This page is for characters from Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five Series.
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The Five
In General
- Action Survivor: They all start up as normal teenagers (all things considered given their situation) thrown headfirst into a living nightmare, and adapt into a powerful badass.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: After all is said and done, they have the choice of remaining on the Physical Plane to help restore the world or to depart to the Dream Land forever. They all chose the former millennia ago and the latter in the end.
- Badass Adorable: All of them are small and quite handsome for their age, and wield enormous powers.
- A Child Shall Lead Them: Unfortunately. An unusual example, in that all the adults automatically accept this and are more worried about getting them in the right place at the right time rather than their safety.
- The Chosen One: All of them were born to defeat the Old Ones.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The four boys had to grow up early, parentless, ostracized and abused, with Matt and Pedro losing their family at a young age and the twins never knowing them. Pedro lived in squalor in the slums as a Street Urchin stealing to survive. The twins fell from one abusive caretaker to another and were exploited in lousy Phony Psychic shows. Matt was abused by wretched relatives who squandered his inheritance and fell under the thumb of a thug.
- Dream Walker: They can all gather in the Dream Land, where they can talk no matter the distance and language barriers, see omens of what to come, and when they get the ropes of their powers, visit the Magical Library where everything of the past, present and future is compiled.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: A take on this trope, which fits since they're in a horror series. However, only Matt is straight-up Caucasian. The others are Native American, Peruvian, or Chinese. It is noted that Scott is deathly pale after coming back from Nightrise's torture sessions, though.
- Eternal Recurrence: It's unknown if they will always be reborn, but they do reincarnate at least once at either end of 10,000 years. It's implied that they're a measure meant to defeat the Old Ones, so if the Old Ones aren't coming back, then neither will they.
- Five-Token Band: They come from all over the world, and are all from a different ethnical origin (save for the twins obviously).
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Their past selves sure did.
- How Do I Shot Web?: All of them struggle with their powers for about the duration of the book introducing them, before getting the hang of it.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Does it ever. They all spend time being orphans, beaten, abused, and stuck in horror hellscapes because of it.
- Kid Hero: They are all minors saving the world.
- Magic Knight: Each of their past selves fought with a Cool Sword implied to be a Magical Weapon, in addition to their powers. And they were all top-tier fighters. Jamie's past self called his own "Frost". They kill the Big Bad with them.
- Orphan's Ordeal: Except for Matt (so far as we know), none of them know their biological parents. Scarlett was adopted from China, Pedro was a street kid in Peru, and the Tyler twins were found in a box on the side of the road.
- Physical God: All of them are much more than mere supernaturally gifted children. They come from the Dream Land, implied to be linked to the Heavens, can reincarnate in an Eternal Recurrence, are all but stated to be of divine origin, and have the potential to transcend mortality far and beyond. To top it off, they are the in-universe inspiration for central deities in the Mythology of their culture of origin.
- Reincarnation: All of them were born 10,000 years in the past and stopped the Old Ones then too.
- Resurrective Immortality: A variant. Past!Matt reveals in Nightrise that if one of them is killed in either life, their counterpart will replace them in short order. What will be really bad is if both versions get killed.
- Shrouded in Myth: Each one of them inspired a major deity, the respective patron of humanity in their separate cultures.
- Matt is never explicitely described, but he is all but stated to be Jesus Christ himself. Down to the willing sacrifice to save humanity. Apologies for aiming so low.
- Pedro is Manco Capac, son of the Top God Viracocha and founder of the Incan Empire. His previous life went by Inti, the name of the Incan Sun God.
- Jamie and Scott are Sapling and Flint, also named Ioskeha and Tawiscara. They are the twin sons of the Sky Woman Ataentsic of Iroquois Mythology, and creators of humanity. The first is the god of day and summer, protector of the people, and the other is the god of night and winter, sometimes a Trickster God, sometimes malevolent, hinting at Scott's betrayal. This duality being the reason of humanity's propensity for good and bad.
- Scarlett is Lin Moniang, a shamaness deified as Mazu or Ma-Tsu, Chinese Goddess of the Sea and grandmother of humanity.
- Superpower Lottery: Their power sets might be pretty standards in supernatural fiction, but the full extent of how they can use them makes it crystal clear that they won it big time.
- Matt - Mind over Matter and Seeing The Future
- Pedro - Healing Hands
- Scott and Jamie - Telepathy and Mind Control
- Scarlett - Weather Manipulation
- Translator Microbes: When they're in the dreamworld (or in Jamie's case, in the past), they can understand each other perfectly despite Pedro's language barrier.
- Troubled, but Cute: All of the boys. Averted with Scarlett who grew up with a distant but loving father away from major troubles.
- True Companions: Played straight for their past lives, played with for their current existence. Matt, Pedro, Jamie and Scarlett become this, but Scott is too broken and distrustful to open up to them. The Old Ones count on this, driving a wedge between him and the others.
Matthew "Matt" J. Freeman
The main character of books 1, 2, 4, and 5. The Hero and Leader of the Five.
- Adaptational Badass: His Pentagram counterpart, Martin Hopkins, took much more time to master his powers and spent most of the story as an Action Survivor. Matt, by contrast, is a powerhouse by the end of the second book.
- All-Loving Hero: He can bear a grudge as much as any teenager who got through what he had to survive, but there is not a speck of real animosity in him.
- Because Destiny Says So: He first fights the trope with all he has, being understandably reluctant to bear such a cross. But after he reads the book of his life in the Dream World, he acts exactly as was foretold.
- Big Damn Hero: His past self and Scott, right in the Final Battle against Chaos.
- The Chessmaster: Ends up becoming the best in the story, granted with help from the Magical Library in the Dream Land. And the competition is high level.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The more his power grows, the more he dishes them out.
- Diego Salamanda stood no chance against him and is disposed off more easily that his Mooks.
- The Fire Riders, the Big Bad's formidable Praetorian Guard are wrecked in five seconds flat by his past self. To add insult to injury, their swords are used to finish off said Big Bad.
- Delinquents: Starts as one due to Toxic Friend Influence. Of the Troubled, but Cute variety. It kickstarts the plot of the whole series by having the authorities placing him in a rehabilitating program, under the care of the oh so lovely Mrs. Deverill.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Noting that the already fabulously wealthy worshippers of the Old Ones are willing to enact The End of the World as We Know It just to have more and more utterly disgusts him.
Matt: "Hate is all you have."
- Genius Bruiser: Not only is he strong, athletic and immensely powerful, but he has a very good head on his shoulder and knows how to use it well.
- Hand Blast: At his most awesome, he can fire beams of pure, evil-smiting energy from his palms. Tapping from Pedro's power, he was able to severely wound Chaos, the local God of Evil himself.
- The graphic novel adaptation makes it even more awesome, depicting him blasting each and every Old Ones with divine lightning.
- The Hero: The leader of the Gatekeepers, who plays a part in all five books.
- Hunk: A junior exemple, lithe and athletic, well on his way to become one. Had he lived long enough.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Marking his status as The Hero.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Becomes best friends with Richard Cole, a few years shy of being twice his age.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Man, doesn't it. He probably has more suffering associated with this than anyone else, getting adopted by a coven of witches, beaten and tortured for his special status multiple times, and personally punched out by the King of the Old Ones. And that's just the first two books!
- The Leader: Every other Gatekeeper defer to him and look up for him.
- Meaningful Name: He's called Freeman and he fights for humanity's freedom. Subtle. Really subtle.
- His Pentagram original counterpart was also this, Martin Hopkins being humanity's best hope, but less blatantly so.
- Messianic Archetype: The deity he is modelled after is all but stated to be the big J himself. And true to form, he is willing to suffer for humanity's salvation from Evil. Down to the "dies to save the world and returns after before leaving the Physical Plane" part.
- Mind over Matter: His main power. It has subtle uses, but usually manifests as the ability to destroy anything he looks at.
- Mythology Gag: He uses his Pentagram counterpart's name as an alias to travel.
- Orphan's Ordeal: His parents die when he's a toddler and he's stuck in various abusive situations until he starts living with Richard.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Wrecks a power plant without mastering his powers, then becomes able to crush huge trucks. At the end, he can tear apart a landmass without breaking a sweat.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: He leads the Gatekeepers and is the most powerful among them.
- Seers: Has this ability too, with visions of things to come. Eventually he just reads the story of his life in the dreamworld to know what move to make.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Repeatedly described as such (for a fourteen-year-old).
- Took a Level in Badass: Starts the story as a normal teenager, ends it as an Uber powerful Physical God.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: What he becomes once he assumes his role as The Chosen One.
Pedro
A street orphan from Lima, Peru. He was taken care of by an adult in exchange for a cut of the goods he stole, and tried to steal Matt's watch when he arrived in Peru. The two gradually realized they were connected, and became firm allies by the end of Book 2.
- Adaptational Wimp: Much less proactive in book 2 and 3 than his Pentagram counterpart, who dealt with the Big Bad of the former, and welcomed Scott's counterpart in the past in Scarlett's place. Gloriously averted in the final book, which shows him at his best.
- Big Damn Hero: Saves Matt from Captain Rodriguez and his bunch of Dirty Cops.
- Brats with Slingshots: Pedro has one to hold his own in his crime-ridden city, and he is positively fearsome with that in hand.
- Combat Medic: His main power is to heal, but he can and will fight, and even win when things get ugly.
- Dashing Hispanic: After his Street Urchin days. He is good looking for his age, brave, resourceful and a badass who has lived in Peru.
- Five-Finger Discount: Did this on the streets, in addition to being a busker.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Starts wary of Matt, knowing that the boy is about to wreck the relatively normal life he has, but the ordeals they share make them grow very close.
- Give Me Back My Wallet: Finds himself in this situation when Matt wakes up and finds him with his hands in his pockets. He tries to weasel his way out claiming he just wanted to help, but Matt cares more about solving his problems and he soon helps for real.
- Healing Hands: His power. Wounds, diseases, comas, nothing resists him. Sadly, he can restore a broken mind but cannot erase mental scars.
- The Heart: Since his powers have the least combat application and they're often separated by a language barrier, Pedro is mostly useful as either support or an extra opinion. Doesn't mean he should be underestimated.
- Impossible Thief: He can perform impressive feats, especially in the last book.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: He can take down three armed cops with a stone to the head. With a slingshot.
- Improvisational Ingenuity: Very good at finding a way out of any dangerous situation, even in places he never visited, by adapting and improvising.
- The Lancer: Shares this role with Jamie. Pedro is the Gatekeeper who gets along the best with Matt and has been by his side the longest.
- Language Barrier: Pedro is the only one who does not speak English, which complicates his adventures with Matt right after meeting him. Comes the fourth book, he masters the basics.
- Pauper Patches: Pedro is introduced clad in dirty rags, as expected from a Street Urchin.
- Percussive Pickpocket: How he usually operates.
- Really Royalty Reveal: He is the reincarnation and heir to Manco Capac, making him the heir to the throne of the not-so extinct Incan Empire. Though he never gets to sit on the throne.
- Royal Blood: Related to the trope right above.
- Satisfied Street Rat: Understandably downplayed. He is far from happy surviving through theft in squalor, but that's all he has and he does not want it wrecked. Sadly for you Pedro, The Call Knows Where You Live.
- Street Smart: Exceptionally so. He manages to escape an Old Ones prison with this alone.
- Street Urchin: He lived homeless, under the protection of a gang of orphans.
- Undying Loyalty: Quickly develops this for Matt, to his own astonishment. Justified in that he recognized him as one of the Five.
Jamie Tyler
The twin of Scott Tyler, and the second POV character of the Five. Introduced in Book 3. Partway through it, he ends up taking a visit to the past when the Five banished the Old Ones for the first time.
- Adaptational Diversity: Jamie and Scott are Native Americans. Their Pentagram counterparts, Nicholas and Jeremy Helsey were Caucasian Americans.
- Deuteragonist: Receives the most POV chapters of the Five apart from Matt.
- Instant Expert: When travelling to the past, he instantly master horse-riding and swordsmanship much to his surprise. Justified in that his past self was an expert and the skills he had become his own.
- The Lancer: Shares this role with Pedro, being the deuteragonist and the ones who goes with Matt to Hong Kong.
- Magical Native American: Is Native American, and has magic powers, but doesn't really fulfill the trope otherwise. It's implied he and his twin are the reincarnations of some Native American mythological figures, though.
- Mind Control: He can make people do what he wants. Such power don't come in handy in battle (until he starts ordering foes to stand still and/or off themlseves), but help him escape danger a number of times. It's also part of why Nightrise wants the twins, since telepathy leaves no paper trail.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: He agrees wholeheartedly.
- Mythology Gag: He uses his Pentagram counterpart's name, Nicholas Helsey, as an alias to travel.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: The most optimistic and outgoing of the twins, contrasting the more headstrong and brooding Scott.
- Translator Microbes: Has these in the past. Hears an ancient language, but it processes as English. And vice-versa.
- Telepathy: Don't try hiding anything from him.
- Twin Telepathy: It's just telepathy, actually, but they pretend it's this for their stage act.
Scott Tyler
The twin of Jamie Tyler. Introduced in Book 3, he's quickly kidnapped by Nightrise and serves as the impetus for most of the plot. After being freed, he joins the Five properly and tries to process his trauma.
- Accidental Murder: Told an abrasive foster father that he could "go hang himself." Although he knew they had powers at the time, he probably didn't know that would actually work.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Scott is notably more callous and jaded than his Pentagram counterpart. While he was made Brainwashed and Crazy, Jeremy Helsey befriended Martin Hopkins between Book 3 and 4, while Scott could not trust Matt, and would have been unlikely to make a Face–Heel Turn.
- Adaptational Diversity: Scott and Jamie are Native Americans. Their Pentagram counterparts, Jeremy and Nicholas Helsey were Caucasian Americans.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Not evil, but apathetic. Played straight in Oblivion, as the lasting trauma from it leads in no small part to his Face–Heel Turn.
- Big Brother Instinct: Was consistently the older brother to Jamie. Their plot starts because Scott lets himself get captured so Jamie can escape.
- Big Damn Hero: His past self and Matt's appear right on time to defeat the Big Bad once and for all.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: While there's no bonesaws or pliers, it's shown that the mix of sleep deprivation, drugging, and conditioning he was sentenced to are traumatizing nonetheless.
- The Corruptible: His atrocious childhood, resentment and craving for a better life, not to mention the trauma of the Cold-Blooded Torture he endured and the prospect of yet another round, make him a target to Jonas Mortlake's honeyed words and promises of prosperity.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He's Native American, but is deathly pale after being deprived of solid food and sunlight by Nightrise.
- Empty Shell: Jamie bemoans at the start of Nightrise that he is becoming this, closing himself from the world little by litte.
- He is reduced to this after his stay in Susan Mortlake's clutches. Pedro's Healing Hands restore him, but cannot erase the trauma.
- Face–Heel Turn: He's talked into joining Nightrise in Oblivion, betraying Pedro then Matt.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- He lets himself get captured at the start of the third novel, to give his brother a chance to escape.
- He breaks the seal on the gates enabling the Five to teleport across the globe and turn the table of the Final Battle, knowing full well that this is a death warrant.
- Magical Native American: Is Native American, and has magic powers, but doesn't really fulfill the trope otherwise. It's implied he and his twin are the reincarnations of some Native American mythological figures, though.
- Mind Control: He can make people do what he wants. Such power don't come in handy in battle (until he starts ordering foes to stand still and/or off themlseves), but help him escape danger a number of times. It's also part of why Nightrise wants the twins, since telepathy leaves no paper trail.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Another factor of his cynical outlook.
- More than Mind Control: Is subjected to this by Nightrise. A mix of drugs and sleep deprivation make him miserable enough to do whatever they say.
- Race Lift: Goes hand in hand with Adaptational Diversity above.
- Redemption Equals Death: Justified as he choses to atone with a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Was tortured, subjected to Mind Rape, and used as a living weapon. Understandably, this made quite a nasty number on the poor kid's sanity.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: The most headstrong and brooding of the twins, contrasting the more optimistic and outgoing Jamie.
- Telepathy: Don't try hiding things from him.
- Twin Telepathy: It's just telepathy, actually, but they pretend it's this for their stage act.
Scarlett Adams
The only girl in the Five, and the one with the closest to a normal life. Born in China, she was adopted by a British couple and was raised in the UK. At fourteen years old, however, her dad - an employee of Nightrise - was pressured to bring her to Hong Kong to meet his bosses, and things went downhill from there.
- Alone with the Psycho: Suffers this multiple times. First, when she accidentally goes through a door and ends up in a monastery that worships the Old Ones. Secondly, when she travels to Hong Kong and gradually discovers how much of it has been co-opted by the Old Ones.
- Blow You Away: By virtue of controlling the weather, she can and does command winds.
- Connected All Along: When they try to reach her at home, Matt discovers she lives on the same street that he did with his biological parents. They would've grown up together if they hadn't died.
- Gender Flip: Scarlett's Pentagram counterpart was a boy named Will Tyler.
- An Ice Person: She can stir up blizzard storms.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Being able to trigger thunderstorms, blizzards and typhoons automatically makes her this. In fact, she is doubtless the second most powerful of the Five.
- The Smurfette Principle: The only girl among the Five.
- The Team Normal: Played with, for she is as powerful as the others if not more, but she led a completely normal life before her fateful trip to Hong Kong.
- Weather Manipulation: Her power. She spends most of Necropolis unconsciously revving up a typhoon that decimates Hong Kong, and uses it on other occasions as needed.
Allies
Richard Cole
A local journalist that Matt meets when he's trying to escape Lesser Malling. A thoroughly normal man, Richard ends up accompanying Matt around the world and serving as his unofficial guardian. It's implied by the Incas that he has a special destiny waiting.
- Action Survivor: Survives all sorts of supernatural bull (a dinosaur museum coming to life and attacking him is just one example) with no powers whatsoever. Subverted in Necropolis when he learns how to use a gun and just starts shooting his problems instead.
- Adaptational Personality Change: In Pentagram, Richard was more comedically bumbling, and a bit of a Butt-Monkey. This one is more serious and mature.
- Audience Surrogate: Often asks the questions the viewers have about how all the magic works.
- Big Brother Instinct: Since he and Matt are only ten or so years apart, their relationship can feel like this.
- Heartbroken Badass: A platonic variety. When he's forced to kill Matt to save the world, he's devastated.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: While he's Matt's legal guardian in the UK, Matt points out that he's not a very good parent, and their relationship is more akin to brothers than anything else.
- Intergenerational Friendship: He is eleven years older than the kid who becomes his closest friend.
- Muggle Best Friend: Matt's closest friend and devoid of powers.
- Perma-Stubble: Gets this when he stops to shave.
- Skeptic No Longer: He adamantly refused to believe Matt the first time they met, and got thrown headfirst into adventures against a cult, Hellhounds, Wicked Witches, and straight up, world threatening Eldritch Abominations. So of course he starts believing in supernatural stuff, much to his surprise.
- Team Dad: He looks after the Kid Heroes.
- Took a Level in Badass: Learns to use a gun when things got really ugly, and he can use it well.
Professor Chambers
Lohan Shan-Tung
A footsoldier for the Hong Kong Triads, and son of its strongest leader. Lohan is a merciless killer who will do anything to fulfill his father's commands. While a bit surprised by the supernatural tilt, he adapts quickly and proves a vital ally to Scarlett and Matt.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Has a scar running over the front of his mouth. He got it saving his father from an assassination attempt when he was a child.
- Token Evil Teammate: Is probably the most amoral ally the Five and co. make. It's bad enough that he can pretend to sell Matt into slavery and fool the reader for a few pages.
- Undying Loyalty: Would never disobey his father, and thus continues to protect the Five even when he might be better-suited elsewhere. Subverted in Oblivion. After being enslaved alongside Matt, he gets fed up enough to abandon him, and Matt has to hold him back with his powers to stop him from leaving.
Holly
A sixteen-year-old girl who lived in a remote village in the English countryside, after the Old Ones revealed themselves. She befriends Jamie and goes with him through the final journey and the Final Battle.
- Action Survivor: She lived in harsh conditions, but was not prepared to live such hardship. Nevertheless, she did adapt very well.
- Badass Normal: No powers, but she makes it up for sheer nerves and survivor skills.
- Fire-Forged Friend: Nothing like running for dear life away from worshippers of evil to develop fast and true bonds.
- The Gunslinger: Becomes quite handy with a gun.
- Implied Love Interest: Holly grows very close to Jamie.
- Meaningful Name: A sweet and nice girl with a name implying just that.
- Muggle Best Friend: To Jamie.
- Narrator All Along: The Distant Finale reveals that she wrote the series for posterity, as a tribute to the Five-Man Band. They spoke to her in the Dream Land to tell her everything.
- Nerves of Steel: Holly is remarkably stoic in the face of all horrors and dangers she sees. While frightened, she keeps calm when facing building-sized, nightmarish spider of the Old Ones. And facing the unfathomable, Eldritch Abomination slash God of Evil slash Big Bad, she empties her gun on him.
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: No-one would let her forget that she shot the Devil himself, even in her old age. She does not want to speak about it though, due to the painful memories.
- Tagalong Kid: A special example who is the same age as the heroes. Physically at least, for they were sent ten years into the future while she grew up normally, making her younger still. While she is a (relatively) normal kid who gets roped in their adventures, she adapts enough to become a noteworthy Badass Normal.
- The Team Normal: She and Richard are the closest to the Five, and have no powers.
Followers of the Old Ones
The Citizens of Lesser Malling
Mrs. Deverill
The kindly old woman who becomes Matt's guardian in Raven's Gate.- Dragon Their Feet: She is fought after her boss is taken down.
- Evil Old Folks: Old and heartless.
- Final Boss: The last enemy faced in the first book.
- Older Than She Looks: Has a portrait of an "ancestor" that looks exactly like her.
- Wicked Witch: A textbook case, albeit in a moder setting.
Noah
- The Big Guy: Of the Leatherface, Deliverance variety.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Falls into a booby trap set by Matt and impales himself on his own sickle.
Asmodeus
Mrs. Deverill's cat. Apparently not what he seems.
- Cats Are Magic: This one is, reeking of The Dark Arts from miles around.
- Cats Are Mean: Oh so very much.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: He returns as if nothing happened after being shot down. Much worse, he is implied to be fully immortal.
- Familiar: He is this to Jayne Deverill, a textbook case of a Wicked Witch. He is heavily implied to be a demon in the shape of a cat.
Diego Salamanda
A Peruvian businessman who works for the Old Ones. In Evil Star he's invested in a TV satellite with a very special purpose.
- Asshole Victim: No one regrets him, even Messianic Archetype Matt treats his death as an afterthought.
- Bald of Evil: He is completely bald.
- Big Bad: Of the second book.
- Body Horror: He was subjected to this as a baby, as was done to special children in ancient tradition, resulting in an awfully elongated and distorted head.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The richest man in Peru who openly owns the police and most of the government, who is actively trying to free the local batch of Eldritch Abominations and succeed.
- Facial Horror: Has a distorted head due to undergoing artificial cranial deformation, which has happened historically in the Americas.
- Greed: Matt calls him out about serving the Old Ones while he already has everything anyone could dream of. In his view, "there is no such thing as enough". Lovely.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Matt inadvertantly kills him by deflecting away his bullets, with two of them striking him.
- Too Dumb to Live: Sure Diego, keep firing your gun at the highly powerful telekinetic boy you just saw tear your truck like cardboard and deviate your first bullets like nothing. Sure it won't backfire in the least! Except that it does, figuratively and literally.
Susan Mortlake
A member of Nightrise's board of directors who takes it upon herself to direct the Tyler twins project.
- Adaptational Abomination: Reversed. Her Pentagram counterpart, Evelyn Carnitt, was a disguise for no less than the Queen of the Old Ones. Here, she is a normal human.
- Adaptational Wimp: From the second-in-command and doubtless the second mightiest of the Old Ones, to an elderly human woman.
- Asshole Victim: No one sheds a tear when she gets killed.
- Evil Old Folks: She is way past her prime and rotten to the core.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: She wanted her target to be shot by a mind-controlled bodyguard, but the only ne who gets shot is her.
- More than Mind Control: She know how to break a mind.
- Torture Technician: She does not need any tool to do it.
Colton Banes
An enforcer for Nightrise assigned to capture the Tyler twins.
- Bald of Evil: No hair no heart.
- Disc-One Final Boss: He dies long before the end of the book.
- Domestic Abuser: Implied. Jamie reads his mind and sees a young lady lying on a bed full of bruises and needlemarks. Whether it's a wife, a daughter, or simply a visiting prostitute, it doesn't say anything good about Banes.
- Hate Sink: A malicious, monstrous man who kills people because he enjoys it. His death halfway through the book is very welcome.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Jamie finds it a profoundly disturbing experience, and hesitates to even try it because he knows how awful it will be.
- Sadist: Enjoys hurting and killing people. Took the job with Nightrise because it would let him keep doing that. Even kills his partner without hesitation right there in the office with minimal prompting.
The Old Ones
In General
- Animalistic Abomination: The four hugest and mightiest ones under Chaos himself are this. They are described as too awful even for the worst nightmare, and hinted that such aspect is a case of You Cannot Grasp the True Form.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Their giant beasts tower over buildings.
- Eldritch Abomination: Otherworldly, hardly conceivable creatures, directly inspired from Lovecraft. The higher they rank, the more hideous and eldrich they are. It is hinted their aspect is only as close as what a mind can process. Their origin is unknown, but they glory in destroying the Earth and its people.
- Elite Mooks: The lords, who march alongside Chaos.
- For the Evulz: It's noted that they don't want to just kill humanity, they want it to suffer before and feed from it. Even in the first war, where they had completely subjugated the planet, they were just enslaving and torturing them.
- Greater-Scope Villain: They are the ultimate evil of the setting and the overall main villains, but they play this role in the first four books, letting their corrupt human followers do the work.
- The Horde: Apart from the beasts, Fire Walkers, and lords, there's a cavalcade of regular monsters just waiting to make trouble.
- Humanoid Abomination: The thirteen Fire Walkers, the third most powerful kind of Old Ones behind the Giant Beasts and Praetorian Guard to Chaos himself. They are clad in robes and hoods, but what's under is never displayed, most likely for the best. Provided they really look like it or this is just an approximation of the mind.
- Mundane Horror: Most of its giant beasts aren't scary animals. They're hummingbirds and monkeys and condors. This only makes their disgusting and chaotic appearances worse.
- Playing with Fire: The Fire Riders can do this, turning people to ash with a touch.
- Pragmatic Villainy: They love enslaving humanity, but are willing to wait and strategize to get the maximum results.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: In both wars, they place the people who defected to them on the frontlines of the battle, naked and with limbs replaced with crude blades.
- They clearly don't do this with all their servants, though, considering they need some to run their enterprises and businesses.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: They've been imprisoned in another dimension for 10,000 years. There are two points of entry - the spot in England where they were first sealed away, and the Nazca Lines in Peru, where a weak point in the dimension exists.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The weakest one are little more than powerful monsters, if more twisted than usual, but the higher they rank in their hierarchy, the more eldritch and powerful they become. From bottom to top, mutated human slaves, demonic knights, shape changers, Fire Riders, the Beasts of Nazca, and finally the Big Bad himself Chaos.
Chaos
The king of the Old Ones. A being so violent that he is faceless, and only takes the vaguest shape of a man. Doesn't actually have a name; Chaos is just what humans call him.
- Big Bad: Oh yes. Everything bad that happens in the story and happened throughout History as we know it can be traced back to him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: As cunning as he is, it is quite clear that he can only understand the flaws of humanity. The fact that people would realize that the wealth he offers would be meaningless in a ruined world or the mere concept of "honor" flies miles over his head.
- Evil Overlord: A world-threatening example, on par with the first one.
- Expy: His normal aspect is that of a mountain-dwarfing, vaguely human-like being, described as too huge to be fully seen and too atrocious and twisted to be fully concieved, quite like Cthulthu.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: He prefers to appear under a "humanoid" form resembling a Black Knight. He is no less eldritch under this shape though, being described as a living black hole cutting his way through the very fabric of reality and absorbing everything around.
- Genre Savvy: Knows that the Five can defeat him, so he simply refuses to come out unless he thinks one of them is dead.
- God of Evil: To the point that every Demon God and Devil-like figure in Mythology is stated to be indirectly inspired by him.
- Humanoid Abomination: He is a full-fledged Eldritch Abomination, but his favourite form is this, as described above.
- Logical Weakness: For all his power, he can be defeated if the Five are ever united in the same place.
- Orcus on His Throne: Is trapped for the first two books, but then spends most of three and four off-screen. It's stated that this is deliberate. If mankind learned it was under attack by a single enemy, they'd be more likely to unite against it.
- The Nameless: Chaos is just a name the people of Earth gave him. It's unknown if he has a name or prefers to go by one.
- Rule of Symbolism: The evil and plagues he inflicts on the world are all very real and happening (and worsening) as years go by. Plagues, strife, misery, dictatorship, global warming, and so on and so forth. Reading the story is as much a leisure than a warning.
- Satanic Archetype: The King of Demons who influences the world from afar and is worshipped by Evil Sorcerers and Wicked Witches all around, trying to enter the Earthly Planes to bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
- Underestimating Badassery: Chaos knows that the Five can defeat him, he remembers that they defeated him once. Yet he cannot fathom the prospect of them defeating him again. And predictably...
- He thought that Matt alone, even with Pedro's backing him up, was not enough. So he was taken by surprise when their combined power handed him over his ass on a silver platter.
- Xanatos Gambit: Plays these when he's freed. Instead of coming out openly, he seeds a series of natural disasters, civil wars, and corrupt governments across the globe so that no matter what happens, someone is suffering somewhere. Since the Old Ones want humanity to suffer, not just die, there's no point in just killing them.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Chaos is explicitely described as too unfathomable for a human mind to process, with the few details that witnesses can grasp being likely a mere approximation, right before he assumes his Humanoid Abomination aspect.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: His way of dealing with any human greedy enough to serve him, crushing one who devoted his entire life to bring him back as soon as he was in a position to do so, and atrociously mutating his followers once he is done with them.
