The Borribles/Characters

Below you'll find a list of most of the primary characters from the Borribles Trilogy.

Standard Borribles tropes

In order to minimize repetition, note that the following tropes apply to all Borribles:
 * The Ageless
 * The Artful Dodger
 * Asexuality
 * Brats with Slingshots: The classic forked-stick-and-rubber-band slingshot (called a "catapult" in British parlance) is the traditional weapon of all Borribles, and they eagerly embrace its high-tech descendent the wrist rocket.  Borribles are deadshots will catapults; they can -- and do -- kill both Rumbles and adult humans with well-placed shots.
 * Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good: In general.  There are exceptions.
 * Deadpan Snarker: While not a universal constant among Borribles, their humor on a whole tends to lean this way.
 * Immortality Begins At Ten
 * Living Forever Is Awesome
 * Pointed Ears: The pointier they are, the cleverer the Borrible is.
 * Street Smart
 * Street Urchin

The Magnificent Eight, The Adventurers
The team of (formerly nameless) Borribles selected and trained to storm the Rumble High Command's bunker under Wimbledon Commons and assassinate the Rumble leaders. The Adventurers each have a Meaningful Name -- that of their target, which they were given provisionally, and which they had to earn by killing that target.

Napoleon Boot
A Wendle from Wandsworth, "Nap" is deeply suspicious of all non-Wendles, at least at first. He is also a cynic, and the first among the Adventurers to point out negative consequences of any plan or action. His skin has a very faint greenish hue, courtesy of the mud of the River Wandle which makes up the "floor" of a great deal of the Wendle tunnels.


 * The Cynic
 * A Worldwide Punomenon: The Rumble for which Nap is named is a parody of the Womble named "Wellington".  For wiki readers not from the U.K., Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, fought Napoleon at Waterloo; "Wellington" is also the term for a particular variety of boot popularized by him.

Chalotte
Of the Whitechapel Wallopers

the tough and brave girl Borrible;


 * Action Girl
 * Hair of Gold

Vulgarian
"Vulge" is described as frail-looking, but also "tough as nails";


 * Made of Iron

Bingo
always cheerful;

Sydney
A Stomper from Stepney, Sydney is the second female in the Adventurers and a confirmed animal-lover. The most sensitive of the eight, she is the one who initially adopts Sam the Horse and insists on rescuing him from the police in the second books, calling him "a kind of Horse-Borrible". Unlike most of the other Borribles we see, her speech contains lingering traces of an unspecific upper-class dialect, suggesting that she Borribled after running away from a well-off family.


 * Action Girl
 * Friend to All Living Things
 * The Heart

Stonks
, strong and kind-hearted;


 * The Big Guy

Torreycanyon
, light-hearted with a knack for mechanics;


 * MacGyvering: Torreycanyon is on the very realistic end of this trope -- he can bodge together a working juryrig for mechanical and electrical devices, but don't ask him to build a hang glider with duct tape, plastic bags, and a couple brooms.

Orococco
, the jovial, black Borrible.


 * Token Black

Knocker
A Borrible from Battersea, it's his discovery of the Rumbles expanding out of their bunker under Wimbledon Commons and into Battersea that sets the entire trilogy in motion.


 * Jumped At the Call: Given the opportunity to earn a second name by taking on a dodgy secret mission for Spiff during the Great Rumble Hunt, Knocker barely finished saying "yes!" before running out the door.

Adolf
A German Borrible who heard about the creation of the Great Rumble Hunt and wanted to join in on the glory. He stowed away on a ship to get to England, and intercepted the Adventurers on the road shortly after they began their mission.


 * All Germans Are Nazis: Thoroughly averted; German Borribles are just as cheerfully anarchic as British Borribles, and Adolf even more so.
 * Gratuitous German

Spiff
Arguably the ruler of Borrible Battersea insofar as Borribles can have a ruler, although no one would ever think of him that way. He was originally a Wendle, but left Wandsworth so long ago that only one living Borrible remembers that. Along with his brother, Flinthead, he Borribled "in the time of the old Queen". (Whether that means Elizabeth I or Victoria is unclear; the derivation of his name suggests Victoria, though.)


 * The Chessmaster
 * Cynical Mentor
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: "Spiff the Spifflicator" ("to spifflicate" is Victorian slang meaning "to crush, destroy or kill").  However, we don't learn all of Spiff's name until late in the second book --.
 * Older and Wiser: Than just about any other Borrible.
 * Older Than They Look: Even for a Borrible.  See Really Seven Hundred Years Old, below.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: He and Flinthead are possibly -- probably -- the oldest living Borribles in London at the start of the trilogy.
 * Retired Badass: What Spiff seems to be when we initially encounter him in the first book.  For someone who doesn't look older than 12, he comes across rather grandfatherly, at least at first. He no longer adventures, limiting his activities to being The Guy With The Answers for younger Borribles and keeping a hand in with the very little politicking that occurs between the Borrible tribes of London.  The truth, though, is.

Flinthead
Spiff's younger brother. Ruler of the Wendles.


 * Evil Overlord: The absolute dictator over the Wendles of Wandsworth and the closest thing to a king a Borrible tribe has ever seen.
 * Older Than They Look: Even for a Borrible.  See Really Seven Hundred Years Old, below.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: He and Spiff are possibly the oldest living Borribles in London at the start of the trilogy.

Inspector Sussworth

 * Inspector Javert
 * Lawful Evil
 * Meaningful Name: "Sussworth" refers the the British "sus" laws.
 * Neat Freak
 * Terrified of Germs

Sergeant Hanks

 * The Dragon: To Sussworth.
 * Fat Slob/Fat Bastard/Fat Idiot: Has elements of all three.
 * Jabba Table Manners: More implied than seen -- his uniform is almost always described as food-stained, and it had to get that way somehow.

The District Assistant Commissioner
A faceless, nameless bureaucrat somewhere within the Government -- presumably the London municipal government, but that's not for certain.


 * Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No name is ever given for him, and he is only ever addressed by his title.
 * The Man Behind the Man: He is the one who pulls Sussworth's strings.

Ben
A smelly, dirty bum who befriends the Adventurers, and provides them with both shelter and a useful contact in the form of Knibbs.


 * Disposable Vagrant: Sussworth sees him as this -- and threatens to arrest him for vagrancy at one point.
 * Hobo: Strictly speaking, he isn't, but it's the closest trope we currently have for it.  He lives in a shack built of scrap wood and metal on the mudflats of the Thames, and occasionally works as a drayman with Knibbs.

Knibbs
A drayman (teamster) who drives a horsedrawn wagon around London delivering beer from the brewery that employs him.