Irish Rogues and Fairies in Eoin Colfer

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Irish Rogues and Fairies in Eoin Colfers
Artemis Fowl Books

• by
• Don L. F. Nilsen
• Alleen Pace Nilsen

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(No Transcript)
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The Artemis Fowl Books

• Beginning in 2002, Eoin Colfers Artemis Fowl
  books have been competing with J. K. Rowlings
  Harry Potter books for the 1 ranking in the New
  York Times best seller list for young readers.
• Both of these series are Gothic fantasies
  involving young teenagers as their protagonists
  and as their audiences.

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Artemis FowlThe Irish Rogue

• The Irish Rogue is not a criminal, but he is very
  bright and charismatic. And he is subversive.
• Artemis Fowl is a typical Irish Rogue, in the
  tradition of Christy Mahon in John Synges
  Playboy of the Western World, Mr. Boyle in Sean
  OCaseys Juno and the Paycock, of Finn MacCool
  in James Joyces Finnegans Wake, and of Sebastian
  Dangerfield in J. P. Donleavys The Ginger Man.
• Jonathan Swift was even being a bit roguish when
  he wrote A Modest Proposal.

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• Rogues are revered in Ireland, because it was the
  Rogues who fought back when the English were
  taking over Ireland.
• Rogues break rules and laws, but it is always for
  the greater good, as when Artemis steals some
  fairy gold to help rescue his father from the
  Russian mafia.
• Rogues are entertaining and high spirited, and
  they diffuse violence with their use of humor.
  Although they are flirtatious, they seldom form
  any lasting alliances with women (Nilsen 9,
  Waters 40).

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• Many rogues are linked to an aristocratic
  figure, usually an Irish rebel chief, for whom he
  risks his life.
• The rogue is articulate, good natured, fun
  loving, and exhibits an irrepressible élan
  vital (Nilsen 74, Waters 47).
• Rogues tend to be imaginative and resilient comic
  figures (Nilsen 123, Waters 77)

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Eoin Colfers Little People

• Eoin Colfers little people are derived from
  Irish mythology and folklore.
• In some ways, Eoin Colfers little people are the
  same as are the little people in Irish folklore.
• But in other ways, they are very different.

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Colfers fairies are all of the races that live
underground. The term includes
Centaurs (11) Demons (15) Dwarves (16) Elves (27) Fairies (37) Gargoyles (42) Gnomes (43) Goblins (44) Gremlins (49) Imps (50) Krakens (54) Leprechauns (58) Pixies (59) Quaggas (67) Sprites (68) Trolls (69) Warlocks (73)
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Colfers Mud People

• Colfers Mud People are the same as Rowlings
  Muggles. Theyre the human beings and they
  include
• Jerbal Argon
• Briar Cudgeon
• Carla Frazetti
• Loafers McGuire
• John Spiro, and of course
• Juliet and Domovoy Butler and
• Artemis Fowl Junior and Senior

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Visual Imagery and Characterization

• Like many fantasy writers, Eoin Colfer
  effectively uses visual imagery to establish his
  fantasy world.
• But Eoin Colfer also uses visual imagery in
  explaining the characteristics of his various
  fantasy species as a whole,
• And of special characters who represent these
  various species.

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Colfers Centaurs (Foaly)

• In Colfers Artemis Fowl books, the only fairies
  that are not Little People are the centaurs.
• Like other centaurs, Colfers centaurs are human
  in front and equine in back.
• In The Time Paradox, there is mention of a human
  movie about Centaurs that considers them to be
  noble and sporty. Male centaurs are expected
  to take more than one bride (24-25).

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Colfers Demons

• Colfers demons are the eighth family of the
  fairy people.
• When the other fairy people were forced to live
  underground, the demons refused to go.
• They live in Hybras, the city over which the sky
  is forever tinged with the red glow of dawn.

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Colfers Dwarves

• Colfers dwarves are small, compact and earthy.
• Dwarf males can unhinge their jaws, allowing
  them to ingest several pounds of earth a second.
• This material is processed by a superefficient
  metabolism, stripped of any useful mineralsand
  ejected at the other end (Artemis Fowl 228).
• Chapter 6 of The Lost Colony is entitled, Dwarf
  walks into a bar (131).

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• Dwarf hair is actually a network of living
  antennae, similar to feline whiskers, that can do
  everything from trap beetles to bounce sonar
  waves off a tunnel wall (The Eternity Code
  113-114).
• The Derrière bottling plant employs Dwarfs to put
  bubbles in their carbonated drinks.

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Mulch Diggums

• Mulch Diggums (a.k.a. Lance Digger, Mo Digence,
  and The Grouch) is a kleptomaniac dwarf who has
  been convicted many times for digging and
  entering.
• He loves to unbutton his bum flap and destroy
  whatever is behind him with a blast of stinky
  air.
• Chapter 11 of The Arctic Incident is entitled,
  Mulch Ado about Nothing.

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• When it is Mulchs job to disable a surveillance
  camera Mulch uses the Dwarf science of
  reflexology.
• Every part of the foot is connected to a part
  of the body. And it just so happens that the
  left little toe is connected to my----
• Juliet gingerly grasped the toe, its black curly
  hairs obligingly parting to allow her access to
  the joint.
• Mulch fine tuned his aim. Okay, Squeeze (The
  Eternity Code 221).

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• Juliet held her breath, and closed her fingers
  around the joint. The pressure sped up Mulchs
  leg in a series of jolts.
• The dwarf fought to keep his aim true in spite of
  his thrashings. Pressure built in his abdomen
  and exploded through his bum flap with a dull
  thump. A missile of compressed air shot across
  the room, heat blur surrounding it like waves of
  water.
• Too much topspin, groaned Mulch. I loaded
  it.

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• The air ball spiraled toward the ceiling,
  shredding layers like an onion.
• The unlikely missile impacted against the wall a
  meter ahead of its target.
• Luckily, the ricochet clipped the camera box,
  sending it spinning like a plate on a stick (The
  Eternity Code 222).

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Colfers Elves (Frond, Grub and Trouble Kelp,
Root, Short, Verbil Vishby)

• Most of the LEPrecon unit are elves like Corporal
  Lily Frond, Corporal Grub Kelp, Captain Trouble
  Kelp, Commander Julius Root, Captain Holly Short,
  Captain Chix Verbil and Marshal Vishby.
• Colfers elves can fly, and they can heal people
  with their blue sparks.

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Colfers Fairies

• Fairy is the term that Colfer uses for all of
  the people who live underground the centaurs,
  demons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, gargoyles,
  gnomes, goblins, gremlins, imps, leprechauns,
  pixies, sprites, trolls, and warlocks.
• The good fairies (including the centaurs, but
  excluding the goblins, trolls and one Pixie Opal
  Koboi) are also called The People.
• There are also quaggas and krakens in Colfers
  fantasy world.
• Fairies like to do time stops, and use
  bio-bombs.
• In contrast there are the Mud People, one of whom
  is Artemis Fowl (a little person) and Butler (a
  big person).

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Colfers Gargoyles (Qwan)

• Qwan, who was the planets most experienced
  time-traveling fairy, wrote in his best-selling
  autobiography, Qwan My Time Is Now, that,
  riding the time stream is like flying through a
  dwarfs intestine.
• There are very nice free-flowing stretches, but
  then you turn a corner to find the thing backed
  up and putrid (The Time Paradox 97).
• Qwan had started out as an Imp, but he warped
  into a Warlock and was enchanted into a Gargoyle.

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Colfers Gnomes

• Colfers gnomes dedicated their lives to pizza.
  Every year on the anniversary of Bogs first day
  of business, they chartered a shuttle and took a
  picnic aboveground.
• The picnic consisted of pizza, tuber beer and
  pizza-flavored ice cream.
• These parties took place at Stonehenge, in
  Wiltshire. It was at the end of an LEP chute.
• A gnome called Bog had realized how many
  tourists forgot their sandwiches on aboveground
  jaunts, and so had set up shop beside the
  terminal (The Eternity Code 53).

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Colfers Goblins (Wart-Face)

• Goblins are described as Evolutions little
  joke. Pick the dumbest creatures on the planet
  and give them the ability to conjure fire (The
  Eternity Code 28).
• The LEP (Lower Elements Police) are worried about
  the Goblins uprising instigated by the Bwa Kell
  triad. They are trying to make the Haven
  insecure.
• If even one renegade fairy got himself captured
  by the Mud Men, then Haven would cease to be a
  haven (The Eternity Code 25).

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• Goblins had barely enough electricity in their
  brains to power a ten-watt bulb (The Arctic
  Incident 35).
• A group of goblins would corner a stray brother
  dwarf, pin him down, and then the leader would
  give him the double barrels of a fireball in
  his face (Artemis Fowl 232)

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Colfers Gremlins

• Colfers Gremlins are little people, but they are
  not like the gremlins of World War I, or of World
  War II, or of the movies that contain the name
  Gremlin in their titles.

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Colfers Imps (No 1, Qwan)

• Many of the chapters in The Lost Colony, are
  impish puns like the following
• Chapter 4 Mission IMPossible
• Chapter 5 IMPrisoned
• Chapter 8 Sudden IMPact
• (84, 116, 170)

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Krakens (Shelly, Little Sister)

• The giant sea monster that is the kraken sent
  its finned tentacles spiraling toward the oceans
  surface, pulling its bloated body behind.
• Its single eye rolled manically in its socket,
  and its curved beak, the size of a schooners
  prow, was open wide, filtering the rushing water
  through to its ripplilng gills.
• The kraken was hungry, and there was room for
  only one thought in its tiny brain as it sped
  toward the holiday ferry above.
• KillKillKILL (The Time Paradox 23).

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• The kraken is a docile creature whose main
  defenses are its sheer size and the bulk of
  shell, gas, and fat cells enclosing a melon-sized
  brain, which provides it with just enough
  intelligence to feed itself and shed its shell.
• Underneat the crust of rock, weed, and coral, the
  kraken resembles nothing more than the common
  acorn barnacle, albeit a barnacle that could
  easily house an Olympic stadium or two (The Time
  Paradox 30).

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Colfers Leprechauns

• In the underworld, it is the LEPrecon unit that
  must police the underworld and keep things going
  smoothly.
• LEP is an acronym for Lower Element Police.
• The recon part of the name alludes to
  reconaissance.
• According to Colfer, The word leprechaun
  actually originated from LEPrecon (Artemis Fowl
  43).

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Colfers Pixies (Koboi, Mervall and Descant Brill)

• Colfers Pixies are small and they have pointed
  ears.
• Doodah Day was something of a legend as a fish
  smuggler.
• But when he was caught by Holly Short, and
  entombed in Dwarf spittle, Vinaya said, Yes.
  Thats Doodah Day. The fish smuggler. Quite a
  catch.
• But then she continued the fish metaphor, Youre
  going to have to cut him loose, Holly. We have
  bigger snails to pop (The Lost Colony 35).

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• When a pixie was instructed to do something, you
  could rest assured that that thing would be done.
• Pixies made wonderful employees. They were
  methodical, patient and determined.
• Plus, they were cute, with their baby faces and
  disproportionately large heads.
• Just looking at a pixie cheered most people up.
  They were walking therapy (The Opal Deception
  13).

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Colfers Quaggas

• Its a quagga, he realized. Half horse, half
  zebra, and there hasnt been one in captivity for
  a hundred years.
• Not exactly a throroughbred stallion, but it will
  have to do (The Time Paradox 298)

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Colfers Sprites

• Colfers sprites have the gift of tongues, and
  they also have a strong aversion to light.
• They have clawlike mottled green hands.
• They have slitted golden eyes and long hooked
  noses. Their ears are pointed, and some of them
  are addicted to alcohol.
• Sprites only had limited healing power. They
  could magic away a wart, but gaping wounds were
  beyond them (The Arctic Incident 28).

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Colfers Trolls

• Colfers bull trolls have crimson pupils and
  retractable claws. They have a powerful sense of
  smell. They have curved tusks with serrated
  edges.
• Trolls were the meanest of the deep-tunnel
  creatures. They wandered the labyrinth, preying
  on anything unlucky enough to cross their path.
  Their tiny brains had no room for rules or
  restraint (Artemis Fowl 54).
• According to Holly Short, Trolls occasionally
  eat their mothers (The Time Paradox 47).

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• Because trolls are by nature tunnel creatures,
  they are guided as much by their sense of smell
  as their night vision.
• A blinded troll can often survive for years,
  navigating his way to food and water supplies by
  smell alone.
• Mulchs sudden gaseous recyclings sent a million
  conflicting scent messages to each trolls brain.
• The smell was bad enough, and the wind was
  sufficient to blow back the trolls deadlocks,
  but the combination of scents inside the dwarf
  gas, including clay, vegetation, insect life, and
  everything else Mulch had eaten over the past few
  days, was enough to short out the trolls entire
  nervous systems (The Opal Deception 328-329).

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Colfers Warlocks (No 1, Qwan)

• Most of Colfers warlocks are medics.
• For example, it was a senior warlock who
  treated Trouble Kelp when he was wounded (The
  Arctic Incident 235).
• The reason that Imp 1 is taking so long to warp
  is that unlike most imps who warp into demons,
  Imp 1 is warping into a warlock.

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• Colfers warlocks like to form a pentagram around
  their target.
• They then spread an enchanted enclosure over it,
  and stop time.
• This works fine until the warlocks have to use
  the bathroom.
• Many sieges were lost because a warlock had had
  one extra glass of wine.

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The Mud People

• Colfers Mud People are the humans. They are
  the same as J. K. Rowlings Muggles, and they
  include
• Domovoy Butler and
• Artemis Fowl

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Artemis Fowl

• Artemis Fowl (a.k.a. Constantin Bashkir, Colonel
  Xavier Lee, Dr. C. Nile Dementia, Malachy
  Pasteur) possibly possesses the greatest human
  intellect of his generation.
• In the first book, Artemis Fowl is twelve years
  old.
• In the other books, he is a young teenager.
• Therefore, in a sense, Artemis Fowl is one of the
  little people.

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• Whenever Artemis tells his name, the response is
  always, Isnt that a girls name?
• Artemis always replies that the name is both a
  girls name and a boys name.
• The name is derived from Artemis the hunter in
  Greek mythology.
• The Fowl family motto is Aurum potestas est
  (Gold is power).
• Chapter 4 of The Arctic Incident is entitled,
  Fair is Fowl (87)

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Butler

• Artemis Fowl has a man-servant.
• He is a Butler, whose name is Butler.
• Because he is also a body guard, he is huge, and
  he is trained in most of the martial arts.

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• The butlers had been serving the Fowls for
  centuries. It had always been that way.
• Indeed, there were several eminent linguists of
  the opinion that this was how the common noun had
  originated. (Artemis Fowl 21).

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!En Fin

• En fin is the French for finally.
• It was in the En fin restaurant that Jon
  Spiros group tried to kill Artemis and Butler.

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• !It all happened in a heart beat. Spiro clicked
  his fingers, and every customer in En Fin drew a
  weapon from inside his or her coat.
• The eighty-year-old lady suddenly looked a lot
  more threatening with a revolver in her bony
  fist. Two armed waiters emerged from the kitchen
  wielding folding-stock machine guns (The
  Eternity Code 19).

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• !With his last vestige of strength, Butler
  raised a hand. Good-bye, Artemis, he said.
  My friend.
• Artemis caught the hand. The tears were
  streaming now. Unchecked. Good bye, Butler.
• The bodyguards sightless eyes were calm.
  Artemis, call me Domovoi.

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• !!The name told Artemis two things. First, his
  lifelong ally had been named for a Slavic
  guardian spirit. Second, graduates of the Madam
  Ko school were instructed never to reveal their
  first names to their Principals.
• Butler would never have broken this ruleunless
  it no longer mattered.
• Good-bye, Domovoi, sobbed the boy. Good-bye,
  my friend.
• The hand dropped. Butler was gone (The
  Eternity Code 44).

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• !!!On page 136 of The Eternity Code, Mulch
  Diggums is talking to Domovoy Butler
• Glad to see youre alive by the way, big man.
  There was a rumor going round the underworld that
  you were dead.
• I was, said Butler, But Im better now.

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Bibliography

• Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl. New York, NY
  Mirimax/Hyperion, 2001.
• Colfer, Eoin, Artemis Fowl The Arctic Incident.
  New York, NY Mirimax/Hyperion, 2002.
• Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl The Eternity Code.
  New York, NY Mirimax/Hyperion, 2003.
• Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl The Lost Colony. New
  York, NY Mirimax/Hyperion, 2006.

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• Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl The Opel Deception.
  New York, NY Mirimax/Hyperion, 2006.
• Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl The Time Paradox. New
  York, NY Mirimax/Hyperion, 2008.
• Colfer, Eoin and Andrew Donkin. Artemis Fowl The
  Graphic Novel. New York, NY Mirimax/Hyperion,
  2007.
• Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook
  to Literature, 7th Edition. Upper Saddle River,
  NJ Prentice Hall, 1996.
• Nilsen, Don L. F. Humor in Irish Literature.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 1996.
• Waters, Maureen. The Comic Irishman. Albany, NY
  State Univ of New York Press, 1984.