Line #12 Characters/TheCityWithoutMemory


1	For the recurring characters of ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'', see [[Characters/AliceGirlFromTheFuture the series’ character page]].
2
3	[[foldercontrol]]
4	!!Poklons
5
6	[[folder:Squirrel]]
7	The lonely daughter of Old Mole and Centipede.
8	----
9	* EmbarrassingFirstName: InUniverse, among the poklons, her name is considered ugly.
10	* FriendToAllLivingThings: The forest animals and the unicorns are very fond of her.
11	* {{Foil}}:
12	** To her mother (it even gets lampshaded by Veri-Meri). Centipede, too, was a kind highborn girl snatched, after careful planning, by an AbhorrentAdmirer who tried to force her into marriage. However, Squirrel seems to have inherited her father’s spirit [[spoiler:and ultimately manages to run away]], while Centipede marries Old Mole and slowly gives up on her life.
13	** To Veri-Meri. Both are born basically without any rights, with everyone looking down on them, and a lifetime of abuse lying ahead, both struggle with the fact and desperately want to escape. But Squirrel finds friends, love and a new life thanks to her good heart and courage, while Veri-Meri makes a life for himself by backstabbing everyone who can be backstabbed and selling out everything that can be sold.
14	* HiddenHeartOfGold: She says that her brothers will be murdered one day and then she’ll reign the castle and hang everyone who slighted her. Then she bursts into tears.
15	* LetsGetDangerous: After meeting Alice, Brook and Iria and learning they're to be sent to the slave market, she snaps and decides to run away and help them.
16	* LovingParentCruelParent: The Loving Parent. Old Mole is a brutal robber and domestic tyrant, while Centipede (whom Old Mole forced to marry him) is gentle and nurturing. The Mole twins mostly take after their father, growing up to become cruel forest bandits, but thanks to their mother's influence, they [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes adopt two unicorn foals as familiars]] [[spoiler:and later make a HeelFaceTurn]]. With Squirrel, the trope is {{downplayed\|Trope}}, since by the time she reaches her mid-teens, Old Mole has died and Centipede [[TookALevelInCynic has grown apathetic]], leaving Squirrel mostly to her own devices and [[WifeHusbandry the toxic influence]] of their servant Veri-Meri.
17	* MessyHair: She has unkempt curly hair.
18	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: When, at the slave market, [[spoiler:Boar buys both her and Iria]], she can’t restrain herself and rushes to hug the woman with a squeal. While they are still on the market square. [[spoiler:Veri-Meri recognizes her at once and tracks Boar down]].
19	* RebelliousPrincess: Runs away from her castle the first time several outsiders (Alice, Pashka, and Iria) treat her with respect and friendship.
20	* SuperSenses: She has excellent hearing, probably after spending a lot of time in the woods.
21	* SweetPollyOliver: Briefly disguises herself as an atani boy to be able to get out of the castle.
22	* ThickerThanWater: Even though her father and brothers treated her awfully, she springs to their defense whenever anyone criticizes them.
23	* TookALevelInBadass: Starts as a reserved, fearful girl, and ends up [[spoiler:escaping Veri-Meri and the vkushetses completely on her own and riding a unicorn into the woods to find Brook]].
24	* TheUnfavorite: One can imagine how acutely she feels it if she turns to Veri-Meri for comfort.
25	!! The Mole Brothers
26	Left Mole and Right Mole, two practically inseparable robber brothers who ride unicorns.
27	* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: Both try to pull this off with Iria. They don’t suspect that apart from being one of the galaxy’s greatest beauties, she is also one of the greatest fighters.
28	* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: They employ Veri-Meri to spy on the atani tribes and the city poklons. And they can barely stand the sight of him.
29	* BigBrotherBully: Towards Squirrel; not so much physically abusive as their father used to be, mostly they just ignore her.
30	* BondCreature: They consider the unicorns their brothers and can even talk to them.
31	* CreepyHighPitchedVoice: Their voices are quite high.
32	* TheDividual: They are identical twins and nearly always appear together.
33	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: They love their mother, each other, and their unicorns. [[spoiler:It foreshadows their HeelFaceTurn]].
34	* GoodEyesEvilEyes: They have very narrow and piercing black eyes.
35	* IdenticalTwinIDTag: Left Mole and Right Mole are distinguishable by their boots: one of them wears only the right one and the other only the left one.
36	* ManOfWealthAndTaste: They are dressed in pitch-black, with a silver cape and a wolfskin to complete the picture. It looks very sharp and impressive (in contrast to most of the other poklons who wear bright colors and look ridiculous).
37	* RebelLeader: Deconstructed. They are at war the neighboring nobles, the atani, the rememberers, and basically everyone, and they always win because they are amazing fighters and their unicorns are fast as lightning and very clever. However, when one of their escapades goes too far (they kill Worm Thefattestone during a truce for a rather petty reason), not a single voice sounds in their defense and they are sentenced to death by Radiculitis and [[UriahGambit put on the frontline]] [[spoiler:in the campaign against the Shelter]].
38	* RedOniBlueOni: Downplayed; but Right Mole is shown several times to be more impulsive and Left Mole more careful.
39	[[/folder]]
40
41	[[folder:Centipede]]
42	The mother of the Moles and Squirrel, a soft-hearted highborn lady who had been kidnapped by Old Mole.
43	----
44	* ExtremeDoormat: Resigned to her fate after it became clear no one would rescue her. After her husband died, she just passively allows her sons to rule.
45	* IWasQuiteALooker: Now elderly and fat, she used to be perfectly lovely in her youth.
46	* PetTheDog: She tries, albeit feebly, to defend Iria against the Moles’ advances, and later gives Alice a large pie.
47	* StoppedCaring: She gently tells her sons "boys, be careful out there, don't be naughty" when seeing them off, and that's now the limit of her attempts to influence them.
48	* TookALevelInCynic: A long loveless marriage with a bandit does that. When she was younger, she opposed her husband and tried to instill some kindness in the boys more energetically, and now she is tired of everything and just wishes to be left in peace.
49	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Her fate isn’t mentioned in the epilogue.
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Old Mole]]
53	A baseborn forest robber who found an old observatory and declared it to be his castle. That and his riches ensured his sons would be considered poklons.
54	----
55	* AbusiveParents: Sometimes even towards his sons, whom he could beat up in a rage, but especially towards Squirrel who sometimes ran away from him into the forest.
56	* TheDreaded: His sons remind the other poklons how they had fled from Old Mole [[ItMakesSenseInContext like the fastest tortoises]].
57	* HidingTheHandicap: After he lost one eye and the other one began to go blind, he ordered the servants to light lots of candles, claiming it was simply too dark in the castle.
58	* LovingParentCruelParent: The Cruel Parent. He's a brutal robber and domestic tyrant, while Centipede (whom Old Mole forced to marry him) is gentle and nurturing. The Mole twins mostly take after their father, growing up to become cruel forest bandits, but thanks to their mother's influence, they [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes adopt two unicorn foals as familiars]] [[spoiler:and later make a HeelFaceTurn]]. With Squirrel, the trope is {{downplayed\|Trope}}, since by the time she reaches her mid-teens, Old Mole has died and Centipede [[TookALevelInCynic has grown apathetic]].
59	* ParentalFavoritism: Made no secret of his preference towards his sons and disdain of his daughter.
60	* PosthumousCharacter: He is dead by the time of the plot.
61	* ReversePsychology: He was considering selling the unicorns and halted only because Centipede and his sons begged him to let the animals stay. But then Radiculitis ordered him to sell the unicorns, and Old Mole firmly said now he would ''never'' do that.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Radiculitis]]
65	The supreme ruler of the poklons.
66	----
67	* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: He delays the Moles’ execution until [[spoiler:the end of the war with the rememberers]], reasoning that their knowledge of woods is very useful – and [[SuicideMission they can get killed]] and save him the trouble.
68	* DeadpanSnarker: He might be evil but he certainly understands he’s surrounded by lickspittles – and loves to poke fun at the most ridiculous ones.
69	* TheDeterminator: He has survived forty-four plots against him and three rebellions.
70	* EvilGenius: He is very shrewd, figuring out [[spoiler:Alice is much smarter than she looks]] at once, and he is [[spoiler:behind the MaliciousSlander spread about the rememberers]]. He also [[spoiler:can read]].
71	* FauxAffablyEvil: Talks very sweetly but is in no way to be trusted.
72	* TermsOfEndangerment: "My dear mole boys, you'll have to die".
73	[[/folder]]
74
75	[[folder:Cockroach]]
76	The ruler of the region where Blue Nose and River live.
77	----
78	* EvilIsPetty: He gets mad at Blue Nose, a poor ferryman, for not giving him enough money.
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:The Worm Brothers]]
82	Worm Thelongestone and Worm Thefattestone. The latter is killed by the Moles.
83	----
84	* FatAndSkinny: Accordingly, Thefattestone is fat and Thelongestone is skinny. Thelongestone is the more intelligent of the two.
85	* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: They are related to Radiculitis and very aware of that.
86	* TeethClenchedTeamwork: With the Moles, with whom they had already fought. The slightest provocation was enough for Worm Thefattestone to go back to fighting again.
87	[[/folder]]
88
89	!!Rememberers
90	[[folder:Brook and River]]
91	Brother and sister, kidnapped and raised by rememberers and now working as their spies.
92	----
93	* BelligerentSexualTension: Brook has quite a lot of it with Squirrel.
94	* CapturedOnPurpose: Brook allows himself to be captured by Left Mole's soldiers to find out more about the mysterious guests of the planet, as he sees that Alice, Pashka and Iria look like the group of be-pe that the rememberers picked up in the forest.
95	* FieryRedhead: Inverted. They are both red-haired and are among the most composed and level-headed characters in the novel.
96	* InterClassRomance: Brook is a ferryman’s son and an outlaw in Radiculitis’s realm, and Squirrel is a rich poklon’s daughter.
97	* PretendToBeBrainwashed: Brook disguises himself as a be-pe (a person whose memory is fully wiped) to avoid detection.
98	* StealthExpert: Both of them, especially River. As she lives with her father and not in the Shelter, she has lots of experience in hiding from all sorts of jerks.
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Boar]]
102	Brook’s friend, the rememberers’ agent in the city and Nightmare’s steward.
103	----
104	* GentleGiant: Despite his intimidating appearance, he is very kind.
105	* InnocentBlueEyes: The only part of his face visible behind his hair and beard.
106	* NiceToTheWaiter: He is very friendly towards Nightmare’s atani cook. [[spoiler:Not to mention that he buys crowds of slaves and sets them free]].
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder:Dr. Crack]]
110	Physicist and doctor of the Shelter, an atani by birth.
111	----
112	* TinyGuyHugeGirl: He is married to a Krinian woman, who, although short by human standards, is taller than him.
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Teacher Dawn]]
116	River's teacher from the Shelter.
117	----
118	* TheLostLenore: Her husband, another teacher, has been killed by vkushetses.
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	!!Atani
122	[[folder:Veri-Meri]]
123	The most dangerous man in the region, he is an atani suffering from ChronicBackstabbingDisorder whom nobody likes but everybody employs.
124	----
125	* AnimalsHateHim: He’s given a good kick by Left Mole’s unicorn. Everyone else is glad to see it.
126	* BatmanGambit: He knows the Moles are too hotheaded to act carefully and too stubborn to make allies, so he counts on them getting either killed in battle or executed, leaving Squirrel the heiress with nobody to object to him marrying her; while Squirrel herself would be easy to deal with because she's too abused and scared to escape. After Radiculitis does sentence the twins to death, he becomes so sure of his success that he refers to himself as "the future Baron Mole".
127	* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: Doesn’t understand why everyone hates him so much: he’s not a traitor, he’s a spy just like most of the others!
128	* BoomerangBigot: He gleefully sells other atani into slavery.
129	* {{Foil}}: Apart from Squirrel (see above), he is also a foil to Brook. Both of them come from outsider groups who can't fit with the current regime (the atani and the rememberers). Both work as spies and have a whole network of agents and assets in the city and the woods, and each of them has his hiding technique developed to perfection (Veri-Meri prefers HidingInPlainSight and Brook is a StealthExpert). Both are ready to be NecessarilyEvil for the sake of the bigger picture. Both of them despise poklons and want to marry Squirrel. But while Brook acts for the sake of Krina's lost knowledge and the poor deluded people, really believes he can make it all better, and falls genuinely in love with Squirrel, Veri-Meri's values are centered around himself and his primary motive in pursuing the girl is her title and inheritance.
130	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: "I have it all [[spoiler:written down]]!"
131	* IShallTauntYou: He tells the Moles they shouldn’t fight Worm Thefattestone: after all, he’s related to Radiculitis, and they are minor nobles. It works like a charm.
132	* LackOfEmpathy: His first appearance is all about that. First he is completely indifferent to the idea that the atani might eat their captives, and then he’s just equally indifferent when Left Mole attacks the tribe. Then, of course, it’s quickly revealed he’s spying for the Moles.
133	* ManipulativeBastard: He has the Moles’ castle and almost the whole city under his thumb and manages to weasel his way out of everything [[spoiler:or nearly everything]].
134	* MasterPoisoner: Squirrel says he is, but it never figures in the plot. Maybe it’s just what [[UnreliableNarrator he told her]].
135	* RagsToRiches: He used to be a simple atani boy destined for slavery, now his riches are legendary.
136	* PlayingTheVictimCard: Caught in the act of trying to kidnap Squirrel, he begins to sob and says he just loves the girl too much and doesn't believe [[spoiler:Nightmare's house]] to be a safe place for her, so he risked his life to watch over the place. Alice – who has already seen his true colors – is almost taken in.
137	* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Probably part of the epilogue’s SequelHook:
138	-->[Veri-Meri] swears [[spoiler:he remembers nothing at all about his dark past]].
139	* VillainHasAPoint: He turned to treason and backstabbing to make the poklons pay for the discrimination against the atani. The FantasticRacism of the poklons (the Moles especially) is indeed horrifying.
140	* VillainousCrush: Claims to have one on Squirrel, but it’s quite possible he’s faking it to win sympathy.
141	[[/folder]]
142
143	[[folder:Moro-Pari]]
144	The cook in Nightmare's house.
145	----
146	* NominalImportance: He is the only atani besides Veri-Meri and Dr. Crack whose name we know. [[spoiler:Subverted, as he does nothing plot-relevant and gets killed off-screen when the vkushetses ambush the house.]]
147
148	!!Other Krinians
149	[[folder:Nightmare]]
150	A wiseman.
151	----
152	* AbsentMindedProfessor: So absorbed in his "studies" that he doesn’t notice his own steward is an agent of the rememberers.
153	* FantasticallyIndifferent: He has had so many memory wipes that nothing can surprise him.
154	[[/folder]]
155
156	[[folder:Bug the Celestial]]
157	The High Vkushets of Oblivion.
158	----
159	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: He has a right to enslave horrible sinners. For sins such as: letting a rememberer get away, not paying debts, theft, or blowing their nose in a temple.
160	* HatedByAll: Shares the laurels with Veri-Meri as the most hated man in the city.
161	* TheHypocrite: His own laws forbid smoking on pain of death and confiscation of property. He smokes.
162	* JusticeByOtherLegalMeans: He orders to arrest [[spoiler:Veri-Meri]] for being rude to the vkushetses.
163	[[/folder]]
164
165	[[folder:Blue Nose]]
166	A ferryman, father to Brook and River.
167	----
168	* TheDragAlong: He helps River with her spying, but he’d much rather hide and stop taking risks.
169	* FieryRedhead: Unlike with his children, played straight.
170	* HopeIsScary: Gets more afraid when River tries to cheer him up.
171	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He constantly snaps at River and shoos away Iria, Pashka and Alice, but that’s because he’s terribly afraid for his children who are both working undercover for the rememberers.
172	* LooseLips: Accidentally lets it slip that his daughter lives with him (when the common knowledge is that Brook and River were kidnapped and never returned). Thankfully, Poklon Cockroach has more pressing matters to worry about.
173	[[/folder]]
174
175	[[folder:Alta]]
176	One of the sentient birds, an ally of the rememberers.
177	----
178	* ClipItsWings: Gets her wing wounded by a mutant bat.
179	* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Gives up very quickly after the wound renders her unable to fly.
180	[[/folder]]
181
182	[[folder:Alina]]
183	Alta's cousin.
184	----
185	* ThePollyanna: Much more cheerful than Alta. [[StepfordSmiler Outwardly]], at least -- she is revealed to have recently [[TheLostLenore lost her mate]].
186	* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Bursts into such an elaborate song about Pashka Geraskin's bravery that even Pashka (usually not the one to refuse praise) wants to beg her to stop.
187	[[/folder]]
188
189	[[folder:The passengers of the ''Dnieper'']]
190	Hermes, Poseidon, Mercury and Aphrodite, elderly Krinians returning home.
191	----
192	* DemotedToExtra: They're major characters in ''The End of Atlantis'', but here they spend most of the book with their memories wiped.
193	* TheHomewardJourney: It all began as a simple flight to bring them home. Then it’s revealed their home is so not what it used to be, and much has to be brought back on Krina itself.
194	* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: [[spoiler:Mercury drowns soon after being found by the heroes.]]
195	[[/folder]]

Context Characters / TheCityWithoutMemory