The Purple Hippo of Happiness

A malform that has become Jack O'Malley's companion and familiar.

Backstory
The circumstances under which the Purple Hippo of Happiness was summoned are not known.

Books
It is first seen in Green-Eyed Monster, where it distracts Dominic Voss' henchmen at the Widdershins Brewery, Later in the book it heroically extinguishes the fuse for the gunpowder imminently about to blow up a number of great and the good of Widdershins, as the offering for the summoning of Wrath.

In Curtain Call the Purple Hippo warns Mal of the imminent arrival of the Seven Deadly Sins before fleeing Widdershins with the rest of the buggerups.

In Witch Hunt, the Purple Hippo appears to have become Mal's permanent companion, and accompanies him when he tries to flee his responsibilities - but a talk with it persuades him to return to Widdershins and undertake the responsibilities of the Witch.

Appearance
The Purple Hippo of Happiness is a small creature about the size of a small dog or a large cat, and approximately hippo-shaped. It has a long yellow feathery tail and large pointed ears lined with similar feathering. It is purple with light blue spots on its back. It has dark blue heart-shaped pads on its paws.

As a malform, it is invisible to everyone except Mal, although Ben Thackerey also saw it while in possession of Mal's spirit sight.

Skills
Unrelenting happiness and good humour

Writing

Relationships
Companion and familiar to Jack O'Malley

Trivia
The Purple Hippo of Happiness loves biscuits, which opens the question of whether malforms and summons need to eat to sustain themselves in the material world. Perhaps the spirits do not need to eat, but the Purple Hippo of Happiness does it anyway because eating biscuits is something that makes people happy. It also raises the question whether physical biscuits remain visible after they have been eaten by an invisible spirit, and what happens after they have been digested, but perhaps we don't want to go there.

In comments on the Widdershins pages it has been pointed out that the Purple Hippo of Happiness is pink, rather than purple. It finds this very offensive.

Although it is an embodiment of happiness, the Purple Hippo of Happiness has also displayed other emotions such as fear and worry.

A cuddly toy of the Purple Hippo of Happiness was the highest tier of the Kickstarter for Green-eyed Monster.