The City of Ember Characters

Fast and FearlessOne of the first things we learn about Lina is that she loves to run. On Assignment Day, she pictures "herself running through the streets of the city in a red jacket." (1.7) This...

Serious and Helpful (or, Seriously Helpful)When we picture Doon, we imagine him having a serious but kinda dorky look about him (hey, who are we to talk?). He's usually thinking about something ser...

Greedy GuyThe current mayor of Ember is one sketchy dude. For one thing, it's suspicious that he's overweight in a city full of skinny, deprived people: "The mayor was a vast, heavy man, so big in...

Sketch CityWe didn't think it was possible to be even sketchier than the mayor, but Looper pulls it off. For one thing, he's kinda funny looking: "he had a very long neck with a bump in the middle...

Not Too TogetherGranny used to have her act together, as both a caregiver and a contributor to Ember's society. Lina remembers that "Granny's shop had once been a tidy place, where each ball of yar...

We here at Shmoop love kitten pictures on the internet as much as anyone else does, but Poppy is in a category of cuteness all her own. She is so totes adorbs that we just wanna snatch her up and c...

Lizzie is one of Lina's closest friends (possibly even her bestie). She's one of the only people who can keep up with Lina: she "could run almost as fast as Lina and could talk three times faster."...

This lady has her head on straight, that's for sure. She's "thin and straight as a nail, but she was kind." (4.28) As soon as Lina explains to her that Granny's not able to take care of Poppy, Mrs....

A worker in the greenhouses of Ember, Clary is "tall and solid, with big hands and knobby knuckles. She had a square jaw and square shoulders, and brown hair cut in a short, squarish way." (4.38)Na...

Doon's father is "a tall man, bald as a peeled potato, with a high forehead and a long chin. He had kind, slightly puzzled gray eyes" (3.42). He's Doon's biggest cheerleader, constantly encouraging...

Captain Fleery is "a bony woman with pale eyes and hair the color of dust" (2.36). She uses her long limbs to point out the directions the messengers should go in, and she makes sure to give Lina t...

We gotta give Barton props for being earnest. He takes his job very seriously, as Lina finds out when she brings a message to the mayor on her first day working as a messenger. "He was a big man, w...

Nammy Proggs is "a tiny old woman whose back was so bent that she had to twist her head sideways to look up" (5.64). When Lina loses Poppy during the great blackout, Nammy Proggs scolds her, saying...

Lina knows this man as "one of the clerks in the Supply Depot. He was a quiet, long-faced man who always worried" (4.61). We'd worry, too, if we lived in Ember and had any inkling as to how meager...

The Chief BuilderWe never learn this mysterious person's name, just that he's been in charge of building Ember. He's aware that "Nothing about this endeavor is certain. There may be no one left in...

The writer of the journal that Lina, Doon and Poppy find never names herself, but she does refer to herself as "an old woman" (20.2), so we know that much. She used to farm, too, which is why she w...

The Believers are a group of Ember's citizens who get together and sing happy songs about what they, you know, believe in. They can be seen around town, doing their thing: "There a stringy-haired m...

Arlin FrollThis "short, delicate-looking girl with a white-blond braid down her back" (3.5) is actually an expert in the Pipeworks. Doon gets paired with her on his first day of work, and she shows...