Paul Landon

Quick Facts

• Role: Older brother of Scott Landon; childhood protector, co-creator, and fellow victim in the Landon household
• Status: Deceased long before the novel’s present; appears through Scott’s memories that Lisey uncovers
• Family: Son of Andrew "Sparky" Landon; confidant and collaborator to Scott
• Hallmarks: Creator of “good bools” (imaginative treasure hunts); emblem of the family’s hereditary “bad-gunky”
• Fate: Succumbs to the curse as a teenager; mercy-killed by his father after turning violent
• Physical description: Slim, tall, and already handsome at thirteen; darkish-blond hair long in front and at the sides; striking blue eyes that Scott remembers most in moments of fear and tenderness

Who They Are

Bold, gentle, and doomed, Paul Landon is the sibling who teaches Scott how to survive—first through love and play, and later through memory. He originates the “good bools,” playful counterspells to their father’s “blood-bools,” and becomes the template for Scott’s art and ethics: make stories that save someone. In Scott’s recollections, Paul personifies Childhood Trauma and Its Lasting Impact and stands at the crossroads of Madness, Sanity, and Family Curses. His tragedy reframes the novel’s central question: can love and imagination hold back inherited darkness, or only delay it?

Personality & Traits

Paul’s presence is paradoxical—protective and playful in childhood, then terrifying when the family curse claims him. He meets brutality with quiet endurance and answers terror with invention. His gentleness is an act of resistance; his stoicism, a survival skill; his creativity, a lifeline he throws to his little brother.

• Protective and self-sacrificing: In “Scooter on the Bench,” Sparky slices Paul’s arm to force three-year-old Scott to jump. Paul grimaces but refuses to cry out, keeping his mouth shut while his eyes plead with Scott to end it—absorbing pain so his brother won’t have to.
• Creative and imaginative: Paul invents the “good bools”—riddle-led hunts that map their hostile world into zones of play. His sixteen-station “best bool,” ending with shared RC Colas, transforms a day without their father into a sanctuary, modeling storytelling as rescue.
• Brave and stoic: Around Sparky, Paul’s quiet strength is a shield. He rarely shows fear, and his devastating wish that their father would die reveals desperation not for vengeance but escape—for himself and, crucially, for Scott.
• Intelligent and precocious: At six, Paul composes clever riddles that three-year-old Scott can read and solve, signaling the brothers’ rare intellect and collaborative “twinship” of minds that will shape Scott’s future craft.

Character Journey

Paul’s arc is revealed in reverse—first as a beatified memory, then as a boy made tragically mortal. Early recollections cast him as the family’s counter-magic: he turns cruelty into games and fear into puzzles that can be solved. As memories deepen, the hereditary “bad-gunky” surfaces. At thirteen, Paul’s sudden attack in the kitchen shatters the protector myth and exposes a darker truth: the loving brother and the feral attacker are the same child, captured by the family curse. Chained in the cellar, he becomes both person and warning—the future Scott fears. Sparky’s rifle shot ends Paul’s suffering and complicates the novel’s moral ledger, recoding the father as executioner and reluctant liberator. Scott’s secret burial of Paul in Boo’ya Moon is a final act of reclamation: returning the brother to a place of beauty and acknowledging that the bond—like a bool—can still lead to a gentler ending.

Key Relationships

Scott Landon As protector, idol, and first creative partner, Paul teaches Scott that imagination is not frivolous—it’s survival. The “good bools” become Scott’s blueprint for storytelling: construct clues, lead the reader, deliver grace at the end. Paul’s death engraves guilt and love into Scott’s art; every story is a belated rescue attempt, and every fear has Paul’s blue eyes at its center.

Andrew “Sparky” Landon Sparky weaponizes Paul’s body to control Scott, turning discipline into spectacle (“blood-bools”). The grim paradox of Paul’s death—Sparky’s rifle as an instrument of mercy—complicates the novel’s moral geometry: the abuser ends the abuse, but only by annihilating its most innocent victim. Paul’s fate exposes how violence and “care” can become indistinguishable inside a cursed family system.

Lisey Landon Though they never meet, Paul shapes Lisey’s marriage. As Scott shares Paul’s story, Lisey learns the private grammar of Scott’s love and terror. When Scott entrusts her with the truth of Paul’s burial, he invites Lisey into the bool tradition itself: a path through horror that ends, if you follow the clues, in tenderness.

Defining Moments

Paul’s life is a series of improvised resistances that culminate in catastrophe. Each moment redefines him—from guardian to maker, from child to symbol.

• “Scooter on the Bench”

  • What happens: Sparky slices Paul to force Scott off a high bench; Paul stays silent, pleading only with his eyes.
  • Why it matters: Establishes Paul as shield and teacher—endure pain without giving the abuser what he wants—and burns the image of his blue-eyed courage into Scott’s psyche.

• “Paul and the Best Bool”

  • What happens: During a rare free day, Paul designs a sixteen-stop treasure hunt that ends in shared RC Colas.
  • Why it matters: Shows storytelling as refuge and collaboration; the bool becomes the proto-form of Scott’s later narratives—danger mapped into solvable paths, ending in “Bool! The End!”

• Descent into “Bad-Gunky”

  • What happens: At thirteen, Paul abruptly attacks Scott in the kitchen, his eyes “pure bad-gunky.”
  • Why it matters: Collapses the saintly memory into a complex human reality; love cannot fully hold the curse at bay, raising the specter of what Scott himself might become.

• Death in the Cellar

  • What happens: After weeks in chains, Paul nearly kills Scott; Sparky shoots him with a .30-06.
  • Why it matters: Frames the killing as euthanasia rather than murder, complicating evil and mercy; fixes Paul as both victim and warning, the cost of a legacy Scott will spend his life outrunning.

• Burial in Boo’ya Moon

  • What happens: Scott secretly buries Paul in a beautiful otherworld and later shares this with Lisey.
  • Why it matters: Reclaims Paul from horror, completing the last “good bool”: a final clue that leads not to terror but to rest, and to the truth Scott can finally share.

Essential Quotes

“When I was little, Paul was never mean to me and I was never mean to him. We stuck together. We had to. I loved him, Lisey. I loved him so.” This is Scott’s thesis for his brother: mutual gentleness as an act of defiance. The repetition (“I loved him… so”) testifies to grief that never cooled, and to the urgency behind Scott’s storytelling—speaking love to keep Paul alive.

“Paul made good bools. Fun bools. Like treasure hunts. Follow the clues. ‘Bool! The End!’ and get a prize. Like candy or an RC.” The staccato sentences mimic a child’s cadence and a bool’s step-by-step logic. Paul’s game design becomes the architecture of Scott’s future fiction: clues, momentum, conclusion, and a gift—story as humane machinery.

“What do you wish for, Scott?”
“I wish the Bookmobile comes this summer. What do you wish for, Paul?”
His brother looks at him calmly... and he says, “I wish Daddy dies at work. That he gets lectercuted and dies.” The juxtaposition—books versus death—exposes the boys’ divergent necessities: Scott’s hope for culture, Paul’s plea for safety. Paul’s composure underscores the horror: a child’s ordinary wish has been replaced by survival math.

“He was my brother.” Plain, absolute, and irrefutable. This line is the ballast of Scott’s morality: beyond curse and cruelty, identity is fixed by love, and Paul’s humanity cannot be reduced to the cellar creature or the rifle shot.