Manfred Bloor

Manfred Bloor is a fictional character in Jenny Nimmo's Children of the Red King series. This series is about Charlie Bone who is Manfred's arch-enemy.

Manfred Bloor (b. 1985) lives with his father and headmaster Doctor Harold Bloor--and great-grandfather Ezekiel Bloor in the west wing of Bloor's Academy. Until the end of the second book, his mother, Dorothy de Vere was also at Bloor's. At the beginning of the series, Manfred is Head Boy at Bloor's Academy, and a student in the Drama department. However, at the beginning of the fall semester in the fourth book, he is revealed to have taken a job as teaching assistant at Bloor's because he graduated.

Manfred took a role as Charlie Bone's arch-nemesis early on, and continues throughout the series to play a major antagonistic role. Charlie and Manfred are actually fourth cousins, however Manfred is on the side of the evil children while Charlie is on the side of the good.

Nimmo gives the impression that Manfred is losing his hypnotic ability later on in the series, and is instead developing the gift of pyrokinesis. However, in the 7th book, it is revealed that his power is returning when he hypnotizes Billy Raven. Thus it is possible that Manfred has been endowed with both hypnotism and pyrokinesis.

Role
Manfred is a student who attends Bloor's Academy, and is the head boy for the drama department. He is photographed in a local newspaper after escaping a fire at Bloor's academy, and through this photo, Charlie hears his reaction to the event. Charlie later finds out that it was Manfred who hypnotized Emilia Moon, who is really Emma Tolly. Manfred tries to prevent Charlie from helping Emma Tolly. He is at the fight in the forbidden ruins at the end of the book, but, along with Zelda Dobinski, is overpowered by Tancred Torsson and Lysander Sage.

In "The Time Twister", Manfred imprisons Henry Yewbeam (transported to the present from 1916). He attempts to stop his mother escaping Bloor's, but she uses the Time Twister to travel back to a few minutes before he broke her fingers, and this time leaves without anyone knowing, thus erasing the trauma of the last five years of her life. Manfred shows brief sadness at his mother's departure.

At the end of Charlie Bone and the Hidden King, Manfred attempts to stop Charlie from "awakening" his father and is attacked and seemingly killed by the Flames, who had been reverted from three cats back into  leopards.

In the sixth book, Manfred is revealed to have survived the attack of the leopards. However, his face is severely scarred and his throat lacerated as a result of being mauled by the creatures. He holds his old sidekick, Asa Pike, prisoner in a cave because Asa helped Charlie save his father. Toward the end of the book, Manfred's disfigured face is magically regenerated, and he returns to plague Charlie Bone once again.

Powers and Abilities
As a result of his ancestry, Manfred is endowed with the ability to hypnotize people by staring them in the eyes, sometimes having a very prolonged effect. He used this power to erase all of Lyell Bone's personal memories, as well as to keep Emma Tolly in a state of constant hypnosis for over eight years. However, it is later revealed that this power was at its peak when Manfred was nine years of age, and as of the fourth book, when Manfred is eighteen, he becomes concerned that his hypnotic ability seems to be waning. By the fifth book, he has seemingly lost this power completely. However, this book also reveals that Manfred is developing into a fire-bringer like his ancestor, Borlath.