History Characters / Hyperion

* {{BFG}}: His huge FORCE Assault Rifle has over half a dozen firing modes, from a shrapnel gun that fires tens of thousands a round every second to beam weapons that slices an entire cliff-face in half with no effort at all.

* AuthorAppeal: Dan Simmons initially created the idea of what would later become The Shrike as a sort of fairy-tale villain while teaching classes on that genre at his job as an English Literature professor. As a result, it effectively asks as the most wicked and disqueting FairyGodmother to the Pilgrims. It cursed one man's daughter, taught another about love, war and the InterplayOfSexAndViolence, and the Poet of the group considers the Shrike his ''muse''.

A Jewish scholar and kindly old university professor at university on Barnard's World, an idyllic farming world. His daughter Rachel was an archaeologist student who, during an expedition to the Time Tombs on Hyperion, was afflicted with an illness dubbed the {{Merlin Sickness}} that caused her to age backwards, which he desperately hopes to cure. After having a dream about sacrificing his daughter to the Shrike similarly to the Biblical sacrifice of Isaac, he decides to do so in hopes it will cure her somehow.

* [[spoiler: DyingMomentOfAwesome:]] Defeating [[spoiler: The Shrike]] in combat while leading [[spoiler: the humanity of the future]] screaming "FOR LIBERTY!" at the top of his lungs.

A Jewish scholar. His daughter, Rachel, was afflicted with an illness dubbed the {{Merlin Sickness}} that caused her to age backwards, which he desperately hopes to cure. After having a dream about sacrificing his daughter to the Shrike similarly to the Biblical sacrifice of Isaac, he decides to do so in hopes it will cure her somehow.

* CoolOldGuy: Not nearly as old as Silenus or Weintraub, and his exact age is never really stated, but [[spoiler: Raul]] describes him as a man in his sixties, appearance-wise.

* CurbstompBattle: The Shrike is so immensely powerful that just about anyone who tries to stand to it gets completely steamrolled.

* TheButcher: known as "The Butcher of Bressia" to some.

%%* GenreSavvy

* {{Badass}}: Extremely so. Kassad more or less walked in from an action movie and never really stopped acting like it.

* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: He staunchly believes in the code of Neo Bushido, from which he dictates that "The essence of honor lay in the moment of combat between equals." [[spoiler: Becomes very ironic in hindsight when he defeats the Shrike, who is revealed to be himself in Rise of Endymion]].

* CoolOldGuy: Not nearly as old as Silenus or Weintraub, and his exact age is never really stated, but he's implied to not quite be a spring chicken.

* LetUsFightLikeGentlemen: He staunchly believes in the code of Neo Bushido, from which he dictates that "The essence of honor lay in the moment of combat between equals." [[spoiler: Becomes very ironic in hindsight when he defeats the Shrike, who is revealed to be himself in Rise of Endymion]].

* [[spoiler: DyingMomentOfAwesome:]] Defeating [[spoiler: The Shrike]] in combat.

* AbusiveFather: He created the Keats Cybrids, and ends up destroying one and repeatedly mocking the other.

* ColonelBadass: Singlehandedly put down a the New Prophet's Jihad of twenty-thousand with some creative use of laser satellites, mastered multiple forms of martial arts and survived atmospheric re-entry in half of a cockpit, among other things. And this is just before the story begins.

* RobotPsychopath: It behaves in an almost playfully murderous manner towards several of it's victims, forcing great trauma, both psychical and mental, upon them. [[spoiler: There may be some merit to this, as the Shrike is an agent from the far future sent by the Ultimate Intelligence to draw out the Empathy of the Human Godhead, which is most easily done by broadcasting agony through fatline throughout the ''entire universe''.]]

* NighInvulnerability: The Shrike ''can'' in fact be killed, but it's... shall we say, ''extremely fucking unlikely''.

* ColonelBadass: Is a colonel and skilled fighter.
* [[spoiler: DyingMomentOfAwesome:]] defeating [[spoiler: The Shrike]] in combat.
* LivingLegend: He becomes this by [[spoiler: defeating the Shrike in single combat]].

%%* TheDreaded

%%* LivingLegend
%%* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou

%%* TheStoic

%%* DeadpanSnarker
* FaunsAndSatyrs: He surgically modified himself to look like a Satyr.

A Jewish scholar. His daughter, Rachel, was afflicted with an illness dubbed the "MerlinSickness" that caused her to age backwards, which he desperately hopes to cure. After having a dream about sacrificing his daughter to the Shrike similarly to the Biblical sacrifice of Isaac, he decides to do so in hopes it will cure her somehow.

%%* CoolOldGuy
%%* DeadpanSnarker
%%* NiceGuy
%%* OffingTheOffspring
%%* PapaWolf

%%* {{Badass}}
%%* FireForgedFriends

%%* HotBlooded

%%* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent

* NoNameGiven: Referred to only as "The Consul" throughout the series.

%%* TheButcher

* [[spoiler: DyingMomentOfAwesome:]] defeating The Shrike in combat.

%%* PoweredArmour

A Jewish scholar. His daughter was afflicted with an illness dubbed the "Merlin Sickness" that caused her to age backwards: she gets younger as time progresses.

%%* ColonelBadass

* FaunsAndSatyrs: He's genetically modifed himself to look like a Satyr.
* FireForgedFriends: With the other Pilgrims, who he doesn't get along with at all but gradually grows to respect and bond with. Special points go to his bitter enimity with Brawne Lamia, and their eventual friendship.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Silenus is loud, crass and a basic asshole in most respects. This doesn't stop him from doing the right thing when it comes down to it.
%%* SirSwearsALot

%%* HeavyWorlder

%%* NoNameGiven

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The Shrike favors this method of killing so much that it has it's own special tree to impale it's victims upon, hence the name 'Shrike' after the bird that does the same.

* NighInvulnerability: The Shrike ''can'' in fact be killed, but it's...shall we say, ''extremely fucking unlikely''.

* PhysicalGod: It isn't quite omnipotent, but the Shrike is still a time-travelling super-being operating on a different level from humanity altogether. It's worshipped and feared.
* SpikesOfVillainy: It's general design.
* TimeStandsStill: One of it's many abilities.

%%* AndIMustScream

%%* NonLinearCharacter

A foul-mouthed poet. Born on Earth before its destruction, he is incredibly old. Like Keats, he is working on an unfinished epic poem.

The most mysterious of all seven pilgrims. He is a Templar—a nature priest of sorts—who captains the Treeship Yggdrasill that brings the pilgrims to Hyperion. Treeships are living trees that are propelled by ergs (an alien being that emits force fields) through space. The ergs also generate the containment fields (force fields) around the tree that keep its atmosphere intact. There are only five treeships in existence including Yggdrasill.

%%* TheAlcoholic

%%* FaunsAndSatyrs
%%* FireForgedFriends
%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold

%%* SophisticatedAsHell