ABOUT CAT
Strictly speaking, Charmed Life is told in third person omniscient point of view (i.e., we get to be inside the head of more than one character), but most of the reader’s time is spent in Cat’s head. For much of the book, Cat is an outsider, neither magically gifted nor particularly outgoing--which leaves him stationed as an observer rather than an active participant in his own life. He basically drifts along in the aftermath of his parents’ death, doing whatever Gwendolen tells him to, afraid of just about everything. Not much of a heroic hero at first glance…which is why it’s lucky that there’s more to Cat than meets the eye.
Cat may defer to Gwendolen in just about everything, but to say he’s just a pushover is a bit misleading. Although we never really meet them, Cat is described as having a decent group of friends in Wolvercote, the town where he and Gwendolen originally live, with whom he’s perfectly happy stealing apples and otherwise being a typical kid. He’s also not above a little mischief, such as telling Chrestomanci (before Cat knows who he is) that he no doubt did a bit of apple “scrumping” himself when he was a kid (Chrestomanci has no response for this and quickly changes the subject). Cat also hides the fact that he’s left-handed at school, where such a thing is frowned upon (note that Cat doesn’t stop writing with his left hand just because it’s “wrong” -- rather, he becomes proficient at hiding it from the teachers). Really, Cat is a bit of a rascal when he wants to be.
However, arguably his most important trait is his very overdeveloped sense of dutiful responsibility, which manifests itself in the way Cat cares very deeply about the people around him. While Gwendolen is quite content to forget about Mrs. Sharp, the neighbor who looks after Gwendolen and Cat before they are sent to Chrestomanci’s Castle, Cat, both out of a sense of duty and what appears to be genuine feeling, promises to always look out for Mrs. Sharp. He frequently misses her while away at the Castle, and is relieved to receive a letter from her. Even after Cat comes to realize Mrs. Sharp’s deep-seated self-involvement and somewhat less-than-noble motivations, he still sees her as someone worthy of pity and familial feeling, even if she isn’t someone he can really count on in a pinch.
And then, of course, there is Cat’s relationship with Janet, Gwendolen’s “replacement,” who appears when Gwendolen takes herself off to another world. Cat realizes Janet has no way of surviving in his world unless he looks out for her, and so, though he would much rather hide his head in the sand, he accepts the role of her protector and teacher, helping her make her way through the difficulties of pretending to be Gwendolen in a world with which she is unfamiliar. In fact, Janet’s appearance in the story heralds the beginning of a serious role-reversal for Cat: where he once clung to his older sister as a means of being protected from the world, he now has to be the protector himself, looking out for a “sister” who can’t entirely fend for herself (although Janet is certainly not the, er, wimp Cat often is; see her section for details). With Janet, Cat seems to really open up, giving us some really good insight as to who he could be in a world without Gwendolen, where he is allowed more free reign to really be himself. Though he worries and hesitates, in the end Cat puts Janet’s safety and comfort above his own, and even begins to show a bit of a heroic side.
ABOUT CAT'S MAGIC
Cat views himself as entirely unmagical: he believes he only survived the steamer accident which killed his parents by clinging to Gwendolen, who is a witch; and the few times he’s tried magic, he has failed utterly.
The irony, of course, is that Cat is incredibly magical. He is, in fact, a powerful enchanter with nine lives, and is the main reason Chrestomanci brought Cat and Gwendolen to the Castle in the first place. Chrestomanci, as we learn, is in fact a non-hereditary title; the position being currently filled by Christopher Chant, also a nine-lived enchanter. In fact, the Chrestomanci has to have nine lives, as that seems to be the only way to ensure he has enough power to do his job, which is to look after the use of magic in all the worlds. Christopher has brought Cat to the Castle with the intention of training him to be the next Chrestomanci; however, there is the little problem of Cat’s magic being usurped by Gwendolen. Because all of Cat’s power (and a considerable number of his lives) have been going to Gwendolen, there hasn’t been any magic left over for Cat, causing him to appear completely unmagical. However, according to the current Chrestomanci, Cat probably has more magical power in a single finger than Gwendolen will ever have in her entire life….And just to add to the pressure, Cat is supposed to be even more powerful than Christopher.
ABOUT THAT SISTER
But first Cat has to overcome his devotion to Gwendolen, particularly in the face of events which lead him to realize that not only has she been using his magic without his permission for basically his entire life, but she also has very little regard for his safety, as she offers him up for sacrifice so that the hedge wizards can overcome Chrestomanci’s power over magic. In other words, in order to reach her goals, Gwendolen is willing to have Cat killed--multiple times, since she knows he has multiple lives. That’s sisterly love for you. o.O
Cat doesn’t realize the extent of Gwendolen’s treachery until the climax of the story, and even then he seems to have issues with truly blaming her. Still, when it comes to protecting Chrestomanci and the Family from Gwendolen and the hedge wizards, Cat is through playing around. He forcefully takes his magic back and does a fair bit of fighting himself, perhaps giving us a preview of just how powerful a Chrestomanci he will be.
Gwendolen’s betrayal of Cat is really quite sad--and quite dark, when you think about it. To be so consumed with her own advancement as to prey on her brother’s insecurities from the moment he’s born is pretty darn wicked indeed. And Gwendolen shows absolutely no remorse. She even gets off relatively easily in the end, escaping to the world where she is apparently queen, and locking all her "replacements" in different worlds than the ones they were born on. Cat, for his part, doesn’t do any swearing of undying vengeance, but hopes rather weepily that he won’t ever have to see Gwendolen again.
The upshot of all this havoc with Gwendolen, however, seems to be that Cat begins to have a little faith in himself and his own abilities. He tells the Family to stop treating him like a baby and seems determined to come into his own as an enchanter. Although we don’t really get a sense of his direct feelings on becoming the next Chrestomanci, he does at least seem intrigued with beginning a study of magic, and he no longer seems quite so terrified of Chrestomanci. I suppose saving a guy who’s made defenseless by being wrapped up in silver will do wonders for your self-esteem in the face of said guy’s often overbearing presence.
ABOUT CAT'S LIVES
Did you, like me, spend much of the book trying to keep track of Cat’s lives and where he lost them? For your viewing pleasure, a break-down of Cat’s lives:
1. died as baby
2. life used to put lives into matchbook (cramps)
3. drowned in steamer accident
4. Gwendolen puts a life into Fiddle
5. used to send Gwendolen to another world
6. burns a match "life" himself (way to go, smarty-pants)
7-9: still has
That means three of his perfectly good lives were used by Gwendolen solely for her own purposes. She so totally owes him three lives to make up for it!
ABOUT THE STEAMER ACCIDENT
Remember how Cat says he was saved in the steamer accident by clinging to Gwendolen in the water? By the end of the book we realize that most of Gwendolen’s power actually comes from Cat, which has led me to wonder…was it really Cat who saved Gwendolen that day? Or perhaps Gwendolen saved them both by using Cat’s power?
ABOUT CAT'S FUTURE
Jones seems set on filling in the background of the Chrestomanci story with books like The Lives of Christopher Chant and Conrad’s Fate, which are of course interesting, but I really find myself wondering about Cat’s future. Will he ever see Gwendolen again? What sort of Chrestomanci will he be? What kind of impact will his friendship with Tonino ("Stealer of Souls") have on the future of magic? Will he ever entirely get rid of that annoying tendency to view himself as a victim of everyone and everything? Fangirl that I am, I really hope Jones favors us with another post-Charmed Life story to answer some of these questions.
