Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 as well as for spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.
Playable Vault Hunters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Krieg) | The Pre-Sequel (Claptrap) | Borderlands 3
Supporting Characters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC) | The Pre-Sequel | Borderlands 3
Spinoffs and other media: Tales from the Borderlands | Tiny Tina's Wonderlands | New Tales from the Borderlands | Other media
Weapon Brands: Atlas | Dahl | Hyperion (Handsome Jack) | Maliwan | Torgue | Tediore | Other Weapon Brands
Other: Bandits and Bandit Factions (Children of the Vault) | Hodunk and Zaford Clans | Creatures (Eridians and Vault Monsters) | Raid Bosses
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Borderlands Origins charactersnote
Roland's Squad
Already married to my job.
Scraps, Roland, Aebri, Boozer
- "When you take care of all of Higgins' dirty laundry, you can do whatever you want!"
- Aerith and Bob: Scraps, Boozer, and Aebri.
- Boom, Headshot!: Aebri.
- Cool Shades: One of them wears shades. They fly off when he gets killed, further indicating his death.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: Despite being Crimson Lance, none of them wear the standard armor.
- Noodle Incident: They're introduced talking about an incident where Roland subdued a hundred-man uprising with nothing but a taco wrapper.
- The Smurfette Principle: Aebri.
Lilith's father
Promise me you will see the galaxy.
- "You will see me among the stars, Lily."
- Book Ends: He starts Lilith's journey as a siren telling her to see the universe, and afterwards to find him among the stars. In 3, her journey ends with her blasting off into space and becoming a heavenly body herself.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: We're introduced to him as he lay dying.
Higgins
You guys think Sarge is in trouble? Nah!
- "I need to see you, Roland."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He's actively laundering Atlas funds, and sets up Roland and his squad to get killed in order to hide it.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: On the receiving and of this from Roland. He sends a stampede of Crumbler beasts and at least two squads of Atlas assassins after Roland's squad, and sets himself up with cybernetic augmentation. Not only does Roland kill him anyway, it's implied he strangled him with his bare hands.
- Tragic Keepsake: Subverted. Roland kept his blood-stained tie for years.
Essimere
No one is here to aid you.
- "I told you that no one is here to aid you, fowl man."
- An Arm and a Leg: Bloodwing severs her gun hand after she turns on Mordecai.
- Exact Words: She tells Mordecai to trust no one. She later specifies that this includes her. Ironically, this inspires him to trust Marcus.
The Eldest
I am your song.
- "We siren have no code, we've only our song. It is yours to sing now."
- Broad Strokes: Her monologue involving Steele the only part of the Borderlands tie-in media that is treated unambiguously as canon. It helps that it was reiterated on Twitter.
- No Name Given: She only refers to herself as The Eldest.
- The Reveal: Its her explanation of sirens that reveals that Steele was a siren.
Crush's gang
We want wealth, not clutter.
Rancar, Brick, Crush, some other guy
- "We are kidnapping your children. If you want them back, you'll need to pay us a LOT of money."
- Meaningful Name: Lead by a man named Crush. Brick ends up literally crushing them all.
- Would Harm a Child: They would. Brick turns on them when he realizes he wouldn't.
Comic charactersnote
Tate / Asha
I'm a siren
- "I am able to control the beasts of any planet."
- The Beastmaster: Her ability.
- Power Tattoo: Unusually for a siren, her tattoos aren't on her arm and chest, but appear to be on her scalp.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Pretty much exists as one for Claptrap, having been his friend who liked spending time with him.
L 4 CK-TP
I have the key fragment in my possession.
- "I poisoned your wine."
- Adaptation Expansion: He seems to be this for the Claptrap that Krom was tormenting in the game. Furthermore, takes down both Krom and Flynt, since both characters were distilled into a single encounter.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Both him and Claptrap are primarily yellow, but Claptrap has a white stripe and this guy's bottom half is gray.
- The Dog Bites Back: Krom and Flynt stole him and 19 other Claptrap units, killing all but him. Since the bandits weren't their legal owners and were destroying Hyperion property, this was enough to override his First Law restriction and poison them.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He may have inspired the named "Crimson Raiders", as he says he knows the Vault Hunters by the name "Crimson Dawn of the Superdeath".
Tannis' team
Tomorrow I'll send the Notice of Dismembered Wrongful Death to his wife. 
- "And then I was alone."
- Cruel and Unusual Death: All but Tannis eventually fall to this.
- Heroic Sacrifice: As Tannis tells it, Reemus' dying act was to lay over top of Tannis to fool some skags into thinking they were both dead and losing interest in her.
- Posthumous Character: They are all dead and are only spoken of in recollection and in flashback.
Online Charactersnote
Player Characters
Mercenary
The Soldier
The Soldier-class playable character. Appears to be from the Maliwan forces, although his character page says Dahl.- No Name Given: The other playable characters at least got some sort of descriptor besides their character class. This guy just got "soldier", "mercenary", and "warrior".
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Pretty much a reskin of Roland's character type and mechanics, with some Axton thrown in.
Firecharmer
The Siren
The siren with fire powers.- Playing with Fire: What her powers seem to be, and is certainly at least her motif.
- Power Tattoos: Siren.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Her action skill is actually taken from Mordecai, reskinned to resemble Lilith's fire powers.
Windhunter
The Hunter
The sniper class character. Appears to be from the Vladoff forces, although her character page says Maliwan.- Attack Drone: Accompanied by a drone, similar to Wilhelm's.
- Boyish Short Hair: Her default skin featured short hair with an undershave. Ironically, her "Polaroid" promo picture features an alternate head with longer hair.
- Leotard of Power: Her default promotional skin.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Her default promotional skin includes this via an unzipped leotard. Some of her revealed alt skins were even more riske.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She shares Wilhelm's drone ability.
Dragon
The Berserker
One of Brick's Slabs, and also a berserker like his boss.- The Big Guy: Berserker
- Cool Shades: Is wearing aviators in some of his promotional images.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Again, Berserker
- Red Baron: Strong Dragon. Dragon itself may be an example, too, since his name was also given as Veyron.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Brick.
Tie-in novel charactersnote
The Finns
Hidden thing of interest.
- "I'm sorry about all of it."
- Deuteragonist: We witness the events of the book through the eyes of these three and Roland.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Zac dies taking out the people threatening his family.
- Sophisticated as Hell: When Zac starts communicating with the alien ship, he calls it out on this. The ship tells him that it only knows English from scans of his own brain, so he only has himself to blame.
The Alien
An alien ship that has been discovered on Pandora, still manned by a mind of its own.
- Sophisticated as Hell: When Zac starts communicating with the alien ship, he calls it out on its coarse language. The ship tells him that it only knows English from scans of his own brain, so he only has himself to blame.
- Wrong Context Magic: Heavily implied to not be Eridian, though this isn't strictly confirmed.
Bizzy n' Burl
An old prospector and his drifter friend.
- A Boy and His X: They have this dynamic, with Burl being and old man and Bizzy being a massive Pandoran spider.
- Face–Heel Revolving Door: He helps Zac throughout most of the book, but is torn between helping him and screwing him over. At least he's upfront about it.
- Prospector: Burl was originally this on the planet Elvis Presley before all the mines collapsed.
Ras Veritas
Zac's old friend who gets him wrapped up and a get-rich-quick scheme.
- Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Wrapping up Zac in one of these in the Inciting Incident.
Scrap Crannigan
Roland's corrupt former boss. Roland resigned his position in disgust of him.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Roland left Atlas in disgust of him, but atlas seems pretty cool with it.
- It's Personal: Roland hated this guy from his time in the Lance, but this trope came into effect when Crannigan killed Roland's new mercenary partner, Mc Nee.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Roland ends up stabbing him to death.
- Sir Swears Alot
Vance Sletch
A member of a band of bandits that rescues Marla and tries to sell her to slavers. He instead betrays them and helps her reunite with her family.
- Riches to Rags: He originally grew up privileged in Highbuckle on the moon of Thora, but was taken when the colony was destroyed by cultists.
Daphne Keller
The notorious Daphne Kuller.
- "I don't join with people who sneak up behind their own crew."
- Bad Ass In Distress: Jasper abducts her at the start if the third book in order to make the Vault Hunters help him against Reamus. She ultimately escapes, but stays in one form of distress or another for most of the book.
- Dramatic Irony: She leaves Mordecai on the end of the third book when she and Floron have the opportunity, and she has no way of knowing that Mordecai hadn't abandoned her at the start. In fact, he went though a lot of grief trying to reunite with her.
Cronley Dakes
Leader of Bloodrust Corners, a small community that is holding out against Gynella's army.
- The Leader: Of Bloodrust Corners, and helps organize the Vault Hunters against Gynella.
Gynella
General Goddess of a massive cult army trying to take over Pandora.
- Big Bad: Of the second book.
Gynella's army
Gynella's army of followers.
- The Big Guy: Gynella keeps a series of these around her, particularly Broomy and Spung.
- The Igor: Smartun, since he's smarter than her usual rank-and-file and is useful to bounce ideas off of.
- Mad Scientist: Vialle, the man who concocts the pheromones she uses to coerce her followers.
- Those Two Guys: Broomy and Cess.
Feena and Ripper
A young girl and the Nomad warrior who later adopts her.
- Tagalong Kid: Feena serves as this until she finds a home with Ripper.
Jasper
Local bandit warlord. he kidnaps Daphne at the start if the third book in order to coerce the Vault Hunters into helping him in his conflict against Reamus.
- Lesser of Two Evils: The locals find him much more tolerable than Raemus. He raids surrounding villages, but is also honest to work for and doesn't encourage the worst in people.
Raemus
Local bandit warlord. Noted to be much worse than
- The Corrupter: Is noted to be this to those who work for him.
