History Headscratchers / TheBartimaeusTrilogy

* Why does Mrs.Underwood completely support her husband in the raising of Nathaniel/John with no reaction to his care? It is fairly clear early on that Mr. Underwood is subjecting Nathaniel to emotional and social abuse-especially so when he did not protect his apprentice from Lovelace at the party-and proceeded to cause Nathaniel to lash out in the first place. If she had spoken up against his treatment of Nathaniel, the boy would never have had such anger towards his master in the first place, which I can't blame him for.

** Someone who treats a small child as badly as Mr Underwood treats Nathaniel certainly lacks enough empathy to abuse others. It's not hard to imagine that he abused Mrs Underwood too-- physically, verbally, or both. First, she might be too afraid of what he'd do to her to really object to what he does to Nathaniel, or fear that he'd be harsher towards the boy out of spite to her. Second, she might have internalised that kind of behaviour as normal and reasonable discipline. Parents whose children are abused by their partner do often get abused themselves, and do often let their partner get away with it in order to "keep the peace".

** Early Installment Weirdness. Also in the first book, Nathaniel spies on Lovelace using a laptop, technology which doesn't appear outside that scene or in the other books. The most advanced communications technology that appears is the landline telephone.

* Why, Why, WHY did Nathaniel give Kitty the amulet of Samarkand? That could have saved his life when he fought Nouda (Is the name right? It's been a while.) and didn't help her at all!

* Why does Mrs.Underwood completely support her husband in the raising of Nathaniel/John with no reaction to his care? It is fairly clear early on that Mr.Underwood is subjecting Nathaniel to emotional and social abuse-especially so when he did not protect his apprentice from Lovelace at the party-and proceeded to cause Nathaniel to lash out in the first place. If she had spoken up against his treatment of Nathaniel, the boy would never have had such anger towards his master in the first place, which I can't blame him for.

** Plus, how did the first magicians figure out how the whole summoning-business works? When no one summoned anything before, there shouldn't be a hint that the other place exists in the first place, let alone how to reach out for it and summon it's entities, right?

** Possibly he didn't look? The books seem to make specific mention that djinn have to actually conciously choose to look on the different planes (I think it refers to cycling through them), so maybe he hadn't bothered to check the other planes before speaking?

** Word of God says that spirits gravitate toward whichever gender best suits their personality. So while they are sexless, they do have gender to some extent.

** Most of the time, it seems as though it's the other way around: The guises adopted by the spirits on Earth are the ones which actually take up physical space and have real mass, while their forms on the higher planes are more nebulous and don't necessarily need to conform to the laws of mass and volume. In the prequel, Bartimaeus even says that he can tell the natures of other spirits by the strength of their auras, not by their seventh-plane forms. This seems to indicate that the guises adopted by the spirits are the things which contain their physical existence, while the "true" forms they adopt on the higher planes are mostly just necessary for identification.

** Bartimeus said in the books that in the Other Place they don't have a definite shape or gender, but they tend to acquire both as a result of being individualized in this world is like a default form. Also, not many spirits appear to like transforming as much as Bartimaeus does, they tend to restrict to few shapes. Is stated that the effort of transformation is energy taxative, that could be a motive. In regard to illusions, they are not "visual" illusions, a lot of other constraints of each shape apply, like weight, height, etc. The body mass apparently changes accordingly. Imagine, just as an example, that the bodies they use are made of living clay: they would be solid, have some of the properties of the object imitated, but they will be an illusion as in "not the real thing".

*** Well, Bartimaeus does make some brief mention of memory being reality in the Other Place (every interaction Kitty has with the spirits there either takes the form of one of her memories, i.e. Jakob, or one of the spirits' memories, i.e. the woman on the hill). Since Ptolemy spent so much time in the Other Place, perhaps his memory got imprinted on the spirits there moreso than most other magicians's did?

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** Plus, how did the first magicians figure out how the whole summoning-business works? When no one summoned anything before, there shouldn't be a hint that the other place exists in the first place, let aone how to rach out for it and summon it's ntities, right?