Also I deeply appreciate how Bartimaeus is like “If I could kill Nathaniel, I would. I’m always lying in wait for the perfect opportunity. Anyway, he’s not that bad. One of the more pleasant masters I’ve had.”
What if Bartimaeus was predisposed to like Ptolemy even before he did anything Beautiful or Noble in the name of Ending Slavery because Ptolemy was just straight up the first person who ever laughed at his mean-spirited, shitty jokes
“Five candles had been set […] burning with black flames.”
I know that we shitpost a lot about how gothy Golem’s Eye era Nathaniel was, but I feel like we’re not paying nowhere near enough attention to Shadowfucker aka Khaba “wears black all the time, has a secret hideout decorated with skulls and dead shit, owns candles that burn with black flames, and is very obviously fucking a shadowy eldritch entity” The Cruel.
“the forms utukku wore were fashionable in the streets of nineveh back in 700 b.c. who goes round as a bull-headed spirit nowadays? exactly. it’s so passé.”
i, bartimaeus, keep up with the latest trends with my guises. such as “my fourteen-year-old ancient egyptian master who i loved”, “woman with horns for the heck of it”, and “spider”
• He had an alternate ending where Nathaniel lived but it didn’t feel fitting to the story (as much as it hurts I do agree)
• Bartimaeus does assume Nathaniel’s form in the future sometimes
• He did write bits of what happened to Kitty afterwards but not enough to publish a whole book
• Bartimaeus’ favorite form is Ptolemy
• In the end, Nathaniel is elevated from an anti-hero to a hero
• *this one bROke me* what Bart wanted to say in the very end is that he’s grown to love Nathaniel
• Stroud literally said that they loved each other
• don’t look at me
it’s been a while since i’ve told people to read bartimaeus
our heroes: a snarky millennia-old djinni with an embellished resume and a horrible reputation for getting too attached to gross humans, an overly ambitious kid magician ready to crush his enemies but who goes completely shell-shocked when he sees violence up close, a fiery revolutionary with a short fuse who cannot fathom the level of incompetence she is surrounded by
our villains: imperialism, the political class, selfishness, caste slavery
“I—though forced through lack of space to assume the form of a stoic guinea pig crouched between the girl’s shoe and the glove compartment—was my usual dignified self.”
Listen you could publish that file as is and I would die happy. It could literally just be a collection of random statements about the characters and I would lose my fucking mind.
scribblingface:Yes hello oh my gosh can we keep talking about the Bartimaeus trilogy for a moment because it's one of too few fantasy series that actually presents an anti-colonial narrative where the ruling government is terrible without being exaggeratedly ~evillll~, and where a grassroots resistance movement in a modern urban context are actually good guys not evil terrorists, and it does it all with great characters and laugh-out-loud funny moments. I love those books ;_;
JONATHAN STROUD IS AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST, ANTI-COLONIALIST, CULTURE LOVING GENIUS WHO WRITES THE GREATEST BOOKS YOU COULD EVER READ
AND HE WRITES THEM FOR CHILDREN WHOSE INTELLIGENCE HE RESPECTS MORE THAN MOST ADULTS
WHICH MAKES FOR A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR OUR NEXT GENERATION OF READERS.
Real talk though the amount of subtlety he puts into the narrative is amazing, like it’s not the focus of the story, but the setting is so mired in classist/marxist themes and dystopia without overly exaggerated and tired cliches.
And he understands oppression on such a well-thought out scale, on how even kindness doesn’t automatically mean equality, shows it in Bart and Kitty, all while never sacrificing the beautiful fantasy story.
He is, and will forever be, my favorite writer of all time. And Bartimaeus my favorite book series, forever.
“You have no idea how much I care! You have no idea why I’m doing this!”
“You think not?” The demon held up three knobbly, clawed fingers and counted them off swiftly. “Three guesses. Your king. Your country. Your religion. At least two of them, and probably all three. Well? Tell me I’m wrong.”
[…]
His shape suddenly blurred; it became a succession of tousled, wide-eyed youths, tall, short, handsome, plain, with skins of many nations. The last was the same beautiful, dark-haired guise she remembered from the gorge, but this time wingless, sober-faced. “You don’t need a djinni for this job,” the youth said. “Young men are best at dying for empty concepts.”
tbh my favourite scene from Bartimaeus is still the bit in Golem’s Eye where that one guy (I think it was Nat’s boss? Idk it’s been fucking ages since I read the books) casts a stupidly overwrought spell to catch a stupidly overwrought demon but he fucks up so the demon eats him
AND THEN
the other trapped demons just fucking stand around gossiping about it
![shadowy-dumbo-octopus:
““Five candles had been set […] burning with black flames.”
I know that we shitpost a lot about how gothy Golem’s Eye era Nathaniel was, but I feel like we’re not paying nowhere near enough attention to Shadowfucker aka Khaba...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/3f71cba6270d8c6e034c0c34f114153d/tumblr_p2mb2v0fFd1sqk8g9o1_500.jpg)
