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Chapter 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Artemis Fowl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Good vs. Evil
Nature vs. Technology
Greed
The Meaning of Family
Summary
Analysis
Holly Short is a fairy who works for LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police), an elite fairy police force that humans mishear as “leprechaun.” Her boss, Commander Root, is old-fashioned and doesn’t seem to like having a female on his squad. Right outside the police station, protesting goblin and dwarf parents complain that LEP has locked up their innocent children as part of a goblin/dwarf gang turf war, but Holly believes that there are no innocent goblins. In the lobby of the station, Holly runs into a kleptomaniac dwarf named Mulch, who is a repeat offender.
The introduction of Holly, who serves as a sort of second protagonist in the book even though her goals are the opposite of Artemis’s, combines the fantastical with the mundane. The conflict between a rookie officer and a stern veteran is a common one in fiction and also in 1980s action movies, like Die Hard, which inspired Artemis Fowl and also had a female lead named Holly. Holly’s stern views on goblins suggests that she is self-righteous and has fixed ideas about good and evil, something that the rest of the novel will challenge.
Active
Themes
Root scolds Holly for being a minute late for their meeting, but she blames the traffic in Haven City, one of the underground settlements where “the People” (fairies and similar creatures) live away from humans. Root explains that he’s hard on Holly because as the first female LEPrecon officer, people will be watching her closely. He feels that she isn’t serious enough and wants to move her to Traffic, but Holly begs for another chance. In the middle of the conversation, news comes in that a troll has escaped to the surface somewhere in Southern Italy. Holly volunteers to investigate, hiding the fact that she has neglected to perform “the Ritual” lately, which fairies need to do to replenish their power.
This passage already suggests that there might be more depth to Root than the strict, sexist leader that Holly seems to see. Initially, Root seems to be too hard on Holly, making a big deal out of her being only a single minute late. But as the end of this passage implies, Holly sometimes neglects important duties, like performing her Ritual, and the rest of this chapter will explore the consequences of her trying to stretch herself too far.
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Root tells Holly to observe the troll but not attempt a retrieval. Holly goes to meet Foaly, a centaur who wears a tinfoil hat because he thinks the humans are spying on him. Foaly tells her where the troll is and what he looks like, then gives her a Neutrino 2000 (an energy gun with nuclear batteries) to take with her. Holly takes a pod to the surface. Fairies call humans Mud People because they used to live in mud, but humans breed quickly compared to fairies and soon covered the Earth’s surface, building cities and making pollution.
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On the surface, Holly enjoys the fresh air but doesn’t like what humans have done with the earth. She finds their big houses excessive, particularly how they have special rooms for toilets, rather than using waste as the natural fertilizer it is. Holly gets out her mechanical wings. It’s nighttime in Italy, and based on Holly’s scanner, the troll is approaching a nearby town. Holly turns on her shield, which hides her from the view of humans, although she struggles because it’s been a while since her Ritual. Suddenly, Holly spots the troll pounding on the town wall. She sends a video of the troll back to Control, where Root tells her to wait for the Retrieval team. Holly says there’s not enough time, and when the troll breaks through the wall, Holly disobeys Root’s order and goes after it.
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Themes
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Fairies lose their magic if they enter human dwellings without permission, but Holly takes a child’s cry for help as permission to enter the Italian town. There’s chaos inside as the troll rampages. Holly runs after the troll, but in the ensuing fight, she gets hit and her shield goes down, leaving her visible. Holly fires her pistol, set to stun, and it knocks the troll out. But she notices everyone in the village is looking at her. Holly gets everyone’s attention, then pulls out a small sphere that emits a flash and knocks the humans all unconscious. Soon after, Retrieval arrives.
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Root is furious with Holly at first, but as she explains, he admits it could’ve gone worse. But when Root asks why Holly’s shield is down, she admits it’s been about four years since she did the Ritual. He tells her to do it immediately. Before she leaves, he congratulates her on her work.
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