Artemis Fowl is a novel about a twelve-year-old boy prodigy named Artemis Fowl, who runs a crime syndicate. After discovering the existence of fairies and decoding their holy book, Artemis manages to kidnap Holly, a crime-fighting fairy, holding her hostage in his mansion and demanding a metric ton of gold as ransom. After various mind-games and tricks with the fairy police who are trying to retrieve Holly, Artemis receives the gold and releases Holly.
Artemis Fowl has a number of underlying themes, but the most essential of these are greed and the conflict between good and evil.
Greed is the first main theme that is introduced into the book, and specifically the desire to obtain gold. In a similar manner to other themes in the book, it changes throughout, becoming less of a focus near to the end of the novel, where Artemis is willing to part with a large sum of money to help someone else.
The idea of conflict between good and evil is one that is touched upon in the book in a light hearted manner. Although Artemis sees himself as an evil genius at the beginning of the book, and is portrayed as such, the end of the story contradicts this image when he pays the fairies to help his mother. Artemis' enemies, the fairies, would be "the good side", but their actions call this view into question—they are as determined as Artemis is, to achieve their goals, and while only some of them are willing to ruthlessly deploy a troll, regardless of the possible danger to life, all are willing to utilize a bio-bomb once Holly is out of the mansion to force Artemis into submission.
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