The members of the Garde came to Earth to escape the Mogadorian attack and to remain in hiding until they could wake their planet once more. Their role is, now, to protect Earth and then Lorien again. Basically, they're guards. They are organised by the name they are primarily referred to as.
They are originally believed to be in total with 9 individuals. You can see that's not true by the number of folders, but we've omitted the names of the extra ones in case you've only read I Am Number Four.
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Number One
Aliases: Unknown
Legacies: Terric (no other Legacies had developed yet)
"FUCK!"
Dies in Malaysia. Has her brain implanted into Adam.
- Elemental Powers: Earth. She developed her ability to cause earthquakes too late.
- Ghost Memory
- Precision F-Strike: In The Fallen Legacies, after Number One is killed, her body is brought back stateside so Mog scientists can test a special device that can examine the memories of a corpse - which are seen by this story's teenage Mog narrator, Adamus. Partway through, One herself appears to Adamus, and introduces herself with this trope.
- Profane Last Words: Number One, being a Lady Swearsalot, promptly yells "FUCK!" when she realizes that aliens are appearing in Mongolia, wielding a glowing space sword and then gets killed.
- Poke in the Third Eye: A variation. When Adam enters her mind, she's aware of his name and intentions (due to them essentially sharing a brain) and knows that he's sent to retrieve Loric-exclusive information (not unlike a paparrazzo would stalk a star). As such, she deliberately shows memories of, for example, her birthday party, her dancing in a flower field, etc.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: She's also rude and sarcastic enough to make Nine (no slouch in snarkage himself) look like a novice.
- Though she dies when most of the other Garde are about 10, her swearing's justified as she's the oldest of them all, born around 1990 and so dying about 14.
- Transferable Memory
Number Two
Aliases: Maggie Hoyle
Legacies: None known, possibly none had developed yet
"She's fidgety and nervous, not cool and not confident, and not at all ready to fight."
a.k.a. Maggie Hoyle, she and her Cepan have hidden somewhere in London. She creates a blog post that's meant to contact other members of the Garde but ends up telling the Mogadorians her location. Is the only Garde member known to have a Cepan of the opposite sex.— Adam
- For Want Of A Nail: Her blog post 'Nine, now eight. Are the rest of you out there?' snowballed into effects she probably hadn't foreseen: not only do the Mogadorians locate and kill her, Katarina also sees the post and this promptly leads to the Mogadorians bugging their car, resulting in the capture of her and Six - of which only Six survives.
- Too Dumb to Live: Who tells their hunters who and where they are when they're next? Justified by the fact that she's about 12 years when she dies.
Number Three
"The Legacies live, they will find each other and when they're ready they're going to destroy you!"
Aliases: Hannu
Legacies: None known, possibly none had developed yet
Played by: Greg Townley (film)
Completely off the grid in Kenya or 'The Congo', somehow discovered by the Mogadorians. Makes a good run for it, but is quickly killed.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
- Le Parkour: The opening sequence of the film was maybe the most awesome part. It does help that Greg Townley, Damian Walters' protégé,
played three. - New Media Are Evil: How he was found in the middle of a jungle is All There in the Manual: An Intrepid Reporter visited this place looking for a story, noticed Three's strange scars and wrote about it: exotic plant marks or local ritual, who knows? Well, the Mogadorians.
- Race Lift: Was of brown complexion, like Eight, so hid in Africa. Played by the Caucasian Greg Townley in the film.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death
Number Four (John Smith)
"Yes, I'm an alien, Sam. I'm from a planet hundreds of millions of miles away. I have superpowers."
Aliases: John Smith, Daniel Jones
Played by: Alex Pettyfer (film), Brett Temple (book trailer), Neil Kaplan (audio books)
The titular Number Four, ironically one of the three who gets called by number the least. The story opens with him being next in line for death, and follows his escape from this fate.
- Affectionate Nickname: "Johnny"
- Aliens in Cardiff: Henri thinks it's a good idea to hide in not-big cities. He keeps this trend up.
- Big Damn Kiss: Gets a few.
- Casting Gag: Played Alex Rider, the most physically demanding role for a child until Greg Townley as Number Three in this film. Rider was also a member of MI6, an organisation which is said to be hunting John down.
- Chekhov's Skill: Fire retardant and Lumen.
- Childhood Friends: With Six. Their parents always said it would develop into a Childhood Friend Romance, especially when they were both sent to Earth. Jury's out on it, though.
- The Chosen One: It would seem at the moment. Also, the series started with him and not One, Two or Three.
- Cutting the Knot: Subverted. His telekinesis (which usually arrives as the first Legacy - if it doesn't, it should quickly follow the first up as the second one) develops late. Henri gets fed up with it and starts training him by throwing tennis balls at him until it works. He describes it himself as 'waking it from whatever cave it's hibernating in'. It does arrive...eventually, and not during the training.
- Deflector Shields: Part of his skillset.
- Disney Death: in the climax of the final battle, it looks as if John is a gonner. He even ends the chapter with 'Until there's nothing left'. His body is then found by Six, apparently clinging to life and slowly healing himself.
- Dye or Die: John dyes his brown hair blonde when he moves from Florida.
- Elemental Powers: Fire.
- Equippable Ally: Has Five carry him on his back while flying, in order to attack a Mogadorian beast from above using his fire.
- Everything Is Online: Namely, his face and glowing scars.
- Fake American: In-Universe and out, i.e. actor and character. In fact, only Mark and Sarah's actors are Americans.
- Family Theme Naming: Implied that maybe his given name began with an 'L' because his parents are Lara and Liren.
- Fiery Stoic: His Lumen eventually develops into fire powers, but he remains very level-headed.
- Four Is Death: Notably, even when the order gimmick is rendered moot, they're out to kill him first and foremost.
- The Hero
- I Just Want to Be Normal
- Invincible Hero: Has so many superpowers that he's basically undefeatable, at least for the Jerk Ass jocks at his school.
- It's Personal: Number Four points to the red-eyed Mogadorian and tells Number Six: "He killed Henri, I want him."
- Knight Templar Big Brother: To Ella.
- Le Parkour
- Love at First Sight: Sarah, and the whole Lorien "mating-for-life" thing.
- Love Dodecahedron: He's in 3 of the triangles: John/Sarah/Mark, Sarah/John/Six, John/Six/Sam.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Has a red bracelet which does this for him.
- Missing Mom: Tells Sarah's family in the film that he only has dad (Henri) because his parents never married. Really, he's an orphan like the rest of the Loric now.
- Mr. Smith: "John Smith". Lampshaded by Sarah.
- Mundane Utility: Glowing hands. Aside from using them to recharge powers, he uses them mainly as flashlights.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Less so than Callan playing Sam, but Alex is British and slips up occasionally.
- It can be assumed that he either has a somewhat odd combination accent due to extensive travel or that he's faking an accent to fit in better with the Americans (like Six).
- Pineapple Surprise: Number Four kills the Mogadorian leader by using his powers to set off all of the leader's bullets while they're still strapped to his chest.
- Playing with Fire: Not at first, as his powers initially just manifest themselves as light. However, at that moment, he's already semi-resistant to heat.
- Required Secondary Powers: As described, his Lumen comes with semi-built-in resistance to heat and fire. Uncommonly for this trope, he does have to train this, though, in order to maximize its effectiveness. Bycoming issue is that while it applies from the outside, his lungs still can get affected by the smoke. This makes it so that he also has to train his capability to hold oxygen for prolonged amounts of time. At one point, though, he laments missing taking hot showers.
- Save The Villian: At one point, he actively saves Setrakus Ra's life. This was, of course, due to the fact that Setrakus Ra had established a charm that would turn any damage inflicted upon him onto Ella instead.
- Superpower Lottery:
- Took a Level in Badass: When he unlocks more of his Legacies.
- Wreathed in Flames
Number Five
"Having secrets means you do a lot of lying. Not because you're evil or a bad person or anything like that, but out of necessity."
Aliases: Cody, Bolt, Zach
Played by: MacLeod Andrews (audio books).
Gives into the Mogadorians and betrays the Garde in order to ensure survival. He does, however, switch back reluctantly to the Loric side after seeing how poorly the Mogs regard him and is key in finally destroying them.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Averted. It appears as though his time is up in the final battle as Setrákus Ra rips off part of his face, mercilessly beats him, and then drowns him in Mog power-giving sludge. He somehow survives, but only as a shell of himself.
- Elemental Powers: Can fly.
- Eye Scream: Marina impales his eye with an icicle after he kills Eight; he wears an eye patch in all further appearances.
- Face–Heel Turn
- Heel–Face Turn: As Phiri Dun-Ra is storming the Loric holdout, he finally asserts himself as one of them again, brutally slaughtering plenty of Mogs.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How he loses his eye, by Marina.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: I am Number Four: The Lost Files: Hidden Enemy is meant to be a prequel, and contains the story of his Face–Heel Turn. Anyone who read it before The Fall of Five would already know that he's a double agent for the Mogadorians.Note
- Made of Iron: He carries around a steel bearing to use his material copying abilities on.
- Material Mimicry: Has the ability to become of any material he is touching. He constantly carries a rubber ball and a steel bearing so that he can fight at will whenever necessary, though it does seem to be a choice response as he doesn't become cotton when wearing clothes and is able to roll the balls over his fingers when nervous.
- Rubber Man: see Made of Iron.
- Shout-Out: His aliases are Zach and Cody.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: During the epilogue, Marina and John watch Five from afar, who is a husk of himself and practically on death's door. It is implied that the final battle, and the war itself, destroyed him.
Number Six
"Red Bull's for pussies!"
Aliases: Veronica, Maren Elizabeth
Played by: Teresa Palmer (film), Sarah Martinez (book trailer), Devon Sorvari (audio books).
Has been tailing all the other Garde and manages to catch up to John just as shit's hitting the fan. Gets a bigger role in The Power of Six (surprisingly).
- Action Girl: Escaped from the Mogadorian facility all on her own with just one Legacy.
- Adaptational Badass: Her Legacies change from the book to the film, and she becomes a hella lot more awesome for it.
- Awesome Aussie: In the film.
- Awesome McCoolname: Defied. She really wanted 'Starla' as an alias, but Katarina thought it would draw too much attention.
- Betty and Veronica: Sarah, whose defining character trait is that she takes pictures, feels mildly threatened when Number Six appears. She should because as she's busy cowering in fear due to her powerlessness, Six is wrecking people left and right.
- One alias she had when young was Veronica.
- Big Damn Heroes: Her favorite entrance.
- Big Damn Kiss: When she leaves John and Sam in The Power of Six.
- Black Humor: After the Mogs try to poison her with a cake, it fails and the three who prepared it die instead. She makes an inner joke of it:How many Mogadorians does it take to bake a cake? (...) Three.
- Blood Knight
- Chekhov's Skill: Deflector Shields and weather control.
- Childhood Friends: With Four. Her parents Arun and Lyn were best friends with his, Lara and Liren.
- Deflector Shields: As a result of Required Secondary Powers, she's invulnerable to fire, which is shown as this.
- Dye or Die: Goes blonde in the third book from "raven". However, in the film, she's blonde from the off (Palmer is blonde, and thus the only actor without dyed hair in the film).
- Elemental Powers: Can control the elements. This is also possible explaining why she's fire retardent; fire is an element.
- Embarrassing First Name: and Embarrassing Middle Name. Poor Maren Elizabeth. Sam, when invited to, guesses awesome things that aren't actually names.
- Empathic Environment: Can cause this with her elemental powers. When she received them, it was when Three died. The weather reacted on the pain of the new scar by a full-on lightning storm.
- Flash Step: Made into teleportation in the film.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Seems to be the case between her and Marina.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: At one point, her wants are solely to go on a plane.
- Thankfully she's not normal and manages to prevent planes she's been on from meeting deadly ends.
- When she finally does, on the mission to find Eight, she gets row number 6A. She responds with a 'Seriously?' and then thinking if Marina would go sit behind her, on row 7, and Ella would walk all the way to behind and sit in row 10.
- Thankfully she's not normal and manages to prevent planes she's been on from meeting deadly ends.
- Invisibility: The first Legacy she developed, notably during the time she was in custody of the Mogs. She quickly notes that of all Legacies, this one may be the most useful. This is proven when she escapes using it with having barely had time to master it.
- It's Personal: Subverted in Six's Legacy. She wants to say, "That's for Katarina!" when she dispatches a Mog, but she can't because she's really doing it for her own satisfaction.
- The Lancer
- Love Dodecahedron: Sarah/John/Six, John/Six/Sam, Marina/Eight/Six.
- Love Interest: Is Sam and John's.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: When she walks away from the burning building and when her and John are on the battlefield.
- Mr. Smith: Introduces herself as "Jane Doe" in the film.
- Oh, Crap!: Number Six gets two of these: one when an energy grenade gets thrown at her, and the second is when she realizes Four is about to give the leader Mog a Pineapple Surprise (in slow motion, no less).
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Averted. May cause some viewers of the film to question What the Hell Is That Accent? (Australian, but not of the typical Kylie Minogue/Nicole Kidman standard somehow), but the character isn't American. Teresa Palmer claims that one of the things she liked about the role was being able to use her own dialect.
- Out of the Inferno: In the film after blowing up Number Four's old house. Justified in that she can shield herself from fire.
- Power of the Storm: Her Elemental Powers usually manifest as this.
- Rescue Introduction
- The Sixth Ranger: Convenient numbering, check.
- Superpower Lottery
- Unflinching Walk: In the film walking through the explosion of John's old house (in the books, John's the fire-retardant one instead, although it's likely they both are).
- You Are Number 6: Quite literally.
Number Seven (Marina)
"If I ever see you again, you traitorous bastard, I'll take out the other fucking eye!"
Aliases: Marina
Played by: Meredith Antoian (book trailer), Marisol Ramirez (audio books).
Lives in a convent in Spain until the Mogadorians, which have been hanging around for a while, decide to attack. At the same time as she gets a friend and Six decides to go find her.
- Action Girl: Once she's made up for lost time.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Just ask Number Five.
- Tranquil Fury: Barring her final Precision F-Strike, she seemed very calm the whole time.
- Big Damn Kiss: With Eight. Interestingly, the word 'seven' means in Turkish 'lover'.
- Chekhov's Skill: Underwater breathing.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Literally. After Eight's death, she changed to being much more deadpan, and less open. The others literally feel that she's radiating constant cold, and this only ends during her short reunion with Eight's ghost, who mentions she's warm now.
- Elemental Powers: Water, and she is An Ice Person.
-
Genius Bonus: It makes sense for her to get later on an ice Legacy, because in real life, ice is frequently used in compresses to heal people, much like her Recupero Legacy. She even feels an icy sense when she heals.
-
- Eye Scream: Does this to Five.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Six.
- I Have Many Names: One for each European country. She lists them all.
- Innate Night Vision: Although it's not really of use during battle, she does use it to access a dark cave.
- Locked Away in a Monastery: Partially due to her Cepan.
- Love Interest: Paired with Eight.
- Meaningful Name: Marina means, roughly, "of the sea". She can breathe underwater, but can't swim. You know, until she discovers she can breathe underwater.
- The Medic: During their stay at the old base of Sandor, they have to puzzle as to how to train her, as all of her previously developed Legacies skew towards utility and recovery. She later becomes a Combat Medic, though.
- Mundane Utility: Seeing in the dark is not the greatest power to have for fighting alien armies, especially useless as she's in sunny Spain. Instead she uses to access a dark cave.
- Promotion to Parent
- Reality Has No Subtitles: The non-Spanish-speaking characters don't understand her Spanish, but she thankfully learnt English at some point.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: Develops the ability to breathe underwater.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills
- Superpower Lottery
- Taking the Veil: Refuses to.
- Team Mom
- Took a Level in Badass
- Traumatic Super Power Awakening: Marina unlocked her first real aggressive power after Five kills Eight.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: To Eight.
- Water Is Womanly: Marina's name means "of the sea", she can breathe underwater, and is a kind young woman who is the peacekeeper of the group.
Number Eight
"Do I look American enough?"
Aliases: Naveen, Joseph, Vishnu
Played by: Shehzad Popat (book trailer).
Is able to shape-shift, and so got confused for Vishnu. Lives in the Himalayas. Can also teleport to places with Loralite and has some sort of "sixth sense".
- A God Am I
- Big Damn Kiss: With Seven.
- Chekhov's Skill: Teleportation.
- Flash Step: Has teleportation over short distances/ to Loralite grounds.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Saving Nine.
- I Have Many Names: But mostly just goes by 'Eight'.
- Love Interest: With Seven.
- Red Herring: All of the items in his chest wind up useless due to him dying.
- Shapeshifting: Uses several forms, including a bunny, a fly, Vishnu, and his ten avatars. It isn't established what the limits are on his morphing abilities.
- The Sixth Ranger
- Taking the Bullet: Eight teleported in front of Five's knife, saving Nine but dying in the process.
- Token Minority: And we have a non-white Garde!
Number Nine
"He's reckless, arrogant, selfish and just flat-out rude." (quoting John)
Aliases: Stanley Worthington
Played by: Cyrus Salvia (book trailer),Jeff Brick (audio books).
Lives in Chicago but was held in the Mogadorians' cave for a year.
- Affectionate Nickname: Calls Four "Johnny".
- All Men Are Perverts: Seems to be this, but subverted with the girl he had a short-lived relationship with.
- Ax-Crazy
- Big Brother Instinct: To Ella.
- The Big Guy
- Blood Knight
- Boisterous Bruiser
- Chekhov's Skill: Anti-gravity.
- Genius Bonus: His antigravity may allude to the fact that in card decks, the 9 card frequently gets a dot at the bottom, because if one would turn it, it would be a 6. His often squabbles with Six may also be based on this.
-
- Expy: In Nine's Legacy Nine and Sandor's dynamic strongly resembles Batman and Robin. Sandor even calls Nine his "young ward" repeatedly.
- He comes across like a young Dean Winchester at times.
- Glory Seeker
- Heartbroken Badass: Nine is a deadly warrior with powerful Legacies. He's also still grieving his Cepan who was killed by the Mogadorians who held him captive, and the girl he used to be in love with, Maddy.
- In Harm's Way
- Love Hurts: Dated a human girl called Maddy when he was younger, but they ended up getting caught (Maddy's father studied the stars and apparently saw something he was not supposed to), and it resulted in the death of his Cepan. As such...
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He appears to be an arrogant loner who seems to be treating everyone but his friends like shit in order to intimidate them. That is, after the entire thing with Maddy happened. He reveals that he adapted this persona to cope with the life the Loric Garde are forced to lead. This also leads itself to...
- Stepford Snarker: He got a lot of flak for being tactless and rude, but read book 3 and you'll realize he's nowhere near as smooth as he wants you to think he is. Especially around girls.
- Superpower Lottery: And one with a more offensive kit.
Number Ten (Ella)
"I'll tough him out. The next time that big freak shows his face in my dreams I'll punch his balls."
Aliases: Ella
Played by: Annie Baltic (book trailer), Almarie Guerra (audio books).
Escaped Lorien in the second spaceship that Four saw, but was only a few hours old. Is technically 12, but can change ages to any that she has already been.
- The Ageless: Technically, as she can reduce her age to any she has been before.
- Boring, but Practical: Her powers aren't very flashy from the outside, as they are all focused on support. However, especially her Dreynen is extremely useful in fights, has few known drawbacks, and allows to equal the odds.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Or rather, "Ella, I am Your Grandfather". By Sethrakus Ra.
- Power Nullifier: Is forced to learn Dreynen, a move in which power is channeled through a (small) item, which is thrown down towards Legacy-users after, generating an area that cancels them out.
Adam
"All right Adam, you're gonna help me win this war."
— John
a.k.a. Adamus Sutekh. A Mogadorian general's son who got One's memories when she was killed. Realizing the truth because of it, swaps teams to help the remaining Garde and takes One's place.
Played by Kaleo Griffith (audio books).
- Deadpan Snarker: In spades.No Loric found yet; Kenyan children hurt my feelings. (on what Ivan would report back)
- Ghost Memory: Takes Number One's.
- Heel–Face Turn: Starts this shortly after taking out One. Her memories being fused with his and her influence on him causes him to think twice about it.
- Meaningful Name: Adamus, or Adam, means 'from the earth' (as in 'ground'). Number Three says it's like 'the first man'. Fittingly, he is able to cause earthquakes thanks to inheriting One's Legacy later.
- Not Always Evil: He's the only allied Mogadorian.
- Poisonous Person: Downplayed. His, and by extension, blood of pure Mogadorians is poisonous to insects, though that doesn't keep them from trying. He explains this when a mosquito stings Ivanick and promptly dies.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Has it, as he is a pure Mogadorian and not a vat-born. Apparently, very pale skin is unique to Mogadore, as Lexa had not seen such pale skin before. note
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: The time he explores One's memory, feels shorter to him (and the reader) than the actual time passed. To illustrate: his younger sister was a kid before, but when he awakes, she's already in her late teens.
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