Editing Gormenghast (series) (section)

==Characters==
Peake populated his imaginary world with a large cast of characters. These include:

===Ruling family===
'''Titus Groan:''' The main character of the series, and heir to the Earldom of Gormenghast. He succeeds to the title of 77th Earl while still a child, but as he grows older, he develops ambivalent feelings toward his home. He is torn between pride in his lineage and the desire to escape from the castle and its traditions. Titus is born at the beginning of the first book of the series, the son of Sepulchrave and Gertrude, and is an infant throughout the whole of ''[[Titus Groan]]''. He grows up and reaches young adulthood in the second book ''[[Gormenghast (novel)|Gormenghast]]'', which ends with him leaving Gormenghast after defeating [[Steerpike]] in battle. In the third book, ''[[Titus Alone]]'', Titus discovers a world outside of Gormenghast where the castle and its inhabitants are unknown. Titus also features in another book called ''[[Boy in Darkness]]'', which appears to take place during his youth in Gormenghast, but which is unconnected to the main story. Titus's character is one of yearning for freedom and the romance of being an ordinary person without the restrictions and responsibilities of the Earldom and the tradition that comes with it.

<blockquote>As for Titus, he was almost grown now to his full height. But he was of an odd highly-strung nature -- sullen and excitable by turns. Strong as need be for his years, he was more apt to have his energy sapped by the excess of his imagination than of his body.<ref>''Gormenghast'', Chapter 57, Part 3</ref></blockquote>

'''Lord [[Sepulchrave]]:''' 76th Earl and Titus's father. He is a melancholy man who feels shackled by his duties as Earl, although he never questions them. His only escape is reading. However, when the castle's Library is burnt down, he is driven insane and comes to believe that he is one of the death-owls that live in the abandoned Tower of Flints.

<blockquote>... a dark figure stole forth, closing the door behind him quietly, and with an air of the deepest dejection.... His face was very long and was olive coloured. The eyes were large, and of an eloquence, withdrawn. His nostrils were mobile and sensitive. His mouth, a narrow line....<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: "Sepulchrave"</ref></blockquote>

'''The Countess Gertrude:''' 76th Countess and Titus's mother. An immense, statuesque woman with coils of dark red hair, she pays little attention to her family or the rest of Gormenghast. Instead, she spends her time locked away in her bedroom, in the company of a legion of cats and birds, the only beings toward which she shows affection. However, when required to use her intelligence she turns out to be one of the cleverest people in the castle, when (along with Flay and the doctor) she recognizes and investigates the worrying changes transpiring in Gormenghast. She demonstrates unexpected leadership qualities during the flooding of the castle and hunt for Steerpike, but once those threats have passed she retreats back into her isolated world. According to Sepulchrave's sisters, the Ladies Cora and Clarice, Gertrude is of common blood and not of the noble bloodline of the Groans.<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: "The Room of Roots"</ref>

<blockquote>As the candles guttered or flared so the shadows moved from side to side, or up and down the wall, and with those movements behind the bed there swayed the shadows of four birds. Between them vacillated an enormous head. This umbrage was cast by her ladyship, the 76th Countess of Groan. She was propped against several pillows and a black shawl was draped around her shoulders. Her hair, a very dark red color of great luster, appeared to have been left suddenly while being woven into a knotted structure on the top of her head. Thick coils still fell about her shoulder or clustered on the pillows like burning snakes. Her eyes were of the pale green that is common among cats. They were large eyes, yet seemed, in proportion to the pale area of her face, to be small. The nose was big enough to appear so in spite of the expanse that surrounded it. The effect which she produced was one of bulk....<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: "Tallow and Birdseed"</ref></blockquote>

'''[[Lady Fuchsia Groan]]:''' Titus's older sister. Fanciful, impatient, immature, and self-absorbed, she can also be impulsively warm and caring. She at first resents Titus but develops a deep bond with him. Of all Titus's family, she is the one he loves most. Fuchsia also experiences a brief bond with her father, Lord Sepulchrave, during his mental breakdown after the library fire. Broken by years of loss, disappointment, and disillusionment, she is killed as she accidentally slips from the windowsill where she was standing contemplating suicide. As she falls, she strikes her head on the stonework, and drowns unconscious in the floodwaters surrounding the Castle.

<blockquote>... a girl of about fifteen with long, rather wild black hair. She was gauche in movement and in a sense ugly of face, but with how small a twist might she not suddenly have become beautiful. Her sullen mouth was full and rich -- her eyes smoldered. A yellow scarf hung loosely around her neck. Her shapeless dress was flaming red. For all the straightness of her back, she walked with a slouch.<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: "Fuchsia"</ref></blockquote>

'''Cora and Clarice Groan:''' Titus's aunts (sisters of Sepulchrave) are identical twins. They experienced spasms and 'fits' in their youth that temporarily paralysed the left-hand sides of their bodies. Their personalities appear indistinguishable and their combined conduct and conversation devoid of insight or [[intellectual disability|intelligence]] — although Cora believes that she is slightly cleverer than Clarice, their thoughts and motivations run along the same lines. Both crave political power and bitterly resent Gertrude, who they believe has robbed them of their rightful place in the hierarchy of Gormenghast. Their witless desire for the adulation they believe due to them by inheritance and their thirst for revenge against their brother's consort lead them to become Steerpike's pawns.

<blockquote>She and her sister were dressed in purple with gold buckles at their throats by way of brooches, and another gold buckle each at the end of hatpins which they wore through their gray hair in order apparently to match their brooches. Their faces, identical to the point of indecency, were quite expressionless, as though they were the preliminary layouts for faces and were waiting for sentience to be injected.<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: "Assemblage"</ref></blockquote>

=== Other Castle dwellers ===
Alongside the ruling Groan family there is a large population within the castle who service its daily needs. Although the "Castles", as they are known (to distinguish them from the Bright Carvers), are all commoners, they are nevertheless highly socially stratified, from the socially respectable Dr.&nbsp;Prunesquallor and the Professors to the lowly Grey Scrubbers, whose sole job is to clean the walls of the kitchen. However lowly the position of the "Castles" may be, they consider themselves to be far superior to the Bright Carvers who live outside the castle walls.
 
'''[[Steerpike]]:''' A youthful outsider, beginning as a kitchen boy, who worms his way into the hierarchy of Gormenghast for his own personal gain. Ruthlessly murderous, with a [[Niccolò Machiavelli#Machiavellian|Machiavellian]], highly intelligent and methodical mind, and a talent for manipulation, he can appear charming and sometimes even noble. But due to his fundamentally evil nature, he has natural personal enmity with Titus. He is finally hunted down and killed by Titus, who holds him responsible for the death of his sister, Fuchsia.

<blockquote>His body gave the appearance of being malformed, but it would be difficult to say exactly what gave it this gibbous quality. Limb by limb it appeared that he was sound enough, but the sum of these several members accrued to an unexpectedly twisted total. His face was pale like clay and save for his eyes, masklike. These eyes were set very close together, and were small, dark red, and of startling concentration.<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter 'Means of Escape'</ref></blockquote>

'''Mr Flay:''' Lord Sepulchrave's personal servant, who believes in strictly holding to the rules of Gormenghast. Nevertheless, he is not completely hard-hearted and cares a great deal for Titus and Fuchsia. He is eventually exiled from Gormenghast for throwing one of the Countess's cats at Steerpike. However, he secretly keeps an eye on the doings in the castle, and plays a crucial role in Steerpike's eventual unmasking as a traitor.

<blockquote>Mr Flay appeared to clutter up the doorway as he stood revealed, his arms folded.... It did not look as though such a bony face as this could give normal utterance, but rather that instead of sounds, something more brittle, more ancient, something drier would emerge, something more in the nature of a splinter or a fragment of stone. Nevertheless, the harsh lips parted. "It's me," he said, and took a step forward, his joints cracking as he did so. His passage across a room -- in fact his passage through life -- was accomplished by these cracking sounds, one per step, which might be likened to the breaking of dry twigs.<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: 'The Hall of the Bright Carvings'</ref></blockquote>

'''Dr Alfred Prunesquallor:''' The castle's resident physician. He is an eccentric individual with a high-pitched laugh and a grandiose wit which he uses on the castle's less intelligent inhabitants. Despite his acid tongue, he is an extremely kind and caring man who also is greatly fond of Fuchsia and Titus. (Several times, Prunesquallor's first name is given as "Bernard", but this inconsistency is considered an error on Peake's part.)<ref>{{cite web |title= Why does Peake sometimes call Dr Prunesquallor 'Alfred' and sometimes 'Bernard'?|url= http://www.peakestudies.com/mervyn_p.htm| website= peakestudies.com| publisher= | first= | last= |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060819044112/http://www.peakestudies.com/mervyn_p.htm| archive-date= August 19, 2006| access-date= }}</ref> Although he appears at first to be foppish and weak, the doctor later shows himself to be both intelligent and courageous, and he plays an important role in defeating Steerpike.

<blockquote>The doctor with his hyena laugh and his bizarre and elegant body, his celluloid face. His main defects? The insufferable pitch of his voice; his maddening laugh and his affected gestures. His cardinal virtue? An undamaged brain.<ref name="Gormenghast, Chapter 1">''Gormenghast'', Chapter 1</ref></blockquote>

'''Irma Prunesquallor:''' Doctor Prunesquallor's sister. Though she is anything but pretty, she is considerably vain. She desperately desires to be admired and loved by men. She becomes romantically involved with Bellgrove.

<blockquote>Vain as a child, thin as a stork's leg, and, in her black glasses, blind as an owl in daylight. She misses her footing on the social ladder at least three times a week, only to start climbing again, wriggling her pelvis all the while. She clasps her dead, white hands beneath her chin in the high hope of hiding the flatness of her chest.<ref name="Gormenghast, Chapter 2">''Gormenghast'', Chapter 2</ref></blockquote>

'''Abiatha Swelter:''' The fat, sadistic head chef of Gormenghast. His profound hatred for Flay leads him to attempt his murder; however, he is killed by his intended victim.

<blockquote>Abiatha Swelter, who wades in a slug-like illness of fat through the humid ground mists of the Great Kitchen. From bowls as big as baths, there rises and drifts like a miasmic tide the all but palpable odor of the day's bellytimber. The arrogance of this fat head exudes itself like an evil sweat.<ref name="Gormenghast, Chapter 1"/></blockquote>

'''Nannie Slagg:''' An ancient wrinkled doll-like 'dwarf' who nurses the infant Titus and Fuchsia before him. Nervous, self-pitying, child-like and lacking both mental agility and emotional comprehension, her life has been spent in service to the revered mores of Gormenghast. When called upon to perform the ceremonies accorded to her role, the combination of her reverence for the House, her intrinsic inferiority complex and simple concern for the comfort of the children render her muddled and terrfied. With her charges, she is prone to dramas of wounded feelings but her devotion, and loving nature, means she  is the only figure of affection to the young Titus and Fuschia.

<blockquote>... she is so minute, so frightened, so old, so querulous, she neither could, nor would, head any procession, even on paper. Her peevish cry goes out: "Oh, my weak heart! How could they?" and she hurries to Fuchsia either to smack the abstracted girl in order to ease herself, or to bury the wrinkled prune of her face in Fuchsia's side. Alone in her small room again, she lies upon her bed and bites her minute knuckles.<ref name="Gormenghast, Chapter 2"/></blockquote>

'''Sourdust:''' The Master of Ritual when the series begins. He is the one who coordinates the various arcane rituals that make up daily life in Gormenghast. After his death in the Library Fire, his position is taken up by his son Barquentine.

<blockquote>His beard was knotted and the hairs that composed it were black and white. His face was very lined, as though it had been made of brown paper that had been crunched by some savage hand before being hastily smoothed out and spread over the tissues. His eyes were deep set and almost lost in the shadows cast by his fine brow, which for all its wrinkles, retained a sweeping breadth of bone.<ref>''Titus Groan'', Chapter: 'Sepulchrave'</ref> </blockquote>

'''[[Barquentine (Gormenghast)|Barquentine]]:''' Follows his father into the role of Master of Ritual. He is lame in one leg, hideous, and unbelievably dirty. He is a consummate misanthrope who abuses and insults everybody he meets, and who cares only for the rigid application of the laws and traditions of Gormenghast. He makes the grievous error of allowing Steerpike to become his assistant.

<blockquote>The lynch-pin son of the dead Sourdust, by name Barquentine, Master of Ritual, is a stunted, cantankerous pedant of seventy, who stepped into his father's shoes (or, to be exact, his shoe, for this Barquentine is a one-legged thing who smites his way through ill-lit corridors on grim and echoing crutch).<ref name="Gormenghast, Chapter 2"/></blockquote>

'''Bellgrove:''' School Professor. One of Titus's teachers, who eventually ascends to Headmaster of Gormenghast. In many respects, he is the standard [[absent-minded professor]] who falls asleep during his own class and plays with marbles. However, deep inside him there is a certain element of dignity and nobility. At heart he is kindly, and if weak, at least has the humility to be aware of his faults. He begins a rather unusual romance with Irma Prunesquallor. He becomes something of a father figure to Titus.

<blockquote>He was a fine-looking man in his way. Big of head, his brow and the bridge of his nose descended in a single line of undeniable nobility. His jaw was as long as his brow and nose together and lay exactly parallel in profile to those features. With his leonine shock of snow-white hair there was something of the major prophet about him. But his eyes were disappointing. They made no effort to bear out the promise of the other features, which would have formed the ideal setting for the kind of eye that flashes with visionary fire. Mr Bellgrove's eyes didn't flash at all.<ref>''Gormenghast'', Chapter 10</ref></blockquote>

===Bright Carvers===
Also known as the Mud Dwellers or the Outer Dwellers, the Bright Carvers live directly outside the castle walls, crammed closely together in hovels of mud and straw. Their lives are hard and monotonous, and they live solely on jarl root (a kind of tree growing in Gormenghast forest), and crusts of bread lowered down from the castle walls each morning. Their sole obsession is the carving of beautiful wooden sculptures, brightly painted, which they present to the Groans on a particular day each year in June. Only three of these carvings are chosen by the Earl of Gormenghast to be kept and the rest are burnt. Fierce rivalry exists between the Carvers to present the best carvings, and their lives are dominated by this and by their own long-held feuds and grudges against each other. The Bright Carvers are a race apart from the Castle dwellers, living by their own cultural norms and customs, which are impenetrable to outsiders.

'''Keda:''' A woman from the Bright Carvers' village just outside the walls of Gormenghast. She is chosen to be Titus's wet nurse, but eventually leaves this position. She has two lovers, Braigon and Rantel, who fight a duel and both die for her, but not before one of them impregnates her. Eventually, she kills herself by leaping off a crag, after giving birth to a daughter&nbsp;— The Thing.

<blockquote> Dark, almost lambent like a topaz, she is still young, her sole disfigurement the universal bane of the Outer Dwellers, the premature erosion of an exceptional beauty&nbsp;— a deterioration that follows with merciless speed upon an adolescence almost spectral.<ref name="Gormenghast, Chapter 1"/> </blockquote>

'''The Thing:''' The daughter of Keda, foster sister of Titus. Due to her illegitimacy, she is an outcast who becomes a [[feral child]] living in the wilderness surrounding Gormenghast. She is fierce and untameable, living only for herself, and takes her revenge on the Bright Carvers by mutilating their carvings. Believing that she is in every way the opposite of Gormenghast, Titus becomes infatuated with her. She is killed by a bolt of lightning.

<blockquote> No: the face was more mask-like than expressive. It symbolised her way of life, not her immediate thoughts. It was the colour of a robin's egg, and as closely freckled. Her hair was black and thick but she had hacked it away, a little above her shoulders. Her rounded neck was set straight upon her shoulders, and was so flexible that the liquid ease with which she turned it was reminiscent of a serpent.<ref>''Gormenghast'', Chapter 68</ref> </blockquote>

===Beyond Gormenghast===
In ''Titus Alone'' Titus leaves Gormenghast and after a time spent wandering comes to the city, a futuristic place of glass and steel buildings, flying machines and other modern technology. Titus is disoriented by the huge contrast between the city and his old home, particularly since none of the people he meets have ever heard of Gormenghast or show much interest in it. In his journey through the city Titus meets a large number of characters, some friendly and some hostile. Later Titus leaves the city and travels to a land dominated by a sinister factory beside a lake.

'''Muzzlehatch''' is a man who drives around the city in a large [[shark]]-like car, who comes upon Titus lying faint on the waterfront and brings him home with him. He initially helps Titus not because he cares for him, but because he hates the city's police authorities, who are pursuing Titus as a vagrant. Muzzlehatch has a zoo at his house, and when not driving his car, he rides about on some of his animals, such as a stag or a llama. Despite his initial indifference, he becomes a mentor to Titus and helps him navigate his way about the city's confusing and dangerous life.

<blockquote> The Driver, a great, gaunt, rudder-nosed man, square-jawed, long-limbed, and muscular, appeared to be unaware of the condition of his car or of the danger to himself or to the conglomeration of characters who lay tangled among their nets in the rotting 'stern' of the dire machine.<ref>''Titus Alone'', Chapter 7</ref> </blockquote>

'''Juno''' is a former lover of Muzzlehatch, who agrees to be Titus's guardian when he is captured and put on trial, in order to save him from going to an institution. Although she is twice his age, she and Titus become lovers, in a passionate but brief affair. However, after the initial excitement of their liaison, Titus feels increasingly trapped and leaves Juno to strike out into the city on his own.

<blockquote> Juno was a silhouette against the lighted entrance. From the full, rounded, and bell-shaped hips which swayed imperceptibly as she moved, arose the column of her almost military back; and from her shoulders sprang her neck, perfectly cylindrical, surmounted by her classic head.<ref>''Titus Alone'', Chapter 33</ref> </blockquote>

'''Cheeta''' is a woman of about Titus's own age, who finds Titus wandering in a fever and nurses him back to health. In the process she becomes infatuated with him, and fascinated by his fevered ravings about Gormenghast. She is the daughter of a scientist who runs the factory where it is hinted at that sinister experiments are taking place. Although Titus is attracted to her, he spurns her advances, and she resolves to take her revenge. After hearing Titus telling many stories of Gormenghast, she arranges a mocking pageant or parade with grotesque caricatures of the inhabitants of the castle in order to humiliate him and unhinge his mind.

<blockquote> For hers was a presence not easily forgotten. Her body was exquisite. Her face indescribably quizzical. She was a modern. She had a new kind of beauty. Everything about her face was perfect in itself, yet curiously (from the normal point of view) misplaced. Her eyes were large and stormy grey, but were set a thought too far apart; yet not so far as to be immediately recognised. Her cheekbones were taut and beautifully carved, and her nose, straight as it was, yet gave the impression of verging, now on the retroussé side, now on the aquiline. As for the curl of her lips, it was like a creature half asleep, something that like a chameleon would change its colour. Her mouth, today, was the colour of lilac blossom, very pale.<ref>''Titus Alone'', Chapter 69</ref> </blockquote>