Thomas Senlin

Sketch of Senlin drawn by Josiah Bancroft

**Thomas Senlin** is the primary protagonist in Josiah Bancroft's the Books of Babel series.

## Background

Senlin comes from a small fishing village called Isaugh, where he is the headmaster of the village's school. Marya Berks was one of his first students, and she was so disruptively inquisitive that Senlin had her teach the younger students to give her a taste of her own medicine. She left and came back to Isaugh years later, and the two began a relationship and got married.

## Appearances

### Senlin Ascends

Thomas Senlin, a headmaster of a school in Isaugh, and Marya Senlin, his wife and pianist, arrive via train on their honeymoon at the Tower of Babel. Senlin, who uses a guidebook to help him on the trip, starts to suspect that the Tower isn’t as civilized as the book suggests. In the Markets outside the Tower, Senlin stays behind with their luggage while Marya goes to shop for undergarments. After a conversation with another pair of tourists, Senlin realizes his luggage is stolen and Marya is also nowhere to be found.

Senlin spends two days looking for Marya in the Markets. A young man, Adam Boreas, approaches Senlin and explains how common it is for loved ones to get misplaced at the Tower. Adam leads Senlin through the Skirts to the entrance of the Tower where loved ones leave notes for one another. Senlin hires Adam to be his guide through the Tower, since he assumes Marya has traveled to the Baths, where they were initially going to vacation. An airship crashes down on the Skirts, and Senlin is horrified to see the ship and bodies ransacked by the people around him.

Adam leads Senlin through the tunnel and into the Basement, the first “ringdom” of the Tower. The two find lodging so Senlin can rest, but when he wakes up, he discovers that Adam robbed him. Senlin purchases a new change of clothes and sees a man trying to sell clothes that he had bought for Marya. He confronts him but is kneed in the crotch. The man, Finn Goll, explains to him that Adam sold him the silks and he did not steal it. Goll takes Senlin to the “Beer-Me-Go-Round” a carousel-like machine powered by the pedaling done by the riders that pours free beer into troughs in exchange for the physical labor. Goll advises him not to trust anyone or tell them that he’s searching for his wife, lest he be taken advantage. Senlin pays a fee charged by two goons guarding the entrance to the second floor, the Parlor. He meets an older man, Edsel Pining, while in line. Pining explains that they’re waiting for a play that lasts an entire week. An usher reveals that everyone is *in* the play, and that everyone will be assigned one of four roles. Senlin is cast as the butler in a play about a love affair between a wealthy businessman, his wife, and the businessman’s protégé. There are several rules to follow, including that every actor must keep the fires in the fireplaces stoked.

Senlin enters a fake house, and finds the husband, who is played by a raging drunk, arguing with his protégé, played by Pining. The husband murders Pining in a fit of rage, and chases Senlin and the actress, Edith Winters, playing the wife throughout the house. Senlin and Edith overpower the actor and escape through the door that Senlin had entered through. They are escorted backstage, where Senlin notices that clerks are spying through peepholes at every performance and put in a cage hanging over the Tower while a registrar decides their fate.

Edith reveals that she is a recent divorcee, whose husband took over her farm that her father left them. Anen Ceph, an assistant registrar, announces that Senlin will be sent to the Baths, while Edith, who did not keep the fires stoked, will be branded and sent to the Basement. Senlin fulfills Edith’s request to stay by her side during her punishment. When Ceph leads Senlin to the entrance of the Baths, it’s revealed that even the registrars, assistant registrars, and nurses administering the branding are actors.

Senlin finds the entrance to the Baths guarded by customs officers. The ringdom is filled with hotels, bathhouses, and pools. He meets John Tarrou, a tourist, who invites Senlin to dine with him. For a month, Senlin follows a routine of searching hotels for his wife and dining with Tarrou, who keeps claiming that it is his last night before returning home. Throughout that time, Senlin learns that the Baths are under the control of Commissioner Emmanuel Pound and his agents. Tourists are often forced into slavery, and labelled hods, for falling into debt, while others, who are loosely accused of crime, are slaughtered by the Commissioner’s executioner, the Red Hand, who is strengthened by a glowing red fluid coursing through his veins.

Tarrou frequently harasses a painter, Philip Ogier, outside of the café where Senlin and him regularly dine. Senlin helps Ogier pick up his paintings and sees that his wife is the subject of one. Ogier promises to give him information on Marya if Senlin steals back a painting of his from the Commissioner. Senlin confronts Tarrou about his continued extended stay at the Tower as it’s revealed that Tarrou has been at the Tower for sixteen years. Tarrou also lost his wife but could not find her. His wife found her way home and started sending him money to help him survive. Tarrou, feeling embarrassed that he could not rescue his wife from the Tower, took the money and was taken by the indulgences of the Baths.

Tarrou escorts Senlin, posing as an art critic, to a party thrown at the Commissioner’s mansion and introduces them. Senlin feigns an allergy, claiming that the perfume of Ogier’s painting is setting it off. The Commissioner, who often wears a gas mask due to his intense allergies, is alarmed. Senlin offers to decontaminate the painting for him. The Commissioner agrees but says it must be done so at his Customs Bureau under watch of his security officers. Senlin spends his first day at the Customs Burea surveying the area, and notices the Commissioner’s impressive warship *The Ararat*. The following day, Senlin arrives with a copy of the painting from Ogier wrapped around a wine bottle. He shares the wine with the guard, Kristof, who falls asleep. Senlin is able to switch out the real painting with the fake painting. However, Kristof, wakes up, revealing that he’s aware that Senlin intends to steal the painting, and believing him to be working for House Algez, a rival family to the ringdom, allows Senlin to get a head start in exchange for employment as an informant.

Senlin leaves the Customs Bureau and finds Commissioner Pound sentencing Tarrou into slavery for his debt. Senlin gives the painting to Ogier, who tells him that Marya was able to get to the Baths within a few days of losing him but lost her money and had to find work posing for Ogier. She hired an investigator to search for Senlin, but the man was actually a wife-monger who sold her to “the Count”, a man from the powerful Pell family from the fifth ringdom, Pelphia. Ogier gives Senlin passage on a ferry to New Babel as well as a gun disguised as a key, a painting of his wife, and hidden on the back of that painting, the authentic painting that he had him steal.

At New Babel, Senlin’s name is recognized by an amazon woman, Iren, at the port of New Babel. He is chased through the ringdom and caught in a drug den, where he accidentally inhales a hallucinogenic drug called white chrom, or crumb. She brings him to Finn Goll, who is revealed to oversee the port in New Babel, as well as the whorehouses and other operations within the ringdom. He reveals that he and Adam con unsuspecting tourists in the basement, specifically people that Goll intends to hire for work on the ringdom. Goll, impressed with Senlin’s ascent through the Tower, offers him the role of port master. Senlin, despite his suspicion of Goll’s duplicity, accepts due to his lack of money.

Senlin, alongside Adam, improves the efficiency of the port, increasing profits while increasing the wages of the workers, unbeknownst to Goll. Adam reveals to Senlin that he has a debt to Goll, while also paying off the whoremonger, Rodion, from selling his sister, Voleta, a trapeze artist at the Steam Pipe, as a prostitute.

Senlin informs Adam on his plan to steal a ship, and taking on Adam, Voleta, and Iren as crew. Adam is uncertain of the plan. At night, The Red Hand breaks into Senlin’s bedroom and interrogates him about the paintings whereabouts. Adam shoots at the Red Hand, but he escapes from the ringdom. Senlin finds a rope hanging off the port, suggesting that someone has tipped off the Commissioner about his location.

Senlin has Iren teach him self-defense in exchange for reading lessons. Goll learns about the deal and has Iren beat Senlin for it. Edith reunites with Senlin at the port. She is a first mate aboard *The Stone Cloud* and is sporting a new mechanic arm due to the botched branding nearly killing her. Senlin reveals his plan to steal *The Stone Cloud*, pretending to offer her captain, Billy Lee, payment to smuggle the painting out of New Babel, tipping off Rodion, then as Rodion and his men are seizing the ship, tipping off Goll, which will create a skirmish that will act as a diversion for Senlin and crew to escape on the Stone Cloud.

Iren takes Senlin to Goll’s home, presumably to kill Senlin for one of his many schemes. Senlin reveals his theory that the Tower is an engine: the Basement pumps the water, the Parlor heats the water, the steam is stored in the Baths, and electricity is created in New Babel. He also asks Iren to join him in his escape. Goll is livid that Senlin has used profits to increase wages. Senlin considers using his key gun on Goll but is ashamed by that urge when Goll’s children enter the room. Goll lets Senlin off with a final warning and instructs Senlin and Iren to arm the men in case Rodion and his men invade the port.

Senlin is accosted by Billy Lee upon his return, saying that Rodion’s prostitute told him about how Senlin’s wanted by the Commissioner. Billy Lee is interrupted by Rodion, who shoots him starting a fight between *The Stone Cloud* crew and Rodion’s men. Edith and Rodion duel, but Rodion cuts a cable to the ship, causing Edith to fall off. Goll and his men interrupt the fight. Adam warns everyone that the Commissioner is coming, revealing that he’s the one that tipped him off about Senlin’s location. Goll tells Iren to open the crate (a decoy filled with crumb) to retrieve the painting. Senlin shoots Rodion with the key gun before he can shoot Iren.

*The Aratat* enters, firing into the port. The Commissioner reveals to Senlin that Ogier is a fraud and didn’t make the painting. He has the Red Hand open the decoy crate and crumb explodes everywhere. Edith returns to fight the Red Hand. Senlin and the Commissioner duel as he has a hallucination of Marya. The cables to T*he Aratat* are cut off and the Commissioner is forced to flee onto the ship before it leaves the port. Senlin, Edith, Iren, Adam, and Voleta escape on *The Stone Cloud.*

Senlin, now under the name of Tom Mudd, writes in his journal about his new crew, while the hallucination of his wife stands at his side.

### Arm of the Sphinx

Senlin and his Stone Cloud crew steal rum from a merchant vessel. The crew has been stealing resources (but leaving enough to spare for their victims) from these types of vessels in order to survive. Their attempt to sneak into Pelphia was botched and they have become unwelcome to most ports in their time as pirates. Senlin has struggled with hallucinations of his wife ever since being exposed to crumb during their escape in New Babel.

The crew goes to the Windsock, a hanging port to sell the rum and spend at the markets Senlin visits an old woman, Madame Bhata, to get information on how to get into Pelphia. She says that there’s an abandoned ringdom, the Silk Gardens, above Pelphia with a man named Luc Marat giving refuge to hods there that might help them through. She says that he would appreciate books as a gift in exchange for passage.

Edith finds out about and confronts Senlin about his hallucinations via the ship log, which Senlin has turned into a diary of sorts. Senlin, Edith, and Iren rob a tourist and his daughter of their books. Later, *The Ararat* ambushes them and they are chased down towards the ground and boarded but the crew escape by hooking themselves to a moving train.

*The Stone Cloud* is left in desperate need of repair and food when they enter the Silk Gardens. Senlin and Edith go to meet with Luc Marat at the Golden Zoo while Adam, Iren and Voleta repair the ship. Edith reveals that she lost the red medium powering her arm in T*he* *Ararat* chase. Senlin and Edith are chased by spiders into water and then are led to Marat by a hod.

Marat is revealed to be a zealot who makes his followers black out books, with his ultimate plan being a hod revolution. He also reveals that there is no passage to Pelphia without taking the black trail and becoming a hod. Senlin and Edith are taken to an open cell where it’s implied that they cannot escape. He also notices copies of Ogier’s painting. Voleta appears, having followed them and shaved her head to infiltrate the camp. She then sets up explosives for Senlin and Edith to escape while she steals food for the crew. Senlin also has fallen ill during this time and his hallucination of Marya is melting.

The three escape but are chased into the woods by hods and attacked by spider eaters. Senlin is able to get a rifle and shoot the hods that are attacking T*he* *Stone Cloud.* The crew escape, but they now need to go to the Sphinx because Edith’s arm is out of fuel and their ship is still in need of repair. Edith fears that the Sphinx will force them all into a dangerous contract, especially Adam.

The crew avoid gunfire of the higher ringdoms by playing dead then head straight on into the Tower where Billy Lee, who worked for the Sphinx, wrote that the Tower will open up for them. They enter the Sphinx’s lair and led to the Sphinx by a deer-headed butler named Byron and his mechanical companion Ferdinand. Senlin tries to leverage Ogier’s painting and his knowledge about the hod revolt to get them ship repairs, passage into Pelphia, and Edith’s freedom from her previous contract. Senlin and the Sphinx hastily negotiate a deal. The Sphinx reveals to Senlin and the crew that his hallucinations are brought about by the crumb infused painting that he has of his wife. He then sends Senlin into a bottomless library to find a book and in that time curb his addiction. Senlin trapses through booby traps within the library while struggling with hallucinations. He finds himself longing to return to Edith. After a week in the library, he falls down a chute, and is greeted by the Sphinx. She reveals Ogier’s painting belongs to a zoetrope that when collected completely reveals a combination that opens the Bricklayer’s vault. That vault contains a secret to bridge the tower to the heavens. She also asks Senlin to be her spy in Pelphia to help uncover Marat’s plot.

Edith is given a new arm and assigned Captain of the Sphinx's ship *The State of the Art*. Senlin is reunited with his crew (with the exception of Adam) and he and Edith kiss, which the Sphinx sees with her butterfly cameras.

### The Hod King

The Sphinx gives Senlin his mission for Pelphia; find out why her butterflies are being destroyed at the Colosseum. He is not allowed to go after his wife, though Voleta promises to go after his wife once she and the rest of the crew arrive at the ringdom. The Sphinx implies that she knows about him and Edith’s kiss.

Byron disobeys the Sphinx to help Edith say goodbye to Senlin. She kisses him goodbye. Byron drives the wall walker to drop off Senlin. He fills him in on his new identity as a Boskop accountant. Senlin asks Byron, since he is receiving his messages for the Sphinx, to send private messages to Edith on his behalf.

Senlin, under the name of Cyril Pinfield, an accountant from Boskopia, watches two hods fight in the Colosseum in Pelphia. He then walks towards a section for a group that runs the operation, the Corterie to send along his business card to Duke Pell.

Senlin has been staying the Bon Royal Hotel. The staff finds his requests of old newspapers and lack of activity odd. He leaves a voice message in a moth recounting his observations for the Sphinx and releases it. He reads about Marya in the Daily Reverie. She charmed the ringdom with her piano playing at parties, the started playing shows. She disappeared for a few months, and it was revealed to the public that Wilhelm Pell went out to find the cure for her. The two then announced their marriage.

Senlin walks down the streets of Pelphia during their nightly parties and goes to the theater to watch a fictionalized account of Marya’s life. The fictionalized version of Senlin is presented as a creepy predator who preys upon Marya, and the Duke is presented as her savior. Senlin leaves the play early. He walks down the street and sees two men beating up a hod. Senlin decides to help the hod fight the men off. The hod takes a brick and kills the two men and says to Senlin, “Come the Hod King”. Senlin takes the book about trilobites that the hod left behind and leaves the scene.

Senlin returns to his hotel and reports the crime to the employees. He goes to his room, falls asleep but is awoken by General Eigengrau and Wakeman Georgine Haste who are investigating the murders. Haste accuses him of murdering the two men and fabricating the hod’s presence. Senlin tells his side of the story, while still maintaining his Boskop background. Eigengrau places him under arrest for further questioning. A hotel employee gives Eigengrau a letter for Senlin, and seeing that it’s from Wilhelm Pell seeking a meeting, he lets Senlin go.

Senlin meets Pell at the Coterie Club at the Colosseum. Senlin reveals his plan to sell Marya’s fame as stock. Pell is unsure of this idea, and says that the two should go to her for approval. He invites Senlin to his next party. They watch the hod fight below and John Tarrou is one of the fighters.

Senlin leaves the Colosseum. The Sphinx sends a messenger to slap him and warn him about straying from his mission. Senlin asks the concierge to order a suit and ugly mask for Pell’s party. Senlin goes to the Corterie Club to receive the party attire and runs into Eigengrau who reveals they caught the hod and “his conspirators”. Eigengrau then insinuates that the hods belong in their place of suffering and mistreatment.

Senlin goes to Pell’s party. He meets with him and Marya. Marya suggests that he tries to convince her of the stock idea on this ride called the Merry Loop (in which they use candles to keep the electrical circuits going). Senlin admits that he kissed Edith and asks if she wants to leave or if she’s happy here. Marya gives Senlin permission to leave her in Pelphia and start a new life. The two get off the ride and Marya says that she refused his offer. Pell says he may convince her otherwise. He goes back and leaves a moth message to Edith.

Senlin goes to the Corterie Club where Eigengrau has lined up the hod “conspirators”. Senlin knows they’re innocent and tries to stop their execution. However, Eigengrau goes through with the execution.

Senlin gives Tarrou a note via the magpie kids who typically steal trinkets. He wants Tarrou to throw the match so that he can bet against Maquis de Clark (who owns Tarrou) and win him as a hod. Senlin notices the wings of the Sphinx’s butterflies around the lobby, which eliminates the hods from destroying them because they aren’t allowed there. Pell enters the club and says the Marya agreed to the deal after Pell spoke with her. Pell threatens Senlin when he worries that Marya has been coerced into his deal. He then has three women give Senlin a burlesque show, and one of the girls is the daughter of the family he robbed books from as a pirate.

Senlin tries to escape the colosseum but is caught by Pell and his men. He wakes up in a loin cloth and shaved head. Pell reveals that Senlin and Marya have a daughter, Olivet, and if Senlin returns from the black trail he’ll kill her. Pell puts a blinder on Senlin’s head and sends him on the black trail with Tarrou who they found through their notes.

John Tarrou and Senlin fight against the masses into the black trail. Tarrou is shot. He guides Senlin through the black trail and they come across a camp of zealots. The two swear allegiance to Marat’s cause and Senlin is released from his blinder. Sodiq, the hod that he saved, recognizes Senlin and mentions to the crowd that he also tried to save 11 more hods. Senlin makes an impassioned speech which gets a welcome response that is interrupted by Finn Goll, who ousts him as Thomas Senlin.

Goll and Tarrou offer to take Senlin to Marat since there’s a bounty on his head. Senlin, Goll, and Tarrou travel through the vents for safety from other hods. Goll explains how he lost everything after the destruction of his port and had to send his family to the Baths. Senlin says the two men will have to reject the reward from Marat to get in his good graces. A chimney cat attacks the three but they are able to defeat it. Senlin realizes that the Sphinx knew he would failed in Pelphia and become a hod. She gave him a tracker for her to follow.

Senlin, Tarrou, and Goll enter Mola Ambit, where a giant machine is waiting. Marat exits, and the three prove to Marat how they have renounced their ways and have become zealots. Marat shaves Senlin’s head, welcoming him into the Hod King.

### The Fall of Babel

Senlin has allied himself with John Tarrou and Finn Goll to destroy the Hod King, but Senlin soon finds himself promoted from his position as stepper. Marat tasks him with opening moths and butterflies to extract and store the Sphinx’s medium. This new position puts him in close contact with Marat, and he finds out that his main utility to the tyrant is that he knows the layout of the Sphinx’s lair. Marat has already collected several Bricklayer’s Granddaughter paintings that belong to a zoetrope that is supposed to open the mysterious Bridge of Babel.

Senlin bonds with Marat and the rest of his inner circle of ex-wakemen, or servants of the Sphinx who were given various robotic limbs in exchange for their service. He learns that behind closed doors, Marat is actually a hypocrite, as he can actually walk with his mechanical legs despite using a wheel chair in front of his followers, and is well read despite forcing his followers to black out books.

On the Hod King, Senlin convinces Marat to give him a promotion as navigator on his bridge. He then goes to burn some books, but instead leaves Finn Goll a book with an encrypted message in it, telling him to use black powder to destroy the Hod King when Senlin gives him the codeword Marya over the loudspeaker on the bridge.

Edith and Reddleman take on the Hod King in Cicilia and while it looks like Reddleman miraculously destroys the machine with explosives, it’s revealed that Senlin, Goll, and Tarrou created the blast from inside after Senlin announced his codeword over the loudspeaker. Marat kills several of his followers when they see that he can walk. He and his wakemen then take Senlin as prisoner and use an escape pod that Senlin had been fueling with the medium to drill into the Sphinx’s lair.

Marat has Senlin guide him to the zoetrope where he dispenses his collection of the Bricklayer’s Granddaughter paintings. However, although the door unlocks, it doesn’t open. Senlin, spotting Voleta, takes this moment of distraction as an opportunity to escape. His wakeman, Cael, suggests that the door might instead just be a lock, and Marat decides that they should find the Sphinx.

Senlin gets changed in the Sphinx’s wardrobe and reunites with the rest of the crew in a room with all of the Sphinx’s past automations. The reunion is interrupted by Marat and his wakemen, and that interruption is interrupted by the Sphinx’s automations turning on and attacking everyone. Senlin and Voleta fight Marat’s armored engineer, Gedge. Senlin then fights Marat, and has a chance to behead him, but is attacked by Delyth. Senlin and Voleta work together to defeat Delyth.

Senlin, Edith, Iren and Voleta return to Nebos following Marat's demise to find the entire ringdom shaking. Ann tells them that Marya took Olivet for a walk in Nebos, Edith orders everyone to get back to the ship. Senlin is stuck between returning to the ship or searching for Marya in Nebos. As the gates to Nebos start to close, Edith pushes him inside the ringdom. She then knocks three times on the glass, a hard knock, soft knock, and another hard knock, which was how they used to communicate aboard the Stone Cloud, and the two part ways. The Ringdom of Nebos flies off the Tower and disappears.

Senlin and Marya reunite at the top of the Tower, like she said they would back in the first book. She then asks Senlin to visit her the next day, indicating that she isn’t ready to take him back. Senlin becomes a teacher once again. Marya has adopted two hod children. She tells Senlin that she’s not ready to talk but willing to listen. Senlin confesses that he burdened her with mediocrity and never deserved her affection. Marya chastises his confession, questioning why he always doubted her affection and claiming that it was because he didn’t respect her judgement over his own. She points out that it was not her who abandoned their relationship by falling in love with someone else, and she sacrificed her own wellbeing so that Senlin and Olivet were safe. She says that she doesn’t know when or if she’ll forgive him, which Senlin accepts and promises to be a faithful father and friend in the meantime, who will listen to her on what she’s endured whenever she wants to talk about it. Senlin then takes Olivet for a walk as they look out at the stars.

## Trivia

* Senlin's name is inspired by a poem called "Morning Song of Senlin" by Conrad Aiken. With a line in the poem also stating, "It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness."