Inkheart

Mortimer Folchart, mostly called “Mo” and “Silvertongue” in the text, is characterized as a loving father and husband. He is patient and affectionate with Meggie, whose point of view chapters often include nostalgic memories of bonding moments: “[H]e had tossed Meggie up in the air, he had carried her around the house on his shoulders, he had taught her how to make a bookmark out of a blackbird’s feathers” (17). Mo is a static character who remains consistent in his values and personality throughout the course of the novel.

However, Mo has secrets, which are only revealed thanks to Dustfinger’s arrival at his house. Even at the threat of danger, Mo is reluctant to tell Meggie everything—he only does so when he feels he must. In Chapter 16, he finally reveals that he has the power to draw characters and objects out of books by reading aloud, but that something or someone is taken from the real world in exchange. He has no control over the swaps, which led to Meggie’s mother, Teresa (Resa), getting sucked into Inkheart at the same time Dustfinger, Capricorn, and several other characters were pulled out. Mo is kind-hearted and ethical; he is devastated by the distress he’s caused Dustfinger in robbing him of his home, and he refuses to read aloud again until Capricorn threatens Meggie.

Mo is heavily driven by his love for and loyalty to his family. His devotion to Meggie is clear when he risks his life to enter Capricorn’s compound and save her. When he learns that Resa is back in the real world, Mo also grows determined to find and rescue his wife, whom he has never stopped loving and missing. Mo’s kindness and loyalty are rewarded at the end of the story; he helps his daughter defeat Capricorn and the Shadow, and he reunites with his wife and Elinor, the entire family happily moving into Elinor’s home.

Dustfinger is a mysterious character who accompanies Meggie’s party throughout the story. Despite his early betrayal of Meggie, Mo, and Elinor to Capricorn, Dustfinger is characterized as roguishly likable. Dustfinger’s predicament is sympathetic; he was read out of his beloved world of Inkheart by Mo’s unpredictable magical powers, and he feels incurably homesick and constantly overwhelmed by the modern world. He misses the mythical elements of his own home, including the fairies, trolls, and goblins that he once knew, and he mourns the loss of his ability to breathe fire into wondrous shapes. Dustfinger was accompanied by his horned marten Gwin when he was transported into Mo’s world.

Dustfinger is portrayed as a self-motivated character who trends toward the side of good. Dustfinger often expresses regret and shame over his immoral actions, such as telling lies or betraying innocent people, but he is driven by his desire to return to the Inkheart world and will do anything to achieve that goal. Dustfinger alternates between allying with Meggie’s group, betraying them, or acting entirely on his own. He initially sides with Capricorn because he believes Capricorn will return him to the book; when Capricorn betrays him, Dustfinger lends Meggie and her group his aid instead. However, Dustfinger is terrified of knowing the end of his own story. When he learns the truth and unwillingly meets Fenoglio, the author who wrote him, he flees and goes about trying to steal Inkheart in his own way. Dustfinger breaks himself and Resa, for whom he has romantic feelings, out of Capricorn’s prison, but when Resa refuses to leave Meggie’s side, Dustfinger regretfully leaves them both behind. His love of Resa, fondness for Meggie, and underlying desire to do good ultimately cannot triumph over his longing for home.

Dustfinger’s face is carved with scars caused by Basta’s knife. Despite this violence enacted upon him, Dustfinger does not physically hurt Basta despite his numerous opportunities to do so. Furthermore, Dustfinger is determined to learn to read, unlike Basta and Capricorn’s other henchmen who disdain literature. These choices paint Dustfinger as a foil to Basta—he repeatedly chooses “good” and decides not to enact violence, even though he is primarily self-driven and doing so would objectively benefit him.

Partway through the story, Dustfinger gains a loyal (although unwanted) sidekick in the form of Farid, who Mo inadvertently reads from a story in Thousand and One Nights. Farid treats Dustfinger as a mentor, seeing a kindred spirit in someone who has been left just as unmoored as himself. Despite Dustfinger’s repeated protests, Farid loyally follows Dustfinger, who steals Inkheart and ventures off at the end of the book in search of someone to read him back home.

Elinor Loredan is Resa’s aunt and Meggie’s great-aunt. She is initially characterized as a snobbish and solitary character who values her collection of valuable books far more than human connection. She is embroiled in the drama with Capricorn and Inkheart when Mo is abducted from her home; Meggie’s distress motivates Elinor to help to find and save Mo. This illustrates Elinor’s latent but present compassionate qualities.

Elinor’s compassion and love for Meggie and Mo grows as the story continues. She risks her life numerous times to help her great-niece and her nephew-in-law, and she is eventually held captive by Capricorn and threatened with execution by the terrifying Shadow. Elinor’s precious book collection is even burned for her involvement. However, as the story progresses, Elinor shows her bravery and loyalty as her devotion to Meggie and Mo grows. Though she is devastated by the destruction of her library, her hurt prompts her to reach out to Meggie and Mo and join them in their attempts to defeat Capricorn, instead of causing her to withdraw and mourn in solitude. Elinor even bravely calls out to Meggie when Meggie sees that she’s been captured, trying to reassure her great-niece even when her own life is in danger.

Elinor is also a somewhat comical reminder that Inkheart takes place in the real world, despite its fantasy elements. Elinor repeatedly tries to involve the police when dealing with Capricorn, a jarringly normal course of action in an otherwise fantastical series of events. At the conclusion of the novel, Elinor opens her home as a refuge and home to the menagerie of creatures that appear with the Shadow’s destruction, as well as to Meggie, Mo, Resa, and the reader Darius. This drastic change in Elinor’s living situation symbolizes her evolution into a loving and compassionate character, as well as her embrace of the magical.

Capricorn, the story’s principal antagonist, is characterized as the epitome of evil. He feels no love or friendship for any of his loyal followers. He seeks only power, and has no problem enacting cruelty. Fenoglio calls him a “dark hero,” which ironically clashes with his unheroic description: “Basta would have let his heart be torn out for Capricorn, but his master is a stranger to such loyalty. He feels nothing, nothing at all, he doesn’t even enjoy his own cruelty” (257). Mo accidentally reads Capricorn into the world along with Dustfinger, Basta, and several others, and he takes Meggie and flees to safety for nine years until Dustfinger tracks them down and betrays them.

Capricorn is a static character. He acts purely for his own benefit, and the only emotions he shows are anger, hatred, and cruel apathy. Capricorn creates the Shadow from the ashes of his murdered victims in order to enact further violence. He tricks Dustfinger into bringing Mo and Meggie to him in order to acquire riches through Mo’s magical reading skills, and then laughs as he forces Dustfinger to watch as he burns almost every copy of Inkheart, ruthlessly destroying Dustfinger’s only way home. When Capricorn learns that Meggie shares her father’s power, he forces her to pull the Shadow from Inkheart in her father’s stead, which he intends to use to execute Resa, Elinor, Dustfinger, and Basta.

However, Meggie, Mo, and Fenoglio manage to turn the Shadow against Capricorn, which kills him in accordance with Fenoglio’s alternative scene. This signifies a triumph of the forces of good over the forces of evil.

Basta is Capricorn’s principal follower. Like Capricorn, Mo accidentally reads Basta out of Inkheart. Basta’s most beloved possession is his knife, which he uses to incite fear in his enemies and to enact violence. Basta is responsible for the scars on Dustfinger’s face, and he constantly threatens the other characters or outright harms them. Basta is casually cruel toward even innocent creatures, such as stray dogs and Tinkerbell; his biggest weakness is his superstition, which often inhibits his actions. Dustfinger repeatedly weaponizes Basta’s superstitious beliefs to get the upper hand, such as when he steals Basta’s lucky charm, or when he pretends to curse Basta to lure him into the jail cell.

Despite Basta’s undying loyalty to Capricorn, Capricorn sees little value in him. He sentences Basta to death when Basta accidentally lets Dustfinger escape, which devastates Basta. Like Elinor and Teresa, Basta is saved from his terrifying fate when Capricorn and the Shadow are defeated. Basta does not vanish when the Shadow does, however; he escapes into the world and remains at large at the end of the novel.