Artemis Fowl II
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Artemis Fowl II (born September 1, 1989) is the titular character of the Artemis Fowl series of children's books by Irish author Eoin Colfer.
Character traits
His birthday is mentioned as "01/09" in The Lost Colony, and in the first book it is said of Juliet Butler that she is four years older than Artemis. This would make his full birth date September 1, 1989.
Artemis Fowl II, a criminal mastermind and, intellectually, a child prodigy and a polymath, is twelve years old in the first book of the series. He was born into a rich, prominent and above all criminal Irish family, the Fowls, and is accustomed to an obscenely wealthy lifestyle. He resides in Fowl Manor with his father, Artemis Fowl I (famed crimelord), his mother, Angeline Fowl, and the Manor's two servants and guards, Juliet and Butler.
Artemis' name comes from Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting (among other things). In the third book in the series, Artemis admits that his name is generally a female name, but says that it is the name of a great hunter, and that every once in a while a man comes along who has such a talent for hunting that he has the right to have that name, and that he is such a man.
He is rather hard to fathom, thanks to his lack of expressions. He prefers to mask his emotions.
Artemis is said to have inherited his father's deep blue eyes, and has black hair. His skin is pale from spending most of his free time in front of a computer screen, a trait which, coupled with his cold attitude, once led a waitress to believe that he was a vampire.
At his young age, he has 'rediscovered' a lost Mozart opera, which, of course, he has written himself. At the age of thirteen, he is showing signs of an intellect greater than that of any human since Mozart, having beaten European chess champion Evan Kashoggi in an online tournament, patented over 27 inventions, won the architectural competition to design Dublin's new opera house, forged over a dozen Impressionist paintings, and written a computer program that diverted millions of dollars from Swiss bank accounts to his own. He also forged and auctioned the Lost Diaries of Leonardo Da Vinci. He has also written articles on human psychology which were referred to by his own school counselor. It might be interesting to note that the pseudonym he employed was "Dr. F. Roy Dean Schlippe", a pun on the phrase Freudian Slip. A pseudonym used in Opal Deception, Sir E. Brum, a pun on cerebrum, the largest part of the brain. A pseudonym he used for posting articles on the internet is "Emmsey Squire", which seems like a pun for E=mc²(E=mc squared). Another pseudonym in Lost Colony is Dr. C. Niall DeMencha, a pun on senile dementia.
And yet, despite all his intellect, he is fairly pathetic when it comes to social skills. He isolates himself from his 'lesser-minded' peers as much as possible and prefers the company of Butler, who plays the role of Artemis' bodyguard and best friend. Despite Artemis's anti-social nature, he has managed to make several new friends during his various exploits, most notably the fairies Holly Short, Foaly, and Commander Julius Root. He also became friends with human Minerva Paradizo at the end of Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, who, despite their three year age difference, could be a potential love interest for Artemis. He has a father, Artemis Fowl the First who was recently reclaimed from a gang of kidnappers in Russia, and a mother, Angeline Fowl, who had been suffering from depression. In the fifth book, his mother has a pair of twins, names and genders unknown.
One might find him (Artemis) quite strange, as all he wears are designer suits and he speaks with the vocabulary of a powerful adult. He can hardly be classified as a child. He is ambidextrous, although his left hand has slightly greater precision.
Artemis has the highest tested IQ in Europe.
He enjoys caviar, Irish springwater, and Earl Grey tea. Badly tailored suits irk him, psychologists irritate him, he doesn't like lollipops, cracking knuckles is a habit he detests (interestingly, he cracks his knuckles in the first novel while preparing to decode the fairy Book), and he suffers from a slight dust mite allergy. His family motto is Aurum potestas est (Latin for "gold is power"), while his personal motto is "Know thine enemy."
Personality
When we are introduced to him in the first book in the series, Artemis is a cold, calculating and cynical individual. He possesses a dry, sarcastic sense of humour and a ruthless, almost psychopathic nature. However, he is evidently not pure evil as he never actually kills anyone, and does care about his mother's rapidly declining mental state. He is also very concerned about his missing father's whereabouts, although that said he is still more concerned with his plan to extort the fairies. He also exhibits pity for Holly Short and harbours some feelings of guilt with regards to his actions although he covers them up well.
In Book 2 he has become a somewhat less selfish individual and goes so far as to join forces with Holly and the LEP to help them defeat the evil Opal Koboi and her partner-in-crime Briar Cudgeon in exchange for them helping him rescue his father from the Russian Mafiya. In the third book he is even less hard-edged and actually breaks down into tears when Butler is nearly killed. At the end of the book he displays concern that he will revert back to his vile and despicable attitude in the first book, although he may actually have just been saying this to persuade the LEP not to mind-wipe him. In The Opal Deception after being mind-wiped he has reverted back to his greedy self-centered persona but with more compassion and remorse than he did before as a result of the postive influences subconsciously absorbed from his time around the LEP staff. When his memories are restored he goes back to the altogether more human personality he had acquired in the third book and retains this personality in The Lost Colony however he is still just as obsessed with accumulating money and power but is more concerned about others than himself. In Book 5 he meets the villainous Minerva Paradizo, a young criminal mastermind who is very much the way Artemis was in the first book. Artemis is disturbed by her ruthlessness and disregard for human life but believes that there is hope for her and the two form an unspoken attraction.
Artemis is very reminiscent of Hans Gruber, the villain from the action-movie Die Hard. Both dress immaculately in smart suits, both capture feisty female heroines and are accompanied by thickset henchmen and attempt to become rich by cruel and dishonest means. Both also possess a dark sense of humour and very refined tastes. Eoin Colfer has acknowledged the similarities between the characters saying that Artemis Fowl is like "Die Hard with fairies".
Character history
The Fowl family is an Irish criminal family going back at least to the Norman Conquest, which has amassed a fabulous fortune through both legitimate and illegitimate means. These fortunes have been placed in danger by Artemis' father, Artemis Fowl I, who invested a huge amount of the Fowl fortune in founding new shipping lanes to the country of Russia, following the breakdown of communism there. Artemis Fowl I is injured and held hostage following an attempt on his life by the Russian Mafiya.
Artemis, who was around eleven at the time his father disappeared, decides to regain the Fowl fortune. Following leads on the Internet, Fowl discovers the existence of an underground world of fairies, and at age twelve attempts,and succeeds, to steal their gold.
Books
There are currently five books (a sixth one is on the way) in the series: Artemis Fowl, in which the twelve-year old Artemis attempts to steal fairy gold; Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident, in which Artemis discovers that his father is still alive and, with help from the fairies, tries to rescue him from the Russian mafia; Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, in which Artemis, in what he considers to be his last criminal act before his father completely recovers, attempts to create a device using fairy technology he stole in the first book, and to use this device to sell to American businessman Jon Spiro;Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, in which the now fourteen-year old Artemis helps the fairies to thwart an evil plan to expose the magical world; and Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony in which Artemis helps the fairy people to rescue the eighth family of fairy kind (The Demons), prevent them from being exposed to human beings and rescue a young imp (the larval stage of a Demon) from another child genius (and Artemis' possible love interest) called Minerva Paradizo. In this book, Artemis is able to steal some fairy magic while going to the demon island of Hybras. Artemis is able to make the fairies think that he lost this magic on the way back from Hybras, but he still has some of the stolen magic.
A Branch out book, The Artemis Fowl Files, has also been published. This book contains two short stories: "LEPrecon" and "The Seventh Dwarf," as well as several tests and quizzes designed by the author, and a key to the Gnommish alphabet.
In the fifth Artemis Fowl novel, Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony Artemis Fowl travels to the island of Hybras (along with Holly Short and two demon-warlocks called Qwan and No1), an island inhabited by Demons which has been literally lifted out of time into Limbo. The island is stuck in a time tunnel and when Artemis returns, although he spent less than one hour on Hybras, three years have passed. He is reunited with Butler (who had to inform Artemis' parents everything he knows about fairy-kind to explain the criminal mastermind's 3 year absence, though they are reluctant to believe him) and at the end of the book Butler refers to Artemis as a "big brother" and makes reference to "the twins" implying that the Fowls have had more children since Artemis disappeared. Artemis also gains a small amount of fairy magic in this book. He retains some at the end, but it is unclear just how much he has left, but there are suspicions that it will play a major role in the 6th book.
The Lost Colony also contains a humorous sub-plot involving Artemis' struggle with puberty, and a new character is introduced who may well become a girlfriend for Artemis in the form of 12 year old (or when Artemis returns from his 3 year mission on Hybras, 14 going-on 15 year old) Minerva Paradizo, a young master-criminal apparently Artemis's intellectual equal. At the end of the book Butler informs Artemis that she has been visiting regularly, talking repeatedly of Artemis. This suggests she will return in the sixth (and final, according to Eoin Colfer) Artemis Fowl book.
The Fowl Adventures series by Eoin Colfer | |
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| Artemis Fowl series | |
| The Fowl Twins series | |
| Universe | |
| Film | |
