Being Human (UK)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Roommates

Meet the inhabitants of Britain's scariest houseshare.

Current Inhabitants

Anna Clare "Annie" Sawyer

Mitchell: Poltergeist.
Annie:See, you know the terms, you know how this works. I mean, do you know if I can channel it? Because I have been dying to pull that fridge out and clean behind it.

  • Adorkable: She can be just as squeaky and neurotic as George at times, when she's not delving into total Woobie status.
  • Berserk Button: You can insult Annie's fashion sense, or the house she lives in, but don't ever insult her tea.

Pearl: We'll need to start using a new brand of tea. That stuff you make always looks very anaemic.
Annie: There is nothing wrong with my tea.

  • Beware the Nice Ones: Annie is the sweetest person you could hope to meet, but she's something else whenever she gets angry.
  • Combo-Platter Powers: She's easily the most powerful member of the main cast. Annie has telekinesis, teleportation, invisiblity to muggles, walking through walls, seeing auras, sensing and transmitting thoughts and feelings through physical contact, indestructibility unless she loses her connection to her house or loved ones, and the ability to destroy other ghosts. Ghosts also can hide others in the clothes they died in, making them invisible, and she can also share her memories with others so they may be able to see them, but they exist in her place in her own memories.
  • Cute Ghost Girl: Annie is adorable in looks and personality.
  • The Ditz: Occasionally.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Poor Annie has been through so much, being murdered, being sent to the afterlife and then being dragged back, watching the man she loved go through a mental breakdown that saw him becoming little more than a monster having to watch her three close friends die, having to protect baby Eve from danger and having to kill baby Eve to save the world. It's only fitting that she was finally able to move on and get her happy ending.
  • The Empath: In Season 2 she learned to feel tastes and sensations through physical contact.
  • Fearless Undead: She often reminds others (and herself) that, being dead already, she has very little to fear from any physical danger. She can however be taken into the afterlife by other ghosts or mysterious otherworldly forces, and removing her emotional connections allows her to be disintegrated. She's come back from the latter once due to her friends coming back and sheer willpower, but Herrick suggests that burning down her house and killing her friends would destroy her permanently.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: Just one of her ghostly abilities.
  • Freudian Slip: When Tully grabs Annie's arm she calls him Owen and says he's hurting her.
  • Ghost Amnesia: Annie is initially unclear on the circumstances of her death, this appears to be pretty common among Ghosts.
  • Ghostly Goals: Annie's goals for staying in the realm of the living seem to change throughout the series. First she had to get revenge on her murderer Owen, then she had to kill Eve.
  • Jacob Marley Apparel: Annie's been stuck wearing the same outfit since she died, but how she wears it can change depending on her mood. Her floaty top will be wrapped up if she's feeling anxious, but will be open if she's feeling relaxed.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: Most of the time Annie's a nice girl, if a bit panicky and neurotic. If you threaten her loved ones though, she'll tap into her rarely-used ghost powers to drag you into the afterlife or wipe you from existence.
  • Mind Over Matter: Due to strong emotions she became a poltergeist, randomly moving objects around her. After power increases Annie gains controlled telekinetic abilities when she has enough motivation, throwing vampires around in season 1, and disarming another when Eve is threatened in season 4.
  • Morality Chain: To Mitchell.
  • Mundane Afterlife: Annie's supposed "hell" (although more likely some form of purgatory) is a waiting room full of red tape and many different forms to be filled in anticipation of something.
  • Not Afraid of You Anymore: to Owen. It doesn't work at first. Later it works very, very well.
  • Parental Substitute: To Eve.

Annie: Give me back my FUCKING baby!

  • Sadistic Choice: Kill Eve and save the world or to protect Eve but let the Old Ones take over the world? She kills Eve and the Old Ones, saving the world.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: with Mitchell.
  • Stepford Smiler: By the fourth season, implied by Hal.

Hal: God. Annie, yours is even better than mine.
Annie: My what?
Hal: Your mask.

  • Taking You with Me: A kind of time-delayed variation in the Series 2 finale after Kemp forces her through a door, she pops back out of one to drag him into the afterlife and save her friends when he tracks them down later
  • The Heart: Serves as the heart of both trios.
  • The Other Darrin: Annie's part was recast after the pilot.
  • Talking Your Way Out: To Lia in the finale.
  • Team Mom: Especially for the second trio.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: She can't bring anything with her though.
  • Took a Level in Badass: After discovering exactly what ghostly powers she had. Confronting her abusive ex certainly helped.
  • Trap Door Literally.
  • Uh-Oh Eyes: When Annie gets royally pissed, her eyes turn ice blue.
  • Who Dunnit to Me?: Annie doesn't have any idea about who killed her at the start of the series. The scene where she finds out is heartbreaking.
  • Woman Scorned: Annie was abused and killed by her ex partner Owen. She eventually gets her revenge.
  • You Can See Me?: in the pilot, and once or twice since then.


Thomas McNair

Tom: I ain't done nowt!
Annie: You haven't done anything!
Tom: Exactly!
Annie: No, Tom, I'm not agreeing with you. Your grammar is appalling.

  • Adorkable: He's basically a kid, bless him. It comes from the innocent way McNair brought him up.
  • Adult Child: Though technically Tom is still in his teens.
  • A Man Is Not a Virgin: Averted
  • Ascended Extra: Gets promoted to the main cast in series 4.
  • Badass: One of the biggest on the show. He can easily take vampires on hand to hand. When he has stakes, he can mow through mooks.
    • Badass Family: He got it from McNair
    • Badass Longcoat: Usually wears one, but is more fond of dressing down.
    • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: although we get to know him pretty well as a badass first, there is a certain amount of Mood Whiplash when Tom can change from being a bouncy overgrown man child to a cold hard killer with a stake pointed at someones chest in the space of about 5 seconds.
  • Big Brother Instinct: For Eve. He gives her to the Old Ones because they would protect her, and also chooses to became their servant to be with her.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick/ Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The reasons he hates vampires:

Tom: The're arrogant, egotistical, predatory, they often have a stupid haircut... what was the other one? There was an other one. Oh, yeah, they killed my dad, Hal.

    • And as McNair told him:

Tom: Always be kind and polite and have the material to build a bomb.

Tom: Even McNair gave me a name, and he ate my parents.

Tom: I thought I was gonna do something normal. Finally be like everybody else.

Henry "Hal" Yorke

Hal: I cannot sleep in a barn, or a tent or a caravan or anywhere without central heating, carpets and Radio 4, and that should be on my list.


  • Adorkable: Despite starting out as quite serious, he has his moments. He sings while washing up.

Hal: And I had a shield. A red one!

Hal: (to Annie) Are you somehow drunk?

  • The Dreaded: One of the most feared and revered characters on the show.
  • Fish Out of Water: Hal doesn't quite fit in with Annie and Tom to start with, but he slowly adjusts as he becomes closer to them.
  • Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: His current phase after 500 years of vice and murder. Deconstructed in that we see the ridiculous lengths and routine Hal goes to to stop himself attacking others, and that without his morality chains he goes out of control easily.
  • Genre Savvy: When Kirby threatens him to reveal his past, he tries to confess it before Kirby has the chance. He's also able to to recognize Yvonne nature the moment it affects him.
  • Good Old Ways: Hal feels acute nostalgia for the late medieval period. He mentions preferring the dowry system to modern dating.
  • Hates Being Touched: He's very uncomfortable when touched. His reaction to Annie hugging him is hilarious
  • Had Six Mommies: He was born in a brothel and never known which of the six prostitutes was his biological mother. When they died, he mourned each one of them as if they were blood related.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: With Leo.
    • Looks like he's becoming this way with Tom, too.
  • I See Dead People: He's lived with a ghost for the past fifty years or so, and of course can see Annie.
  • Manly Tears: When Leo dies, when Kirby threatens to reveal his bloody past etc.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Very much so.
  • Nailed to the Wagon: Tom with Alex at the end of series 4 ties him to a chair to get him off blood again.
  • No Social Skills: He's a vampire, he has OCD, he's been out of society for more than fifty years, he thinks relaxing would end with him killing someone... he's very awkward around people. His attempt at flirting was no better than Tom's.
  • Off the Wagon: He enters half a decade of sobriety occasionally, then goes off the wagon and back to evil in a cycle.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: No one calls him Henry, always Hal.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Like the rest of the vampires in the series, but Hal also doesn't seem to shy away from sunlight or wear sunglasses to help with the glare.
  • Prophetic Fallacy: Despite having his arm burnt by Tom's blood, he's not her nemesis.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Hal is actually over 500 years old and an Old One.
  • Single Tear: After Kirby tries really hard to break him.
  • Shirtless Scene: While doing press ups.
  • Sherlock Scan: When he confronts a journalist who falsely reported that the Box Tunnel Murderer was a cannibal, he works out that she couldn't have been bribed as her expensive clothes are at least a year old, so she didn't need money. Furthermore her eyes are red and her fingers are stained from smoking, but she didn't have a smoker's usual wrinkled upper lip, so she's suffering recent stress. Therefore he worked out she's being threatened into doing it.
  • Stronger with Age: Hal is now so old crucifixes have no effect on him.
  • Super OCD: He's followed strict rules for the past 55 years to avoid drinking human blood, such as avoiding human contact, meditating and obsessively stacking dominoes and then taking the structure apart.
  • The Grovel: To Cutler to get him to stop his evil plan.
  • Vampires Are Rich: Subverted: he made bad investments.

Eve Sands

Former Inhabitants

George Sands

My name's George, and I am a werewolf.

Josie: "Oh right, I thought perhaps you were a wizard or something."
George: "A wizard? That's ridiculous."

  • Beware the Nice Ones: George is a shy, awkward man who simply wants a simple, normal life. But once a month he becomes a killing machine, and George himself has knowingly killed several vampires, including Herrick.
  • Blatant Lies: but is terrible at it.
  • Enemy Within: The werewolf is implied in series 2 to be an actual separate entity within him. George himself considers it as such for most of series 1.
  • Evil Feels Good: In the pilot, George says that the worst part of his lycanthropy is that some part of him looks forward to it.
  • Hand or Object Underwear
  • Heroic Sacrifice: He forces himself to transform to save his daughter from vampires, the process of which killed him in minutes.
  • Hollywood Nerd
  • Fantastic Religious Weirdness: George is still Jewish, but no longer very observant, as he feels that Judaism would frown on the whole turning-into-a-wolf thing.
  • Genre Savvy:

George: "Right, so we have a defrocked priest and a mad scientist. No, no alarm bells ringing so far."

George: "Who wants some of my chair?"

George: "Oh my God, has everyone taken Stupid Pills?"

John Mitchell

When in Rome, stop... killing the other Romans.

  • The Atoner: A Deconstructed Trope.
  • Bi the Way: Played completely straight. We are given passing mention to the fact that Mitchell likes men too, but absolutely no evidence of that interest.We are not happy.
  • Black Eyes of Evil: When he vamps up, his eyes become black.
  • Byronic Hero: Mitchell has flaws, and they make him a well rounded character.
  • Dating Catwoman: Lauren
  • Domestic Abuser: Shows shades of this towards Annie when he was in his Jerkass phase during series three.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Oh my, yes.
  • Famed in Story / Memetic Badass: Mitchell is something of a legend among vampires, even getting his own creepy Fan Boy stalker. They tell stories about his murders, particularly Herrick.
    • Misaimed Fandom: He is none too pleased about it though, complaining that his actions can be seen as an inspiration to other vampires.
  • Evil Feels Good: Like all vampires, it's hard for Mitchell to resist the lure of being evil and giving in to his blood addiction.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Deconstructed and subverted. Mitchell is an addict, and simply can't stop himself killing others, no matter how good his intentions are. In fact his attempts to be a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire possibly make his situation worse, as after going without blood for a long time, when he kills again it's often particularly bloody.
  • Glamour Failure: He doesn't appear in mirrors or on cameras, the latter of which gets him in trouble in series 3.
  • Go Out with a Smile: He does because he finally gets to be at peace, and it's both heartwarming and heartbreaking.
  • Horror Hunger: in this universe, blood addiction is psychological.
  • I Hate You, Vampire Dad: At first he got on great with Herrick. By the time of the series, not so much
  • I See Dead People: One of the side effects of being supernatural.
  • Karma Houdini: Arguably considering his involvement in the massacre of at least 20 people. Eventually Averted. Hard
  • Killed Off for Real: although it remains to be seen whether he will be resurrected or not, If Herrick is to be believed he probably can't be.
    • Word of God says he's dead for good. But then he said the same about Herrick after Series 1
    • Very doubtful now that George, Nina and Annie are all dead, and there's a new trio heading the show.
  • Last-Name Basis: Hardly anyone calls him John.
  • Mayfly-December Romance: Josie
  • Off the Wagon: Poor Mitchell falls victim to this with his blood addiction, but he tends to hold up better than most.
  • The Other Darrin: Mitchell's part was recast after the pilot.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: immortality and everlasting youth, sure, but Mitchell and the other vampires can tolerate some sunlight, and they eat like regular humans.
  • Poisonous Friend: Both Annie and George are forced to kill due to their friendship with him, and would otherwise have avoided the vampire war.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Actually fairly young by TV vampire standards. As of Series 3, he was 117. He was born July 29, 1893 and died in World War I.
  • Redemption Equals Death
  • Staking the Loved One: Lauren
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Probably over laps with Sanity Slippage but Mitchell becomes increasingly more of a jerkass due to paranoia over his "wolf-shaped bullet" and the return of Herrick
  • Tragic Dream: Fighting his addiction to blood turns out to be one.
  • Tragic Hero: Well more anti-hero, sliding down the scale as the show progresses.
  • Tragic Monster: He doesn't want to kill people, but he's an addict all the same.
  • Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: Mitchell almost attacks those around him a lot. An awful lot.


Nina Pickering

Saying "it's not you, it's me" is a stabbable offence in my book, and I can easily get my hands on scalpels.

Nina works at the hospital with Mitchell and George. She and George began dating during season 1.

  • Ascended Extra: She was originally meant to be written out at the end of series 1, but come season 3 she's one of the main characters.
  • Abusive Parents: Her mother used to hit her as a child.
  • But I Can't Be Pregnant! : becomes pregnant despite being on the pill due to her being in wolf form at the time.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Heroic BSOD: Goes into one when she finds out Mitchell was responsible for the Box Tunnel 20 massacre.
  • It's Not You, It's My Enemies: George sends... mixed signals.
  • Killed Off for Real: Nina's beaten to death by vampires with baseball bats just a week after the birth of her daughter. This thankfully happens between series.
  • Knight in Sour Armour
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Until the end of series 1.
  • The Medic: Nina is a nurse by profession (the first time we meet her she's chewing George out for making a mistake that's caused trouble on her ward), and in Season Three, any time someone needs some patch up, she's the one who gets out the first-aid kit and gets to work. Although nursing is usually seen as a low-status profession, in a household where Mitchell is a hospital cleaner, George is a porter and Annie is usually too insubstantial to be able to get a job at all, being a highly competent nurse puts Nina at the top of the professional status ladder.
  • Mysterious Past: The scars mentioned below.
  • Muggle: Initially.
  • Only Sane Woman: She and George take turns being this.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to George's blue.
  • Scars Are Forever: Nina has a terrible burn scar on her abdomen, inflicted on her deliberately.[1] She doesn't like to talk about it. As of the end of season 1, she also has scars from claw-swipe from George.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Series 2 finale, confronting Lucy.
  • Wolfwoman


Allies

Lee Tully

Admit it, you're a little impressed.

The first werewolf George meets after he gets infected. Later revealed to the werewolf that infected him.

Sam

Single mum of Molly. She and George began dating in season 2.

Molly

Sam's preteen daughter. Seems to have uncanny insights into George's true nature.

Leo

Pearl


The Bad Guys

William Herrick

Rule one of Vampire Club: don't get arrested. I mean, even Seth knew that, and he used to point at planes.

Mitchell's sire, and the Big Bad of Season 1 and a Red Herring for the real Big Bad in season 3.

Owen

Getting away with murder... makes you invincible.

Annie's fiancé (now ex, as their relationship was ended by her death) owns the house now rented by George and Mitchell.

Lauren Drake

Okay, I'm new to this, but aren't you supposed to weep or scream or wee yourself?

Turned, by Mitchell, during a one-night stand.

Seth

Herrick: There's something you need to know about Seth: he's an idiot.

Ivan

I'm just one step away from wiping out an entire branch of Argos.

An old vampire, vaguely acquainted with Mitchell in the "bad old days". Supremely bored, smugly superior, and willing to cause whatever chaos he likes, just to sit back and watch it all.

Ivan: What, are you imagining some kind of peaceful co-existence? It'd be chaos! Worldwide panic. Good news for religion, mind, especially Christianity. There'd be standing room only in the churches all of a sudden. And as soon as they knew about vampires, they'd know about werewolves, they'd know about ghosts. They'd be next. And when humanity had finally finished with us, it would turn on itself. First the other religions, massively in the minority now, then the homosexuals, the disabled... Do you want to know what the future looks like? Enforced worship in churches a mile high and every country surrounded by a coral reef of bones. *pause* But fuck it, maybe it should happen. There's nothing on TV at the moment.

  • Pet the Dog: As much of a bastard as he could be, Ivan really did love Daisy. He only agrees to help Mitchell provide a support group for vampires because he hears that Mitchell is trying to clean up his act for a woman. "Everyone deserves a Daisy", he tells him.
    • He also saves Mitchell by shielding him with his own body from the parlour explosion.
  • Wicked Cultured

Daisy


Lloyd Pinkie

Geeky researcher into the paranormal. Affiliated with CenSSA, the Centre for Study of Supernatural Activity.

Father Kemp

Lloyd's sinister boss. Affiliated with CenSSA, the Centre for Study of Supernatural Activity.

Professor Lucy Jaggatt

Works with Kemp and Lloyd. Affiliated with CenSSA, the Centre for Study of Supernatural Activity.

The Old Ones

The oldest and most powerful vampires, living out in South America and preparing to take over the world. Most of their names and histories aren't known, but their leader is Mr Snow.

  • Affably Evil/ Faux Affably Evil: Mr Snow is soft-spoken and quite polite to Hal and Annie, but he's still pure evil and threatening.
    • His dealings with Cutler show just how much of an arrogant, cruel and egocentric individual he really is though, belittlingl all who have no use to him.
  • Bigger Bad: They're behind vampires such as Wyndham and Cutler, the latter of which is a major season 4 villain.
  • Equal Opportunity Evil: Subverted. One of Mr Snow's closest allies and, it seems, friends is Milo, a werewolf. But Milo had to make horrific sacrifices to be accepted by the Old Ones.
  • Kill'Em All: Annie blows up every Old One apart from Hal in the series 4 finale.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Mr Snow
  • Monster Progenitor: It's unlikely that the first vampires are among them (two Asian brothers), but they've sired other vampires on the show. Hettie sired Herrick, for example.
    • Hal states that most vampires can trace their lines back to Mr Snow, making him one of the oldest vampires, although not one of the original duo.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: They're like the others in the show but stronger, and Wyndham can enter houses uninvited. Mr Snow also has rotten teeth instead of fangs for unknown reasons.
  • Pals with Jesus: Well not pals, but Mr Snow claims he met "the son of the carpenter".
  • Red Right Hand: Mr Snow has blue veins covering his face, rotten teeth and rashes around his eyes, possibly because he's so old.
  • Smug Snake: Mr Snow acts as if everything will go his way, and treats anyone who isn't an Old One with largely bored contempt.
  • Stock Evil Overlord Tactics: They want to overrun Britain with vampire soldiers then march in land taking cities, eventually moving onto the rest of the world. Cutler recognises just how idiotic this is in the modern world where military forces can be mobilised in minutes, so he's coming up with a different plan
  • Super Strength: Mr Snow provides the most impressive display on the show: disembowelling a man with one hand.
  • Stronger with Age: Wyndham can enter houses uninvited, and he's over 1000 years ago. However he implies it could just be a trick rather than a developed ability. Hal also states that Old Ones are unaffected by crucifixes. Mr Snow is also apparently the strongest vampire on the show.
  • Tainted Veins: Mr Snow
  • Take Over the World: It's their aim. By 2037, they've almost succeeded.
  • The Unmasqued World: They're preparing it by taking over Britain first, then the world.
  • Vampire Monarch: They're considered practically royalty. Even Hal, who's a mere 500 years old and has been off the radar for 55 years, has local vampires deferring to him and calling him "lord".

Kirby

A ghost from the 1970s, he says he's been sent by Nina to help Annie with Eve. Actually, he's there to kill the baby.

Nicholas Cutler

A young, very modern vampire serving the Old Ones in Britain as best as he can.

Other Recurring Characters

Janey Harris

Janey is Owen's new girlfriend. Also used to be friends with Annie when she was alive. There's probably a couple of tropes to do with her having an affair with Owen while Annie was alive.

Mark the Vicar

George:You're very sarcastic, for a vicar.
Mark: Yeah, so people tell me, and I feel very bad about it; then I forgive myself.

Anthony Michael McNair

My name is McNair.

Mysterious werewolf who lives in the forests surrounding Cardiff with his son Thomas

  • Anti-Hero: He's a vampire hunter, but he's a criminal and obsessively hates vampires.
  • Badass: He's the most successful vampire hunter we've seen so far on the show, it's a given.
    • He killed a werewolf with a knife while human.
  • Badass Boast: he's quite adept a this

"No, you misunderstand. You see, I told you my name. Because I want it to be the last thing you ever hear."

"You walked unharmed from a plane crash."

Alex Mayhew

Allison

  1. ↑ According to actor Sinead Keenan, speaking at Comic-Con 2010, it was done by a past lover--hinting at Horrible Judge of Character on Nina's part
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