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Tropes pertaining to the Master of Paris, his various minions/relatives, and other denizens of the City of Paris.
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The Master of Paris
Simon Voltaire, The Master of Paris
"Ugh, the same nonsense over and over again. How does Albia stand it?"
The ruler of Paris. He is said to be very fond of art. Notable as being one of the few powerful sparks that Klaus has not had to deal with as he doesn't care much about what goes on outside his city, so his "Leave me and mine alone" policy works well alongside Klaus' "Don't make me come over there".- Art Attacker: Fitting for being a large patron of the arts. When making a tactical move against the Geisterdamen attacking Martellus's masquerade, he flourishes as if revealing an artistic opus ("VOILÀ!"), and the scene looks like a perspective picture
. - Authority Equals Asskicking: He doesn't fight as much as when he was younger, but he is the Master of Paris, and has had to defend that title against all comers for centuries.
- Berserk Button: He is old, and still vividly remembers when the Heterodyne were the villains of Europa, having been forced to fight their schemes in person. The vaguest notion that a Heterodyne could be hypothetically messing with his city is enough to set him off.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Or at least one of his "youngest" children, Colette, thinks so. They aren't malignant screwed-up like the Valois clan, but they are obnoxious and embarassing (again according to Colette). Also, some of his "children" are decades old and geriatric.
- Black and Nerdy: He's a Spark, and black. Self evident.
- The Chains of Commanding: Like Klaus, he'd rather focus on his spark work, so he tries to leave incidents to his agents. He's very agitated when his agent fails to stop an incident involving Agatha taking control of the city, because it forced him to take matters into his own hands.
- Cyborg: Appears to be mostly mechanical from the neck down. This might be part of how he's lived for so long.
- Dented Iron: He's an old man, and even his cybernetics have their limits and are breaking down. He's no longer able to fight like he did in the days of the Shining Coalition, and after the battle with Andronicus, he's badly beaten enough to be taken down for keeps.
- First-Name Basis: With the Matriarch of the Knights of Jove, Terebithia. Not only does it reveal the name to the readers, but as one of several hints indicating they may have had an intimate past.
- He Knows Too Much: The Master encourages people to study the means by which he controls Paris, since it allows him to ferret out weak points in his system. But whenever anyone uncovers too much, he will Make an Example of Them, leaving behind nothing but large craters.
- Hermit Guru: Okay, so Paris does not really qualify as remote in the conventional sense, but getting to see The Master of Paris isn't easy.
- Hero of Another Story: As we catch more glimpses of the story of the Shining Coalition, it becomes clear that it was an epic tragedy, easily worthy of its own webcomic, one that finally ends two hundred years later with the Coalition's last two members, one embittered and the other corrupted, facing off for the final time.
- I Gave My Word: Agatha's rescue of his city only warranted 6 hours of study-time in Paris, with the other 2 days and 18 hours being time left over on the accounts of the Heterodyne Boys. Being their heir, she inherits this time because he pays his debts.
- Inadequate Inheritor: Has kept himself alive for centuries because he has yet to find anyone he'd be willing to leave control of his city to. After his murder, his daughter Colette, whom he believed showed promise and recently awoke her Sparkiness, is able to take control of city and assumes the title of Master.
- Killed Off for Real: Confirmed by The Castle. He was already spent after the battle with Andronicus, but Beausoleil successfully murders him, using a sword that purges him from the systems of Paris. Fortunately, Colette is able to take over for him.
- Knowledge Broker: Of sorts. It's stated that the Master doesn't particularly care what you do in Paris, provided you're not making a ruckus, but he insists on knowing.
- Large and in Charge: He is quite massive and has very odd body proportions, even discernible through his very thick overcoat; it's eventually revealed that most of that bulk is cybernetics.
- Mad Artist: Even if he isn't one himself, his city is more or less run for the benefit of them. His threatened use for criminals is "Raw Materials". During his response to the escalation in Paris, he gets artistic in defeating a horde of Geisterdamen.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: He is very old and has many children. His children vary in age quite significantly, with some of them being ancient.
- The Master: Of Paris!
- Memetic Badass: In-Universe, he's seen as being able to hold off Klaus and force the latter to recognize his authority in Paris. The "memetic" part comes because it's more of a puppet-theater joke - Simon is independent because Klaus knows he will never have any reason to come over there.
- Not So Above It All: He made Hoffman roommates with troublemaker and Conspiracy Theorist Pierre van Stron just because he thought it would be funny.
- The Omniscient: Or at least so he claims. According to Othar's twitter, his power depends on the fact that everyone accepts that nothing can happen in his city without his finding out. It's eventually revealed that he used to be omniscient in a way, when he could connect and become one body with the entire city itself, but he's generally too old for that in the present. Not that that'll stop him if things cross the Godzilla Threshold...
- Power Floats: When he links in with the systems of Paris, he starts floating in an energy bubble.
- Reality Warper: Downplayed. Whatever he's done to Paris, he can control and reshape the entire city to his whim when running at full power, in a similar way to Castle Heterodyne's control over Mechanicsburg.
- Really Gets Around: See Massive Numbered Siblings. By most standards, and judging by the age and numbers of his children, his sex life is very active.
- Really 700 Years Old: He is referred to as one of the oldest, wisest sparks around (Albia is the only known living Spark older than him), and he personally fought alongside the Storm King against the old Heterodynes as part of The Coalition of The West. This would make him 200 years old at least. The reference in the Storm King Opera to "The Five Good Emperors" raises the possibility that he was already a powerful ruler at this time. He also refers to The Baron as "Young Klaus." He also has several "children" who are not so much unaffected by aging, and are geriatric. It's hinted that he may be trying to create an heir that has inherited both his Spark and his sensibility. He has high hopes for Colette... which may be exactly what he's looking for since her breakthrough has begun.
- So Proud of You: Is quite delighted when he learns that Colette studied much more about Paris' systems than he had chosen to teach her.
- The Spymaster: It is almost impossible to do anything without his hearing about it. Almost.
- Stern Teacher: How he deals with unruly foreign heads of state he can't kill, judging from a footnote about a visit from some rambunctious tsars the second novel gives. After a lengthy period of debauchment (which did make several businesses in the city much richer), they were summoned before the Master... who promptly sent then packing with homework.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Klaus Wulfenbach. He keeps order through his
reputation, he hates The Chains of Commanding and would much rather be left alone to his Spark work, and he distrusts Agatha because of his prejudice against the Heterodynes. The only difference between the two personality-wise is that the Master is willing to talk to Agatha and give her three days in his city. - Wetware CPU: The legends of his ability to know everything that goes on in his city stemmed from the fact that at one point, he had literally hardwired himself into the control systems of Paris. As he grew older, he was forced to stop doing so and delegate control of various subsystems to subordinates for health reasons, but that doesn't mean he can't plug himself back in and assert admin privileges over everything if he has to.
- We Used to Be Friends: Was once one of Andronicus Valois' closest and reliable allies before the latter was changed into an undead monstrosity. He is determined to finish what he started, despite his extremely advanced age, so he can save his old friend from himself.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: He's getting very tired of dealing with "the same nonsense over and over."
Aldin Hoffman
Aldin Hoffman, member of Incorruptible Library
Aldin in his natural state.
Aldin is a member of Incorruptible Library. Assigned to keep eyes for Agatha and company when they arrived the Library.- Action Survivor: You need to be this if you are a librarian who constantly gets dragged into your brother's misadventures and especially if your brother cannot move on himself. It eventually earns him the ability to work for Agatha inside Castle Heterodyne after the Distant Finale.
- Bash Brothers: With his actual brother, albeit somewhat reluctantly.
- Bookworm: Pretty much a given for anyone who works in the Library.
- Cassandra Truth: Nobody believes his stories about the adventures his brother drags him on. They're just that weird.Larana: Well, Aldin, if you didn't write such fantastical reports...
Aldin: I am incapable of making things up! It all happened! No one ever believes me, but it happened!
Larana: Even the—
Aldin: Yes, even the thing with the naked mole rat queen.
Dimo: Hoo Hoo! Sounds spicy!
Aldin: It was not. I assure you. - Deadpan Snarker: Here.
- Distressed Dude: He apparently plays this role often, judging how often he ends up captured and dressed up by villainesses to the point that he has a reputation for it.
- Go-Go Enslavement: Apparently evil villainesses enjoy dressing him up in "silly loincloth outfits." And then we see why, the man looks like a classical gladiator.
- Hero of Another Story: He gets dragged into a wide variety of misadventures with his brother. To the point more than a few people consider he and his brother the next Heterodyne Boys. It gets to the point that his adventures get titles.
- Hidden Depths:
- It eventually becomes clear his shy and timid personality is partly a facade.
- He's an expert lock picker.Agatha: "Master Safe Cracker?" Really? That's an interesting skill for a librarian.
Aldin: When you've been captured as often as I have, you develop an interest in locks and escapology.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: He's calm & competent once he's resigned himself to something. It's potential problems that he has trouble with.
- Noodle Incident: We only get hints of all the crazy stuff Jim has dragged him into.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Would you believe that shy, serious Bookworm Aldin and gung-ho Genius Ditz adventurer Jiminez are brothers?
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Sort of displays this attitude towards his brother, thanks to getting dragged along on the latter's adventures.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Moloch (or probably Wooster). Both are Average Joes who complain about any bad luck and danger that have involuntarily befallen them.
Beausoleil
Count Drusus Beausoleil
- Actually a Doombot: Has a large supply of body double clanks, causing this to frequently happen when someone seemingly kills him. Collette destroys all except one, simultaneously, then destroys the last one after giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- And I Must Scream: As retribution for killing her father and nearly destroying Paris, Colette messily destroys each and every last one of his remote bodies and makes him feel the pain of every single death in exquisite detail. By the time it's over, he's slumped on the ground and moaning in agony.
- Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: References the trope when he offers to do so to Agatha on Du Quay's behalf. Du Quay dismisses it as a cliché and a distraction from his moment of triumph, but nevertheless suggests he bring her to the Velvet Dungeon for later.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Some of his bodies are subjected to this.
- Death Montage: We're treated to most of a page of the ways Colette killed his bodies.
- Didn't See That Coming: His plan to usurp Paris falls through thanks to Colette breaking through and taking over the city herself in the wake of Voltaire's death.
- Dirty Cop: While he does do his duty to thwart various schemes against the Master, he is also a key figure in one of those himself. He also embezzles from Voltaire's private cheese stock.
- Doppelganger Link: When one of his clank doubles suffer, he and the other duplicates feel it. Just look at the page image and imagine the unplesantness of having nearly all of them simultaneously destroyed in amusingly gruesome ways.
- Fake Defector: His standard operating procedure is to pretend to support any upstarts trying to usurp the Master so he can spy on them. He's done this so many times that when he finally defects for real he feels the need to tell the Master that this time it's genuine.
- Frame-Up: He murders the Master of Paris, doing the deed with a sword decorated by the Heterodyne symbol in order to frame Agatha. Too bad for him, Dingbot-Castle is wise to it and ensures Colette doesn't fall for the frame-up once she ascends to power.
- Manipulative Bastard:
- He manipulates a bunch of his students into fighting one another in order to create a diversion in order to abscond with Agatha in the confusion.
- He worms his way into Du Quay's trust, manipulates him into accepting Agatha as a prisoner by pointing out that she makes a good hostage against Gil, and looses her to rip apart Du Quay's attempt at overthrowing the Master.
- In order to motivate Agatha, he refuses to give Agatha the info she wants until she completes a task for the master. When she does so, he admits that they don't actually have what she wants.
- He manages to betray and sabotage the Master himself right under his nose, forcing the Master to do his last resort.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He claims his reason for turning against the Master was because the man was so stingy about sharing his technology secrets, which could have been used to improve his clank-bodies.
- Not Worth Killing: Colette doesn't deem it worth her time to hunt down Beausoleil's real body outside Paris after destroying all his clank bodies, as whoever his new "masters" are will certainly not be happy on his failure to deliver Paris to them.
- Remote Body: He keeps a large supply of remotely controlled clank doubles. And then Colette destroys them all (save the one in front of her). At once.
- Secret Police: As one of the Master's agents, it is his job to deal with the occasional overly ambitious spark so the Master isn't interrupted from his work by yet another would be conqueror.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Just after he kills the Master, all manner of alarms start going off. He isn't reassured when they stop, and with good reason...Beausoleil: ...Why does this not seem like a good thing?Colette: Think of it - AS A FINAL MOMENT OF SANITY!
- You Have Failed Me: When he tells Colette that she can't kill him because his true body is already outside Paris, she points out that his true masters will probably punish him for failing to usurp Paris on their behalf, and his reaction suggests he agrees.
Colette
Colette Voltaire, Master's Hand
Click here to see Colette Ascendant (SPOILERS)
A daughter and agent of Simon Voltaire.
- Ambiguously Gay: Has no interest in the many, many men pursuing her romantically (not even Hoffman, who she admits isn't after her for power like most of her other suitors), and in one of her early appearances makes a joke to Agatha about how "their love can never be".
- Badass Boast: "Paris is mine- and I will defend it."
- Badass Finger Snap: Does this when killing Beausoleil's bodies.
- Badass Normal: She may not be a Spark but she is the leading candidate to become the next Master of Paris and one of the most respected members of her family. And then her Spark starts breaking through.
- Clothing Damage: As Colette becomes more and more a madgirl, her clothes start catching fire and get rent apart by the electric arcs caused by her interface with Paris. By the time she's at full-tilt Madness Place while exacting revenge on Beausoleil, her clothes are so shredded that she's one soft breeze away from being essentially naked.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She rejects Violetta's sympathy for having a difficult family, because of the source.Violetta: Whoof! And I thought my family was bad.Colette: Your family is bad. Mine is noisy and embarrassing.
- Empowered Badass Normal: She was a cunning leader and warrior from her first appearance, and was already beginning to tap into the Paris network before her Spark broke through. When she does break through, with a little help from the Castle, she fully assumes her father's mantle as the Master of Paris.
- Get Out!: Says this when destroying Beausoleil's last body.
- Just Friends: She's well-aware of Hoffman's infatuation with her and while she's appreciative of it (mainly since he was interested in her as an individual rather than her status), she states that she sees him more as an annoying younger brother. Jiminez ends up finding someone else and they end up engaged, with her smiling during it.
- The Madness Place: Once her Spark makes its initial breakthrough, she goes deeper and deeper into this state. She's able to pull out of it by the next day thanks to Tarvek and Agatha's help.
- Not Listening to Me, Are You?: After Agatha has been traumatised by her meeting with The Master, Colette confesses her love for her, then takes Agatha's lack of response as confirmation that she's not pretending.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: What she does to Beausoleil after he murders her father is brutal, but there's no question that he deserved every second of it.
- Power Floats: When she is channeling the energy of Paris, she gets some impressive floating done.
- Remote Body: She assembles a gigantic clank duplicate of herself to mislead her enemies into thinking she's achieved second breakthrough, even though she only recently achieved her first.
- She Is the King: Opts to retain the title Master of Paris since Mistress of Paris makes her sound like a demimondainenote .
- The Spark of Genius: Averted. She, alas, is not a Spark like her father. Except when she starts breaking through in the middle of a Ballroom Blitz in Paris.
- The Spymaster: Serves as this for her father.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Soon after feeling her father's death, her nascent burgeoning Spark reaches the maximum level of The Madness Place in exacting retribution on his murderer, Beausoleil.
- Unwanted Harem: Because she is the daughter of the Master of Paris and prime fodder for marriage for power, she has quite an unwanted following.
- Wetware CPU: Unlike her father, Colette still has the vigor of youth at the time her nascent spark emerges. As such, she is able to handle the mental burden of being plugged into all of Paris like her father used to be ages ago.
- You Are in Command Now: Her father grooms her to be his successor for years. When The Master finally kicks the bucket, she's plugged into the Paris control network and is in the middle of her Spark breakthrough, prodigiously learning the controls at an astounding pace.
Jiminez Hoffmann
Jiminez Hoffmann, Paris University Student and Honorary Prince of the Moligarchy
- Accidental Pervert: After he is almost blinded by acid, he and Agatha make a vision-enhancing helmet with different settings. One of the them is X-ray vision.Hoffmann: I can zoom in between macro and microscopic vision! We even gave it different filters! It can do infrared, ultraviolet, and... [stares at Larana] And... Uhhhh...
Agatha: [changing the settings] And X-ray.
Larana: WHAT?!
Hoffmann: Uh, yeah. X-ray. Sorry. - Almighty Janitor: Nominally speaking, he's just a student at the University of Paris, not even being an agent of the Library like his brother. His list of exploits still rivals that of the Heterodyne Boys, and he's barely into his twenties. That being said, the University is shown to be something of an Academy of Adventure, and the comic implies multiple times that Hoffman would be dead a dozen times over if not for Aldin and Larana's help.
- Arranged Marriage: Accidentally gets himself into one. He makes peace between two underground peoples that have been long at war by suggesting they form a political marriage. But both peoples are completely different species, with one being comprised of humans and the other being made up of mole people. As a result, he is adopted as a prince of the mole people and put into an arranged marriage with the other side.
- Bash Brothers: He and Aldin practice a two-person "fighting style" called heroic freestyle.
- Battle Couple: With Larana, after they finally sort out their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
- Cool Helmet: His vision-augmentation helmet after he suffers the Eye Scream incident below.
- Determinator Nothing will stop him from adventuring. Whether it be broken legs, having his bones turned soft or literally being on fire.
- Disability Superpower: He and Agatha make a vision-enhancing helmet when Hoffmann is nearly completely blinded by acid. He eventually gets cat eyes as a permanent replacement.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Colette admits that Hoffman's interest in her is at least genuine, unlike other would-be suitors who are after her family's political power. She's still not interested in him, though.
- Eye Scream: He gets a faceful of acid from an old clank while exploring the Corbettite crypt. He's lucky the acid had lost most of its potency, and it still leaves him almost blind.
- Genius Ditz: Though he is a Spark, he is also a space cadet, and also apparently can't tell the difference between "invincible" and "invisible".
- Good Is Dumb: Not totally dumb, mind you, as he is a Spark. He is an honest, good person who can neither scheme nor reduce his collateral damage. Which leads to Aldin excluding him from his own schemes since he would almost certainly leak it to Agatha.
- Hero of Another Story: According to Aldin, the two of them have gotten into so many crazy adventures that the library curators consider them to be the new Heterodyne Boys. Just like Aldin, it's to the point that their adventures have titles.
- Humble Hero: He saves a king's life and puts an end to a war that has lasted generations. He insists it's no big deal. And gets chewed out for it because that war was the only thing keeping the people involved from waging war upon the surface.
- Last-Name Basis: He is usually called by last names, except when his brother, Aldin, is around.
- Love Epiphany: He eventually comes to realize that he has feelings for Larana... right around the time he mistakenly comes to think that she's in love with his brother, Aldin.
- Not Me This Time: He releases monsters onto Paris often enough that the Master assumes he's behind the latest weirdness involving van Rijn's secret lab. He really wasn't.
- Oblivious to Love: From Larana.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Played With all around in regards to his arranged union with Larana. She loves him, but he's painfully oblivious to it and only sees her as a friend- at first. Then he starts to reciprocate, only to get the impression that she's in love with his brother. It takes an Anguished Declaration of Love from Larana to finally sort things out between the two of them.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Would you believe that shy, serious and Bookworm Aldin and Genius Ditz, Good Is Dumb and adventurous Jiminez are brothers?
- Unrequited Love: He is one of Colette's many admirers. But she has no interest in him, viewing him in the same way one would an Annoying Younger Sibling.
- Weirdness Magnet: His brother Aldin laments this fact. Trying to keep him out of trouble only makes it worse.Aldin: Lady Heterodyne, if we take him back now, he will complain for months. He will actively seek me out, follow me around, and tell me at excruciating length why we shouldn't have "run away-" And while he is doing so, he will drag me into six "adventures" worse than this death crawl can ever be.
- X-Ray Vision: His helmet has this, much to Larana's dismay.
Larana
Princess Larana Chroma of the Silver Lands
Princess Larana is daughter to the King of the Silver Lands, a subterranean kingdom deep beneath Paris. Unlike her father, she sees infestation by Revenants to be a problem.
- Action Girl: She is a member of ''Deep Library's Hunting Party" who frequently goes to dangerous expeditions. She later proves to have a love of explosives.
- Arranged Marriage: Self-arranged for an alliance to stop her father's plans with The Other. The princess that "Honorary Prince" Jiminez Hoffman has been arranged with? She's it. He knows this, she doesn't, at first. When he tells her, he assumes she's not interested and takes her attempt to say otherwise as confirmation, then an explosion calls his attention away before she can correct him.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Larana has it for Hoffman, who is clueless about it.
- Establishing Character Moment: Lady Heterodyne, be my friend (Huge Grin, pictured at right). I have exploded the tunnel and will do so to boats which we don't use. (Gasp) Mr. Hoffman, you are also here?
- Frontline General: Plans to lead her people into battle against the newly risen Storm King, after usurping the throne from her father.
- Only Sane Man: Everyone else in her father's court seem to either be revenants or in on the conspiracy. She's concerned enough about this being a big problem to take part in a plot to kidnap her own father and go into an arranged marriage with a prince of a recently accorded former enemy kingdom to enlist their aid. And later outright usurp the throne and go into battle against the Storm King.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Played With. They are heads over heels in love with each other, and from what is shown would make a pretty good match. This would make their arranged marriage an example of this trope, except that neither of them realizes how the other feels.
- Politically-Active Princess: See Only Sane Man above.
- Statuesque Stunner: She stands a good head above Agatha, Jiminez, and her own father. Easily seen here with Agatha.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Seems to be her specialty.
- The Usurper: Technically. She cites the "Ancient Tradition of Filial Usurpation" when dethroning her run-amok father to defuse the situation in the Incorruptible Library. The Library's war party returns just in time to help enforce her usurpation.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: When Hoffman gets sprayed in the face with acid by a Corbettite clank, her response is to break out the explosive charges on the clank with intent to collapse the passageway on it. She also previously got vehement when the Library sentry expressed hope that Hoffman would throw himself out of the lift due to his notoriety at the Incorruptible Library.
- While she planned all along to take her father out of power, she outright usurps the throne as soon as he threatens Jiminez.
Vipsania Perrault
Vipsania Perrault, member of the Incorruptible Library
An aspiring librarian in the Incorruptible Library of Paris. She strikes a deal with Franz Scortchmaw, Dragon of Mechanicsburg to recover a deceased dragon's hoard. There seems to be more to her than meets the eye...
- The Determinator: Absolutely refuses to give up in her current quest to gain access to the book collection of a certain late dragon, even though it means risking the wrath of (just to start with) the Corbettites and Franz.
- Exact Words: Vows none of her friends will throw any more stuff at Hector, only for Lumi to hit him with a stick. She points out she had just met Lumi and couldn't quite call her a friend just yet, and Lumi didn't throw anything.
- Horse of a Different Color: Rides one of the Library's giant cats.
- Insistent Terminology: Takes offense to being called a thief, despite all the supporting evidence. When Lumi realises she stole the alchemical device from her professor:Lumi: I knew it! You are a thief!
Vipsania: I AM NOT! Well... at least... not professionally.
Franz: Heh. Don't worry. With practice, you'll be a pro in no time.
Vipsania: I don't want to be a "pro"! - Sole Survivor: The only survivor of three expeditions, though was deemed not at fault.Brother Marcus: Bears, a weak staircase, and then more bears, wasn't it?
- Wrong Line of Work: The surest sign that Vipsania is in this comes when she's forced to use an antique, possibly one-of-a-kind book to escape a death trap, and it's burnt to a crisp. She's certainly right in pointing out that the whole party would've died otherwise... but to offer perspective, one of her colleagues reacted to a similar situation by trying to use his heart to defend the book from any damage, and Gil confirmed that was a typical attitude in the Library. It's no real surprise that Vipsania ends up leaving the Library for more independent exploration by the end of the sidestory.
