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There's always use in fighting. Especially when it makes terrible people cry.

–Emma in A Map of Days , Ransom Riggs

Emma Bloom is a female peculiar who can create and manipulate fire.

She is the female deuteragonist in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and following books Hollow City and Library of Souls.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Emma told Jacob that she first began to manifest her pyrokinetic ability at the age of ten, when she would set her bed on fire while sleeping. Because this would happen so frequently, her parents reduced Emma's bed to a metal cot which they stressed over not having anything flammable. Emma's parents continued to call her a pyromaniac and a liar, reasoning their claims with the fact that Emma was never burned from the fires she caused.

She says that a day came along where her hands began to itch, then to swell, and then to grow so hot that she plunged them into a case of ice holding fish at the market. All the ice melted, and the grocer wanted money for the ruined fish. Then, Emma's hands caught fire completely. Emma's parents found out, and her mother ran out of the house, never to return, thinking Emma was a demon from hell. But Emma's father beat her and locked her away. When she tried to escape, he tied her down with asbestos sheets, not even untying her so she could feed herself.

Finally, her younger sister Julia freed her late at night and she ran away. Emma went to the circus where she worked as a fire-eater. Eventually as revealed in Library of Souls, a woman found Emma at the circus and gave her a job opportunity, which is later revealed to be working as a drugged peculiar for sale. Emma refused again and again, and eventually was drugged, gagged, and chained in the back of a truck. That is where Miss Peregrine found her, and Emma began calling the day she was found by Miss Peregrine her birthday.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children[]

Emma is 88 years old in the first book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Jacob first saw Emma when he was exploring the children's home in the present. She and various others gathered around the hole Jacob had made in the first floor and peered down at him in the basement. At first, Emma thought he was Abe, but quickly seemed to realize that he wasn't, and left the house. Jacob chased after her. Later, when they entered the loop, Emma caught up with Jacob while he was hiding from the men from the pub and threatened him with a knife. When he told her that he was Abraham Portman's grandson, she refused to believe him and demanded to see his eyes, believing him to be a wight. She tied him up and brought him to Miss Peregrine. Later, Emma escorted him home from the loop.

Afterwards, when they are on better terms, Jacob and Emma arranged to meet during the night when Jacob's father and Miss Peregrine were sleeping so they could talk. When they met, Emma brought Jacob to the beach and the two went in her little boat farther into the water. Eventually Emma stopped paddling and got out of the boat to stand on a sunken warship, getting Jacob to follow her down into it under the water. They breathed using a tube, and it helped them stay underwater longer to be able to look at glowing fish that Emma calls "flashlight fish". When they got above water again, they eventually kissed and Emma told Jacob he should stay in the loop. Jacob responded that he wants to but can't because he doesn't think he's peculiar and he can't leave his family behind. When they arrived back at the house, they found out Esmeralda Avocet, an ymbryne from another loop, flew over to warn the house of attacks from wights. Miss Peregrine said to Jacob and Emma she should punish them for sneaking out but that it wasn't the time because of the danger everyone in the loop may be in.

During the stand-off with Dr. Golan, he claimed that Emma's parents had tried to sell her off to a circus when she was 5 years old, but ended up abandoning her at one when they weren't able to. (Emma disproves this version of the story to Jacob during the second book.)

Hollow City[]

After the children leave Cairnholm, Emma is in a boat with Jacob and Hugh, consulting a map. She also takes a turn at rowing, and later helps rescue Bronwyn and Olive after they fall overboard their boat. Upon reaching land, after Olive had been reeled into the sky guiding the children there, causing her to get soaked and freezing, Emma uses her peculiarity to warm Olive up.

Library of Souls[]

A Map of Days[]

The Conference of Birds[]

The Desolations of Devil's Acre[]

Description[]

Physical Appearance[]

Emma is described to have white skin, sandy hair and green eyes. The first time Jacob and Emma met, he described her as "strikingly pretty." On the train in Hollow City, Jacob tells her that when they first met and he was sure she was about to slit his throat, a tiny part of him was thinking that "if this was the last face he'd ever see, at least it's a beautiful one." She has been described as beautiful by others on several occasions as well, unintentionally attracting the interest of men such as the Gypsy ventriloquist, to men as undesirable as a perverted wight who went as far as to try and kiss her. Emma also bears a resemblance to V, enough that Joseph initially thought she was V.

Personality[]

She is described as hot-tempered but trustworthy by Miss Peregrine. She was also seen as very confident by Jacob in Hollow City. Despite acting as a leader to the peculiar children a lot of the time and constantly radiating strength, she is only human as well and has her moments of weakness. She is compassionate, with a heart the size of France according to Jacob. She likes to think that she is strong, strong enough to be depended upon. She states that she can block out awful things and do what needs to be done, but she can break. After she and Jacob split up, she was described to take a long time to get over things, having "moaned over Abe for half a century." Emma is also resilient, sending Jacob breezy and cheerful letters from Devil's Acre but not once mentioning living condition struggles.

Peculiarity[]

Emma is able to create fire from her hands and manipulate it, and can heat up her hands without creating flames (hot enough to cauterize wounds and weld). She is unable to make fire, however, when stunned or weak.

Relationships[]

Abraham Portman[]

He left. He said he loved me and promised to come back one day. But he never did.

–Emma about Abe , Ransom Riggs

Before Jacob's grandfather left, Emma and Abraham "Abe" Portman were considered the "sweethearts" at the loop. Miss Peregrine mentions that when he left, he "took all of their hearts with him, but Miss Bloom's especially. Yes, they were admirers, paramours, sweethearts."

Despite his feelings towards Emma, Abe insisted he had to go to war to fight and afterwards, to fight hollowgasts and wights. They wrote many letters during the war. At first they were cute, such as "Remind you of something? To my bombshell! Love, Abe." And "Peeling spuds & dreaming of you. Come home soon. Love, your potato". However, they would afterwards become more and more depressing such as "Feeling caged without you. Won't you write? I worry so. Kisses, Emma". The fateful last letter contained three words "This is why" along with a snapshot of Abraham holding his daughter, Jacob's Aunt Susie. Their correspondence ended after.

More than half a century later, even though Abe had married and had children and grandchildren, Emma was still not over her love for him, and it was the actual reason why she fell for Jacob. But when she tries to call Abe on the road during A Map of Days, he angrily tells her she is interrupting dinner and that she shouldn't have called before hanging up, hurting her feelings. However, she tells Jacob in The Conference of the Birds that she needed to hear it, so she could finally let him go.

Jacob Portman[]

At first glance, Emma mistook Jacob for Abraham, and grew increasingly angry at the prospect of Abe having grandchildren, since he had once promised such things to her. After Miss Peregrine confirmed his human and genealogical status, she initially regarded him as the bearer of bad news. However, she begins to warm up to him. She befriends him easily, flirting all the while, but as the series goes on, they fall in love. The two demonstrate easy cooperation when called for and enter into a romantic relationship during Hollow City, which they maintain until partway through A Map of Days. It hurts for her to see Jacob hurt, and thinking that she lost him, mentioning that it can make her break.

They break up after she phones Abe, and they recognize that Emma is not completely over Abe and that their feelings are unequal. For Jacob, around 10 percent of the reason is their age difference, and their inability to relate. They end up going back to being "just friends." Emma still shows a bit of jealousy, though, as Jacob moves on by falling in love with Noor, and Jacob sees that Emma pretending they were only ever just friends isn't working. Emma looks at him in a way so that even Noor can easily tell that they used to be together. In a conversation about what happened between them, Jacob tells her that she made him face the fact that he would never be his grandfather, and now knows that she had never really given her heart to him in the first place. In The Desolations of Devil's Acre, Jacob in his mind states that he still loves Emma, but in "a dimmed and dusty way." In the end, they are still close friends and strong partners to each other.

Trivia[]

  • In one of the Hollow City book trailers, she is indirectly shown via the fire in her hand.
  • In http://ransomriggs.tumblr.com/post/128430840332/library-of-souls-pre-order-insanity-whaaaaaaat, the month of November picture of the calendar states that on November 9th is Emma's birthday.
  • Her powers have been switched with Olive's in the movie, while Emma is also given the ability to manipulate air.
  • In the movie, Ella Purnell portrayed Emma.
  • She hates rodents.
  • In one of the deleted scenes of the Map of Days, Emma Bloom takes on a fake persona, Irma Bluth, by the Department of Disguises and goes to high school with Jacob Portman. She is recorded as a British exchange student.
  • She is 88 years old in the first book, but says that she is over a hundred in the third.
  • You are able to email Emma using the email that is mentioned in Library of Souls, which is firegirl1901@gmail.com.
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