Character guide

Carthoris of Helium

major

Also known as Carthoris, Helium, the jeddak of Helium, the impatient Carthoris, the Prince of Helium, Prince of Helium

Carthoris moves through the royal gardens of Ptarth as the Warlord's heir, yet his rank matters less to him than the woman whose hand he takes before a file of guardsmen. His temper is quick, his blade quicker, and his devotion to Thuvia burns plainly enough that both she and his rival Astok read it unspoken. When guilt for a crime he did not commit is shifted onto him, that same reckless loyalty drives him across Barsoom to clear his name and find her.

Thuvia of Ptarth

major

Also known as Thuvia, Ptarth, Dusar, all Dusar, distant Ptarth

Thuvia is the daughter of a jeddak, courted by princes and valued as a diplomatic prize, yet she moves through crisis with a composure that shames the warriors around her. She halts a killing in her father's gardens not from fear but from a ruler's sense of what war would cost her people. Stolen, hidden, and hunted by three nations, she carries knowledge and a strange affinity for the great banths that turn her from captive into something far more dangerous.

Astok of Dusar

supporting

Also known as Astok, Dusar

Astok is the son of a tyrant and a slave woman, raised without love and schooled in his father's cruelty, yet not quite hardened enough to match it. He schemes to take Thuvia of Ptarth and shifts the blame onto Carthoris, but his nerve fails when Nutus whispers what murdering her would truly require. His cowardice and his craving for a woman who scorns him make him the engine of the novel's central pursuit.

Jav

supporting

Also known as Presently Jav

Jav serves the hidden city of Lothar with the servile terror of a man who has never imagined defiance, whimpering before Tario and wriggling on his belly when accused of treachery. He believes the great banth Komal is a devouring deity, and his panic in the chamber beneath the throne room is total. Yet his fear and his knowledge of Lothar's secrets make him a strange, necessary guide for the captives he once helped condemn.

Tario of Lothar

supporting

Also known as Tario, Lothar, the bowman of Lothar, mighty Lothar

Tario rules Lothar through mirage and mental domination, bending a woman's sense of her own heart until she believes she has always loved him. His power is real but brittle, undone by a rival's distant thought and a dagger's quick work. Long-buried passion and a loveless existence make him both pitiable and predatory, and his fall exposes how hollow Lothar's legions truly are.

Vas Kor

supporting

Also known as These Vas Kor, Already Vas Kor, Evidently Vas Kor

Vas Kor is the instrument of Dusar's scheming, the noble who recruits a supposed panthan and later levels a short-sword at a kneeling princess in Nutus's name. He fights skillfully and bleeds for it, trusting Astok to stand by him. His death at Carthoris's hand in the east tower shows exactly what loyalty to the Prince of Dusar is worth.

Kar Komak

supporting

Also known as X Kar Komak, Kar Komak

Kar Komak belongs to the strange economy of Lothar, where Jav's mind projects armies of bowmen who fight and die and rise again each day. Alone among them he persists after the sun sets, a solid man in a city of illusions, and his loyalty to Carthoris and Thuvia makes him a rare fixed point in a landscape of tricks. His presence forces the reader to ask which loyalties in Lothar are real, and his quiet constancy matters most precisely when everything else dissolves.

Komal

minor

The great white ape that serves as a guardian in Lothar.

Turjun

supporting

Also known as XIII Turjun

Turjun moves through the story as a mercenary whose trade is violence and whose true name is a secret he guards with his life. Creeping along a companionway with his fingers closed on a dagger, ready to slay an entire utan in his present state of mind, he carries a fury that no contract explains. That hidden motive makes him the hinge on which several of the book's reversals turn, and readers who notice him early will be rewarded later.

Kulan Tith

supporting

Also known as Kulan, XIV Kulan Tith

Kulan Tith stands at the center of Barsoom's political web as the man Thuvia of Ptarth is promised to, a jeddak whose dignity and restraint mark him as everything Astok of Dusar is not. Yet Thuvia, awaiting death in an enemy tower, finds her thoughts turning not to her betrothed but to the Heliumite who fills her mind, and the quiet failure of that bond is one of the novel's sharpest tensions. His willingness to pay a personal price for a larger peace shapes the middle of the book and the fate of two courts.

Nutus

minor

Jeddak of Dusar and father of Astok, involved in political intrigue.

Thar Ban

minor

A green Martian warrior who captures Thuvia.

John Carter

minor

Also known as John Carter of Virginia

Warlord of Mars and father of Carthoris, appears briefly.

Hortan Gur

minor

Also known as the hideous Hortan Gur

A grotesque creature encountered in the Hall of Doom.

Thuvan Dihn

minor

Jeddak of Ptarth and father of Thuvia.

Hal Vas

minor

Son of Vas Kor, involved in the plot against Carthoris.

Dejah Thoris

minor

Also known as Dejah Thoris of Helium

Princess of Helium and mother of Carthoris, mentioned briefly.