Trainspotting/Characters

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The characters of the book and movie Trainspotting, and associated tropes.

Mark Renton

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose your friends. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you've spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life..."

The protagonist and Anti-Hero of the story. Mark is the voice of (relative) sanity among his friends, many of whom he actually hates. At the beginning, he's in the middle of his addiction to heroin. He is capable of fitting in well enough to common society, is relatively good-looking and of above-average intelligence, but is often socially awkward, and uses heroin as a means to withdraw into his own world. A self-loathing Deadpan Snarker extraordinaire who narrates everything from supporting his drug addiction to interacting with "the normal world" in a cynical way.

• Anti-Hero: Type IV. Despite being an amoral heroin addict who steals, sells drugs, and gets his friend addicted to heroin, he continues to have our sympathy.
• Byronic Hero
• Deadpan Snarker
• Hey, It's That Guy!: It's Obi-Wan Kenobi from the prequels!
• Ho Yay: With Spud.
• Kissing Cousins: He attempts to hit on his teenage cousin Nina at one point in the book.
• Villain Protagonist: Arguably. He has no ethics at all, and the only thing that matters to him is getting his fix. Sadly, this is how many real-life drug addicts think.
• World of Cardboard Speech: In the end of the film.

Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson

"Personality, that's what matters. What keeps a relationship going. I mean, heroin has a great fucking personality."

Amoral, stylish, and Mark Renton's oldest friend. Sick Boy is a borderline-sociopath and born exploiter who only feels disdain for his friends and for society. He has an obsession with Sean Connery, and enjoys showing off with his ability to casually use heroin and stopping without developing an addiction. Sick Boy considers himself superior to everyone else he interacts with. In the story, he represents cold and calculating pragmatism without any moral restraints.

• Anti-Hero: Type V
• Byronic Hero: On The Other Wiki, he's described as a "combination of a Byronic hero and villain."
• Chick Magnet: He's the biggest player in the group, and often seduces female tourists. Renton thinks, at one point, that he wants to keep Sick Boy as far away from Dianne as possible, not even mentioning him in conversation.
• Despair Event Horizon: When his baby daughter Dawn dies from neglect. After that, all good in him is broken forever.
• Empty Shell: After Dawn's death.
• Evil Is Sexy
• Handsome Lech
• Hollywood Pudgy: At least in the books.
• It's All About Me: By the end, he is pimping young girls. Renton notes that he's become "untainted by compassion or conscience."
• Lack of Empathy
• Manipulative Bastard
• Memetic Sex God: An in-universe example.
• Serious Business: Sean Connery.

Renton: "He's always been lacking in moral fiber." Mother Superior: "Well he knows a lot about Sean Connery." Renton: "That's hardly a substitute."

• Sociopathic Hero
• Sympathy for the Devil: After his daughter dies.
• The Unfettered: "He doesnae care. Because he doesnae care, he cannae be hurt. Ever."

Danny "Spud" Murphy

"Ah suppose man, ah'm too much ay a perfectionist, ken? It's likesay, if things go a bit dodgy, ah jist cannae be bothered, y'know?"

• Butt Monkey: Poor, poor Spud. He always screws up.
• Ho Yay: With both Renton and Sick Boy.
• Matzo Fever: His plans for his cut of the drug money involve settling down with a beautiful, rich Jewish princess.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: At the end, when he rips off the others after the drug deal Spud is the only one Renton does right by, giving him his full share of the proceeds.
• The Unintelligible: It's hard to understand him if you're not an Edinburgh native. Even in the book, his chapters are narrated in a thick Scottish mush.
• The Woobie

Francis Begbie

"Are ye sorry for being a fat fuckin cunt?"

The only one of the main characters who doesn't do drugs. He does people, and regards junkies as the lowest forms of life. An ex-convict, Begbie is extremely sadistic and frequently terrorizes his "friends" who are wary around him. In the past, he was much more like them, but he has come to believe in his own (and their) propaganda about him being the baddest guy in town. Begbie views himself as a straight-up guy, a leader, and a Badass who everyone should respect.

• Axe Crazy
• Combat Pragmatist
• Complete Monster
• Disproportionate Retribution: He glasses a man, possibly fatally, for the crime of bumping into him and spilling his beer.
• Domestic Abuser: An especially cruel one, who beats and kicks his pregnant girlfriend June in the groin. After she gives birth, he abandons both her and the child, never even mentioning them again.
• Football Hooligans
• Hair-Trigger Temper: A normal conversation with Frank Begbie is like walking through a minefield.
• Moral Event Horizon: His treatment of June.
• Parental Abandonment: Begbie abandons his son shortly after he's born, and the same likely happened to him.
• Sex Is Violence
• Sociopathic Hero: How his friends treat him. The book makes it clear that Begbie's friends are just as guilty as he is - they have painted him as the ultimate psychopath so they will look cooler by hanging out with him.
• Violent Glaswegian: Well, technically a violent Edinburgher.

Dianne

"You're not getting any younger, Mark. The world is changing, music is changing, even drugs are changing. You can't stay in here all day dreaming about Ziggy Pop and heroin."

• Catholic School Girls Rule: Although she wears a shiny dress when she seduces Renton.
• Fille Fatale
• Really Gets Around: In the book, Renton is creeped out because she's fourteen and already so sexually experienced.
• School Uniforms Are the New Black

Tommy

"Better Than Sex. The ultimate hit. I'm a fucking adult, I can find out for myself. Well, I'm finding out all right."

• Drugs Are Bad: Tommy's story is the closest that Trainspotting comes to a moral lesson.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope
• Tear Jerker: His decline into heroin addiction and eventual death. In the book, we are never shown his death scene, but Renton visits him for the last time and finds out he has AIDS. Renton knows that Tommy won't survive the winter.
• The Woobie