Due to both characters being Walking Spoilers, all spoilers here are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Hannah Fairchild/Stine
The protagonist of The Ghost Next Door, who's spending an unusually boring summer with her family when she began encountering a mysterious boy claiming to have just moved into her neighborhood, and begins to suspect he's a ghost after several strange events.
- Ascended Extra: She appears in the 2015 movie as Hannah Stine. R.L. released her from her book and had her play the role of his daughter because he was lonely.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: A twofer. A redhead in the tv episode, and a brunette in the movie.
- Age Lift: Went from 11-12 years old to 16 in the movie as Mr. Stine's adoptive daughter.
- Barred from the Afterlife: She could only proceed to the afterlife with her family after saving Danny from the fire.
- Boyish Short Hair: Due to a bad haircut, she has very short hair that she brushes constantly, as seen in the UK book cover and trading cards. She wants to grow it out in the summer. However, because she's a ghost, she probably CAN'T grow it out. This is averted in the TV episode and the movie.
- Brutal Honesty: When she has had enough wonder over what the mystery around her is, she finally has had enough and asks Danny straight up if he's a ghost without any subtlety.
- Clothing Reflects Personality: She wears very bright, colorful clothes that make her shine during the day. These are telling with her sunny and bright personality.
- And in the movie, she wears very dark clothing, which reflect her secluded nature as she's stuck in her house by her father.
- Cute Ghost Girl: What she turns out to be.
- Dead All Along: It's revealed Hannah's a ghost after she passes through Danny's body, and that she died along with her entire family because of a campfire she hadn't probably doused in their backyard one evening.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: The TV episode has the Shadow-spirit try to manipulate her into forgetting Danny. When Hannah realizes this, she outright screams in his (lack of) face what a selfish, hypocritical monster he is.
- Died Happily Ever After: At the end of the book. She has to leave Danny, but also gets to join her family.
- Disappears into Light: She does that to save Danny.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Twice! In the original story, Hannah moves on to the afterlife with her family after she saves Danny from dying. In the movie, she's able to keep living outside the books even when the other monsters are trapped again.
- Fiery Redhead: In the TV adaptation.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Responsible, to her Foolish twin brothers.
- Friendly Ghost: Very much so, considering she came back all to prevent Danny from dying in an accident like she did.
- Glamour Failure: Happens to her when she discovers that she is a ghost.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She is envious at Danny for having such supportive friends to hang out with in the summer, while she's stuck at home with her only friend being at camp.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Hannah is repeatedly furious that her best friend Janey, who is away at summer camp, doesn't reply to any of her letters. That would be because Hannah has been dead for years, and Janey has long since left summer camp.
- Intangibility: She used that power when she brushes past the fire to save Danny.
- Invisible to Normals: Happens in the TV adaption.
- It's All My Fault: The fire that destroyed her home and killed her family started because she hadn't completely doused the campfire she set up with her brothers in the backyard.
- Jacob Marley Apparel: Only from the book (averted in the TV episode and movie). Her default short hair she had throughout the story is the hairstyle she sports when she died.
- Monochrome Apparition: Blue only in the 2015 movie.
- Ms. Imagination: She has plenty of vivid dreams throughout the book, such as the nightmare at the beginning of the book. However, it turns out that this beginning dream of a house fire wasn't part of her imagination.
- My Greatest Second Chance: After learning she had inadvertently caused the house fire that killed her and her family, Hannah gets this when she saves Danny from a similar fate.
- Nice Girl: Saving Danny from the same fate she had suffered should tell you how much of a nice girl she is.
- Small Name, Big Ego: In the TV episode, she claims to know everything that happens in her neighborhood. Although, since she seems to suffer from Small Town Boredom, you cannot really fault her.
- Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids: In the movie, she is forbidden from getting out of the house by her father, R.L. Stine. This causes her to sneak out of the house some nights to visit places such as the town cemetery.
- Tomato in the Mirror: She suspects Danny is a ghost only to find out that she is one and returned to save Danny.
- Trickster Twins: Has to deal with a pair of these, whom are her brothers, Bill and Herb. They tend to cause mischief and bickering almost every day.
- Unfinished Business: She died in a fire in her backyard and came back to save Danny from a similar fate. Afterwards, she joins the rest of her family in the afterlife.
- Walking Spoiler: Twice over. Not only is she the titular ghost in the title, but she's also R.L. Stine's daughter in the movie.
Danny Anderson
Portrayed By: Cody Jones (TV)
A young, mysterious boy who recently moved to Hannah's street with his deaf mother.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Is a redhead in the book, but is blond in the episode.
- Asshole Victim: He is almost a victim of this trope. When convinced by his friends to break into a person's house and light it on fire, Alan and Fred manage to escape but Danny gets left behind, and if it wasn't for Hannah arriving quickly and saving him, he would have died of smoke inhalation.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: To his friends, Alan Miller and Fred Drake. He is the redhead, while they are the blond and brunette. Averted in the episode, due to Adaptation Dye-Job.
- Cloudcuckoolander: When first asked if he's a ghost, he says, "I don't THINK so."
- Disappeared Dad: He lives with his mother, but nothing is ever mentioned of his father.
- Disproportionate Retribution: He was willing to set a neighbor's house on fire just because said neighbor pushed him to the ground. Granted, he was peer pressured into doing it by his two friends, and Mr. Chesney threatened him with a shotgun.
- I See Dead People: Because he is part of a plot to have Hannah save him from a house fire, he is able to see her ghost while almost everyone else can't.
- Karma Houdini: Subverted. The audience never finds out if he got away with his crimes, which include arson. Considering that there are plenty of witnesses to his and his friends' delinquent activities, he probably didn't.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: When he wakes up with his mother watching over him, he remembers that Hannah saved his life, and wants to talk to her. However, Hannah has just fulfilled her destiny and went to the afterlife to rejoin her family, and Danny doesn't get the chance to speak with her again.
- Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Thanks to Alan and Fred, this is the main thing that drives most of his evil actions throughout the book. The fact that they convince him to set a neighbor's house on fire is really telling of this trope.
- Red Herring: More than half of the book had been building him up as probably being the titular "ghost next door". However, it turns out that HANNAH is the one who is the ghost when her hand goes through him and this makes her connect the dots about other strange happenings around her.
- Secret-Keeper: When Hannah asks Danny why his mother keeps ignoring her, Danny replies it's because his mother is deaf, and she usually manages to fool people because she reads lips. Danny adds that he doesn't like to talk about it.If his mother DID have the ability to hear, she probably wouldn't have anyway because Hannah is a ghost.
- Token Good Teammate: Out of the troublesome trio, Danny is definitely the one with the moral compass, being kind to people and hesitant to commit mischief. Alan and Fred, on the other hand, are very rude and really enjoy the mayhem they cause.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Danny is on the receiving end of this from Alan and Fred. He doesn't feel easy doing the crimes they commit, but they egg him on. They convince him to help them trespass on people's property, eat ice cream without paying for it, vandalize property, and committing ARSON.
- Trauma Button: After he finds out that Hannah is a ghost, he freaks out whenever he sees her and runs away as fast as he can. After she saves him from a house fire, he gets over it.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: He and his friends proceed to get into plenty of trouble in town. But when he was pushed around by Mr. Chesney, he decides to set his house on fire as revenge! Somewhat justified, as Alan and Fred egged him to do it.
- You Have to Believe Me!: When he wakes up to his mother and their neighbor watching over him, he tries to convince them that Hannah is a ghost and was the one who saved him in a frantic tone. Her mother and her neighbor understandably do not believe him.
- Youthful Freckles: Has plenty that cover his face. Averted in the episode.
Danny Anderson's Shadow Spirit
Portrayed By: Diego Matamoros and Dov Tiefenbach (TV)
This mysterious, eerie entity begins following Hannah Fairchild around after she befriends Danny Anderson. Apparently invisible to everyone but Hannah, and obsessed with keeping her away from Danny, he has a deadly agenda that involves both children.
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: In the TV episode, he says his reasons for trying to kill Danny are simply so he can become a ghost.
- Adaptation Species Change: Sort of. In the book, he's a future version of Danny trying to make sure the future he appears in occurs. In the TV episode, he's Danny's ghostly avatar/counterpart who simply wants to take Danny's form.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Gets one from Hannah in the TV episode, asking why he tried to kill Danny if he was already destined to die later that night.
- Ascended Extra: He's not much more than a side-antagonist in the book, but he does and says a lot more in the TV episode.
- Big Bad: For The Ghost Next Door. It backfires massively on him.
- Evil Former Friend: A sociopathic supernatural version of Danny from one possible future.
- Evil Mentor: The TV episode has him try to tutor Hannah to embrace her undead condition like he has. It doesn't make a lick of difference.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Has the face of a normal-looking pre-teen boy under his hood, despite supposedly burning to death in his past life.
- Freudian Excuse: Danny is implied to have a miserable home life, struggling to take care of his deaf mother while his father is completely absent. Other than Hannah, who wasn't in Shadow!Danny's timeline, his only friends are street kids who peer pressure him into dangerous vandalism. His horrific death in a fire is what convinces him to give up on life altogether.
- Future Me Scares Me: He is little Danny Anderson from a timeline where he burned to death without Hannah to save him.
- The Grim Reaper: May not be a reaper himself, but he's definitely intended as a stand in for Death. This is taken to the extreme in the 1990s trading card art, where he's depicted as looking exactly like the Grim Reaper.
- Hypocrite: Consistently rants that Danny is destined to die, but in the TV episode he tries to kill the kid himself to speed up the process. Needless to say, Hannah falls for none of it.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: And how! He's obsessed with making sure his human self dies, but his constant harassment of Hannah only draws her further to saving him.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: As a few have pointed out, he has little to do with the main plot in the book, which is focused more on Hannah and Danny's friendship. He's just there to build up a creepy atmosphere and provide an additional obstacle for the heroine to overcome. The TV adaption fixes this by turning him into a completely separate entity that wants Danny dead so he can take his place in the living world and stop being a shadow.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the TV episode, Hannah tells him off for trying to kill Danny and speed up the process when it's clear he wasn't meant to die that night.
- Red Herring: Double subverted. Hannah initially believes he's Danny in ghost form. He isn't... at least not the Danny she's come to know.
- Smug Snake: In the book. The Shadow Spirit is, quite frankly, way too sure of his victory for his own good. It doesn't occur to him that Hannah, as a ghost, can just walk right through him to save Danny from the fire until it's too late.
- Walking Spoiler: One of those rare entries where both main characters qualify, for different reasons.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Constantly preaches this to Hannah to ensure his past self's demise, especially in the show. Ironically, he falls victim to this himself when his actions only encourage her to go through with saving Danny.
