Opal Koboi

From Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl character
Opal Koboi
Gender	Female
Job	Founder of Koboi Laboratories
Species	Pixie
Family	Ferrall Koboi (real father), Giovanni Zito (illegal adopted father)
Aliases	Imogen Book, Belinda Zito, also disguises herself as Angeline Fowl.
First appearance	The Arctic Incident
Last appearance	The Time Paradox

Opal Koboi is an evil genius pixie with an I.Q. of over 300 and aspirations of world domination. She is the founder of the infamous Koboi Labs and the primary antagonist of Artemis Fowl.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Personality 3 Abilities 4 Physical Appearance 5 Quotes 6 Trivia

[edit] Biography

Opal Koboi was a rebellious and passionate pixie in her youth. She came to hate her father, who wanted her to become a stereotypical housewife. She, however, desired absolute power, and soon built her own engineering company, which quickly put her father out of business causing him to have a nervous breakdown and go mad. Koboi recorded her father's breakdown on DVD for her own personal amusement and soon had him and her mother sent to an asylum named Cumulus House.

Her long-time nemesis is the centaur Foaly, who beat Opal in competitions at college. She is obsessed with humiliating and destroying him. Losing to Foaly, as well as her father's sexism caused Opal to develop misandrist tendencies.

During the Spelltropy plague, Koboi Labs found the cure to the disease: the brain fluid of the silky sifaka lemur, and began selling it to the fairy public for outrageous prices before the LEP demanded all of it to destroy the pandemic. However, the same brain fluid was necessary in Koboi's secret concoction which would enable her to manipulate time and space, rendering her immortal and invincible and by effect capable of conquering the world. Opal had already absorbed the brain fluids of various other animals which gave her the ability to fly without aid of wings and expel lethal blasts of energy. The cure for the plague resulted in the extinction of the lemur save one, which Koboi was to steal from the Extinctionists, the leader of which she had mesmerized into doing her bidding. However, the Artemis Fowl from the future returned to save the same lemur (Jayjay) to save his mother. In a fit of rage, Koboi hunted down Fowl and returned to the future with him.

After returning to the past, Koboi formed an alliance with disgruntled former LEP lieutenant, Briar Cudgeon and the B'wa Kell Goblin Triad whom she and Cudgeon supplied with Softnose Lasers and batteries. Their plan was to supply the Goblins with the power to invade Police Plaza and topple the LEP then destroy them when they were of no further use and take over The Lower Elements. Unfortunately for Opal and Cudgeon, Artemis Fowl quickly learned that she and Briar were behind the Bwa'Kell rebellion, and infiltrated Koboi Labs with Holly Short, Mulch Diggums, Butler, and Julius Root. Foaly exposed that Cudgeon was going to betray Koboi after the LEP were defeated. Flying into a rage, the pixie attacked Cudgeon and in the ensuing struggle, Cudgeon was thrown into a pipe of heating plasma and Koboi was incapacitated.

To avoid prison, Opal put herself in a self-induced coma, a technique taught to her by Gola Schweem, to get into J. Argon Institute. After being rescued by Merval and Descant Brill and successfully killing Commander Root, she plotted to send the Zito Probe down ten years ahead of schedule, and reveal the existence of fairy civilization to the humans which would result in a cross-species war. Koboi planned to supply the humans with the technology to win then take over the humans and by effect the world. Artemis foiled her plan by tricking Opal into blowing up her own shuttle with explosives which were necessary to divert the probe, thus disabling her and rendering the probe harmless to the People. Opal fled the shuttle in an escape pod which was damaged in the explosion. She managed to pilot it to the planet surface where she crashed in a vineyard. Koboi then used her magic to mesmerise the owner of the yard into thinking that Koboi was her daughter, Belinda. In doing so, however, she used up the last of her magic. She was subsequently forced by her adopted mother to do hard labour on the farm until the LEP reconnaisance squad arrived to arrest her.

She was subsequently taken to Atlantis to a maximum-security prison isolation cube floating in the middle of the ocean where she spent her time writing letters to politicians pleading for her early release but so far to no avail.

Three years afterwards, she appeared in Fowl Manor (having been teleported to the future eight years before) and took control of Angeline Fowl through psychokinesis, forcing her body to fake the symptoms of Spelltropy and prompting Artemis Fowl to travel back in time to obtain a silky sifaka lemur and bring her back to the future with him (this is part of The Time Paradox). Once Artemis returns, her plot is discovered by him and his allies as having been revolving around Jayjay, the last silky sifaka lemur, which Koboi needed for her unlimited power magic formula. Artemis Fowl takes Jayjay and boards a plane, flying it to the south of Ireland (with Koboi flying in pursuit), where it is revealed that it is not Jayjay he is carrying but rather a large monkey doll with a heating pack built-in. Furious, Koboi attempts to kill Artemis but fails after she is blasted under a pile of rubble by a shedding kraken. However, she manages to escape before the LEP arrives, and thus is loosed upon the world once more. The LEP believes that so she may attempt to break herself out of prison, so security around her cell in Atlantis is increased.

[edit] Personality

Opal Koboi, in her early life, was known for being commanding but subtle though still a megalomaniac with a narcissistic personality disorder, schizophrenic tendencies and paranoid delusions. After her self-induced coma, she became increasingly insecure and by the time the LEP got to her, she had gone insane, believing that she could read minds as well as several other minor delusions.

In the sixth book it is revealed that her madness was present long before The Opal Deception though her self-induced coma did nothing for her sanity (or lack thereof). Due to her immense egotism, she is also oblivious to sarcasm despite having quite a sarcastic sense of humour herself.

It is implied that Opal is in fact smarter than Artemis as in The Opal Deception it is stated that she has an IQ of over four hundred while the maximum human IQ is two hundred. It is highly possible however that Artemis possesses a superhuman intellect.

Opal shares many of Artemis's traits. Both are arrogant young geniuses who have an antagonistic relationship with a rival species and both are especially concerned with money and power though much more so in Opal's case. She could be thought of as a dark mirror image of Artemis himself.

Opal loves chocolate truffles, keeping them in the hidden compartment of her shuttle in The Opal Deception.

[edit] Abilities

Opal's most well known ability is her genius intellect, which is rivaled only by Foaly. She created spectacular inventions using her intellect and earned her fortune with them. She also had her magical powers enhanced using the fluids of endangered animals. With her enhanced powers, she could use a more powerful version of the mesmer, levitate, shape-shift, suck out the memories of other people, had enhanced strength, powerful healing magic, summon energy beams that could paralyse creatures, and conjure up lightning bolts and spheres of fire.

[edit] Physical Appearance

Opal's appearance is not described much in the books. However, the Arctic Incident graphic novel depicts her as very pale, with red hair and pupilless red eyes.

[edit] Quotes

Opal: (Pointing at Artemis) This is not a lemur.

Opal: (To Wing Commander Vinyaya) I see now, wing commander, that you never had any intention of sending the transfer shuttle right over. In fact, you were being sarcastic. Mocking me from the safety of Police Plaza in Haven. I waited for three weeks before I realized that the shuttle was not coming for me. I packed my belongings so that I would be ready. Including my collection of model sea horses, which I fashioned from chewed cardboard. My favorite sea horses, Twinky and Goodboy were broken in the process. Twinky cries every night over her severed tail and Goodboy does not look so dashing without his head. Your callousness leaves me no alternative but to place you in my revenge list. When I am finally free of this horrible place and elevated to my rightful position as queen of the world, you will take my place in this cell and I will send my troll minions to issue daily beatings with batons fashioned from sea horses' tails. A fitting punishment, I am sure you agree."

[edit] Trivia

When Artemis encountered Opal in the past in The Time Paradox, she had gained awesome powers from injesting various animal products and body parts, and yet the Opal he fought in The Arctic Incident and The Opal Deception did not. How she lost these powers and how her journey to the future in TTP effects the Opal in the present day is yet to be revealed. However, it is most likely that the magic enhancement was temporary, as she retained the animals even after they had served her purposes, suggesting that she requires a constant supply