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The Orphanage
Amalia
Mrs. Amalia True
"This is not my face."
Portrayed By: Laura Donnelly, Claudia Black (original body)
"Waiting is only painful when you're not doing anything else."
Mysterious and impulsive, Amalia is the (somewhat reckless) widowed leader of the Touched and co-founder of their safe haven, the orphanage.
- Action Girl: She can take down multiple larger opponents by herself due to her formidable fighting skills and decades of experience as a soldier from the future.
- Affectionate Nickname: Molly, given to her by Maladie.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: She has dark hair and her attitude can be rather antagonistic.
- Ambiguously Bi: Sleeps with Dr. Cousens and other men, but is very attached to Penance, flirts jokingly with Knitter, and mentions having been married to two other people at one time, gender/s not specified. Her flashbacks include taking off her clothes with a young man and another young woman when she was young.
- Ambiguously Human: Something is a little...off about Amalia True. She doesn't seem to know basic facts about her own body, claims she was "left here" by someone else for some kind of mission, tells someone that her face isn't even hers, she knows the modern-day terminology for some of Penance's inventions, and constantly talks about "where I come from," a place far from London. It turns out she is human, but from a Bad Future, and she was transported into the body of someone else by the Galanthi.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: She's the brunette to Penance's blonde and Mary's redhead.
- Character Tics: When she's agitated, which is often, she taps her curled up fingers against her lap.
- Dark and Troubled Past: In "Ignition", she mentions that her turn had her declared insane and hints she was briefly institutionalized. It is also implied her late husband was abusive. The reality is a lot darker: she's one of the few people left alive during humanity's collapse and was actually driven to suicide after losing the last of her hope for humanity, only to be dropped into the body of a Victorian woman with no idea why.
- Deadpan Snarker: With emphasis on "deadpan".
- Experienced Protagonist: She's had her Touched powers for about three years at the start of the series, along with having an entire previous lifetime as a soldier from the future to draw upon.
- Giver of Lame Names: Penance thinks True's names for her inventions, like "amplifier" and "X-ray", are really boring.
- I Am Very British: Her accent, which she crafted in the asylum, is posher than the working-class accent of the real Amalia "Molly" True, whom she never heard speaking of course because Molly vacated her body via suicide right before Zephyr entered it. Zephyr's natural accent was Canadian.
- Interrupted Suicide: On the day that London was touched, Amalia was in the process of drowning herself. Being touched revitalized her and prompted her to swim to the surface rather than let herself drown. Ironically this occurred to Amalia’s body's current occupant, Zephyr, who committed suicide after Knitter died in despair believing that the Galanthi were leaving humanity to die. However the Galanthi had other ideas and took her essence back in time and deposited it into Amalia’s currently vacant body.
- Ironic Name: True, since she is not the original inhabitant of her current body.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Going about in beautiful Victorian dresses does not impede her ability to kick copious amounts of ass. She also often rips off her dresses to better fight, to the point where Penance chides her about it.Penance: Is it that you just hate dresses?
- The Lad-ette: While she avoids showing it openly due to the social mores of her time, Amalia drinks, swears, and picks fights when she's by herself. It comes from being a soldier.
- Old Soldier: Amalia's main advantage is that she's really a middle-aged veteran soldier with three decades of experience, skilled in hand-to-hand combat and tactics, and with an extremely high pain threshold. She is also gifted with a steel will to succeed and survive.
- Older Than They Look: Due to having the consciousness of a middle-aged combat veteran.
- Polyamory: Mentions to Knitter that she was married for three years and didn't tell either of her spouses her real name.note
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: As befitting a Victorian heroine.
- Seers: Amalia is able to see glimpses of the future, making her pretty well-prepared for the most part. It's not all roses for her, though, as she tells Mary:Amalia: Three years ago, I woke up knowing things that I shouldn't, and was declared insane - which, for a time, I thought I was. So, yes, I keep secrets. I also drink when I shouldn't, fight when I needn't, and fuck men whose names I do not learn. I get nervous in crowds. I see things that aren't there. When I meet someone, the first thing I think of is how to kill them.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: As shown in the flashback episode, when she first arrived at the asylum she cursed out everyone and everything. She eventually toned it down so she'd be labeled sane enough to leave, but it comes out when she's stressed.
Penance
Penance Adair
Portrayed By: Ann Skelly
Penance is a brilliant inventor and Amalia’s best friend; she is viewed as a gentle, caring leader of the Touched.
- Beware the Silly Ones: While Penance is Adorkable and firmly against killing, she's not above fisticuffs, shocking an enemy with an electric umbrella, or disabling them with a cute toy on wheels that emits sleeping gas. Bonfire Annie thinks that Penance may actually be terrifying because of the latter.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: She's the blonde to Mary's redhead and Amalia's brunette.
- Catchphrase: "It's only a prototype."
- Leads to a Precision F-Strike moment in 1.06 when, after failing to save Maladie - or so they think, Penance's rescue gizmo (a rocket-propelled dirigible) sails over the Orphanage courtyard, and Penance sighs, "Fucking prototype..."
- Gadgeteer Genius: She's an inventor, and even before she was touched, she showed a serious talent for mechanical fixes.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A blonde in addition to being very sweet-natured.
- The Idealist: She has faith in God and a firm belief in the general goodness of the world.
- Intoxication Ensues: After Bonfire Annie torches a wagon full of opium, Penance gets a nose-full and becomes quite silly.
- Morality Pet: Functions as one for True, with her strong conviction that Thou Shalt Not Kill.
- Nice Girl: Penance is rarely anything other than sincere, gentle and kind.
- Odd Friendship: Sweet and dorky Penance is close friends with the aloof, self-possessed Amalia.
- Ship Tease: With Augie; he's taken aback by her attractiveness when they meet at the opera, and then they share a look when they're both illuminated by Mary's song.
- The Smart Guy: She's highly intelligent to the point where it's a superpower.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: A firm believer in this, and chastises True whenever she contemplates taking an enemy's life.
- Steampunk: Her turn allows her to see energy that she uses to create futuristic devices of this aesthetic.
Primrose
Primrose Chattoway
Portrayed By: Anna Devlin
Innocent and caring, Primrose is a young girl who stands about ten feet tall, who longs to be “ordinary.”
- Alice Allusion: Her hairstyle and dress resembles that of Alice, and she struggles with being a giant, like when Alice is "telescoped". Additionally, like Alice, she's had French lessons, which came in handy when translating part of Myrtle's recollection of Mary's song.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Before Myrtle joined the Orphanage, she lamented having no one her own age to talk to.
- Casting Gag: Anna Devlin in real life is only a little over five foot tall, and describes herself in
interviews as tiny. - Characterization Marches On: In the very first episode, she is rude and snobbish to Lucy and Harriet, but never behaves like this again. Given that Penance says that she's been feeling lonely due to being the only girl her age, having Myrtle around as a friend probably helped her to warm up a little.
- Cute Giant: She may be large, but she's still just a teenage girl. Sadly, not everyone quite sees it that way...
- Gentle Giant: The instant she meets Myrtle, she's all too eager to make friends with her. She has also been known to cuddle Myrtle like a teddy bear, as seen in "Undertaking".
- Giant Woman: She's ten feet tall, and since she's otherwise just a young girl, she isn't thrilled about this development.
- New Technology Is Evil: Unlike the others, she's dismissive of Penance's motorcar, referring to it as "common" and "a blight". And when Penance tries to introduce Myrtle to her, Primrose thinks Penance is trying to impress her with the car, and brushes Penance off by saying she can't ride in it (albeit, it's more likely she was explaining that she's physically unable to ride in the car due to her size, which hasn't been revealed to the audience at this point).
- Parental Abandonment: Her parents dumped her at the Orphanage and took off, which is a sore subject for her, as seen in the first episode:Lucy: [upon hearing that Penance is driving her motorcar] It's mad. Primrose, you've got to see!
Primrose: Mother says motorcars are common.
Lucy: Common?! There's only eight of them that ever were!
Primrose: [haughtily] I wouldn't expect you to understand, but Mother says they're a blight.
Lucy: Yeah? She say that lately? On a visit, maybe, that we all missed?
Primrose: As though you know anything about being a mother.
Harriet: [aghast] Primrose! [to Lucy] She didn't mean that.
Lucy: Does she think she's too big for a spanking?! - Super-Strength: Given her size, she has the proportional strength she would have had prior to her turn. This means she can carry a heavy wooden table like it was a cardboard box.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the girly girl to Myrtle's tomboy.
- Vocal Dissonance: Despite her size, she lacks the the deep, booming voice one would expect from a giant, instead having a high-pitched girly voice befitting a normal-sized teenage girl.
Lucy
Lucy Best
Portrayed By: Elizabeth Berrington
Lucy has the power to break anything with just the touch of her hands; she wears gloves to control her turn. Adaptive and streetwise, her quick wit and high spirits mask the pain of a tragic past.
- Blessed with Suck: How she views her powers. This is why she turns on Amalia and joins up with Lord Massen.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She accidentally killed her son, and Penance alludes to a difficult personal history even before such a tragic incident. Lucy clearly knows how to fend for herself, teaches 'scraping' (self-defense) to the girls, and her mother was a member of the Forty Elephants (a real-life all-female gang).
- The Mole: She is one for Lord Massen, after he promised to help cure her of her turn. After Amalia finds out, she banishes her from the Orphanage and London.
- Offing the Offspring: Played for drama; her turn manifested for the first time while she was picking up her six month old baby boy, resulting in her breaking every bone in his body and killing him. When Penance first recounts the tale, she says Lucy told her "all his bones broke before he could even make a sound", but when Lucy has her fight with Amalia, she finally reveals the truth, and it's much darker: "I held my baby, and it killed him. And it wasn't sudden like I said. The breaks, they were sudden. But he... he held on. And he screamed. He screamed longer than I did pushin' him out... 'fore his heart gave."
- Pet the Dog: Even after being exposed as a mole for Lord Massen and fighting one-on-one with Amalia, Lucy shows that she cherishes the brooch Penance made for her, which convinces Amalia to spare her as Penance would want.
- Team Mom: She's very maternal and protective towards the other Touched and treats them like her children.
- Walking Spoiler: It's very hard to talk about her character without mentioning the spoilered info above.
Harriet
Harriet Kaur
Portrayed By: Kiran Sonia Sawar
Harriet's unique ability allows her to turn objects into glass with her breath. Intelligent and passionate, she is also an aspiring lawyer.
- Brainy Brunette: Has long, dark brown hair and would like to become a lawyer, although she is resentful that she is not permitted to even attend school for it.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Her fiancé Aneel, though not one of the Touched, is a background character often seen visiting with her at the Orphanage, being supportive and affectionate, doing things together with her like moving the Orphans' steampunk car, etc.
- The Power of Glass: She has the ability to turn things into glass by breathing on them.
- Twofer Token Minority: Of the main cast, she is the only South Asian woman (although there is another Asian female Touched - Su - who has been getting more appearances).
Myrtle
Myrtle Haplisch
Portrayed By: Viola Prettejohn
Penance and Amalia take Myrtle in at the orphanage after her parents struggle to understand her turn – literally, because Myrtle speaks in an uncontrollable string of different languages.
- Abusive Parents: Her father is small-minded if well-meaning, but her mother is a different story, being a religious fanatic who views Myrtle as the spawn of Satan.
- The Baby of the Bunch: She effectively takes over this position amongst the Orphans from Primrose.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: She's the only one who is able to understand the lyrics to Mary's song, as it's in an alien language.
- Omniglot: Myrtle's particular power is the ability to speak in any language, but she's yet to gain control over it and the result is that no-one understands her. Unfortunately, she is also illiterate. They solve the problem - at least for one crucial message - by recruiting a room full of immigrants to piece together the fragments from different languages.
- Power Incontinence: Myrtle has every language in the world running through her head at once, coming out in a confusing mixture. So far she's been unable to speak solely in English, though she still understands what is spoken to her perfectly.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the tomboy to Primrose's girly girl.
Désirée
Désirée Blodgett aka "The Diva of Desire"
Portrayed By: Ella Smith
A lady of bodily pleasures who comes to Amalia for protection. Her turn passively compels people to speak without tact and be completely honest to any question put to them. The more heightened and agitated their emotions, the faster they succumb to her influence.
- Big Beautiful Woman: She takes pride in the number of patrons she has, even though she's aware she's not exactly slim. She also makes jokes about "keeping her chins up".
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: A genuinely nice, friendly and warm woman who happens to work as a prostitute (and is dang proud of it).
- Irony: She was targeted because her clients feared that she would spill their secrets. As it turns out, she's so used to men babbling during the act that she doesn't bother to remember what they say.
- Power Incontinence: She cannot not compel people to speak honestly and truthfully around her. Even when sitting in a police station trying not to draw attention to herself, coppers and criminals around her have more honest conversations with each other, to comic effect.
- Seeking Sanctuary: She arrives at the orphanage after learning one of her patrons is planning to have her killed because of her turn making him tell her things he shouldn't have. When Amalia asks her how she discovered this, she replies the patron himself told her while they were in the midst of the act.
- Smart Ball: The moment she learns from one of her patrons he plans to have her killed, she takes her son Nigel and seeks refuge in Amalia's orphanage.
Su Ping Lim
Su Ping Lim
Portrayed By: Pui Fan Lee
- Mind over Matter: Her turn is telekinesis.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Substantially shorter than even Amalia (who stands only 5'4"), but still strong enough to offhandedly shove a gate closed that two other women were struggling to move, and tough enough to shake off a 30' fall without any apparent injury. This is presumably unrelated to her turn, as she's been shown moving objects with the power of her mind.
The Bidlows
Lavinia
Lavinia Bidlow
"It's society. Doing nothing is how we panic."
Portrayed By: Olivia Williams
A wealthy benefactor and champion of the Touched, Lavinia funds the Orphanage and has great influence in high society.
- Big Bad Friend: To Amalia, to whom she presents herself as ally, benefactor and trustworthy confidente. In reality, she has less altruistic intentions for the Touched and is the puppet master behind Dr. Hague.
- Good is Not Nice: Or at least, she herself would like to excise the word "nice", because it's too vague. A prime example is when she tells Augie not to associate himself with Penance (whom he clearly likes), because she is both one of the Touched and Irish - she claims that Penance will be seen to be using a turn to get control/influence over someone in the nobility, and that will only end up hurting her. When Augie snaps that she always believes the worst of everyone, she retorts "They so rarely disappoint". As it later turns out, she perhaps isn't good at all.
- Handicapped Badass: She's wheelchair-bound but it doesn't seem to hold her back in any sense.
- The Man Behind the Man: Lavinia is Hague's benefactor.
- Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Unlike many other members of the upper class, Lavinia believes that the appearance of the Touched is not something to be afraid of, and created the Orphanage to give them a safe haven. Learning that Touched girls are being abducted enrages her, so she invites Amalia and Penance to the opera to make the Touched more visible to society. Lavinia has a positive attitude towards progress in general, believing that society must evolve with the times and mocking her peers for opposing the influx of French loan words into the English language. Of course, given that she's the one behind the abductions, one wonders how much of her social activism is genuine.
Augie
Augustus "Augie" Bidlow
Portrayed By: Tom Riley
Sweet and awkward Augie is a keen ornithologist who is more than happy to let his older sister Lavinia take the reins of the family fortune. His turn is to possess the mind of birds, specifically corvids.
- All Men Are Perverts: He's not, but everyone around him seems to believe he is. Penance wonders if he's ever used his Turn to spy on women, Lavinia dismisses his attraction to Penance as pure lust, and Hugo tries to convince him to support his brothel. Augie's response to all of this is bafflement followed by indignation. Notably, the one time he slept with someone at Hugo's brothel, he had to get blackout drunk first.
- Animal Eye Spy: He can see through the eyes of corvids, describing his thrill about first experiencing it to Penance, with him seeing what it's like to fly.
- The Beastmaster: He has the ability to see through the eyes of and control crows, magpies and other corvids.
- Disease by Any Other Name: Augie's particular brand of severe social awkwardness and desperate inability to read the mood / nonverbal parts of conversations, his self-awareness that he's "odd", plus his obsessive interest in birds (established long before he was Touched), all are very recognizable to people who are on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. But given the time period, of course it's not labeled as such.
- Endearingly Dorky: At least to Penance, who can relate - their "meet-cute" involves them nerding out about the similarities between bird swarms and electrical fields. Also, possibly, to Hugo.
- Extreme Doormat: His sister walks all over him, and he doesn't fare much better with Hugo.
- Nice Guy: Socially awkward, shy and known to blurt out inappropriate questions, but always well-meaning and gentle. And to his sister's annoyance, he has a tendency to actually call things "nice".
- Ship Tease: With Penance; he's taken aback by her attractiveness when they meet at the opera, and then they share a look when they're both illuminated by Mary's song.
- Tomato in the Mirror: He spends most of the pilot episode being morbidly curious about the Touched and their supposed deformities, but when he lights up during Mary's song it becomes clear that he's one of them.
Maladie's Gang
Maladie
Maladie/Sarah
Portrayed By: Amy Manson
Committed to an insane asylum by her husband (and genuinely unstable), she’s been warped by a power she can’t understand, and tortured by doctors intent on finding its source. She now lives underground, runs a gang and is on an infamous murder spree. She affects a theatrical parody of a bedlam waif, but mad as she is, she’s a woman with a purpose. Her turn is enhanced strength - but she is more of a berserker and seems to be able to take any sort of pain (physical or mental) and use that to enhance her strength.
Her real first name is Sarah.
- All There in the Manual: An early version of the script described Maladie as having been tortured with electric eels by Dr. Hague.
- Cassandra Truth: She's the only one who remembers seeing the ship that spawned the dust, but because she is considered "mad", nobody believes her.
- Dark Action Girl: She can throw down with just about anyone, and can even significantly stagger Amalia.
- Face–Heel Turn: Originally when Zephyr met Sarah she was a shy and compassionate soul who comforted her on her first night in the asylum. However, after Doctor Hague showed up with an interest in investigating both "Amalia" and Sarah regarding the Touched, Amalia/Zephyr convinced him that Maladie had the key to the Touched condition, and that Zephyr herself was not Touched. All in order to divert attention from herself. This lead to Hague committing multiple "treatments" on Sarah that broke her.
- Insane Equals Violent: Zigzagged. She'd had episodes and been institutionalized a couple of times before the Event, but she wasn't violent until Dr Hague's experiments pushed her into becoming Maladie; in fact, she was the one of the nicest and most reasonable people in the mental hospital (staff included).
- Laughing Mad: She has some truly chilling cackles and shrieks, and can go from laughing to ordering murders in less time than it takes to read this sentence.
- Manipulative Bitch: She outfoxes everyone, from Mundi to the people of London.
- Mask of Sanity: Maladie is able to impersonate reporter Effie Boyle just fine without showing any signs of mental instability.
- Meaningful Rename: She renamed herself "Maladie" after becoming one of the Touched, and has been described as a "blight on polite Victorian London society… or a 'malady'".
- Misery Builds Character: A deconstruction. Maladie has been through so much pain and trauma that she's come to regard the pain itself with religious fervor, lashing out at any who attempt to sympathize with her or lessen it. She identifies so deeply with her pain that any implication that it might not be good sends her into a rant.
- The Ophelia: See her rant in the sewers to Mary (and her speeches in general):Maladie: Thorns! All I see is a crown. God made me see. He made me remember the day He came. Me alone. How He sent His angels in their white smocks to unhouse my flesh... Teach me glorious pain! [...] I don't want what I want! Go out in the world and show me this magical symmetry. It's broken! It's designed to be broken - gears crushing gears... He means for this to hurt. [...] They say you shit when you hang.
- Pet the Dog: She saves Harriet from being trampled, either because she's a young girl or out of an affinity for a fellow Touched.
- Smarter Than You Look: She's genuinely insane, but she's also quite clever when she wants to be. Case in point: the hanging plot, and her pretending to be perfectly sane journalist Effie Boyle for a long period of time with no one suspecting. It's hinted that while she is psychotic, she also plays it up a bit for dramatic effect. And of course, she's clever enough to lead her own gang, and be able to pay them (or at least Bonfire Annie).
- Tragic Villain: Maladie was originally Sarah, a troubled but compassionate woman suffering from mental illness in a time and place that was hardly sympathetic; she's then betrayed by someone she considered her closest friend, and her already fragile mind was shattered into something dark and twisted thanks to various tortures at the hands of Doctor Hague and his cohorts.
- We Used to Be Friends: With Amalia. They were something like friends in the asylum, but Amalia threw her under the bus and abandoned her to Dr. Hague to divert his attention from herself, which Maladie has most certainly not forgotten.
Bonfire Annie
"Bonfire" Annie Carbey
Portrayed By: Rochelle Neil
Annie is a career criminal who landed the ability to control fire and is happy to hire it out. Came up rough, stayed that way, but she’s neither impulsive nor cruel — just looking out for herself. No matter who she works with or for, Annie trusts only Annie, and the fire.
- Action Girl: She fights people frequently by throwing fireballs.
- Heel–Face Turn: After initially hanging with Maladie, she decides to throw in her lot with Amalia.
- Only Sane Man: She seems to be the only one in Maladie's gang who has her sanity still intact.
- Playing with Fire: She tosses fireballs about, hence her nickname.
The Colonel
The Colonel
"I never lie. I never boast."
Portrayed By: Mark Benton
A large man of unknown origin, whose turn allows him manipulate how others perceive reality. Incredibly loyal to Maladie and incredibly ruthless.
- Compelling Voice: His turn. Anything he says is believed without question. According to Inspector Frank Mundi, Maladie's gang spent three weeks in the honeymoon suite at Claridge's when the Colonel kept telling the manager he was the Prince of Wales. He kidnaps Dr Cousens by telling him that the carriage he's in is his (Dr Cousens's) carriage, and gains access to the electrical box under the ground at Maladie's hanging by convincing one of the guards that he's his favorite uncle come to visit.
- Fat Bastard: Clearly very fat, and very evil.
- It Has Been an Honor: He quietly remarks that it's been an privilege right before Clara Stowe dies in Maladie's place.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: While his round figure and his demeanor depict him as a jovial and harmless figure, he clearly has no issue with taking human life, such as when he electrocuted and killed tens of Londoners who arrived for Maladie's hanging.
Kroos
Winemar Kroos
...
Portrayed By: David Garrick
A seemingly mute henchman in Maladie's gang, his turn allowed him to form bullets from his right arm. He was then shot and killed by Frank Mundi for his murder of Mary Brighton.
The Prime Minister's Council
Lord Massen
Lord Gilbert Massen
"Only a blind man measures the length of a blade by how much is in his belly."
Portrayed By: Pip Torrens
"To band together when you could stand alone? I expect more courage from Englishmen."
A former general and an influential government official, Lord Massen leads a crusade against the Touched and sees them as a threat.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: It's his power and status that make him dangerous, and he's not eager to see society change in a way that puts him and his ilk on the outs.
- Bad Boss: He makes his workers in his factories work at incredibly low wages while making them move around munitions. When they try to strike for better pay for this hazard, he notes to them all they are very easily replaceable with other people who will do this work.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He might be a bigot and a fascist, but he cared very much for his young daughter.
- Fantastic Racism: Massen views the Touched as an emerging threat that needs to be nipped in the bud. Interestingly, he doesn't seem to see them as being inherently evil, more akin to people ravaged with a horrible, contagious disease whose very existence sows chaos. To Massen, their intentions don't matter, what they are matters.
- Freudian Excuse: Downplayed. While he's always held misogynistic and classist views and would have doubled down on the Touched regardless, the death of his wife and daughter has made him cling more tightly to that worldview. It probably doesn't help that the motes did something to his daughter, although whether they killed her or transformed her is still unclear.
- High Collar of Doom: Played with. He wears a very tall collar on his clothes, but this is the actual fashion of the time and not meant to signal him as a villain. That doesn't mean he isn't an antagonist to Amelia and the Touched.
- Jerkass Has a Point: He's correct in noticing a pattern to the emergence of the Touched (more women than men, all present in London on a particular day, and not one of them a "man of renown", read upper-class white man with a government post) and concluding that it's part of someone's larger design, though whether it represents an "attack" as he thinks remains to be seen.
- Madwoman in the Attic: Or, to be more precise, mysterious Turned in the basement, which a workman nearly discovers in the process of installing a telephone.
- Persecution Flip: Massen is deeply concerned that if the marginalized of society gain any measure of equality, they'll treat people like Massen in much the same way he treats them.
- Pet the Dog: As much as he utterly despises Hugo (and as much as he seems to be debating shooting him) he decides to hoist him up out of the reach of the chaos, quite possibly saving his life in the process.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He dismisses the idea of equality, and in particular he seems to view women as being necessarily lower on the totem pole than men, along with disparaging immigrants and "deviants". He also refers to Penance as an "uneducated Irish woman" and it's clear he thinks all three are marks against her.
- Start of Darkness: The moment his daughter seemingly died in his arms set him down a dark path.
- Worthy Opponent: Strangely for such an open misogynist, every conversation with Amalia is brimming with respect; he's polite (if not exactly nice), mostly honest and wary.
Albrecht
Prince Albrecht
Portrayed By: Nicholas Farrell
- Only Sane Man: He is the only person to express genuine distaste for the way Maladie is being treated in prison, saying she's a human being, not an animal.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: His reaction to Lord Massen asking why Princess Bettina was taken to Zurich in the middle of the night (implying she too is Touched) is to roar "Bettina has lumbago!"
Broughton
Lord Broughton
Portrayed By: Rupert Vansittart
- Villainous Friendship: With Massen; they're good friends and seem to have each other's back.
The Beggar King's Gang
The Beggar King
Declan "The Beggar King" Orrun
"I'm genuinely searching for a way this spins out that I don't kill you."
Portrayed By: Nick Frost
A feared criminal crime lord, Declan Orrun earned his nickname “The Beggar King” for his ability to rally his followers, despite not having a political influence or wealth.
- Bad Boss: He's implied to chop off an underling's fingers for making an unwise comment and then later slices his brand off the stomach of another who didn't stand to fight against Annie attacking their operation.
- Beard of Evil: As bearded as he is merciless.
- Large and in Charge: He's played by the very burly Nick Frost, and the unquestioned criminal overlord of London.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- He's very aware of just how important reputation is, hence why he takes such issue with Amalia summoning him. It's only when she and Penance offer him something for his trouble that he begrudgingly agrees to keep working with them.
- Among the men who initially fled from Annie's attack at his opium warehouse, one came back to at least observe the situation. This man is still new to the Beggar King's group as his branding is still healing. The Beggar King calls the man a "pup" and forgives him the initial fleeing as he is so new. That said, the man who has had eight years in the organization is not spared and the brand is peeled off his body.
Nimble Jack
"Nimble" Jack
Portrayed By: Vinnie Heaven
A young man who is quick and nimble enough to get out of jams quickly and with discretion.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: He flirts shamelessly with Bonfire Annie while confronting her.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: His turn allows him to temporarily create saw-like discs in mid-air. He can use them to block oncoming attacks, like Annie's fire.
- Meaningful Name: He demonstrates the nimble part of his name when he leaves Annie in an alleyway. He turns and makes shields in the air before him, allowing him to step up them towards the rooftops even when they are more than a foot apart, and he pushes off the wall at one point. It's also a reference to the old "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick" rhyme.
Odium
Nicholas "Odium" Perbal
Portrayed By: Martyn Ford
A tall, powerfully built man who recently came into the Beggar King's employ. He is mostly silent but does his job for the Beggar King.
- Bald of Evil: Solid bald, and he takes far too much pleasure in his duties.
- The Brute: He's the Beggar King's primary bruiser.
- Chain Pain: When he attacks targets at rivers, he uses his chains to whip at them as they are trying to swim away.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved: In spite of his profession, demeanor and the fact that being Touched means many families turn on their own, he's still loved by Granny Perbal.
- Power Incontinence: He cannot stop his repelling of water. Even if he is knocked out, he cannot sink. This also means he cannot take a bath. The dirt on his body is too close for the water to touch and remove.
- Walk on Water: His turn allows him to walk on, run on, stand upon, and even lay down on water. This is because his body repels water.
Other Non-Touched
Hague
Dr. Edmund Hague
Portrayed By: Denis O'Hare
A gifted but deranged American surgeon, Dr. Hague uses his skills in the coldest, most brutal way possible.
- Beard of Evil: He has a long Van Dyke beard that's a little more scruffy than stylish, in addition to spending his time ripping open innocent people in the name of science.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: As it turns out, ruthless though he is, Hague is not bereft of emotion. He sincerely mourns friends of his who were killed by Maladie, and looks forward to her hanging.
- Evil Brit: Inverted. In a cast of British characters, Hague is American and one of the most despicable characters on the show.
- Faux Affably Evil: Hague is infectiously cheerful, rarely lacking a smile. He's also a monster who uses his gifts as a surgeon to rip open the Touched to find out what makes them tick.
- For Science!: A large part of his motivation seems to be genuine scientific curiosity.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He's not exactly ethical in his pursuit of answers regarding the Touched.
- Moral Myopia: He's delighted by the prospect of Maladie's hanging, declaring that it's justice done considering she killed some of his friends. This is more than a little hypocritical considering Hague has been torturing people into becoming his tools and the friends Maladie killed are implied to have been fellow scientists who participated in her torture.
Frank Mundi
Det. Frank Mundi
Portrayed By: Ben Chaplin
Big, gruff, and deeply moral, Detective Mundi trusts no one, least of all himself: his reputation for sudden violence (and excessive drink) is not unwarranted. Frank finds himself caught between the powerful, who ignore the laws of the land, and newly empowered, who ignore the laws of physics.
- The Alcoholic: He downs multiple drinks over the course of two hours while waiting for Hugo, and claims he was blind drunk when he and Hugo had sex. Hugo promptly retorts that yes, he was drunk... the first time.
- Armored Closet Gay: He's gay, but considering it's Victorian London, that isn't a reality he's comfortable with. He viciously denies it right to Hugo's face, his former lover (although granted, Hugo had just been taunting Frank for it and mocking Mary).
- The Dreaded: When he decides to throw Purist perps that were being uncooperative in the interrogation for assaulting a police officer instead of their original crime, the larger and brawnier mook decides to take up his offer...until the interrogator introduces Mundi as "the Ape", of East End boxing renown. Upon recognizing exactly whom he was about to get in a fight with, the mook was quick to back off and change his tune.
- Endearingly Dorky: When he meets Mary again after Amalia saves her - it's not as obvious as some other examples, but he still trips over his words and acts softer around her than with anyone else.
- Gayngst: He suffers from a lot of unhappiness over being gay, mostly due to him living in a homophobic society, though being blackmailed by his ex-boyfriend doesn't help at all. Being a cop, he also knows that men having sex is a criminal offense..
- Heartbroken Badass: Mary abandoned him at the altar six months prior to the start of the series. He still cares for her, though, and understands why she left - he says he wouldn't want to marry himself either, she knew his police work was more important to him, and that there were "worse things coming" (possibly referring to him being found out as gay. He becomes this even more after Mary is murdered.
- Incompatible Orientation: As it turns out, Mary running off before their wedding was a blessing in disguise for Frank - at least according to Hugo - as he's secretly a closeted gay man wrestling with his identity.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He comes off as rather abrasive and rude at first, but cares about his job and Mary deep down inside.
- Sherlock Scan: After only a cursory look-over, he's able to tell that a crime scene has been staged.
- Straight Gay: He turns out to be gay, and is no different from your average working-class Victorian Englishman.
- When He Smiles: He finally cracks a proper smile after Mary rushes to see him and hug him, and it's pretty damn pleasant considering how grumpy he usually is.
Hugo
Hugo Swann
Portrayed By: James Norton
A pansexual posh boy whose charm has about five years left on its lease. He runs a secret club and a side trade in blackmail. He’s devoted to fulfilling everyone’s worst impression of him — and fascinated by the Touched.
- Abusive Parents: His father was physically abusive, and now that he's ravaged by dementia, Hugo is only too happy to let him wallow.
- Blackmail: His stock-in-trade is blackmailing the members of his not-so-secret club.
- Depraved Bisexual: A pansexual pimp, he blackmails customers of his sex club, and exploits desperate Touched to get them working there. This is zig-zagged throughout the first season, to keep the audience guessing whether he's behind attacks on the Orphanage Touched, and ultimately this is a very downplayed instance of this trope. He's certainly a sleaze and uses people, but at the same time he has a lot of elements of the Ethical Slut: he doesn't seem to care much about his random sex partners - but they're also never presented as expecting more from him than a no-strings-attached romp and they show zero awe/fear of him, despite his much higher social power - not even his housemaid. His brothel looks more "burlesque" than seedy/exploitative and the sex workers all seem to be there voluntarily and at least partly seem to be the kind of sex worker who takes pride in their advanced skillset. And, as he's quick to point out, he doesn't "make" them do anything - he pays them fairly to do stuff and readily agrees to provide housing as well. Also, he seems to genuinely care about keeping them safe, and about consent: when he gets in trouble with a wealthy client who was injured by one of his employees because the guy wouldn't respect that employee's wish not to be touched, he's totally on the side of the employee and only angry at the client. He seems to genuinely like Augie despite his severe social awkwardness and, as Augie points out, unlike most people of their social class, he doesn't judge you for being "odd". note As for the extortion/blackmail: remember that he's doing that to a bunch of rich, powerful assholes who are exactly the establishment guys keeping the harsh Victorian anti-homosexuality laws on the books, and he's doing it in an effort to keep his queer-inclusive sex club from being raided and closed down - to create what he thinks is a safe space, not just for personal profit. The only sympathetic victim we know of is Frank - and from Hugo's outside perspective, Frank is just another closeted hypocrite copper who is apparently ready and willing to enforce those laws and to throw "his own kind" in jail. And there may be an element of "punish your ex who was too ashamed of you to keep the relationship" involved in that particular dynamic.
- Everyone Has Standards: He might be a hedonistic, selfish blackmailer but he's rather offended at the implication that he has anything to do the Touched being abducted or Mary's death.
- The Hedonist: Hugo likes to spend his time lounging around and cheerfully doing his best impression of Hedonism-bot.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The actress he's been banging backstage throughout the opera performance in the pilot episode notes that his penis is still hard after crossing paths with Maladie and her gang.
- Not Me This Time: When Frank confronts him over Mary's death and accuses him of arranging it out of a case of Green-Eyed Monster because Frank rejected him, Hugo is genuinely surprised Frank thinks he would do that.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: He comes across as a bit of a careless, none-too-bright playboy who's only interested in sex, but it quickly becomes apparent he's actually quite dangerous and smarter than he looks, having cultivated a club where he can blackmail any member he chooses.
- Odd Friendship: Extroverted, hedonistic, amoral social butterfly Hugo is best friends with awkward, browbeaten, stuff-shirt Augie.
- Proud Peacock: Clearly well dressed and incredibly vain and prideful.
Spoiler Character
Mrs. Amalia "Molly" True
Portrayed By: Laura Donnelly
The original inhabitant of Zephyr's current body, whose identity Zephyr adopts by the start of the series. She dies prior to the Touched coming into existence.
- Broken Bird: Molly was just a sweet shop worker who made all the wrong choices and got ground down by life.
- Death of Personality: Even more so than usual for this trope, since it is confirmed that another consciousness has taken Molly's body. Molly essentially died in the Thames that fateful day, and Amalia came out.
- Driven to Suicide: She is pushed to kill herself in the river by a lifetime of unhappiness, allowing Zephyr to take over her vacant body when the Galanthi passes by overhead. While her body survives, her consciousness appears to have moved on.
- Extreme Doormat: In contrast to warrior Zephyr, Molly allowed others to influence her and push her around her whole life — from her boss convincing her not to go after the guy she really wants, to her husband and mother-in-law forcing her to be at their beck and call.
- The One That Got Away: Varnum Dale is this for Molly. Varnum had few prospects at the time Molly was interested in him, so she married Thomas True. Varnum later got promoted to head of his office, while Thomas passed away and left Molly with massive debt.
- Sweet Baker: Molly is an adept French cake baker, and has a kindly, meek personality.
- Tragic Stillbirth: Molly had at least two failed pregnancies, and her husband was less than sympathetic about it.
Other Touched
Dr. Cousens
Dr. Horatio Cousens
Portrayed By: Zackary Momoh
A successful physician who works with Amalia and the Touched, Dr. Cousens's turn equips him with supernatural healing power.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Ironically, his ability to heal wounds simply by running his hands over them has hurt his business because fearful people see it as hoodoo, and now his only patients are the poor and desperate, like criminals and the Touched.
- Healing Hands: Appropriately for a physician, Cousens can heal people by touching them. However, it appears to have limitations. He needs to physically remove a bullet before treating the wound proper; and more than once stresses to his patients that the wound is not fully healed and they must avoid aggravating it as it finishes healing naturally.
- Nice Guy: Aside from cheating on his wife, he seems to be a thoroughly decent and kind man.
- Working with the Ex: He and Amalia once had an affair, which he called off because he couldn't bring himself to keep cheating on his wife. They've started up again as of "Hanged".
Mary
Mary Brighton
Portrayed By: Eleanor Tomlinson
A gentle but resilient woman, Mary pursues her dream of singing on stage despite a disappointing career and broken engagement. Her turn allows her to sing a haunting song that quite literally resonates with other Touched and illuminates them.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: She's the redhead to Penance's blonde and Amalia's brunette.
- Cool Big Sis: For Myrtle, albeit briefly.
- A Death in the Limelight: "Ignition" spends a lot of time on her, developing her relationships with some of the other characters (Frank, Myrtle and Lucy specifically) and makes it look like she's about to join the main cast only for her to be shot dead at the end of the episode.
- Morality Pet: For Frank. He's noticeably kinder and gentler with her than anyone else, he also reacts very strongly when he hears she's been kidnapped, threatening to kill Amalia if she's not brought back alive.
Harsher in Hindsight, as she dies in the very next episode. - Platonic Life-Partners: With Frank. She tells him she's figured out he's gay, but that she will always care for him and he will always be the first person she calls when she needs anything, which makes it that much more tragic when she's murdered.
- Runaway Bride: She abandoned Frank at the altar six months prior to the start of the series, but he doesn't blame her for it.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Mary is established as someone who represents hope, and gives hope to the Touched in a very literal way. She's the first main character killed off, to throw things off for the other characters. In Amalia's conversation with Lord Massen, she realizes this was deliberately invoked.
