The Red Pyramid Characters

Hobo HomeschoolerCarter Kane's whole life is in his suitcase. Traveling with his Egyptologist dad, he's never really had a normal life: all his possessions fit in a suitcase, he's homeschooled by h...

London Punk KidAt the tender age of twelve, Sadie already knows how to rebel. Her philosophy is: "when someone says I forbid it, that's a good sign it's worth doing" (7.2).Sadie doesn't do well wit...

Super ScholarThe father of Sadie and Carter, Julius Kane seems to be a mild-mannered archaeologist who writes books about ancient Egypt while traveling the world for his research, kind of like Indi...

Cry UncleThe last time Carter and Sadie saw their uncle Amos was at Sadie's sixth birthday party, when Amos had been among those to witness their argument-inspired birthday cake explosion (at least...

Miss OverachieverEveryone who knew Ruby Kane adored her. Sadie relates how her grandparents (Ruby's parents) keep a small shrine to her in the hall cupboard: "Mum's childhood artwork, her O-level r...

Here, Kitty Kitty!Were you hoping a book based on ancient Egyptian mythology would include the cat goddess Bast? We sure were.When Bast is first summoned from where she's lain dormant inside her mo...

One Tough BabeZia is a magician trained by the House of Life to fight gods, and she means serious business. Carter and Sadie first get a glimpse of her in London, when she and Desjardins show up to...

The Avenger (But Not a Superhero)The son of Isis and Osiris (or their brother, depending on which version of the story you listen to), Horus has been nicknamed "the avenger" for the role he plays i...

Goddess of MagicIsis is beautiful, sometimes appearing with multicolored wings. What else would you expect from a goddess of magic?This comes in handy when Sadie's magical powers are just starting...

Man of MysteryWhen Sadie first encounters Anubis, she doesn't know who he is, only that he's "a good-looking boy of about sixteen dressed in black robes. His complexion was pale, but he had lovely...

The Original Absent-Minded ProfessorYou know the idea of the frazzled, ill-kempt professor who's a genius at his or her research but totally clueless about the rest of life? That's Thoth, god of kn...

Living God? Dead God? Make Up Your Mind!Osiris is the ancient Egyptian god of the dead—but he wasn't always. When Sadie has a vision in the Hall of Ages, she sees Osiris while he's still alive (i...

God of Not-Quite-EvilSet is the biggest and the baddest of the gods—or so he likes to think. Compared to Apophis, though, he's small stuff. In fact, according to Nut, Set was never truly evil: "I...

Monkey BusinessKhufu is a baboon—but not just any baboon. He hangs out with Amos and has no trouble talking to various gods (Thoth, Anubis, and Bast for starters). We never see Khufu doing any ma...

Really Really Old Magician DudeThe first we hear of Iskandar is from Amos, in a conversation about the gods that happens right after the British Museum incident: "[O]ur most important law, issued b...

Finicky FrenchmanSecond in command to Chief Lector Iskandar, Desjardins is a stereotypical stuck-up French guy—except he's also a powerful magician. Distinctive with his cream-colored robes and h...

Of the five gods released from the Rosetta Stone, Nephthys remains the most mysterious. Sadie sees her briefly in a vision: "a slender woman in a blue dress" (15.57). Nephthys may be Set's wife, bu...

Yeah, you could joke about her name, but she's heard it all before: the ancient Egyptian sky goddess has been around a loooong time. She married the earth god Geb and was happily pregnant with thei...

The god of earth is, no joke, made of earth. Here's how he appears to Sadie in a vision: "His body was made of sand that curtained off his arms and chest like waterfalls of sugar. The sand shifted...

Apophis is the embodiment of chaos, often taking the form of a serpent. Here's how Nut characterizes him: "He hated Creation from the moment the first mountain appeared out of the sea. He hated the...

Ma'at is the symbol of order and harmony. We don't really see Ma'at personified as a god, but everyone's always talking about "Ma'at this, Ma'at that, blah blah blah" so we figured he/she/it deserv...

Losing their daughter Ruby must have been rough on the Fausts. Raising Sadie must have been difficult too, since she's Little Miss Rebel. They're not major players in the book, but here's what we k...

"Cute little thing" is how Thoth describes Ammit the Devourer (25.69). Color us skeptical. The first time Sadie sees Ammit, here's how she describes him: "It had the head of a crocodile with a lion...

The captain of the Egyptian Queen has a human body and a double-bladed, bloodstained axe for a head. How's that for strange? He's polite to Sadie and Carter because he entered a binding agreement w...

This guy is so boring that a) we're glad he's only in one chapter of the book, and b) it's no wonder he doesn't have the imagination to grasp what actually happened to Sadie and Carter in the Briti...

Like most of Set's demons, this guy's no looker. Carter describes him as "tall and scarecrow skinny, with rooster claws instead of feet. I couldn't see his face very well, but it looked red and moi...

Set has a lot of demons gather around him. Most aren't pretty. Take, for instance, the toady-looking one that Set kills immediately after arriving in Phoenix: "[O]ne was short, squat, and hairless,...

Based on his appearance, Sadie and Carter don't know what they're getting into with this dude: "He was a tiny man, crudely fashioned, as if the maker had been in a hurry. His arms were crossed over...

The curator of the British Museum, Dr. Martin, is "a greasy little dude in a cheap suit" (2.4). He nerds out when he meets Julius, complimenting him on his latest brilliant paper. He acts like eno...

As Sekhmet's alter ego, Hathor is as mellow as Sekhmet is destructive. Which is to say, very. She manifests as a cow-headed goddess at the end of the book when Sadie and Carter visit the hall of th...

These two magicians are actually shabti that Thoth uses to test Sadie and Carter, in order to figure out whether the kids are in charge of their gods and not vice-versa. They put up a good fight, u...

We don't know much about the ancient Egyptian moon god, except that he's bad at gambling. The way Carter summarizes an ancient story, the goddess Nut played dice with Khons: "Every time Khons lost,...

Sadie's school buddies, Liz and Emma, are only mentioned from time to time. We know that they're boy crazy, because Sadie tells us so (4.3)—they even think Carter is hot. Weird, right? They're as...

There are a lot of magicians out there, doing their own thing, and through the Kanes' entry into the magical world, we get a few glimpses of them.At the First Nome in Egypt, magicians walk around o...

Mel is the magician who's partnered with Zia on the Great Godling Hunt taking place in America. Zia thinks she can convince Mel to meet with the godlings and then persuade Desjardins that they shou...

Despite the weird name, Muffin is just an ordinary cat who likes to sleep on top of Sadie's head. This is how Carter describes her: "She had fuzzy yellow-and-black fur like a miniature leopard, ale...

Carter encounters this New Kingdom pharaoh-sorcerer in his ba form (a spirit with a human head and the body of a bird). Here's how he looks to Carter: "His eyes, lined with kohl, narrowed as they s...

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one fancy name for a crocodile. But Philip isn't just any crocodile; he's a magical albino crocodile. Amos keeps him both for protection—because seriously, do you w...

Since Ra retired to the heavens millennia ago, we don't see much of him in this story. Still, he's the sun god, so in a sense he's present every day the sun shines. According to Bast: "The sun is a...

If there's one god you don't want to fight, it's Sekhmet. Known as the Eye of Ra and the destroyer of the wicked, she's more bloodthirsty than Horus and Shezmu combined.Sekhmet's single-minded dete...

Here's how Sadie describes Serqet: "From a distance she looked all right, but as she got closer I saw that Serqet's pale skin glistened like an insect shell. Her eyes were beady black. Her long, da...

With a name like that, this guy's got to be a winner.Sadie and Carter encounter him on their way into the Land of the Dead, when he emerges from a boiling river: "[H]e towered several meters over t...

The god of the wind, Shu is also Nut's father. He upholds Ra's command to keep Nut and Geb forever separated because of their treachery in bearing the five children that Ra forbade them to have. So...

This is one dude even Horus doesn't want to mess with. When he appears in the Rio Grande, Carter is like, uh oh: "[T]he guy was twenty feet tall… His chest and arms were human, but he had light g...