The Bad Weather Friend

Spike the craggle is Benny’s primary supporter throughout the novel. Craggles are a kind of creature with no known origin; their purpose is to appear on Earth to support people who are “too nice for [their] own good” (147). Craggles have a range of special abilities. As Spike soon demonstrates, he has the power to “sideline” or freeze people in place, and he can also perform an “origami time fold trick” and wield immense strength as needed (145). Craggles are ancient and perhaps immortal—Spike himself is 1,800 years old—and they do not have reproductive organs.

Spike possesses a complex personality. He regards some of his former charges with less affection than others, but it is clear that he loved Benny’s predecessor, Talmadge Clerkenwell. He regrets being forced to leave Clerkenwell, knowing that the man was about to die. Spike has a dry sense of humor and a stubborn streak. In addition to playing a dominant role in the novel itself, he is also included in several of the narrator’s parenthetical interjections, making suggestions and offering literary analysis of the narrative as it unfolds. However, Spike is essentially a static character because he does not undergo any major changes over the course of the story. Unlike Benny, Spike has no need to change. He fulfills his role precisely as he wants to and does not have an important lesson to learn. Instead, he is the one providing lessons that Benny needs to learn, the most important of which involves his aphorism about the importance of tempering niceness with wisdom in order to ensure survival.

Harper is Benny’s primary love interest and a staunch sidekick. Although she initially appears in the novel in the role of a waitress, she is soon revealed to be a trainee private investigator who is working with Benny’s friend Bob. Harper is blonde, pretty, and colorful, often employing witty turns of phrase and proclaiming an optimistic view of life. She lives by a philosophy that she calls “smooth” and “blue,” believing herself to be entirely smooth but not yet fully blue. This mindset is never explained; the narrative only indicates that Harper’s vague philosophy offers a sense of peace and happiness that few people ever find in life.

Harper’s quirky personality and instant connection with Benny mark her as a stock character type commonly known as the “manic pixie dream girl.” This character type is usually identifiable by her bubbly, quirky personality and her role of teaching the male protagonist the true value of life. This character type often lacks depth or history and primarily functions as a “perfect” love interest for the protagonist. While the narrator exhaustively describes nearly every other character in the novel, very little is revealed about Harper’s life before she met Benny, and she mentions no hobbies beyond her desire to be an investigator, which she happily gives up in favor of romance. She and Benny fall in love over the course of a single day.

The Better Kind is a group of wealthy people who believe they are superior and intend to remake the world in their own image. They view “nice” people like Benny as a threat to this plan. Though the group acts as a collective antagonist, it is primarily represented by two specific villains: F. Upton Theron and Llewellyn Urnfield.

Upton is a 90-year-old, secluded billionaire whom Benny’s team confronts at his massive and decadent estate, the Palazzo del Coniglio. Out of jealousy, Upton murdered his own sister when he was a child, and he has since orchestrated the deaths of many others. He is ruthless, megalomaniacal, and unshakably certain of his own intelligence and superiority. His only object of affection is his white rabbit, which he named Arabella after the sister he murdered.

Urnfield is a woman in her fifties who lives in a humble middle-class neighborhood. She is the leader of the Better Kind. Like Upton, she is convinced of her superiority and the rightness of her vision. However, she is more controlled and less maniacal than Upton, which makes her the more dangerous of the two. She best represents the novel’s exploration of The Contradictory Presence of Evil, and her actions support the philosophical argument that much of the evil in the world stems from a corrupt and self-righteous wealthy ruling class that abuses its power and influence to oppress people and make the world worse. Although Benny plays a part in the deaths of both villains, Upton and Llewellyn essentially die because of their own misdeeds. Upton dies from a heart attack after a long life of depravity, while Llewellyn is killed by a redirected bullet from her own gun.

Jurgen and Mengistu are teenage boys whom Benny meets and befriends at Briarbush Academy. Jurgen possesses an aura of ominous threat that he uses to protect himself at Briarbush. Mengistu is the smartest boy at the academy, often sharing random facts and quotes. They both deduce that their parents have knowingly sent them to Briarbush to be reprogrammed into better leaders of the future (i.e., less kind and more ruthless, entitled, and obedient to the will of the wealthy ruling class). Both boys are the black sheep of their families and fear what will happen if and when they return home.

Jurgen, Mengistu, and Benny work together to uncover Mrs. Baneberry-Smith’s evil plans, facing many dangers with a sense of loyalty and camaraderie. Though Benny does not know their fates for years after he leaves Briarbush, they reappear in the final chapters. By the time the three friends reunite, Jurgen and Mengistu have also acquired craggles of their own.

Mrs. Baneberry-Smith is a secondary antagonist who fills the stereotypical role of the “evil scientist” in the flashback chapters that take place at Briarbush Academy. She is the wife of the academy’s headmaster, Mr. Lionel Baneberry-Smith. Before this, she worked as an entomologist in the jungles of Asia, where she claims to have been bitten by a spider that left her hospitalized for months. However, she was really attacked by the last survivor of an alien ship crash and was poisoned with the vast, indecipherable knowledge of an alien race from Regulus.

At Briarbush, she works with the Internal Security Agency, using this alien knowledge to brainwash the boys of Briarbush so that they can be used to control the country. She also ruthlessly experiments on the boys for her own ends. Like Upton and Urnfield, she represents the evil ways of the ruling class, and she also brings about her own downfall by accidentally killing herself and several students in a lab explosion.

Naomi is Benny’s mother. Although she is a minor character in the flashback chapters, her ill treatment of Benny shapes who he becomes as an adult. Initially, Naomi is introduced as the target of her husband’s abuse. However, when she receives a large insurance payment after her husband is murdered, she transforms into a neglectful mother who is obsessed with money. Over the course of the novel, she abandons Benny three times. First, she leaves him with her abusive and likely murderous mother, Cosima, while she cruises the world for two years. The second abandonment occurs when she marries Jubal Catspaw and sends Benny to Briarbush while she and her new husband travel to Egypt. Finally, she removes Benny from Briarbush, only to leave him with a tutor and disappear to Italy, never to be seen again.