#bartimeus trilogy

My family had strange whims on what was and was not allowed for reading/watching - no Harry Potter, etc. LotR was forbidden because Gollum was "a demon" but C.S. Lewis was heavy-handedly Protestant so I leaned crazy hard into Narnia. They'd get me commentary books on his work for Christmas and stuff. Still love Narnia for all kinds of reasons but man finding out what I was missing when I got around to LoTR as an adult was quite the experience

Read them all as a child. My dad had a sort of weird reader's digest submission where he would get sent collections of books to "try before you buy". He received the complete collection of Narnia box set and I remember being amazed at how pretty it was and how many there were. He kindly bought it as a git to me and I worked my way through the lot. It's been MANY years since I read them but I remember really liking them. Dawn Treader was a banger, but I kept returning to The Horse and His Boy. I just remember thinking the stakes felt higher for being more contained/intimate?

THE BARTIMAEUS TRILOGY by jonathan stroud is the greatest fantasy series for children ever written. it takes place in an alternate history london where magicians make up the ruling class. as was once true in real life, england is a massive colonial power with a baseless aristocracy that brutally oppresses the working class. the "commoners" believe that magicians have inherent power, but secretly all magicians are just educated in the art of summoning and controlling spirits (hatefully referred to by humans as "demons"). all western magicians of this period punish and abuse spirits into doing what they want, no exception, as has been the case in many places and in many time periods over the years. the spirits are just invisible, giving the magicians the illusion of power.

the series is about 3 people: nathaniel, a traumatized adolescent boy who rapidly starts sacrificing his morals for power and prestige in the cutthroat world of the magic elite; bartimaeus, an ancient all-powerful djinni that nathaniel relies on to do his dirty work; and kitty jones, a commoner whose friend is brutalized by a magician who is never brought to justice. it's actually also about a fourth person who died thousands of years ago, but that's a surprise tool that will help us later.

the story is about how these 3 lives intersect in a decade of political turmoil, as the commoners' oppression becomes untenable and foreign governments sick of the british empire's power seek to exploit its growing weaknesses. it's about how the power-hungry oligarchy cannibalizes itself, and how external political, cultural, and social forces shape the characters and their relationships.

it's about trauma and power and justice. it's about oppression and freedom and classism and colonialism and the many purposeful lies inherent in the system you believe you can't change (*cough* capitalism *cough*). it's about how connection to another person can change you. it's about recognizing who the real enemy is.

it's also, if you would believe it, riotously, insanely funny, mostly because bartimaeus—who narrates about 50% of it—is a sarcastic, irreverent drama queen who can never shut the hell up. he's been alive for 5000 years and he's made it this far by being avoidant and self-serving and bitchy and lucky. he thinks he's hot shit and he kind of is, but he's mostly just driven by a need to survive. he and nathaniel are friends but also not really. nathaniel is both scared of him and scared to lose him, and the series ultimately centers on their relationship, the wariness and abuse and dependence, and the way it changes as nathaniel changes. nathaniel also does go through severe depression, for that anon who was asking about lockwood.

Lily

Nathaniel, the sad little artist, reminiscing about in his childhood happy place, the backgarden surrounded by a high brick wall.

Alexandria. 126 BC

So, some of y'all might not know this, but December 2025 is actually the 10th anniversary of me getting into the Bartimaeus Sequence books. I found the tumblr fandom in March-April 2016, but I was introduced by a friend, who gifted me "The Ring of Solomon" as an early Christmas present several months prior (shortly before our Christmas exams) muttering something about how it's a neat fantasy story about a funky djinni, and how it's a standalone prequel so I don't have to feel obliged to read the rest of the series if I don't like it. Little did he know, that single act changed my life forever, irreversibly rewiring my brain chemistry and giving my creativity a lifetime's worth of rocket fuel.

These books mean a lot to me. They got me through high school, my dad's cancer and eventual death (I remember coming home from the hospital on the morning he passed and literally making a beeline for my sketchbook), college, lockdown, and also simply gave me a wonderful space to play in. This fandom has been a constant background buzz at the back of my head even as I was busy with other hyperfixations, to the point that I fear that it may have graduated to a genuine Special Interest(TM). I don't think I've written more for any fandom in my life, and over those 10 years I've not only drawn and written and headcanoned and discussed to hell and back, but I've also met so many wonderful people who wound up becoming some of the best friends I've ever had.

So, as 2025 draws to a close, I really wanted to do SOMETHING to celebrate such a big milestone on top of the end of the old year, but I uh... kinda procrastinated (hanging out with family but also playing Pokemon) so here's a quick little something, because my journey with this series started with these two and TO THIS DAY they haven't relinquished the DEATH GRIP they have on my braincells. Without further ado...

A toast to my two favourite problematic goth Egyptian perverts! Here's to 10 years' worth of brainrot, and to many, many more yet to come!