Septimus

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Prince Septimus
Prince Septimus (Mark Strong) from Stardust (2007 film).
First appearance	Stardust
Cause/reason	Drowning
Portrayed by	Mark Strong
Information
Gender	Male
Family	The King of Stormhold (father) Primus (brother) Secundus (brother) Tertius (brother) Quartus (brother) Quintus (brother) Sextus (brother) Una (sister)
Relatives	Tristran Thorn (nephew)

Prince Septimus of Stormhold is the seventh son of the eighty-first King of Stormhold in the novella Stardust by Neil Gaiman^[1] and the 2007 movie 'Stardust' from Paramount pictures. Though not as prominent a character in the film as Tristan or Yvaine, Mark Strong's portrayal of Septimus has won a large following of fans across the globe, swelling the ranks of those already fans of the book character.

Contents 1 Name origins 2 In the movie 3 Cultural references 3.1 Crows 3.2 Nature's Poisoner 3.3 Anti-villain 4 See also 5 Notes 6 External Links

[edit] Name origins

Like all the names of the Stormhold princes, the name of Prince Septimus is of Latin origin. It derives from the root 'Septem', (seven). 'Septimus' is a 2nd Declension, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Ordinal, and means 'seventh'.^[2] As a name, its meaning is 'seventh-born'. It marks his position in the line of sons, since he is indeed the seventh born.

(Note that while Princes of Stormhold have ordinal numbers for names, their only sister, Princess Una, has a cardinal number for a name. The Latin 'una' is a 1st Declension, Singular, Feminine Cardinal and can be Nominative, Vocative or Ablative. Its meaning as an Adjective also appears pertinent with regard to Neil Gaiman's choice of the name, since it means alone/sole/only (1st Declension, 3rd Variant, Nominative, Vocative and Ablative, Feminine Singular, and Nominative, Vocative and Accusative Neuter Plural)).^[3]

[edit] In the movie

We first meet Prince Septimus (Mark Strong) in the company of his brothers Primus (Jason Flemyng) and Tertius (Mark Heap) as they wait beside the deathbed of their father, the King of Stormhold (Peter O'Toole). They are waiting for a fourth brother, Secundus (Rupert Everett), so that the King can declare a successor. According to Stormhold tradition, princes are expected to kill each other off so that a sole remaining heir may inherit the throne. Faced with the dilemma of having four surviving sons, the King decides to address the matter of succession in a non-traditional way. Before doing so, however, he orders Prince Secundus to look out the window, providing Prince Septimus with the opportunity to eliminate his brother by pushing him from the tower. Just before his death, and with only three sons remaining, the King removes the Power of Stormhold from around his neck and throws it out into the night sky, dictating that "he of royal blood" who first claims and restores the ruby will become the next ruler of Stormhold.

Shortly thereafter, Prince Septimus successfully poisons his brother Tertius, but accidentally kills the Bishop instead of Primus. After providing Primus with the opportunity to bow out of the competition and thus preserve his life, a proposition the elder brother refuses, Septimus sets out on the quest for the Stone with six men.

Upon reaching the southernmost border of Stormhold, on the shore of an icy sea, he summons the Soothsayer who pointed Septimus' party south. Through a series of questions, Septimus discovers that the old man is working for Primus; after killing the traitor, Septimus consults the runes in order to determine a new path.

When Primus is killed after unwittingly walking into a trap set by the witch queen Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), Septimus becomes the last surviving son of the King. While in pursuit of the stone that would make him king, Septimus learns that it is currently in the possession of the fallen star, Yvaine (Claire Danes). The knowledge that the heart of a star can grant immortality only spurs Septimus' quest further as he decides to follow the tracks of his brother's murderer. Septimus, like the witch before him, tries to get information about the star from Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais), but the merchant can utter only strange parrot-sounds after his encounter with Lamia, and taking these as mockery, Septimus stabs him.

Following the trail of the witch further, Septimus and his men find Captain Shakespeare's sky-vessel (Robert De Niro) on which the star and her companion, Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) had previously travelled moored at the side of a lake. During the attack on the vessel the prince's men get killed and Septimus himself has to flee, to continue his quest for the Stone and for the star's heart alone.

Again on the trail of Lamia he rides towards Wall, finds the remains of Ditchwater Sal (Melanie Hill) and eventually the hall of Lamia and her sisters, where Tristan is already lurking outside.

After forging a hasty alliance of mutual distrust, Septimus and Tristan decide to attack the witches by surprise. The prince tries to kill the servant of the witches first, but he realises that she is his long lost sister, Una (Kate Magowan). Changing his plans, he advances on one of the Lilim, Empusa (Sarah Alexander) instead, killing her after a fierce battle of flames and steel. Upon witnessing their sister's death, Lamia and Mormo (Joanna Scanlan) move to avenge her. With her voodoo doll Lamia manages to break the arm and leg of Septimus, and finally she drowns him in a pool of water.

Septimus can't rest in peace even after joining the rank of his ghostly brothers, for when Tristan attacks her, Lamia uses the doll again, reanimating the prince's dead body to fight the boy. After killing the witch Tristan accidentally finds the Stone and restores it to its original, red state, revealing to the ghostly brothers that he is the last remaining male heir of the Stormhold line. Finally, Septimus and his brothers can move on to the afterlife.

[edit] Cultural references

[edit] Crows

In the book Lord Septimus is depicted as a tall, dark, crow-like young man. Apart from being known as highly intelligent animals, in European legends and mythology crows often feature as omens of death or ill fate, appearing around scenes of death.

For much of the film Septimus wears a long black great coat with a capelet at the shoulders. This cape and the coat in general flap in the wind, especially when he is riding, and this is strongly reminiscent of his metaphorical connection to crows in the book.

[edit] Nature's Poisoner

Both in the book and in the film Septimus uses poison to kill some of his brothers. Throughout history and mythology poison has been used as a method of murder, though often regarded as an ignoble way of killing. Neil Gaiman can be seen to be writing Septimus in the tradition of real life poisoners like the Borgias, and the tradition of extreme political cunning and ruthlessness that Machiavelli is popularly seen to epitomise. Neil Gaiman even describes Prince Septimus in one chapter as being dressed like an 'Elizabethan assassin', tapping into the sinister images of political assassination still proliferated in both film and literature; both the 'Elizabeth' films (Elizabeth (film) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age) are further examples of this. (See also 'History of poison')

This aspect of Septimus's character is less prominent in the film than in the book, although the shooting script contains a scene where he tries (unsuccessfully) to poison his brother Primus's horses. Uncovering the plot, Primus sighs, 'Septimus, Septimus, always with the poisoning'^[4], a clear nod to the book, where he is described by Gaiman as 'one of nature's poisoners'.^[5]

[edit] Anti-villain

An anti-villain is an antagonist who engages in serious crimes and/or controversial acts, but is neither purely evil nor entirely unsympathetic, yet considered to be villainous, because he comes in direct conflict with a main protagonist.^[6]

Though presumably all the Princes of Stormhold are capable of murdering each other and those who threaten their rise to the throne, Prince Septimus is the only brother who is considered to be more on the side of the villains, because he is the only one who acts against the aims of the hero, Tristan Thorn.

[edit] See also

Stardust (novella)
Stardust (2007 film)

[edit] Notes

[edit] External Links

Official Stardust Movie website.
Stormhold Seven Community
Septimus on imdb
Neil Gaiman's Journal
Mark Strong Community
Mark Strong on imdb