The Amulet of Samarkand discussion

Bartimaeus is the consummate best "bad good guy" I've encountered in fiction. He was more human than the humans, don't you think? And completely winning. Was anyone rooting for the young wizard who "called" him? I wasn't.

Yes I agree with you. Bartimaeus was more human than the humans but he was also a lot more than humans can be.
Nathaniel was always at a struggle with himself and situations tended to push him the wrong direction throughout the series. But I think I was always secretly rooting for him and hoping he would be alright in the end.

Was there any question of rooting for either Nathaniel or Bartimaeus? They were by and large on the same side in this book. However much Bart may not like it, he was bound to do Nathaniel's bidding, and the few occasions when he could have betrayed Nathaniel had he really wanted to, he simply chose not to.

Of course, that's not to say that Bart isn't a far more engaging character than Nathaniel (or anyone else in the series, for that matter). He's absolutely amazing! I just read The Ring of Solomon, which is a prequel to the trilogy, set 3000 years in the past, so obviously none of the human characters from the trilogy appear in that. But Bart, by himself, is more than enough to carry the weight of the narrative, and remain hilariously charming while doing so.

i have completed two parts of this trilogy, it just gets better and better after every page

I think that they were Nathaniel was as good of a character as much as he could. Bartimaeus lived for thousands of years, so he has plenty of history to go back to, while Nathaniel is harder to be lenient about the backstory.