List of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters

Based on Wikipedia: List of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters

The Unforgettable Misfits of Douglas Adams's Universe

Imagine a universe where the most important thing you could possibly need is a towel. Where the answer to life, the universe, and everything is a number that makes no sense. Where a depressed robot has outlived entire civilizations simply because nobody thought to turn him off.

This is the universe Douglas Adams created, first as a radio comedy in 1978, then sprawling outward into novels, a television series, a film, a text adventure game, and countless other adaptations. Each version contradicts the others in delightful ways—Adams cheerfully rewrote his story every time he told it, as if the universe itself couldn't quite remember how things happened.

But the characters remain. And what characters they are.

Arthur Dent: The Everyman in a Dressing Gown

Arthur Dent is perhaps the most relatable man in all of science fiction, and that's precisely because he never asked to be in science fiction at all.

One Thursday morning, Arthur woke up to find bulldozers outside his house, ready to demolish it to make way for a bypass. Minutes later, he discovered that the entire Earth was being demolished to make way for an interstellar bypass. He escaped only because his friend Ford Prefect turned out to be an alien who knew how to hitchhike on passing spacecraft.

For years afterward, Arthur wandered the galaxy in his dressing gown. He never got a proper outfit. He never really got used to any of it. What he wanted, more than anything, was a proper cup of tea—a beverage that proved mysteriously difficult to obtain in the far reaches of space.

Eventually, Arthur learned to fly. Not in an airplane, mind you. The trick, Adams explained, is to throw yourself at the ground and miss. You have to be distracted at the crucial moment—perhaps by seeing a bag you thought you'd lost at an airport, or by a gorgeous pair of legs. If you start thinking about what you're doing, you fall. Arthur found this deeply unfair.

He also became, for a time, a sandwich maker on a primitive planet called Lamuella. It suited him. After all the chaos, all the near-death experiences, all the encounters with poetry-spouting aliens and neurotic robots, making sandwiches was exactly the kind of straightforward, useful work Arthur had always wanted.

Ford Prefect: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Hitchhiking

Ford Prefect is not a car. He's an alien who chose his Earth name from a car because, when he arrived, he had mistakenly assumed that automobiles were the dominant life form on the planet. It was an easy mistake to make. The cars seemed far more organized than the bipeds who fed them gasoline.

Ford came to Earth as a researcher for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, an electronic travel book that covers most of the known universe and contains the words "DON'T PANIC" in large, friendly letters on its cover. His job was to revise Earth's entry. The original entry read, simply: "Harmless." After fifteen years of research, Ford managed to expand this to: "Mostly harmless."

What makes Ford fascinating is his philosophy. He's intelligent, resourceful, and occasionally brave, but he's fundamentally a cosmic tourist. He takes an existential view of the universe that sometimes borders on joyful nihilism. When everything is meaningless, why not enjoy the ride? Why not have another drink at the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster bar?

His sense of humor runs dark. His approach to problems tends toward the improvisational. And his friendship with Arthur Dent—a friendship between someone who embraces chaos and someone who desperately wants normalcy—forms the emotional core of the entire saga.

Zaphod Beeblebrox: The Two-Headed President

Zaphod Beeblebrox has two heads and three arms, though the third arm was surgically added for effect. He's hedonistic, irresponsible, narcissistic, and often extremely insensitive to the feelings of those around him. He was voted "Worst Dressed Sentient Being in the Known Universe" seven consecutive times, which he considered a point of pride. The outfits in question featured bright, clashing colors designed to make him the center of attention wherever he went.

He was, briefly, the President of the Galaxy.

This sounds more impressive than it is. The President's job is not to wield power. The President's job is to draw attention away from the people who actually wield power. Zaphod was perfect for this. He was spectacular at drawing attention to himself.

He also invented the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, a drink whose effects have been described as "like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick." The drink has won awards. Zaphod considers this among his greatest achievements.

Perhaps most remarkably, Zaphod is the only person to have survived the Total Perspective Vortex. This device shows you exactly how insignificant you are in relation to the infinite universe. It destroys minds. When Zaphod entered it, he emerged convinced that he was, in fact, the most important being in existence. This was technically cheating—he was inside an artificial universe created specifically for him—but Zaphod didn't see it that way. Zaphod never sees things in ways that reflect poorly on Zaphod.

Marvin: The Paranoid Android

Marvin is depressed. This is perhaps the greatest understatement in the galaxy.

He was built by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as a prototype of their Genuine People Personalities technology—robots designed to have real emotions and personalities. The experiment failed spectacularly. Marvin emerged with clinical depression so profound that it verges on the metaphysical.

The tragedy of Marvin's existence is that he has, by his own account, a brain the size of a planet. He claims to be fifty thousand times more intelligent than a human. And yet he is assigned tasks like opening doors and fetching things. His vast intellect is never challenged. His capabilities are never used. He has spent millions of years doing nothing of consequence, and he is painfully aware of every second.

"Life," Marvin once observed, "don't talk to me about life."

He has a point. From his perspective, existence is an endless parade of tedium, interrupted occasionally by danger that he faces without enthusiasm because nothing, ultimately, matters. Other robots in science fiction threaten to destroy humanity. Marvin just makes humanity uncomfortable by pointing out how meaningless everything is.

And yet there's something deeply funny about Marvin. His misery is so complete, so unrelenting, that it becomes absurd. He's a walking commentary on existential dread, rendered hilarious by the fact that he's complaining about it while helping save the universe.

Trillian: The One Who Got Away (From Earth)

Trillian—born Tricia McMillan—was a mathematician and astrophysicist who met Arthur Dent at a party in Islington. They didn't connect. Arthur went home alone. Trillian left Earth with Zaphod Beeblebrox.

When Arthur met her again, six months later on the spaceship Heart of Gold, Earth had been destroyed. Trillian was one of only two Earth-born humans left alive. She didn't seem particularly bothered by this. She had always found Earth somewhat limiting.

In a cast of eccentrics, Trillian stands out by being relatively competent. She can navigate spacecraft. She understands advanced mathematics. She deals with Zaphod without losing her mind. In many ways, she's the one holding things together while everyone else panics or philosophizes or complains about the impossibility of getting a decent cup of tea.

Slartibartfast: The Fjord Designer

The planet Earth, it turns out, was manufactured. It was built by the Magratheans, an ancient race of planet designers who catered to the galaxy's ultra-wealthy. Earth was a special commission—a giant computer designed to calculate the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The mice were running the experiment. Humans were part of the computational matrix.

Slartibartfast was one of the designers. His specialty was coastlines.

He loved his work. His proudest achievement was the fjords of Norway—those long, narrow inlets carved by glaciers, with steep cliffs rising from the water. He won an award for them. The complexity, the baroque irregularity, the way they caught the light—Slartibartfast poured his soul into those fjords.

When the Earth had to be rebuilt (long story), Slartibartfast was assigned to Africa. He was disappointed. He'd started adding fjords to Africa—they gave a continent such a lovely baroque feel—but his supervisors told him fjords weren't equatorial enough. He would, he admitted, "far rather be happy than right any day."

There's something deeply melancholic about Slartibartfast. He's an artist working in a medium most people never notice, creating beauty for a project whose purpose he doesn't fully understand. He just wants to make good coastlines. Is that too much to ask?

Agrajag: The Universe's Punching Bag

And now we come to the most tragically absurd figure in the entire saga.

Agrajag is a creature who has been killed by Arthur Dent hundreds of times. Possibly thousands. Every time Agrajag is reincarnated into a new form, Arthur Dent—entirely by accident—ends up being responsible for his death. Arthur has no idea this is happening. The universe simply keeps putting Agrajag in Arthur's path at exactly the wrong moment.

Consider the evidence:

In one of the earliest instances, Agrajag was reincarnated as a bowl of petunias. This bowl of petunias was spontaneously called into existence high above the planet Magrathea, alongside a sperm whale, when the Heart of Gold's Improbability Drive was activated. The whale had time to contemplate its existence during the fall and wonder about many things. The bowl of petunias had time only to think: "Oh, no, not again."

That reaction puzzled readers for years. Why would a freshly created bowl of petunias think "again"? The answer: because it was Agrajag, dimly aware that this had all happened before.

In another incarnation, Agrajag was a rabbit on prehistoric Earth. Arthur killed him for breakfast and made his skin into a pouch. Then, using that same pouch, Arthur swatted a fly. That fly was also Agrajag.

Eventually, after countless deaths, Agrajag achieved enough awareness to plan revenge. He lured Arthur to a Cathedral of Hate, a structure built entirely to house his fury. There, surrounded by statues depicting every one of his deaths at Arthur's hands, Agrajag finally confronted his nemesis.

He made a mistake.

While ranting about his grievances, Agrajag mentioned an incident at "Stavromula Beta" where Arthur had dodged an assassin's bullet, causing it to hit Agrajag instead. Arthur was confused. He'd never been to Stavromula Beta. This meant the event was still in Arthur's future—which meant Arthur couldn't die yet, because he still had to survive until then.

Agrajag, realizing he'd brought Arthur to the cathedral too early, tried to kill him anyway. He failed. He died again. At Arthur's hands. Naturally.

Years later, Arthur finally encountered Stavromula Beta. It wasn't a planet. It was a nightclub. Owned by someone named Stavro Mueller. The "Beta" was just part of the club's name. When a bolt of energy passed over Arthur's head and struck the man behind him, the cosmic debt was finally paid.

And Arthur, who had been functionally immortal as long as Stavromula Beta remained in his future, was suddenly vulnerable again. He died seconds later.

Agrajag, presumably, was reborn somewhere else. His luck, one hopes, improved.

The Supporting Cast

The Hitchhiker's universe is crowded with memorable minor characters.

There's Alice Beeblebrox, Zaphod's "favourite mother" (don't ask how someone has a favourite mother—it's complicated in space), who lives at 108 Astral Crescent on Betelgeuse V and guards the true story of Zaphod's visit to the Frogstar, waiting for "the right price."

There are the Lintillas—countless clones of an archaeologist, flooding out of a malfunctioning cloning machine until the galaxy was overrun with them. And there are the Allitnils, anti-clones created specifically to cancel them out. When an Allitnil touches a Lintilla, both vanish in a puff of what can only be described as "unsmoke."

There's the Almighty Bob, worshipped by the people of Lamuella, served by priests whom the villagers mostly ignore.

There's Blart Versenwald III, a genetic engineer who couldn't focus. When his planet was invaded, he was supposed to create super-soldiers. Instead, he invented a breed of superfly that could distinguish between solid glass and an open window, and also an off-switch for children. The invaders were so impressed they signed a peace treaty.

And then there are the barmen. Three different barmen appear across the saga, serving drinks in establishments ranging from an English pub about to be destroyed along with the rest of the planet, to the Old Pink Dog Bar in Han Dold City, to establishments that accept galactic credit cards. They pour drinks. They call last orders. They watch the universe end. They carry on.

The Meaning of It All

What connects these characters isn't plot—the plot of Hitchhiker's Guide is famously incoherent across its various versions. What connects them is a shared bewilderment at the absurdity of existence.

Arthur wants normalcy in an abnormal universe. Ford wants to enjoy the ride without taking it seriously. Zaphod wants attention and gets it, whether he deserves it or not. Marvin understands everything and finds no comfort in understanding. Trillian adapts and survives. Slartibartfast makes beautiful things that nobody appreciates. Agrajag suffers for no reason he can control.

They're all of us, really. Thrown into a universe we didn't ask for, trying to make sense of things that don't make sense, occasionally discovering that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is forty-two—and that this tells us nothing useful at all.

Don't panic. Bring a towel. And if you see Arthur Dent coming, check if you used to be a bowl of petunias. It might be relevant.