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Trivium

The Terrible Trivium in the film.

The Terrible Trivium is a demon in the Mountains of Ignorance. He has no face and tricks unworthy people who enter the mountains. He describes himself as the "demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit." He is a notorious time-waster who fooled Milo, Tock, and the Humbug into doing tasks that seem urgent but are really just tedious. Milo's only able to figure this out by doing some math and realizes that the Trvium's meaningless tasks would take eight hundred and thirty-seven years to finish. They finally escaped by fooling the Trivium into counting pebbles. He wears a dark suit with a well-pressed shirt and tie, polished shoes, a white handkerchief in his pocket, and a well-brushed hat. He likes doing things that are not important. His nails are clean. He is well mannered but wants everyone to do trivial tasks and not important ones. He made Milo move some sand with tweezers, Tock fills a well with a dropper and the Humbug make a hole in a cliff with a needle. His end comes when the word "industry" falls on him.

Quotes[]

  • "But why do only unimportant things?" asked Milo, who suddenly remembered how much time he spent each day doing them. "Think of all the trouble it saves," the man explained, and his face looked as if he'd be grinning an evil grin - if he could grin at all. "If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren't for that dreadful magic staff, you'd never know how much time you were wasting.”

Trivia[]

  • In the movie, he looks similar to his book counterpart, save for a missing neck, wrists and ankles.

Gallery[]

Terribletrivium

Trivium in the book

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