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The Curse of the Blue Figurine

467 statements
91 feature instances
16 referencing feature instances

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The Curse of the Blue Figurine	label	The Curse of the Blue Figurine
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine	comment	John Bellairs' third major series for young readers began in 1983 with The Curse of the Blue Figurine and its direct sequel The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt, which introduced Johnny Dixon and his friends Professor Roderick Childermass and Byron Q. "Fergie" Ferguson, who lived in Duston Heights, Massachusetts. He published six additional sequels in his lifetime.After Bellairs' death, Brad Strickland was hired by Bellairs' son to complete four of his father's unfinished manuscripts, of which one was a Johnny Dixon work. After this, Strickland wrote three additional novels based on the characters. The series' continuity includes: The Curse of the Blue Figurine (1983; set January-June 1951) The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt (1983; set September-November 1951) The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (1984; set February-June 1952) The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost (1985; set September 1952-May 1953) The Eyes of the Killer Robot (1986; set "middle of summer"-October) The Trolley to Yesterday (1989; set March-May) The Chessmen of Doom (1989; set May-June the following year) The Secret of the Underground Room (1990; set May through September) The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie (1994; set September though New Year's Day) The Hand of the Necromancer (1996; set June-August) The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder (1997; set March-June) The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost (1999; set June, ending June 30)
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_17501df2	type	Cool Old Guy
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_17501df2	comment	Cool Old Guy: Professor Childermass, a seventy-plus-year-old history professor who's notoriously cranky, but a loyal friend who plays chess, bakes cakes and other goodies, and will march out into a raging storm, in the middle of the night and in his pajamas, to climb up a mountain and rescue Johnny from an evil spirit that — before that moment — the professor hadn't really believed in. Father Higgins, a former military chaplain who also believes in the supernatural and is perfectly willing to throw himself into danger to protect Johnny and his other friends from the forces of evil.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_177a6464	type	Genre Shift
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_177a6464	comment	Genre Shift: Whereas the previous books had all revolved around magic and magical beings, The Trolley To Yesterday is a time-travel story (and a steampunk one at that!).
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_182f59f9	type	On One Condition
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_182f59f9	comment	On One Condition: In The Chessmen of Doom, Professor Childermass will only inherit his late brother Perry's estate (and 10 million dollars) if he stays there for the summer (June 15 to Labor Day) and keeps the place in shape without any paid help (though apparently hiring someone to fix the furnace doesn't count). He winds up violating the terms of the will by going home early, stating that the money isn't worth the risk of sticking around and possibly getting killed by the Evil Wizard Edmund Stallybrass. However, he does get twenty thousand dollars as a consolation prize. The Hand of the Necromancer adds that Perry also bequeathed him some magical items once owned by the wizard Esdrias Blackleach, with no conditions attached, though the items came with their own set of dangers.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1989b0c	type	Comic-Book Time
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1989b0c	comment	Comic-Book Time: While books 1-4 specifically cover January 1951 to May 1953 (with Johnny having turned thirteen by the start of book 4), time mostly holds still afterward, and Johnny is always described as being "about thirteen" in later books. Logically, at the start of book 9, it should be 1955 (with the last chapter taking place on New Year's Eve and ending as the year turns to 1956), but the only indication of the year is a mention that the Korean War had "recently ended"... which happened in July of 1953. By the end of the series, it should be summer of 1958 at the very least.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1aa76d29	type	Death by Origin Story
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1aa76d29	comment	Death by Origin Story: Johnny's mother dying of cancer is part of the reason he now lives in Massachusetts with his grandparents instead of Long Island, New York. (His father going to fight in Korea is the other.)
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1b38f6b7	type	Shout-Out Theme Naming
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1b38f6b7	comment	Shout-Out Theme Naming: Professor Childermass's father, Marcus, named his sons after characters in Tobias Smollett novels — Roderick Random, Humphrey Clinker, Peregrine Pickle and Ferdinand Count Fathom (who usually goes by F.C.F. Childermass). Possibly averted with his daughter, whose name is never mentioned.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1ea248b4	type	Neat Freak
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1ea248b4	comment	Neat Freak: Gramma Dixon is described in chapter 1 of The Curse of the Blue Figurine as "one of those fussy types who vacuum the house twice a day".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1fc8335e	type	Deal with the Devil
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_1fc8335e	comment	Deal with the Devil: In The Secret of the Underground Room, the villain is one of the De Marisco Knights, a family of pirates and warriors who once owned the island of Lundy. Six of them went beyond their family's usual villainy by selling their souls to the devil for power; they were eventually defeated and imprisoned via magic, but one of the knights, named Rufus, got away and eventually died a natural death. That knight's ghost is the villain of the book, seeking to revive his fellows.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_24400cfe	type	Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_24400cfe	comment	Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon: A variation in The Curse of the Blue Figurine. The titular object has a fake label on it claiming that it's a souvenir from the city of Cairo in Illinois, but it turns out to be a genuine ushabti (or tomb figurine) from Kush, an ancient kingdom in Nubia whose people had once invaded Egypt and carried some of their practices, including the making of ushabti, back to their homeland when they were driven out.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_24c6f22e	type	Trash of the Titans
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_24c6f22e	comment	Trash of the Titans: In a variant, it's only Professor Childermass's desk that's a disaster area, covered in papers and old composition books, which are literally overflowing onto the floor. The back room of his study is apparently in similar shape.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_26d1f65f	type	Verbal Tic
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_26d1f65f	comment	Verbal Tic: Mattheus Mergal of The Hand of the Necromancer has a habit of saying "Hmm". This, along with a few other things, clues in Johnny that it's Mergal on the phone and not Professor Childermass, as he claims.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_27af99f1	type	Raised by Grandparents
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_27af99f1	comment	Raised by Grandparents: Johnny moves in with his father's parents when he's about eleven, due to his mother's death and his father going off to fight in the Korean War.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_280333d4	type	Hollywood Heart Attack
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_280333d4	comment	Hollywood Heart Attack: While not seen, a heart attack is what kills Evaristus Sloane in The Eyes of the Killer Robot — his witnessing the defeat of the titular robot is the trigger, with his wife exclaiming afterward that "He's dead! His poor heart couldn't take it!". Foreshadowed early on when his wife tells him to "Remember what that doctor told you about your heart!"
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_2df13927	type	Prefers Rocks to Pillows
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_2df13927	comment	Prefers Rocks to Pillows: In The Secret of the Underground Room, when offered a bed in an inn, Father Higgins declines, stating that "I slept on rocks and roots in the jungles during the Second World War, and that floor looks very inviting to me. Wake me about noon tomorrow, if you would be so kind." He promptly throws himself down on the rough boards and is asleep in seconds.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_2e8875f0	type	Misplaced Retribution
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_2e8875f0	comment	Misplaced Retribution: Discussed in The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie, where Major Harrison Dixon confesses that when his wife was dying, he was so angry at such a senseless death that he wanted to hit something, but he couldn't — you can't hit back at cancer. When he went off to fight in Korea, he finally felt that he was hitting back, but after he was shot down and had recovered, he flew non-combat missions for a while, including evacuating the bodies of the dead and the wounded, and that's when he finally realized he hadn't been shooting at his wife's cancer — he'd been shooting at kids. And that realization is what made all his anger drop away.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_308ac24f	type	Fantasy-Forbidding Father
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_308ac24f	comment	Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Or mother, in this case. In The Secret of the Underground Room, it's noted that Mary Elizabeth Higgins, a non-Catholic, wanted her son Thomas to become a lawyer rather than a Catholic priest. They were still quarreling about this when she died in 1946.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_336b2997	type	Portal to the Past
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_336b2997	comment	Portal to the Past: The Trolley to Yesterday introduces the "Holes of Time", which occur for no reason in certain random but fixed locations, and can take people to any point in history in that location — they're the key to the Time Trolley's operation. Five are mentioned in particular — one in a house in Topsfield, Massachusetts; one at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean; one in a crypt of a medieval church in London; one in the temple of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt; and one in Leander's Tower in the Hellespont, which is where the Professor intends to go.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_348c7ded	type	Sword Cane
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_348c7ded	comment	Sword Cane: One is featured in The Eyes of the Killer Robot. It ends up in Professor Childermass's hands thanks to a ghost pointing Johnny to a pawn ticket in an old snuff box, and proves key to stopping the titular robot (though the Professor doesn't realize it's enchanted until after he uses it for its intended purpose). Oddly, it's never seen in the series after this, despite the Professor still having it at the end of the book.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_34d7d9b	type	Things That Go "Bump" in the Night
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_34d7d9b	comment	Things That Go "Bump" in the Night
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_35ae6a23	type	Lethal Chef
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_35ae6a23	comment	Lethal Chef: Downplayed example with Grampa Dixon. The one time his cooking is described, he's said to have overcooked hamburgers until they were charred, and the canned peas were just as bad. Then again, he was depressed over his wife being in the hospital with a brain tumor at the time.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_364f54d3	type	Posthumous Collaboration
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_364f54d3	comment	Posthumous Collaboration: The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie, written by Strickland based on Bellairs' notes.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_3b5fcbb7	type	Artifact of Doom
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_3b5fcbb7	comment	The skull from The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull is one of these. Johnny suspects it's an evil talisman which has a negative effect on him, so he drops it into a bay. When he comes face to face with the Big Bad, he can sense the skull appear in his pants pocket, still cold and wet from its time at the bottom of the bay.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_3b789458	type	Recurring Extra
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_3b789458	comment	Recurring Extra: Perry Childermass manages to be both this and an Unseen Character (the first time he's named, it's because the Professor has gotten a letter reporting his death; and his physical body never appears, as his corpse was stolen soon afterward). Despite this, he still manages to to affect the plot of three different books: The Chessmen of Doom, The Hand of the Necromancer and The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder (downplayed in the latter, as Perry and his former estate are merely mentioned as being near where they're actually heading, and when this is mentioned, Father Higgins asks about what he was like in an effort to try and take his mind off the present danger).
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_4508b16b	type	The Guards Must Be Crazy
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_4508b16b	comment	The Guards Must Be Crazy: In The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost, the guards at the gates to Nyarlat-Hotep's palace stop the Professor, Johnny and Fergie and declare that "None shall pass!" However, in no small part due to their being blinded by having their eyes sewn shut, Professor Childermass is able to fool them into believing they'd really said "Nuns shall pass", and that he is a nun and thus allowed in, with Johnny and Fergie also introducing themselves as "Sister (name)". The last time the guards are heard from, one is remarking on how there's been a lot of nuns around lately and wondering if there's a convention going on.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_47d35854	type	Intergenerational Friendship
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_47d35854	comment	Intergenerational Friendship: Johnny Dixon (who's twelve at the time) becomes good friends with the seventy-plus-year-old Professor Roderick Childermass over the course of the school year in book 1. Later books introduce Fergie Ferguson and Sarah Channing, who are the same age as Johnny, and they likewise form friendships with the professor.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_486b0458	type	Draft Dodging
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_486b0458	comment	Draft Dodging: In The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder, the book's antagonist Jarmyn Thanatos (then operating under the name Jarmyn Nemo) is noted to have paid a substitute to join the Union Army in his place in 1862 — perfectly legal, though looked down upon.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_51d3ca9b	type	Hates Being Nicknamed
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_51d3ca9b	comment	Hates Being Nicknamed: Both Professor Roderick Childermass and Father Thomas Higgins hate being referred to by specific nicknames. The professor hates being called "Rod" (though it's specified in The Drum, The Doll, and The Zombie that he doesn't mind friends of his own age using it), but actually asks Grampa Dixon to call him "Randy" (short for his middle name of "Random") on one occasion; however, this nickname is never brought up again. Father Higgins hates being called "Higgy". However, he has no objection to "Tom".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_5319eefb	type	Book Safe
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_5319eefb	comment	Book Safe: A Roman Missal is used as one in The Curse of the Blue Figurine, housing a blue ushabti (the titular "blue figurine") and a scroll with a note from the late Father Remigius Baart.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_569a95e9	type	The Teetotaler
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_569a95e9	comment	The Teetotaler: Gramma Dixon, who strongly disapproves of alcohol and doesn't even like to stay in the same room when it's being served.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_5860c090	type	Sitcom Arch-Nemesis
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_5860c090	comment	Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Downplayed example, but Professor Childermass has a strong dislike for (and can barely stand to be in the same room as) Dr. Carl Schermerhorn, the Dixon's family doctor, a fat, shambly man who uses bad grammar and tells lousy jokes. The professor tries to be polite to him, but generally regards him as a quack and, when Major Harrison Dixon falls gravely ill in The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost (his spirit has actually been stolen by an evil entity), the professor forbids him from being involved with the case. However, he has a good reason for all this: Schermerhorn once misdiagnosed the professor's cousin Bea, who was having severe headaches, with bad teeth. It turns out she had a brain tumor, which led to her death a few months later. Schermerhorn, for his part, doesn't seem to realize how the professor feels about him.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_5abc8612	type	Unholy Matrimony
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_5abc8612	comment	Unholy Matrimony: The villains of The Eyes of the Killer Robot.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_62434fe2	type	Sanity Slippage
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_62434fe2	comment	Sanity Slippage: A side effect of Jarmyn Thanatos's process of becoming younger. Every time he does it, he loses a bit of himself; by the time of The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder, he has worn down to little more than his desire to live forever.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_62b1ac6f	type	Time Travel Episode
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_62b1ac6f	comment	Time Travel Episode: The Trolley to Yesterday, which sees Johnny, Fergie and the professor going back to the last days of the Byzantium Empire.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6366f900	type	Old Soldier
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6366f900	comment	Old Soldier: Professor Childermass, Father Higgins and Johnny's father are all war veterans. The professor served in World War I as an intelligence officer (his codename was the Crab, which amuses Henry Dixon when he finds out), and mentions in The Eyes of the Killer Robot that he changed a tire on an army jeep while being shelled during the Battle of the Argonne Forest. This gets a call-back in The Chessmen of Doom, when he remembers single-handedly charging an enemy machine gun nest during the same battle, despite being in intelligence and not the infantry. Father Higgins was an army chaplain who served in the Pacific front during World War II, fighting in Guam and the Philippines, and the war is said to have left him with a permanent case of bad nerves and a violent temper. Major Harrison Dixon was a World War II bomber pilot, who returned to action (this time in a jet) in the Korean War.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_63b02752	type	Hair-Trigger Temper
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_63b02752	comment	Hair-Trigger Temper: The perpetually cranky Professor Childermass. Many things can set him off; fortunately, he is able to restrict himself from physical violence against living beings. (Easily replaceable inanimate objects, such as the plates he buys at the ten-cent store, are less lucky.) He even has his own "fuss closet", with padded walls and flooring, where he goes to burn off his rage at things like not being able to open a jar of olives. Father Higgins is also said to have a permanent case of bad nerves and a violent temper as a side-effect of serving on the Pacific front during World War II, being present for some of the bloodiest battles of the war, but he rarely displays his temper around Johnny, due to the younger boy being pretty mild-mannered and well-behaved.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_65b13ac5	type	You Can't Miss It
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_65b13ac5	comment	You Can't Miss It: Referenced in The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie when a very frustrated Professor Childermass has just gotten a set of directions from a gas station attendant and preempts the expected line with "Don't you dare tell me I can't miss it!".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_66dfe36a	type	Missing Mom
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_66dfe36a	comment	Missing Mom: Johnny's mother died of cancer before the series started.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_670b7e0e	type	I Know You're Watching Me
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_670b7e0e	comment	I Know You're Watching Me: In The Trolley to Yesterday, Professor Childermass and Brewster (actually the Egyptian god Horus) are in his house having a talk. Johnny and Fergie are crouched under the kitchen window trying to listen in, where Brewster easily detects them and asks the Professor, "But hadn't you better ask those other two in?" Professor Childermass is... not thrilled to catch the two eavesdroppers, but ends up inviting them in and explaining what's going on anyway.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6bccf2ba	type	Supreme Chef
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6bccf2ba	comment	Supreme Chef: Professor Childermass, whose hobby is baking (his cakes are absolutely wonderful), and Gramma Dixon, who tends to make the same dishes all the time, but they're always delicious.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6bfd0c5c	type	When the Planets Align
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6bfd0c5c	comment	When the Planets Align: In The Chessmen of Doom, the planets have to be favorable for Edmund Stallybrass to perform the spell that would summon comets to wipe out humanity.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6d7fb55	type	Fake Brit
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6d7fb55	comment	Dr. Pimlico and her Fake Brit husband, Evaristaus Sloane (In-Universe, he had to leave his home and move to England for quite some time, long enough to pick up a touch of an accent), who serve as the villains in The Eyes of the Killer Robot, with plans for murder and mayhem.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6eb04f1	type	"Everybody Laughs" Ending
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_6eb04f1	comment	"Everybody Laughs" Ending: The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost, The Secret of the Underground Room, The Hand of the Necromancer and The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder, the former three all in response to remarks that Professor Childermass made.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_7360806f	type	In-Series Nickname
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_7360806f	comment	In-Series Nickname: In The Eyes of the Killer Robot, Professor Childermass reveals that during Henry Dixon (Johnny's grandfather)'s years as a semi-professional baseball player, he used to be called "Cyclone Dixon".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_77e8d49d	type	Clingy MacGuffin
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_77e8d49d	comment	Clingy MacGuffin: The skull from The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull is one of these. Johnny suspects it's an evil talisman which has a negative effect on him, so he drops it into a bay. When he comes face to face with the Big Bad, he can sense the skull appear in his pants pocket, still cold and wet from its time at the bottom of the bay. The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder: Main antagonist Jarmyn Thanatos controls The Book of True Wishes, which he passes on to an unsuspecting victim, allowing him to steal their youth; Fergie tries to get rid of it by throwing it in a furnace, only for it to show up in his room, unharmed.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_801415e6	type	Hand of Glory
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_801415e6	comment	Hand of Glory: Discussed late in The Hand of the Necromancer. Mattheus Mergal lies about why he wants the Blackleach hand, while trying to hypnotize Professor Childermass; the professor snaps out of it with Johnny's interference, admits he knows Mergal was lying, and then, when Mergal sarcastically says "I suppose you know better.", Professor Childermass responds that he knows a little about magic and proceeds to prove this by explaining what a Hand of Glory is and how it works.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_80360df0	type	Dark Horse Victory
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_80360df0	comment	Dark Horse Victory: An "At least the other guy didn't win" version is discussed during an ongoing competition in the sequel The Hand of the Necromancer. Professor Childermass is a die-hard fan of the Boston Red Sox, and has a burning hatred of the New York Yankees. At the end of the book, during a game between the two, Professor Childermass surprises everyone by congratulating one of the Yankees on a good play... but then loudly points out that the Yankees are still six and a half games behind the Cleveland Indians, earning chuckles out of his friends and the other Red Sox fans nearby.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_829b958e	type	Embarrassing First Name
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_829b958e	comment	Embarrassing First Name: Byron "Fergie" Ferguson feels this way about his first name — as he explains to Johnny, "I wish you'd call me Fergie, on account of nobody in their right mind wants to be called Byron."
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_86f2d483	type	Frying Pan of Doom
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_86f2d483	comment	Frying Pan of Doom: Played with — during The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie, Professor Childermass grabs up a cast-iron frying pan from Professor Coote's kitchen with the intention of using it against the intruder in the house, who's in the process of dragging Johnny away. When he gets outside, however, he finds a better weapon, and leaves the frying pan behind in favor of his tire iron.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_87629455	type	No Communities Were Harmed
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_87629455	comment	No Communities Were Harmed / No Historical Figures Were Harmed: The Caribbean island of St. Ives in The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie, ruled by the more-corrupt-than-usual LeGrande regime, bears a suspicious resemblance to Haiti under "Papa Doc" Duvalier. It's not a "community" per se, but The Hag in The Curse of the Blue Figurine is pretty clearly supposed to be New Hampshire's "Old Man of the Mountain."
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_87bf0789	type	Teacher's Pet
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_87bf0789	comment	Teacher's Pet: In book 1, class bully Eddie Tompke claims Johnny is this, and that's why he always gets good grades. The truth is that while Johnny's teachers usually do like him, it's because he does his work and actually earns those grades.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_8d86bcd3	type	Theme Initials
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_8d86bcd3	comment	Theme Initials: The Windrow Family, with their intention to communicate that their family held the Urim and Thummim. However, there are only so many names that start with U and T. (And there are no IIs shown in the list of Windrow's names.)
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_906365a2	type	Demonic Possession
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_906365a2	comment	Demonic Possession: Johnny becomes possessed by the vengeful spirit of Warren Windrow in The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost, who influences his behavior for a time before finally rendering him comatose and giving him the same scars Warren's own body had when he died, and intends to kill him eventually. Luckily, Windrow is ultimately driven out by the Professor (with the aid of the Urim and the Thummim) and hasn't been seen since.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9245d989	type	Sinister Minister
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9245d989	comment	Sinister Minister: Father Remigius Baart, the antagonist of The Curse of the Blue Figurine.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9a5ae2a2	type	More Teeth than the Osmond Family
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9a5ae2a2	comment	More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The pillow creature in The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie is described as having "hundreds of needle-sharp teeth".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9c1f758a	type	Kill It with Fire
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9c1f758a	comment	Kill It with Fire: Fergie tries to do it to Jarmyn Thanatos' "Book of True Wishes", but fails. Later on, Professor Childermass threatens Thanatos with burning down his tower to stop him if he has to, but Thanatos taunts him that fire is not the element that can harm him. Fortunately, Johnny figures out the way to stop Thanatos' book, and by extension Thanatos himself, just in time.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9c8701b5	type	A Day in the Limelight
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9c8701b5	comment	A Day in the Limelight: The Professor and Fergie get theirs in The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost when they set out to find the mystical artifacts needed to save a comatose Johnny's life. Father Higgins steps in as Johnny and Fergie's adult helper after the Prof disappears in The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, with a full one coming in The Secret of the Underground Room when he's possessed by an evil spirit and the trio have to rescue him.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9dab0a6e	type	Continuity Nod
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_9dab0a6e	comment	Continuity Nod: Brad Strickland is especially fond of these in the books he wrote with Bellairs' characters. Johnny Dixon's old enemy Eddie Tompke features heavily in The Hand of the Necromancer.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_a0390164	type	It's for a Book
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_a0390164	comment	It's for a Book: In The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, during Johnny's trip to Vinalhaven Island, Maine, he and his friends stop in the local library to do research, trying to find something that'll lead them to the answers they need so they can find and rescue Professor Childermass. Father Higgins' excuse to the librarian, when he asks her for pamphlets, guidebooks and pencil and paper to take notes with, is that he's writing a book on the Maine seacoast.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_a2b38d3b	type	Eye Scream
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_a2b38d3b	comment	Eye Scream: The title objects in The Eyes of the Killer Robot were cut from their original owner's head and underwent special treatment after his death, allowing them to animate a statue (or in this case, a baseball-throwing robot).
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_a4ad4fe5	type	I Know Karate
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_a4ad4fe5	comment	I Know Karate: Professor Childermass doesn't say it aloud, but in The Trolley to Yesterday, after his Knights of Columbus sword is broken against a man wielding a stout wooden spear, he decides to fall back on the tricks he's learned from a mail-order course in jujitsu. It actually works, letting him knock his enemy to the ground and snatch an object from the other man's belt.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_ad8dbae4	type	Public Domain Artifact
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_ad8dbae4	comment	Public Domain Artifact: The heroes' greatest weapon against the forces of darkness is a small cross, worn on a necklace by a priest, containing two splinters of the True Cross. Unfortunately, it's lost in The Secret of the Underground Room when Masterman breaks the chain that Johnny wears it on, and he realizes later that he'd forgotten to grab it from the floor and so left it in the underground room.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b06bbf4b	type	Be Careful What You Wish For
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b06bbf4b	comment	Be Careful What You Wish For: Wishes granted by Jarmyn Thanatos' "Book of True Wishes" tend to backfire on the wisher, as Fergie discovers — among other things, he wishes his mother didn't have to work so hard, so she falls and twists her ankle, meaning she'll have to stay off it and can't do much work until it heals.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b0a91b69	type	Convection, Schmonvection
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b0a91b69	comment	Convection, Schmonvection: Averted in The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt. H. Bagwell Glomus hid his will inside a stone statue; when his mansion catches on fire and the statue falls into the basement (which is described as having become like a brick oven due to the fire), the statue survives the blaze, but the will itself is burnt to ashes by the heat.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b1825e95	type	Playground Song
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b1825e95	comment	Playground Song: The Boy Scouts on their way to Camp Chocorua in The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt sing "98 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" all the way through before the trip is out. Narration describes it afterward as "the song that is calculated to drive bus drivers out of their minds".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b61b755f	type	Tomboy
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_b61b755f	comment	Tomboy: Sarah Channing in the later Johnny Dixon books.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_bd6d90d9	type	Eye Remember
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_bd6d90d9	comment	Eye Remember: In The Eyes of the Killer Robot, an Evil Sorcerer discovered a way to build a Magitek robot powered by a human being's eyes. When he decided to put it into practice, he had a grisly idea: what if the last thing a person's eyes sees are himself/herself? He murdered a man and made sure the last thing the guy saw was his own reflection. When he implanted the victim's eyes into the robot, the robot somehow took on the appearance of the dead man.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_be009bbc	type	Alliterative Name
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_be009bbc	comment	Alliterative Name: Roderick Random Childermass, and his brother Peregrine Pickle Childermass, who have alliterative first and middle names.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c0d106a8	type	Wrecked Weapon
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c0d106a8	comment	Wrecked Weapon: In both The Trolley to Yesterday and The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost, Professor Childermass breaks his Knights of Columbus sword while fighting someone. The second time, he even lampshades it:
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c3c77510	type	There Is Only One Bed
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c3c77510	comment	There Is Only One Bed: More like "there are only two beds" and three people, late in The Secret of the Underground Room. Johnny offers Father Higgins his bed in the room of their inn after rescuing him, but Father Higgins declines. See Prefers Rocks to Pillows for his follow-up response.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c4942576	type	Cunning Linguist
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c4942576	comment	Cunning Linguist: Professor Childermass often helps shed light on the current mystery with his extensive knowledge of languages, from French, Spanish and German to Latin and Greek. He prides his knowledge of languages extremely, and at the end of The Eyes of the Killer Robot, he is very put out by the fact that he did not recognize Arabic writing on a sword, thinking instead that it was only decorative engraving.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c547f08d	type	Ghostly Chill
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c547f08d	comment	Ghostly Chill: In The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost, the catacombs under the church on the old Windrow estate are rather chilly, in part because the spirit of Zebulon Windrow is lurking about.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c6dd9571	type	Lost Will and Testament
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c6dd9571	comment	Lost Will and Testament: The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt has cereal magnate Herbert Bagwell Glomus, whose will was hidden away before his suicide, and Johnny Dixon's desperate hunt for it (he wants the reward money to pay for a brain surgeon for his grandmother, whom he believes to be dying of a brain tumor). His efforts are opposed by Glomus's sister, who wants the will to stay hidden because she fears her brother hadn't left her anything (without a will, she at least got some of his money). Johnny ultimately figures out the will's hiding place; it's destroyed in a fire before it can be read, but his discovery means he still gets the reward money.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: Several in The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost. The tentacled monster hanging around the Windrow Estate, and the enigmatic stained-glass window depicting three figures, are borrowed from the M.R. James stories "Count Magnus" and "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas", respectively. The "Temple of the Inner Light", also located on the estate, may be a more subtle Shout Out to "The Inmost Light", a story by Arthur Machen. In both cases, Light Is Not Good.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c9e16d77	type	Veteran Instructor
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_c9e16d77	comment	Veteran Instructor: Having served as a pilot in both World War II (in a bomber) and the Korean War (in a jet), Harrison Dixon becomes an instructor for other fighter pilots after the Korean War ends.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_cb6b1aba	type	Held Back in School
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_cb6b1aba	comment	Held Back in School: In The Hand of the Necromancer, Johnny has a run in with his old classmate Eddie Tompke, who'd been in the same class as him "until the previous year", having been held back. Eddie pretends it doesn't bother him, but it clearly does.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_cdfe12c3	type	Nothing Is Scarier
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_cdfe12c3	comment	Nothing Is Scarier: Johnny Dixon fleeing the mummy through the secret passage from the mausoleum, then knowing it is coming for him in the darkness of Staunton Herald.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d0b60f23	type	GoshDangItToHeck
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d0b60f23	comment	Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Professor Childermass favors the phrase "Holy H. Smoke," using it in both The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost and The Trolley to Yesterday.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d129e13e	type	"Eureka!" Moment
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d129e13e	comment	"Eureka!" Moment: The Professor has one in The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost, when he remembers that the word "boss" has more than one meaning.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d397657d	type	Hoist by His Own Petard
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d397657d	comment	Hoist by His Own Petard: A common element in the Strickland books (though Bellairs used it too), as most of the villains are dispatched by something they controlled. Examples include: The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost: Warren Windrow's spirit is cast out once and for all by the Urim and the Thummim, two magical artifacts that his family owned. The Secret of the Underground Room: The ghost of Rufus Masterman possesses Father Higgins in order to resurrect his fellow knights. Higgins fights back and destroys the necromantic glass needed for the spell, and later banishes his ghost back to the outer darkness with a sprayer of holy water when Masterman returns to try and kill Johnny. (Admittedly, it's Humphrey who makes sure Masterman can't return a second time.) The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie: Mama Sinestra had revived a dead man as her slave; when her spell is broken, he returns to his grave, taking her with him. Her grandson then tries to summon the spirit of Baron Samedi, who promptly turns on him. The Hand of the Necromancer: Mattheus Mergal, who is trying to recover the necromantic hand of Esdrias Blackleach, is dragged into the realm of the dead by said hand. The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder: Jarmyn Thanatos tries to drain the youth from unsuspecting victims so he can rejuvenate himself. His latest would-be victim, Fergie Ferguson, has friends who refuse to give up on him and wind up causing him to destroy Thanatos' enchanted book, and Thanatos with it. The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost: Nyarlat-Hotep, like Jarmyn Thanatos before him, makes the mistake of targeting a person with friends and family who aren't willing to give up on him, and cause the villain's defeat.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d5d976dd	type	I Have Many Names
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d5d976dd	comment	I Have Many Names: The antagonist of The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder, according to Professor Childermass, "has more names than Heinz has pickles!". His birth name was Jarmyn Cudbright, his most often used alias was Jarmyn Thanatos (sometimes Dr. Thanatos), and he also used the names Jarmyn Nemo, Adam Nemo, Thomas Jannatry and Armyn J. Omen. Plus the appropriated name "Randolph Roberts" (taken from one of the boys he kidnapped and stole the youth of) and his sorcerous nom de plume of "the Spellbinder".
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d8085f48	type	Hollywood Voodoo
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_d8085f48	comment	Hollywood Voodoo: Plays a central role in The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_daead778	type	Tear Off Your Face
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_daead778	comment	Tear Off Your Face: In the later sequel The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie, Johnny Dixon has a nightmare about this — in it, the book's villain, a hideous old woman named Corinne LeGrande (better known as Mama Sinestra), shows up at the Halloween party at his school, looking like herself. When it's time for everyone to take off their masks, she removes her entire face, revealing only a grinning skull underneath.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_e8bb3043	type	Kill It with Water
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_e8bb3043	comment	Kill It with Water: How to actually beat Thanatos and his "Book of True Wishes" — at Johnny's taunting, Fergie jumps into Lake Umbagog with the book in hand, and it melts away in an instant, taking Thanatos with it. It's later explained that Thanatos was a strong believer in astrology and in opposites; he was born under the sign of Aries, a fire sign, so naturally its opposite would be hostile to him in all its forms.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_e9d21924	type	Comically Inept Healing
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_e9d21924	comment	Comically Inept Healing: Played with, in that it's not played for laughs at all. Dr. Carl Schermerhorn is regarded as a quack by Professor Childermass, due to his making a misdiagnosis that turned fatal — he mistook a brain tumor for bad teeth, and as a result, the patient (Professor Childermass's cousin Bea) died. The doctors mean well in The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost, but they're clearly out of their depths since none of them realize Johnny's being possessed by an evil spirit. Instead, they just diagnose him with an "unknown illness of the brain". Almost the same thing happens in The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost, where the doctors can't figure out what's happened to Johnny's father after his spirit is stolen away.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_ebf8fc6	type	Not a Morning Person
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_ebf8fc6	comment	Not a Morning Person: Fergie, as Johnny notes in The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f2d29e14	type	Evil Brit
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f2d29e14	comment	Evil Brit: Dr. Pimlico and her Fake Brit husband, Evaristaus Sloane (In-Universe, he had to leave his home and move to England for quite some time, long enough to pick up a touch of an accent), who serve as the villains in The Eyes of the Killer Robot, with plans for murder and mayhem. Edmund Stallybrass, a curator at a museum in Britain and would-be destroyer of all life on Earth, who serves as the villain in The Chessmen of Doom. Dr. Rufus Masterman, the spirit of an evil knight from the British Isles, in The Secret of the Underground Room.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f4a3140c	type	Survival Mantra
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f4a3140c	comment	Survival Mantra: In The Curse Of The Blue Figurine, Professor Childermass is climbing a mountain on a stormy night, searching for Johnny Dixon, who has been abducted by a ghost. The professor is afraid of heights, so he repeatedly quotes the "Lay on, Macduff!" speech from Macbeth and recites a prayer to Saint Michael to keep himself from panicking and turning back. In The Hand of the Necromancer, he similarly recites the Roman emperors and their supposed descendants, followed by a prayer, when he, Johnny and Sarah are trying to survive a storm conjured by the book's villain.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f96f188c	type	Drives Like Crazy
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f96f188c	comment	Drives Like Crazy: Professor Childermass is noted as being a terror behind the wheel even when he isn't on an urgent rescue mission. Also, in The Chessmen of Doom, while Professor Childermass and the boys are on their way to Perry Childermass's estate, a random man in a pickup truck isn't paying attention to his driving and nearly runs them off the road, much to the professor's annoyance.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f9876f7e	type	Faking the Dead
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_f9876f7e	comment	Faking the Dead: In The Chessman of Doom, Professor Childermass states that all of his brothers (naming three) are dead now. In the following book, The Secret of the Underground Room, it turns out that one of them was still alive after all — Humphrey Clinker Childermass had decided the world had gotten to be too much for him, so he faked his own death and went into hiding. He reveals his true status in order to help the professor, Johnny and Fergie with rescuing Father Higgins and defeating Rufus Masterman and his fellow knights.
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The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_fea42091	type	Badass Preacher
The Curse of the Blue Figurine / int_fea42091	comment	Badass Preacher: Father Higgins, a former army chaplain who does not hesitate to go head to head with dark powers.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

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