History Characters / ArtemisFowl

!!"Heroes"

[[folder:Fowl Family and Associates]]

!Artemis Fowl the Second
* AdaptationalHeroism: The movie version largely downplays his ruthless and villainous personality from the first book and makes him more heroic from the get-go.
%%* AdorablyPrecociousChild
* AffablyEvil: During the time he spends as a villain, he is quite polite (albeit somewhat patronizing at times) and has some scruples.
* AffectionateNickname: His mother sometimes affectionately calls him "Arty."
* AloofBigBrother: To Myles and Beckett. DownplayedTrope though, it's just that Artemis has only the barest idea of how to take care of the mischevious and resourceful brats. However, as Opal Koboi finds out, [[BigBrotherInstinct he is very protective of them]].
* AmnesiacHero: In ''Opal Deception'' after having his memory erased at the end of the previous book, Holly needs to get him to work with her to save the world while his memory of the fairy world is gone. He also loses his memory at the end of ''The Last Guardian''.
* AntiHero: He eventually [[CharacterDevelopment develops]] into a heroic character thanks to blowing on the "spark of decency" in him. However, Holly mentions that he is still a devious mind.
* AntiVillain: For the first few books, despite being on the darker side of GrayAndGreyMorality and doing some terrible things, it's clear that Artemis is doing them [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes for his family]], and he does display [[EvenEvilHasStandards standards and a moral code]].
%% * TheAtoner: In Books 7 and 8.
* ArchEnemy:
** To Holly, initially, who despises the boy for kidnapping her in the events of the first book. They do grow out of it over time and transition to FriendlyEnemies and later true friends.
** Opal Koboi. Possibly the only being on the planet who serves as TheDreaded for Artemis, with her constant schemes at global domination. By the time of the sixth book, Artemis actually becomes exasperated upon learning she is once again responsible for his problems.
* AthleticallyChallenged: Artemis may be a genius, but he is completely lacking when it comes to athletic ability. He gets winded easily and is skinny, weak of muscle, and lacking in full body coordination. In later books, he will sometimes lament his lack of fitness while being forced to partake in an action scene.
* AwesomeByAnalysis: In the first book, he swiftly deduces that the supposed waiter who comes to their table is actually the person who summoned them. He then proceeds to explain that while he may wear a waiter's apron, the clothes, footwear and jewellery he is wearing are too expensive for a waiter, and he himself is too clean for one either.
* TheBadGuyWins: As the VillainProtagonist of the first book, while his plans don't exactly come off without hitch, he ultimately does get what he wants. Ransom for Holly Short, breaking out of the Time Stop, and even curing his mother of her debilitating illness.
* BrainsAndBrawn: The Brains to Butler's and Holly's Brawn. Being the WorldsSmartestMan who can be relied on to scheme his way out of anything.
* BreakTheCutie: Before the series even begins. With father presumed dead and mother falling to pieces, what's to be expected? Plus, Angeline's episodes in the first book cause him to stifle a few 'uncharacteristic tears'. Afterwards, he is fixed, broken and re-fixed again. After THAT the cycle continues, especially with his difficulties with his Atlantis Complex.
* CannotTellAJoke: He has tried. He has been discouraged. Minerva, on the other hand, is impressed when Artemis understands one of her smarty jokes.
* CharacterDevelopment: As the series progresses, Artemis develops from a ruthless criminal mastermind into something [[AntiHero almost heroic]]. And in a later book we get a side-by-side comparison of how ruthless and obnoxious he was.
* TheChessmaster: He's quite the schemer and planner, coldly moving people like chess pieces.
* ChildProdigy: A preteen genius in the first book and he ends being an criminal mastermind throughout the whole story.
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExamples* CoolShades: A JustifiedTrope, given they can dispel the mesmer.
* CreepyChild: To the point he actually scares the crap out of a waitress in Book 3.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Perhaps not as drastic as some examples, but he was relatively friendless and it's implied Artemis Senior treated his son as his business partner rather than as little Arty. Luckily, Daddy's taken a few happy pills in the form of magical blue fairy sparkles.
* DeadpanSnarker: Very. His tongue is as sharp as his mind, second only to Holly.
* DidNotSeeThatComing: In the first book, his EvilPlan mostly goes as he wants, except for the Troll which he admits was a "slight blip".
* DisappearedDad: His dad went missing on a business trip years ago.
%% * DisneyDeath: In ''The Last Guardian''.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Dark-haired, unusually pale, and a CreepyChild. It's one of the reasons he's described as 'a vampire' when he smiles.
* EmbarrassingNickname: Only Angeline is allowed call him 'Arty'. Although he doesn't mind Juliet referring to him as so either. Later on, Holly too. This causes Artemis some confusion.
* EmpoweredBadassNormal: In the fifth book while travelling through the time tunnel, he hugs some magic sparks and manages to acquire magic himself. He gets BroughtDownToNormal as of the next book after pouring all his magic into his sick mother.
* EnemyMine: In the second book, where he teams up with the fairies in order to track down the source of the goblin batteries, and the third book, where he requests their assistance after Butler is shot.
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExamples* EnfanteTerrible: He's 12 in the first book but it's implied that he was like that for years before the start of the book.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: His mother is a MoralityPet in the first book as he genuinely cares for her and takes care of her. [[spoiler: He even parts with half his hard earned gold to cure her insanity.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even when he was a VillainProtagonist, Artemis wasn't completely without scruples.
** He would not stand for mistreatment of the environment. After he blows up a whaling ship, he muses that there are greener ways to obtain the products one would get from whaling.
** When he sends Butler out to deal with the LEP retrieval team sent to Fowl Manor, he says he prefers "scared to dead, if possible."
** He also abandons kidnapping schemes at Butler's request after their first tangle with the fairies, when they discover how human they are.
* EvilPlan: In the first book, it's extorting gold from fairies to rebuild his father's criminal empire. Afterward, [[ThePlan his plans]] become less evil.
* ExtraDigits: In the last book, when his original body is destroyed, Artemis' spirit resides in a clone made by Foaly; the clone has six toes on his left foot.
* ExtremelyProtectiveChild: Artemis goes to great lengths to avoid either of his parents finding out about his crimes and, due to his mother's poor mental health, he's very protective of her.
* FriendlessBackground: Butler is more like a father that takes orders than a real friend. ''The Artemis Fowl Files'' reveals that he used to keep sweets in his limo in case he ever made friends.
* FutureMeScaresMe: Past Artemis assumes that the present one is a distant relative trying to steal from him.
* GeekPhysique: The only muscle he cares about is his brain. The rest of him is scrawny. This is a running gag through the latter half of the series; he will lament his lack of physical fitness while he's in the middle of an action sequence.
* GenderBlenderName: Artemis shares his name with the Ancient Greek goddess of archery, the moon, and hunting (though he claims the name itself is a genderless noun in Greek). [[spoiler:There's an awesome moment in EC where Artemis uses this to deliver a code phrase, as he's explaining to Spiro about his name.]]
* GentlemanThief: Artemis executes elaborate heists for the challenge and, after book one, seems to pick targets that he feels deserve it.
%%* GoodWithNumbers:
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* GuileHero[=/=]MagnificentBastard: He is as triumphant an example of both tropes in his time as a VillainProtagonist and AntiHero.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: To fairy society in later books. By the time of ''The Fowl Twins'', the official [=LEP=] policy is that he's a friend to the People and to follow his orders without question but the average fairy despises Artemis and his family.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: He and Butler with their brother/father relationship thing that has been around since forever and ever.
* HiddenDepths:
** There's that 'spark of decency' his fairy friends figure out he possesses.
** Plus, who would've thought Arty likes horse-riding, as of the Time Paradox?
** You also wouldn't expect him to be a Music/DavidBowie fan. ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'' would most likely be his favourite movie.
%%* InstantExpert
* ILied: Holly being not-too-willing to travel through time in The Time Paradox, Artemis resolves that some not-quite-truths were in need. There's also the bank robbery at the start of The Opal Deception, wherein Artemis acts as a typical teenager (hell, he DRESSES like one too) to pull off his plans.
* IcyBlueEyes: A bright, piercing blue that he shares with his father.
* ImmuneToMindControl: On at least two occasions in the series, Artemis wears mirrored lenses to protect himself from the fairies' Mesmer power (which requires direct eye contact with the Mesmered individual).
* InsufferableGenius: Less so than Foaly, but he definitely has many an 'I am the smart one in this building' moment.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: In ''The Lost Colony'', he distracts his Distaff Counterpart Minerva, a fellow kid genius, with a honest spiel - that he understands her drive for recognition is simply a coping mechanism for loneliness, and that he knows it because he went through the same. They also bond over liking jokes based on quantum physics and over not having many people to share them with, because most of the people they encounter aren't familiar with the subject matter.
* LonelyRichKid: Artemis is rich but isolated. Supplementary material shows that, while he ''claims'' he didn't want friends as a child, he used to keep candy in his car in case he made one. When first book begins, his father is missing, his mother too sick to leave her room or even consistently recognize him, and the only people he spends much time with are his bodyguard, Butler, and Butler's sister Juliet, who also works for his family. Things get better over the course of the series as he befriends some fairies, his parents recover, and he gains a couple of younger siblings, but he still lacks people he can hang out with regularly, especially his own age.
* MeaningfulName: [[https://www.newsweek.com/talking-eoin-colfer-86975 According to the author]]:
-->'''Colfer:''' I wanted a classic Greek name that would have an air of intelligence and genius about it. […] Artemis was the goddess of hunting. But the name was sometimes, very seldom, given to boys as kind of an honorific if their fathers were great hunters. Fowl was because there's an Irish name Fowler, and fowl sounds like foul. Because he's nasty, or he was in the beginning. It's the nasty hunter basically.
* MoustacheDePlume: Artemis sometimes writes romance novels under the name Violet Tsirblou.
%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* MustBeInvited: A side effect of getting magic at the end of the fifth book.
* NervesOfSteel: In ''The Lost Colony'', after [[spoiler:Holly is fatally stabbed]], he is able to keep himself together enough to [[spoiler:maintain the bomb's erratic countdown in his head and figure out the exact moment to act to retroactively prevent her death -- all while they are under assault by a horde of demons]]. From [[spoiler:the dying Holly]]'s perspective, he comes off as practically heartless: [[spoiler:she calls for help, he glances at her, then looks away]]. Then we see it from his perspective: [[spoiler:he sees her being stabbed out of the corner of his eye in a heart-stopping moment, then concentrates on doing what needs to be done to fix it. She calls out to him and he makes the mistake of looking at her, very nearly breaking his concentration.]]
* NobleDemon: Spelled out by Holly: "Deep beneath the layers of deviousness you have a spark of decency. Perhaps you could blow on that spark once in a while." Artemis says he might consider that.
* NonActionGuy: He prefers to think up plans and leaves the fighting to Holly and Butler.
* NoSocialSkills: Although he has improved in leaps and bounds since the first book, he still hasn't attended any of those school dances Butler mentioned in The Eternity Code. Plus, he's still keen on his vampire way of life. Also, he isn't incredibly skilled in the good first impressions category, preferring to scare people with his analysing capabilities and his extensive vocabulary (although this could simply be a habit).
%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Artemis naturally feels this way about [[spoiler: Orion]]
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* OutOfCharacterMoment:
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Artemis spends most of ''The Last Guardian'' too scared to think of a way to stop the apocalypse that Koboi set off.
%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* OverlordJr: Albeit one whose overlord is missing in Russia.
* PetTheDog: His treatment of the endangered lemur in book six is probably the most prominent example. Also, in book three, his (begrudging) decision to donate Spiro's billion dollar fortune to Amnesty International, with 10% going to the Fowl Estate as a finders fee, and his request for Holly to heal his mother in book one.
%%* PhotographicMemory
* PragmaticVillainy: Fairies speculate that Artemis only healed his mother because he didn't want social services interfering in his plans (Though the reader knows better).
* PunnyName: Not him, but he tends to use these with various pseudonyms he publishes papers and novels under, which include (but are not limited to) Sir E. Brum (Cerebrum), F. Roy Dean Schlippe (Freudian Slip), C. Niall [=DeMencha=] (Senile Dementia) and Violet Tsirblou (Violets are blue).
* PutOnABus: ''The Fowl Twins'' has him away on a five year mission to Mars. [[RefugeInAudacity On a self-winding rocket he built himself, in the family barn]]. Justified, because if Artemis had been present the first ''Fowl Twins'' book would have ended quickly enough to be a novella.
* ReplacementFlatCharacter: In ''Time Paradox'', Past Artemis is basically Artemis from the first book before he became good. Justified since that's exactly who he is.
%%* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Dear God, who has bested him in the way of polysyllables yet?
* SharedUnusualTrait: An accident in ''The Lost Colony'' swaps his and Holly's left eyes. Consequentially each is left with one hazel eye and one blue eye. In Artemis' case, a hazel left eye and a blue right eye.
* ShipTease: With Holly starting in book 2. He thinks of her as being 'pretty in a dangerous way. Black widow pretty.'
* ShootTheDog: In the Time Paradox, with the lemur. [[spoiler: Subverted in that he actually saved it, but didn't remember doing so.]] Also Holly's kidnapping in the first book. Both were to prevent his family from being impoverished and to fund the search for his father.
* SidekickGlassCeiling: His magical powers that he got in ''The Lost Colony'' were used up and never replenished near the start of the next book.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: He is a grandmaster at chess. (Under a psuedonym solid enough to fool the Russian Mafia, when they researched him as a potential kidnap and ransom target)
* SpannerInTheWorks: His arrival (as well as his LAPTOP of all things) is what sends Cudgeon and Koboi's plan crashing into ruin.
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* SplitPersonality: Orion, who is never to be mentioned after the Atlantis Complex.
* StrongGirlSmartGuy: Smart Guy to Juliet and Holly's Strong Girls, because he is a criminal mastermind and they are a bodyguard and a cop, respectively.
* TeenGenius: From book 2 on, since he's grown out of the child phase and become a teenager. A teenager who writes psychology textbooks and studies quantum physics.
** By the time of ''The Fowl Twins'' (which takes place 6 or 7 years after the end of his own series) Artemis has ''three'' doctorates.
* TookALevelInKindness: He gradually gets kinder over the course of ''The Arctic Incident'', ''The Eternity Code'', briefly reverts because of a [[spoiler: [[EasyAmnesia mind wipe]]]], and completes his transformation near the end of ''The Opal Deception'', [[spoiler: after having regained his memory.]]
* UnfortunateNames: Often {{Lampshaded}} by villains, the titular character's namesake was a woman. And not just any woman: In Greek mythology, Artemis was (among other things) the goddess of childbirth and the protector of young girls.
* UnresolvedSexualTension: Starts having this with Holly in the sixth book, [[spoiler:and the series ends with it still going on]].
* VillainousBreakdown: Starts in the first book, around the time he says [[spoiler:"I don't like lollipops"]].
* VillainProtagonist: In the first book, it is ''his'' EvilPlan that drives the story and the audience watches him from the start.
* WickedCultured: A sociopathic villain with taste in fine arts and architecture.
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* WellDoneSonGuy: A major motivation for his villainy.
* WeWantOurJerkBack: In the seventh book. Artemis may have been a condescending InsufferableGenius at times, but his smarts get things ''done'', [[spoiler: as opposed to his split personality, Orion, who seems to think he lives in a high-fantasy novel.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: At the end of the first book, Butler calls him out on kidnapping the very human-like fairies and using his mother as an unwitting test subject for an experimental escape mechanism from a fairy superweapon, while also risking his, Butler's and Juliet's life on it.
* WiseBeyondTheirYears: At thirteen, he'd already done enough to earn an active file from Interpol, and several patents to his name.
* WorldsSmartestMan: Cited as being the brightest mind of the human race. Artemis was a ChildProdigy and later a TeenGenius who became a criminal mastermind. From a young age he desired to know everything there was to know, so read book after book until [[RenaissanceMan he was an expert in everything]]. Artemis has shown himself to be TheChessmaster able to pull off complex {{Batman Gambit}}s, has designed sophisticated technology, and managed to expose the secret fairy race and hold them to ransom. The only other human revealed to have an identical IQ to Artemis is Minerva Paradizo.

![[spoiler:Domovoi]] Butler

* AdaptationDeviation: In the books, he shaves his head, but the graphic novel and movie adaptations give him some hair as part of his standard look.
%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* AloofBigBrother: To Juliet, as well as Artemis.
* AntiVillain: In the first book, Butler is a villain only because of his UndyingLoyalty to Artemis and even calls him out on his actions multiple times.
%%* BadassInANiceSuit
* BadassNormal: He's a normal, albeit highly trained and large, human, but he's strong enough to punch out a ''troll''.
* BaldHeadOfToughness: As a huge martial arts master with a shaved head, he more than qualifies for the trope.
* BareFistedMonk: He's trained in the use of various firearms, but is more than capable of putting foes down with just his fists if the situation requires it. In the first book, the narration claims that his punches are deadlier than a blow from a medieval mace, while the second claims that there are only two people in the world more skilled at martial arts than him and he's related to one of them.
* BattleButler: Quintessentially. Not only is he an extremely capable bodyguard-cum-personal attendant, but his last name is Butler. To top it off, his family are actually the ''origins of the word "butler".''
* BigBrotherInstinct: Juliet's safety is his highest priority. It overrides his training and Artemis' orders.
* BigBrotherMentor: He taught Juliet judo when she was six.
* TheBigGuy: There is no one who can out-muscle this man mountain. He once took down an ''entire'' LEP recon team on his own, as well as being the only human to survive combat '''against a troll!'''
* BrainsAndBrawn: The Brawn to Artemis's Brains. Just as Artemis is unparallelled in the intellectual department, there is no one who can match Butler physically.
* BrotherSisterTeam: With matching black designer suits.
* CombatPragmatist: He duels the troll in melee for long enough to get its attention back on him...[[spoiler:and to buy time to recover his gun. Once he does, he mag-dumps into its forehead, and upon its survival he brutalizes it into physical helplessness, calmly reloads, rhetorically asks if it has as much protective bone under its jaw.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: When Artemis acts too haughtily he can't help it. He actually took Artemis aback when he comments it's not with that attitude he'll get a date for prom.
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: He tells Opal Koboi to 'Go to Hell' when she tries mesmering him into obeying an order.
* TheDragon: To Artemis, in book one, when Artemis was the villain. He was the chief minion.
* TheDreaded: Among Fairykind, he's a ''nightmare.'' He's the only human to have ever bested an LEP Recon team, and his defeat of a Troll with nothing more than a medieval suit of armor and his bare hands is used as instruction at the academy.
* FamousForBeingFirst: He has the distinction of being the first human in recorded history to [[WrestlerOfBeasts take on a troll in melee combat and win]].
* FlashStep: He can move like this in the Michael Moreci graphic novel.
* GeniusBruiser: He's ''huge'' because of muscles and an expert in anything military (weapons, tactics, etc).
* HeroicWillpower: He resisted enhanced Mesmer from Opal Koboi. While complying with her demands for a while but with strictly non-lethal actions, he firmly disobeys when told to kill Artemis and has a near-fatal heart attack due to the conflict.
* HuskyRusskie: InNameOnly, mind you. He's technically Eurasian, and is very culturally neutral thanks to his training.
* ImmuneToMindControl: Butler is able to shake off a Mesmer by HeroicWillpower when ordered to do something against his will, though the effort causes him to suffer a near-fatal heart attack.
* KnightTemplarBigBrother: For both Artemis and Juliet.
* LegacyOfService: His family's been with the Fowls since the Third Crusade, and every time a new baby is born they're assigned a Butler to care for them. Naturally, the Fowls are rather attached to them.
* MeaningfulName: His first name, [[spoiler:Domovoi]] is the name for the household spirits in Slavic folklore. These creatures are said to be protectors of the household, as long as they are cared for. Pretty good name for a BattleButler.
* MultipleChoicePast: The first book contradicts itself on whether he received his bodyguard training in Israel or Switzerland. The third book clears up that the bodyguard academy moves every five years.
* MyMasterRightOrWrong: He doesn't really care what Artemis is doing because it's his duty to help him do it.
* NoiselessWalker: While moving through an underground fairy base, he's described as making only slightly more noise than a panther. Note that he's seven feet tall with muscles like a Michelangelo statue.
* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: In the first book, he's in his early forties while his sister Juliet is still a teenager.
* PressurePoint: His sheer strength combined with his "turnip-sized fist[s]" and surgically-precise knowledge of the human body makes him as dangerous unarmed as he is with a weapon.
-->First he took out the tendons, bringing the troll to its knees, then he abandoned the mace and went to work with gauntleted hands, perhaps deadlier than the mace had been. [...] Working on the assumption that the troll and human physiques were basically the same, he rained blow after blow on the dumb creature, reducing it to a heap of quivering fur in so many seconds.
* PunchClockVillain: In the first book. He really wasn't kidnapping fairies ForTheEvulz; he was just doing his duty in serving Artemis, even [[WhatTheHellHero calling him out]] on various occasions.
* PutOnABus: ''The Fowl Twins'' has him reluctantly joining Artemis on his trip to Mars.
* RaceLift: Is explicitly said to be Eurasian in the books, but in the film, he is played by black actor Nonzo Anozie.
* RealMenWearPink: He apparently likes romantic comedies, his favourite film being ''Film/SomeLikeItHot''. He reads romantic novels when nobody is around, [[UnmanlySecret though he would never admit it]].
* RoundhouseKick: Does a spinning kick when attacking the crew of a whaling ship in the first book, much to the embarrassment of both himself and Artemis.
* WalkingArmory: In the first ten pages of book one, Artemis coolly rattles off a list of concealed weapons Butler carries on his person.
-->"I am unarmed. But Butler here, my... ah... butler, has a [[CoolGun Sig Sauer]] in his shoulder holster, two shrike-throwing knives in his boots, a derringer two-shot up his sleeve, [[RazorFloss garrotte wire]] in his watch, and three [[TrickBomb stun grenades]] concealed in various pockets. Anything else, Butler?
-->"The cosh, sir."
-->"Oh, yes. A good old [[CarryABigStick ball-bearing cosh]] stuffed down his shirt."
* WithholdingTheirName: Only Butler, his mother and his sister Juliet know his birth name, for security reasons. Thus when faced with impending death, Butler tells Artemis his first name, [[spoiler:Domovoi, a type of Russian FairFolk.]] This comes in handy later when ([[TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat a recording of]]) Artemis uses it as proof of their having been through truly harrowing experiences together, allowing Butler to defeat the fairy mind-wipe.
* WrestlerOfBeasts: In the first book, he becomes the only human in history to take on a troll in melee combat and win.
* WritersCannotDoMath:
** Butler stands at almost seven feet tall, has "a barrel chest full of scars and hard muscle", hands that are "the size and approximate shape of spades", and is strong enough to deliver "a blow that would have felled a medium-sized hippopotamus" with his shoulder when Artemis is in immediate danger. However, ''The Eternity Code'' states that he's a "ninety kilogram [200 lb] dead weight." A near-seven foot tall man at that weight would be as thin as a rail, while a man of Butler's strength and proportions would need to weight ''at least'' 350 lbs (assuming he's fairly lean).
** One of the guidebooks states that Butler's fondest memory is teaching Juliet spinning kicks as a teenager. By the time Juliet was been born, however, Butler would've been at least twenty-two.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:After being bought back to life by Holly Short, he was aged by 15 years, meaning that he was physically 55 at the age of about 40. Some advanced plastic surgery he received before his mind wipe masks the most obvious signs of his aging.]]

!Juliet Butler

* ActionGirl: By the third book, she's definitely this, able to manhandle men much larger than her and knock out one of the Chicago mob's best assassins with a single punch. Comes with being a member of the Butler family.
* AgeLift: Is a teenager in the first book but a child in the movie.
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: The only person who laughs at Butler (and lives), does so repeatedly.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The third book's description of Juliet's various skills:
-->"By the time she was fourteen, Juliet was a third-dan blackbelt in seven disciplines, could dissemble and reassemble any weapon blindfolded, [[KickingAssInAllHerFinery and could do her makeup in under four minutes]]."
* BadassInANiceSuit: In book three when trying to steal the C Cube back.
* BattleButler: Steps in for her big brother in book three.
* BoisterousBruiser: In contrast to her more subdued and professional older brother, she's very showy and exuberant.
* BraidsOfAction: She actually has a ''weaponized'' braid, using a heavy metal ring at the end as a kind of flail.
* BrotherSisterTeam: With matching black designer suits.
%%* TheBusCameBack: ''The Atlantis Complex''.
* CoolBigSis: Artemis doesn't mind Juliet all that much - even allowing her to call him 'Arty'.
* CuteBruiser: A particularly hilarious example is her playing dumb-blonde teenager for Pex and Chips in ''The Eternity Code'' and then knocking them both out.
* DanceBattler: She's certainly a lot more showy than her brother when it comes to taking down the opposition.
* TheDitz: A little bit in the first book, probably due to being a teenager. She matures as the series progresses.
* ItRunsInTheFamily: As a Butler, she's just as kickass as her brother.
* LegacyOfService: She was able to step in for her brother.
%%* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: With Artemis.
* MoralityPet: She's the only one allowed to laugh at Butler and one of two people allowed to called Artemis 'Arty'.
* NeverASelfMadeWoman: In the first three books, when all she wants to do is live up to the Butler legacy. Her decision to make her own name coincides with a RetCon and she runs off to join a lucha libre troupe.
* PracticallyDifferentGenerations: Her brother is over twenty years older than her.
* ProfessionalWrestling: Juliet's a big fan, and she leaves to join a ''lucha libre'' troupe after the third book. And then the sport itself appears in the seventh book when she and Butler fight off an attack during a show.
* PutOnABus: After ''The Eternity Code'', she goes off to become a pro-wrestler.
* RaceLift: Like her brother, she's Eurasian in the books, but was played by the black Tamara Smart in the movie.
* RelatedInTheAdaptation: Goes from being Butler's sister to his niece in the movie.
* SheCleansUpNicely: Does the 'Jade Princess' ring a bell?
%%* SiblingYinYang
* SpiritedCompetitor: Although she could have rivaled her brother in the bodyguard field, she chose to become a wrestler because the girl just loves the theatrics.
* StrongGirlSmartGuy: Strong Girl, along with Holly to Artemis' Smart Guy because she is a cop and an excellent shot with a gun.
* TookALevelInBadass: When she returns in book 3, she's a lot more formidable, repeatedly winning fights against Spiro's minions.
%%* {{Tomboy}}

!Orion
* ChivalricRomance: Continually approaches the world as this with himself as the dashing knight.
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: A complusive need to save everyone around him is played for laughs because it's so silly and it plays off of Artemis' pragmatism.
* CloudCuckoolander: Orion, among many other things, tells Holly that she is exuding "a wonderful aura. It's pastel blue with little dolphins."
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: [[spoiler:You know how Orion is Artemis's CloudCuckoolander alter ego? Artemis can't shoot straight to save his life. Orion can.]] Something of a FridgeBrilliance, or maybe just plain {{Homage}}: [[spoiler:In Myth/ClassicalMythology, Orion was an excellent hunter and became Artemis' hunting companion. In some variants of the legend, he bested Artemis at hunting.]]
%%* DoggedNiceGuy: For Holly.
%%* HonorBeforeReason
%%* HormoneAddledTeenager: Lampshaded.
%%* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Is thought to be a manifestation of this.
* KnightErrant: Sees himself as a wandering knight of justice!
%%* KnightInShiningArmor: Played for laughs.
* LetsGetDangerous: In the book's own words, he "sped up, showing a nimbleness that anyone who knew the boy would not associate with him." And after ''that,'' [[spoiler:he disarms Turnball, and uses his gun to accurately disable Holly]].
* SplitPersonality: [[spoiler: To Artemis]].
%%* WideEyedIdealist
* WrongGenreSavvy: Operates in terms of Fairytales and/or High Fantasy.
--> ''I share everything. Memories and movies are as real as each other to me. You, Peter Pan, the Loch Ness Monster, me. It's all real, maybe.''
--> ''Why don’t we look for some magic stones that can grant wishes?''

!Artemis Fowl Sr.

* AnArmAndALeg: Managed to survive the explosion of his boat, but his leg was ruined in the blast and it had to be amputated by the Mafiya while he was imprisoned. Flashbacks in ''The Eternity Code'' show him getting fitted for a prosthetic; his uncharacteristic joke about getting one with speed stripes makes Artemis Junior realize how much his father has changed in captivity.
%%* DisappearedDad
* DistressedDude: He spends book two as the Russian Mafiya's captive.
* HeelFaceTurn: During his captivity, he realizes that life is too short to waste on crime. Once he's freed, he decides to focus on his family and on more altruistic goals like the environment.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: His son wonders if his HeelFaceTurn is due to fairy magic, his natural personality, or both.
* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: A boat explosion. [[spoiler: Turns out he did.]]
* UsedToBeASweetKid: According to Angeline, he was a NiceGuy before participating in the family business. He goes back to being nice and legit after he's rescued from the Russian Mafiya.
* WhiteSheep: He's latest head of a long standing criminal family that wanted to be a legitimate businessman.

!Angeline Fowl

* ApronMatron: Seems to be becoming one of these in later books, rather, ''re-becoming'' it since it is hard to be a stern mother figure while under demonic possession or debilitating illness.
* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler: Angeline's "illness" is actually possession]] in book six, [[spoiler:by Opal]].
* HiddenDepths: ''The Fowl Twins'' reveals that Angeline has acquired a doctorate in psychology, in an effort to understand the debilitating depression she fell into during Artemis Sr.'s disappearance. During this book, she and Artemis Sr. are absent because she's giving a lecture at a university.
* MoralityChain: Has a hold on Artemis Sr's (and to a lesser extent Artemis Junior's) sense of right and wrong.
* SecretKeeper: After the ''The Time Paradox'', she becomes very aware of Artemis's dealings with fairies and magic. She keeps it from her husband, but enjoys coercing things out of her son by prodding Artemis's guilt over keeping secrets from her.
* ProperLady: Hidden at first but once she recovers she's described as carrying herself with dignity and grace, as well as ordering the house hold, family finances etc.

!Myles and Beckett Fowl

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: While still being ridiculously adorable and pretty darn awesome, they still find it in themselves to frustrate and bother big brother Artemis.
* BullyHunter: Beckett has used his cluster punch on five bullies he found picking on smaller kids.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Beckett, who manages to [[spoiler:''move faster than the fairy bonds and punch Opal in the gut'', knocking her on her butt and leaving her gasping for air.]]
%%* DeadpanSnarker: Myles, all the time.
* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler: They are overtaken by the two of the Berserkers, in the eighth book.]]
* GeniusDitz: Beckett is just as smart as Myles, just much less restrained.
* HairContrastDuo: Myles is black-haired like Artemis, Beckett is blond.
* PolarOppositeTwins: Beckett is cheerful, ditzy, and much prefers physical activity, while Myles is basically a toddler version of Artemis.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Myles, despite being ''two'' (four in ''The Last Guardian''), speaks in words too big and complicated for many adults.
%%* SiblingYinYang: With each other and with Artemis (more so on Beckett's part than Myles's).
* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler:Myles following Artemis into his shed leads to his solar plane's discovery by Juliet, allowing Opal to learn about it and basically forcing Artemis to sacrifice himself.]]

[[folder:Lower Elements Police]]
!Holly Short

* AcePilot: Her skills with flying are top-notch, even if her landing could use some work. By Book 6, she's somewhere between mortified, amused, and touched to learn that cadets are starting to name flight maneuvers after her.
* ActionGirl: Recon officer.
* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Has a crewcut in the books but the graphic novels give her longer hair.
* AdaptationDyeJob: She has red hair in the books, but brown in the graphic novels.
* AmbiguouslyBrown: She's described as having "nut-brown" skin and naturally red hair. It's not clear whether these are traits common to Elves in general, but in any case the film and graphic novels [[RaceLift conveniently forget this]].
* AntagonistInMourning: She's surprised to find herself sad when she thinks Artemis, Butler and Juliet are dead in the first book; Root tells her it's likely StockholmSyndrome. A more clear-cut example comes [[spoiler:in the third book; while Artemis isn't dead, he has been mesmered to forget the fairies, and she quietly mourns the loss of her "almost friend".]]
* BadassInDistress: When Artemis kidnaps her. Not completely helpless, but still a prisoner.
* BosssUnfavoriteEmployee: Played with. While Commander Root is infamously gruff and demanding with all of his officers, he's especially harsh on Holly up through the events of the first book. She suspects it's because he's a male chauvinist; in reality, he's pressuring her to be the best she can be so that more female officers will join LEP recon, and she's already on thin ice due to [[NoodleIncident a fiasco in Hamburg]].
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: For a short time in book 7.
%% Doesn't explain what the reaction is. * BerserkButton: Just mentioning Artemis's name any time in the first half of the series will qualify you as asking for serious death wish from Captain Holly Short.
* {{Claustrophobia}}: A trait all fairies have, but hers is particularly bad, thanks to Artemis kidnapping her and keeping her in a ''very'' small room.
* CowboyCop: She has no patience for red tape or the rules, especially when they get in the way of doing the right thing. [[spoiler:This eventually comes back to bite her, as her recklessness gives Sool grounds to label her "dangerous" once Root dies.]]
* DeadpanSnarker: Her guile and cleverness serve her well in the snark department.
* {{Deuteragonist}}: Especially in the first book, where her actions form half the narrative. In fact, one could chop off the first couple chapters and it would look like she was the main character.
* DudeMagnet: Commander Kelp seems to be taken with her and she drives Artemis's puberty up the wall. Orion also fancies himself deeply in love with her, and Chix Verbil hits on her when they work together.
* FairyCompanion: Played with: Artemis facetiously refers to Holly as "my fairy friend" at one point, but she is far too badass to fit the trope.
* FieryRedhead: Has dark red hair and a suitable temper to match.
* ForgotAboutHisPowers: ''Eternity Code'' would have been a lot shorter if she'd thought to mesmer Jon Spiro into giving the C Cube back at the airport. Though as Artemis points out, the chances of mesmer working on someone decreases the more intelligent and strong willed they are, both of which Spiro handily qualifies for, and if he recovers his memories then the fairies will have to bother with him again.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: She tries. She largely prefers animals to humans.
* TheGunslinger: Handy with a ray gun. She can toss a coin fifty feet, at night, and shoot a hole in it.
* GoodIsNotNice: Heroic to the point of helping her enemies against trolls, but not exactly polite or kind.
%%* GoodIsNotSoft
* GoodParents: She thinks fondly of her parents. Pity they're both dead before the series commences.
* HeroAntagonist: In the first book, she's the honest cop doing her job, while Artemis is the criminal mastermind endangering her society for his own greed.
* HotBlooded: She's very passionate about her work, striving to be the best she can be. Unfortunately, it makes her somewhat reckless.
* ItsPersonal: In the first three books, Artemis Fowl is a sensitive subject for her. In other words, any excuse she gets to destroy him will be seized.
* TheLancer: Once Artemis and Butler are established as permanently part of her team, she serves this role as a {{foil}} to Artemis's TheLeader.
* NarratorAllAlong: [[spoiler: "It all started in Ho Chi Minh City one summer..."]]
* NobleBigotWithABadge: Like all fairies, she generally tends to think of humans as somewhat-bright apes with filthy habits. This does not stop her from risking her life and her career to save a restaurant full of them from a rampaging troll in her EstablishingCharacterMoment.
* OlderThanTheyLook: She's eighty years old in the first book. [[note]]Given that fairies are extremely long-lived, and although she certainly has eighty years of life experience, not to mention extensive police/SWAT-type training, in human terms Holly would likely be in her early to mid-twenties.[[/note]]
* OneOfTheBoys: Her regular crew is composed of Artemis, Butler, Mulch and Foaly.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: She ''will'' go against direct orders if they clash with her conscience. Her EstablishingCharacterMoment is ignoring Root's orders to stay out of the way of a rampaging troll because she can't bring herself to abandon the civilians to it, even if they are human.
* SharedUnusualTrait: An accident in ''The Lost Colony'' swaps her and Artemis' left eyes. Consequentially each is left with one hazel eye and one blue eye. In Holly's case, a hazel right eye and a blue left eye.
* ShipTease: With [[spoiler: Artemis. She even kisses him in ''The Time Paradox''.]]
%%%%** Also with [[spoiler: Trouble Kelp in the last two books, but it doesn't go anywhere.]]
* ShipSinking: [[spoiler:Holly declares their relationship a no-go after the first and only time she kisses Artemis.]]
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Deconstructed a ''lot'' in the first book, when Holly point-blank asks Root if he's harder on her because she's a girl. He admits it, but clarifies he wasn't being sexist, but as the first female in Recon she needed to set an example. It's also worth noting that the only other female up for the job, Holly considers a 'bimbo'.
%%%* StrongGirlSmartGuy: Strong Girl, along with Juliet to Artemis' Smart Guy because she is a bodyguard and aspiring wrestler while her cunning boss has geek physique.
* UnresolvedSexualTension [[spoiler: Again, with Artemis.]]

!Julius Root

* AntiHero: He fulfils the role of BigGood for the first half of the series, but he's rather... [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold gruff]].
* TheBrigadier: A gruff FatherToHisMen who prefers to lead from the front, and listens to his officer's opinions.
* CigarChomper: His habit of always having a cigar in his mouth annoys most of the other characters.
* DaChief: Of Recon and is always quick to reprimand his officers for breaking rules.
* FourStarBadass: Commander and leader of the LEP, who enjoys action far more than desk work.
* GenderFlip: Played by Creator/JudiDench in the movie. Which gets rid of the point of Holly's JackieRobinsonStory.
* GoodIsNotNice: He's a good guy but he has a temper like a volcano.
%%* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking
* InSeriesNickname: He's known as 'Beet Root' as a pun on his name and temper.
* JerkassToOne: While he's not a very pleasant guy to be around in general, he seems to reserve the worst of his vitriol for Foaly. Then again, considering Foaly seems to be ''trying'' to irritate him, it's not exactly hard to see why.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Root seems to have two settings: "gruff" and "loud." However, he is a FatherToHisMen (and woman), and cares deeply about them.
* MistakenForMisogynist: At the beginning of the book, Holly (the only female fairy on the police force, apart from the well-connected flirt who does the announcements) accuses Commander Root of misogyny due to his endless chewouts over her every single mistake, claiming that [[DoubleStandard if she'd been a male, they wouldn't be having this conversation]]. Root confirms that yes, he is harder on her because she's a girl... and as the only girl on the force, he needs her to be the best so more women will want to join up (her CowboyCop approach doesn't really help). In later books they have a better working relationship.
* ObiWanMoment: "Be well, Captain."
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Understands the need for procedure but also for adapting to the situation. Its stated he won't believe anything without evidence, thus implying he'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt if they have it.
* RetiredBadass: Until the third act of book one where he reinstates himself.
* SmokingIsCool: Played with. Iconic as his cigars are, they are described as "noxious fungal cigars" and annoy everyone else.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: He isn't very fond of people calling him "Julius".
* VitriolicBestBuds:
** With Mulch, apparently. He's testified against him 15 times and calls him 'convict' but when [[spoiler: Mulch fakes his death]] Root is immediately sad and called him "One of the constants of his life." Mulch for his part calls him by his first name and doesn't hold much of a grudge for the '15 times' thing. In fact, Mulch respected Root so much [[spoiler:that he temporarily gives up burglary for private investigation after Root died]].
** With Foaly as well, with the two trading insults like no other.

!!Foaly

* ActionSurvivor: Doesn't like being out in the field, but manages to survive when he has to.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: While he may be a little odd he's extremely good at what he does.
* CrazyPrepared: While aware brain control waves have not been invented yet, he wears tinfoil hats in preparation for them nonetheless.
* DeadpanSnarker: He practically always has a quip for the situation.
* GadgeteerGenius: He singlehandedly invented most of the LEP's technology, and it's stated he's the only reason the fairies are still ahead of humans technologically.
* HappilyMarried: Gets [[{{Pun}} hitched]] during the time skip at the end of book five. His wife Caballine doesn't appear as a character until halfway through the last book.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Anytime an EvilGenius enters the picture expect Foaly to be victim to his own tech used against him.
* InsufferableGenius: Irreplaceable so he pushes Root's buttons all day; his favourite topics are his own work and the chief's smoking.
* MeaningfulName: A foal is a young horse.
* MissionControl: He directs [=LEPRecon=] missions from his computer room.
* NoFullNameGiven: If "Foaly" has a first name, it's never mentioned. (His wife does have a first name, last name, and several middle names, so it's not that centaurs have OnlyOneName as a culture.)
* NonActionGuy: Not particularly inclined towards personal combat, though that doesn't mean he isn't dangerous in his own way.
%%* ObnoxiousSnarker
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Somewhat narcissistic tech genii.
* TheSmartGuy: Taking him out of his computer room is like taking the brain out of [=LEPRecon=].
* TechnoWizard: TheSmartGuy of the LEP, who provides them with all of their tech.
* TinfoilHat: He wears them in case someone develops {{mind control}} technology. After [[spoiler:Opal (seemingly) outthinks him anyway]], he gives it up.
* UltimateJobSecurity: He deliberately angers his boss and decorates [=LEPRecon=]'s equipment however he wants, but is way too irreplaceable to fire.
* VetinariJobSecurity: He built the computer system and hid a virus that will crash it if he's not there to boot it up.
* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Perfectly summed up in this line "I'm right there with you, darling. Unless you trigger a land mine, in which case I'm in the Operation Room." Most of his 'field' time is this: talking through a headset to people in the field and supplying them with info.

!Trouble Kelp

* FourStarBadass: [[spoiler: Becomes Commander after Ark Sool gets fired.]]
* GenderFlip: Will be played by Chi-Lin Nim in the movie.
%%* HeroOfAnotherStory
* MeaningfulName: InvokedTrope for Trouble, who chose to call himself that.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: He has a reputation for being gung-ho, so when he orders a retreat in Book 2, his men realise [[OhCrap just how screwed they are.]]
* SiblingYinYang: Trouble is loyal, brave and AFatherToHisMen and has to babysit his whiny brother on top of that.
* ShipTease: Trouble gets this with [[spoiler: Holly in the last two books, but ends up with Lilli Frond.]] Holly is understandably shocked.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Fills [[spoiler: Commander Root]]'s role later in the series, and shares much of his personality.
* TechnicolorEyes: Rare among the People, but he has the royal purple version (Justified; he's a Fairy).

!Grub Kelp

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Trouble's whiny little brother.
* BadassOnPaper: A member of [=LEPRecon=], who survived Butler... because Butler let him go.
* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: Especially as he complains too much. He files one over scuffed boots. Repeatedly.
* CowardlySidekick: To Trouble, especially in Book 2 where he spend most of his time crying and telling Trouble it is his fault.
* TheDitz: If it wasn't that he cleans his brother's uniform he probably never would have been accepted in the force.
%%* MeaningfulName
* MistakenForBadass: After he manages to negotiate with Butler, others think he is more capable than he really is.

!Raine Vinyáya

* AnimalEyes: Her pupils narrow vertically like a cat's, which is uncommon but not unheard of among elves.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: She's the only member of the Council to request an untampered weapon during the siege in ''The Arctic Incident''. She's mentioned to have not missed with it once.
* TheFashionista: She routinely dyes her hair and modifies her uniform to look more appealing.
* FourStarBadass: She's a prominent air commander, and when the LEP is reduced to inferior weaponry during the Goblin Uprising, she's noted to be the most effective in combating the gangs.
* IronLady: Vinyáya does not take any crap. Anytime Artemis or Foaly goes into InsufferableGenius mode she is swift to tell them to shut their mouths, and the only person in the books able to terrify Mulch Diggums into silence.
* LadyOfWar: On the job she is a tough no-nonsense leader who is quite capable of combat, while taking care of her appearance and has soft side outside of action.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Far more willing to listen to the heroes than the rest of the council.
* SilverFox: It's mentioned she gave up dyeing her hair and embraced her silver mane.
* SlasherSmile: Can pull off a terrifying one despite being a hero. Mulch decides to switch off his MotorMouth upon seeing it.
* StateSec: A rare protagonistic version thereof, through Section 8.


[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other "Heroes"]]
!Mulch Diggums

* TheAce: Mulch is a master thief.
* AntiHero: Despite technically being on the side of good, Mulch is still a career criminal.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: He's frequently used for comic relief, but his cleverness and natural abilities mean he's a dangerous opponent regardless. Not many people have knocked Butler down twice and gotten away with it.
* BigDamnHeroes: To Artemis and Holly [[spoiler: in the Eleven Wonders Exhibition in book four, and again in book eight.]]
* BigEater: Party-size sherry trifle, a bottle of Moet champagne, a chicken, a t-bone steak, fruitcake, a Pavlova, a whole rack of lamb in one bite, two baguettes, a cocktail of dairy products... and that's just the part of one meal actually described. Then there's the whole issue of super-fast tunnelling via eating dirt and expelling it.
* BoxedCrook: In the first three books. He joins relatively of his own volition later.
* ContagiousHeroism: In the third book, he discovers to his own annoyance that he now thinks of Artemis as a friend and that he's prepared to commit an entirely non-selfish act, risking his own safety in the process, to stop him being kidnapped by the Chicago mob.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Mulch is often impulsive, makes stupid mistakes, and finds it difficult to take things seriously. He's also, when he gets in the mood.
* DeadpanSnarker: Can keep up with Foaly, Holly, and Artemis in SnarkToSnarkCombat.
* DisabilityImmunity: The LEP recruit Mulch to infiltrate Fowl Manor because being a criminal, he's long since lost his magic due to [[MustBeInvited entering human dwellings without permission]], while all of them are unable to do so without losing their magic (and severe bodily distress).
* DrivesLikeCrazy: In ''The Eternity Code'', he drives the getaway van. Being a dwarf, he is much too short to reach the pedals, so he ties a small plank of wood to his foot and the gas pedal. Just the gas pedal.
* FakingTheDead: In the first book, he fakes his own death tunneling out of Fowl Manor by subtly transferring his Iris-Cam to a rabbit, which he then kills in a staged cave-in.
* {{Fartillery}}: He can use his gas as a method of attack. Its described as a 'mini-cylcone' and 'dozens of sledgehammers'.
* ForgottenFirstMeeting: He meets Artemis in the interquel short story, ''The Seventh Dwarf'' which was set between the first two books though the two act like they're meeting for the first time in ''Arctic Incident''.
* {{Gasshole}}: He tunnels by eating dirt and his method of disposal and propulsion is this trope.
* GeniusBruiser: While not on the same level as Artemis (duh), he is quite crafty and good at what he does. Even Artemis can't match him in geology. He is also fully capable of biting anyone's head off... or blowing it off with {{Fartillery}}.
* IHaveManyNames: To date, his aliases include: Lance Digger (a reclusive millionaire), The Grouch (a notorious thief who stole awards from celebrities), Mo Diggence (a specialist infiltrator working for one of Jon Spiro's connections in organized crime), and Tombstone (a member of a dwarf gang).
* KansasCityShuffle: By refusing to help Root in book 1 he tricks DaChief into thinking he wants a lighter prison sentence, when in fact he plans to escape outright. Then extends the trick by [[spoiler: faking his death and stealing some of the other half of the ransom gold]].
* LovableRogue: He's a notorious thief, but the heroes can all count on him when push comes to shove. Even Root grows to care for him, a little.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Usually introduces some useful spectrum of dwarf biology once per book.
* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: For trying to sell a Jules Remy trophy to an undercover LEP officer and later "laying low" in a Los Angeles penthouse whilst "collecting" Academy Awards. A prison warden was highly amused.
* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Very, '''very''' averted, as they are the source of most of the series' potty jokes.
%%* PluckyComicRelief
* PrehensileHair: Mulch Diggums's beard hair, which can also serve as handy custom lockpicks.
* StarfishAlien: He can [[TunnelKing tunnel]] by unhinging his jaws, ingest dirt, and expel it through the rear end. He also has PrehensileHair, luminous spit that hardens with air, and pores on his skin that intake water and doubling as suction pads.
* SwissArmySuperpower: Dwarf talents are seemingly endless, certainly enough to pretty much serve as a biological WalkingArsenal. They can [[TunnelKing tunnel]] flawlessly below ground at high speeds, they have PrehensileHair that can detect vibration and serve as lock picks, they possess special spittle (which hardens in contact with air, is luminous, and can be used as a sedative), powerful [[{{Fartillery}} flatulence]] that can be weaponized, skin that can absorb moisture so that if they are dehydrated they can use their hands as suction pads.
%%* TeenGenius
* {{Tritagonist}}: Much like Holly is the {{deuteragonist}}, Mulch is the third character who the story independently centres around.
* TunnelKing: Dwarves have a physiology naturally designed for tunnelling, being able to unhinge their jaw to eat dirt, process it, and fire it back out their rear end. Mulch is noted to be especially good at this due to a combination of experience and encyclopedic knowledge of geology.

!Doodah Day

* AcePilot: In his words...
--> Day: "I don't care if Martians built it. Doodah Day can drive it."
* AlliterativeName: Both begin with D.
* BadassDriver: A very desirable skill for a smuggler like him.
* BroughtDownToNormal: Lost his magic after breaking into a human house.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Hasn't been mentioned after ''The Lost Colony''.
* HeelFaceTurn: At the end of Book Five, it's revealed he took Holly's place in Short and Diggums.
* KickTheDog: He lures Holly into a trap involving mixers, albeit not as intentionally as she had believed.
* PunnyName: All the doodah day.
* ReplacementFlatCharacter: Is basically a pixie version of Mulch Diggums, being a fairy criminal who helps the heroes.
* TranslatorMicrobes: Has one spark of magic left that lets him use the Gift of Tongues.

!Minerva Paradizo

* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler: She makes a brief return in ''The Fowl Twins Get What They Deserve''. Since we last saw her, she's established herself as a smuggler bridging the human and fairy worlds. She even had an InterspeciesRomance with a fairy, which saw her have a half-fairy daughter.]]
* TheChessmaster: She and Artemis play an elaborate chess game of wits, with each of them gaining the upperhand at various points.
* ChildProdigy: Preteen genius in book five.
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Not mentioned after ''The Lost Colony.'' {{Word of God}} said that she ran away with a skier.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: The first threat that Artemis and co. face but she is soon usurped by Billy Kong who takes over as the new BigBad. Then even Kong gets shafted in favour of Leon Abbott the true BigBad.
* DistaffCounterpart: To Artemis,
%%* InsufferableGenius
* HeelFaceTurn: At first presented as the antagonist, she later gets usurped as the main threat when the much EvilerThanThou Billy Kong reveals himself and she is forced to side with the heroes.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Colfer intended to use her again until he realized the readers hated her.
* ReplacementFlatCharacter: To Artemis in ''The Lost Colony''. Her similarity to a younger Artemis serves to highlight his character development.
* ShipTease: With Artemis. EveryoneCanSeeIt, but it doesn't go anywhere.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: She wishes to kidnap Nº1 [[ForScience in order to aid human science]].
* WorldsSmartestWoman: Her IQ is equal to that of Artemis, with the latter only able to gain the upperhand due to his superior technological support.

!Nº1
An Imp who was tricked into being summoned to Earth and gets caught up in a battle of many parties attempting to capture him.

* TheAce: The single most powerful magical being on or under the planet.
* AllLovingHero: By his own admission, Nº1 loves everything and everyone and could never bear to harm someone else.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: He lacked the bloodthirst of his peers and was ostracized because of it.
* AppropriatedAppellation: The name 'Number One' is a term of disdain used by other demons because he is nothing like them and reluctant to transform, so he makes it his own.
* TheArchmage: Is the most powerful magic user in the series.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Nº1 is very slow to anger and generally pacifistic (which is a general aspect of warlock personalities), but when he's angered, there's no stopping him from doing what he wants.
* DeadpanSnarker: In his head, at least. He's rarely confrontational outside of his own private thoughts.
* TheGift: Even among warlocks, he's noted to be exceptionally powerful and has an immense amount of magical power. He also learns and masters concepts about magic that [[TheMentor Qwan]] doesn't know despite being much older. The little guy even undoes the old magic that restricts the People from entering houses uninvited, something countless warlocks had struggled with for centuries.
* LastOfHisKind: He thought he was the last of the warlocks among the demon race. It turns out Qwan was another survivor.
* LivingMacGuffin: Capturing him is the main objective of the first half of ''Lost Colony'', with Artemis and Minerva both fighting to acquire him. However, Billy Kong then joins the fray and attempts to capture him too.
* MustHaveCaffeine: By the time of the last book, he's taken up drinking lots of coffee, confiding to Holly that it empowers his magic. He also tends to talk with some coffee metaphors, giving Holly a "shot" of magic that is his own "special blend".
* ObfuscatingStupidity: In the last book, he confides to Holly just how much he knows about magic and how it works. Though he knows more than his teacher, Qwan at that point, he likes him so much he pretends he doesn't know so he can be with Qwan.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: An in-universe example, seeing as he is a warlock.
* SixthRanger: He ends up becoming recruited into the hero's team and joins them for several adventures, though he tends to play a more supporting role aside after ''Lost Colony''.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Following ''Lost Colony'', his name is spelled with notation, but is still pronounced simply "Number One."
* UnskilledButStrong: In terms of raw power his magic is unparallelled, but he is a complete novice who lacks the knowledge on how to properly use it.
* WizardsFromOuterSpace: In the last book, he mentions he's accepted a job on a fairy moonbase.
* YouAreNumberSix: Demons aren't given names until warping. While Warlocks have their own naming notation, he decides to keep the name Nº1 due to taking a liking for it.

!Qwan

* AndIMustScream: He was [[TakenForGranite trapped in stone]] for 10,000 years. Doesn't seem to have affected his sanity, though.
%%* CoolOldGuy
* TheMentor: To Nº1.
* OldMaster: Among the oldest and greatest of the Demon warlocks.
* TakenForGranite: Courtesy of [[spoiler:Abbot's attempt to sabotage the teleportation spell]]

!Caballine

* ActionGirl: Trained in martial arts and quite capable in combat.
* BlueIsHeroic: Wears a blue sash into combat, which is the symbol of her martial arts school.
* GiveGeeksAChance: Her relationship with Foaly.
* MeaningfulName: "Caballo" is Spanish for horse, and "caballine" is an adjective meaning "relating to horses".
* OneWomanArmy: As the horde of [[spoiler: mind controlled-goblins]] attacking her [[spoiler: house]] found out the hard way.
* PairTheSmartOnes: With Foaly.
* ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: It is unwise to mess with Foaly in her presence.

!!Villains

[[folder:Opal Koboi and Associates]]
!Opal Koboi

* AdaptationDyeJob: In the original books, she's described as having black hair and dark brown eyes. The graphic novels give her red hair and eyes.
* ArchEnemy:
** To Artemis Fowl. Not only is she by far the most recurrent villain in the series, but she is the one villain who serves as TheDreaded for Artemis. Even in one book where she's not even the villain, Artemis is hesitant on even relying on technology produced by her. The feeling is very mutual on Opal's side, and she grows to hate Artemis and has plotted to have him murdered several times.
** To Holly Short. ''Opal Deception'' reveals just how much Opal despises the elf, with a revenge scheme she plotted to hurt Holly in every way possible, having Julius Root murdered, framing Holly for said murder, and then repeatedly attempting to get Holly killed.
* AxCrazy: [[spoiler: most prominently when she attacks Cudgeon for treachery.]]
* BigBad: Effectively serves as this for the whole series, being part of a EvilDuo in the second book, and the BigBad in the fourth book, the sixth book (although her involvement is only revealed quite late in) and the eighth and final book.
* BigBadDuumvirate: With Briar Cudgeon, in book two. [[spoiler: She ends up killing him for plotting to betray her.]]
* BreakoutVillain: Was first introduced as a secondary villain in the second book, where she was the EvilGenius to Briar Cudgeon. She eventually became the closest thing the series had to a BigBad.
* BroughtDownToNormal: [[spoiler:She implants a human pituitary gland into her brain in the fourth book. This ends up draining her magic reserves.]]
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Shes the CEO and founder of Koboi Laboratories and wicked to the core.
* CuteIsEvil: Her Fairy subspecies, Pixies, are famous for being child-like, cute and adorable-looking. Doesn't prevent her from being easily one of the nastiest characters in the whole series.
* DaddysLittleVillain: Subverted hard. Well back when she was young, she admired her father and wanted to follow in his footsteps. After he tried to dissuade her from studying engineering (as he expected his daughter to follow the normal path in life for female pixies: basically, getting married to a suitable husband), she drove him insane, committed him to an asylum, and took over his company. Not necessarily in that order, either.
* DarkMessiah: [[spoiler:Expects to become this in Book eight; she envisions the more warlike elements of fairy society rallying around her and making her empress, after her plan to destroy humanity comes to fruition.]]
%%* DoesNotUnderstandSarcasm
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:She is finally killed by Oro after he is released from her control and she still tries to order him to kill Nopal.]]
* EnfanteTerrible: When she's posing as a human in The Opal Deception.
* EvilCounterpart: Or perhaps Eviler Counterpart to Artemis Fowl. Both are the WorldsSmartestMan for their respective people and both were criminal geniuses that aspired to be greater and waged war on the Fairy People. However, while Artemis was raised in a criminal family and ended up learning humility which led to him pulling a HeelFaceTurn and becoming a better person, Opal was a BitchInSheepsClothing who posed as a righteous person and even wanted to be seen as a hero alongside Briar Cudgeon, but her defeat corrupted her and she ended up descending more into insanity with increasingly megalomaniacal schemes. In essence, Artemis's defeat turned him into a hero, while Opal's defeat made her even worse of a villain.
%%* EvilGloating
* EvilGenius: Her IQ is over 300 and it's implied that shes even smarter than even Artemis himself.
* EvilIsHammy: Not so much in Book Two, but Book Four shows signs, and by Book Six she is irretrievably a LargeHam.
* EvilIsPetty: The reason she hates Foaly so much? His invention won a prize over hers when they were in college.
* FurAndLoathing: She has the seats of her private shuttle lined with animal fur, symbolizing of her rejection of fairies in favour of [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans]].
* GeniusSweetTooth: One of her favourite foods is chocolate truffles.
* AGodAmI: Prone to delusions of godhood, especially when [[spoiler:Her magic gets supercharged in books six and eight]].
* HijackedByGanon: [[spoiler:In Book 6, it turns out she'd been using Damon for quite some time.]]
* InsufferableGenius: Just like Foaly she loves to show off how smarter she is than anyone she happens to be in the room with.
* ItsAllAboutMe: In book six, she's outraged about the fact that the LEP confiscated her source of a key ingredient of her SuperSerum just because they needed it to cure a disease that had already killed ''a quarter of the population of the entire fairy world''.
* KickTheDog: Not only did she [[spoiler: kill Root]], she tricked Holly into [[spoiler:speeding up his demise by shooting the bomb wrapped around his waist,]] claiming there was a weak spot.
* KillAllHumans: Her ultimate plan is to manipulate the ghosts of dead fairies into killing all of humanity.
* MadScientist: Shes the creator of various LEP's weaponry and transportation craft. She also later experiments on endangered animals to use their brain fluid to increase her powers.
* TheManBehindTheMan: While the B'wa Kell has not always worked for her, she and Cudgeon helped orchestrate its largest historical campaign against the LEP. [[spoiler:She is also this to the Extinctionists in book six.]]
%%* ManipulativeBastard
* {{Narcissist}}: Calling her egocentric is putting it mildly.
* NeverMyFault: She blames Foaly for her decision to implant a human pituitary gland in her skull. The logic involved is probably of the [[InsaneTrollLogic insane troll]] variety.
* OurPixiesAreDifferent: As a pixie, she looks like a young human children to the point that small surgical adjustments could allow her to pass as a human. Pixies in general are noted to be far shorter than other [[TheFairFolk Fairy races]] like elves and are also characterized as being exceptionally intelligent, with Opal being so smart she is a contender for the WorldsSmartestWoman of the Fairy Race.
* ProperlyParanoid: Sets up an elaborate deathtrap for Holly and Artemis in Book four, with a videofeed so she can watch their demises from her shuttle. When the videofeed shorts out moments before they get devoured by trolls, she decides to proceed with her plan as though they survived and are hunting her down. Given who she's dealing with, this is the right course of action.
* PsychopathicWomanchild: In the graphic novel of the second book, Opal is depicted as wearing what looks like a thick sweater and ''"footy pajamas"''.
* {{Revenge}}: Her prime motivation in all titles from ''The Opal Deception'' onwards, particularly against Artemis Fowl, Holly and Foaly.
* SanitySlippage: After waking up from her coma, her mental health declines significantly, due to having developed a mental disorder called Narcissus syndrome from spending so much time with only herself for company. [[spoiler:This malady is later [[SanityStrengthening cured]].]]
* SinisterSweetTooth: She's a treacherous, murderous would-be dictator with a love of chocolate.
* SmugSnake: Even though she's one of the most competent and dangerous bad guys in the series, she still slips into this, largely thanks to regularly bragging about her plans and accomplishments. In ''The Opal Deception'', she sets up an underwater TV monitor for no reason other than to taunt Artemis and Holly, which ends up simply providing motivation for both after they survive.
* TemptingFate: In the fourth book, she arrogantly proclaims that magic is of no use to her, and she will rely on science instead. When she needs to use her ''mesmer'' powers on a human at the end of the book, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard it backfires on her]].
* TrademarkFavouriteFood: Chocolate. Especially truffles.
* VillainousBreakdown: Experiences this in book 4 after Artemis tricks her into detonating the charges needed to complete her plan on her own shuttle, ensuring that her EvilPlan will fail and leaving enough evidence to show that she was behind everything.

!Briar Cudgeon
* AmbitionIsEvil: His 'favourite daydream' of a Council seat leads him to one questionable act after another, leading to the following tropes.
* BigBadDuumvirate: With Opal Koboi in book two.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Not only does he turn against the government and police in book two, he [[spoiler:has plans to betray the B'wa Kell and Opal]].
* CombatPragmatist: On his first arrival at the Fowl Manor, he wanted to blue rinsed the whole place immediately. Quick, clean, unexpected, and completely against the rules.
* DeathByIrony: Is killed when he is knocked into an open plasma pipe. The plasma is active, because he activated it himself; the narration even notes the irony (and that it probably did not have time to occur to him before he was fried).
* DrugsAreBad: When Root shoots him with a tranquilliser dart in Book 1, the drugs in the dart end up reacting badly with some illegal stimulants he was taking, ultimately leaving him with several deformities and "a complexion like melted tar".
* EngineeredPublicConfession: Foaly [[spoiler: sends a conversation of him admitting his plans to betray Opal to Artemis' mobile phone near the end of book two]].
* EvilerThanThou: Subverted. In book 2 he is presented as the more evil of the BigBadDuumvirate; he had the personal grudge, the greater screen time, and more malice than Opal. In the end he plots to betray the B'wa Kell goblins and Opal, and his betrayal makes him out to be worse than his more trusting companions. Post book 2 however, Opal becomes far worse than Briar could ever hope to be.
* EvilMakesYouUgly: He used to be relatively attractive. But when Root accidentally shot him [[ChekhovsGun with the dart finger Foaly gave him in case he needed it while meeting with Artemis]], the sedative reacted badly with some mind-enhancing chemicals he was experimenting with, and he ended up seriously disfigured.
* FallenHero: One of the few on a FirstNameBasis with Root because of their long friendship and the former's respect for his integrity and sense of duty. Then he lets his ambition get the best of him.
* FatalFlaw: Ambition. In book one, he lets his dreams of a council seat get the better of his morality and good judgment, and he ends up disgraced for it. [[spoiler:Then in book two, he ends up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory due to his inability to share power.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler:Opal kills him by ramming him into exposed plasma he himself had activated.]]
* LadyAndKnight: Has this Dynamic with Opal Koboi ''The Artic Incident''. Opal is the {{ojou}} who does her techo-wizardy from a safe distance and Cudgeon is the FallenHero in the thick of things. As he himself puts it: "I shall be the hero of the resistance and you shall be my princess."
* TheManBehindTheMan: The B'wa Kell Triad may officially be run by its generals, but in reality, Briar's the one calling the shots.
* TheManBehindTheMonsters: In this case, goblins. The B'wa Kell goblin triads were just a public nuisance until he organized and armed them.
* NeverMyFault: He blames Foaly, Root, and even Artemis for ruining his career, even though he torpedoed it himself when he decided to send a troll into Fowl Manor.
* SanitySlippage: Noticeably more unstable in Book 2, thanks to a sedative reacting badly with some illegal mind-enhancing chemicals he was using.
* SmugSnake: {{Pride}} outstreching his ability is the reason for his fall.
* VillainousBreakdown: While he's not exactly an outright villain yet, his appearance in Book One ends with him screaming angrily and trying to attack Foaly after his plans blow up in his face and it becomes clear Root and Foaly are going to give evidence against him.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: He used to be Root's friends and they grew up together, but his actions during the first book end up alienating Root from him and in book 2, it's clear that their friendship is now dead.
* WhatTheHellHero: Julius calls him out on using a troll in the Fowl siege.

!The B'wa Kell

* BigBadDuumvirate: They are led by a triumvirate of goblins consisting of Generals Scalene, Sputa and Phlebum.
* KillItWithFire: Their favourite method of dealing with things.
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: For all their stupidity, they very nearly manage to beat the LEP in Book 2. Only Foaly regaining control of Police Plaza's defence systems manages to put down their rebellion.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: They are reptilian creatures who shed their skins and use them to make clothes. They have [[PlayingWithFire the ability to produce fire as well as near-complete immunity to it]]. And they are ''incredibly'' stupid.
* PlayingWithFire: It comes out their nostrils.
* StupidCrooks: The lot of them, from the lowliest grunts all the way up to the top leadership.
* StupidEvil: Colfer [[RunningGag will not let you forget that goblins are dumb]].
* TooDumbToLive: A general, one of their best and brightest, was caught using a forged credit card because he used his real name.
* TookALevelInBadass: They go from a relatively minor nuisance to a very serious threat after Cudgeon and Opal ally with them, thanks to them being supplied with both illegal weaponry and a reliable source of energy for said weaponry.

!Mervall and Descant Brill

* PunchClockVillain: They have no personal investment in Opal's plans-- they're just motivated by pay and fear.
* ShinyNewAustralia: In light of Opal's growing narcissism and madness, the only thing keeping them loyal, aside from fear of punishment, is the thought of sipping alcoholic beverages on the beaches of the Carribean after Opal's world conquest.

!Damon Kronski

* ChekhovsGunman: A hotel bears his name in book four.
* TheDragon: [[spoiler:To Opal Koboi, though he doesn't realize it]].
* EgomaniacHunter: He leads the Extinctionists, a club for people who want to push as many endangered species as possible into extinction.
* EvilIsHammy: Thanks to seeing his preacher father in action, he is really good at making grandiose speeches. Shame they're about exterminating other species.
* EvilPoacher: He drives animals to extinction.
* ExploitedImmunity: He organises a meeting with Artemis in a leather souk, hoping that the smell of leather-tanning chemicals will unnerve Artemis. Since he doesn't have a sense of smell, the chemicals don't faze him at all.
* FauxAffablyEvil: Though he puts on a charming air, it's glaringly obvious that he's an asswipe.
* FirstTimeFeeling: [[spoiler:During a fight with Holly, he ends up getting his sense of smell restored by her healing magic. Unfortunately for him, he happens to be in a particularly foul-smelling souk at the time, so he falls to the ground, writhing in agony.]]
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:His hatred of animals stems from an incident in his childhood, when he was mauled by a koala.]]
* HijackedByGanon: [[spoiler:Or more accurately, by Opal.]]
* KnightTemplar: The narration implies that unlike most of his friends he actually believes the crap about exterminating a species since humans are at the centre and should only keep the animals that help them.
* PreachersKid: Those revival tent sermons led him to develop his fearsome oratory prowess.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:When Artemis makes it look like he's passing off a human teenager as a fairy and trying to have her killed under false pretenses, thus turning his own club against him, he drops his composure. He's driven even further over the edge when Holly restores his sense of smell at the worst possible time. Since it's implied his mental health was already shaky due to him being repeatedly mesmerized by Opal, it seems likely he went completely insane.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other Villains]]
!The Russian Mafia

* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler:When Artemis Fowl II seemingly has his own father assassinated, they're genuinely shocked and horrified]].
* KarmaHoudini: Britva, the leader of the group.
%%* TheMafiya
* NoFullNameGiven: Britva and Kamar.
* OddlySmallOrganization: Their total presence in the books amounts to a mob boss and his two enforcer henchmen. Though there were a hundred guards mentioned at some point and it's heavily implied that the two henchmen are doing one small task out of a big organization.
* RuthlessForeignGangsters: Inverted as it was the Irish GentlemanThief who moved on their territories and they showed him he was not welcome by hitting the ship he was on with a stinger missile.

!Jon Spiro

* BadBoss: Apparently used to toss complaining employees out of high-rise windows before the laws became tighter. He resents having to give employees basic amenities like decent wages and insurance and those working for him are constantly in fear of having YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness and/or YouHaveFailedMe pulled on them.
* BigBad: Of Book Three, given he holds the MacGuffin that the heroes must acquire back from him.
%%* BaldOfEvil
* ColourMotifs: White. He wears white clothing, and just about everything in his personal quarters is white.
* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Aside from Artemis himself being a VillainProtagonist in the first book, Spiro is the only main villain who is a human rather than a fairy.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: See BadBoss above. Even if his underworld connections and use of illegal means to undermine his competition didn't qualify him for this, his willingness to have a teenage boy murdered to get his hands on very advanced technology ''definitely'' does. Its also implied that Phonetix outstrips his company due to him cutting corners.
* CrazyPrepared: Holly describes his company's security system as being the most state of the art she has ever seen for a Mudman. It's telling that Foaly concludes they could not pull off infiltrating it without his help.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: His company's relationship with Phonetix seems very reminiscent of that between Microsoft and Apple.
* EvilerThanThou: He lampshades this toward Artemis, who was still using his criminal mastermind cred, he might not be the better mastermind but Spiro is way better at being a criminal since he doesn't mind dirtying his hands.
* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The Spiro Needle, a very tall and thin Chicago office building that serves as his company's headquarters.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He cracks a lot of jokes and makes bets with his employees, but he also has ties with the mob and won't hesitate to kill a kid.
* IdiotBall: Unfortunately grabs it pretty hard during the climax of the book. [[spoiler: For most of the story's he's careful and well-prepared, and Artemis is only able to match him by calling in help from his fairy allies with advanced technology and magical powers. He correctly guesses that Artemis' initial surrender is a ruse and is waiting inside when Artemis breaks into his vault. But when Artemis has been apparently "beaten for real" and unlocks the C-Cube, he's easily goaded into celebrating by driving over to the highly secure corporate headquarters of his rival tech giant in the middle of the night and personally breaking in to steal their research, confident that this is a great idea because the C-Cube can supposedly hack the electronic security systems and activate tanks of sleeping gas hidden in the vents as a security measure to disable the guards. Dumb because of the many ways such a plan could go wrong even if the C-Cube actually did those things, but more importantly, because he immediately trusts that the Cube is actually doing anything it claims to be doing once Artemis unlocks it.]]
* JustForPun: The name of his company, Fission Chips.
* LeanAndMean: Described as being "thin as a javelin".
* LightIsNotGood: He's heavily associated with the colour white, and is a CorruptCorporateExecutive ''par excellence''.
* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Spiro has a taste for expensive suits. Like just about everything else he owns, they're white.
%%* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed
* TheRichHaveWhiteStuff: Everything in his apartment is white, including a painting titled ''Snow Ghost'' that's just a solid white canvas.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: To TheMafia, no less.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Though this doesn't save him from [[spoiler:getting his just deserts after being caught breaking into Phonetix headquarters]].
* SmugSnake: He ''is'' fairly competent, and he did almost get Artemis killed at the beginning of Book 3, but he is just not as good as he think he is. In the end, [[spoiler:Artemis completely outdoes him.]]
* StraightEdgeEvil: Spiro never smokes (he does chew and suck on the end of a cigar, but never lights it), and hardly ever drinks non-decaf coffee. It's implied that this is because he's a health nut, and strictly follows his doctor's orders.
* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler:After realising he has been the victim of an elaborate BatmanGambit and is destined for prison.]]
* VillainInAWhiteSuit: Wears all white suits, and is a ruthless CorruptCorporateExecutive with ties to the mob.

!Arno Blunt

* TheDragon: To Jon Spiro.
* FangsAreEvil: One of his sets of false teeth is pointed, like a shark's.
* {{Foil}}: To Butler. Both are bodyguards to highly-intelligent, criminal masterminds. However, Blunt is loud and calls attention to himself with his appearance, whereas Butler makes himself as inconspicuous as possible. He's also extremely pragmatic, does not hold to any code of honor in a fight, and he's relatively unprofessional (trying to hold pointless staring contests with Butler). He's also nowhere near as loyal to Jon Spiro, as Butler is to Artemis; the moment things go south for Spiro, he tries to high-tail it out of there.
* HeelFaceTurn: A forced one at that.
* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: After losing his teeth.
* TattooedCrook: Though not to the same extent as Loafers.
* TheToothHurts: He has all of his teeth blown out as a result of Artemis detonating a sonic grenade during their first meeting, and spends most of the rest of the book wearing dentures.

!Loafers [=McGuire=]

* BondOneLiner: Keeps a notebook of quips to make after he kills people.
* EntertaininglyWrong: When he overhears Mulch refer to himself as a "fairy dwarf", he assumes it's the name of a gang (though he notes that it's far from an intimidating name). An understandable conclusion to make for somebody who doesn't know that literal fairies exist.
* {{Expy}}: He's pretty much an Irish version of [[Film/{{Goodfellas}} Tommy DeVito]] or [[Film/{{Casino}} Nicky Santoro]], being a short tough guy with a bad temper and involvement in organized crime.
%%* FishOutOfWater
* GoingNative: [[spoiler:After his memory was altered, he changed his name to "Nuru" and went to live among an East African tribe]].
* HairTriggerTemper: Which Mulch gladly exploits.
* HumiliationConga: [[spoiler:He ends up mind wiped and sent to live among African villagers.]]
* IdentityAmnesia: [[spoiler:After Juliet knocks him out, he gets his memory altered and forgets who he actually is]].
* KillTally: Loafers gets a new tattoo every time he completes a hit. Hardly any of his skin retains its original colour by the time of the third book.
* TheNapoleon: Well below average height for a human man, and known for his bad temper.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: Despite being only five feet tall, he's one of the Chicago Outfit's best hitmen. And he doesn't need his weapons to be scary, either; he once defeated seven larger mobsters in a brawl.
* SarcasmBlind: Mulch's sarcasm makes a slight whistling noise as it sails clean over his head
* TattooedCrook: He gets a new tattoo after every successful job. By the time he gets hired to go after Artemis, he hardly has any skin retaining its original colour left.

!Pex and Chips

* BumblingHenchmanDuo: While Pex seems ''marginally'' smarter and more competent than Chips, neither of them show much in the way of intelligence and Mulch easily tricks them into letting him escape with some BriarPatching. [[spoiler:Spiro's downfall happens at least partly because they end up being ''mesmerized'' by Holly after losing a fight to a teenage girl.]]
* DumbMuscle: They were hired purely for their strength (Pex is said to be able to crack open a walnut with his bare hands) and neither has much in the way of brains.
* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: Really, they're so dimwitted and childish you can't help but feel sorry for them.
* ManChild: They're fans of [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Barney the Dinosaur]]. That tells you all you need to know about their maturity.
* NeverLearnedToRead: If some of Spiro's thoughts are any indication, they're both illiterate.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: "Pex" for his impressive pectorals, and "Chips" because he's often eating chips.
* TooDumbToLive: They make the goblins look like paragons of intellectual prowess.
* TrademarkFavouriteFood: Chips' is... well, chips.

!Turnball Root

* AffablyEvil: Walks the line between this and FauxAffablyEvil. He is very polite and respectful to allies and enemies alike. While he does do a lot of horrible things, he sees it more as NecessarilyEvil to reach a means to an end and never takes any sadistic pleasure in what he does.
* AntiVillain: Somewhat. His motivations in ''The Atlantis Complex'' are sympathetic, but it's made clear that he has been anything but an AntiVillain throughout his career. Artemis states at the end that he finds it hard to really see Turnball as a villain.
* BadBoss: Played with. Usually he is a FatherToHisMen with his henchman being very loyal to him and Turnball treating them with respect. However, on occasion he won't have a problem with leaving one behind to to die if they have [[YouHaveOutLivedYourUsefulness outlived their usefulness]] as was the case with Vishby.
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: In "[=LEPrecon=]" (in ''The Artemis Fowl Files''), he swallows a lethal spider rather than let his brother take him back to prison. Julius manages to save him, though.
* BigBad: Of both the prequel story "[=LEPrecon=]" and ''The Atlantis Complex''.
* CainAndAbel: With his brother Julius.
* TheChessmaster: Probably the biggest one in the series save for Artemis himself. He masterminds the entire events of ''the Atlantis Complex'', from hacking the space shuttle and making it turn rogue, turning the entire wrestling ring crowd against the Butlers, orchestrating his prison escape with the help of a BrainwashedAndCrazy prison guard, and has a NearVillainVictory in his ultimate goal in securing Nº1 to heal his human wife.
* DirtyCop: He tried to flood a section of Haven in an attempt to wipe out a competitor who was muscling in on his illegal mining operation.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: For all his villainy, he genuinely cares for his wife.
* EvilGenius: In addition to being TheChessmaster, Turnball is described as being the number one expert on runes in the world. He's able to use a combination of a Thrall Rune and one magic spark from rice wine to take control of his subjects.
* InterspeciesRomance: He fell in love with a human woman who he ended up marrying. His motivation for ''The Atlantis Complex'' was to keep her alive.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Insists on being addressed as captain despite obviously no longer holding that rank in the LEP.
* ThrownFromTheZeppelin: In ''The Atlantis Complex'', Turnball asks a shuttle full of prisoners (including many members of his old gang) for volunteers to join him in his next venture and depart the shuttle under dangerous circumstances. The first three people who choose to follow him survive. The prisoners who decide to stay behind, ask to join him too slowly for his tastes, or seem too nervous and desperate while asking to join him are all left behind and die when the shuttle is destroyed to cover his escape.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Pulls this on Vishby, who had been [[TheDragon right-hand man]] for the majority of ''Atlantis Complex'' but he had no problem with leaving Vishby behind in the escape pod full of criminals before the whole pod got crushed and the occupants liquefied by the satellite.

!Ark Sool
The replacement for the late Commander Julius Root after his assassination. Ark Sool is an immoral BadBoss who is eager to push Holly as a criminal and have her arrested or killed for her crimes.
----
* BadBoss: Is extremely abrasive and refuses to so much as consider the possibility of Holly being innocent.
%%* BeardOfEvil
* CorruptBureaucrat: [[spoiler:He tries to let the demons be wiped out.]]
* FaceHeelTurn: Played with. He was never a saint to begin with, being an immoral CorruptBureaucrat and BadBoss. However, after being fired from LEP, he officially switches over to the baddie's side by joining Turnball's gang.
* GeneralRipper: In Book 4, he is absolutely obsessed with placing the blame on Holly, constantly refusing any further investigations or research that could help prove her innocence.
* HateSink: He was already this even when he was supposedly a HeroAntagonist, being nothing but contemptible and trying to tarnish Holly's reputation and brand her as a criminal. Trying to [[spoiler:let the entire Demon race die off]] only cements him as this. And then as icing on the cake, he decides to join the villain's side altogether and allies with Turnball's gang.
* ItsAllAboutMe: He only cares about his own career, and nothing else.
* {{Jerkass}}: Sool is an incredibly unlikable individual, as cemented by [[spoiler:his willingness to ''let the whole Eighth Family die off''.]]
* KickTheDog: On too many occasions to count, but one of the biggest he had was when he [[spoiler:tried to let the whole demon people die. This ends up costing him his career]].
* LeanAndMean: He's a good deal skinnier than most gnomes.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Holly mentally refers to him as "the king of red tape" at one point.
* OutOfFocus: Him joining Turnball in Book 7 is merely a footnote in the story. Rather than dwell on his enmity with Holly and the rest of the LEP, Sool's just sorta there hanging out with Turnball's other {{mooks}}.
* SmugSnake: Just about everything he does ''screams'' unwarranted self-importance.
* TyrantTakesTheHelm: [[spoiler:He takes over the LEP after Julius' death. Holly immediatly quits.]]

!Leon Abbot

* BigBad: Of Book Five.
* ControlFreak: He demands complete loyalty from the other demons, to the point of choosing names for them during their adulthood ceremonies, and inflicts humiliation and punishment on those who dissent or challenge his authority.
* CreateYourOwnHero: [[spoiler:Attempting to sent Number 1 to his death started a chain of events that led to his downfall, which Number 1 played a key part in.]]
* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:By Qwan's apprentice Qweffor, in an exceedingly rare heroic example.]]
* DoNotCallMePaul: He chose the name Leon Abbot, after a character in a human romance novel. [[spoiler:His real name in N'Zall, which translates into demon language as 'Little Horn'.]]
* EvilOverlord: Rules over the demons during their exile on Hybras.
* FakeUltimateHero: Talks himself up as a brave hero who fought a multitude of humans and stole treasured possessions from them. [[spoiler:In reality, he was merely given the possessions by Minerva.]]
* FusionDance: [[spoiler:It's revealed he has magic abilities stemming from his body merging with that of Qwan's apprentice Qweffor in a ritual gone wrong.]]
* HumiliationConga: [[spoiler:He ends up having his body taken over by Qweffor, then his consciousness gets transferred into the body of a guinea pig.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: He detests magic, and magic-using warlock demons, but is not above using it to [[CompellingVoice mesmerise]] other demons into obeying him, or heal himself to get rid of humiliating injuries.
* {{Irony}}: In more than one way: [[spoiler:He mesmerized Number 1 into leaving because he feared the young warlock might become a threat. This ended up leading exactly to the chain of events that caused his demise.]]
* ItsAllAboutMe: [[spoiler:In the end, he cares for nothing but his own personal power.]]
* LargeAndInCharge: A large and physically imposing demon, and self-appointed ruler of Hybras.
* MagicKnight: He has the strength and stature of a demon warrior, and a pool of magic power which he stole while sabotaging a warlock ritual.
* {{Narcissist}}: Rivals Opal in this department. There are few depths he won't sink to for the sake of satisfying his sense of self-importance.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Another in-universe example: He possesses [[MagicKnight magic abilities]] [[spoiler:through a FusionDance he had with a warlock named Qweffor]].
* SealedEvilInATeddyBear: [[spoiler:His mind ends up being transferred into the body of a guinea pig against his will.]]
* SmugSnake: While he's more clever and intelligent than he might seem at first glance, he's still not as smart as he thinks he is.
* StrawHypocrite: [[spoiler:Yeah, he talks a big game about going on the warpath against humans when the time comes, but it's all for show; he knows full well that trying to take on humanity would [[CurbStompBattle end very poorly]]. His militant rhetoric is just a tool he uses to stay in power.]]

!Billy Kong aka Jonah Lee

* AnimeHair: Invoked by his spiky, multicoloured hair, which the narration refers to as "manga hair".
%%* AxCrazy
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Holly comments he looks more like a member of a boy band than a hardened criminal who killed his partner with a kitchen knife. He is extremely dangerous and even Butler commented that it's gonna be a problem if he is part of the antagonists.
* TheDragon: To Minerva.
* DragonWithAnAgenda: He actually has his own reasons to work for Minerva; [[spoiler:he plans to kill all demons by sending a powerful bomb into their dimension. He ends up betraying Minerva and holding Nº1 hostage because of it]].
* TheDreaded: When Artemis asks Butler about him Butler takes a long breath before saying he should be avoided, he also keeps to himself how dark Billy's reputation is in the Underworld as someone that will get any job done no matter how dirty.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: The reason he tries to wipe out the demons is because he thinks they killed his older brother and wants to avenge him.
* FreudianExcuse: His older brother Eric made up stories about him fighting shapeshifting demons to cover up his nightly gang escapades. When Eric was murdered in a gang war, Billy (still known as Jonah at the time) refused to accept the police's explanation and was driven to kill the demons that supposedly took his brother's life.
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Subverted. It seems like he'll only be punished for property damage, leaving his more serious crimes unaccounted for... but then Butler reveals to the Taiwanese police that he has an active arrest warrant for murder under his birth name, Jonah Lee.]]
* OvershadowedByAwesome: [[spoiler:While he's very dangerous in combat, he's still no match for Butler.]]
* PsychoForHire: Though he does have an agenda beyond just killing people, that's not to say he doesn't enjoy it.
* TheStarscream: [[spoiler:He ends up taking over Minerva's operation.]]

!Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye
* TheAgeless: How his immortality seems to work. It's implied he could have been trapped at the bottom of the sea for all eternity but a shark wanting to wear him is treated as a credible threat.
* AndIMustScream: He ends ''The Fowl Twins'' [[spoiler:trapped wrapped in cellphane underwater and could be trapped forever due to his immortality. The sequel says his brain had to be transferred into a clone body and he was]] awake during the procedure.
* BigBad: The main antagonist of ''The Fowl Twins''.
* BodyBackupDrive: The sequel says his brain was put into a clone body but he doesn't want to do this again due to the expense.
* CannotTellFictionFromReality: Has memory problems as a side effect of his brain transplant and asks if Australia and [[Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia Narnia]] are real places.
* FlyingCar: Has pre-ordered one that the Myishi Corporation is working on.
* GoshDarnItToHeck: Says "My word, my blooming word" when Beckett breaks his shoulder. The narration says this is as close to swearing as he normally gets due to his breeding.
* GratuitousFrench: His first words to Lazuli are "Au contraire, mademoiselle".
* ImmortalitySeeker: Is trying to find troll blood so he can live forever.
* MeaningfulName: He plans to drain a troll of its blood.
* MuggedForDisguise: He knocks out and steals clothes from an [=ACRONYM=] guard.
* TheNeedless: His immortality seems to allow him to be trapped forever underwater without air or food.
* PunnyName: His name is a play on "bleed 'em dry".
* UncertainDoom: At the end of ''The Fowl Twins'', he's trapped underwater with a shark about to eat him and a Myishi Corporation worker on the way to rescue him.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: He's the Duke of Scilly and widely respected.
* WouldHurtAChild: He intends to kill the Fowl twins and looks forward to hearing them.
[[/folder]]

!!Other Characters
[[folder:Other Characters]]
!Madame Ko

* TheChessmaster: One rumour Juliet hears is she caused a ''stampede'' to distract a trainee. With elephants no less.
* TheMentor: To the Butlers, unwillingly.
%%* MiniatureSeniorCitizens
* NeverMessWithGranny: She's implied to still be a capable fighter in her old age.
* OldMaster: A rare female version thereof.

!Jerbal Argon

* ChekhovsGunman: Almost literally, as it's less the character himself than his psychological skills that end up important in book four, as they help house Opal Koboi.
* PunnyName: J. Argon.
%%* TheShrink
[[/folder]]

!!The Eight Fairy Families
[[folder:The Eight Fairy Families]]
In the Artemis Fowl Universe, Fairies are divided in seven (eventually revealed to be eight) families:
----
* ActuallyNotAVampire: With the Sprite that Artemis first encounters being contained indoors, centuries old, with mystical powers, and most importantly can be poisoned by ''HolyWater'', you'd be forgiven for thinking she's a vampire. It turns out Eoin Colfer added other vampire traits to the fairies such as the hypnotic ''[[CompellingVoice mesmer]]'' and the fact they MustBeInvited into a human dwelling (because they'll experience severe nausea otherwise and will lose their magic if they enter uninvited too much).
* TheFairFolk: The Fairy People who are divided into eight families.
* MustBeInvited: If a fairy with magic enters a human dwelling without permission, they'll experience severe nausea; if they do it too much, they'll lose their magic entirely, which is why Mulch doesn't have his.
* UndergroundCity: The majority of their civilizations are underground, with the most notable being Haven City.

!Elves
* NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: Going by one passing comment in the first book, they can have children with gremlins. They can also interbreed with pixies to make "pixels".
* OurElvesAreDifferent: They're a lot shorter than popular depictions generally are, but still have a lot of stereotypical traits frequently seen in modern portrayals.
* PointyEars: They've all got pointed ears.

!Dwarves
* BizarreAlienBiology: They unhinge their jaws to eat through the earth, they have PrehensileHair, their pores suck in water, and their saliva is a fast-hardening, faintly luminous anaesthetic.
* ImprovisedLockpick: As demonstrated by Mulch, a strand of dwarven beard hair makes an excellent lockpick, as inserting it into a lock causes it to mold itself into a shape matching the tumblers, and plucking it causes it to instantly harden.
* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: ''No they are not''. They are a whole species of {{Tunnel King}}s with an incredibly large number of unusual abilities allowing them to adapt to many situations. They're about as close as you can get to being an earthworm while remaining a nominal hominid.
* TunnelKing: By unhinging their jaws, they can tunnel by eating dirt, crapping it out behind them as they go.
* WallCrawl: One quirk of dwarven physiology is that if they go without water for long enough, their pores will start sucking up moisture. Some take advantage of this by making themselves really thirsty and then using their pores as suction cups to climb walls.

!Gnomes
* HufflepuffHouse: They are rarely discussed.
* OurGnomesAreWeirder: The only details given about them is that they have comically large behinds and are very fond of tacky jewelry.

!Pixies
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: An Atlantean subspecies with blue skin exists.
* CuteIsEvil: Pixies are described as being very cute compared to other fairy subspecies, with their large heads and child-like facial features. The major pixie characters we get in the series range from the AxeCrazy Opal to her PunchClockVillain minions. Even the one named pixie character who isn't an outright villain started out as a smuggler before abandoning crime and becoming a private eye.
* NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: Can breed with elves to make ''pixels''.

!Goblins
* BizarreAlienBiology: ''The Fowl Twins'' specifies that their fire-breathing isn't magic and is allowed by various biological quirks including a fireproof throat.
* GenuineHumanHide: A harmless version. Since they shed, they have the habit of using their own old shedded skins to make clothes. Other fairies still find this habit pretty disgusting.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: Short, squat, green-skinned, large-eared, sometimes profoundly stupid and -- in a break from typical goblins -- able to spit fireballs.
* PlayingWithFire: They're able to conjure fireballs in their hands, inhale them and breathe them out as jets of fire. They themselves are almost entirely fireproof.
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Goblins are described as descending from reptiles, and all those we get to see in the books are at best thugs.
* RunningOnAllFours: They're normally bipedal, but revert to all fours for speed.
%%* StupidEvil
* TattooedCrock: Some goblin criminals have been known to get tattoos on their ''eyeballs''.
* TooDumbToLive: While their stupidity tends to be rather exaggerated in-universe, there have been several incidents where it directly led to the demise, or nearly so, of goblin characters, mostly criminals -- one, for instance, was incinerated by a magma flare because he flew into a magma vent without bothering to think of grabbing more safety gear than a thermal suit, while a gang of goblins nearly killed themselves by deciding to break out of a prison vehicle by turning it to slag...which would have killed them even through their normal heat resistance.

!Centaurs
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: For starters, they are super-smart.
* ProperlyParanoid: They are well-known to be a bit paranoid, but considering their species was nearly driven into extinction by humans, who already exterminated their unicorn cousins...
* TheSmartGuy: They apparently are the most intelligent tribe.

!Sprites
* BizarreAlienBiology: Not as ridiculously as dwarves, but water sprites have gills, and they are mentioned to have a lot of blood vessels in their wings, so a sufficiently grave injury in them can be lethal if not treated quickly.
%%* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe
%%* HufflepuffHouse
* SmugSuper: Apparently, they take great pride in having wings.
* SuperNotDrowningSkills: Water sprites have gills and as such can breath underwater.
* WingedHumanoid: The only known subspecies of Fairies to have retained their wings.

!Demons
* AlienFairFolk: Demons are descended from single-celled organisms that evolved on the moon, and that arrived on Earth when a chunk of the moon broke off and crashed into the ocean in the Triassic period.
* CursedWithAwesome: Warlocks never get to turn into adult demons and stay imps all their lives, but on the bright side they are the only demons to develop magic powers.
* HornedHumanoid: Zig-zagged. They don't actually have horns, despite what the covers portray them as, but have keratinized ears that develop a number of prominent points as they age and eventually became very visually hornlike.
* {{Lunacy}}: They have an exceptionally strong connection to the moon and -- by association -- silver. Nº1 speculates at one point that it was believed demons were capable of levitating when under a full moon.
* {{Metamorphosis}}: One of their major characteristic is that they don't grow up gradually. Instead, they stay imps, then at some point in their life suddenly turn into cocoons, from which they later emerge as full-grown demons. Imps who never grow up will instead develop magic abilities and become warlocks.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent:
** They are creatures evolved from micro-organisms that came from the Moon, and it only gets weirder from there.
** They are more binary when it comes to magic. Most demons have no magic at all and have to rely on their tough hide and teeth, whereas the few demon warlocks are much more powerful than the magicians of the other races.
* OurImpsAreDifferent: Imps are infant demons; when they're ready for adulthood they undergo a metamorphosis that grants them tremendous strength and physical prowess. Although most can't use magic, a rare few imps that do not metamorphose are known as warlocks and have the potential to become the greatest mages of all fairykind.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Justified. They are more barbaric than the other tribes because they were forced to live outside of time under the influence of a megalomaniac. [[spoiler:They start changing their ways after being reunited with the other Fairy families]].

!Gremlins
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: They are never mentioned after the first book, but appear in the first three graphic novels.
* LittleGreenMen: They are slightly more than half as tall as the average elf, with green skin, bug-like eyes and green or orange manes. Unlike most examples, they come from underground rather than outer space.
* TheMedic: The ones we see mainly work as [=LEP=] medical warlocks.
* NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: Going by one passing comment in the first book, they can have children with elves.
[[/folder]]

* YoungerThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:After being bought back to life by Holly Short, he was aged by 15 years, meaning that he was physically 55 at the age of about 40.]]

* BossUnfavoriteEmployee: Played with. While Commander Root is infamously gruff and demanding with all of his officers, he's especially harsh on Holly up through the events of the first book. She suspects it's because he's a chauvinist; in reality, he's pressuring her to be the best she can be so that more female officers will join LEP recon, and she's already on thin ice due to [[NoodleIncident a fiasco in Hamburg]].

%%%* StrongGirlSmartGuy: Strong Girl, along with Juliet to Artemis' Smart Guy because she is a bodyguard and aspiring wrestler while her cunning boss has geek physique.

** With Mulch, apparently. He's testified against him 15 times and calls him 'convict' but when [[spoiler: Mulch fakes his death]] Root is immediately sad and called him "One of the constants of his life." Mulch for his part calls him by his first name and doesn't hold much of a grudge for the '15 times' thing. In fact, Mulch respected Root so much [[spoiler:that he temporarily gives up burglary for private investigation after Root died.]]

* KansasCityShuffle: By refusing to help Root in book 1 he tricks DaChief into thinking he wants a lighter prison sentence, when in fact he plans to escape outright. Then extends the trick by [[spoiler: faking his death and stealing some of the other half of the ransom gold.]]

* SwissArmySuperpower: Dwarf talents are endless that pretty much serve as biological a WalkingArsenal. They can [[TunnelKing tunnel]] flawlessly below ground at high speeds, they have PrehensileHair that can detect vibration and serve as lock picks, they possess special spittle (which hardens in contact with air, is luminous, and can be used as a sedative), powerful [[{{Fartillery}} flatulence]] that can be weaponized, skin that can absorb moisture so that if they are dehydrated they can use their hands as suction pads.

* TunnelKing: Dwarves have a physiology naturally designed for tunnelling, being able to unhinge their jaw to eat dirt, process it, and fire it back out their rear end.

* AntiHero: He fulfils the role of BigGood for the first half of the series, but he's rather... [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold gruff]]

* TinfoilHat: He wears them in case someone develops mindcontrol technology. After [[spoiler:Opal (seemingly) outthinks him anyway]], he gives it up.

* PunnyName: Not him, but he tends to use these with various pseudonyms he publishes papers, which include (but are not limited to) Sir E. Brum (Cerebrum), F. Roy Dean Schlippe (Freudian Slip), C. Niall [=DeMencha=] (Senile Dementia) and Violet Tsirblou (Violets are blue).

* FamousForBeingFirst: He has the destinction of being the first human in recorded history to [[WrestlerOfBeasts take on a troll in melee combat and win]].

* RealMenWearPink: He apparently likes romantic comedies, his favourite film being ''Film/SomeLikeItHot''. He reads romantic novels when nobody is around, though he would never admit it.
* RoundhouseKick: Does a spinning kick, much to the embarrassment of Artemis when stealing a whaling ship in the first book.

* ActionGirl: Butler bodyguard.

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: The only person who laughs at him (and lives), does so repeatedly.

%%* BraidsOfAction

* RaceLift: Like her brother, she's Eurasian in the books, but will be played by the black Tamara Smart in the movie.

* TookALevelInBadass: When she returns in book 3.

* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:His hatred of animals stems from an incident in his childhood, when he was mauled by a koala]].

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: His company's relationship with Phonetix seems very reminscient of that between Microsoft and Apple.

* DumbMuscle: They were hired purely for their strength.

* ManChild: They're fans of Barney the Dinosaur. That tells you all you need to know about their maturity.

* KickTheDog: On too many occasions to count, but one of the biggest he had was when he [[spoiler:tried to let the whole demon people die. This ends up costing him his career.]]

* OutOfFocus: Him joining Turnball is merely a footnote in the story. Rather than dwell on his enmity with Holly and the rest of the LEP, Sool's just sorta there hanging out with Turnball's other mooks.

* DragonWithAnAgenda: He actually has his own reasons to work for Minerva; [[spoiler:he plans to kill all demons by sending a powerful bomb into their dimension. He ends up betraying Minerva and holding Nº1 hostage because of it.]]

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Subverted. It seems like he'll only be punished for property damage, leaving his more serious crimes unaccounted for... but then Butler reveals to the Taiwanese police that he has an active arrest warrant for murder under his birth name, Jonah Lee]].

* ActuallyNotAVampire: With the Sprite that Artemis first encounters being contained indoors, centuries old, with mystical powers, and most importantly can be poisoned by ''HolyWater'', you'd be forgiven for thinking she's a vampire. It turns out Eoin Colfer added other vampire traits to the fairies such as the hypnotic ''[[CompellingVoice mesmer]]'' and the fact they MustBeInvited into a human dwelling otherwise they will experience severe nausea.

* ShipSinking: [[spoiler:She and Artemis remain friends. Or not. The series ends with it left ambiguous.]]

* EvilCounterpart: Or perhaps Eviler Counterpart to Artemis Fowl. Both are the WorldsSmartestMan for their respective people and both were criminal geniuses that aspired to be greater and waged war on the Fairy People. However, Artemis was raised in a criminal family and ended up learning humility where he ended up pulling a HeelFaceTurn and became a better person. While Opal was a BitchInSheepsClothing who posed as a righteous person and even wanted to be seen as a hero alongside Briar Cudgeon, but her defeat corrupted her and she ended up descending more into insanity with increasingly megalomaniacal schemes. In essence, Artemis's defeat turned him into a hero, while Opal's defeat made her even worse of a villain.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even when a VillainProtagonist, Artemis isn't completely without scruples.

* DarkSkinnedRedhead: Is described as having nut-brown skin and dark red hair, which is apparently not that uncommon a combination among fairies.

* [[PutOnABus Put on a Spaceship]]: ''The Fowl Twins'' has him away on a five year mission to Mars. [[RefugeInAudacity On a self-winding rocket he built himself, in the family barn]]. Justified, because if Artemis had been present the first ''Fowl Twins'' book would have ended quickly enough to be a novella.

* [[OneManArmy One Woman Army]]: As the horde of [[spoiler: mind controlled-goblins]] attacking her [[spoiler: house]] found out the hard way.

* [[PsychopathicManchild Psychopathic Womanchild]]: In the graphic novel of the second book, Opal is depicted as wearing what looks like a thick sweater and ''"footy pajamas"''.

%% Doesn't explain what the reaction is. * Berserk Button: Just mentioning Artemis's name any time in the first half of the series will qualify you as asking for serious death wish from Captain Holly Short.

* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: It's one of the reasons he's described as 'a vampire' when he smiles.

* AffectionateNickname: His mother sometimes affectionaltey calls him "Arty."

** Butler stands at almost seven feet tall, has "a barrel chest full of scars and hard muscle", hands that are "the size and approximate shape of spades", and is strong enough to deliver "a blow that would have felled a medium-sized hippopotamus" with his shoulder when [[BerserkButton Artemis is in immediate danger]]. However, ''The Eternity Code'' states that he's a "ninety kilogram [200 lb] dead weight." A near-seven foot tall man at that weight would be as thin as a rail, while a man of Butler's strength and proportions would need to weight ''at least'' 350 lbs (assuming he's fairly lean).

* BerserkButton: Just mentioning Artemis's name any time in the first half of the series will qualify you as asking for serious death wish from Captain Holly Short.

* NiceShoes: He wears expensive loafers, which is how he got his nickname.

* AGodAmI: Prone to delusions of godhood, especially when [[spoiler:Her magic gets supercharged in books six and eight]].

* IllGirl: Is mentally ill and rather frail for the entire first book, and her illness in the sixth sets off the plot of that book.

* MartialArtsStaff: Her weapon of choice.

* SimpleStaff: Her weapon of choice.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Trouble Kelp (see MeaningfulName), though with a bro named [[AtrociousAlias Grub]], one has to wonder what it was before.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: He lacked the blood-thirst of his peers and was ostracized because of it.

* TheGift: Even among warlocks, he's noted to be exceptionally powerful and has an immense amount of magical power. He also learns and masters concepts about magic that [[TheMentor Qwan]] doesn't know despite being much older. The little guy even undoes the old magic that restricts the People from entering houses uninvited.

* EvilCounterpart: Or perhaps Eviler Counterpart to Artemis Fowl. Both are the WorldsSmartestMan for their respective people and both were criminals geniuses that aspired to be greater and waged war on the Fairy People. However, Artemis was raised in a criminal family and ended up learning humility where he ended up pulling a HeelFaceTurn and became a better person. While Opal was a BitchInSheepsClothing who posed as a righteous person and even wanted to be seen as a hero alongside Briar Cudgeon, but her defeat corrupted her and she ended up descending more into insanity with increasingly megalomaniacal schemes. In essence, Artemis's defeat turned him into a hero, while Opal's defeat made her even worse of a villain.

* HijackedByGanon: [[spoiler:In Book 6, it turns out she'd been using Damon for quite some time]].

* MadScientist: Shes the creator of various LEP's weaponry and transportation craft. She also later experiments on endangered animals to use there brain fluid to increase her powers.
* TheManBehindTheMan: While the B'wa Kell has not always worked for her, she and Cudgeon helped orchestrate it's largest historical campaign against the LEP. [[spoiler:She is also this to the Extinctionists in book six.]]

* SanitySlippage: After waking up from her coma, her mental health declines significantly, due to having developed a mental disorder called Narcissus syndrome from spending so much time with only herself for company. [[spoiler:This malady is later cured.]]

* EvilMakesYouUgly: He used to be relatively attractive. But when Root accidentally shot him [[ChekhovsGun with the dart finger Foaly gave him in case he needed it while meeting with Artemis]], the sedative reacted badly with some mind-enhancing chemicals he was experimenting with, and he ended up with severe deformities. Of course, this wouldn't have happened if he hadn't crossed the line by sending a troll into Fowl Manor and trying to force Foaly to give up evidence against him.

* OddlySmallOrganization: Their total presence in the books is two henchmen and a mob boss. Though there were a hundred guards mentioned at some point and it's heavily implied that the two henchmen are doing one small task out of a big organization.

* HateSink: He was already this even when he was supposedly a HeroAntagonist, being nothing but contemptible and trying to tarnish Holly's reputation and brand her as a criminal. And then, he decides to join the villain's side altogether and allies with Turnball's gang.

* DoNotCallMePaul: He chose the name Leon Abbot, after a character in a human storybook. [[spoiler:His real name in N'Zall, which translates into demon language as 'Little Horn'.]]

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Another in-universe example: He possesses [[MagicKnight magic abilities]] through the demise of the warlocks.

* TheDreaded: When Artemis asks Butler about him Butler takes a long breath before sayign he should be avoided, he also keep to himself how dark Billy's reputation is in the Underworld as someone that will get any job done no matter how dirty.

* OverarchingVillain: She's a major antagonist in book two, the BigBad of books four, eight and [[spoiler:six]] and is considered to be ''the'' main villain of the entire series.

-->"I am unarmed. But Butler here, my... ah... butler, has a [[CoolGun Sig Sauer]] in his shoulder holster, two [[KnifeNut shrike-throwing knives]] in his boots, a derringer two-shot up his sleeve, [[RazorFloss garrotte wire]] in his watch, and three [[TrickBomb stun grenades]] concealed in various pockets. Anything else, Butler?

* KnifeNut: Really good with knives.

* BattleButler: Not only is he a perfect example, being an armed martial artist and personal attendant, the Butler family is the origin of the word "butler".

* EvilerThanThou: Subverted. In book 2 he is presented as the more evil of the BigBadDuumvirate, he had the personal grudge, the greater screen time, and more malice than Opal. In the end he plots to betray the Goblins and Opal, and his betrayal makes him out to be worse than his more trusting companions. Post book 2 however, Opal becomes far worse than Briar could ever hope to be.

* BadBoss: Apparently used to toss complaining employees out of high-rise windows before the laws became tighter. He resents having to give employees basic amenities like decent wages and insurance and those working for him are constantly in fear of having YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness and YouHaveFailedMe pulled on them.

* {{Expy}}: He's pretty much an Irish version of [[Film/{{Goodfellas}} Tommy DeVito]] or [[Film/{{Casino}} Nicky Santoro]].

* OutOfFocus: Him joining Turnball is merely a footnote in the story. Rather than dwell on his enmity with Holly and the rest of the LEP, Sool's just sorta there hanging out with the other mooks.