"Look at my son, Mr. Raven. Isn't he handsome, my little Manfred? That's right. Look into his eyes. Like lovely shiny coals, aren't they?"
Manfred Bloor (b.1985) was a main antagonist of the Charlie Bone Series. He was Harold and Dorothy de Vere's only son. He was a hypnotist who eventually also manifested fire powers.
Appearance[]
In the first book, he is described as a tall, thin, mean-looking boy with a wispy moustache and long black hair drawn back into a ponytail. Manfred is said to dress almost exclusively in black and has a purple cape as a member of the Drama department. When his hair is released from its ponytail, it hangs around his pale face like cords. After being attacked by The Flames, Manfred is left weakened and horrifically scarred. He is described in Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock as having streaks of grey in his hair. However, he is healed using Mending Bugs and regains his previous appearance.
Powers and Abilities[]
Hypnotism[]
As a result of his ancestry, Manfred is endowed with the ability to hypnotize people by staring them in the eyes, sometimes for a very prolonged period. He used this power to erase all of Lyell Bone's personal memories, as well as to keep Emma Tolly in a state of constant hypnosis for over eight years. However, as of the fourth book, when Manfred is eighteen, he becomes concerned that his hypnotic ability peaked when he was nine years old and seems to be waning. His ability to hypnotize returns, however, and is in some ways stronger than before. Originally, he was unable to hypnotize Billy Raven because of Billy’s unusual eyes, but in the seventh book, he is able to briefly hypnotize Billy.
Victims[]
- Lyell Bone: put in a deep, memory-erasing trance in 1994 which lasted for ten years.
- Emma Tolly: put in a deep, memory-erasing trance at age two in 1994 which lasted for eight years.
- Charlie Bone: briefly hypnotised when attempting to reach Ingledew's Bookshop in Midnight for Charlie Bone. It lasts for only a few hours but Charlie feels unwell for hours afterwards.
- Fidelio Gunn: briefly hypnotised when he tries to follow Charlie out of the dormitory in the second book.
- Billy Raven: briefly hypnotised into spying on Titania Tilpin's magic lesson in the seventh book, as proof that Manfred has regained his powers of hypnosis.
Fire[]
By the fifth book, when he has seemingly lost his hypnotism completely, it is revealed that Manfred is developing into a pyrokinetic like his ancestor, Borlath. By the time of the eighth book, Charlie Bone and the Red Knight, he has the ability to issue fire from his hands at will.
Role in Series[]
Manfred is one of the evil Endowed and first appears in the first book as the head boy of Bloor's Academy and the son of the headmaster, Dr. Bloor. In the book, he appears in a newspaper and makes an appearance where he hypnotizes Charlie in order to prevent him waking up Emma Tolly. In the third book, after he graduates as a senior, he passes his exams and doesn't go off to a university like most of the seniors, but chooses to stay at Bloor's Academy to learn magic with his great-grandfather and become a teaching assistant. In the end of the fifth book, the Flame cats badly scar him when he attempts to prevent Lyell Bone's awakening. In the sixth book, Dorcas Loom creates a solution to heal his scars, called Altering Bugs, and soon after he gets better, Manfred becomes the Talents Master at Bloor's, as he deals with the endowed children and the three departments (drama, music and art). Manfred is heavily implied to die in a freak accident after the battle on the heath: Blessed nudges Ezekiel’s wheelchair, which flies down the stairs and lands on Manfred with Ezekiel in it. Neither rises and the flames in Manfred’s hand eventually go out.