| “ | There's always use in fighting. Especially when it makes terrible people cry.
|
” |
–Emma in A Map of Days , Ransom Riggs | ||
Emma Bloom is a female peculiar who can create and manipulate fire.
She is the female deuteragonist in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and following books Hollow City and Library of Souls.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Emma was born in Cornwall, England[1] in the early 1920s. She first began to manifest her pyrokinetic ability at the age of ten, when she would set her bed on fire while sleeping. Because this would happen so frequently, her parents reduced Emma's bed to a metal cot which they stressed over not having anything flammable. Emma's parents continued to call her a pyromaniac and a liar, reasoning their claims with the fact that Emma was never burned from the fires she caused.
A day came along where her hands began to itch, then to swell, and then to grow so hot that she plunged them into a case of ice holding fish at the market. All the ice melted, and the grocer wanted money for the ruined fish. Then, Emma's hands caught fire completely. Emma's parents found out, and her mother ran out of the house, never to return, thinking Emma was a demon from hell. But Emma's father beat her and locked her away. When she tried to escape, he tied her down with asbestos sheets, not even untying her so she could feed herself. Finally, her younger sister Julia freed her late at night and she ran away.[2]
Emma went to the circus where she worked as a fire-eater. Eventually as revealed in Library of Souls, a woman found Emma at the circus and gave her a job opportunity, which is later revealed to be working as a drugged peculiar for sale. Emma refused again and again, and eventually was drugged, gagged, and chained in the back of a truck.[3] That is where Miss Peregrine found her, and Emma began calling the day she was found by Miss Peregrine her birthday.[2]
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children[]
Emma is 88 years old in the first book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
Jacob first sees Emma when he was exploring the children's home in the present. She and various others gather around the hole Jacob had made in the first floor and peer down at him in the basement. At first, Emma thinks he is Abe, but quickly seems to realize that he isn't, and leaves the house. Jacob chases after her. Later, when they enter the loop, Emma catches up with Jacob while he is hiding from the men from the pub and threatens him with a knife. When he tells her that he is Abraham Portman's grandson, she refuses to believe him and demands to see his eyes, believing him to be a wight. She ties him up and brings him to Miss Peregrine. Later, Emma escorts him home from the loop.
Afterwards, when they are on better terms, Jacob and Emma arrange to meet during the night when Jacob's father and Miss Peregrine are sleeping so they can talk. When they meet, Emma brings Jacob to the beach and the two go in her little boat farther into the water. Eventually Emma stops paddling and gets out of the boat to stand on a sunken warship, getting Jacob to follow her down into it under the water. They breathe using a tube, and it helps them stay underwater longer to be able to look at glowing fish that Emma calls "flashlight fish". When they get above water again, they eventually kiss and Emma tells Jacob he should stay in the loop. Jacob responds that he wants to but can't because he doesn't think he's peculiar and he can't leave his family behind. When they arrive back at the house, they find out Esmerelda Avocet, an ymbryne from another loop, flew over to warn the house of attacks from wights. Miss Peregrine tells Jacob and Emma she should punish them for sneaking out, but that it wasn't the time because of the danger everyone in the loop may be in.
During the stand-off with Golan, he claims that Emma's parents had tried to sell her off to a circus when she was 5 years old, but ended up abandoning her at one when they weren't able to. (Emma disproves this version of the story to Jacob during the second book.)
Hollow City[]
After the children leave Cairnholm, Emma is in a boat with Jacob and Hugh, consulting a map. She also takes a turn at rowing, and later helps rescue Bronwyn and Olive after they fall overboard their boat. Upon reaching land, after Olive had been reeled into the sky guiding the children there, causing her to get soaked and freezing, Emma uses her peculiarity to warm Olive up.
The group would travel to Miss Wren's Menagerie under the indirect orders of Caul. Emma helps kill the hollow inside the loop. After a brief interaction with Addison MacHenry and Deirdre, she would join the group of people headed towards London. They briefly meet up with the Gypsies, who help the group avoid capture by wights. The ventriloquist Gypsy takes a liking to Emma.
Eventually, some of the gypsies help the group get to their train, and after a brief interaction with some wights, they board a train towards London, arriving after a couple of hours. The group is forced into Miss Thrush's Loop because of a bombing run, where they find Melina Manon, The Bone Brothers and Winnifred.
The children eventually find Miss Wren, much to Emma's happiness. She isn't amused when the woman treated her like a small child. Emma is horrified when she realizes that Caul had been hiding as her ymbryne. She and the others would be taken hostage by Caul, and forced out of the building and into the present. Addison tracks the group down to a train station, and would make the decision to rescue Emma and Jacob instead of Miss Wren, who he had been aiming for the entire time.
Library of Souls[]
Emma, Jacob, and Addison board a train to track down their friends, and stumble upon Sergei Andropov, who was dying. They reluctantly abandon the man because he had a gunshot wound in his stomach and couldn't go with them, hoping that he would be found and brought to a hospital. Addison tracks down their friends to the Devil's Acre entrance, where after the three cut a deal with Sharon, he gives them a ride into the loop.
Because of the distrust the trio had of Sharon, the three run away from him when they get the chance. They eventually track down the Wights' Fortress, where Addison decides to cross a bridge in order to get information about the wights. Emma and Jacob are confronted by ambrosia addicts but would be rescued by Sharon and his cousins, who take the pair to Myron's home.
His assistants help nurse the two back to health. When Jacob and Emma go exploring in the house, they discover a vast collection of peculiar wax models (who they later discover were not made of wax but rather real people held still by Mother Dust) and old loop entrances. They finally meet Myron who tells them the whole story of Caul and the Claywings, and his relationship to both Caul and Miss Peregrine. He equips them to rescue all the ymbrynes, most set on the retrieval of his sister.
Myron sends the pair and Sharon to rescue a hollow who was bound to Jacob from a fighting ring. Emma is horrified by the conditions that she finds in the ring, and is happy when Jacob is able to pull the hollow out of the ring. After shoving the hollow into the charging room, the Pantilopticon is started up again. Emma and Jacob use one of the loop entrances in order to get into the fortress.
She successfully finds her friends and the ymbrynes. After a brief capture, she is able to help the group escape. After everyone is released, Myron appears and greets them at the gates with his grimbear, PT. He and Miss Peregrine very quickly begin to bicker after she brings up all his past crimes, including experimenting on Abe's soul, which she believes he is still harboring.
Realizing she will not accept him, Myron storms off, only to appear minutes later on Caul's side. He captures Miss Peregrine again with the help of PT, claiming that he hoped all his efforts would result in her forgiveness and she would help him be released from Devil's Acre for his past involvement in Caul's plan. Once he saw this was no longer the case, he changed to aiding Caul. Millard appears and threatens Myron's life, in turn, Caul threatens Miss Peregrine's life if Millard hurt Myron. He also threatens to kill Myron if he complies with Millard. This results in the release of Myron. The group makes their way to Abaton where only the Bentham siblings, Jacob, and Emma enter. Caul only seems interested in making himself more powerful with the souls of former titans. He claims that Myron is too weak-willed to handle it.
Caul takes the soul and begins to destroy Abaton. Meanwhile, Myron uses Abraham's soul to turn himself into a peculiar-god to battle Caul. He also gives Miss Peregrine the instructions for collapsing the loop, the same that was used by the Claywings in the 1908 incident. Because the twelve ymbrynes present are more experienced, they are able to close the loop without causing the destruction from the past.
After a brief discussion with Emma, Jacob decides to go back to the United States to try and mend his relationship with his parents. Sharon gives Miss Peregrine, Emma and Jacob a ride out of the loop and Miss Peregrine would mend his parents memories to calm them down.
Emma would spend the next few weeks traveling the many different loops that were connected to the Pantilopticon. She sends letters to Jacob filling him in on what was going on. When she realizes that Jacob isn't answering her letters, she convinces Miss Peregrine to let her travel to the United States to see him. Since Miss Peregrine is concerned about Jacob, she takes all of her other wards to the US as well.
A Map of Days[]
When Jacob told her about H, the pair would travel to the Mel-O-Dee
The Conference of Birds[]
The Desolations of Devil's Acre[]
Graphic Novels[]
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (film)[]
Description[]
Physical Appearance[]
Emma is described to have white skin, sandy hair and green eyes. The first time Jacob and Emma met, he described her as "strikingly pretty." On the train in Hollow City, Jacob tells her that when they first met and he was sure she was about to slit his throat, a tiny part of him was thinking that "if this was the last face he'd ever see, at least it's a beautiful one." She has been described as beautiful by others on several occasions as well, unintentionally attracting the interest of men such as the Gypsy ventriloquist, to men as undesirable as a perverted wight who went as far as to try and kiss her. Emma also bears a resemblance to V, enough that Joseph initially thought she was V.
In the movie, Emma has blonde, wavy hair that goes past her shoulders and is parted into free, wavy bangs. She also has very large greenish-blue eyes and pale, fair skin. Emma's typical attire consists of a blue frilly dress and large, gothic lead shoes (these stop her from floating away due to her peculiarity).
Personality[]
She is described as hot-tempered but trustworthy by Miss Peregrine. She was also seen as very confident by Jacob in Hollow City. Despite acting as a leader to the peculiar children a lot of the time and constantly radiating strength, she is only human as well and has her moments of weakness. She is compassionate, with a heart the size of France according to Jacob. She likes to think that she is strong, strong enough to be depended upon. She states that she can block out awful things and do what needs to be done, but she can break. After she and Jacob split up, she was described to take a long time to get over things, having "moaned over Abe for half a century." Emma is also resilient, sending Jacob breezy and cheerful letters from Devil's Acre but not once mentioning living condition struggles.
Peculiarity[]
Emma is a fire-starter, or a "spark." She is able to create fire from her hands and manipulate it, and can heat up her hands without creating flames (hot enough to cauterize wounds and weld). She is unable to make fire, however, when stunned or weak.
Her movie counterpart has the ability to manipulate air and float; however, she has no control of her levitation, as she needs to wear lead shoes and keep a rope around her to make sure she didn't float away. Her levitation has been described as more of "being lighter than air" rather than being able to actually levitate. She can also blow large and powerful jet streams of wind that are powerful enough to pin a fully grown man against a wall, and fill a whole underwater ship with air.
Relationships[]
Abraham Portman[]
| “ | He left. He said he loved me and promised to come back one day. But he never did.
|
” |
–Emma about Abe , Ransom Riggs | ||
Before Jacob's grandfather left, Emma and Abraham "Abe" Portman were considered the "sweethearts" at the loop. Miss Peregrine mentions that when he left, he "took all of their hearts with him, but Miss Bloom's especially. Yes, they were admirers, paramours, sweethearts."
Despite his feelings towards Emma, Abe insisted he had to go to war to fight and afterwards, to fight hollowgasts and wights. They wrote many letters during the war. At first they were cute, such as "Remind you of something? To my bombshell! Love, Abe." And "Peeling spuds & dreaming of you. Come home soon. Love, your potato". However, they would afterwards become more and more depressing such as "Feeling caged without you. Won't you write? I worry so. Kisses, Emma". The fateful last letter contained three words "This is why" along with a snapshot of Abraham holding his daughter, Jacob's Aunt Susie. Their correspondence ended after.
More than half a century later, even though Abe had married and had children and grandchildren, Emma was still not over her love for him, and it was the actual reason why she fell for Jacob. Going on H's mission allowed her to learn more of his life after he left Europe, and made her true feelings resurface despite her believing she was over them. Jacob observes that she would flinch whenever someone mentioned Abe's name, and acted like Abe cheated on her with V, one of his hollow-hunting companions. Emma tells Jacob that she loved Abe so much it made her sick, especially after he left, finding it terrible. They were both obsessed for a few years, but it wore off for him while it only got worse for her. She thinks it is because she was loop-bound, making "the world feel very small to be cooped up like that for years and years... and a longing for someone that might otherwise have subsided after a few months became... consuming." She considered running away to join Abe in America, but was afraid he wouldn't be as happy to see her as she would have been to see him. Additionally, she would have remained loop-bound, waiting for him to visit when he had time, a life she felt she wasn't meant to live. Although she was now living the journeying life she wanted, she still cannot switch off the feelings of longing, hurt and anger that she felt for fifty years. But when she tries to call Abe on the road, he angrily tells her she is interrupting dinner and that she shouldn't have called before hanging up, hurting her feelings. However, she tells Jacob in The Conference of the Birds that she needed to hear it, so she could finally let him go.
Jacob Portman[]
At first glance, Emma mistook Jacob for Abraham, and grew increasingly angry at the prospect of Abe having grandchildren, since he had once promised such things to her. After Miss Peregrine confirmed his human and genealogical status, she initially regarded him as the bearer of bad news. However, she begins to warm up to him. She befriends him easily, flirting all the while, but as the series goes on, they fall in love. The two demonstrate easy cooperation when called for and enter into a romantic relationship during Hollow City, which they maintain until partway through A Map of Days. It hurts for her to see Jacob hurt, and thinking that she lost him, mentioning that it can make her break.
They break up after she phones Abe, and they recognize that Emma is not completely over Abe and that their feelings are unequal. For Jacob, around 10 percent of the reason is their age difference, and their inability to relate. They end up going back to being "just friends." Emma still shows a bit of jealousy, though, as Jacob moves on by falling in love with Noor, and Jacob sees that Emma pretending they were only ever just friends isn't working. Emma looks at him in a way so that even Noor can easily tell that they used to be together. In a conversation about what happened between them, Jacob tells her that she made him face the fact that he would never be his grandfather, and now knows that she had never really given her heart to him in the first place. In The Desolations of Devil's Acre, Jacob in his mind states that he still loves Emma, but in "a dimmed and dusty way." In the end, they are still close friends and strong partners to each other.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In one of the Hollow City book trailers, she is indirectly shown via the fire in her hand.
- The official peculiar calendar states that November 9th is Emma's birthday.[4]
- Her powers have been switched with Olive's in the movie, while Emma is also given the ability to manipulate air.
- She hates rodents.
- In one of the deleted scenes of the Map of Days, Emma Bloom takes on a fake persona, Irma Bluth, by the Department of Disguises and goes to high school with Jacob Portman. She is recorded as a British exchange student.
- Despite being 88 years old in the first book, she says that she is over a hundred in the third, but this may just be an exaggeration on her part.
- You are able to email Emma using the email that is mentioned in Library of Souls, which is firegirl1901@gmail.com.
References[]
- ↑ A Map of Days (Chapter 16)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hollow City (Chapter 7)
- ↑ Library of Souls (Chapter 3)
- ↑ http://ransomriggs.tumblr.com/post/128430840332/library-of-souls-pre-order-insanity-whaaaaaaat