John Bellairs: Difference between revisions

'''John Bellairs''' (1938 – 1991) was an American fantasy author.

 

His standalone works include ''The Face in the Frost'' and the short comic fantasy ''The Pedant and the Shuffly''.

 

* [[Adults Are Useless]]: Turned on its head. Much of the trouble in the Lewis Barnavelt books would have been easily dealt with early on, if only Lewis and/or Rose Rita had told them something was up.

* [[Alliterative Name]]: Rose Rita, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle,

* [[And I Must Scream]]: Selenna Izard seems to have been a case of this before she is summoned in ''The House With a Clock in Its Walls''.

* [[Bizarrchitecture]]: In ''The Tower At The End Of The World''

* [[Cool Old Guy]] / [[Cool Old Lady]]: Bellairs LOVED this trope. Prospero and Roger Bacon in ''The Face in the Frost''. Uncle Johnathan and Mrs. Zimmerman. Prof Childermass and [[Badass Preacher|Father Higgins]]. Miss Eells and her brother Emerson.

* [[Creepy Circus Music|Creepy Piano Music]]: Puts a spell on everyone but the protagonist children in ''The Doom of the Haunted Opera''

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: Johnny's middle name, and the Professor's Family, we find out a great deal about them, far more than the family of any other, however, with the exception of a semi-"[[Ass Pull]]" invoked in the final two Johnny Dixon books involving {{spoiler|the Professor's Brother}}, {{spoiler|Humphrey, who went from dead, to faking his own death,}} none of them ever physically appear within the books themselves (unless you count {{spoiler|Perry's ghost in "The Chessmen of Doom" and Johnny's vision in "The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull")}}

* [[Evil Brit]]: {{spoiler|Edmund Stallybrass in "The Chessmen of Doom", Dr. Rufus Masterman in "The Secret of the Underground Room" in the Johnny Dixon series, and Malachiah Prutt in "The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder", Dr. Plimico and her [[Fake Brit]] husband, Evaristaus Sloane, in "The Eyes of the Killer Robot"}} Inverted with: {{spoiler|Cousin Pelham, Bertie, and co.}}

* [[The Fifties]]: When a lot of the books take place.

* [[Genre Shift]]: The Trolley To Yesterday is a time-travel story (and a steampunk one at that!). This has lead to something of a [[Broken Base]], including a case where Brad Strickland wanted to write a sequel to it, but the editor won't allow it because she hated Trolley To Yesterday!

* [[Literal Genie]]: The demon Asmodai in ''The Letter, The Witch and the Ring''. The titular ring is a magic ring that grants wishes — by allowing the wearer to invoke the demon. Upon finally getting possession of the ring, the villain wishes to be young and beautiful and to live for a thousand years — then vanishes. The heroes later notice a young willow tree nearby...

* [[More Deadly Than the Male]]: Mrs. Zimmerman to Uncle Jonathan. Rose Rita to Lewis

* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: Happens a lot, with a great deal of suspense ratcheted up from what isn't seen or isn't happening. As just a few examples among many: Lewis finding Izzard's papers in the old piano, only to be 'attacked' by moths; his search of the house across the street for Mrs. Izard; in the sequel, the dream of the titular figure walking along the old country road, and the figure itself always being [[In the Hood]]; Johnny Dixon fleeing the mummy through the secret passage from the mausoleum, then knowing it is coming for him in the darkness of Staunton Herald...

* [[Ominous Fog]] + [[Fog of Doom]]: Cuts off New Zebedee from the rest of the world

* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: Uncle Jonathan's ''raison d'etre'', particularly when it comes to magic. Exhibit A: the strange and silly way he chases the reflection of the moon around the backyard before eclipsing it. Exhibit B: His time-travel magic that allows for a fake re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo, where you can pick a different side to win each time, watching the losing general die...and it's [[Played for Laughs]]. Exhibit C: His wild and [[Zany Scheme]] to find the clock by having Lewis create the weirdest set of instructions he can come up with--''and it works''. This last, at least, is explained by noting that Jonathan's magic works on chaos, the [[Order Versus Chaos|antithesis]] of Isaac and Selenna Izzard's orderly magic.

* [[Religion of Evil]]:

* [[Scary Shiny Glasses]]: The undead Selenna Izzard in ''The House with a Clock in Its Walls'' has exactly this sort of glasses, which even shine with ghostly radiance during a chase scene. After her destruction, all that is left of her is her skull and her glasses.

* [[Small Reference Pools]]: Inverted and taken [[Up to Eleven]] , there's the magic and salt Pillars, Roman Emperors besides Caesar, Nero, Caligula, and Claudius (taken from "[[Small Reference Pools]]") with Hadrian, Otho, Vitellus, and Trajan, this same brother was a huge fan of General Nicholas Herkimer, Halley's Comet, Heraldry on Ancient Shields in France, Hamlet and that's just from a whopping TWO books in the Johnny Dixon series. The subtrope [[Britain Is Only London]] is averted heavily even when important actions take place in Britain, London is mentioned only as the place where the characters travel through. Glastonbury -- Yes, Bristol -- Yes, Isle of Lundy --- Definitely. London is mentioned in the works with Bellairs' characters as much as several other places in England. And once it was two stations on London Underground. {{spoiler|and yes it was important to the plot.}} Another time was in relation to Sherlock Holmes.

* [[Status Quo Is God]]: Invoked only once with the {{spoiler|Return of Father Higgins at the end of "The Secret of the Underground Room"}} All other times not invoked, which includes Lewis and his belt buckle, the Windrows, Perry's body, heck, even {{spoiler|Humphrey's "Death"}} lasts for less than one book.

* [[Tomboy]]: Rose Rita

* [[Unholy Matrimony]]: Black-magic users Isaac and Selenna Izzard in ''The House With A Clock In Its Walls'', although they're both already dead by the time the story actually starts.