick

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mike_mccormick.jpg
Played By: Jesse Luken

A magician and graduate of Brakebills University.


  • Bury Your Gays: He becomes Eliot's boyfriend, but is soon killed due to being possessed by the Beast.
  • Collateral Angst: He is killed off (by his boyfriend no less) in order to provide an angsty subplot for Eliot.
  • Grand Theft Me: The Beast possessed him in order to infiltrate Brakebills.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: Killed by Eliot when the Beast inside his body attempts to escape from his prison.
  • The Lost Lenore: Eliot starts drinking heavily and gets depressed as a result of being forced to kill him.
  • Loving a Shadow: Eliot's disappointed when he gets the opportunity to know Mike better, post-mortem.
  • Satellite Love Interest: His characterization was mostly to be Eliot's boyfriend. Subverted when he is revealed to be the Beast possessing a body.
  • Temporary Love Interest: He became Eliot's first serious boyfriend in a long time.

    Kira 

Kira

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2016_03_15_at_85730_am_e1458057545788.png
Played By: Yaani King

A coma patient who is tasked to teach Julia the real meaning of magic.


  • Adventures in Comaland: Kira is in a vegetative state, but she can still create a dreamworld in her mind. She takes Julia to various places from her memories.
  • Bury Your Gays: Kira mentions having a girlfriend, and she dies at the end of the episode she is introduced in.
  • Magical Negro: Her main story arc is to help Julia with her problems and discover another way to learn magic. She does however ask Julia for a personal request and she also tells Julia the story of her life in the process of teaching her.
  • Mental World: Where she lives, and where Julia visits.
  • Mercy Kill: She requests Julia to kill her because she no longer wants to live in her vegetative state. Julia refuses to, but Richard fulfills the request by giving her an overdose.
  • Tragic One-Shot Character: She appears in the episode "The Writing Room" and dies at the end of the episode, shaking Julia.
  • Twofer Token Minority: She is black and a lesbian.

     Zelda 

Zelda Schiff

Played by: Mageina Tovah

The head librarian of the Library of the Neitherlands.


  • 11th-Hour Ranger: She joins the team in the final season after burning down the Neitherlands Library.
  • Broken Pedestal: She believed in upholding a number of the Library's more oppressive policies because her mentor Everett had impressed upon her how important it was to keep the "Flame of Knowledge" burning. It turns out that he had actually lost faith in the Library long before he met her and he was manipulating everyone, including her, as part of his misguided plan to achieve apotheosis.
  • Character Tic: She has a habit of holding her arms up with her hands facing forward.
    • Turns into a case of Fridge Brilliance when you realise she is Harriets mother. Her hands are likely always in the air as a habit, ready to start signing.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: She compares herself to Kady in that her mother was also a hedge witch and she was living on the streets until the Library found her.
  • Evil Mentor: Everett saved her from a life on the streets and turns out to have been grooming her to take over the Library after he assumes godhood.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: She casts a spell preventing The Beast's army of the dead from overrunning the multiverse, also allowing Alice and Kady to escape, and is killed by The Beast for her troubles.
  • My Beloved Smother: Was an overprotective mother to Harriet, whom she forbade from going out in the world, resulting in her daughter leaving her and the library.
  • Older Than They Look: Like all Librarians, she doesn't age while in the Library, so she's much older than her physical appearance would suggest.
  • Supernaturally Young Parent: Because Harriet has spent most of her life outside the Library, physically she and Zelda are almost identical in age, with Harriet actually being a bit older.
  • Villain Takes an Interest: Villain is pushing it, but Zelda takes an interest in Alice because she believes Alice has the potential to be great.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: She's devoted to the Library cause - preserving knowledge and order. While she's willing to make morally dubious choices to achieve greater good, she's also trying her best to avoid unnecessary damage, doing her best to help when the heroes aren't opposing her, and when she learns she's been manipulated by Everett, she promptly switches sides.

     Harriet 

Harriet Schiff

Played by: Marlee Matlin (adult) Stephanie Nogueras (teen) and Winter Sluyter Obidos (child)

A former Brakebills student and CEO of FuzzBeat, which she uses as a platform to secretly publish magical knowledge.


  • Bland-Name Product: FuzzBeat, from the name to the site layout to the content published, is a magical counterpart to BuzzFeed.
  • Former Teen Rebel: As a teenager, she tended to make really shady friends. She's still got a gift for making connections.
  • Information Wants to Be Free: Her goal. She runs a site that secretly lets magical knowledge out in the open, dislikes how the library keeps information locked up, and helps the protagonists when their goals of getting information out of them align with hers.

     Victoria 

Victoria Gradley

Played by: Hannah Levien
A former Brakebills student and a Traveler. Like Josh, she was part of the class that disappeared.


  • Back for the Dead: After leaving Brakebills and the group behind to travel in season 1, she returns in season 3 when the group needs a Traveler to break into the Library. She is lost in the mirror world in the attempt, and though Harriet is rescued the following season, Victoria isn't.
  • The Bait: The Beast used her as bait for unsuspecting Travelers.
  • Damsel in Distress: In season 1, Penny would get visions of her chained in a dungeon by the Beast, and wants to rescue her. The Beast uses this against him.

     Sylvia 

Sylvia

Played by: Roan Curtis

A teenage magician associated with the Neitherlands Library.


  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: Shortly after her death in the Poison Room, her entire family got whacked.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: She helps Penny break into the Poison Room, despite having read her own life-book and knowing that she would die if she did so.
  • Improbable Age: Justified. Although she's only a teenager, she becomes Penny's supervisor, having worked for the Library longer.
  • I Will Only Slow You Down: She tells Penny to abandon her in the Poison Room because if he stayed to help her out they'd both die there.
  • The Mafia: Her father is a member of the Magician-based variant.
  • Parental Abandonment: Enforced. Her father pulled some strings to get himself and his family moved on from the Underworld early, but her Library contract was ironclad—until Penny gave up his own chance for freedom.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: She grew up as with her father as a member of the Magician La Casa Nostra, and she's pretty blasé about it.
  • Witness Protection: She joined the Library so they could protect her from her father's enemies.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Having read her book, she knows her life ends before the Great Blank Spot. Although she could theoretically change this, she elects to help Penny despite knowing this is how she dies.

     Poppy 

Poppy Kline

Played by: Felicia Day

A former Brakebills student and field researcher specializing in dragons.


  • Adaptational Nationality: Australian in the books, she's American here.
  • Fetish: She really, really likes dragons. Really.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: In Season Four she's stolen a bottle of dragon semen from the East River Dragon and impregnated herself ...is what she tells the gang in order to hide the fact that she has a dragon egg which she actually fertilized. Her own pregnancy is perfectly normal.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: A Deconstruction in that after she drops into Quentin's life, she mostly comes off as annoying, manipulative, and unreliable.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In Season 3, she awkwardly disappears from the narrative after "Six Short Stories About Magic" with no explanation given. She finally shows up again in Season 4's "Home Improvement" episode, squatting in Physical Kids' cottage to hide her stolen dragon egg, ready to leave once more after she's forced to give the egg up.

Gods, Goddesses and The Things that scare them

    Ember 

Ember

Played By: Dominic Burgess

One of the two gods who created Fillory. He appears as an overweight satyr and is a being of entropy and chaos to balance Umber's order.


  • Big Bad: The real main villain of Season 2, being the one behind all of Fillory's problems.
  • Cain and Abel: Ember puts two and two together and realizes Umber sold him out to a flock of sexually abused moths so he could move to Canada. Then he starts choking his brother to death, cursing him as the weaker one.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Ember happily manipulates events to cause suffering and hardship for mortals, but even he found Martin's situation to be unpleasant. And since Ember only cared about his own enjoyment, he simply locked Martin out of Fillory so he wouldn't be a downer.
  • Forced Transformation: One of the tricks he played in Season 2 involved turning half the people in Castle Whitespire into rats.
  • The Hedonist: Part of the problem is that he's trapped in his shrine and has nothing better to do, but he mentions that he's had sex with every nymph in the kingdom. Season 2 reveals that this is his standard personality, as Ember loves to indulge himself in every possible way.
  • Jerkass Gods:
    • Martin's molestation at Christopher Plover's hands ended up making him kind of a bummer, so Ember denied him access to Fillory.
    • When he sees that Julia has a patch of Fake Memories on her mind, he removes it with no thought of the consequences. Contrast with Eliza, who left it despite its amateur nature because she was sure it was put there for a reason.
    • More details emerge on his jerkass nature when Umber explains that Ember helped created Fillory to entertain himself. After the Beast's death, Ember proceeds to wreak havoc in Fillory to amuse himself and ultimately plans to destroy it as a grand finale.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The act of murdering his brother is precisely what allows the protagonists to get the energy necessary to kill him in return.
  • Manipulative Bastard: In "We Have Brought You Little Cakes" it's revealed Ember interfered at several points throughout season 2 to ensure maximum "drama" with the main cast.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: He defecates in the Wellspring to stop the Beast from using it to heal. It results in the Beast's Karmic Death, but it proceeds to cause serious problems for Fillory and weaken magic on Earth. Plot Twist!
  • Posthumous Character: He set an emanation of himself to appear before the High King and warn them of a threat to all of Fillory. It's capable of independent thought and has all of his... charming... traits.
  • Sealed Good in a Can: The Beast trapped him in his own shrine after killing Umber. Subverted when after the Beast's death he starts wreaking havoc on Fillory to entertain himself.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Forcing Martin out of Fillory was a contributing factor in his becoming The Beast.

    Umber 

Umber

One of the two gods who created Fillory. He appears as a slim satyr and is a being of order and creation to balance Ember's chaos.


  • Dirty Coward: Recognizes that he turned tail and ran from his own creation, but still treats humans like software programs.
  • The Exile: Martin/The Beast accepted Umber's deal to allow him to leave Fillory in exchange for selling out Ember. Even after The Beast's death, Umber remains in self-imposed exile, despite clearly loving and missing Fillory.
  • Faking the Dead: After the Beast targeted him, Umber faked his own death and fled Fillory to the next best place in creation, Canada.
  • Fan Boy: He has a massive Fillory and Further collection, though he's no mere collector. He also loves Law & Order, being about his portfolio and all.
  • God of Order: Unlike his God of Chaos brother, Umber is a neat, detached god of order meant to balance him out.
  • It's Been Done: His fatal flaw in world creation. Cube worlds? Minecraft. "Cuba"? He didn't do the research on previous country names. There's a distinct lack of creativity in his latest world.
  • Jerkass Gods: Although in the modern day he comes across as mostly somewhat uptight, in the past both he and Umber refused to allow Martin access to Fillory after his molestation by Plover.
  • The Maker: The driving force behind Fillory's creation. After fleeing Fillory he has turned to other projects, but never forgot the place.
  • Neat Freak: Given his nature as a god of order, his house is spotless and artfully arranged as is his pet project world. He even has a clipboard for surveying people in preparation for his next project.
  • Posthumous Character: Like his brother, he also sets up an emanation in order to explain how his ark works.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Forcing Martin out of Fillory was a contributing factor in his becoming The Beast.

    Persephone 

Persephone/Our Lady Underground

A harvest goddess who appears to Julia and offers her help.


  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Within the cosmology of the books/show, Reynard is Persephone's son, unlike in real-world Classical mythology.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: At first it seems like she's just a way for Reynard to get to Earth, but she's soon revealed to be quite important.
  • Disappointed in You: She tells Reynard as much, and later proves it with her actions.
  • Ethereal White Dress: A goddess of the underworld who appears to mortals in a white dress.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: Even though it's shown that gods and demigods can hear prayers and invocations, even from non-Magicians, she sat on her hands and declined to intervene with the various issues the hedgies of Richard's group wanted her help with. If she'd bothered to step in much earlier, a great deal of tragedy would have been averted.
  • Have You Seen My God?: She's one of the only gods still speaking to mortals, and even then only to her god-touched. Actually, she's not. Reynard pretended to be her to use Julia and the others to get back to Earth. She's been missing for centuries and not even Reynard knows where she is. She only finally reappears to save Reynard when Julia is about to kill him.
  • Jerkass Gods: While she appears completely benevolent in her sole appearance, asking Julia to spare her son, she knew what Reynard was doing and didn't step in until he was about to be killed, and only because there are consequences to killing a god.
  • Karmic Jackpot: She gives one of these. When Julia agrees not to kill Reynard—with no promise of reward—Persephone rewards her by bringing her shade up from the Underworld, even though Julia had already given up on ever getting it back. On top of that, she took Reynard's divine seed (as in the essence of divinity, not the more vulgar connotation) and gave it to Julia.
  • Magical Negro: She appears as a black woman bathed in light and she has the desire to give Julia and the others her blessing. This is subverted when she is revealed to be Reynard in disguise. Double subverted when it turns out she's a real goddess who Reynard was masquerading as, and that's what she really looks like—or at least, it's her favorite form.
  • Masquerading As the Unseen: It is stated that no one has seen her for centuries, and this makes it easy for Reynard to pretend to be her.
  • Neck Snap: How The Monster's sister kills her.
  • Rejection Affection: During a heated discussion between Reynard and his son, it's revealed why Reynard kills those who venerate Our Lady Underground; he loved the goddess and was rejected by her, unleashing his hatred towards her followers. Worse, she was his mother.
  • The Reveal: She's actually Persephone, the goddess of the underworld and the wife of Hades. Later she revealed herself to the mother of Reynard himself.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: [[spoiler:When The Monster plans to have its sister possess Julia's body, Julia calls upon Persephone, who freezes The monster and tells Julia to bolt before it gets free. Julia elects to stand there and argue with her instead. Then Persephone gets killed and Julia gets possessed.
  • Shout-Out: Her title of "Our Lady Underground" is one to Hadestown, which also referred to Persephone the same way.

    Hades 

Hades

Played By: Michael Luwoye

Ruler of the Underworld and husband to Persephone.


  • Horrible Housing: Season 5 reveals that Hades has been on Earth, holed up in a crappy apartment in Queens playing video games and gorging on junk food. It's a sign of how miserable the God of the Underworld is following Persephone's death that he would stoop to such living conditions.
  • The Mourning After: After Persephone dies, he lets his life go to pieces.
  • No One Sees the Boss: Hades doesn't like interacting with the souls in the Underworld, so he rarely shows up in person, and no one's actually seen him for years. Him gracing Penny with a visit is the first time he appears.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: He tells Penny-40 that he has a great destiny awaiting him, if he'll only stop resisting it.

    Reynard 

Reynard the Fox

Played By: Garcelle Beauvais (As a Disguise), Mackenzie Astin (Possessing Richard)

A trickster god with a violent and sadistic streak.


  • Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Within the cosmology of the books/show, Reynard is the son of Persephone, whereas in real-world classical mythology, Hermes/Mercury would fit the trickster role better.
  • And Show It to You: He's fond of ripping out the hearts of his victims.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Despite being invested in becoming a Dad to John Gaines, he will not hesitate to "gift" his son with his wife's remains, after having killed her himself, when things start to go awry in their father-son relationship.
  • Ax-Crazy:
    • His massacre of the Free Traders. He possesses their leader, then gleefully tears out another's heart and eats it as the others can only watch in terror. Then he uses magic to slit three of the others' throats. Kady manages to escape as he's busy raping Julia.
    • From there, he goes on a serial killing rampage of various worshippers of Our Lady Underground, and terrorizes his biological son, mostly unimpeded due to all that other shit going on throughout the universe. The final straw to his downfall is when he murders his daughter-in-law, tears her into shreds, and gives her ear to his son.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: He's pretty much only the antagonist of Julia's and Kady's plotline in Season 2. Everyone else is too busy with other problems to care about him. Ember ultimately surpasses him as the true Big Bad.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Persephone strips him of his divinity as punishment, making him a mostly-normal human stuck slinging pizzas for a living.
  • Even Evil Can Be Loved: Persephone pleads with Julia to spare him and allow her to handle his punishment, although it seems she prizes Julia's capacity for mercy as much as his life.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: After he learns about the existence of John Gaines, his son by Dana Wallens, Reynard appears to be truly invested in being a father, in his own screwed-up way. In light of Persephone's abandonment and his feelings about it, this remarkably positive trait actually makes sense.
  • For the Evulz: He seems to have no other motivation for his horrible actions other than his enjoyment at doing them for their own sake.
  • Freudian Excuse: According to him, his actions were motivated by his mother Persephone abandoning him. Persephone doesn't think that's good enough.
  • God Guise: Zigzagged. He's a god himself, but he pretends to be Our Lady Underground to gain access to Earth again.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: As a god, he's implied to be more powerful than the Beast. Julia forms an alliance with the Beast to find a way to kill him. After the Beast's death, Julia seeks other ways to deal with him.
  • Moral Myopia: He calls Persephone an evil heartless bitch for turning him down, ignoring the fact than he's an Ax-Crazy rapist and murderer. The fact that she shows up to save his life implies the situation is more complicated than just her abandoning him for being evil.
  • Nature vs. Nurture: Despite being the son of the benevolent goddess Persephone, he is a very dark and cruel god.
  • Parental Abandonment: The reason he is so angry at Our Lady Underground is that she is actually his mother, and she abandoned him.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: After killing the group, he underlines his evil when he brutally rapes Julia. It was so traumatizing that she had her memories of it erased.
  • Related in the Adaptation: Is Persephone's (but not Hades's) son in the show. In reality, she is a Greek goddess whose myth predates him by millennia, and his origin story has nothing to do with hers.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Tries to shoot Julia with the god-killing bullet despite the fact that her powers had developed to the point where she could easily stop him. This costs him even his chance at suicide.
  • Revenge by Proxy: After Persephone spurned him and disappeared, he took out his anger with her on any of her followers.
  • Trickster God: One of the original tricksters. This is one of his darker interpretations, with rampant murder and rape as a matter of course.

    John Gaines 

The son of Reynard the Fox with the mortal Dana Wallens, John Gaines is a half-god living as a high-flying politician. Although initially unctuous, as politicians can be, Gaines proves himself to be a decent guy at his core. Given his father, however, that does not go particularly well.


  • Blessed with Suck: Gaines does not enjoy his ability to make pretty much any person say yes to anything he wants. It changes the way he views his political career's success, as well as ruins his relationship with his wife, whom he accidentally uses his powers on.
  • Compelling Voice: All he needs to look squarely in someone's eyes.
  • Dying as Yourself: According to Kady, he was begging to be killed when his father briefly turns him Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • I Am Not My Father: Gaines is desperate to show that he can be a decent person, unlike his evil father.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His efforts to subdue his evil father result in his wife being killed as well as, eventually, his own death.
  • Sleazy Politician: Downplayed and ultimately Subverted. He's not averse to playing the game, but learning about his demigod ancestry makes him focus on being a better person than his father, Reynard.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: Though only a demigod, being Reynard the Fox's son endows Gaines with superhuman abilities.

    Bacchus 

Bacchus

Played By: Ryan Mcdonald

The Roman god of revelry.


  • Aura Vision: Claims to be able to see Josh's messed-up chakras. Since he's a god and Josh's life had been pretty weird of late this would seem to be true.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: He pretends to be Ember after Ember's death. Apparently he had some sort of designs on becoming Fillory's new god.
  • Deity of Human Origin: One of four participants in a successful ancient rite meant to change him from a Magician to a god.
  • Life of the Party: Of course. He throws the best parties, due to them being his domain.
  • Modernized God: One of the few gods who still interacts with mortals, since they like to party. He can apparently be tracked through his Instagram (at least until Instagram suspended his account for something involving nipples), and party animals like Josh have favor with him.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: It's mentioned that Iris apparently had to twist his arm pretty hard to get him to participate in the sacrifice of the Monster's sister, and that the two of them are still on the outs thousands of years later.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: He's the first casualty of the Monster.

     Iris 

Iris

Played By: Madisen Beaty

Goddess of the rainbow, messenger of the gods.


  • Body Horror: The Monster kills her by tearing a piece of his sister's body out of her.
  • Deity of Human Origin: One of four participants in a successful ancient rite meant to change her from a Magician to a god.
  • Jerkass: She tells Julia to ignore her friends after she achieves godhood, even though their lives are in danger. When Iris visits Julia to help her re-trap the Monster back in Castle Blackspire, she berates Julia, blaming her for the Monster's escape. Her second visit has her attempt to murder Julia for failing her task, killing Shoshana when she got in the way.
  • Mind Control: Though not outright stated, it's implied she's the one responsible for possessing various people to give messages to Julia.
  • Pet the Dog: Invoked. She mentions that she does the occasional miracle or two to encourage people.

     Aengus 

Aengus

Played by: Gethin Anthony

Celtic trickster god.


  • Body Horror: The Monster kills him by tearing a piece of his sister's body out of him.
  • Character Name Alias: He used the name "Enyalius" during the ritual and for a while afterward, which kept The Monster off his track for a bit.
  • Deity of Human Origin: One of four participants in a successful ancient rite meant to change him from a Magician to a god
  • The Prankster: He represents a more fun-loving side to trickster gods, to the point where he has difficulty taking anything seriously.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: From the way he acts, he seems to think he's in a story where he's there to teach people to lighten up and not be afraid of death. He sure wasn't smiling when The Monster came for him.

     Heka 

Heka

Played by: N/A

The god of magic and medicine in ancient Egypt.


  • Deity of Human Origin: One of four participants in a successful ancient rite meant to change her from a Magician to a god.
  • Divine Race Lift: Heka is male in real-life Egyptian mythology (Werethekau is the female god of magic) but is female here.
  • The Ghost: Never actually seen.
  • Posthumous Character: Heka actually died centuries earlier, though Julia was able to get her stone.

    Calypso 

Calypso

Played by: Michaela McManus

The mythical nymph who imprisoned Odysseus on Ogygia and the architect of Castle Blackspire. She's now the CEO of a gaming company.


     The Monster 
The nameless thing imprisoned in Castle Blackspire.
  • Adult Child: A millennia-old creature with the psyche of a small child.
  • Amnesiac God: An important part of his memory was stolen by the gods, and he's not sure what it was. He plans on killing the pantheon to get it back.
  • Big Bad: Of Season 4.
  • Chaotic Evil: Essentially a being of endless want. It has nothing else, not even a name, just an insatiable need to be entertained, coddled and loved. If it doesn't get what it wants, well...
  • Character Development: As it learns more about the world, it becomes more attached to it.
  • Dismantled MacGuffin: The Monster is searching for four magic stones held by four gods, believed to form a body once assembled.
  • The Dreaded: A thing so terrible that it ate all the other monsters the Gods were afraid of in Blackspire.
  • Food Chain of Evil: Castle Blackspire was home to many monsters left over from creation. This one ate all the others. When it gets loose, it proves itself more powerful than other gods, as well, easily killing them if it can catch them.
  • Freudian Excuse: A childlike being who had everything including its family ripped from it.
  • Fun T-Shirt: When in Eliot's body, has a tendency to wear t-shirts with goofy slogans (and blood spatter).
  • God in Human Form: The monster is an entity who frightens even the gods, and he takes over mortal bodies since his own was destroyed.
  • Grand Theft Me: One of its main powers, as it doesn't have a body of its own. The soul is trapped inside the Monster's mind and remains there even when the Monster surfs to another body.
  • Hates Being Alone: He doesn't like being alone with his own thoughts, such as they are, but he also has a severe lack of ability to empathize with people. (At first).
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: His final scene has him, under the effect of a confusion spell, telling his (absent and genocidal) sister that he's realized that the world has good things in it and that he wants to protect them. Then the heroes force him out of Eliot and banish him forever.
  • Horrifying the Horror: The Gods, who win no prizes in morality, were so afraid of this thing they tore its essence from its body, broke its body apart and hid the pieces in the other lesser gods, and built an inescapable prison for it and others like it.
  • I Just Want to Be Loved: In an incredibly toxic way, the monster wants all of your attention and love. It says this is its motivation for possessing Eliot.
    The Monster: But I like this [body]. You and your friends care so deeply about what happens to it. Why would I ever leave it?
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: The gods stole its memories when they imprisoned it. Now that it's free, it plans to kill them to get them back.
  • Never Given a Name: It’s just "the Monster."
  • No-Sell: God-killing weapons only kill its host. The Monster itself is a non-corporeal being that can only be imprisoned.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: As it grows closer to Quentin, it starts getting a bit touchy-feely. Quentin isn't happy with this.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: It kills an ice cream vendor for adding jimmies instead of sprinkles, despite his insistence (and immediate confirmation) that they're the same thing.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: It used to be one of hundreds of things the Gods locked away in Castle Blackspire, but now it's the only one left, having eaten the rest. And it's loose in the world.
  • Seeks Another's Resurrection: Its goal is to resurrect its sister.
  • Sense Freak: The Monster takes advantage of being in a body to enjoy the pleasures of food and drink, particularly drink.
  • Soul Jar: It contains the souls of everything it ever possessed/ate, including the other god-mistakes.
  • Tragic Villain: In the end it turns out that The Monster is basically a severely traumatized child who didn't ask to be created and definitely didn't ask for its body and memories to be ripped from it by losing its sister/other half, or to be imprisoned with a bunch of rejected experiments, or...
  • Twin Telepathy: He and his sister were essentially one being in two bodies. When she was sacrificed, it took away a massive chunk of his identity and memories. And then he was imprisoned.

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