The Terror

Silna, known for the majority of the novel as “Lady Silence” or just “Silence,” is an Inuit woman who, after her father is shot and killed by the expedition, is kept under Crozier’s protection on HMS Terror. The nickname stems from her being unable to vocally communicate due to her tongue having been removed, later revealed to be because she’s a sixam ieua.

For the crew, Silence is an elusive, almost spectral figure. They fear her, suspect her of witchcraft, and see her as an outsider whose presence is dangerous. The sailors’ assumption of her connection to the Tuunbaq is correct, but oversimplified. The sailors assume she controls or summons the beast, while the reality is that she has a relationship of obligation and ritual with the Tuunbaq, one that ties her survival and identity to forces the British cannot comprehend.

Fundamentally, Silence functions as a cultural counterpoint to the British sailors. The Franklin Expedition represents the height of Victorian imperial confidence: Two technologically advanced ships packed with provisions, scientific instruments, and officers who see themselves as the spearhead of empire. Nevertheless, their modernity becomes their undoing. Their canned food rots, their reliance on cumbersome sledges slows them, and their inability to adapt to the Arctic environment seals their fate. Silence, in contrast, is their only hope for survival—something Crozier recognizes early on, and which becomes true later when she saves his life after the mutiny.

Silence isn’t given direct narrative perspective in chapters. Instead, she’s viewed through the eyes of others, who project their fears, fantasies, or misconceptions onto her. This changes at the end of the novel, when poems from her perspective interject into chapters otherwise told from Crozier’s point of view as she communicates telepathically with him. In the end, when Crozier undergoes his transformation and takes on the role of Silence’s partner, it’s she who guides him through the process. She saves him not just from physical death, but from despair and purposelessness.

The Tuunbaq, also known as The Thing on the Ice, is a monstrous spirit that stalks the men of the Franklin Expedition across the ice. It’s described as a massive, polar-bear-like predator with a triangular head and a stench of rot that clings to its fur. Unlike a natural predator, however, the Tuunbaq is persistent in its hunt. It mauls without consuming, leaving corpses strewn across the snow. The Tuunbaq serves the narrative function of a horror monster by creating external conflict, heightening suspense, and isolating the characters in a hostile environment. Each attack escalates the sense of futility surrounding the expedition.

However, more than just being a source of horror, the Tuunbaq represents the spiritual and mythic dimension of nature’s resistance to human encroachment. For the sailors, the Tuunbaq represents the inexplicable, something outside the rational frameworks of Western science. No weapon is capable of destroying it, and attempts to hunt it result in further slaughter. The monster’s presence shatters the illusion that the men can measure and control their world.

For Silence, however, the Tuunbaq is part of a balance between humans, spirits, and the environment. Within the narrative, the Tuunbaq is explained as a creature created long ago by Sedna, the goddess of the sea and mother of animals, as a kind of weapon in the distant past. The Inuit characters like Silence know it as a being that is dangerous and powerful, but also part of the spiritual order of the Arctic.

Cornelius Hickey is the primary human antagonist of The Terror. Based loosely on an actual caulker’s mate who sailed on HMS Terror, Simmons transforms him into a figure of ambition, chaos, and perverse charisma. He operates on two levels: as a self-serving and opportunistic character and as a thematic device embodying the breakdown of imperial order.

Hickey’s status on the expedition is marginal from the outset. As a caulker’s mate, he’s neither officer nor regular seaman, and his position places him near the bottom of the social hierarchy. Simmons emphasizes this outsider quality, portraying Hickey as someone who thrives by exploiting gaps in authority. He’s quick to gossip, undermine officers, and use insinuations to plant seeds of doubt.

As the novel progresses, Hickey emerges as the mastermind of dissent. He thrives on the suffering of others, using fear and hunger to consolidate control. His pivotal moment comes when he engineers a mutiny against Captain Crozier, seizing control of part of the crew. Hickey’s methods are as theatrical as they are brutal. He stages mock trials, public executions, and forces others to participate in his grotesque rituals. In many ways, Hickey represents the collapse of the taboos that once held the expedition together. Eating human flesh is the ultimate violation of civilization, but for Hickey, it becomes a tool of control. By encouraging and enforcing cannibalism, he breaks down resistance and binds his followers to him in complicity.

By the final chapters, starvation, isolation, and delusion convince Hickey that he has transcended humanity. He sought power and control, exploiting others’ suffering for his gain. Once all his followers are dead, Hickey turns inward, creating a fantasy in which he has succeeded. His delusion reflects not triumph but emptiness: He has no followers, no kingdom, only corpses and the endless ice. Hickey’s belief in his divinity also sets the stage for his final confrontation with the Tuunbaq. When the creature approaches, Hickey welcomes it, imagining that even this supernatural terror will bow before him. Instead, it rejects Hickey and leaves him to die alone.

Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir is one of the expedition’s surgeons and the only one to survive the Carnivale disaster, as well as one of the novel’s major point-of-view characters. His chapters are unique compared to the others, as they are written as entries in his diary rather than in the third-person prose used for the others.

Goodsir is a surgeon and naturalist, younger and less seasoned than his companions. His training is scientific rather than military, which shapes his perspective throughout the novel. The Franklin voyage was, in part, a mission of science, intended to chart the Northwest Passage and expand geographical knowledge. Goodsir embodies this intellectual idealism, even as the expedition devolves.

Unlike Crozier, who is caught in a leadership crisis, Goodsir has no real authority. His role is instead that of witness and reluctant participant. This makes him invaluable to the narrative, as he’s free to be horrified, to recoil, and to cling to ideals of decency, where others must harden themselves for command. As a result, Goodsir also serves as a moral foil to characters such as Hickey, whose descent into depravity is contrasted by Goodsir’s stubborn resistance to moral collapse. In Hickey’s camp, he’s one of the few to abstain from cannibalism. Goodsir’s refusal to cross that final line becomes an act of defiance, one of the few and final forms of resistance still available to him in the end.