Artemis Fowl

"I believe it's time to let our diminutive friends know exactly who they're dealing with."


"I am not concerned with us all, just myself. And believe me, I shall be perfectly fine. Now, sit, please."
—Artemis Fowl II

A series of novels written by Eoin Colfer.

Originally, the tale of an Irish pubescent evil genius and his efforts to acquire money and power by exploiting the secret underground world of fairies living beneath the world using both magic and advanced supertechnology. In later books in the series, he becomes a more benevolent fellow, working cooperatively with the fairies to curtail human mischief. The series takes cues from suspense, action, "heist" crime films, and James Bond-esque spy movies and transplants them into a modern fantasy setting.

The series currently comprises seven novels; the eighth one is scheduled for July 2012 and is intended to be the last one.

  1. Artemis Fowl (2001)
  2. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (2002)
  3. Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code (2003)
  4. Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception (2005)
  5. Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (2006)
  6. Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox (2008)
  7. Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (2010)
  8. Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian (2012)

There are also two short stories that are available in the companion book The Artemis Fowl Files, and two graphic novels that appear to form a different canon to the prose (there were other less obvious changes, but one is listed under Race Lift).

Tropes used in Artemis Fowl include:
  • Accidental Hug: Butler does this to Artemis in the fifth book and then pulls away, embarrassed. (Artemis doesn't mind.)
  • Action Girl: Holly and Juliet.
  • Adjective Animal Alehouse: The Scuzzled Parrot.
  • Affably Evil:
    • Artemis starts out this way, being loath to actually kill anyone (fine with kidnapping though, and an occasional bomb or two), and very cordial with the negotiators.
    • Turnball Root, who compliments Holly right after kidnapping her.
  • Air Vent Passageway: in The Arctic Incident. Artemis has to crawl through a duct filled with fuel for the building's plasma weapons. Before his helmet runs out of air. Without being able to see where he's going. Knowing full well that if anyone turns on the plasma cannons, he's toast. Not to mention that once he gets out, he has to be sprayed with anti-radiation foam or he'll likely develop cancer.
  • All Trolls Are Different: In this case, ten-feet-tall gorilla-ish tunnel-dwelling monstrosities with poisonous tusks. And dreadlocks.
  • Almost Out of Oxygen: In the second book and again in the seventh.
  • Exclusively Evil: Goblins and trolls, although the latter are mostly portrayed as just animals, and the former is incredibly, incredibly stupid. They're directly stated to be dumber than dogs.
  • Amnesiac Dissonance: Artemis experiences a mild form of this when he recovers his memories of the fairy people and realizes that he had reverted to his former criminal ways during his mind-wipe.
  • Anachronism Stew: In The Time Paradox, Artemis goes back to two years before the first book (which was published in 2001, and uses human technology from that time). Yet, the young Artemis has a mobile phone that can be used to surf on the Internet, be connected to a beamer, has a blacklight to test money and an X-ray scanner. He uses his laptop to send a video message to every Extinctionist's phone, and all of them can watch it. Also, Kronski pays Artemis in bills of 500€, while the euro hadn't come into use (as a physical currency) until a few years later.
  • Ancient Astronauts: The reason Artemis translates the fairy language so easily is that it is similar to Ancient Egyptian and Artemis comments this is because the Egyptians borrowed it from the fairies.
  • Annoying Younger Siblings:
    • As of book 6, Myles and Beckett Fowl.
    • Juliet to Butler in the first book, before she Took a Level in Badass.
    • Grub Kelp to his superior officer Trouble. Corporal Grub has a bad habit of forgetting that Trouble is "Captain" while they're on duty; even when he remembers, he seems to think that "Mommy says" trumps rank. At his best he needs cajoling; at his worst he gives the impression that "Mommy says" is the reason such an utter liability is even allowed in the LEP, let alone on the squad of a Captain in good standing like his brother.
  • Antagonist in Mourning: Holly, briefly, in the first book when Fowl Manor is bio-bombed and it appears that No One Could Survive That. Root and Mulch mutually on separate occasions.
  • Anti-Villain: Artemis Fowl, before he became the hero. Likewise with Butler, who's just doing his duty.
  • Armour Piercing Question: "Artemis... Isn't that a girl's name?"[1]
  • The Atoner: Artemis is a rather serious case in book 7.
  • Author Appeal: The narrative would often go into the horrific outcomes of pollution and how Humans Are the Real Monsters for all their environmentally destructive ways. Also for killing animals for consumption and espousing the virtues of the green and vegetarian lifestyle of the fairies. On a lighter note, he also enjoys going into descriptions of the various high-tech gadgets that appear.
  • Applied Phlebotinum
  • Awesome McCoolname
    • Commander Trouble Kelp. Invoked, since he chose his new first name at his LEP graduation ceremony. He's so awesome even Holly respects him.
    • And of course, the title character.
  • Awesomeness By Analysis: Artemis's forte.
  • Badass: Butler can win a toe-to-toe fight with a troll. Holly is the world's best pilot ever, on top of being an athletic Action Girl and a great markswoman. Juliet put a jade ring in her hair and beats people down with that, because she can just toy around with less awesome than her brother.
  • Badass Boast: Doubles as Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, the ending of Eternity Code:

Together we will be unstoppable.

  • Badass in Distress: In the first book, Holly gets kidnapped by Artemis she uses a cot to smash through concrete, plants an acorn she snuck in, uses a loophole in a eye-to-eye command to go around the house, neutralizes Juliet with the mesmer, punches Artemis. And just when you think things can't get worse for the kidnappers, a troll comes in . . .
  • Bad Guy Bar: The Sozzled Parrot in Atlantis Complex.
  • Batman Gambit:
    • first book, where Artemis is trying to kidnap a fairy. He knows they have to go to a specific place at a specific time to do a specific thing, but if no one shows up (a very likely outcome) then he just sits in a tent all night.
    • Also first book: Cudgeon sends in the troll banking on the humans calling for help before it kills them, thus inviting the LEP inside.
    • Second book: Foaly gets Cudgeon to admit to his Evil Plan on tape because he knows his mark will want to brag about it.
  • Battle Butler: In its purest form, Butler.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: Juliet pulls one by joining a SWAT team in book three. Artemis also pulls them frequently.
  • Beneath the Earth: Haven City
  • Big Eater: Mulch. Full Stop.
  • Boxed Crook: Mulch Diggums, frequently.
  • Braids of Action: Juliet Butler
  • Brainwashed, Brainwashed and Crazy: The mesmer power is possessed by all fairies (and some humans).
  • Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: Artemis is guarded by the Butler family, of Caucasian (as in, from the Caucasus) descent.
  • Camera Spoofing: In The Eternity Code, Foaly spawns holographs invisible to the villain to make it seem like all the guards were knocked out from sleeping gas, and Artemis is there against his will. There were only two guards, and the holographs and Artemis don't show up on the camera. At all.
  • Canis Latinicus: The American editions turn the Fowl family motto into this.
  • Can't Take Anything with You: In order to simplify things in the timestream, No1 insists that Holly and Artemis strip before he sends them back in time, much to their chagrin. They bargain him down to just underwear.
  • Can You Hear Me Now?: Foaly and Holly. Often. Specifically the amusing phrase, "Trolls in a tantrum cause terrible trouble."
  • The Caper
  • Captain Obvious:
    • No1 likes to point out every possible meaning of various exclamations by other characters. Subverted in book six: "I think we all know what D'Arvit means."
    • "My butler could kill you a hundred ways without the use of his weapons. Although I'm sure one would be quite sufficient."
  • Character Development: As the series progresses, Artemis develops from a ruthless criminal mastermind into something almost heroic. And his ten year old self is even more of an asshole.
  • Characterization Marches On: A major part of The Time Paradox is contrasting Artemis pre- and post-development.
  • Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The new U.K. covers use this.
  • Chekhov MIA: Artemis Fowl, Sr. The first book starts with Artemis Jr. actively looking for his father.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Several.
    • Artemis' laser pointer is a literal example.
    • The seventh kraken in The Time Paradox.
    • The toy monkey...
    • The finger gun
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • Turnball Root, appeared in a short story and reappeared in the Atlantis Complex.
    • That sprite who told Turnball how to re-acquire some magic? That's the first supernatural being who ever appeared on-screen: the fairy who loaned Artemis a copy of her Book way at the beginning of the series. Given that she hadn't appeared since the first chapter of the first book, and this was the seventh, this probably is also a Brick Joke.
      • It's also to clean up Fridge Logic, because fairies are shown to lose their magic in certain situations, which this sprite may have been in, yet she retained enough magic power to heal some few human maladies.
  • The Chessmaster: Artemis (literally- one of his disguises as a chess prodigy ended up with a maneuver named after it), Opal Koboi. Spiro tries this, and is pwned.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
    • Doodah Day. At the end of Lost Colony, he is mentioned as having started working as a private detective along with Mulch Diggums. The Time Paradox takes place mostly in the past, so it's understandable that he wouldn't appear, but Mulch is actively involved in The Atlantis Complex and not only does he not seem to be working as a detective, there is absolutely no mention of what Doodah is doing.
    • Minerva Paradizo. At the end of book 5, she is stated to have spent 3 years obsessing over Artemis, waiting for him to return, and she was set up as a very obvious Love Interest. Two books later, and she hasn't been mentioned once since then.
  • City of Weirdos: It's mentioned several times that faeries often go to Disney Land on vacation, to no reaction from the human visitors.
  • Claustrophobia: Holly Short.
  • Invisibility Cloak: Foaly creates an invention called Cam Foil to make the wearer of it invisible. It's more technological than Harry Potter cloaks, which serves some problems, such as it shorts out in rain and is not invisible to a camera. Also, the circuitry can be easily crushed and the wearer appears as a slight haze, so is still noticeable.
  • Cliff Hanger:
  • Concealing Canvas: Lampshaded by Mulch in the first book. Turns out to be a subversion, as the safe behind the painting is a decoy.
  • Conveniently Precise Translation: When Artemis uses a computer program to translate the fairy language into English, it comes out in rhyming couplets.
  • Cool Shades: they have a practical use in deflecting the fairy mesmer.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jon Spiro.
  • Creepy Child: Artemis, especially in the first book. And the third, to the waitress. And again in the sixth.

"Who would want to kill Artemis? Every waitress and tailor on the continent, for a start."

  • Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: Artemis tends to have this effect on psychiatrists because he is much more intelligent than most psychiatrists and has read up on all the latest approaches to psychology. He can get them to diagnose him with whatever he wants. It helps that he's actually written some of the books his psychiatrists use to diagnose him.
  • Cultural Posturing: Various fairy characters are fond of reminding Artemis how advanced fairy technology is compared to the "Mudman" equivalent. Unless it's technology that Artemis himself developed after meeting the fairies and reverse-engineering their gadgets. He even impressed Foaly by packing his 3D projection kit, which doubles as a user interface, into a briefcase.
  • Cultural Translation:
    • The US edition of The Time Paradox, has proudly Irish Artemis start referring to his mother as 'Mom' after making an emotional breakthrough. She gains the title 'Mum' in the UK edition, but even that may be a version of this trope, as she's referred to indirectly as the very Irish "Mam" in the first book.
    • The second book, Artemis Fowl and The Arctic Incident, had a line in which Artemis predicts he will be attracted to Holly when he reaches puberty that was removed from US editions. They needn't have bothered, since he was right, and you couldn't have hidden it in TTP without rewriting half the book.
  • Cute Bruiser: Juliet Butler.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Artemis is such a mega genius that he could easily make many millions of dollars as an inventor -- and, in fact, he does. The Arctic Incident says that he holds several patents and is designing a Dublin opera house. He does crime in order to make billions. And, you know, for the challenge. He also writes romance novels for pocket change - because he figured out the formula for writing the perfect romance novel, naturally.
  • Da Chief: Julius Root. Then he gets gibbed. Ark Sool takes the position afterwards, but after he reveals his true nature, he's replaced by Trouble Kelp.
  • Dark-Skinned Redhead: Holly, at least in the novels.
  • Dastardly Whiplash: Mocked:

Butler: Focus, Artemis, one dastardly crime at the time.
Artemis Fowl: Dastardly, Butler? Dastardly? Honestly, we are not cartoon characters. I do not have a villainous laugh or an eyepatch.

  • Dead Guy, Junior: Sort of: Jayjay the lemur (short for "Julius junior") is indirectly named after Commander Root
  • Deadpan Snarker: so many. Artemis, Foaly, Holly, and Mulch (and occasionally Juliet) enjoy trading sarcastic statements. Mulch lampshades it in the narration of the fifth book:

Their little band of adventurers needed another smart-ass like they needed ten years of bad luck.

Holly: What on earth were you doing, Mulch? The computer says you came all the way down here in first gear.
Mulch: There are gears?

    • Mulch's driving technique is described earlier in the book as being "focus on the wheel and the pedals, and ignore everything else." He also assumed the shuttle had an automatic transmission.
    • And in The Eternity Code, he scoffs at Juliet when she points out to him that he can't reach the brakes.
    • And as of The Lost Colony Doodah Day:

Mulch: This close! We came this close to being incinerated. Give me your gun Holly, I'm going to shoot him.

  • Easter Egg: The "gnommish" coded messages running along the pages of some of the books and hidden in certain cover designs. They're a bit weird. They claim you're a long-lost fairy police officer, for one...
  • Eat Dirt Cheap: The dwarves.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Artemis Fowl, multiple times, starting from asking Holly to heal his mother in book one.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Even at his worst, Artemis won't stand for mistreatment of the environment He also won't kill people. Lemurs, maybe, but not people. When Holly compares Artemis to the villain Jon Spiro, Artemis uses this fact as his defense.
  • Everyone Owns a Mac: Take a drink for every Apple reference in the books. Good examples are Artemis's iBook, and the line in The Time Paradox about Foaly sucking information from the Apple Mac.
  • Evil Albino: Kronski seems to be this. He is described as having nearly transparent white skin and purple eyes. Since some forms of albinism manifest with purple eyes, and Eoin Colfer is not known for giving his humans odd eye colors, it suggests he may he albino.
  • Evil Genius: One per book. Artemis in book 1, Opal Koboi in book 2, Jon Spiro in book 3, Opal Koboi again in book 4, Minerva in book 5, Opal Koboi AGAIN in book 6. Turnball Root in book 7.
  • Evil Poacher/Egomaniac Hunter: The Extinctionists.
  • Evil Plan: Each book really. The first one is staged by Artemis himself when he was a Villain Protagonist. "Capture a fairy and ransom them." Simple enough, right? Except he had to find one first, get their book, translate it, and then find a fairy that was worth ransoming.
  • Exactly What I Aimed At: In one novel, the villains pull this.
  • Exotic Entree: The Extinctionists from Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox enjoy rendering endangered species extinct... and that, of course, includes dining on highly endangered or outright extinct species.
  • Extended Disarming: Well, not disarming, but near the start of Book 1, Artemis lists all of Butler's weapons hidden on his person.

Artemis: Let me fill you in on the weapons status. I am unarmed. But Butler here, my ... ah ... butler, has a Sig Sauer in his shoulder holster, two shrike throwing knives in his boots, a derringer two-shot up his sleeve, garrotte wire in his watch, and three stun grenades concealed in various pockets. Anything else, Butler?
Butler: The cosh, sir.
Artemis: Oh, yes. A good old ball-bearing cosh stuffed down his shirt.

He then goes on to say that Butler could kill someone in a hundred different ways without his weapons.
  • Eye Scream: The iris cam. Pure genius, but it sparks when changing the settings.
  • The Fair Folk: "The People" Arrogant, and annoyed with the Mud People, yes.
  • Fairy Companion: Played with: Artemis facetiously refers to Holly as "my fairy friend" at one point, but she is far too Badass to fit the trope.
  • Fake Memories: Foaly explains that the mind will naturally create false memories to fill the gaps left by a mind-wipe
  • Fartillery: Never stand directly behind a dwarf. Trust us on this one.
  • Fantastic Racism: Basically all the fairies. You could slip in most of Draco Malfoy's lines unnoticed.
  • Fan Service: Both graphic novels released so far have found an excuse to put Holly in a somewhat... revealing light. The scenes in question were both in the original books, though.
  • Fiction 500: He's #3 on the 2011 list, behind only Carlisle Cullen and Scrooge McDuck.
  • Find the Cure: The Time Paradox: the only cure for Angeline Fowl's disease is the brain fluid of the silky sifaka lemur - The catch? Silky sifakas went extinct eight years ago. Artemis himself made sure of that.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Various characters find themselves growing closer through all their adventures and misadventures.
    • Artemis and Holly are the prime example, seeing as how they've gradually gone from enemies to allies by necessity to somewhat-trusted companions to actual friends to closer friends.
    • Artemis and Butler, at first, were just 'the closest thing' each had to a friend. By the end of book 2 and all that had happened, Artemis realized that he truly respected Butler. And by book 3, Artemis was willing to go through a great ordeal to save his life.
    • Holly and Mulch, of all people, became close enough for him to join her as her partner when she quit the LEP and became a private detective.
  • First Time Feeling: In The Time Paradox, Holly restores Damon Kronski's sense of smell in a particularly fowl smelling Souk, which reduces him to writhing on the floor, clawing at his nose.
  • Five-Man Band:
    • The "Hero": Artemis Fowl
    • The Lancer: Holly Short. Also Mulch Diggums, as he and Artemis both have mentioned how well they would work together.
    • The Big Guy: Butler. Mulch may also count as something of a Big Guy, only he takes obstacles out not with his muscles but with his... uh... yeah.
    • The Smart Guy: Foaly
    • The Chick: Juliet, of the Action Girl variety.
  • Five-Token Band: Turnball's gang is the Fairy equivalent: One elf, one sprite, one dwarf, one gnome, one goblin.
  • Four Is Death: Invoked in the entire run of The Atlantis Complex. Caused by the titular magical malady.
  • Friendly Enemy: Artemis and Holly start off this way.
  • Fun with Acronyms: "LEP recon", the Lower Elements Police reconnaissance unit.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Foaly.
  • Gambit Pileup:
    • The first book starts simple enough, Fowl faction vs LEP recon in a hostage situation. Then Mulch has his own agenda, Crudegon has his own agenda, Holly's agenda shifts away from Root's agenda, and then there's a troll.
    • In The Time Paradox, Artemis versus Opal. One particular example: When he takes off in the Cessna, it looks as though they are all trying to make a break for it... but then Opal uses her thermal imager to see there is only one passenger. She guesses it is a decoy... but then notices Artemis is concealing the lemur's body heat under his shirt. That's what he wanted her to see.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: An odd example; the faerie language is apparently a language of symbols, but for all the codes at the bottom of the book, each symbol is translated directly to an English letter.
  • Gasshole: Mulch Diggums, and the dwarves in general.
  • Gender Blender Name: The title character (sort of; "Artemis" as a human name is genderless). He also claims to write romance novels under the name Violet Tsirblou in an inversion of Moustache De Plume.
  • Genius Bruiser: Butler may not quite equal his employer in heist-planning, but he's still pretty damn smart and outstrips him in several other fields.
  • Gentleman Thief: Artemis executes elaborate heists for the challenge and, after book one, seems to pick targets that he feels deserve it.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:
    • In the sixth book, while it did fit the language-obsessed character, a particular quote seemed to be directed as much at the readers as at the other characters:

"I think we all know what D'Arvit means," said Nol, "But hurkk is not English."

    • Artemis totally just flipped off Abbot.

Artemis Fowl grinned right back at him and pointed his index finger at the sky. Actually, it was his middle finger, due to the time tunnel switch.

  • Giant Squid: Artemis is attacked by one in The Atlantis Complex
  • Go Out with a Smile: Julius Root.
  • Green Aesop: The series teems with these, some more subtle than others. As of book five, environmental issues have not featured in the main plot, but the fairy people are quick to criticize humanity's lack of respect for nature and Artemis tends to agree with them in an Even Evil Has Standards sort of way. Book six, The Time Paradox, brings this front and center with the main plot focusing on an endangered lemur. Even the Easter Egg codes in some of the books are somewhat Anviliciously pro-green.

There were less objectionable ways to get oil by-products, thought Artemis.

    • The seventh book opens with Artemis unveiling his plan to end global warming.
  • Grey and Gray Morality: In the first book, an argument could easily be made for either side being the "good guys".
    • In the case of Artemis himself, well... on one hand, he is an unashamedly greedy criminal (which his future self readily admits). On the other, he does have some standards, feels some guilt over his plan, and given the set of values that his father gave him, he certainly doesn't think he's doing the "wrong" thing so much as following a twisted sort of "God-helps-those-who-help-themselves" mentality. Plus, two of his less explicit reasons for his kidnapping plot were to heal his mother and raise more money to try and find his father.
    • In the case of the LEP, some of them did some very questionable things, such as sending a troll into a house where it would be a danger to everyone, including the hostage. Many of them, including characters who were opposed to the troll idea, were later willing to kill several innocent bystanders (Fowl's mother and Juliet along with all of the wildlife) to take out Fowl and ensure that he wouldn't exploit the fairy world in the future. (Recovering the ransom was just a bonus.)
  • Grudging Thank You: Artemis to Holly at the end of book 2 and Butler to Holly in the first book.
  • Healing Hands: Any creature with magic can do it, though skill is a factor.
  • Heel Face Turn: Artemis, sort of. His father too, after he's recovered, thanks to Holly's meddling.
  • Heroic Willpower
    • Strong-minded individuals can put up some resistance to fairy mesmer.
    • This is also the main reason Artemis's atoms don't get randomly scattered through the time stream due to his multiple travels through it--"willpower," or at least intense focus and preservation of self, was stated to save him.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Artemis and Butler.
  • Hey, You: It marks a turning point in their relationship when Holly finally calls Artemis by his first name instead of "Fowl" (or "Mudboy"), and (much later) calling him "Arty". Likewise, when Artemis first calls his mother "Mum" instead of the more formal "Mother."
  • Hijacked by Ganon: Even though the key events of The Time Paradox take place in the past, one may still get the impression that Opal Koboi just doesn't know when to quit. Which Artemis even comments on when he desperately wonders how many times he would have to save the world from her.
  • How Can Santa Deliver All Those Toys?: Stopping time.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: According to the fairies, mostly regarding our treatment of the environment. In practice, Artemis is merely Affably Evil (if that). Though other human antagonists would definitely count. Jon Spiro in the third book and The Extinctionists in the sixth book. The Extinctionists, however The Man Behind the Man turns out to be a fairy plot. It dies down as the series eventually, though reluctantly, concedes that both humans and fairies can be pretty bastardy.
  • Hypocritical Humor: From The Time Paradox:

Opal Koboi: (meditating) Peace be within me, tolerance all around me, forgiveness in my path. Now, Mervall, tell me where the filthy human is so that I may feed him his organs.

Orion: Artemis never paid attention during self-defense lessons. I, however, always knew this day would come.

  • Jones the Cat: Jayjay the lemur.
  • Karmic Thief: At one point, Artemis Fowl chooses to focus his efforts solely on stealing from the wealthy and corrupt. However, he explicitly says he is not aiming to be Just Like Robin Hood
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: Turnball Root to Holly in Atlantis Complex.
  • Killed Off for Real:
    • Commander Root in the fourth book.
    • Commander Vinyaya in the seventh.
  • Lady of War: Holly Short.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Fairy technology can do this, but it's costly and labor-intensive. Used on a random Mafia goon and Artemis after The Eternity Code.
  • Last of His Kind: Jayjay, the silky sifaka lemur. Not for long, because Foaly is going to clone more.
  • Legacy of Service: The Butlers have been serving the Fowls for so long that they were the origin of the word butler. The earliest known interaction between the two was the Third Crusade.
  • Leprechaun: Actually LEPrecon: the Lower Elements Police reconnaissance unit. The stereotypical human view of Leprechauns is a source of significant embarrassment for the elves. And Recon are actually the source of that stereotype, if the multiple references to "the top hat and shillelagh days" in the first book are anything to go by.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Time travel and a violation of Never the Selves Shall Meet result in Artemis facing off against Artemis - and, for the first time, facing Butler as an opponent.
  • Lonely Rich Kid: Artemis Fowl, book one. He spends all his time watching computer terminals for news of his father and caring for his insane mother.
  • Loophole Abuse: In one of Holly's combat simulation exams, she beat an insurmountable number of enemies by shooting the projector. As they didn't have any rules against that, they had to let her pass.
  • Lucky Translation: Trouble Kelp is called Truba in official Russian translation. It does sound similar as far as translation goes, and even though its main meaning is "pipe", its second meaning is "a disastrous situation"
  • Luxury Prison Suite: Turnball Root manages to get one of these, receiving each item as a reward for selling out his former comrades
  • Mad Lib Thriller Title: Every novel beginning with book two has one.
  • Magical Computer: The Cube. Literally. Will do anything for you. Starting with hacking military satellites (human or fairy), and everything between that and diagnosing any medical conditions you have.
  • Magical Database: Although in Foaly's case, this might be a literal description.
  • Masquerade: Fairies are real!
  • McGuffin: Jayjay, the world's last silky sifaka lemur.
  • Meaningful Name: Multiple characters.
  • Memory Gambit: The Eternity Code and The Opal Deception.
  • Mercy Lead: Kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch Diggums is recruited for so many LEP missions - despite his official criminal status - that he practically receives a salary in Mercy Leads.
  • Military Maverick: LEPrecon Captain Holly Short tends to ignore the order to stand down and wait for reinforcements. As such, Root keeps screaming.
  • Mind Screw: The Atlantis Complex, if you can't keep track of the number of times the narrative changes to a scene taking place a few hours earlier or later.
  • Mismatched Eyes: A tinted iris-cam borrowed from Holly makes Artemis's eyes appear mismatched during his infiltration of Spiro Needle in book 3. He gets these for real in The Lost Colony when a timestream mishap changes one of his eyes with Holly's. He apparently also acquires some of Holly's magic...
  • Moustache De Plume: Inverted. Artemis says that he writes romance novels under the name Violet Tsirblou.
  • Must Be Invited: Any species capable of magic. Forcing your way in without an invitation is a good way to loose the entire contents of your stomach, and repeat offenses cause loss of spellcasting.
  • Myopic Architecture: Butler destroys an ancient stone doorway because it's much weaker than the modern armored door. Also Mulch Diggums gets through the floor of an otherwise secure area.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Nº1 is intellectual and gentle at heart, but all the other demons he grew up with were "hit first, question later" Blood Knights overflowing with machismo. After years of trying to fit in, this (and some hypnotic prodding) lead him to leave the island. Turns out, though, that he's not like the rest because he's the first warlock to appear in ages, and warlocks just don't have the same bloodlust that most demons do.
  • Never a Self-Made Woman: Juliet grows up wanting nothing more than to duplicate her brother's accomplishments as a bodyguard and live up to the family name. Book 3 has her coming to terms with this attitude. Unfortunately for Juliet fans, her refusal of the bodyguard profession and conscious attempt to level in Badass means joining a lucha libre troupe in Mexico and disappearing for the next three books. This is subverted with Opal Koboi because even though her father was successful and she entered the technology field too, he never encouraged or helped her in any way and basically wanted her to stay in the kitchen. Also, her company eventually puts his company out of business.
  • Never Hurt an Innocent
  • Never the Selves Shall Meet: The Time Paradox. Ideally they wouldn't have, if everything had gone according to plan....
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Dwarves. Seriously, at least one new one per book, kinda like Silver Age Superman. Along the course of the series, we learn that they can: tunnel by eating through earth, fire a devastating barrage of digested rocks/mud/whatever they just dug through, propel themselves underwater and ignore the bends because of intestinal bacteria, have saliva that works as a healing balm, can cling to walls if dehydrated, have glow-in-the-dark spit, which can also solidify to trap enemies AND contains a sedative capable of knocking people out (how exactly is only explained as far as Mulch's comment that "You didn't fall asleep because I didn't do your head"), have prehensile beards/antennae (very handy lockpicks/emergency automatic surgical needles)....
    • Lampshaded. "Even the dwarves don't know most of their abilities,"
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In Book 1, Artemis is a fairy-kidnapping Gadgeteer Genius mastermind at the head of a criminal empire.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Jon Spiro seems a lot like a very jerky version of Donald Trump.[2]
  • No Eye in Magic: The fairy 'Mesmer' ability, which - with direct eye-contact - allows the fairy to hypnotize and control a person. Reflective lenses such as shades will block it (and, on one memorable occasion, mirror-surfaced contact-lenses are used to covertly block a Mesmer), but it CAN be conveyed across video-link, albeit at a significant power-loss. (Strong-willed people can shrug off Mesmer if it's by video. With direct eye-contact, the best you can hope for is to resist violently enough to die rather than carry out the commands of your fairy master).
  • Non-Action Guy: Artemis is brains, not brawn, and frequently regrets his lack of physical fitness and coordination when he is forced to take an active role in things. Foaly is more successful in avoiding the action; his involvement rarely requires him to leave his computers.
  • Non Sequitur Thud:
    • When Artemis wakes up from being knocked out by Butler in the sixth book.

Artemis: Sell the Phonetix shares!

    • Foaly in the seventh book. This was apparently an "unpleasant childhood memory", but unlike Artemis's exclamation there's no context given.

Foaly: Not the stripy ones! They're just babies!

  • Note to Self:: The laser disc.
  • Not Me This Time: In "The Arctic Incident," Holly and Root assume it's Artemis behind the B'wa Kell golbin smugglings, but after they kidnap him to find out, it turns out not to be the case.
  • Obi-Wan Moment: The last act of Julius Root before Koboi blows a hole in his chest is to smile at Holly and wish her well.
  • Obstacle Exposition: Happens in every book, sometimes more than once. All that advanced fairy tech seems designed to create Mission: Impossible security system scenarios.
  • Oddly Small Organisation: Artemis' criminal empire pretty much consists entirely of himself and Butler. After his father's disappearance, Artemis apparently scaled back the family operations to only one's which he could oversee personally (almost entirely grand larceny and fraud), and heavily invests the profits from these (although he does make great use from his family's and Butler's vast network of contacts).
  • Oh God, Did She Just Hear That?: Opal Koboi has her none-too-bright henchmen convinced to the point of paranoia that she can read minds, simply by turning on them at random and shrieking "I heard that!" One henchman tests her by thinking treasonous thoughts at her as loudly as possible.

Henchman (thinking): Holly Short is prettier than you.
Opal Koboi: Don't stare at me like that, it's bad for my skin.

  • Our Elves Are Better: At least they certainly think so....
  • Our Elves Are Different: Some sort of weird halfway-house between the Tolkien elves and old elves.
  • Our Goblins Are Wickeder: They are lizardfolk, they are the only one who's able to use fireballs, and they are the stupidest sentient race on the planet.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: Holly's "death" in The Lost Colony is a textbook example - although the fact that she isn't the title character might give less jaded readers momentary pause.
  • Our Centaurs Are Different: Well, the only one we see is a Techno Wizard and Insufferable Genius, and pretty much the only person who can understand his Techno Babble is Artemis. It is mentioned, however, that most centaurs are like this: without magic, but very intelligent (though Foaly presumably still qualifies as genius).
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted hard. They have a digestive tunneling system, unhinging jaw, glowing spit, jet pack flatulence, suction cup skin, and more.
  • Our Fairies Are Different
  • Outrun the Fireball:
    • In Book 1, Commander Root is nearly killed by Artemis with a remote bomb. Commander Root, being a fairy, has to use his training to recognize the symbols... numbers... getting smaller... a countdown!
    • In Book 4, The Opal Deception, Holly, after seeing a bio-bomb detonate in Artemis's hotel room, has to try and stop another one from detonating and killing her, as Artemis got out safely. She covers it with her LEP helmet, but the helmet crashes away and she has to outrun the deadly blue light.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Butler and Holly are both significantly above average intelligence. They just have the bad luck to live in the same world as Artemis and Foaly.
  • Pardon My Klingon: "D'Arvit!" Lampshaded in the first book.

There is no point in translating that, as we'd have to censor it.

  • Parental Abandonment: Artemis's father is missing, presumed dead, while his mother is crazy. They both get better.
  • Pet The Endangered Lemur: Artemis has mellowed some since book 1.
  • Photoprotoneutron Torpedo: The fairies use neutrino charges to blow stuff up at one point.
  • Prehensile Hair: Mulch Diggums's beard hair, which can also serve as handy custom lockpicks.
  • Put on a Bus: Juliet joined a wrestling team, and Minerva wasn't even mentioned in Time Paradox.
  • Race Lift: Holly Short and elves in general are described as brown-skinned and, except for the pointy ears, able to pass as short humans in the books, but the graphic novels give her skin as fair as Artemis's. More subtly, the Butler siblings are described as noticeably part-Asian in the books, Butler passing easily for Chinese at one point despite being blue-eyed and terrifyingly tall. It's not noticeable in the graphic novels at all, to the point Juliet looks like a palette swap of Angeline.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Butler is a Le Cordon Bleu chef and enjoys old romance movies (his favorite is "Some Like It Hot"; tell anyone and he'll hunt you down); Artemis writes poetry and classical music, enjoys opera, theater, and has designed an opera house.
  • Recycled in Space: Word of God describes the series as "Die Hard WITH FAIRIES!"
  • Reed Richards Is Useless: As part of the long-running environmentalism anvils the Fairies never provide (willingly or unwillingly) technology that would help prevent humanity from polluting. Partially justified as they believe the humans would only use any technology to cause more damage.
  • Relex: The fairy language appears to be a Relex of English with Irish influences.
  • Replacement Flat Character: Artemis becomes a more decent person as the books go on, so The Lost Colony adds Minerva Paradiso who's doing near enough the same thing as Artemis in the first book. The younger Artemis they meet while traveling back in time in Time Paradox also counts.
  • Retroactive Preparation: In Time Paradox Artemis and Holly are locked in the trunk of a car and decide that later on they'll go back in time and ask Mulch Diggums to come rescue them, Mulch then breaks open the trunk. They try something similar later on in the book but realize that it only works once.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Happnes to Mulch in Book one. He tries to sweet-talk some goblins by claiming to sympathize with them, only to find out that the only thing they hate more than a dwarf is a traitor to his own kind.
  • Rival Science Teams: Foaly and Opal.
  • Rule of Cool
  • Running Gag
    • In Book 7, bivouacs.
    • In Book 6, people referring to the lemur as a monkey.
  • Running on All Fours: Goblins.
  • The Sadistic Choice: The beginning of The Opal Deception Opal forces Holly to choose between saving Commander Root and Artemis, then compounds the sadism by offering her a false third option. To add even more insult to injury, Opal didn't give Holly enough time to save Artemis even if Holly had left immediately.
  • Science Is Wrong: Subverted. Human understanding of certain scientific concepts is wrong, but only because human observations are limited by the fact that magic is actively hidden from "Mudmen." The scientific method is still a-okay.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: "Illegal tends to be faster." - Butler, book 2 and 4
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Holly Short gets in trouble because of this on quite a regular basis.

"Have you ever actually followed an order?"

  • Sherlock Scan: Artemis can pull this off
  • Shiny New Barbados: What Opal promises her henchmen in The Opal Deception.
  • Ship Tease: Holly kissing Artemis in Book 6 and more.
    • Artemis hugs Holly to activate a weight-sensitive panel to open a locked door.
    • They have to undress down to underwear and then hold hands in order to Time Travel. N°1 makes a parting shot about pronouncing them "man and elf". Then, when they arrive in the past, Artemis is aged and Holly rejuvenated to the point where their age disparity disappears. For bonus points, thinking about this disturbs Holly. That almost crosses the line from Ship Tease to Unresolved Sexual Tension.
    • For the non-Artolly shippers, Book 7 reveals that Holly and Trouble Kelp went on at least one date.
    • Also in Book 7, Orion. While he usually spends time pointing out how much he loves Holly, he also lets it slip early on that Artemis also has similar feelings, but chooses to hide them.
    • Book five covers the time period in which Artemis experiences puberty. Being Artemis, the enormous mass of new-found emotions and hormones is little more than an annoyance, but, also, being Artemis, he has no trouble mentioning this annoyance whenever he was distracted by a pretty face. This also just happened to be the book in which Minerva- essentially a slightly younger, Distaff Counterpart to Artemis Fowl- heavily features. Furthermore, he actually mentioned feeling attraction towards her, specifically. And yet, beyond these passing mentions, the matter comes up roughly twice: once when they get along incredibly well on the phone, which lasts about twenty seconds, since they are currently attempting to ruin each other's plans, and again towards the end at Minerva's side when she is revealed to have been thinking about Artemis in an admiring sense.
  • Shout-Out: See Artemis Fowl/Shout Out.
  • The Slow Path: Inverted in The Lost Colony. They return three years after they left. No. 1 was worried it would have been more.
  • Smart People Play Chess: One of Artemis' covers was a chess prodigy. The guard, also a chessmaster (not that kind), didn't believe it, and challenged him to a game. Artemis beat him in six moves.
  • Smug Snake: Jon Spiro
  • Sorry I Left the BGM On: In TLC, where Minerva is being held captive, she thinks that the situation is as tense as possible, and there's even theme music playing. Then she realizes the music is actually the Big Bad's cell phone ringing.
  • Space Whale Aesop: Save the Earth or you'll kill the fairies!
  • Stable Time Loop: More or less. 'The Time Paradox has so many piled on one another it'll make your head spin, even so far as simply 'planning' to do something when he got to the future made it retroactive fact, allowing him to reap the benefits before actually doing so. What is more, Artemis's obsession with Fairies in the first book is the result of residual memories from his future self, in which he learned about fairies and his own involvement with them, after a Mind Wipe.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Deconstructed like whoa in the first book, when Holly point-blank asks Root if he's harder on her because she's a girl. He admits it, and then points out that she's the first female in Recon, and needs to set an example. It's also worth noting that the only other female up for the job Holly considers a 'bimbo'.
  • Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: how they defeat Opal Koboi the second time
  • Sphere of Destruction: Biobombs. They explode in a (usually) sphere of light and kills everything within range, although they can be contained by Time Stops, which have a pentagonal base.
  • Staged Shooting: During the rescue operation in book 2.
  • Stockholm Syndrome: Holly to Artemis in book one, even mentioned by name at one point.
  • Strapped to An Operating Table: Not really. Artemis just wakes up on one. Occurs for real in The Time Paradox.
  • Swiss Bank Account: Artemis Fowl has several, though probably not as many as when he was still (moderately) evil. A couple of villains (most notably in The Infinity Code) also had Swiss Bank Accounts, ripe for Artemis to dig his fingers into.
  • Take That: Colfer can be utterly ruthless in his description of civilian fairies in the first book.
    • A particularly noteworthy example is Dr. J. Argon, a pastiche of celebrity doctors as well as psychologists in general. Colfer also makes a rather deliberate note in the first book that Argon is "a psychologist from below the United States".
    • A short one at politicans in general "Crudegon was doing what politicans did best: trying to duck responsibility."
  • Techno Wizard: Foaly, and Artemis himself to a lesser extent.
  • Teen Genius: Artemis, of course. And Minerva, who managed to calculate when and where demons will show up on Earth, without having ever seen the fairy book.
  • Teen Superspy: Artemis is one, albeit self-employed. No government agencies for him - Artemis has the style and the gadgets. Juliet is another, and even joins a SWAT team in The Eternity Code.
  • Terrible Artist: Mulch's "helpful" diagrams in The Arctic Incident.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: It may be a series of novels, but Artemis occasionally invokes this trope in his head.
    • In the first book, when he finally acquires his metric ton of gold from the People, he imagines that somewhere, the 1812 Overture is playing.
    • In The Eternity Code when Artemis meets Spiro on the airfield, he thinks that some music would be perfect for this situation.
    • And then in The Time Paradox, when he needs to think some mental music to clear his head, he thinks to himself: Plotting music, I need plotting music.
    • More literally in The Time Paradox when composing a symphony in his head stops his atoms being scattered.
  • Theme Naming: Most of the fairies have nature and plant-themed names.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball
  • Title Drop:
    • Book 2, The Arctic Incident, is retroactively title-dropped in book 4.

"Holly studied her trigger finger. A faint scar circled its base where it had been severed during the Arctic incident."

    • Dropped quite a few times in Book 6.
    • The Atlantis Complex also repeatedly mentions, well, Atlantis Complex.
  • Too Clever by Half: Artemis.
  • Translator Microbes: Fairies are able to converse in all languages, including dolphin and dog. This is explained as being partly one of the benefits of fairy magic, and partly because fairies were the first creatures to develop language, and all other languages are at least partly based on Gnomish as a result.
  • Trope Namer: An in-universe example, we're told Butler's family is so highly regarded, they named the profession after them.
  • Tunnel King: Mulch Diggums
  • Turn in Your Badge: Root keeps threatening Holly with this, especially after being seen by a toddler.
  • Ultimate Job Security: Invoked by Foaly. He designed most of his tech so that if anyone but he tried to operate it, a hidden virus would "bring it crashing down around their pointy ears". Needless to say, he abuses this situation by talking down to and making cracks about his superiors, knowing full well that even suspending him would greatly handicap the whole organization.
  • Universal Driver's License:
    • Fish smuggler Doodah Day can allegedly drive any vehicle, be it human, fairy or otherwise.
    • Mulch has jacked several hundred kinds of vehicles and drove only with "The gas and the steering wheel". He even managed to outrun a pair of missiles in first gear.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee
  • Urban Fantasy: Elves, goblins, and fairies using assault rifles and jetpacks.
  • Vancian Magic: Everyone with magic has a certain amount that they have available for use. When they run out, they have to go through an arduous ritual to replenish it. Also, the mesmer uses up decidedly less power than the other magics... unless you need to heal the villain's chronic lack of smell.
  • Vetinari Job Security: Invoked by Foaly; if anyone but him tries to use his computer, it crashes. He can still have his pay docked, though.
  • Villain Protagonist: Artemis in book one, not so villainous later on.
  • Villainous Breakdown:
    • Spiro in Book 3, after Artemis not only escapes from him, but calls the SWAT team, steals the Cube, and basically screws Spiro over after he had everything he could ever want in his hands.
    • Kronski suffers a particularly spectacular one
  • Voice with an Internet Connection: Foaly in his role as Mission Control.
  • Volleying Insults: Mulch and Foaly in particular enjoy trading gibes.
  • Waking Non Sequitur: Foaly gets one in The Atlantis Complex.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Animal fat.
  • We Want Our Jerk Back: In Book 7, the predominant sentiment of anyone dealing with Orion. Played for every ounce of humor and pain it's worth.
  • We Are as Mayflies
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Minerva. At the end of book 5, she is stated to have spent the last 3 years obsessing over, and waiting for, Artemis. Two books later, and she hasn't been mentioned since.
  • Winged Humanoid: played with - except for sprites, fairies' "wings" are actually jetpacks.
  • Wise Beyond His Years: Artemis.
  • Wistful Amnesia: Artemis post-mindwipe. Then he shows his former self when he discovers contact lenses he made to cheat the mesmer. As of "The Time Paradox", Artemis being interested in fairies in the first book is actually due to this.
  • Witch Species: Many of the fairy races in are this.
  • World of No Grandparents: Mostly. Artemis' grandfather gets a nod in The Atlantis Complex, it's mentioned in the first book that his maternal grandfather died when he was two, and Angelina thinks Artemis is her father-in-law at one point. But that's about it.
  • Writer on Board
  • Xanatos Gambit: In the first book. After abducting Holly, Artemis notices she has a tracer on her wrist so he does some quick soldering and gluing to place a tin camera inside. If it works then great, but if it doesn't, its still off Holly and all he loses is an advantage he never expected to have in the first place.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Not only can Artemis come up with new plans on the fly, he can calculate their probability of success.

Foaly: "Do you realize he had less than a minute to come up with this plan to save Butler's life? That's one smart Mud Boy."

  1. ↑ while the Greek goddess Artemis was indeed female, Mr. Fowl is quick to point out that the name itself is genderless in Greek.
  2. ↑ Isn't Donald Trump a very jerky version of Donald Trump?
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