Characters from the Goosebumps novel The Horror at Camp Jellyjam.
Elliot and Wendy
- "To me, a game is just a game. But to Elliot, every game is life or death."
The protagonists of The Horror At Camp Jellyjam, two preteen siblings who separate from their parents after the trailer they were in unhitches from the car it was attached to and rolls down to Camp Jellyjam.
- Allergic to Routine: Both Wendy and Elliot get rather bored easily.
- Ambiguously Brown: Their mother is described to be blonde and fair-skinned while Wendy, Elliot, and their father all have a darker complexion of their skin, implying that the siblings are biracial, though it's never actually confirmed. The Goosebumps Graphix adaptation makes them all African American.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Averted with Elliot. While his competitive streak gets on Wendy's nerves sometimes, he doesn't act like a Spoiled Brat.
- Badass Adorable: Wendy. See below.
- Badass Normal: Wendy was able to defeat King Jellyjam by instructing all the captive kids to stop washing the monster and lay down on the ground, realizing that King Jellyjam's fingers were too big and fat to be able to pick up anyone if they lied down flat on the floor, which causes King Jellyjam to be killed by its own extremely potent stench. She's also one of the few protagonists of the series to destroy the villain with leadership and bravery.
- Big Damn Hero: If it wasn’t for Wendy’s quick thinking, many more campers would have been eaten and the counselors would have been hypnotized longer.
- Competition Freak: Elliot. As Wendy puts it, "To Elliot, every game is life or death."
- Deadpan Snarker: Wendy can sometimes be this when annoyed.
- Determinator: Elliot cares so much about winning that he refuses to turn down the games of the camp until he earns his sixth coin.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Wendy and Elliot are reunited at home after the former defeats King Jellyjam.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Downplayed. While Wendy sometimes takes the role as the responsible, Elliot is more adamantly competitive rather than flat-out foolish, as he doesn't act as an annoying pest to Wendy.
- The Glomp: After Wendy saves many of the campers whom were enslaved by King Jellyjam, many of them thank her by giving her big hugs while some even do this with Tears of Joy.
- I Have Brothers: Wendy mentions to her new bunkmates that she's used to dumb jokes due to having Elliot as a brother.
- I Let You Win: Wendy mentions she often lets Elliot win in multiple games they play together in. Also, she is about to win a swimming race, when she suddenly sees how Dierdre (who is her bunk mate and in second place) really wants to win this race, reminding her of her brother. So she intentionally slows down to let Dierdre win and get her sixth King coin, much to a counselor’s disapproval who saw what she did. Unfortunately, her getting this sixth coin led to Dierdre getting sent to the Winners’ Walk and onto work for King Jellyjam.
- Kid Hero: Wendy ends up saving the day after finding the right tactics to defeat King Jellyjam and rescuing the slaves.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: After realizing that the campers are in danger of DEATH, Wendy decides enough is enough, and she does a ploy that involves among Jellyjam dying and the campers whom were enslaved by him to be freed from his control.
- Little Miss Badass: Because of her tactics to defeat King Jellyjam, Wendy ends up saving the rest of the children from the monster from slavery.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Wendy would often use this against Elliot to prompt him to compete in whatever game the two suggest.
- No Full Name Given: Their surname isn't revealed in the story.
- Only Sane Woman: Wendy is the only one in the book who isn't obsessed with winning.
- Sore Loser: Elliot simply can't stand losing, which sometimes worries Wendy.
King Jellyjam
The mascot of the titular camp in The Horror at Camp Jellyjam. A disgusting smelling purple Blob Monster that sweats snails, and must be constantly cleaned and bathed by his slaves.
- And I Must Scream: He can never leave his cave, and apparently he's been there his whole life. Throughout most of the book the counsellors act as his eyes and ears.
- Big Bad: Of The Horror At Camp Jellyjam.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: He's literally been in a cave his whole life trying to survive, so naturally he knows nothing of human empathy and mercy.
- Berserk Button: Interfere with his constant bathing, and you're lunch.
- Blob Monster: One that sweats snails and wears a crown.
- The Cameo: He makes an appearence on a poster in the first entry in R. L. Stine's Just Beyond graphic novel series.
- Child Eater: He eats campers that try to take a break from washing him, and doesn't appear to live off of anything else.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: He's too massive to leave his cave, and needs to have his deadly smell constantly washed away to survive. Ironically, this continued dependence leads to his downfall.
- Eldritch Abomination: According to Stine, he was formed when a camper left a bowl of gelatin inside a radioactive, snail-infested cave.
- Expy: Shares some similarities with Jabba the Hutt - both are hedonistic blob monsters that own slaves, have said slaves eaten if they displease them, and suffocate to death via their own means. Also, see Satanic Archetype.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: If you take his recent reprint's origin story as canon, he began life as a small mutant slug born from radioactive waste and a cup of jello.
- Freudian Excuse: He was born into his repulsive condition by careless humans, and is motivated by desperation to survive. It doesn't make him any less horrible, but it does explain why he's like that.
- A God Am I: To Jellyjam, humans are little more than toys, and the counselors worship him like a god.
- The Hedonist: He literally spends all day sitting in a cave being tended to by his slaves and marinating in his own B.O. Doesn't get much more hedonistic than that.
- Hidden Depths: Jellyjam is certainly more intelligent than you'd expect mute subterranean slime to be. The fact that he was able to organize a whole summer camp and play on the campers' spirit of competition also implies he is quite savvy to human culture and psychology.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He suffocates to death on his own stench after his child slaves stop washing him. This is likely because he spent so much time being washed, he never actually had time to adapt to the smell. In the end, his desperate attempts to sustain himself were what destroyed him.
- It's All About Me: He sees the children and counselors as nothing more than tools to keep himself alive, and has brainwashed the counselors into dedicating their lives to serving "The Master".
- Knight of Cerebus: He's one of the only villains in the series to have actually killed people (by eating them). He ate three kids just that day, so God only knows how many campers he ate before his eventual defeat.
- Manipulative Bastard: Acting through the counselors, he plays on the children's desire for rewards and victory, which leads them into his slimy clutches.
- Monster of the Aesop: Essentially in a story where most of the characters (including the protagonist's brother) are extremely over-competitive and obsessed with winning, Jellyjam is there to show the sinister side of where too much competition can get you.
- Psychic Powers:
- Mind-Control Conspiracy: Camp Jellyjam is one giant front to acquire new slaves for him.
- Mind Rape: Under his power, dozens of innocent men and women have become grinning, emotionless zombies. Even worse, now and then his control starts to wear off...
- People Puppets: Again, those poor camp counselors.
- Mistaken for Quake: His burps are powerful enough to shake the ground.
- Satanic Archetype: A giant underground monster who manipulates power-hungry, competitive people into being his toys. Sound familiar?
- Silent Antagonist: Clearly sentient and cunning, but he never does and probably can't speak. Councillor Buddy seems to act as his mouthpiece.
- Walking Spoiler: To the point where he's not even on the original cover of his book. The new cover art changes this, though.
- Weak, but Skilled: His large size doesn't leave much room for physical strength. Doesn't stop him from becoming one of the most dangerous menaces in the whole franchise, though.
- Weaksauce Weakness: His stench. His lungs are apparently so weak that taking it in for one moment is enough to kill him.
Buddy
The head counselor at Camp Jellyjam. He is the one who finds Wendy and Elliot in the trailer that crashes near the campsite, and he takes them under his wing.
- The Atoner: Once he's back to normal, he shows up to Wendy and Elliot's house weeks after the ordeal and sincerely apologizes. He even gives Elliot his King coin that he won at the track race just because he earned it.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Out of all the campers, Buddy seems to have the worst of it. He has a creepy insane grin most of the time, and when he is hypnotizing the other counselors, he doesn't seem to be in the trance himself which implies that he's so brainwashed that he doesn't need nightly check-ups.
- Cartesian Karma: Is hinted to possibly be going through this at the end when he keeps his distance with Wendy and Elliot while visiting them, implied to be under surveillance. He served a ruthless supernatural tyrant and did his bidding in enslaving them for him all under mind control, and the police caught him in the act. However, it's unknown if the federal authorities know this for a fact. Considering the usual Adults Are Useless antics in Goosebumps, they might not believe this claim.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: His default expression. It seemed to Wendy as if he had two thousand teeth.
- Creepy Blue Eyes: His eyes give off quite an eerie impression. The cover truly reflects this trope.
- Dragon Their Feet: When Wendy causes King Jellyjam to die and she leads the others out of his lair, they run into a still-hypnotized Buddy who has gathered the rest of the also-still-hypnotized counselors outside to surround the campers. They are about to attack them when a police officer's whistle snaps them out of it.
- Improbable Age: He is the head counselor at Camp Jellyjam, taking charge of both child campers as well as teenage and young adult counselors. However, according to illustrator Tim Jacobus in an interview, he got a design request to feature Buddy on the book's cover. The message mentioned that Buddy is about 17 to 18 years old.
- Made of Iron: Wendy is playing baseball at one point, and she swings the bat and accidentally hits Buddy in the chest, which shocks her and she believes she heard his ribs crack. But he cheerfully just tells her to not swing so hard. Given that he's highly brainwashed, he might not be able to even feel pain.
- Meaningful Name: His name is Buddy, and is very friendly most of the time, and wants to be everyone's friend. Even after he's brainwashed, he still is very friendly and visits Wendy and Elliot himself to apologize.
- Mook Lieutenant: He is the head counselor of this ruthless camp, and he is the one who routinely brainwashes the other counselors each night so they can serve King Jellyjam and do his bidding.
- Mouth of Sauron: What he apparently is for King Jellyjam. He keeps repeating camp slogans, encouraging campers to do sports at all times each day and makes sure they do them so they have no choice. And when hypnotizing the other counselors each night, he tells them all to clear their minds and obey.
- You Don't Look Like You: While Buddy on the cover of the book indeed mostly fits the description of him in the book, the one noticeable difference is that Buddy is mentioned to have blond hair, but Buddy on the cover has brunette hair.
Alicia
A six-year-old girl who repeatedly warns people to stay away from Camp Jellyjam.
- Cassandra Truth: No one except Wendy pays attention to her warnings about the camp because they are too enthralled by how much fun everything is.
- Damsel in Distress: When Wendy gets the child slaves to "go on strike", the first one King Jellyjam tries to eat is Alicia. She at first panics, but Wendy advises her to stay on the ground, which Alicia follows that saves her life.
- She Knows Too Much: She discovers the truth behind Camp Jellyjam, but the counselors kidnap her and force her to wash King Jellyjam without winning six coins first. Their attitude seems to be "if she can't hack it and gets eaten, not my problem."
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Has a habit of doing this. One minute she will be suddenly showing up and talking to someone, and as soon as he or she gets distracted by something else and looks back, she is gone.
