Phillip

TL;DR: The 1980s programmer who became Martin's reluctant mentor is now the elected chairman of the Leadchurch wizards. He goes to Atlantis as the senior diplomat, gets dragged into a friendship with Brit the Younger over their shared dislike of her older self, and quietly becomes the moral center of the book.

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

Snapshot

The patient adult in every room. Phillip is the wizard Martin will be in twenty years if Martin does his homework. Where Martin is reactive, jittery, and prone to optimize, Phillip is steady, dry, and prone to wait. In book two he gets more page time, more inner life, and — for the first time in the series — a romance plot of his own.

Role in the story

Phillip is the deuteragonist. He starts the book as the newly elected chairman of the Leadchurch wizards, which gives him a formal reason to lead the delegation to the Atlantis summit. He spends his Atlantis chapters doing the diplomatic work of cooperating with the sorceresses, mediating between visiting time-traveler colonies, and increasingly serving as Brit the Younger's confidant and ally.

His arc is the bickering-mentor-finds-a-peer arc. For a year of in-book time he has been the senior figure for Martin, Gary, and the Leadchurch wizards; in Atlantis he meets people who are his equals in age, experience, and patience — and one in particular, Brit the Younger, with whom he finds an unexpected warmth. Their relationship is treated tenderly and seriously; the book's final beats give them a farewell that lands with full weight.

Personality in plain English

A 1980s programmer who learned to be a person before he learned to be a wizard. Phillip is dry, observant, and disinclined to perform. He'd rather watch than speak. When he does speak, it's usually a single low-volume sentence that resets the room. He has the kind of authority that doesn't require enforcement — when he says that's enough, it's enough.

The book is honest that he is not always right. He misjudges some of the early Atlantis politics, and he is initially wrong about how badly Martin is going to handle the Gwen reunion. But he is the kind of person who notices being wrong and adjusts. That makes him the rarest figure in a comedy: a competent adult who is also funny.

What he wants

For the Leadchurch wizards to function as a community rather than a clubhouse. For Martin to grow into the kind of wizard he could be. For the Atlantis summit to actually accomplish something. By the end of the book, for the time loop with Brit the Younger to find a way to close that doesn't require him to lose her.

What he fears

Being the kind of mentor whose advice his protégé eventually has to outgrow. The wizards' fraternity becoming Jimmy's worst case — a group of powerful men with no accountability. Losing people. The book is quiet about this last one, but it's the engine under the back third.

Key relationships

• Martin. Mentor-and-foil, increasingly an actual friend. The old-married-couple bickering between them is the book's reliable warm note.
• Brit the Younger. The slow-burn romance of the book. They bond over their shared exasperation with Brit the Elder, find each other steady company under the assassination pressure, and earn the bittersweet farewell the book gives them.
• Brit the Elder. Wary mutual respect, complicated by Phillip's clear preference for the version of her he's actually getting along with. The Elder, of course, was the Younger — so there is a strange triangular dynamic that no one wants to look at directly.
• President Ida. Diplomatic counterpart through most of the book; opponent by the end.
• Gwen. Old colleague from Leadchurch; he is supportive of her and of Martin's attempt to make things right, without putting his thumb on the scale.
• Jimmy. Mostly off-page; Phillip is the chairman who has to decide what Jimmy's reintegration looks like, and he handles it with characteristic care at the book's close.

Visual identity

The left-hand figure on the cover. Tall, lean, navy conical wizard hat without stars (his hat is the plain one — the lack of stars is itself a signature, distinguishing him from Martin), long flowing dark-blue robe with a brown belt and brown leather trim, brown beard pixels kept short and tidy, brown boots. On the cover he holds a small red potion vial with a single white highlight pixel — the magical-stat-restore wink that doubles as a sight gag. In council and investigation scenes he carries a plain wooden staff instead. His posture reads weary-patient — shoulders back but not hunched, head slightly inclined, the silhouette of a man waiting for the right moment to speak.

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.

• Phillip (canonical — the most common form)

Discussion questions

1. Phillip's romance with Brit the Younger is the most unguarded he's ever been on the page. What does the book want us to see in him by finally letting him be the protagonist of a love story?
2. The chairmanship gives Phillip institutional authority for the first time. Does he wear it well? Where does it constrain him?
3. Brit the Elder and Brit the Younger are the same person. Phillip likes one and not the other. Is the book saying people genuinely change, or that the same person can be liked or disliked depending on context?
4. Phillip's authority is mostly nonverbal. Try to identify a scene where he changes the temperature of the room without saying a word — what does the book not tell us about how he does it?
5. The ending requires Phillip to lose someone he has just learned to love. Is the time-loop logic worth that price?