Bartimaeus (Bartimaeus trilogy)

Bartimaeus (bar-ti-may-us) is a fictional character in the Bartimaeus Trilogy written by Jonathan Stroud. He is a sarcastic djinni of the fourth level and 5,010 years old at the beginning of the first book. His many masters have included Gilgamesh, Solomon, one of the Ptolemies, Tycho Brahe, Faust, Zarbustibal, and, most recently, the British boy magician Nathaniel (known as John Mandrake to his peers), who is his master for the duration of the trilogy. His trademark cheekiness and wry, often hilarious side comments annotate the novels. He enjoys insulting his master for appearance, emotions, and stupidity. The chapters that he narrates often contain humorous footnotes that add information on the nature of demons and his history.

Overview

I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have run with the buffalo fathers of the plains. I have watched over Old Zimbabwe till the stones fell and the jackals fed on its people. I am Bartimaeus! [1]

Some of Bartimaeus's names of power include "Bartimaeus of Uruk", "Rekhyt of Alexandria", "Necho of Jerusalem", "Sakhr Al-Jinni", "N'Gorso the Mighty", the "Serpent of Silver Plumes", and "Wakonda of the Algonquin". He also had a hand in the building of the Parthenon, the Stone Bridge and walls of Prague, the walls of Karnak, Uruk and Jericho, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. For the Leaning Tower, he says in the books that the reason it's leaning it because the Architects didn't take his advice.

As well he has "scattered the magicians of Nimrud, set Barbary Coast aflame, sent cruel Ammet, Koh and Jabor spinning to their doom..." (Ptolemy's Gate)

Some of his notable masters included: Tycho Brahe, for whom Bartimaeus created a gold nose, Solomon, Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), who had a lasting effect on Bartimaeus, Nathaniel Underwood/John Mandrake, who is Bartimaeus' master for most of the duration of the Trilogy, Gilgamesh, Faust, Zarbustibal, Nefertiti, Hiawatha and Kathleen Jones.

History

Bartimaeus's name was first uncovered in Ancient Sumer c. 3000 B.C. He served various powerful masters over the next thousands of years. Bartimaeus's past ties in to the plot of the novels. One of Bartimaeus's most important masters was Ptolemy, a young magician of ancient Egypt. Ptolemy was a good master to Bartimaeus and bestowed upon him three great gifts. The first was equal treatment, an almost unheard of kindness between Magician and Djinni. The second was freedom to walk the Earth and "the Other Place" whenever Bartimaeus chose, without the normal restrictions magicians placed upon Djinni. The final and greatest gift was that when death was inevitable, Ptolemy sacrificed the last few seconds of his life to release Bartimaeus (an unheard of action among magicians), leaving him as the only surviving servant of Ptolemy. Interestingly, Nathaniel does the same thing, to break Gladstone's Staff in order to kill Nouda. Out of feelings of deep affection, or possibly even love, Bartimaeus often wears the guise of Ptolemy on most visible planes.

There are also hints during the course of the trilogy that Bartimaeus may be or used to be considerably more powerful and resourceful than he lets on, able to defeat spirits stronger than himself by outwitting them and exploiting their weaknesses. He states that "Ramuthra fled before his majesty, Tchue cowered in a crack in the earth, and Hoepo the Thunder Snake ingested his own tail and swallowed himself rather than taste his fury" These entities are hinted to be extremely powerful entities from the heart of the other place. In the case with Ramuthra, however, Bartimaeus is clearly bragging since he had actually really little to do with the fall of that mighty demon which was banished by Nathaniel. Therefore, it is possible to think that Bartimaeus is also bragging about Tchue and Hoepo. In addition, he is shown to be able to survive encounters with very powerful spirits, as well as brief asides where he mentions singlehandedly killing an afrit on two occasions and destroying six djinn on another, and single-handedly fighting off twenty Foliots. Whether there is any basis in his claims is never confirmed, although it is more than likely as he was capable of defeating both Jabor, a very powerful djinni, and Honorius, an afrit of the ninth level. At both occasions however Bartimaeus is extremely lucky, uses the element of silver, and/or get the help of others including Nathaniel. However, it is notable that he destroyed many ambushing djinn while protecting Ptolemy, and his roar of rage caused them to momentarily halt their siege of the temple that Ptolemy was hiding in.

Role in trilogy

In The Amulet of Samarkand, Bartimaeus is summoned by Nathaniel to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from Simon Lovelace, who viciously humiliated Nathaniel as a child. As Bartimaeus escapes from Lovelace's home, he comes into contact with Faquarl, a powerful djinni under Lovelace's control. Bartimaeus escapes Faquarl by hurling him into a fireplace and returns to Nathaniel. Nathaniel then charges Bartimaeus to hide the Amulet in Arthur Underwood's study. At this point Bartimaeus discovers Nathaniel's true name, and gains power over him. However, Nathaniel finds a way to make sure Bartimaeus does not betray him, and sends him to spy on Lovelace. He is taken captive to the Tower of London, where Faquarl and Jabor free him. He is then taken captive by Faquarl, but he soon escapes Faquarl again by lighting him on fire. His escape leads Lovelace straight to Nathaniel, however, where Lovelace takes back the Amulet, killing Nathaniel's old master and his wife, Mr. Underwood and Mrs. Underwood, Nathaniel and Bartimaeus escape, and soon discover that Lovelace is conspiring to destroy the British government by summoning a great demon named Ramuthra. Despite Bartimaeus's warnings and advice towards self-preservation, they go after Lovelace, eventually being trapped in a room with Lovelace and every major member of the government. Using the Amulet of Samarkand to protect himself, Lovelace summons Ramuthra into the room, which is revealed to be a gigantic pentacle. During the conflict, Bartimaeus steals the amulet from Lovelace, who is destroyed. Nathaniel then manages to close the rift to the Other Place and, in doing so, stops Ramuthra. Afterwards, Nathaniel allows Bartimaeus to return to the Other Place (after promising never to summon Bartimaeus again in exchange for Bartimaeus's word that if summoned by another magician, not to reveal Nathaniel's birth name). Before he leaves, Bartimaeus advises Nathaniel not to fall prey to the same cruelties and dishonesties which most other magicians exhibit.

But Nathaniel does summon Bartimaeus again, in The Golem's Eye, reneging on his original promise, much to the latter's displeasure.. They now have to deal with the Resistance, a group of freedom fighters who have come together with the aim of ending the domination of the magicians, as well as with a mysterious monster called a golem, which has the ability to sap the essence of spirits and humans alike. One of the members of the Resistance, Kitty Jones, becomes a survivor when the group is tricked into unleashing a powerful afrit, Honorius that destroys nearly all of them. Pressured by the increased government-wide hunt for her (led by Nathaniel), she decides to continues her own, one-woman, campaign against the magicians. In the meantime, Bartimaeus is commanded to destroy Honorius, who was unleashed by the Resistance. He eventually manages to drown the afrit in the Thames River, suceeding and then being commanded to capture Kitty. She strikes up the beginnings of a bond with Bartimaeus, while Mandrake is trying to find a powerful magical item known as Gladstone's Staff. The staff had been taken by Kitty while escaping the afrit, and she leads him to the staff. The golem then arrives to try and take the staff, but Kitty manages to destroy it using her natural resilience to magic. She then flees as Nathaniel and Bartimaeus expose Duvall (the chief of police) as the person controlling the golem, in a conspiracy to gain power and eventually become Prime Minister.

The story continues in Ptolemy's Gate, which reveals some interesting facts about Bartimaeus's background. By now he is quite weak through having been over-used by John Mandrake (who is afraid that if he dismisses him, Bartimaeus will reveal his birth name, Nathaniel, putting him in danger from enemy magicians). Without a recent return to the Other Place, he is close to disintegration, and the increasingly dangerous tasks Mandrake charges him with make it all the harder. Kitty Jones, although not a magician, manages to learn some spells with the aim of tracking Bartimaeus down and trying to establish peace between djinn and humans. This is further complicated when the majority of the government members are captured by Quentin Makepeace, a playwright and false friend of the Prime Minister. Makepeace's plan involves grafting demons into his and a few loyal followers' bodies. But after they complete the summonings, the demons inside them destroy their human consciousness and assume complete control, revealing that this whole plan was created by the demon Faquarl, to rout humanity and end the demons' suffering. During this upheaval, John Mandrake realizes that he has become a different person, the kind of person he detested as a child. Reverting back to his true name, Nathaniel, he teams up with Kitty to escape the immediate threat of being forced into having a demon take over his body, and to find a way to reverse the damage that has been done. Kitty, with Nathaniel's aid, uses a technique called Ptolemy's Gate to cross over to the Other Place and speak to Bartimaeus, who was released when Nathaniel was forced by the demons to dismiss all of his servants. Kitty convinces Bartimaeus to allow Nathaniel to summon him using the same procedure the demons were using to grow their numbers, with one major difference: Bartimaeus will cooperate with Nathaniel, instead of destroying him, to stop the masterless demons. Using Gladstone's Staff, which Nathaniel had appropriated from the government vaults, they destroy the demon-human hybrids, eventually coming into conflict with the entity Nouda. This spirit, which Makepeace had summoned into himself, was almost as strong as Ramuthra. With a grim realization of his only chance, Nathaniel activates the full force of Gladstone's Staff, a force that will destroy Nouda, and Nathaniel along with it. Before releasing the Staff, Nathaniel dismisses Bartimaeus as the Glass Palace crashes down around him. While Nathaniel is almost certainly dead, but Bartimaeus escaped, and the last paragraph is told from his point of view in the Other Place. While it is most likely Nathaniel is dead, it is conceivable that the entities in Gladstone's staff, protected him out of sheer gratitude for being released.

Notes

• Bartimaeus is stated to be a djinni of the fourteenth level during The Amulet of Samarkand, while in The Golem's Eye he is a djinni of the fourth level. Stroud has stated this to be a typo on the forums.

Books In The Trilogy

• The Amulet of Samarkand ISBN 0-7868-1859-X
• The Golem's Eye ISBN 0-385-60615-X
• Ptolemy's Gate ISBN 0-385-60868-3

External Links

• Official site for the Bartimaeus Trilogy