Septimus Heap - Characters

Characters

Main article: List of Septimus Heap characters See also: Septimus Heap (character), Jenna Heap, and Marcia Overstrand

The eponymous protagonist of the series is Septimus Heap. As the seventh son of a seventh son, the aptly named Septimus has exceptional magical powers. He shares his birthday with Jenna, his adoptive sister, but is presumed dead at birth by his family. For most of the first novel he appears as Boy 412, a child from the Young Army, where he has spent the first ten years of his life after DomDaniel attempted to abduct him. Thereafter he is apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand. He has a mop of curly hair, wears green apprentice robes and has a Dragon Ring on his right hand. In the second novel, he acquires a dragon called Spit Fyre as a pet. According to a review in the Manila Standard Today, the contrast between the caution he has learned from an early age and his longing for the love and affection of a family makes him an intriguing character.

Adopted by the Heap family as a baby in place of Septimus, Jenna Heap is the daughter of an assassinated queen. She is a small girl, with deep violet eyes and fair complexion; she wears a deep red cloak and the gold circlet of the princess on her head. She is portrayed as loving and caring at heart, but sometimes very stubborn. In the first novel she has a pet rock called Petroc Trelawney (presumably named after Petroc Trelawny), which she loses when the Marram Marshes are flooded; she later acquires a pet duck called Ethel. The ambiguity of Jenna's characterization has been questioned, with one critic commenting: "s the Princess or Queenling, she comes from a turbulent past and is thrust into the anonymous world of ordinary society without any inkling of her royal background. The reader is therefore left guessing whether or not she has it in her to rise to the tenets of her position as ruler of the Castle."

Marcia Overstrand is the powerful, ambitious and wilful ExtraOrdinary Wizard of the series. She is characterized as stern, bad-tempered and intimidating, but with a good heart beneath. Her affection towards her apprentice Septimus is manifest in the novels, as is the responsibility she feels to protect him and his sister, even with her own life. She is described as a tall woman, with long, dark curly hair and deep-green eyes, and generally wears a deep purple tunic with purple python-skin boots. Her symbol and source of power, an Akhu-Amulet, hangs around her neck. Her haughty and vain characterization has been praised as a "well-written stand-alone".

The main antagonist of the first two novels is DomDaniel, a Necromancer and ex-ExtraOrdinary Wizard who wants to regain control of the Wizard Tower from Marcia Overstrand. The antagonist of the third novel, is Queen Etheldredda. Several other characters appear regularly in the novels, including Septimus's parents Silas and Sarah Heap, Septimus's friend Beetle, and a trader called Snorri Snorrelssen.