YMMV / The Bartimaeus Trilogy

• Badass Decay: Bartimaeus throughout the trilogy. Justified in that Nathaniel's repeated summoning of him in too short a timeframe has severely weakened his essence, to the point where his form begins to literally decay in the third book.
• Catharsis Factor: Julius Tallow is so loathsome that when he gets devoured by an afrit it is impossible not to cheer.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The footstool that Bartimaeus mistakes (possibly on purpose) for a djinni.
• Fridge Brilliance
  • Some were surprised at how callous and different Bartimaeus was in the prequel. Throughout the book he kills his master, mentions pickling another, is quite willing to eat humans, meets a demon who loves his master and believes him to be disgusting and pathetic, and grovels more than he ever did in the original three books. Then you realize - Bartimaeus hasn't met Ptolemy yet.
  • Why do we not see any technology more advanced than the telephone? Because with Magicians using magic and demons for things like sending messages, spying and in general carrying out their dirty work there was no demand to develop more advanced technology. The Magicians certainly don't want the Commoners to have access to anything that could threaten them or their power, so don't let things like walkie talkies, advanced bombs or mobile phones be invented.
• Genius Bonus: The last emperor of the Holy Roman Empire is a fat man which British propaganda exaggerates by claiming he cannot walk and has to be moved around in a wheelchair. This might be a reference to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose gout forced him to be carried around in a sedan chair (his son Philip II also suffered from it and had a literal wheelchair built for himself).
• Harsher in Hindsight: Bartimaeus' aside halfway through book 3 about the impracticality of lions' manes in combat seems like just another of his regular doses of snark at the time. Cue the final Ptolemy chapter, and we discover he was speaking from rather tragic experience.
• He's Just Hiding: Some readers insist that Nathaniel somehow survived the end of the third book, with a semi-popular theory that he was sucked to the Other Place.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After having seen another insane, skeletal villain rant about the advantages of having a body, many readers will be tempted to read Honorious's lines with the voice of James Spader in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
  • In Ptolemy's Gate, after Kitty goes the Other Place to get help from Bartimaeus against Nouda's conspiracy, Nathaniel says her aura makes her look like if her hair is flaming. Just one month after the release of the book, an anime series about a flame-haired girl and her caged spirit who protect mankind from otherworldly creatures aired in Japan.
• Ho Yay:
  • Uh. Ptolemy, the few times he and Bartimaeus interact. Can also be seen as Intergenerational Friendship - after all, it's YMMV. At least, the subtext is there to be seen that way.
  • With Nathaniel, too. For all his complaints about Bartimaeus, Nathaniel keeps finding excuses to bring him back, even when he could have used a more powerful or efficient servant. Bartimaeus is also the closest thing Nathaniel has to a friend and is the reason Nathaniel didn't become like the other magicians.
  • Khaba and his marid Ammet in the prequel. Good grief.
  • Faquarl/Bartimaeus is a surprisingly popular slash pairing in the fandom.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Lovelace is clearly a scumbag from moment one, but he really crosses the line when he orders Jabor to kill everyone in Nathaniel's house (including the innocent Mrs. Underwood) even though Nathaniel confessed that only he was involved.
  • Arthur Underwood crosses it when he's perfectly willing to let Lovelace kill Nathaniel to save his own skin. He may have crossed it even earlier when he catches Nathaniel with summoning equipment, and suggests that he's thinking of killing him on the spot, and only doesn't do so because Nathaniel has just been officially registered with the government, meaning that "forms would have to be filled out" and "his judgment would be called into question." It's especially scummy, since it happens immediately after Nathaniel admits he stole the Amulet instead of just letting Underwood take the blame.
• Paranoia Fuel: In one of the footnotes in which Bartimaeus is describing the nature of the demons, (specifically the fact that they can't be seen unless you have special glasses or they want you to see them) he remarks that there is probably something with lots of tentacles sitting behind you right... about... NOW!
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Mildly so. It's rather surprisingly dark for a children's book series.

---