#bartseq

[oneeyedmagi]

Bartimaeus fandom hello?? Are you guys still even alive

I'm planning to post a few of my old art here (but idk actually)

[ironyscleverer]

sometimes I look back on the Bartimaeus Sequence and marvel at how well developed the system of slavery was, to the point where, in order to uphold the system, the magicians had to base their whole society around dehumanizing themselves and policing each other.

Think about it. Nathaniel was bought as a toddler, and stripped of his name, his family, and every other piece of humanity he could’ve possibly possessed at six years old. He was then handed over to a magician who taught him to depend on slave labor as not only a source of power, but also an integral part of his identity. He was taught to be dependent on slave labor in every way, and yet constantly fear the beings that he enslaved.

He was taught value political power and safety above all else in order to assuage that constant fear, because the oppressor always fears the revenge of the oppressed.

He was taught to use the differences between humans and spirits to justify their enslavement, because there must be a reason they deserve it and you don’t.

He was taught to distrust kindness and altruism, because if a world exists where kindness and altruism have value, then there exists a world where slavery is wrong. Where all the abuse and pain that generations of magicians have put themselves through to uphold the system of slavery was for nothing.

And in this context the metaphor of the true name as a source of both extreme power and vulnerability for spirits and humans alike, to the point where magicians hide/destroy/forget their birth names and by extension their humanity in order to contain that weakness is just so achingly perfect and scrumptious and I just-

Idk. Sometimes I think about that.

Edit: I think I may have unknowingly plagiarized this from @agape-emo-eros so uhhh, just gonna tag them here. Idk it was in my mind palace or smth. Sorry dude.

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

Looong rant about chapter 16 Ptolemy's Gate and how being passive can add to the cycle of ab*se.

oof so I just read when Nat goes to see Ms Lutyens and I can't help but be absolutely furious at her??

I know that's maybe a little bit unfair given she's frightened of him as a magician and is obviously angry when she finds out the department he's responsible for, but honestly it kinda brings up the problem with inadvertent bystanders to child ab*se in my mind.

And I'm definitely not blaming her solely for who Nat becomes but it makes me think of all those people in huge child ab*se cases who give interviews to press about all the things they noticed that were wrong but they just...never do anything?

She stood up for him against Lovelace, and when Nat thanked her- "I wanted to say that I know you were trying to save me, and-"

''Yes, and I'm sorry I didn't" Like girl be for real did you really think that alone would undo the years of indoctrination and abuse he's already suffered and prevent years worth of the same in the years to come? And she won't take responsibility - "My job is with children, not the adults they become" and again while it seems harsh to blame her for who Nat becomes, it's so much easier to pass the blame to people who are more directly responsible rather than acknowledging you also play a part.

I think it hurts so much more because it's her specifically- Nat goes to her in sheer desperation, it almost seems like a goodbye- he wants to thank her, tries to set her up in a job that will pay well and struggles to communicate he's trying to help. At this point he thinks Bartimaeus has been summoned by another magician and his birth name will be revealed. He's sure he's about to die and if not he'll be stood on trial and lose everything.

He goes to her because she represents the peaceful moments from his childhood when he got away from his master. He's scared and feeling lost and really it's call for help; but he doesn't ask for anything he just wants to make her feel proud of him- he's looking for that validation that he's been chasing since childhood.

And that shows he still does have that little bit of childhood innocence in him; he thinks she will be proud, thinks she'll see him as the same little boy in the garden gazing up at his teacher in adoration. He can't quite grasp why she's separated the man stood before her from that little boy. Because in that moment the child inside Nathaniel is seeking comfort AND THAT'S WHY it makes me so angry. She's completely given up on him when he's at his lowest ebb, because she doesn't want to be associated with the magician he's become. As if it isn't a massive step in the right direction that he saught her out in the first place- what other magican would bother? I wonder if that's why she reacted so strongly to seeing him again? Before that moment she could go about her life wondering if /pretending her attempt to protect him was enough, and now she realises it wasn't, of course it wasn't, and the image she had of Nathaniel's childhood innocence is completely ruined in her mind.

Or was her contempt for him even grater than Nat realised? She was naturally disgusted by the rhetoric he'd started to repeat from a young age, and gently tried to correct him although she was clearly angry- was she just resigned to the fact that there is little else she could do to change his future? I always thought- couldn't she have looked for him? The Underwood house fire was in the papers and they mentioned the apprentice was being searched for. Did she ever worry about him? Surely something must have been in the papers since- an announcement of new ministers, ANYTHING! Look at how much research Kitty did to find out about Bartimaeus and Ptolemy. I just don't think Rosanna Lutyens cared enough, realistically Nathaniel wasn't hard to find- but he was no longer her responsibility so she could turn a blind eye.

And sadly it's not just her- I know everyone loves Martha Underwood including Nat; but I think her submissiveness to her husband has a negative effect on Nathaniel as well. In AOS when Nat is locked in his room for ages after setting the mites loose, and is forbidden to have any contact with anyone and she won't talk with him. I know she's been told by Mr. Underwood she can't, but it still boils my blood. She's an adult and going along with ignoring Nathaniel because her husband told her to...I can't even begin to imagine the psychological damage that would do to a 10 year old child. (It could be argued she's frightened of the consequences if her husband finds out she's disobeyed him which is fair, he could always be watching through magic- but this is Arthur Underwood we're talking about. He's lazy, oblivious and weak I doubt he'd expend all that energy each day to check up on her.)

And It's even more painful that Nathaniel is often described as fiercely loyal to her and I think to Ms Lutyens as well- he doesn't expect to be treated well by Arthur Underwood but he loved Mrs Underwood and Ms Lutyens so much he started to view them through a rose-coloured lense. He never feels betrayed by either of them, even though they absolutely let him down, because the pedestal he's put them on is too high AND THAT ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS ME.

Would things with Nathaniel have been any different if Mrs Underwood hadn't died? I don't really think so. Do you think she'd see Nathaniel's temper at 14 years old and be reminded of Arthur Underwood? He was awful, absolutely awful to Nat and to her; but he was under so much stress in an underfunded departement, where pressure was being put on him by superiors to accomplish far more than they knew him to be capable of, and he took it out on the easiest target. Nathaniel ends up in exactly the same place and he starts to take it out on the only person around him- Bartimaeus. Would he snap at Mrs Underwood all the time if she were still there? Because he's learnt that behaviour from his father figure, and subconsciously learnt from his mother figure that she'll put up with it. He learnt from the woman he loved so deeply, that if you don't resist, people will walk all over you. So you have to maintain control even if it ends up hurting people you care about because no one will step in to stop the suffering no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you want them too.

It's easy to blame Arthur Underwood and Simon Lovelace and the magicians that actively hurt Nathaniel but I just feel like it's a bit disingenuous not to acknowledge the role of those doing passive harm. It's really mean to say it but even Bartimaeus plays a role- he knows Nat is clinging on to him because he can't 'bring himself to break this last connection' (to his childhood) but instead of bringing it up properly he 'taunts' Nathaniel- a boy who has been taunted for his weakness by his master for years. And even in AOS when Nathaniel tells Bartimaeus he was beaten for the mites incident Bart just kinda shrugs it off. Like I get it, why should Bartimaeus do anything, he's suffered way worse due to the system so he doesn't owe Nat anything right? But from Nat's point of view this is the first and only time he's mentioned to anyone what has happened to him and nothing changes. It's like another lesson learnt: telling someone about it doesn't help. Another nail in the coffin.

And I like all these characters, I feel bad for them. They're all victims of the system, I think the chapter with Ms Lutyens is just the straw that broke the camel's back for me. All of those little opportunities that are insignificant to the narrative over all; the commoners have it worse, Nathaniel is in a privileged position in society, exerting control over others. He's very morally grey, crossing over into objectively bad person territory but I love him with my whole heart and all of those insignificant moments would have been massive to him whether he was conscious of it or not.

And it goes all the way back to the beginning with Nat's parents giving him up to the magicians at 5 years old. I can't get the image of that little boy sat crying all alone in the government building. And he's not going somewhere safer, or somewhere he'll be happier and more loved. Giving your child over to a total stranger, oh he'll be totally fine won't he? He'll grow up to be a magician and far richer than you'll ever be, he'll be happy and comfortable and be grateful he got to grow up in luxury. There's no way a stranger you've never met, who the majority of society is terrified of would ever hurt a vulnerable little kid right? And if they do? Well you aren't responsible anymore, how could you know? What could you possibly do against the magician taking care of him?

Every little thing is another grain of sand tipping the scale. Did anyone else have to analyse An Inspector Calls in school? It feels like that to me- those BIG moments and all the little moments in between that add onto the pile.

And it goes on to cause problems in wider society too- ab*se is so normalised to the magicians, they casually ask Underwood if he hits Nathaniel like it's nothing. Because to them it is nothing, they've all grown up in the same circumstances and are repeating what they've learnt as children. I can't help but feel a little sorry for them all, especially when they aren't looked at through the black and white lense of 'argh these people are the evil arseholes look at how they treat everyone around them, screw these guys.' When we see those little glimpses of humanity like Simon's anxiety with the amulet; looking to his master and father figure Schyler for reassurance, and what's sad is that Nat is "reminded...of his own master's cold impatience" It's clear Simon looks up to his master, wants to make him proud and loves him. But it seems like Schyler has just trained Simon up so he can get power through him later on. I love the little hints of similarities between Simon and Nathaniel; the anxious mannerisms like fiddling with his hair that Nathaniel starts to develop, the way their master's talk to them. Even though they're actively working against each other in AOS and Simon is placed firmly in the baddies category and Nat in the goodies category at this point in the series; these things always hinted to me they had similar childhoods, how was Simon treated? When he had the imp beat Nat into unconsciousness, was it because he'd had the same punishment used against him? Did he know the magicians in the room would do nothing to stop him because no one stopped it from happening to him? Did he ever have a teacher stand up for him only for it to change nothing in the end because all the negative influences were so much stronger? Is the reason he loves Schyler like a dad because he's almost developed Stockholm syndrome? It looks like love because he's never known anything else.

And Arthur Underwood- who doesn't think his upbringing, and being taken away from his family ever did him any harm- doesn't realise the harm done is that he doesn't even know another way of raising Nathaniel, because he was never shown another way. His childhood may also have been filled with people who hurt him and the people that didn't do enough to intervene.

There are so many psychology studies that show children copy everything they see the adults in their life doing. Nathaniel copies the magicians behaviour towards spirits and on a subconscious level I think he copies all the submissive people in his life. How many times does he end up upset and frustrated with the fact he seems to be going nowhere and how many times does he just hope things will be different rather than taking postive action.

I dislike the actions the magicians end up taking but I also find them fascinating to analyse. I tend to prefer villains in media because they're usually slightly more complex individuals and I love to think about how they ended up that way. They can all be seen as victims of their circumstances in a way, despite all the power and privilege they have had terrible and traumatic childhoods, and if the commoners had no valuable worldy possessions at least they had a sense of togetherness; of love and understanding and selflessness. I wonder if the magicians hated them at least partly because of that. Because out in the sea of faces of the commoners talking about nothing important, doing nothing great and noble- could be the parents that abandoned them. And when your life is on the line daily because of working with spirits, and your colleagues want to stab you in the back, sometimes not being responsible for anything important looks good. But you can't leave your life as a magician, it would be too difficult; you have nowhere to go, no real friends, no one who really loves you. So it's better to stay and be a submissive bystander in your own life because it's so much easier.

Doing nothing is doing something- being passive can be just as harmful.

[narinick]

The Hanged Man

Ptolemy gave me a small salute, then his head fell back gently against the wall… All light around me vanished, my consciousness departed; the Other Place pulled me away. Furiously, against my will, I accepted Ptolemy's last gift.

[rosie-tyler]

[llleeerrroooyyy]

bartimaeus of uruk meeting a scrawny twelve year old with an ego problem:

[bblueraven-and-fandoms14]

Re-reading Bartimeus Triology and actually dying inside. Guys I'm on chapter 5 of AoS and I'm going to kill everybody in the room and then myself because Nathaniel did not DESERVE THIS. OUGH. OH. UNDERWOOD WHEN I CATCH YOU!!!!!

[asmiraofsheba]

I'm obsessed with this

[resinfossil]

Do you think Nathaniel ever remembered that time Bartimaeus had to drive him to Amanda Cathcart's mansion and was like "...wait a minute. How much experience does Bartimaeus even have behind the wheel?" or did he just never question that a djinni would know how to drive despite the fact that most magicians don't even own a car

[the-nameless-wacky-inventor]

okay okay okay- let’s say the bartimaeus sequence was made into four (possibly five if they split the last one like they always do but let’s go with four) pg13 movies, that means you get one f bomb per movie/book

who are you giving it to and when would you use it?

[ashesoriley]

Nathaniel in the golums eye

[oneeyedmagi]

But be careful, boy.

[ironyscleverer]

For anyone who read/is currently reading the lockwood and co books for the first time because of the Netflix show:

I just wanna say as an OG book reader that I LOVE watching you guys react to the book! It’s so scrumptious watching you all go through that first-time-read emotional journey. I read the books for the first time when I was 11-15, when they were coming out once a year and the fandom was tiny (~400 works on Ao3). Im now 22, and watching you all respond to the story is really genuinely filling a decade-old gap in my lockwood fandom experience and makes me feel like a little kid again.

So all that is to say please keep posting about your read-throughs! I wanna hear ALL your thoughts! Feel ALL the feels! Indulge the little 14 year old rattling around in my skull!!!

[nathaniel-underwood-is-an-intj]

Some thoughts about John Mandrake's 'introduction'

This is by far my favourite character introduction in the whole series specifically because it's written that way - as an introduction

John mandrake is introduced as a suave young magician/ politician who is popular with commoners and feared by his colleagues. He's built up in the introduction to be cool, detached and incredibly powerful; someone who is level headed and self assured.

He's immediately an interesting character.

But it's only by the association of the name that we know this is in fact Nathaniel - his manner and personality are so different to the boy we've read about so far:

Nathaniel the terrified 12 year old boy who summoned a Djinni in his bedroom for poorly thought out and hot-headed revenge.

Nathaniel the awkward goth 14 year old desperately trying to fit in with his colleagues and make a name for himself. All while slowly losing his morality out of fear of survival, and who's fear of losing control is manifesting in a unhealthy relationship with cleanliness.

It's only when Bartimaeus' explanation of how their relationship entirely broke down we see it happen in subtle changes and understand how he became John - through the extreme stress of running two departments, the constant war; through having to abandon his moral compass to keep his head above water.

But at first he's almost presented as someone else, another character that needs to have his rituals and habits explained to the reader because it might as well be someone completely different.

[narinick]

The Magician Reversed

One spirit, thousand faces.

My favorite Bartimaeus guises from the first book.

[rosie-tyler]

Bartimaeus Nathaniel