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60 pages 2 hours read

Hell Bent

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Character Analysis

Galaxy Stern

Galaxy Stern, better known as Alex, is the novel’s protagonist. She is an undergraduate student at Yale and a member of Lethe, the organization overseeing the rest of the secret societies. In Darlington’s absence, she serves as “Virgil,” the student in charge of assisting in the rituals of the other societies.

Alex has Jewish and Latinx parents, and is described as having straight black hair and numerous tattoos, including snakes and the tarot card “The Wheel.” The latter ties in with her status as a “Wheelwalker,” something that she does not fully understand but that gives her the powers she uses throughout the story. These include the ability to communicate with the Grays, channel their strength, and travel between the other world and the mortal world. Alex is characterized by moral ambiguity, with her decisions based more on achieving what she thinks is necessary than adhering to ideas of right and wrong. For example, she tries to protect Mercy from the dangerous world of the Lethe, but uses her as bait to trap Eitan in hell. This cements her position as an antihero rather than a traditional heroic figure.

She is also a haunted character in more ways than one. While she can interact with the spirits of the dead, her actions are driven by regret over her past actions. Her role in the fates of both Hellie and Darlington pulls her in positive and negative directions.

Daniel Arlington V

Daniel Arlington V, nicknamed Darlington, is one of the major characters in Hell Bent, and the other character whose perspective we inhabit besides Alex. As a human, he is known for being attractive, but more so for his personality. He is described as a gentleman, is polite, intelligent, and possesses a thirst for knowledge. After becoming a demon, he is bigger, covered in strange markings, and has a pair of glowing horns.

As in Ninth House, for most of the story, he serves less as a character in his own right and more as a goal for Alex and the others to reach. While the previous book was spent figuring out what happened to him, in this one they attempt to rescue his soul from hell.

Once his soul is returned to his body, several of the chapters shift to his point of view. From his perspective and the other characters’ perceptions, the Darlington that the story portrays vastly differs from the one portrayed in the previous book due to his year trapped in hell. Before he viewed himself as a knight, a protector against the forces of darkness. Now that he is part demon, he is more willing to take morally gray actions.

Pamela Dawes

Pamela Dawes, better known as Dawes, is a supporting character both in the narrative sense and in her role in Lethe. She is the organization’s Oculus, which means her job is maintaining Lethe’s resources and doing research for Darlington and Alex. Outside of Lethe, she is a graduate student at Yale. Unlike the assertive Alex, Dawes is quiet and often nervous, and she is described as always wearing oversized sweaters and a large pair of headphones.

While Dawes is not a warrior in the traditional sense, her resolve and caring nature make her a formidable force in her own right. Her intelligence and talent in researching arcane texts and rituals make her key to the story’s Gauntlet plotline. She is also defensive of the people she cares about, particularly Darlington. She only shouts in the book when Alex loses his car after the fight with Reiter. Dawes is also the one who found the existence of the Gauntlet and figured out how to perform the ritual. She also cooks, often to relieve stress, which is helpful later as homemade soup is a cure for the lingering issues faced on returning from hell. While she has a stronger sense of morality than Alex, her ideas of right and wrong are filtered through her respect for Lethe and its magic. For example, while Alex offers to help Turner destroy the amethyst map, Dawes is concerned about an artifact being damaged despite its dark history.

Abel Turner

Abel Turner is a significant character in the book. He is a detective at the New Haven Police Department and serves as Lethe’s police liaison, or Centurion. His character embodies the archetypal image of a police officer committed to justice and protecting the vulnerable. He also believes in good and evil, like Mercy. Unlike Mercy, however, he distrusts the societies, and his work with Lethe is a reluctant necessity. Turner is a voice of reason within the group and serves as the rational, grounded perspective within a narrative steeped in the supernatural.

Turner grapples with moral dilemmas throughout the story. While some of the issues stem from their attempts to reach hell and, as he tells Alex, his belief in the devil, a major problem he faces is the struggle against racial injustice. Turner is Black, and one of his motivations is the desire to protect his community. His former partner, an influential white detective, wanted Turner’s assistance covering up his murder of a Black man. While he would have advanced his position in the force, it would have come at the expense of his principles, and, Turner killed his partner to stop him. The use of the amethyst map, created to track Black individuals escaping enslavement, also presents an issue. Turner’s pragmatism drives his decision to go along with its use. Still, his reaction to it also highlights the enduring legacy of oppression and his burden as a Black detective.

Michael Anselm

Michael Anselm, the demon prince Golgarot in disguise, is the primary antagonist of Hell Bent. The real Anselm was a lawyer and member of the Lethe board who served as a temporary liaison while the organization appointed a new Praetor. Golgarot was the demon that tormented Darlington in hell. When Alex and Dawes performed the disastrous first ritual in Scroll and Key, he came to the mortal world with Darlington. He is responsible for the murders of Professor Stephen, Dean Beekman, Anselm himself, and Darlington’s parents, either by killing them himself or manipulating someone else to do it for him.

His main goal throughout the story is to torment Darlington and keep him in hell. After draining the real Anselm, he uses his position of authority in Lethe to thwart Alex and the others’ planned rescue. He takes on some of Darlington’s traits, such as his cleverness, interest in New Haven’s history, and hatred of Daniel and Harper Arlington. Alex notes the similarity during her meeting with him at the oyster bar but notes his lack of Darlington’s good traits.

Until the reveal in Black Elm, his attacks on the other characters are on their emotions, particularly hopelessness. While his main goal is to keep the other characters away from the Gauntlet, he also uses his position as Anselm to harm them. He latches on to Alex’s conflict and shame regarding her mother. He also deals a blow to her and Dawes by threatening to take away their home and support system in Lethe.

Mercy Zhao

Mercy Zhao is a supporting character in the novel and one of Alex’s roommates. Mercy represents a wide-eyed idealism of the magical world that contrasts Alex’s perspective. Like Turner, she believes in the existence of good and evil, but her lack of experience gives her a naive outlook on the situation he lacks. Once told about the complicated world of the secret societies and their magic, her desire for adventure leads her to throw herself into helping the characters with little knowledge of what she is getting herself into. Unlike the others participating in the Gauntlet ritual, she has not killed anyone. This changes in the story’s climax when she shoves Eitan through the portal, resulting in the death of his body and the entrapment of his soul in hell. This shatters her previous perceptions. Before, she approached the magical world more as a game of pretend, but Eitan’s death made it too real.

Despite their differences, Mercy has a close bond with Alex, and the two women are very protective of one another. Their friendship grows stronger after the latter does not have to hide her involvement in the magical side of Yale. However, this changes with the second Gauntlet ritual when Alex tricks Mercy into being bait for Eitan. The book concludes with their friendship in question.

Tripp Helmuth

Tripp Helmuth is a supporting character in the novel and represents the consequences of what can happen when the characters give in to their demons and despair. He is a former member of Skull and Bones and was supposed to have graduated from Yale by the time the book begins. However, when the characters find him, he has not yet graduated and was cut off by his family. He is described as personable but clueless, in contrast with the other main characters, who are all depicted as intelligent or clever. He is convinced to be the final participant in the ritual through the promise of repayment and is excited to team up with the others.

However, this changes after the first Gauntlet ritual. While all four characters who entered hell are affected by their demons, Tripp is hit the hardest. His sweeter nature and inability to reconcile himself with his own moral ambiguity when he left his cousin to die (even though the cousin was saved by happenstance) leaves him vulnerable to the demons’ power and he is consumed by them. While the human Tripp is dead, the resulting vampire still has most of the original’s peaceful personality. He does want to drink the others’ blood and is not as dangerous as Reiter, so Alex advocates for keeping him alive.

Linus Reiter

Linus Reiter plays the role of a minor villain but is positioned to become the primary antagonist in the following book. Linus is a vampire, which in the world of Hell Bent is a demon that successfully consumes the person they followed out of hell. As a result, the demon can now exist in the mortal world and feed off others. However, they lose the ability to change their shape and instead take on the appearance of their original victim. While Reiter is initially introduced in the subplot with Eitan as Alex’s second debt collection job, he is also connected to the hunt for the Gauntlet. As is later revealed, he is the demon that returned with the original Reiter from the ill-fated ritual attempt in 1933.

Reiter also connects to the overarching theme of Hope Versus Hopelessness. As a demon, he feeds on the hopelessness of his victims, but he also presents this theme as an obstacle for Alex. She hopes the money she will get from collecting his debt will be the key to securing her stability, especially since her position at Lethe is tenuous. However, when confronting him, she realizes he is the first opponent she cannot beat, even when using a Gray for strength.

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