Jimmy

TL;DR: The "Merlin" of book one, now in exile back in modern Seattle, working his way toward redemption by quietly helping the federal agents who are quietly investigating him. By the book's end, a fake-hostage gambit proves he no longer holds grudges and earns him grudging probationary readmission to the wizards.

Spoiler level: full book. This page assumes you've finished Spell or High Water.

Snapshot

The book-one antagonist as he might have been the whole time, if the file hadn't been the wrong gift for him to find. Jimmy in book two is older, quieter, and conspicuously well-behaved — a man who has decided the only way back to community is to be useful, and who is patient enough to do that for as long as it takes.

Role in the story

Jimmy carries the entire modern-Seattle B-plot. He is introduced in chapter eleven, in his Seattle apartment a month into his exile, navigating the rules of his new life with care. His subplot interleaves with the Atlantis plot for the rest of the book: he collaborates with Treasury Agents Miller and Murphy on a financial-crime case, witnesses an agent's interview with the imprisoned Todd Douglas, and stages a careful chapter-twenty-nine hostage gambit that lets him show the council exactly what he can be when he chooses restraint. He is present in chapter twenty-eight at the post-climax council reshuffle, where the council grants him probation with limited file access pending reassessment.

His arc is the slow, voluntary one. Book one stripped him of community and power. Book two is the book where he chooses, very visibly, to behave the way someone who deserved to have them back would behave. The book is clear-eyed about the fact that wanting to be forgiven and earning forgiveness are different things, and that Jimmy is on the long side of that work.

Personality in plain English

Older than the room. Jimmy in book two has the calm of someone who has already lost everything once and is no longer in a hurry. He is dry, observant, and notably patient with the federal agents who don't yet realize how dangerous he could be. The smirk from book one is still there, but it has lost the sinister edge — what's left is wry, contained, working very hard to be patient.

The book is honest that this is partly performance. Jimmy knows he is being watched. He behaves accordingly. But the book also gives him a chapter-eighteen prison-visit beat — quietly observing what Todd Douglas is becoming — that suggests the choice to keep performing well has become a real choice rather than a strategic one.

What he wants

To be readmitted to the community he was exiled from. To prove — first to himself, then to the council — that he can hold the file without becoming book-one Jimmy again. The federal-agents case is partly genuine help and partly an unforgeable demonstration that he can be useful without being dangerous.

What he fears

Being caught backsliding by anyone who matters. Being identified as the reality-hacker Miller and Murphy are actually looking for (he isn't, but the optics could go either way). Being Todd Douglas in five years — locked, watched, and waiting.

Key relationships

• Agents Miller and Murphy. Treasury investigators on a case adjacent to his old life. He works with them carefully, helpfully, and exactly as much as he can without revealing what he actually is.
• Todd Douglas. Off-page connection; Jimmy visits the federal prison in chapter eighteen and sees, in Todd, the version of himself he is choosing not to become. The visit doesn't make it into many recap pages but it is one of the most quietly important scenes in the book.
• Martin, Phillip, and the wider wizards. Mostly absent from Jimmy's chapters; they are the people he is performing for at long range. The chapter-twenty-eight council meeting is the first time they share a room since the Camelot confrontation.

Visual identity

Adult man, late-40s apparent age, silver-grey beard pixels kept full but tidy — a deliberate aging-up from book one's clean-shaven Merlin look that signals he is no longer playing a role. Modern Seattle street clothes through book two: a charcoal-grey overcoat over a plain white shirt, dark jeans, dark sneakers, no wizard hat at all. The book is careful to show him without the Merlin costume; this is Jimmy as himself, possibly for the first time the reader has seen him. He often holds a small leather notebook (the "I am taking notes on my own behavior" wink) or an open laptop with pixel-block lines of code on the screen. Indoor scenes are flat ambient daylight with venetian-blind shadow bands across the floor. His chapter-twenty-nine hostage-gambit scene takes place in a generic office building lobby with cyan-tinted security glass.

Aliases

The following names and references in the book all point to this character. Use any of these as link anchors back to this page.

• Jimmy (canonical — the most common form)
• Merlin (book-one persona; appears in references to his past)

Discussion questions

1. Jimmy's redemption arc is built on doing the work without expecting credit. How much of that reads as genuine change, and how much as long-game performance — and does the book think the difference matters?
2. The federal agents tail Jimmy for the whole book without ever realizing who he actually is. Is the dramatic irony there cruelty, comedy, or both?
3. The Todd Douglas visit in chapter eighteen is a quiet scene with no plot consequences. Why is it in the book — and what does it tell us about Jimmy?
4. The council gives Jimmy probation, not full reinstatement. Is that the right call from the wizards' side? Is it the right call for Jimmy?
5. Is there a version of Jimmy's offense from book one that you don't think this redemption arc could fix?