History Literature / TheBartimaeusTrilogy

* AlternateHistory: Gladstone in this universe led a campaign to conquer all of Europe... and was a magician. Since magic exists in this version of our world, it also fits the NeverWasThisUniverse type of AlternateHistory.

* AmbitionIsEvil: Nathaniel desire to achieve success in the magician's government turns him increasingly ruthless and cold.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Two of them, in fairly close succession from Kitty Jones. In ''Ptolemy's Gate'', Kitty has summoned Bartimaeus, hoping that together they can stop the magicians' rule. He, however, seemingly has no desire to help her. He also claims that throughout history, the enmity between him and other magicians has been absolute. "Absolute tripe. What about you and Ptolemy?" she replies, having discovered in her extensive research that Bartimaeus was known to have an unusual bond with a boy magician from Alexandria, a boy prince and Magician named Ptolemy. She knows immediately from Bartimaeus's reaaction that her theory is correct, for all of his usual blustering and bravado immediately ceases. Nevertheless, he tries to play it off, asking her what she presumes to know about him, and saying that she mentioned a name and she [[IKnowYourTrueName knows what names can do.]] Thus comes her second question: "If you're so keen to keep matters in the present, why do you persist in wearing...''his'' form?"

-->'''Bartimaeus:''' The lion looked sheepish. [[note]] Confusing again. Sorry.[[/note]]

** Creating a Golem requires the creator to sacrifice a huge quantity of life force. A skilled creator is near dead after making only two, and that life isn't coming back

** In ''The Amulet of Samarkand'', when Underwood takes Nathaniel (newly christened "John Mandrake") for the Prime Minister's address at Parliament, he tries to impress upon him the importance of not embarrassing him in public. He tells him the tale of the apprentice of Disraeli who tripped on the steps of Westminster, falling against Disraeli, who tumbled and had his fall broken by the "well-padded" Duchess of Argyle. Disraeli then clapped his hands, causing darkness to fall and turning his apprentice into an iron statue holding a boot scraper, which anyone visiting for the past 150 years has been able to use. Nathaniel's reaction?

** Bartimaeus also takes one on Faquarl in the ancient Egypt making him lost the entire royal treasure, which earns him the pharaoh's wrath, only for a building accident which he ''thinks'' it was Faquarl's fault. What is worse, considering Faquarl's tame personality and his ideals towards fellow slaves, it could have been really an accident.

* TheDogWasTheMastermind: [[spoiler:Quentin Makepeace, who resembles a foppish playwright in the prime minister's company.]]

* EldritchLocation: The "Other Place", where all imps, foliots, djinn, afrits, and marids "live". It is possible for a human to visit, but is strongly recommended against, as it wreaks havoc on both body (staying in the Other Place too long forces the person to forget how to move their physical body) and mind (it's quite the AcidTripDimension, and the person will be trapped forever, absorbed by some spirit's essence if he or she does not have a trustworthy spirit to call upon and serve as a guide). It's strongly implied to be a GeniusLoci, which the spirits are initially part of

** Nathaniel in the third book.

* HistoryRepeats: As the series goes on, it becomes clear that this is what tends to happen with the empires formed by magicians. As time goes on, more and more commoners are born with AntiMagic abilities, which allows them to rebel against the abuses of power by magicians, weakening the empre from within and allowing foreign powers to swoop in, and the magicians tendency for WrittenByTheWinners means that they never see it coming. [[spoiler: In the end, Farquad's rebellion and Nathaniel and Bartimaeus's actions to stop it may very well have led to the cycle being broken, and things changing for the better]].

* ReversePsychology: [[spoiler:Bartimaeus "praises" Kitty for her "intelligence" in leaving Nathaniel to his doom. He also uses this to trick a trapped marid into revealing the secrets of Solomon's Ring, and to manipulate several of his previous masters to their deaths and...yeah, he does this a lot.]]

* ComeOutComeOutWhereverYouAre: [[spoiler: Used by Ammet the marid to Bartimaeus in ''The Ring of Solomon''. Also used by Honorius on Kitty in ''The Golems Eye'' when they loot Gladstones tomb.]]

** The children are also taught that Gladstone was a kind man, when we know from the books that he was a typical power hungry magician and probably took the Muggle government by force. If anything, he is shown to be perhaps more stern and intellectual than their decadent sucessors.

** Something of an InvokedTrope - the vast majority of magicians are scheming, selfish, paranoid, arrogant, power-hungry slimeballs... and even when they're ''not'', the whole system is basically designed to nurture their worst instincts and grind away their humanity. Nathaniel starts out as an ambitious WideEyedIdealist with at least some sense of honor and ethics, but the only way to be a successful magician is to be a ruthlessly self-interested bastard who seizes every opportunity, [[ILied breaks their word whenever they can get away with it]], and discards allies when they're no longer useful. Contrast Mr Button, an unusually powerful magician but basically a NiceGuy, whose unwillingness to pursue advancement at any cost has left him a sidelined irrelevancy with no real influence.

* TrickingTheShapeshifter: When Kitty tries to use this on Bartimaeus, he laughs at the idea that he would fall for one of TheOldestTricksInTheBook. He notes, however, that had the trick worked it would have been a very powerful binding charm since he would have imprisoned himself of his own free will.

* WeakButSkilled: Bartimaeus, relatively. Djinn are in the middle in the hirearchy of conventional, commonly summoned demons (behind afrits and marids). He's a moderately strong djinni, but is weaker than Faquarl and Jabor in an all-out fight, not to mention anything stronger. He gets by with his wits and running away at appropriate times, especially as he grows progressively less strong in Book 3 from being continually summoned. As djinn are the most powerful demon likely to be summoned, with afrits and marids being a sign of OhCrap levels of power, he's often moderately outclassed.

* KnifeNut: '''Faquarl.''' He says quite explicitly that he has always enjoyed kitchens because of their multitude of sharp implements, and he never uses ranged attacks when his handy-dandy meat cleaver will do. Engaging Faquarl in melee is almost certain death, [[spoiler:as an entire squad of djinn find out the hard way in the third book.]]

* immortalApathy: This is one of the reasons why genies typically don't get along with their mortal summoners. In particular Bartimaeus often mocks impressive architecture and other human accomplishments, as he's seen better.

* {{Animesque}}: Consciously or not, the trilogy utilizes a surprising number of tropes found in anime, particularly of the shonen variety or the LightNovel story style. We have an AlternateHistory where there is a very specific type of MagicAIsMagicA which has a defined set of terms (i.e. "detonation", "flux"...), impossibly young characters working for the government and even occupying power positions, a clear cut {{Tsundere}} Type A who initially opposes the protagonist, antagonists who are either of the SissyVillain or the BespectacledBastardBoyfriend type, and even two characters doing FusionDance to defeat the final villain.

* EldritchLocation: The "Other Place", where all imps, foliots, djinn, afrits, and marids "live". It is possible for a human to visit, but is strongly recommended against, as it wreaks havoc on both body (staying in the Other Place too long forces the person to forget how to move their physical body) and mind (it's quite the AcidTripDimension, and the person will be trapped forever, absorbed by some spirit's essence if he or she does not have a trustworthy spirit to call upon and serve as a guide).

* OurDemonsAreDifferent: The terms 'spirit', 'demon', and 'genie' are essentially interchangeable in meaning.
** On the contrary! "Demon" is a highly offensive and pejorative term. They're ''exalted spirits''!
* OurGeniesAreDifferent: See above.

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:In the third book, by stealing magicians' bodies and setting off violent revolt against humanity, Faquarl, Nouda, and other spirits become the very thing they resented, which Bartimaeus doesn't hesitate to point out. Of course, one of the main themes of the trilogy is slavery and how it corrupts both the slavers and the enslaved. Best demonstrated in the following exchange:]]

* DeathByAmbulance: Downplayed, played for laughs, and justified. When Bartimaeus was working for a military during a war in the early 1900s, he was tasked with infiltrating an enemy base. He took the form of an enemy medic and stole an ambulance. Because he's a demon (and therefore incompatible with technology) he accidentally ran over several people on the way there. Luckily, this meant that the soldiers at their HQ were so busy tending to his casualties they didn't notice him sneaking inside
* ADeathInTheLimelight: [[spoiler:Simpkin the foliet]] is a minor character in the first book, but has a point of view chapter (the only character outside of the main three to get one in the entire series) early in the second. He dies at the end of it.

* {{Whitehall}}: An alternate universe version.

* ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: From ''The Golem's Eye'':
-->'''Kitty:''' You're all callous and wicked and heartless and vain!
-->'''Nathaniel:''' Vain? How wonderfully hysterical. I'm just well turned out. Presentation's important, you know.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Tybalt in the prequel. He normally takes the form of a harmless white mouse, but is implied to be a very powerful spirit. (Although we never get to see exactly ''how'' powerful. We don't even know what class of spirit he is!)

* BrickJoke: Early in the first book, Bartimaeus explains that the footnotes are due to the fact that he has multiple layers of conscious thought - he can go off on tangents while still thinking about the original subject. Late in the third book, [[spoiler: when he and Nathaniel combine, he tries to do the footnotes again, but Nathaniel stops him because it feels really, ''really'' weird.]]

* SmugSnake: Lovelace. Nathaniel himself in the second book. And Julius Tallow. And [[spoiler:Duvall, seeing as Makepeace played him like a fiddle.]] And [[spoiler:seeing as how Faquarl played ''him'' like a fiddle, Quentin Makepeace probably counts.]] Hell, just about ''every'' magician counts.

* CastFromLifespan;

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Bartimaeus and the other spirits, though the number of shapes varies,[[spoiler:and Kitty while in The Other Place, though she's not very good at it.]] Djinn seem to have the most diverse forms, with lower-level spirits lacking the imagination and high-level spirits being somewhat mode-locked due to their own power.

** Of course, even that idea is subverted - when Kitty calls up Bartimaeus with talk of friendship and mutual trust, he challenges her to step outside the bounds of the pentacle protecting her to demonstrate ''her'' trust, and when she doesn't, he remarks that it was "worth a try". Whether he would have killed her, simply left, or actually taken her up on her offer was left an open question due to the ambiguity of that statement.

* BrilliantButLazy: Mr. Button is implied to be an incredibly powerful magician, who could easily stand up to some of the magicians on the council, but he is not interested in power; rather he is interested in knowledge. As such he remains a very low level magician.

** Anyone who casts the Ptolemy's Gate spell will find that there body has aged decades when they return to it.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Bartimaeus turns into a lioness instead of a lion, remarking that while the mane of a male Lion is quite flashy, it creates a blind spot. (This being something that he's learned from experience.)