The Bartimaeus Trilogy
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Commoners are the British working-class, and are the majority of the population of the British Empire. They are ruled by the magicians. (Click here to see the List of Commoners)

Commoners generally dislike, fear, or hate magicians, mainly because the magicians rule the government with oppression. Their democratic rights denied. And they are kept suppressed and brainwashed by a cocktail of fear, ignorance and propaganda.

A number of commoners were openly disdainful of the term "commoners" as a means of referring to them.

Most commoners are too scared or disillusioned to take action. But in the third book of the series, commoner dislike of magicians reaches its boiling point and erupts into large scale of civil unrest and anti-government sentiment. By the end of the third book (Ptolemy's Gate) the non-magicians are accepted into the government.

Powers/Abilities (Resilience)[]

The commoners develop a "resilience" to magic at later generations from when a Magic-ruled nation was formed (hundreds of years). The resilience raises the commoners's advantage in overthrowing magicians.

Definition[]

Resilience is an intrinsic property exhibited by certain humans, that makes them naturally resistant to the effects of magic. An individual possessed of it may withstand magical attacks that would kill or even obliterate another. The causes of resilience are undefined, but it seems to develop over a period of centuries in societies where magic has been present and active. Resilience has contributed to the downfall of a number of magical empires (Rome and the Czech empire for example), as the magical elites in each lost the ability to keep the citizenry under control with the threat of force. Resilience was apparently solely a born ability and could not be gained if a person was not born possessing it.

Manifestations[]

The resilience can be categorized under the following (unofficial terms) (for more examples, check the Resistance) :

  • Resistance to Magical Attacks comes in various degrees. However, no resistance can reach a level of immunity to magic. Named people who have resistance are Kitty Jones, Verroq, Nicholas Drew, and Mr. Pennyfeather.
  • Sensitivity to Magic varies in a way where one or a mix of senses can detect magical items and magical residue/aura. Examples are: Stanley Hawke (sight), Gladys (sight), and Timothy (hearing).
  • True sight that can see through a spirit's disguise. The levels of plane in which a resilient person can see was not specified if it varied. But people with resilience were mentioned to see on the seventh plane. Examples are: Verroq, Anne Stephens, Eva, and, Frederick Weaver.

One person can have a mix of the three categories. And resilience has variable effectiveness, with different characters expressing different abilities to withstand attack. Kitty, one such exhibitor of the trait, is incapacitated by a head-on Inferno, whereas Verroq, when subjected to the same, is capable of shrugging it off. It should be noted that no one person's resilience is demonstrated to be perfectly effective against magic, and that even Verroq (whose resilience is thought to be greatest of all) eventually succumbs to continuous magical attack

People exhibiting resilience in the books[]

A number of different characters are demonstrated to have resilience, but this list is by no means exhaustive

  • All of The Resistance are possessed of different levels of resilience
  • Verroq, the mercenary in the employ of Quentin Makepeace
  • An unnamed youth, who  a Night Police officer fails to subdue through magical attack, and who subsequently reverses the attack on her.
  • An unnamed individual who ran screaming warnings of ghosts
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