CHARACTER
A Discovery of Witchesby Deborah Harkness

Sarah Bishop

Sarah Bishop

Quick Facts

  • Role: Powerful witch; guardian and mentor to Diana Bishop
  • Home: The Bishop House, Madison, New York
  • Family/Partnerships: Longtime partner Emily “Em” Mather; aunt to Diana
  • Stance on other creatures: Deeply skeptical—especially of Matthew Clairmont—and fiercely protective of secrecy
  • First impression: A commanding, plain-spoken matriarch whose quick temper and quicker instincts flare the moment Diana is at risk

Who They Are

Bold, tradition-bound, and unyieldingly protective, Sarah Bishop is the keeper of the Bishop “old ways,” a witch whose authority comes from mastery as much as temperament. She stands at the crossroads of law and love: the voice of caution and custom who still chooses family when those very rules are threatened. Her most vivid physical trait—bright red hair—visually telegraphs her heat: the temper, the blunt tongue, and the sheer force of presence that fills a room and brooks no nonsense. Sarah’s essence is paradox: a rigid defender of witch law who, when tested, proves that blood loyalties can be stronger than centuries of fear.

Personality & Traits

Sarah’s bark often is the message. She polices boundaries because she has seen what happens when witches cross them—and because she refuses to let Diana pay the price. Her tough love reads as temper and prejudice, but the engine underneath is vigilance.

  • Protective: Her instinct is always to shield Diana first. Her worried transatlantic call in Chapter 2 zeroes in on danger before Diana has named it, and she immediately counsels distance from creatures.
  • Blunt and outspoken: Sarah delivers hard truths without padding, criticizing Diana’s magical avoidance and her involvement with a vampire. The abrasiveness is strategic: she’d rather offend than see a Bishop hurt.
  • Quick-tempered: The proverbial “redheaded temper” flashes when Diana resists counsel; she even hangs up during that first call. The anger, though, is diagnostic—frustration at risks Diana won’t recognize.
  • Knowledgeable and skilled: A consummate practitioner, Sarah has a deft hand with potions and total command of traditional charms. When Diana mentions the bewitched manuscript Ashmole 782 in Chapter 10, Sarah instantly maps its dangers, scolding Diana’s academic curiosity for outrunning magical caution.
  • Prejudiced—by design: She has internalized creature-segregation as survival strategy. Her suspicion of vampires is absolute, and she tries to encode that fear into Diana’s choices.

Character Journey

Sarah’s arc is less a personality makeover than a revelation of motive. Early on, her rigid rules and sharp critiques frame her as a cantankerous gatekeeper. Gradually, the novel reveals the wound beneath: she already lost her sister and brother-in-law and refuses to lose Diana to hubris—or to a vampire. That fear collides with love when Diana chooses Matthew; by Chapter 24, Sarah decides that covenant or no covenant, “No Bishop ever turns her back on another Bishop.” When Diana is tortured by Satu Järvinen, Sarah’s response is action, not dogma: in Chapter 33, she channels mastery into healing spells, letting fury refine her craft rather than cloud it. The movement is clear: from law as shield to love as law.

Key Relationships

  • Diana Bishop: As Diana’s surrogate mother, Sarah both nurtures and argues. Their recurring conflict—Diana’s rejection of magic versus Sarah’s insistence on embracing it—anchors the novel’s exploration of Identity and Self-Acceptance. Sarah criticizes, trains, and protects in equal measure; her harshest words often disguise her deepest care.

  • Emily “Em” Mather: Em softens Sarah’s edges without dulling her strength. Where Sarah is flint, Em is balm; together they form a coherent household ethic rooted in love and legacy, a living emblem of Family, Lineage, and Belonging. Em often translates Sarah’s fear into comfort, keeping the Bishop home a sanctuary rather than a fortress.

  • Matthew Clairmont: To Sarah, Matthew embodies the existential threat of inter-creature intimacy. Their dynamic is wary, combative, and principled, underscoring the risks and allure of Forbidden Love and Inter-species Relationships. Even when she begrudgingly accepts Matthew for Diana’s sake, Sarah never forgets what he represents—or what he could cost.

Defining Moments

Sarah’s milestones are decisions under pressure: each time, she chooses protection, knowledge, and family over comfort.

  • The phone call about Matthew: Her first reaction to Diana’s proximity to a vampire is alarm, a reflex that reveals both protective love and the weight of communal taboo. It also crystallizes the novel’s interest in Prejudice, Segregation, and Intolerance: Sarah’s fear is culturally inherited, personally reinforced, and hard to dislodge.
  • Learning about Ashmole 782: When Diana confesses she summoned and returned a bewitched manuscript, Sarah’s fury is the fury of expertise ignored. She understands the book’s gravity and scolds Diana not to shame her, but to prevent a catastrophe Diana can’t yet imagine.
  • Accepting Diana’s choice: After Diana declares her love for Matthew, Sarah chooses kin over covenant. That pivot doesn’t erase her prejudice; it prioritizes loyalty, reframing Sarah from obstacle to ally without diminishing her moral seriousness.
  • Healing Diana: Following Satu’s torture, Sarah’s magic becomes medicine. Her healing spells dramatize how anger, when disciplined by skill, can serve love—and how tradition, at its best, exists to preserve people, not rules.

Essential Quotes

  • “Witches, vampires, and daemons aren’t supposed to mix. You know that. Humans are more likely to notice us when we do. No daemon or vampire is worth the risk.” This is Sarah’s creed in miniature: secrecy as survival, separation as strategy. The line is protective and doctrinaire, revealing how personal loss has hardened communal rules into moral imperatives.

  • “We used to call that alchemy... There’s a lot of magic in it.” Sarah bridges Diana’s scholarship and witchcraft, refusing a false divide between human knowledge and magical practice. The comment shows respect for tradition and intellectual curiosity, suggesting her conservatism isn’t anti-learning—it’s about responsible use.

  • “You draw creatures like flowers draw bees, Diana. But daemons aren’t half as dangerous as vampires. Stay away from him.” Tenderness (“flowers”) and threat (“dangerous”) collide here. Sarah diagnoses Diana’s magnetism while foregrounding risk, compressing love, fear, and prejudice into a single warning.

  • “Vampires and witches don’t go on dates. Unless he was planning to dine on you, of course. They love nothing more than the taste of a witch’s blood.” The dark humor sharpens the danger. Sarah weaponizes sarcasm to puncture romantic fantasy, insisting that biology, history, and appetite outweigh courtship rituals.

  • “Diana Bishop, you know better. How could you send back a magical object you didn’t fully understand?” Part reprimand, part lesson plan, this line frames knowledge as duty. Sarah demands respect for power’s consequences, casting herself as mentor who won’t indulge ignorance—even in someone she loves.