Characters / Rise of the Guardians

Jack Frost

Voiced by: Chris Pine (English), Gaspard Ulliel (French)

The spirit of winter. Jack Frost is a teenage hellion who enjoys creating mischief and has no interest in being bound by rules or obligations; he just wants to spread his winter magic for the sake of fun, but also wants to be believed in.

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• All-Loving Hero: Jack loves children, would never hurt them, and tries to protect them as much as he can. Even though the Guardians left him alone for so long, he is ready to help Tooth when her fairies are kidnapped. For all of his desire to be believed in and not to be alone, he doesn't take Pitch's We Can Rule Together offer, because he doesn't want to scare children. It is also implied that he never wished to hurt Pitch either, and was still sorry for him in the end.
• And I Must Scream: Not as bad as some other examples, considering he's free to roam the Earth and can play with kids even while they don't see him. Still, people hardly know he even exists; they can't see or hear him, they pass right through him, and while he has minimal contact with some of the Guardians, he doesn't have friends among spirits either. Jack has lived like this for 300 years.
• Anti-Hero: He's brave and heroic at heart, but also an incorrigible trickster who prefers to work alone.
  Jack: Am I on the Naughty List?
  Santa: On the Naughty List? You hold record.
• Art Initiates Life: Jack can make realistic but ghostly animals out of doodles in condensed mist on a window, as shown when he made a bunny to keep Jamie's belief active.
• Audience Surrogate: Jack is introduced to the workings and purposes of the Guardians as the film goes on, particularly when he's informed about what each Guardian "protects".
• Badass Adorable: The Pretty Boy with considerable ice powers (next to Sandy, he has the most offensive power among the Guardians) and the ability to inspire laughter that banishes fear and darkness.
• Beneath the Mask: Jack is apparently cheerful and always tries to make people have fun. However, he is a lonely soul full of self-doubt and longing to be believed in and to belong to a place he could call home.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's usually nice, enjoying winter games, but don't piss him off, or chances are you'll end up a frozen popsicle.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Jack is protective of every child in the story.
  • When Jack was still human, he and his sister were playing on a frozen lake. When the ice started to crack beneath his sister's feet, Jack used his staff to swap his position with hers, saving her, but also caused him to fall into the lake himself and drown. It is even said that his best memories are with his sister.
• Blithe Spirit: Jack is a newcomer who helps the Guardians reconnect with children.
• Blue Is Heroic: Jack wears a blue hoodie and while he's a troublemaker, he tries his best to help the children of the world.
• Blue Means Cold: Jack Frost wears a navy blue hoodie and has ice powers.
• Character Development: He goes from an incorrigible, lonely trickster who prefers having fun rather than being a Guardian to a more responsible, brave person (although he is still a trickster).
• Character Tic: Jack squints his eyes when he's angry and puts on his hood and hides his hands in his hoodie pocket when he is upset.
• Chick Magnet: Tooth and her Mini-Fairies all have crushes on him.
• Color Motif: His signature color is blue as Blue Means Cold and he is An Ice Person.
• Deadpan Snarker: Jack has a sardonic, wisecracking sense of humor.
• Elemental Hair Colors: He has silvery-white hair in spikes and is An Ice Person.
• Eye Colour Change: He used to have brown eyes when he was human. When he dies and gains ice magic, they turn blue.
• Flight: Jack is able to fly by riding the wind. He floats like a snowflake and propels himself with wind to fly faster.
• Friend to All Children: In the film, he has the closest relationship to children and enjoys spending time with them, even if they can't see him.
• Fun Personified: Is very playful and chipper, even compared to the other Guardians—including North i.e.: Santa. Eventually, it turns out that "fun" is his center.
• The Gadfly: He loves annoying others for fun, like that time when he pretended to fall off North's sleigh just to see Bunny's reaction.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Jack has a benign version of this trope, allowing him to inspire happiness in those who come into contact with his snowflakes.
• Ghost Amnesia: Jack doesn't have any memories of his former life because, unlike the other Guardians, he's the only one who actually died before the Man In The Moon resurrected him as a Guardian. In addition, Manny's the one who induced the amnesia, since he believed Jack remembering how he died would be too painful for him.
• Hates Being Alone: In the beginning, Jack laments that no one ever sees him, and he has been alone for 300 years. Later, Pitch points out that Jack's greatest fear is that no one will ever believe in him, which means staying Invisible to Normals forever.
• The Heart: While Jack doesn't keep the Guardians together, he helps them reconnect with children after it is revealed that they've been working so long that they'd forgotten how to play with them.
• Heroic Sacrifice: This is how he was "born". When he was just a human, one day he and her sister decided to go to ice skating, but they both ended up on some thin ice. He managed to throw her sister to safety, while calming her down by treating it like a game, but in doing so, he fell through the ice and drowned. The Man On The Moon saw the whole thing, and decided to bring him back to life as the personification of winter itself with no memory of his past life.
• He's Back!: Jack launches himself triumphantly out of the ravine after experiencing his memories, learning how he was, and fixing his staff.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Being alone with no guide since day one, Jack has had to figure out his powers by playing around and seeing what he can do. Over the past three centuries, he's gotten a good feel for his abilities, but he's still unaware of the fullest extent of his power given he's just as amazed as everyone else that he managed to flash-freeze all of Pitch's nightmares at once.
• An Ice Person: To the point where he physically can't warm anything up.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Has frosty blue eyes and is a winter spirit.
• Immortal Immaturity: He is over 300 years old, but he looks like a teenager and usually acts like one.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He is a blue-eyed All-Loving Hero.
• Jack Frost: The playful and mischievous spirit of winter who paints the frost on windows, makes snow days for kids, and nips at their noses to make them happy. He is ultimately revealed to be the Guardian of Fun.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Jack is far from mean-spirited, but would rather be a free agent than bear any responsibility of being a hero. He comes around at the end.
• The Lightfooted: Jack uses his agility to walk along power lines and slide over snow.
• Locked into Strangeness: After he dies and becomes a spirit, his hair turns white.
• Magical Barefooter: He's a winter spirit, and he goes barefoot.
• Magic Staff: He channels his powers through a crooked staff. When he was human, he got his sister away from thin ice with this very staff.
• Nature Spirit: Of snow, ice, and frost, of course.
• Not Quite Flight: He can call on the wind to pick him up and carry him along. He can even hover.
• Our Fairies Are Different: The "Guide to the Guardians" book says that he's an Ice Elf.
• Painting the Frost on Windows: He is Jack Frost. When he passes by a window, frost appears on it. Later in the movie, he uses this to keep Jamie believing in the Easter Bunny. Downplayed though, since ice and snow also exist without him creating or controlling them.

• Parental Abandonment: Jack spent 300 years alone without any family or friends to guide him. His memories showed that he had indeed a family, but they died while Jack was an immortal spirit. However, when he learned this, Jack was excited about having his own family.
• Peter Pan Parody: He bears many resemblances to Peter Pan. He is an eternally young sprite-like being who treats much of life like a game and has the power of flight. Even his origins - falling through a frozen lake - is similar to a story that was allegedly the inspiration of the Peter Pan character.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: He had brown hair when he was human. After he died and got his ice powers, it turned white.
• Power Stereotype Flip: An Ice Person who's neither cold-hearted nor level-headed. Jack is kind, chaotic, and rather impulsive.
• The Prankster: Not a malicious one, being carefree and highly sociable. Due to the nature of ice and snow, he's still pretty dangerous when he wants to be. Examples of his being a prankster usually involve creating artificial snow days.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: He walks barefoot, leaving frozen patches on the ground where he walks. When offered a pair of blue elf shoes (with bells) from an elf, Jack cringes and stops the ceremony immediately. Near the end of the story, it is revealed that he walked on ice barefoot even as a human.
• Pretty Boy: He's slender and has huge blue eyes. Tooth and her fairies fawn over him or, at least, his Eternally Pearly-White Teeth throughout the film.
• Sad Clown: He covers up his loneliness with jokes and pranks, although downplayed as not all of his jokes are to cover up loneliness, as evidenced by his flashbacks showing him with family but still a jokester.
• Shock and Awe: He shoots frost lightning with his staff.
• Showing Off Your Powers: Jack delights in doing this, and is frustrated that none of the kids recognize him doing it. Near the end of the movie he uses his abilities to make frost appear on Jamie's window, animating it into a rabbit that hop around the room to Jamie's Delight. This prevents Jamie from losing his belief in the Guardians. The fact that this causes Jamie to finally believe in and see Jack is an added bonus.
• Sixth Ranger: Fifth, technically, but he joins the Guardians after they worked as a team for centuries (if Bunny's comment about them defeating Pitch in the dark ages is anything to go by), and they go through quite a few misunderstandings before he officially joins the team.
• Spectacular Spinning: He seems to favor spinning when he flies.
• Synchronization: Jack's ice powers are bonded to his staff and it apparently has some sort of physical link with him, as Jack noticeably keels over in pain when Pitch snaps it in half. Downplayed in that that's as far as the pain goes, as Jack is able to fix the staff soon after.
• Tragic Ice Character: Jack is a kind, playful winter spirit who Hates Being Alone and is left alone with no friends and no purpose for 300 years which makes him think he is doing something wrong and doesn't even know what. Then, it turns out he has Ghost Amnesia, and what he doesn't remember is that he was once human and died saving his little sister.
• Vague Age: Jack Frost seems to have no actual confirmed age but creator and director William Joyce has stated that Jack Frost was stuck at the age of 14, but has the power to be able to change his physical age, becoming older or younger at will.
• Vocal Dissonance: His voice is much deeper than what his young, Pretty Boy character design would suggest.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Many of his actions in the story are made for trying to catch attention from anybody he could call his friend, like Guardians or the Man in the Moon.

North

Voiced by: Alec Baldwin

Also known as Santa Claus. The leader of the guardians, and the Guardian of Wonder. He lives at the North Pole in the Ice Castle and is served by loyal North Pole natives, the Yetis (who built the castle and workshop), and the Christmas Elves. He carries a Russian accent/culture persona.

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• Acrofatic: He's a big guy, but is capable of darting around as fast as Bunny, especially when it comes to chimneys.
• Adaptation Name Change: No explanation is given for why he is addressed as North instead of Santa Claus; in the books his name is Nicholas St. North, which seems to have been shortened like all the other Guardians' book names.
• Badass Driver: He maneuvers his sleigh around like a pro, so much that he can afford doing loops.
• Badass Santa: A crazy-driving, dual-wielding bear of a man of Russian descent with tattooed forearms with one reading "Naughty", the other "Nice" and addressed by his last name, "North".
• The Big Guy: The physically biggest of the Guardians.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: His eyebrows are thick and black, unlike the rest of his hair.
• Big Fun: He is hefty, exuberant, and fun-loving.
• Boisterous Bruiser: North is the most physically imposing Guardian and a perfectly nice guy, granted you don't mess with the children under his care. "This is going to be epic!"
• Color Motif: North's signature color is red as Red Is Heroic and exuberant (and because he's Santa).
• Cool Car: More like "Cool Sleigh". It looks cool, it goes fast, it can fly.
• Cool Old Guy: A boisterous Husky Russkie Santa Claus that dual-wields swords and Drives Like Crazy on his sleigh.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments.
  • This exchange in the beginning:
    North: I hope the yetis treated you well.
    Jack: Oh, yeah, I love being shoved in a sack and tossed through a magic portal.
    North: (smugly) Oh, good. That was my idea!
  • After Jack gets curb stomped by Pitch, North has this to say:
    North: That was good try, Jack. 'A' for effort.
• Drives Like Crazy: To the terror of Bunny and the amusement of Sandy and Jack, North's sleigh has no seatbelts and rides like a roller coaster. And this doesn't even begin to cover North's actual driving/flying habits.
  North: I hope you like the loop-de-loops!
• Dual Wielding: He wields two large sabers. He can only summon one while the children were losing belief the world over and is overjoyed (and surprised) when he was able to pull out a second one during the climax.
• A Father to His Men: Toward the Guardians, the elves, and the yetis.
• The Gadfly: On his own nice list, he probably wouldn't rank very high.
  • It was his idea to stuff Jack in a sack.
  • He enjoys giving a fright to the poor Bannymund with his style of driving.
    North: Buckle up!
    Bunny: Where are the bloody seat belts?!
    North: *laughs* That was just expression!
• Genius Bruiser: He is an Acrofatic Boisterous Bruiser; he is a master of Magitek.
• Gentle Giant: He's affable to almost everyone, builds toys for children, and carefully minds his strength when around them.
• Gut Feeling: A literal example, owing his intuition to his belly, starting with calling all the Guardians to his home base for an emergency meeting due to the Man in the Moon deeming it so. Bunny is skeptical, but North's belly comes through in the end as Manny chooses Jack as the next Guardian.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: He is a master swordsman and he considers himself the best in the world. His skills in swordsmanship are so advanced that the Man in the Moon and Ombric trusted him with one of the legendary relics, Tsar Lunar XI's Sword.
• Husky Russkie: North is a Boisterous Bruiser who lives on the North Pole, Drives Like Crazy, and dual wields large sabers. In the books, he is a cossack; in the movie, he speaks with a thick Russian accent.
• Icy Blue Eyes: He has blue eyes with frost patterns in the iris, lives on the North Pole, and is in charge of Christmas. Also, he is a total badass.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: His eyes are blue, big, and full of wonder; as badass as he is, he is also one of the nicest people on the cast.
• Large and in Charge: He is quite hefty and is the unofficial leader of the Guardians.
• Large Ham: North is a Boisterous Bruiser, downright jolly and full of energy, does a lot of enthusiastic shouting, laughs at the top of his lungs, and milks the giant cow half of his screen time.
• The Leader: He seems to be the one to normally lead the Guardians, and he's the one who calls meetings.
• Magitek: Carrying over from the books, he is a master in the art. While as a Santa Claus, he specializes in making toys (and functional ice models of them), there are also his teleporting snowglobes, his cool sleigh, and the globe that shows believing children as points of light.
• Meaningful Name: He is called North and lives at the north pole.
• Milking the Giant Cow: He accompanies his speeches with wide enthusiastic gestures.
• Nice Guy:
  • Despite being strict toward him, he is the one who's most supportive toward Jack and that's why Jack is heartbroken when North thinks that he betrayed him.
  • In the rufftoon comic, he is willing to give Pitch a chance for being a Guardian and looks upset when Pitch refuses.
• No Sense of Personal Space: When they talk, he tends to grab Jack's shoulders, shake him and get nose to nose with him; he pets Bunny's cheek, hugs Tooth when they both are weak from the Depower, and so on.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A badass Boisterous Russian Santa who is capable of Dual Wielding two large sabers.
• Offscreen Teleportation: He goes in one chimney and pops out another; he also has his snowglobes for teleportation.
• Painting the Frost on Windows: In the beginning, North switches on the Northern Lights as an emergency signal for the Guardians.

• Parental Substitute: More or less this toward Jack. Played straight as Jack isn't shown having any father even when he was human.
• Red Is Heroic: He customarily wears a black fur hat, a long red coat with black fur trim, and a red plaid shirt.

• Suddenly Shouting: Part of his Large Ham shtick. "How come? I TELL YOU how come! Because now you are GUARDIAN!" is just one example.
• Santa Claus: The mythical spirit of Christmas who delivers toys to all the world's children. The Guardian of Wonder.
• Storyboard Body: He has his Naughty and Nice lists tattooed on his forearms enhancing his status as a badass.
• Sword Plant: As he weakens, North starts using his sword as a cane.

• Teleportation: His snowglobes open portals when he says the name of his target destination and throws them. He can also teleport between chimneys.

• Unusual Euphemism: At least twice, North "swears" using the names of Russian composers, specifically (Demitri) Shostakovich and (Nicolai) Rimsky-Korsakov.
• You No Take Candle: Occasionally, he says things like, "You are Guardian" and "That was just expression" and "You hold record." Most commonly, he loses articles; he is Russian, and the Russian language has no articles.

Sandy

Voiced by: N/A

The Guardian of Dreams is the oldest of the Guardians and the first Guardian chosen by Man in the Moon. He does not speak, but communicates through sand images that he conjures above his head.

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• Adorable Abomination: Sandy is a nice magical being in a form of a tiny, round man made of golden sand.
• Badass Adorable: Sandman is the shortest, plumpest, and easily the most overtly friendly and adorable of the Guardians. Yet, without question, he out-badasses the rest of the cast in the film with his dual-wielding dream-sand whips that he uses to completely dominate his fight with Pitch.
• Back from the Dead: Sandy is brought back to life at the climax by the children's belief.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Although peaceful by nature, the Sandman is a fierce fighter expertly wielding his Dreamsand Whips to fight Pitch and his nightmares.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: He is silent and he is said to be apparently the most powerful of all the Guardians. Even Jack said that he shouldn't get on his bad side.
• Color Motif: His signature color is yellow for Gold-Colored Superiority.
• Cute Mute: He is short, chubby, and silent.
• Disney Death: He gets killed off during a confrontation with Pitch, though he comes back to life at the climax of the movie.

• Dream Weaver: Well, he is The Sandman. He creates dreams that allow children to keep believing in magic and in the Guardians in particular.
• The Dreaded: Check out the look on Pitch's face whenever Sandy turns up and his approach to fighting him; he avoids direct confrontation with him if he can, preferring to let his Nightmares do the work, and kills him with an arrow In the Back when he's distracted.
• Dual Wielding: Two whips are better than one.
• Eye Colour Change: When he is impaled by Pitch's black sand arrow, Sandy's pupils become darker and more prominent in response to the darkness consuming his body.
• Facial Dialogue: His physical expressions represent whatever mood he's in.
• Face Death with Dignity: Gracefully accepts his impending death by Pitch, although as it turns out, he either never actually died or came back to life.
• Foil: To Pitch Black. Sandy is golden and bright, Pitch is black and dark. Sandy likes to spread good dreams in sleeping children, while Pitch can turn those dreams into nightmares. In a meta sense, Sandy doesn't say anything to avoid waking up children, while Pitch outright likes to talk about negativity.
• Forced Sleep: A rare benevolent example: if his dreamsand hits somebody who's awake, they instantly fall asleep in order to have the dream.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: He is made of golden sand and is the strongest of the Guardians.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Dinosaurs, airplanes, whips — the dreamsand takes any form Sandy can imagine.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: For most of his scenes, he's silent comic relief. Then he sneaks up on Pitch.
• Light 'em Up: His dream-sand is thematically opposed to Pitch's black nightmare sand, and glows with a golden light.
• Made of Good: He is made of the dreamsand, the physical (or, at least, magical) manifestation of sweet dreams. This turns out to be his weakness: by hitting him In the Back with a black sand arrow, Pitch turns the Sandman himself into black sand.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's the shortest, oldest, and most powerful of the Guardians, has the most versatile skillset, and interacts with kids every night. He is so devastating in the use of his dream-sand whips that the Big Bad is afraid of him.
• Power Floats: The strongest of the Guardians, he floats on clouds of dreamsand or just by himself.
• The Sandman: The Guardian of children's dreams. Downplayed in that there's no mention if he also delivers good dreams to adults as per the archetypal character of the trope.
• Sacrificial Lion: Sandy and Pitch go into battle as the Guardians try to fight the nightmares, but Pitch corners Sandy and shoots him with an arrow, making the little guardian disappear. He comes back later, though.
• Sentient Sands: Sandy is made entirely of dreamsand. He also communicates not in words but in sand images that he conjures above his head.
• Shorter Means Smarter: He is not only the most powerful, but he's also the oldest and wisest of the Guardians.
• The Silent Bob: He communicates mainly through the shapes he sculpts with his magic sand.
• Silent Snarker: He's the closest the Guardians have to an Only Sane Man, and is also the most difficult to understand. He snarks most when he's being ignored.
• The Smart Guy: By virtue of his age, wisdom and tending to listen and look at things while the other Guardians are busy arguing with each other.
• Spectacular Spinning: He spins when he launches himself off the ground to fight the Nightmares.
• The Speechless: He doesn't speak a single word in the movie, communicating through facial expressions and dream-sand constructs to illustrate his thoughts. When he really needs to attract attention, he grabs an elf and rings it.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Sandy makes his whips out of his sand.

• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Gold eyes with a grainy pattern in the iris, for the most senior and most powerful Guardian.
• Talking with Signs: He tries to explain to Jack why he was brought to the North Pole with a series of rapidly changing pictograms.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sandy seems to like eggnog, as he drank several consecutive glasses of it while at the North Pole.

Tooth

Voiced by: Isla Fisher

The mythical tooth collector and the Guardian of Memories. Tooth is part human and part hummingbird. Assisted by mini fairies that are split-off extensions of herself, she collects the children's teeth, which hold their most precious memories. Tooth stores them in her palace and returns memories when they are needed the most.

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• Action Girl: She is able to sword fight, and her wings, as seen in the movie, were used as blades to destroy Pitch's nightmares as she twisted herself like a tornado. Near the end, she punches Pitch hard enough to knocks out his tooth.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • In the books, her skin is mint-blue (or stark white, depending on how you see it), and her eyes, when seen closely in the colored print, are dark green.
  • Also in the case of her feathers. She had a darker color scheme in the books, along with bedlah pants, a top, and a drapery, all made of feathers. She also had feathery wings, not bug-like.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the books, her name is Toothiana. Though occasionally referred to by this name by the creators, within the film she is only called Tooth.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In the books, she is The Stoic who attempts to murder her enemy. In the movie, she is a dorky Cloudcuckoolander.
• Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed. She lacks her two swords from the books, but she is still a competent Action Girl who tears through Pitch's nightmares with her wings and packs a punch to send Teeth Flying.
• And This Is for...: After punching out Pitch:
  Toothiana: And that's for my fairies.
• Animal Motifs: Tooth is a part human part hummingbird hybrid.
• Badass Adorable: She has an adorable and perky demeanor. As a human/hummingbird hybrid, her plumage is vibrant and colorful. However, her wings can be used as weapons to slice through things, such as Pitch's Nightmare minions.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She is one of the kindest and most adorable. However, she will punch you right in the face if you mess with her.
• Color Motif: Her signature color is pink/purple.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She is obsessed with teeth. And what is wrong with marveling at blood and gum on them or getting into everyone's mouth?
• Creepy Good: Shows minor signs of this when it is clear she has no idea how to cheer up Sophie. She tries to get her excited by looking at teeth, some with little bits of gum and blood on them.
• Cute Bruiser: She is a dorky fairy and she punches Pitch in the face and knocks out one of his teeth.
• Expressive Hair: Tooth's feathers ruffle whenever she experiences strong emotion.
• Fairy Sexy: Not in the traditional sense, but fans agree that her design is very beautiful.
• Flight: Tooth has the ability to freely fly (wings), as well as hover in place without tiring out.
• Genki Girl: She's usually quite upbeat and full of energy. If she isn't, things are really, really bad.
• The Heart: The most sociable and nicest of her fellow Guardians.
• Hypocrite: Played for Laughs. She tells her fairies not to disgrace the uniform by squeeing too much about Jack's perfect teeth — while she herself can't keep her fingers out of his mouth.
• Improbable Weapon User: She uses her own feathers to rip through the nightmares.
• Mama Bear: It would be wise not to mess with her fairies. She has also some of this side toward the Guardians and other children, too.
• Meaningful Name: Tooth, or the Tooth Fairy.
• Nice Girl: Tooth is sweet, bubbly, nice, friendly, motherly.
  • She scolds Bunny for saying hurtful things to Jack.
  • She is compassionate to Jack about his Ghost Amnesia; she even apologizes for not helping him earlier despite the fact that until recently, she had no idea he needed her help.
  • After Easter is ruined, she's seen comfortingly putting her hand on Bunny's shoulder.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: She is an innocent one. She tries to entertain Sophie with a handful of teeth with blood and gum on them. Poor girl justifiably freaks out.
• No Sense of Personal Space: She gets into Jack's mouth to check his teeth.
• Omniglot: She can speak every language in the world.
• Parental Substitute: She acts like a mother toward her fairies, children, and the other Guardians, according to the artbook.
• Perpetual Molt: As more children stop believing in her, Tooth starts losing more feathers as a sign of her weakening.
• Race Lift: The Tooth Fairy is evidently vaguely South Asian in the books while in the movie, she's white. That said, she doesn't look that different from the design on the cover of her title book, where her skin is actually blue, and her palace in the movie is based off Asian Indian aesthetics.
• Razor Wings: She uses her wings to rip the nightmares apart.
• Screaming Warrior: She borrows one of Bunny's boomerangs and lunges at Pitch in her palace screaming bloody murder.
• Ship Tease: She has some with nearly all the male characters in the movie or in ROTG materials. She has several moments with Jack, most notably where at the end, she briefly gives Jack a hug and they share a Held Gaze before Baby Tooth cuts in. She holds Bunnymund's hand during Sandy's funeral. In one deleted scene, she was shown kissing North on a cheek (making this latter awkward) and Pitch slightly flirts with her in the official prequel comic.
• The Smurfette Principle: Tooth is the only female Guardian.
• Spectacular Spinning: She cuts through the nightmares while spinning.
• Technicolor Eyes: Pinkish-purple with a crystalline pattern in the iris, for a powerful wealth-bringing fairy.
• Telepathy: According to The Guardians of Childhood series, the Mini-Fairies are extensions of Tooth herself, that she can split herself into smaller copies, and she is mentally connected to all of them.
• Tooth Fairy: Tooth is a part-hummingbird, part-human tooth fairy who has small fairies as her helpers and is also the Guardian of Memories as the teeth she carries also hold the children's most precious memories.
• Vague Age: Gracious. The books state that she transformed at the age of 12, and apparently stopped aging in her 20's or early 30's, based on her illustrations. Her movie incarnation is even more vague, since she's the implied love interest of eternally-eighteen-years-old Jack Frost but is also considered to be very motherly to her fairies. She has to be at least 440, though, and was stated to be 'older than the mountains, but younger than the wind'.
• Winged Humanoid: She is a humanoid covered in feathers and has dragonfly-like wings. She can walk, but obviously prefers flying.
• Workaholic: She comments that, unlike North or Bunny, she works every night.

Bunny

Voiced by: Hugh Jackman

The fabled keeper and bringer of Easter eggs and the Guardian of Hope. He has an Australian accent.

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• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Instead of having a coat like in the books.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: He wasn't such a Butt-Monkey in the books.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the books, even though he agrees to help the main characters, he hates mankind because Pitch massacred his kind, making him the Sole Survivor and isn't very kind toward them. In the movie, he is shown having a soft spot for children (especially for Sophie) and is loyal towards North and the others. However, he's still an occasional jerk towards Jack.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the books, his name is Bunnymund. Though occasionally referred to by this name by the creators, within the film he is only called Bunny.
• Anti-Hero: Bunny is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who deeply cares for children and his True Companions.
• Awesome Aussie: He's given a rather prominent Australian brogue, courtesy of Hugh Jackman. Jack calls him "the Easter Kangaroo."
  Bunnymund: It's the accent, isn't it?
• Badass Adorable: He is cute and fuzzy; he is also fierce and surly. He says, "I'm a bunny," and makes it sound badass.
• Battle Boomerang: He’s got two of 'em, in fact.
• Big Brother Instinct: At the beginning of the movie, Bunnymund makes it obvious just how much he hates Jack. But despite this, he still sticks up for him, as shown when Pitch made a low blow against the boy. There are hints he is like this toward Sophie, too.
• Break the Haughty: He's rather arrogant, but toward the ending of the story, when children stop believing in him, he turns into a regular-sized rabbit.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: He is quite fuzzy even while he is six foot tall, but this trope happens in full force when lack of belief turns him into a small adorable bunny with huge eyes, much to his annoyance. It is so bad that the Big Bad has a fit of Cuteness Proximity upon seeing him.
• Butt-Monkey: While he's still very much a badass in his own right, Bunnymund does find himself as the butt of many of the gags in the film. And considering his frosty personality, it's hilarious every time.
• Character Exaggeration: Of all the original Guardians, he shows the biggest changes between book and movie, going from a calm, technically inclined, chocolate hobbyist, to a slightly hot-headed nature warrior.
• Color Motif: His signature color is green, representing the vegetation of springtime.
• Deadpan Snarker: He offers the snidest comments in the movie next to Jack, especially when it comes to the trickster and North's antics.
• Defrosting Ice King: Bunnymund is very cold and aloof towards Jack for most of the film. It isn't until Jack proves himself as a hero that Bunnymund finally starts to show him genuine respect.
• Depower: When Jack wasn't around in time to help the Guardians save Easter, children all over the world stopped believing in the Easter Bunny and it hit him so hard that he reverted to the size of a little rabbit.
• A Dog Named "Dog": A bunny named Bunny. In the books, his name is Bunnymund, more of A Lizard Named "Liz".
• Dual Wielding: Two Battle Boomerangs.
• Easter Bunny: He is a bunny and when Easter comes, he hides dyed eggs for children to find. Also, he is the Guardian of Hope and a snarky, boomerang chucking hero.
• Elemental Eye Colors: He has bright green eyes, signaling his association with nature and spring.
• Funny Animal: Bunnymund is a 6 foot tall, fully anthropomorphic rabbit.
• Furry Reminder: He runs on all fours and scratches with his hind leg.
• Good Is Not Nice: Bunnymund can be a jerk, but means well in the end.
• Green Thumb: Flowers are shown springing up where his tunnels close.
• Hair-Raising Hare: A Good Is Not Soft version. A six foot tall Easter Bunny who will kick your ass if you dare harm the children he is sworn to protect.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Bunny comes across as a blatant complainer, constantly angry and conceited. He is a Sour Supporter for North, but jumps into action as soon as he sees the real danger, as he genuinely cares about Easter and the hopes of children. He doesn't want Jack on their team, makes no effort to hide his hostility, and goes as far as to mock Jack's lack of believers; then he gets scared when Jack pretends to fall off the sleigh, gets angry when Pitch insults Jack, and finally, when he finds out that Jack restored Jamie's belief in him, Bunny is absolutely touched, and almost tearful. In the ending, Bunny warmly welcomes Jack's induction as a Guardian. Also, Bunny is always a big softie when Sophie is around.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In the beginning, Bunny tells Jack that he is the Easter Bunny and people believe in him; Jack doesn't know how to respond afterward.
• Kick the Dog:
  • He is so angry when he thinks that Jack could have betrayed them that he is the one saying that they should never have trusted him, breaking Jack more than he was already. However, this reaction was justified; he was heartbroken as well after all, and he takes it back once he learns that Jack got Jamie to believe in him.
  • His treatment toward Jack at the beginning can count too, especially when he said that people don't believe in Jack. However, that's also justified. His treatment was mainly due to a grudge he held because Jack made a blizzard in '68 during Easter. In any case, he gets better.
• Killer Rabbit: Literally! He's a huge rabbit who can accurately throw boomerangs.
• The Lancer: The experienced, responsible, and believed in Guardian to Jack's inexperienced, irresponsible, and never-believed in Hero.
• Meaningful Name: His full name is E. Aster Bunnymund, at least in the books.
• Papa Wolf: Toward Sophie.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He is always the one who is ready for a fight with Jack. However, harm Jack and you'll regret it.
  • He has one with Sophie, too.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: He gets chased under a car by the Nightmares after his depower, only to drop a rather cordial one after he grows back to full size.
  Bunny: G'day mate.
• Proj-egg-tile: His Easter eggs surve as thrown explosives.
• Rabbit Magician: Like the other Guardians, Bunny is proficient in a number of magical skills unique to himself, including the generation of magical rabbit holes and command of egg-based golems, gaining strength from the collective belief people have in the Easter Bunny.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to North's Blue in the movie, while in the books, he is the Blue to young North's Red.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: In his Depowered form, he is a little, adorable bunny. He doesn't take kindly to Jamie calling him "cute", though.
• Righteous Rabbit: A good-aligned bunny.
• Running on All Fours: He stands and walks on his hind legs but runs on all fours. He even does mild Wall Jumping when he runs through his tunnels.
• Sleep-Mode Size: When he loses his powers in the film's climax, he takes the size of an average bunny.
• Sole Survivor: If he is the one of a large population of Pookas according to his backstory. In the books, they had been exterminated by Pitch while in the movie, their race apparently disappeared.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: His Easter eggs make pretty, colorful explosions. He has a rather explosive temper to go with them.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: In the beginning, he is something of a stick in the mud. At the end, he participates in the snowball fight and agrees that "Everyone loves the sleigh".
• Took a Level in Kindness: When he is with Sophie.
  • He seems to get nicer with Jack, especially after Sandy is killed.
    • That's justified. If he is the Last of His Kind in the movie.
• Tunnel King: Can travel almost as fast as Santa's portal-forming snowglobes, just by forming instant tunnels by tapping the ground with a foot. These tunnels can lead anywhere, even inside someone's house. They seal up once he (and whoever else is with him) enter, leaving no trace, except maybe a single blooming flower.
• Vocal Dissonance: Used for comic effect when Bunny gets depowered and becomes a cute little bunny, but still speaks with Hugh Jackman's trademark drawl.
• Weapon Twirling: Boomerang twirling.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Bunnymund is deathly afraid of Greyhounds — dogs that are known to chase after rabbits. Zigzagged though, since he was only afraid of Abby when she started chasing him.
  • He is also noticeably terrified in North's sleigh, which is also justified because he cannot fly.

Pitch Black

Voiced by: Jude Law

The Bogeyman himself. He is the essence of fear and the Nightmare King.

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• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Downplayed. While still a villain, Pitch comes across as less loathsome in the movie. In the books, he is rightfully regarded as a monster who kidnapped numerous children and warped them into Fearlings and committed outright genocide of the Pookas. The movie never alludes to any of that, gives Pitch a selfish but understandable motive and some Pet the Dog moments, and he is shown to suffer from being lonely and cast out. It doesn't justify his dog-kicking, but you can see where he's coming from.
  • In the prequel comic by one of the film's artists (not related to the books), he is shown to have once been a Well-Intentioned Extremist who protected humanity from danger ala Scare 'Em Straight and knew the Guardians. While he was somewhat good (or at least neutral), it also showed that he was prideful.
• Adaptational Wimp: While Pitch is still a Humanoid Abomination and a force to be reckoned with, the movie portrays him as a spirit on a level with the Guardians, a far cry from the monster that extinguished stars and single-handedly felled a space-faring civilization in the book series.
• Ambiguously Bi: If the fact that he had a wife and a daughter pre-possession carries over into the movie. He also flirts a little bit with Tooth during his introduction in the prequel comic, and he is all over Jack in Antarctica (early artwork even shows him stroking Jack's jaw with a smug smile!) when he tries to convince him to team up, and is genuinely hurt by his rejection. Even Bunnymund isn't safe: When in his Depowered form, Pitch has this to say about it:
  Pitch: [laughing, genuinely] Look how fluffy you are! Would you like a scratch behind the ears?
  Bunny: [jumps in North's arms, horrified] Don't you even think about it!
• Alas, Poor Villain: His actions are unforgivable and he definitely deserves to be punished for them, but you still might feel a little sorry for him when everyone stops believing in him and the Nightmares drag him back to his lair.
• And I Must Scream: As he points out, his situation is similar to Jack's: people walk right through him, and he's an outcast among spirits. Downplayed Trope as well, since at least, he is not confined anywhere. In the end, though, the nightmares drag him into his lair sealing the entrance behind them.
• Antagonist Abilities: The fact it takes the combined efforts of five fellow spirits (four of them at full-power, the other a Wild Card with the power of winter at his disposal) to so much as drive him back speaks volumes at the kind of threat he can be.
• Anti-Hero: In the comic, he comes across as more of a Nominal Hero (using Fear to protect people, although how he actually went about it was... Questionable) before turning into a Villain Protagonist.
• Anti-Villain: He has a selfish but still understandable motive, he suffers from being lonely and cast out and, even if briefly, shows empathy towards Jack.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: He has darkness-based powers, knows what people fear, gives children nightmares, and controls a swarm of hellish horses, and he is the movie's Big Bad.
• Batman Gambit:
  • His appearance in the North Pole at the beginning of the film was meant to bring the Guardians there, and thus leave the Tooth Palace unprotected for his first attack.
  • Later he uses Jack's memories to lure him into the lair, and while Pitch keeps Jack occupied, the nightmares ruin Easter. Because of that, the Guardians push Jack away, just like Pitch told him. Thus he divided them, ruined another holiday, and got a chance to convince Jack to join him.
• Benevolent Boss: Zig-Zagged. He is affectionate with the Nightmares, but he is not above sending them on Zerg Rush.
• Big Bad: He causes all the trouble in the movie.
• Bizarrchitecture: His lair looks like a straight-up M.C. Escher painting. According to the artbook, it's based on Pompeii.
• Bond One-Liner: "I'd say 'sweet dreams,' but there aren't any left," after he murders Sandy.
• Break Them by Talking: A favorite tactic of his, and knowing everyone’s fears certainly helps. His speech to Jack, which is about how Jack will always ruin any positive connection by making a mess of things and therefore will always be alone, pretty much kills Jack's will to fight him.
• Broken Ace: He views himself as one.
• Casting a Shadow: He either turns into shadow or creates and controls lots of his shadows, as evident when he circles Jack in the lair. During the climax, his shadows are substantial enough to break the streetlights. Also, he teleports through shadows.
• Character Tic: He walks in circles while talking, and if he's not Milking the Giant Cow, he clasps his hands together.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: At the end of his Breaking Speech with Jack, he backs into the shadows until all you can see are his eyes and teeth.
• Circling Monologue: His shadows circle Jack while Pitch breaks him by talking. When he approaches Jack with We Can Rule Together offer, he also walks in circles around him.
• Cold Ham: The way his voice echoes everywhere he goes and his sense of presentation lets him chew the scenery even if he blends in with the shadows.
• Color Motif: Pitch is represented by the color black as an evil Living Shadow.
• Combat Pragmatist: He pulls I Surrender, Suckers when cornered and deals with Sandy by avoiding direct contact, using the Nightmares to distract him, and hitting him with a black sand arrow In the Back. Did you expect someone who moves through shadows to fight fair?
• Control Freak: In the prequel comic released, he comments on the importance of fear in society though with a relish of his authority: "Fear protects. Fear controls." This seems to explain why he was ultimately unwilling to partner with the Guardians since as they were framing it, he would no longer have that position of control. Also, being out of control for so long, he pounces on a chance to be in control and when he finally loses all of it, he succumbs to fear.
• The Corruption: Pitch's Nightmare power comes from years of converting Sandy's golden dream sand.
• Creepy Long Fingers: He has long, bony, pale-grey fingers.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: He has sunken eyes and deep, dark shadows under them.
• Cuteness Proximity: Hinted at with his reaction to a small Nightmare, as well as to Bunny's Depowered form.
• Dark Is Evil: He has power over darkness and fear, wears black, it's even in his name, and he is the Big Bad who gives children nightmares, wants to take the Guardians' power, gives Breaking Speeches like candy, temporarily kills the Sandman, attacks Jamie, and downloads the information from North's globe.
• "Darkness von Gothick" Name: The darkness-themed villain is called Pitch Black.
• Deadpan Snarker: Delivering half of his lines in a mocking, condescending tone, he is as snarky as he is obnoxious.
  • In response to Tooth's demand to return her fairies:
    Pitch: Or what? You'll stick a quarter under my pillow?
  • To Jack:
    Pitch: A neutral party. Then I'm going to ignore you. But you must be used to that by now.
• Death Glare:
  • In the flashback, he is upset about people not believing in him anymore, and he gives them a baleful look.
  • The pained look he has after Jack refuses his We Can Rule Together offer quickly turns into a murderous glare.
  • He glares daggers◊ when he finds out that one child still refuses to stop believing.
• Deliberately Monochrome: In a film full of vibrant colors, Pitch's mere presence seems to suck the life out of his immediate surroundings.
• Dishing Out Dirt: With his black sand.
• Dramatic High Perching: He appears on the tower of the Tooth Palace, flies on the cloud of black sand, dances on North's globe, and doesn't disdain ordinary roofs.
• Dream Stealer: He steals and corrupts Sandy's dreamsand, turning dreams into nightmares.
• Driven by Envy: The Guardians are believed in and loved by the children of the world, while he is almost forgotten.
  Pitch: Maybe I want what you have... to be believed in! Maybe I'm tired of hiding under beds!
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He is pale, black-haired, and eerie all over, on the evil side of this trope. His skin tone is closer to that of a corpse.
• Emerging from the Shadows: He frequently steps out of the shadows, since he teleports through them and loves his drama.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He is affectionate with the Nightmares and keeps one (named Onyx in the script) as a sort of Consigliere. In the rufftoon comic, he considers Manny as a friend and feels betrayed when the latter chooses the Guardians to "replace him."
• Evil Brit: He is the movie's villain, and Jude Law gives him a British accent.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To the Sandman. Pitch is tall, dark, and skinny, Sandy is short, stout, and bright. They even use dust which reflects their color schemes and elemental powers.
  • To Jack, as they share a desire to be believed in and acknowledged.
• Evil Is Angular: While the Guardians and the kids have rounded design, Pitch's face is all sharp angles.
• Evil Is Hammy: With his wild gestures, Evil Laugh, and overall intensity, he makes sure that no bit of the scenery is left unchewed.
  Pitch: You dare have fun in my presence? I AM THE BOOGEYMAN! And you will fear me!
• Evil Laugh: At the beginning of the movie, his black sand figure appears on the North Pole accompanied by a sinister, distorted laugh. He also does resonant demoniac laughter as he kills Sandy. Other times, he chuckles.
• Evil Slinks: He's an evil Living Shadow; he's a natural for slinking. The creators say that he glides, and you don't feel him walking with the weight of a human.
• Evil Wears Black: He is the Big Bad dressed in all black, contrasting the heroes' bright colors.
• Fallen Hero: In both takes on his backstory, he falls under this. In the rufftoon comic, he was never a saint, but he did originally use fear as a protective measure and sincerely thought of the Man in the Moon as a friend until the Guardians turned up. In William Joyce's books, Pitch was a heroic mortal before the fearlings possessed him.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. While a bit subtle, his entire driving factor and decisions on pride. He is angry at being forgotten despite being one of the oldest and most powerful of the spirits and lashes out at the Guardian for being remembered while he wasn't. However, his entire vendetta started because of his own pride. The preview comic reveals he was offered a spot to join the Guardians, but when he realized it meant guiding humanity rather than ruling it (even if through the shadows like Pitch more or less did), he rejected it and got pissed that he was being "rejected" in favor of the Guardians. However, his inability to humble himself is the cause of his own distress.
• Full-Contact Magic: He directs the black sand with grand gestures.
• Giggling Villain: He alters between Evil Laugh and rather restrained chuckle, smug and very unsettling. He has a good chuckle after he finishes breaking Jack by talking.
• Gonk: He has a really creepy-looking face, which is fitting, since he’s the personification of fear.
• Hates Being Alone: Just like Jack.
  Pitch: I don't know what it's like to be cast out? To not be believed in! To long for... a family...
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After he's defeated and the Guardians corner him, his Nightmares show up. But since no one fears him now, they turn out to be drawn to his fear and promptly drag him kicking and screaming back underground.
• Humanoid Abomination: You can tell that there's something... off about him. His lair itself is an Eldritch Location, his powers are born from warping the Sandman's, and he controls an army of Animalistic Abominations. He's still not as monstrous as his book counterpart, though.
• If I Can't Have You…: When Jack refuses to join him, Pitch breaks Jack's staff over his knee and throws him down a crevasse.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: He is shown to suffer from being lonely and cast out, and he says he longs for a family.
• I Know What You Fear: Knowing what others fear is one of his powers.
  Pitch: It's the one thing I always know. People's greatest fears.
• It's All About Me:
  • While his grief of not being believed in is understandable, he resents the Guardians for not simply letting him condemn millions of children to lives of utter terror.
  • He is compassionate to Jack because, as he points out, they aren't so different, but only until Jack turns down his We Can Rule Together offer.
  • As the preview comic shows, he was invited to be part of the Guardians. However, the wording meant that he would no longer be in a dominant position to influence humanity and thus, turned it down because he saw it as a step down.
• It's Personal:
  • He envies the Guardians and wants to take their power, but he also blames them for taking his place in the world, so he's happy to show them what it's like to not be believed in and revels in the pain he causes them.
  • Initially, he tells Jack to stay away from the fight that doesn't involve him. Later, Pitch offers him to join forces, and Jack refuses; for this, Pitch trades Baby Tooth for Jack's stuff only to go back on his promise to release her, breaks the stuff, and blasts Jack into a crevice. During the climax, Pitch doesn't hesitate to attack him anymore.

• Jerkass Has a Point: At the Tooth Palace, Pitch warns Jack that as a Guardian, he'll start to fade away if kids stop believing in him. Unfortunately, this is true.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed: he is a straight-up jerkass with minor redeeming qualities. In the prequel comic, he really thought of the Man in the Moon as a friend. In the movie, he is affectionate with his nightmares and briefly shows compassion towards Jack. And that's about it.
• Kick the Dog: He does this a lot.
  • He taunts Tooth after kidnapping her fairies.
  • In the Tooth Palace, Pitch tells Jack: "Then I'm going to ignore you. But you must be used to that by now". Pitch almost certainly knows just how much it hurts.
  • He taunts Sandy as he (not really) dies.
  • He goes back on his promise to trade the captive Baby Tooth for Jack's staff.
• Kubrick Stare: When he finishes breaking Jack by talking, Pitch backs into shadows looking up with his head tilted down. He pulls it off nicely◊.
• Laughably Evil: At times. He is snarky and overdramatic, he does that ridicules victory dance on North's globe and suffers a lot of Amusing Injuries.
• Living Shadow: He either becomes a shadow or creates and controls lots of his shadows, as evident when he circles Jack in the lair. During the climax, his shadow hands are substantial enough to smash the streetlights.
• Looks Like Cesare: Pitch has ghostly gray skin and dark hair, alongside bright eyes with noticeable shadows.
• Manipulative Bastard: After taunting and goading Jack into joining his side, Pitch then tries to appeal in a different way, trying to convince him that they can do wonderful things together without the Guardians. When that fails, he demands Jack's staff in exchange for a captured Baby Tooth, only to go back on his word once Jack complies.
• Milking the Giant Cow: He makes a lot of wild theatrical gestures, some to direct the black sand, some for dramatic effect.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: If Pitch Black is not good enough, there is his title of The Nightmare King.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Giving Jack his teeth proved to be a big mistake, as the memories in them brought Jack back from the brink of despair and restored his Heroic Resolve.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Almost literally. He finds the Nightmares beautiful.
  Pitch: What a pretty little Nightmare!
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: He is the Boogeyman and bringer of bad dreams.
• Nightmare Weaver: In the beginning, he pokes Cupcake's unicorn dream with a finger, and the unicorn slowly, painfully turns black along with its rider and disintegrates, while the girl shrinks in terror in her sleep.
• No Brows: Lack of eyebrows gives him a skeletal, uncanny look, fitting his Humanoid Abomination nature.
• Non-Standard Character Design: His looks set him apart from the good guys. While the Guardians have rounded, highly detailed, and bright-colored designs, Pitch is angular, plain, and, except for the eyes, Deliberately Monochrome. The most standout detail on him is that his cloak fades into his wrists.
• Nothing Is Scarier: He's meant to resemble a shadow, as darkness represents fear of the unknown, the most primal fear known to any animal.
• No Sympathy: Zig-Zagged. He has no qualms about giving children nightmares; he enjoys hurting the Guardians, if the jovial Evil Laugh he does as he murders Sandy is anything to go by. However, Pitch shows compassion towards Jack who he sees as a fellow outcast, and per the creators, Pitch is not faking it. Then, Jack turns down his We Can Rule Together offer, the rejection hurts Pitch a lot, and he goes into full If I Can't Have You… mode.
• Not Good with Rejection:
  • At the end of the prequel comic, he feels rejected by the Man in the Moon and turns on the Guardians as a result.
  • When Jack refuses to join him, there is a pained look on Pitch's face. Then, his expression changes into that of rage, and for the rest of the movie, he puts an extra effort into fighting Jack and hurting him as much as possible.
• Not Quite Flight: He flies on clouds of black sand.
• Pet the Dog: He pets the Nightmares, literally and figuratively. Also, a few moments hint at his being more lonely than evil: He doesn't raise a hand against Jack until he actually sides with the Guardians, and even tries to convince him to stay out of a fight that isn't his; the creators confirm that his offer for Jack to join him was genuine, and that he really did feel sorry for him being alone and rejected by the Guardians. Of course, he caused said rejection, but this is is the movie's villain.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "There are other ways to snuff out a light," as he lunges at Jamie.
• Pride: Pride and resentment are his reasons to refuse the call in the prequel comic. He is offered a place among the Guardians but refuses since he sees being a Guardian as beneath him. Of course, this leads to his undoing, namely in being forgotten and later in defeat, especially when he was the one afraid.
  Pitch: You would put our destiny in the hands of stupid, ignorant children? You have it backwards! We are the ones who influence their fate!
• Psychic Link: He has some mental connection to his Nightmares: A Nightmare sees the Guardians collecting the teeth, goes back to Pitch, and Pitch immediately knows what the Nightmare saw.
• Psychotic Smirk: He does a smug little smirk with one corner of his mouth when he is about to do or just did something bad. He◊ does◊ that◊ a lot◊.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Not much in the movie, but played straight in the comic.
• Scare 'Em Straight: According to the backstory comic, Pitch was once a quasi-benevolent proto-Guardian figure who used fear to keep humanity safe from danger. In the comic, he initially interprets North's idea of cooperation as a carrot and stick method; that the toys would reward the "good" children who follow the rules and he scares the "bad" ones into falling into line, framing the whole thing under the context of controlling them. North tries to correct Pitch while Tooth Fairy and Sandman look creeped out by it.
• Scary Teeth: He has a mouthful of crooked, pointy teeth. In the prequel comic, Tooth disapproves.
• Shadow Walker: He appears from shadows and disappears into them as he pleases.
• A Sinister Clue: Pitch is a villain and, according to William Joyce, left-handed.
• Sinister Schnoz: He is a bad guy and has a giant hook down his face.
• Sinister Scythe: He wields a scythe made of black sand.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: When he is not in the Large Ham mode, his voice is gentle and lulling and drips with contempt and sarcasm. He delivers his Breaking Speech to Jack in this manner.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Pitch makes his Sinister Scythe, bow, and spear out of black sand.
• Stalker without a Crush: Toward Jack during a big part of the story because he wants him to join his side because he is powerful and isn't believed in like he is.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: He mostly does hi's.
• Suddenly Shouting: Sometimes, he switches from Cold Ham to Large Ham in one sentence.
  Pitch: You said you wanted to be alone... so BE ALONE!!
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Pitch is a Humanoid Abomination with silver-gold eyes resembling solar eclipse; in some scenes, they even glow a little. His eyes are the color on him, making them pop out all the more for a very creepy effect.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He is tall, black-haired, and half of his lines sounds like he's mocking whoever he's talking to.
• Thin Chin of Sin: He is a villain with a long pointy chin.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: He is the Boogeyman. In his heyday, when everyone was frightened and miserable, he wielded great power. Now, he is mad about being written off as just a bad dream and wants to restore his former glory.
• Undeathly Pallor: He is a spirit with very pale, grey-tinged skin.
• Villainous Cheekbones: He is a villain with high and sharp cheekbones.
• Villain Teleportation: Pitch can appear anywhere in the world through shadows.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the backstory comic, he uses fear to protect humanity and initially opposes the Guardians because he believes that the fear he embodies is necessary, and that the approach they take is foolish. Not so much in the movie where he rants about his loneliness and lack of power. However, his word choice regarding his views on humanity notes that while he believes his fear is necessary, he also enjoys the position of power he has over humans and sees becoming a Guardian as beneath him.
• We Used to Be Friends: Pitch calls the Man in the Moon "old friend" whenever he talks to him. In the official comic, Pitch initially considers him a friend for real and values their friendship, but it ends when the Man in the Moon ends up creating the Guardians. He sees it as a rejection of him influencing humanity through fear and sees this rejection of the "old ways" as betrayal.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: His villainy stems from the fact that, unlike the Guardians who are believed in and universally loved, he is nearly forgotten. In the prequel comic, he is shown to have once been a Well-Intentioned Extremist who protected children from danger ala Scare 'Em Straight before the Guardians were chosen, and, from his perspective, they took his place. Since that, he has been largely dismissed as not real, and he is shown to suffer from being lonely and cast out.
  Pitch: I don't know what it's like to be cast out? To not be believed in? To long for a family. All those years in the shadows I thought no one else knows what this feels like.
• Would Hurt a Child: He gives children nightmares and wants to remake the world into one of "nothing but fear and darkness." During the climax, he angrily lunges at Jamie saying, "There are other ways to snuff out a light." We never find out what Pitch meant to do, exactly, but he probably wasn't going to give him a hug.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Pale yellow eyes for a Manipulative Bastard.

Nightmares

Pitch's horse-like mooks made of corrupted dreamsand.

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• Airborne Mook: The dreamsand creatures can fly, and the nightmares retain the ability.
• All There in the Script: Cupcake's once-unicorn dream and Pitch's right-hand Nightmare is named Onyx in the script.
• Animalistic Abomination: The nightmares resemble normal horses just enough to look unsettling.
• Dark Is Evil: They are jet-black servants of the Big Bad. Evil enough to turn on him when he loses his power and becomes an easy target.
• Doom Troops: Skeletal black Hellish Horses with glowing yellow eyes, the Boogeyman's army.
• Faceless Goons: They are all identical.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: They have glowing yellow eyes.
• Hellish Horse: Black demonic horses.
• Lean and Mean: The evil Hellish Horses are downright skeletal.
• Mooks: A whole army of identical, disposable flunkies existing mostly for the Guardians to fight something on a regular basis.
• Pun-Based Creature: "Nightmares" — as in, Hellish Horses who serve the embodiment of fear.
• Uncatty Resemblance: In a sense, they are Pitch's pets, and they are black, yellow-eyed, slinky, and eerie, just like him◊.
• Zerg Rush: Pitch unleashes endless swarms of them on the Guardians. In the end, the nightmares Zerg Rush Pitch himself.

The Man in the Moon

Voiced by: N/A

A mysterious being that is responsible for appointing the Guardians.

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• Big Good: Man in the Moon bestows Guardians with their powers, and officially brings them into the fold once the time is right. When Pitch starts talking about destroying the Guardians, he directs his gaze to the Moon and calls the Guardians Manny's.
• The Chessmaster: The Man in the Moon is some sort of benevolent, child-loving deity who operates by making sure the Guardians and Jack end up in the right places at the right time, rather than directly interfering himself.
• The Chooser of the One: When Pitch begins returning to power, the Man in the Moon is the one who decides an additional Guardian is needed and selects Jack Frost. The other Guardians were created this way, as well.
• Good Is Not Nice: He is definitely the Big Good and does everything to protect the children, but he has a rather hands-off relationship with the Guardians and leaves Jack for 300 years on his own wondering if he's doing something wrong.
• The Man in the Moon: The mysterious Big Good who appoints the Guardians.
• Melancholy Moon: The first scene when Jack describes how he awakened, feeling frightened and cold, as moonlight is seen through the ice.
• In-Universe Nickname: North calls him "Manny."
• Sympathy for the Hero: Manny chose Jack as a Guardian because he sacrificed himself for saving his sister. That, and Jack's method for doing it: defusing some of the tension of the situation by making it fun so his sister wouldn't be scared.
• The Voiceless: No sound is ever heard out of him, but the Guardians and Jack all act as though they know what he's saying.
• We Used to Be Friends: Pitch calls him "old friend" whenever he talks to him. In the official comic, Pitch values him as his friend. The friendship ends when the Man in the Moon chooses the Guardians, and Pitch is offered to join, but refuses and gets pissed that he is being "rejected" in favor of the Guardians. In the books, however, that's definitely not the case.

Baby Tooth

One of Tooth Fairy's little fairies whom Jack befriends.

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• Badass Adorable: She's as cute as her fellow fairies, and she can put up quite a fight despite her size.
• Undying Loyalty: After being saved by Jack, she hangs around him throughout most of the movie. She provides Jack with the most emotional support when he needs it.

Jamie Bennett

Voiced by: Dakota Goyo

A child who has not given up on believing in the Guardians.

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• Agent Mulder: Believes more than pretty much any other human, including in things the others aren't sure about (like Yetis). Becomes the last believer by the climax, and then restoring the faith in the others. When his mom offhandedly mentions Jack Frost, his instant reaction is to ask who that is foreshadowing his status as Jack's first believer and when Jack's fun results in him losing a tooth, he's sure it was the Tooth Fairy.
• Audience Surrogate: He's a normal human child with the most interactions with the Guardians. His main role, despite being an innocent child, is to cheer the Guardians on and even play a major role in the final battle.
• Badass Adorable: At the tender age of 10, he has more than enough guts against the Boogeyman himself.
• Badass Boast: To Pitch, and unlike Jack, he managed to back his up.
  Jamie: I do believe in you. I'm just not afraid of you!
• Big Brother Instinct: Toward his younger sister, Sophie.

• Childish Tooth Gap: He has a prominent gap in his upper set of teeth to emphasize his youthfulness.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Would be this in any other movie, with his love of books on Yetis and other fantastic creatures that he just knows are real. In this movie, he is right.
  • He's also the last believer when Pitch tries to snuff out belief across the world, and the first person to believe in Jack.
• Give Me a Sign: Asks this of his toy stuffed bunny when he's starting to think that maybe the Guardians weren't real. It's Jack who responds.
• Spanner in the Works: If the Guardians hadn't accidentally woken him up and let him see them, Pitch would have been guaranteed victory.

Sophie Bennett

Voiced by: Georgie Grieve

Jamie's younger sister.

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• Baby Talk: Speaks in incomplete sentences due to her young age.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: A child variant. Before the Guardians see Sophie in the Warren, they hear her squealing in the tunnels. The echo distorts it to sound like one of the Nightmares' whinny.
• Catchphrase: Often says, "Easter Bunny, hop, hop, hop!" and "Pretty!".
• Cheerful Child: Sophie is giggling just about every second she's on screen, and is amused by the simplest things.
• The Cutie: Not even Bunny is immune to how cute this child is.
• In-Series Nickname: Her and Jamie's mother calls her "Soph".
• The Klutz: Implied. She falls over and someone remarks, "Sophie fell again".
• Snooping Little Kid: How Bunny reacts to her being in his warren. She accidentally went through a portal, though, and is really just trying to have fun.

Cupcake

Voiced by: Dominique Grund

A young girl that quickly befriends Jamie and his friends.

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• All Girls Like Ponies: She wears a sort of tutu when playing in the snow, her room is completely pink, she has dreams about unicorns, and during the final battle, she confronts one of Pitch's Nightmares and turns it into a life-size unicorn made of dream sand. She promptly cuddles it and starts skipping away with it.
• Badass Adorable: She likes ponies, the color pink, and in general having fun, but she and the other children contribute to the final battle against Pitch.
• Badass Boast: "Let's get 'em!"
• Boyish Short Hair: In contrast to her tutu, she has choppy hair that makes her look a little more intimidating.
• Brawn Hilda: Both played straight and subverted. She is introduced as a a brawny, muscular yet cute and beautiful, angry girl about to smack some kids down for hitting her with a snowball... until Jack Frost hits her with some of his fun-loving magic, at which she laughs and joins them in a snowball fight. Later we see Cupcake has typical girly-girl tastes in pink clothes and unicorns.
• The Bully: Subverted. All the other kids look terrified when Jack hits her with a snowball but she winds up happily playing with them and easily becomes their friend.
• Cute Bruiser: She's significantly bigger than the other kids and at first they seem afraid of her, but she has posters of unicorns everywhere in her room and later is seen having fun with the others.
• Gentle Giant: She's clearly angry (at first) about being hit by a snowball early on in the film, but otherwise seems to be friends with the other children despite her intimidating appearance and being at least a full head taller than everyone else.
• Girly Bruiser: Big and strong for her age, and has a love for ponies and other girly things.
• Gonky Femme: Large, bulky and tough-looking yet beautiful with choppy hair, but loves ponies, unicorns, and pink, and happily skips around when she's having fun.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Getting hit in the back of the head by a snowball nearly makes her go ballistic. Thankfully, Jack managed to nip at her nose before she could crush Jamie with the head of her snowman.
• Huge Schoolgirl: She's quite a bit bigger and brawnier than her peers.
• Little Miss Badass: Fearlessly takes on the opportunity to protect the Guardians during the final battle.
• Pink Means Feminine: Showing that despite her bully facade, she's still girly at heart.

Others

• All There in the Script: Pippa, Monty, and Claude's twin brother Caleb are only named in the script and credits, not in the movie proper.
• Badass Crew: Everyone who works for the Guardians—the Yetis, faeries, elves, egg golems, and so on. While most of the faeries are captured early on, Baby Tooth proves they can still be awesome by herself.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Santa employs yeti. They are big, hairy and intelligent, since they, and not the elves, actually make toys. They speak some language that North and Bunny appear to understand. In the prequel comic, North mentions that he helped them in the past, and now they help him.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Sophie, Cupcake, and Pippa, at the end.
• Christmas Elves: They don't actually build the toys and the Yetis are the ones doing the grunt work. North lets the elves believe they're heavily involved, and they do seem to function as a sort of "quality control tester" given that their mischief makes sure that the toys work and can take a beating.
• Damsel in Distress: Almost all of Tooth's fairies are captured by Pitch and held in cages for most of the movie.
• Satellite Character: Because we don't see much of her other than a flashback to Jack's life as a human, Jack's little sister doesn't have a defined personality other than being his sister.
• No Name Given: We never learn what the name of Jack's sister is.
  • Although her actual name hasn't been revealed, William Joyce mentioned that "They called her Flee because she could jump and run so fast. But on that fateful day she was too afraid." So she's called Flee.

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