Characters / The Umbrella Academy (2019) - Klaus Hargreeves

Klaus Hargreeves / Number Four

Portrayed By: Robert Sheehan, Dante Albidone (young Klaus)

"Eternal peace is probably overrated."

The fourth child to be adopted into the Umbrella Academy. He can talk to the dead and turned to heavy substance abuse as a way of coping.

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A-H

• Achilles in His Tent: In season 3, Klaus is betrayed by Reginald and left to die in the collapsing ruins of the Hotel Obsidian; though he manages to escape being absorbed by the Kugelblitz by killing himself, he has no desire to return to the land of the living this time around, preferring to spend eternity watching documentaries and eating pizza with Luther. However, after Luther realizes that they've died, he is eventually able to browbeat Klaus into returning from the dead to he can go to the aid of his siblings at the Hotel Oblivion. In the process, he's able to bring Luther back into corporeal existence just long enough to help defeat the last of the guardians and save the day.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services: As a part of his Establishing Character Moment in the pilot, after being revived in the back of an ambulance, he's shown high-fiving the paramedic in a familiar enough manner for the audience to realize this isn't the first time they've met. The man's "yep, see you soon enough" expression just confirms it.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In the comics he had Telekinesis including the ability to levitate himself as well as being able to contact the dead. The second season makes a nod to this: at one point, Klaus is seen levitating, but it's just Ben (whom he is at this point able to render tangible) lifting him up.
• Adaptational Wimp: In Apocalypse Suite, he's the most crucial component in stopping the White Violin. Likewise, in Dallas, he singlehandedly defeats Hazel and Cha-Cha. In the show, he doesn't do either, stays out of most fights, and outright lacks his powerful telekinetic abilities from the comic. He can manifest the dead in a tangible form, giving him an approximation of said telekinesis, but it takes him a long time to master this ability.
• Addled Addict: At his lowest points of drug abuse, Klaus is barely functional. During one particularly important conversation towards the end of the first season, all he can do is stare straight ahead and mumble that his skin's on fire; later, at the rave, he's reduced to crawling around on the floor in a desperate attempt to rescue a stray pill before one of the revelers accidentally step on it. And then there's the fact that he's apparently overdosed so many times, local paramedics know him well enough to return his high-fives after resuscitating him, as his Establishing Character Moment demonstrates.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • "Vanny" to Viktor, prior to his transition.
  • "Benarino" to Ben.
• The Alcoholic: While drugs are his primary vice, he's also a very heavy drinker, and can often be seen helping himself to whatever booze he can find when pills aren't available. After falling from the wagon in Season 2, he is seen drinking frequently.
• Ambiguous Criminal History: He admits having gone to jail at least once, but doesn't give any details. Considering his drug addiction and his habit of stealing stuff to fuel it, it's not that surprising.
• Amusing Injuries:
  • At one point in childhood, Klaus had to get his jaw wired shut after running about in Grace's heels and falling down the stairs. The memory of this is too funny for Diego not to crack up at, especially because it kept him quiet for the next eight weeks.
  • In "Run Boy Run", Klaus breaks a snow globe against his head in order to use his injuries to blackmail the doctor into giving them information. The scene is played for humor.
  • In "Extra Ordinary", he mentions that he once waxed his ass with chocolate pudding and that it hurt a lot. Even Five, who has been all-business since he arrived from the future, cracks a smile and can be seen shaking his head fondly at his brother's antics.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Tells Dave that he loves him while trying to dissuade him from enlisting.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Despite all of them being the same age (with the exception of Five), Klaus is this to his siblings with his general immaturity, joking attitude, and carelessness. Biologically Averted after Klaus' time travel to Vietnam, and being the first of the living siblings to land in the 1960s, making him the second-oldest (and physically the oldest) of the siblings.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite knowing that Klaus's power set revolves around speaking with the dead, his siblings repeatedly refuse to believe him on such things as being unable to communicate with Ben and later, their father. However, this could be less them doubting his powers and just doubting Klaus, considering his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies and general inability to take anything seriously in the past.
• Attention Whore: Has some shades of this but lines from other characters imply that Klaus was this full force in his younger years, or at least their perception of him was. In Season 2, however, this tendency gets out of control when he decides to form a cult.
• Back from the Dead: Season 3 reveals that he has the power to come back from the dead, seen when he gets shot through the chest with a harpoon.
• Backup from Otherworld:
  • Late in season 1, Klaus finds out he can channel spirits to take on semi-corporeal forms in the real world when Ben smacks him in the face for his refusal to remain sober, and he later summons him in the final confrontation between the Academy and the Commission. Ben makes quick work of every single Mook and turns the battle in their favor.
  • Happens again in season 3, this time with the recently-murdered Luther, who is brought into corporeal existence just long enough to help defeat the last of the Hotel Obsidian's guardians.
• Battle Couple: He fought alongside his lover Dave at the Vietnam War in the fronts.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Klaus might seem to be a ridiculously annoying, spaced-out junkie with Useless Superpowers and no interest in taking anything seriously... and in many ways, he is. However, Klaus still went through the same training as the rest of his siblings, and once he's sobered up he can actually be a pretty effective combatant: at one point, he manages to duck a punch from a much bigger man and knock him down with a headbutt. Later, he actually goes into battle wielding a stolen birthday cake against the Commission's henchmen — and successfully manages to bring one of them down! Not to mention enduring TEN hours of torture, including strangulation and waterboarding, without giving up his brother Five. Plus, in conjunction with Ben's ghost, his powers are extremely effective in wiping out the Commission's goons.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • In the first episode, he throws an arm out in front of Five to protect him from Luther and Diego's fight. However, because Five is a 58-year-old trapped in a 13-year-old boy's body, you can tell he is insulted by this from how he slaps Klaus's arm away.
  • Towards Viktor at the end of "Changes", when Luther locks him up in a soundproof room after they discover that he has powers. As someone whom Reginald also trapped in cold, dark spaces, Klaus understandably gets angry at Luther's actions, pointing out that Viktor must be scared out of his mind and that they need to be there to help him.
  • In "The Swedish Job", he rushes to get Allison to leave the riot after seeing police cars.
  • At the end of season 3, when a powerless and recently-resurrected Luther goes off to look for Sloane in a new universe, Klaus goes after him out of worry.
• Bilingual Bonus: Klaus has a big tattoo with Thai letters on his stomach. It says "UA Klaus loves David."
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Klaus did not form a cult because that implies too many negative connotations, it's an alternative spiritual community.
• Blessed with Suck: It's all but stated that the reason Klaus keeps himself high all the time is because it helps block out the constant stream of the voices of the dead.
• Break the Comedian: Easily one of the most light-hearted members of the team, and can often be found clowning around, usually while getting shitfaced on whatever he can find. However, his accidental trip through time changes him dramatically: he returns wearing dog-tags, a shell-shocked expression, and blood on his knuckles, and barely manages to take three steps before breaking down in tears. Turns out he'd spent a year in the Vietnam War, fell in love and saw his lover die in battle before being returned to 2019. He's clearly grappling with PTSD from here on, and spends much of the episode in a very quiet mood — even assaulting someone in a fit of rage when they interrupt his period of mourning. It's not until he finally manages to completely detoxify himself that he recovers his trademark wit.
• Break the Cutie:
  • As a child, Klaus was shown to be very nurturing and caring. However, his father's abuse led him to developing a drug addiction. Throughout the series, he is tortured by Hazel and Cha Cha, including being water boarded, strangled, and beaten for 10 hours straight, has his lover Dave die in his arms, suffers from PTSD flashbacks, forced withdrawal, and is killed. He almost breaks down twice, with the trope being averted both times.
  • The trope is averted the first time when Diego realizes something is wrong with Klaus and prevents him from taking drugs and getting beaten up in the VFW.
  • It's averted the second time when Klaus Took a Level in Badass and accidentally manifests Ben long enough for him to punch the drugs from Klaus's mouth in a scene played for humor.
  • It's then played straight in "A Light Supper", where he fails to stop Dave from enlisting and is rejected by him, resulting in a relapse after three years of sobriety.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • His Establishing Character Moment implies that overdosing and being revived by an EMT is a common occurrence to him.
  • He also cannot remember for the life of him who Jill is, despite having a threesome with her a few days ago.
• Butt-Monkey: No one tends to take him seriously, he's terrified of his own powers, he gets kidnapped and tortured by Hazel and Cha-Cha for 10 hours with none of his siblings noticing, accidentally time travels to the Vietnam War, tragically loses his lover Dave, gets choked by an angry and drunk Luther, and temporarily dies in a rave.
• Calling the Old Man Out: During his Near-Death Experience, he calls out his father for his abusive treatment of him and his siblings, calling Reginald a "sadistic prick".
• Camp Gay: He's extremely camp. Klaus likes wearing androgynous and feminine clothing, has a very swishy manner, and is the most emotional and overly dramatic of the brothers. Fittingly, he's also pansexual.
• The Cassandra: No one believes him about his conversations with Ben until he visibly manifests him in the finale, despite knowing he can talk to ghosts.
• Cassandra Truth: Even after showing Dave his dogtags, Dave thinks that Klaus is just trying to con him.
• Casting Gag: Robert Sheehan has acknowledged Klaus's similarity to Nathan Young, being a hedonistic, wisecracking delinquent junkie who gets the superpower of talking to the dead. Season 3 amps it up by revealing Klaus has (and always had, although he never realized) Resurrective Immortality, meaning Klaus now has exactly the same powerset as Nathan.
• Casual Kink: There are many references throughout the show to his inclination towards kinky stuff, most notably being tied up or strangled.
• Character Tics: Kissing inanimate objects, including his 30-day sobriety coin he gets from rehab during his Establishing Character Moment, the box that he steals from Sir Reginald's office, Dave's military badge when Klaus discovers their photo at the VFW bar, the pill at the rave before he discovers that Luther is in serious trouble; and, during the second season finale when he kisses Dave's dog tags thinking about Dave's fate (although not so much, since Dave had enlisted in a different military service from the original timeline).
• Cloudcuckoolander: The drugs seem to have taken their toll on him; he's easily the kookiest of the siblings, and can often be found saying and doing things that make absolutely no sense even for someone who can speak to the dead.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: His new ability of manifesting spirits into the real world only appears to happen in tense, life-threatening situations.
• Deadpan Snarker: Seems to come off like this the most.
  Number Five: Get up, we're going.
  Klaus: Where?
  Number Five: To save the world.
  Klaus: [beat] Oh, is that all?
• Distinguishing Mark: His palms have "Hello" and "Goodbye" tattooed on them. Allison is able to track him down in Season 2 by seeing a similar tattoo on one of his followers. In season 3, they're erased along with Klaus's powers.
• Driven to Suicide: After being backstabbed by Reginald by locking him out of Hotel Oblivion to be erased from reality by the kugelblitz, Klaus impales himself on a buffalo horn before it can reach him. Doing so was actually extremely smart of Klaus because by dying it guaranteed that he would return to the afterlife, which ultimately allowed him to bounce back later. Had he let the kugelblitz absorb him, it would have completely erased his existence.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Due to his drug addiction, flippant attitude, and general immaturity, nobody takes Klaus seriously, which is something he deeply resents them for. Even after trying to get sober and developing his powers, people still think that he's high or trying to be the center of attention. He almost relapses because of this, but is thankfully stopped by Ben.
• Dumbass Has a Point: As silly, immature, and inebriated as he is, Klaus can be remarkably insightful, and manages to successfully get under Five's skin by pointing out that he's an addict as well: he's fixated on stopping the apocalypse, he keeps pushing people away when they try to help him deal with it, he's in denial of his problems, and he doesn't know what to do with himself without the high. Despite his rage over this confrontation, Five seems to reluctantly concede that Klaus has a point.
• Entitled Bastard: Develops this attitude towards Ben during the three-year Time Skip in Season 2, expecting him to follow him around with no complaints because he's his "ghost bitch" and Ben depends on Klaus to become corporeal.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In Season 2, he lets his hair and beard grow, giving him a Looks Like Jesus appearance. He gets a haircut after reuniting with his family, indicating his attempts to move past his cult.
• Face Your Fears: When he was a kid, Reginald tried to invoke this by locking Klaus up in a mausoleum for hours on end so he could overcome his fear of the dead. Needless to say, it didn't work and in fact made it even worse, with Klaus developing PTSD and a drug addiction from the experience. When he's kidnapped by Hazel and Cha-Cha while being the most sober he has been since he was a teenager, he manages to interrogate his kidnappers' victims to create a rift between them. With Ben's coaxing, of course.
• Fatal Flaw: According to Reginald, cowardice. Klaus's powers are very great and he has barely scratched the surface of their true potential, but since he is afraid of what he might see, Klaus tries to keep himself inebriated so as to not have to deal with the consequences.
• Five-Finger Discount: Not above shoplifting in order to fuel his drug habit, and actually robs a pharmacy in the middle of a conversation between Luther and Five, much to their bemusement.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Klaus comes off like the Foolish Sibling the most, goofing off and getting high most of the time to the point where he tells Hazel and Cha-Cha that they kidnapped the wrong guy since his siblings wouldn't even realize he's missing. Even when he starts bringing Ben's body into the physical realm his siblings don't believe him. The Responsible Sibling role usually goes to Ben or Diego, to a lesser extent. Ironically, he's forced into the role of Responsible Sibling when the normally uptight Luther has a breakdown and starts acting like him.
• Four Is Death: Is the fourth member of the Academy, and his main power is the ability to commune with the dead.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Due to his addiction and humor, his siblings are particularly short and annoyed by him. Not that the other siblings are really all that friendly with each other, but still.
• Functional Addict: On his good days, Klaus can at least be partly useful so long as he gets his regular fix. All that goes out the window when he goes into withdrawal, though.
• Gene Hunting: In the third season he becomes interested in finding his birth mother, especially once he realizes she lives within "road-trip" distance. He eventually learns that she was an Amish woman who lived in rural Pennsylvania. It's how the group learns that they were never born in the new timeline.
• Gasshole: Lets out at least one loud belch each season after swallowing liquids (including mouthwash during the third season).
• Gold Digger: Charming a rich old lady whose Feet-First Introduction causes him to gasp at her Chanel stilettos becomes Klaus's bridge to running a fully fledged... alternative spiritual community. It's unknown if the relationship was ever really sexual, though he's shown happily fulfilling the role of the rich woman's arm candy so he can fund a more opulent lifestyle.
• Grand Theft Me: In Season 2, Ben tries to possess Klaus multiple times due to his frustations with Klaus's behaviour and his desire to be able to interact with the living world again. Understandibly, Klaus is freaked out by this development, with him going to the point of forcing himself to stay awake to make sure Ben doesn't take over his body. However, after having a Jerkass Realization over how he's been treating Ben over their years together, he finally relents, allowing Ben to possess his body for 30 minutes to experience being alive again and to talk to his crush Jill.
• Gratuitous German: Occasionally throws in German words in his dialogue for no obvious reason.
• Guile Hero: Spending years as a petty criminal, he has gotten good at running quick cons and talking his way out of situations. Halfway through the first season, he begins to figure out how the dead telling him their secrets can further help with this. He also figures out that Lila can only use one of their powers at a time.
• Guyliner: Wears this kind of makeup. Together with his wackiness, Klaus seems to channel Captain Sparrow; for good measure, it's the one part of his old apparel he never gives up, even after his time in Vietnam.
• The Heart: While it's implied that Ben was this before his death, Klaus has shades of this from time to time.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Completely breaks down after his time in the Vietnam War; after being transported back to the present, he barely manages to get off the bus before bursting into tears and smashing the briefcase in a fit of rage.
  • It happens twice in Season 2.First when a young Dave punches him by the urging of his homophobic uncle, which leads to a drinking spree. Then when he learns that Dave had already enlisted thanks to his intervention, leaving him shaken.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Doesn't think a lot of himself nor his abilities. When God straight up tells him that she doesn't like him, his response is "Yeah, me neither."
• Hidden Depths: Despite seemingly being a no-account druggie, he shows that he's capable of a great deal of caring, both for his siblings and for his deceased lover, Dave.
• Human Notepad: Has the words "Hello" and "Goodbye" written on his right and left hand respectively, like a walking Ouija board.
• Hydra Problem: When it's revealed that he can come back from the dead, Stan wonders if you could grow a second Klaus by cutting his head off.

I-Y

• Informed Attribute: Klaus makes an offhand comment in Season 2 that he may be extremely lactose intolerant.
• I See Dead People: His superpower. Deconstructed, as it messes him up psychologically, leading to him becoming a drug addict. Eventually, he gains the power to summon spirits to do his bidding.
• Improvised Weapon: In the season finale, he arms himself with a birthday cake against the Commission's assassins — and successfully K.O.s one of them with it.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: In the first episode, he steals Allison's skirt and claims that it's very breathy around "the bits". When coming out of the shower, he wraps his hair up in a towel and covers his upper-body with another towel. Also, according to Diego, he once borrowed a pair of Grace's heels and went clowning around the Academy in them — only to make the mistake of running down the stairs while wearing them, resulting in a broken jaw and eight weeks of silence. Viktor's book briefly mentions that Allison would paint his nails when they were children. After he returns from Vietnam, he's seen passing the time by knitting. More generally, he's also the most outwardly emotional of the six brothers. In Season 2, he happily dances with Viktor and Allison in the hairdressing shop and poses with them under the hair dryers.
• Intoxicated Superpower Snag: Klaus's ability to communicate with the dead is temporarily disabled by intoxication, so he spends most of his time getting high on anything within reach. As such, in situations when his powers might actually be useful for a change, he's forced to wait until the last of the drugs are out of his system before he can use the full extent of his abilities.
• It's All About Me: The attitude he takes in Season 2 that lead to him to creating a cult. Ben even outright calls him a narcissist.
• It's All My Fault: It's revealed in the last episode of Season 2 that Klaus believed that it was his fault that Ben is stuck as a ghost, due to Klaus conjuring him right after his funeral. Ben asks Viktor to tell Klaus that he chose to stay as ghost because he was afraid of going into the light.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In 1963, he returns to Dallas to stop Dave from enlisting in the army even though it would mean they'd never have met.
• Jerkass Realization: When despairing over feeling powerless to stop Dave from dying in the Vietnam War for a second time, Ben's "Not So Different" Remark Armor-Piercing Response makes Klaus finally realize how much he hurt his brother with his self-destructive behaviour over the 16 years they've been tethered together.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At his worse, Klaus can be absurdly self-centered, petty, apathetic, hedonistic and just a lazy and annoying coward. However, he still cares a lot about his siblings and his deceased lover Dave and when push comes to shove, he's got his siblings' backs.
• Kick the Dog: In Season 2, he lies to his siblings that Ben didn't time-travel with them despite Ben repeatedly begging Klaus to let him talk to them.
• Knuckle Tattoos: Well, palm tattoos which read "Hello" and "Goodbye".
• Large Ham: Due to his flamboyant and energetic eccentricities and childlike nature, Klaus is the most comically over-the-top character in the show. He is prone to comical facial expressions, raising his voice, and exaggerated gesturing.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He was already a Pretty Boy, but in Season 2, after the time travel, he let his hair grow long.
• Looks Like Jesus: Adopts this look (beard, long hair, mustache, flowing clothes) as part of his cult leader persona in the sixties.
• Lovable Rogue: While he is very funny and charismatic, he's shown to have no qualms of stealing nor conning a doctor into giving him and Five access to confidential information, and in Season 2 he even creates a cult.
• Love at First Sight: Implied. He looks in awe the first time he sees Dave, and at the bus he pushes the Commission's briefcase under his seat after the two properly greet each other.
• Love Hurts: He tragically loses Dave in the Vietnam War and is unable to conjure his spirit even after sobering up. Then, he tries to dissuade Dave from enlisting so he doesn't die but Dave punches him in the face, triggering a relapse after three years of sobriety. When they meet again, Klaus tries once again to convince him to not join the army, only for Dave to tell him that he has already enlisted.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Says he was "foolish enough to follow him to the frontlines" while talking to Diego about Dave in "The Day That Wasn't".
• Mama's Boy: Variant. Even though he never knew his biological mother, he proves eager to get to know her once he finally has the opportunity in season 3; he's also the only member of the Umbrella Academy to genuinely grieve when it turns out that in the new timeline, their mothers were all killed. Later in the season, he meets his mother in the afterlife and they get along immediately.
• Manchild: Acts more like a rebellious and boisterous teenager than someone in his thirties.
• Medicate the Medium: He does drugs to dampen his ability to commune with the dead. It's mentioned that this hindered his powers significantly — indeed, after only a couple days of sobriety, he's able to summon Ben into the corporeal world.
• Middle Child Syndrome: The seven Hargreeveses are the same age and distinguished by numbers. Klaus, as Number Four, is right in the middle. He is constantly ignored and belittled, to the point his siblings go the entire season not knowing half the crap he goes through, including being kidnapped and tortured, his lover dying in his arms, suffering from PTSD, and on top of that dying multiple times! His father considers him a disappointment and it’s likely that his siblings not taking what he deals with seriously is one of the reasons why he’s so flamboyant, erratic, and hedonistic.
• Mistaken for Profound: Much to Klaus and Ben's consternation, almost everything Klaus says to his cult as their prophet in Season 2 is mistaken for divine scripture gifted to his audience. Even when Klaus tries to flat-out say that he's been duping them and making everything up as he goes along, the cult just mistakes it as the need to embrace humility.
• Morality Chain: At first it seems like he unwittingly becomes this to the Sparrow's version of Reginald Hardgreeves. He helps wean him off of the drugs the Sparrows use to pacify him, helps him realize that if was his own terrible people-skills that put him in the situation he was in and gives him various tips to help break the ice. This is ultimately subverted when Reginald abandons him to die to the kugelblitz because he's unnecessary for Reginald's plan and more trouble than he's worth.
• Motor Mouth: Never seems to stop making quips or snarks throughout the season, and even when tortured it's hard to shut up. One of the few times he remains quiet for any length of time is after he accidentally travels into the past, gets caught up in the Vietnam war, falls in love, and sees his lover die in his arms. Also, when he was younger, he tripped down the staircase while wearing Grace's heels and broke his jaw. As Diego put it, this gave the family "eight weeks of bliss."
• Mr. Fanservice: Spends a decent amount of time shirtless. Episode 2 even has a lengthy scene of him in nothing but underwear.
• Mr. Vice Guy: In spite of being a carefree drug addict and The Hedonist of the group, he's still a good and caring person deep down and is more than willing to help out his siblings when they need it.
• Mundane Afterlife: The season 3 finale reveals that his ideal afterlife is spent eating pizza and watching documentaries on TV with Luther.
• Near-Death Experience: Klaus is killed during a fight at the rave after sustaining a serious head injury and speaks to both God and his late father, Reginald. He revives a short time later.
• Nice Guy: Apart from his obnoxious behavior and his habit of stealing in order to fuel his addiction, Klaus is one of the nicest siblings in the entire family. A few notable examples: he was actually on pretty good terms with Allison after not seeing each other in years, he goes to comfort Luther even after the latter had just briefly choked him in a drunken rage moments before, and he vehemently insists that they should let Viktor out of the soundproof chamber, wanting to get his side of the story and help him come to terms with his newfound powers.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • In Season 2, he travels all the way from San Francisco to Dallas with the sole objective to dissuade a young Dave from enlisting the army so he doesn't get drafted to Vietnam and killed in action, even with the unspoken implication that Dave would never have fallen in love with him. However, it goes horribly wrong, with Dave punching him in the face and enlisting earlier than he originally planned, thinking that Klaus was just a con artist.
  • In season 3, he takes pity on Reginald and decides to spend some time with him, giving him advice on how to avoid being drugged by the Sparrows. After being taught how to unlock more of his powers and bonding with Reginald, he even decides to stick up for Reginald when the time comes for him to explain his plan to save the world to the Umbrella Academy. Tragically, Reginald was just using him to further his plans; deciding that his one real supporter on the team is surplus to requirements, he repays Klaus's loyalty by leaving him to die in the collapsing ruins of the Hotel Obsidian.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Klaus is the most affectionate of the brothers; while most times it is appropriate, he clearly oversteps his boundaries by hugging Raymond, who is noticeably uncomfortable. Allison is also annoyed when he butts into her hug with Viktor by hugging them both.
• Obliviously Superpowered: Klaus is already aware of his ability to contact and conjure the spirits of the dead. However, he's rather surprised when - after Stanley accidentally shoots him with a harpoon gun - he realizes that he's also had the power of Resurrective Immortality his entire life: Klaus has actually died on no less than fifty-six occasions, but never acknowledged any of them because he was usually too high to make sense of what happened. When asked about this, he remarks that he always thought he was "one of those lovable rascally Looney Tunes characters."
• Off the Wagon: In Season 2 after three years of sobriety, and after being punched in the face by a younger version of Dave after his uncle told him to "punch the queer", Klaus falls back into alcohol.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Diego immediately senses that something's wrong when Klaus is quiet for an entire car trip in the wake of his Heroic BSoD. He's even more concerned when Klaus erupts with rage at the veteran's bar and — for the first time in the entire series — physically assaults someone.
• Powerful, but Incompetent: Klaus is one of the most powerful members of the team because of his mastery over death, but he's also an Addled Addict because of the abusive, traumatic training that Sir Hargreeves subjected him to, locking him in a mausoleum for hours to "help him" get over his fear of ghosts. Klaus can commune with and conjure the dead, including equally powerful supers like Ben, and as it turns out in later seasons, he's also immortal. He rarely makes use of his powers because he's usually hung-over or in rehab, and his own siblings tend to dismiss him because he never seems to treat any situation with the proper gravitas.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Responsible for most of the of the show's funny moments.
• Pretty Boy: Unlike his male siblings, he has a lean build and a slim face. He is often called this by different characters.
• Profound by Pop Song: During his time as a cult leader, the "wisdom" he imparts are lyrics from rock songs that haven't been written yet.
• Really Gets Around: In S2 there are many off-hand comments that Klaus has a very active sex life, like getting a shit-ton of numbers in a fraternity party and having a sex swing in his cult.
• Refuge in Audacity: If there's one thing that can be said for Klaus, he has an amazing gift for achieving his goals through sheer chutzpah. As if robbing the dead under the watchful eyes of Luther and using Reginald's funeral urn as a dance prop wasn't audacious enough, he successfully blackmails answers out of a Meritech employee by sucker-punching Five in the mouth and smashing a snow globe against his face to make it look like the guy assaulted them.
• Refusal of the Call: He hates his power for the most part. And unlike the others, his power is heavily implied to be impossible to turn off, leading to him heavily using drugs and alcohol so he doesn't have to deal with spirits communing with him 24/7.
• Resurrective Immortality: First implied in Season 1, where he hits his head pretty badly and goes to the Afterlife and shares a talk with his father, only to wake up completely unharmed. This is finally confirmed in Season 3, where he figures out that all his near-death experiences were full-on deaths that he walked off, and training with the Sparrows' Reginald Hargreeves helps him come to back to life pretty much instantly and without drawbacks.
• Sad Clown: Klaus is a carefree, facetious, and free-spirited Manchild who often cracks jokes and acts out to cover up his traumas.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The flamboyant Sensitive Guy to Diego’s tough Manly Man. Hell he’s even the much more sensitive guy manly man to the Bruiser with a Soft Center Luther’s manly man. Ben being his fellow sensitive guy was probably the reason they were so close.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: In "Man on the Moon," Klaus gets the briefcase from Cha-Cha and Hazel and ends up opening it. The next episode reveals he time-traveled back to the Vietnam War and was there for almost a year. He also fell in love with a fellow soldier, Dave Katz, who died in his arms while Klaus watched. When he gets back to the present, he's significantly quieter and tries to get clean, especially when he realizes his gift could help him commune with his dead lover.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift:
  • At the start of Season 1, Klaus wears flamboyant, darkly-colored outfits featuring such things as black longcoats, purple scarves, jackets with fur-lined collars and sleeves, midriff-exposing tops, black leather pants, and — of course — Allison's skirt. However, after returning from Vietnam, he spends most of his first episode back wearing a sleeveless camo-green military-style jacket, indicating just how much his time as a soldier has changed him; for good measure, he can also be seen wearing Dave's dog-tags under the jacket. Also underneath the jacket, Klaus is wearing an unflattering gray T-shirt as he is too shell-shocked to care about his appearance for once. However, the following episode, he also develops a habit of wearing luridly-colorful shirts alongside the military gear, mixed in with bits of his old attire — a sign that while he might have gained a bit of worldliness, he hasn't lost his old flamboyance.
  • In Season 2, Klaus starts out looking like a hippie in accordance with his acclimation to the time period and his cult accepting his eccentric mannerisms. He starts dressing more conservatively once he becomes exhausted by the cult and tries to leave them, though still occasionally skips out on a shirt or wears something backless, and has switched to more muted colors. Klaus has also dropped all of the military gear except for Dave's dogtags.
• Single Guy Seeks Good Man: He falls head over heels for Dave, who was the first person to introduce himself to Klaus after the latter found himself stranded in the Vietnam War, telling him that he would adjust. When talking about him to Diego, Klaus describes Dave as kind and vulnerable.
• Splash of Color: His tank top is the only color we see when he visits the afterlife.
• Stalker with a Crush: Ben calls him one after seeing Klaus leaving his cult to come to Dallas to meet up with Dave again, despite Dave only knowing him in the Vietnam War five years later.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • The trope is lampshaded when Luther tells him that he wants to be carefree like Klaus, prompting Klaus to try and dissuade Luther from that lifestyle.
  • Later, the trope is played straight, as Klaus opts to joke around instead of revealing that he was killed at the rave, instead claiming that he simply conjured Reginald's spirit. He also opts to snarkily announce that Sir Reginald killed himself, when during his own conversation with Sir Reginald in the afterlife, this discovery prompted immediate horror and incredulity.
• Sticky Fingers: Klaus will steal just about anything that's not nailed down if it can be pawned off for drug money. It's what ends up getting him sent back through time, thanks to the ill-advised purloining of Hazel and Cha-Cha's suitcase.
• Stop Worshipping Me: Despite initially enjoying the attention he received from his followers, at the beginning of Season 2 he can't stand them anymore, even referring to them as "claustrophobic" and running away from them whenever he can.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: The wise guy to Ben's straight man. Klaus is snarkier and more flamboyant.
• Talking in Your Sleep: According to Ben in Episode 2.
• Talking to the Dead: He can talk to the dead, but usually only while he's not stoned out of his mind.
• Those Two Guys: Wherever Klaus is, Ben's ghost is probably nearby. Flashbacks imply that the two were close even before Ben died.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: After returning to the present after time in the Vietnam War, he's got this look firmly stamped on his face.
• Time-Travel Romance: When Klaus steals Hazel and Chacha's time travel briefcase and ends up in the Vietnam War, Klaus meets a soldier named Dave and they fall in love. Unfortunately, Dave gets killed in combat, which motivates Klaus to come back to the present and get clean.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • When communicating with Sir Reginald he tells Klaus that he has only scratched the surface of what his powers are capable of. Towards the end of Season 1 he discovers that he can not just talk to the dead but physically manifest them in the world of the living, first shown when Ben's spirit punches him. At the end of the season, Klaus channels the spirit of Ben long enough to use his own powers to help fight off a Commission hit-squad.
  • In season three, he's much more motivated and capable than usual, even infiltrating the Sparrow Academy via the sewers in order to get answers out of Sir Reginald - without being instructed or prompted by anyone. He also gains control of his power to return from the dead and finally conquers his fear of ghosts once and for all.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He's way more dickish in Season 2, dismissing and using Ben for his parlor tricks and lying to his siblings that Ben didn't time-travel with them despite knowing how much Ben misses his siblings. Also, he doesn't care about his followers and doesn't remember who Jill is despite recently having a threesome with her.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In season 3, despite lacking Ben as the angel on his shoulder, he seems much more kind-hearted than ever before. Among other things, he demonstrates a sincere desire to reconnect with his birth mother even meeting her in the afterlife and enjoying a heart-to-heart with her; he's the only member of Team Umbrella who seems to be truly grieving for the deaths of all their mothers, with Viktor being more horrified at the cause of the deaths, Alison being more angered by the changes to the timeline that occurred as a result, and the rest of the group are too busy with their own personal problems and the threat of the Kugelblitz. Finally, he genuinely bonds with Reginald by taking pity on him for his abuse at the hands of the Sparrow Academy, weaning him off the pills they're forcing him to take and even helping him reconnect with the rest of the Umbrella Academy. Tragically, this leaves him being directly exploited by Reginald and [[left to die.
• Too Kinky to Torture: One of the ways Hazel and Cha-cha torture him is by strangling him. She stops because he's visibly aroused by the process.
  Hazel: [on Klaus] Oh, God, this is brutal! What the hell is wrong with that guy?!
• Trademark Favorite Food: As of season 2, Klaus has a thing for menudo, suggesting it while staying with Alison, and later sharing a bowl of it with the spirit of his biological mother in season 3. Of course, menudo is a popular Mexican hangover cure, so it makes sense that Klaus would have gotten a taste for it.
• Tragic Keepsake: After returning from the Vietnam War, he wears Dave's dogtags for the rest of the season. He can even be seen kissing them right before Five teleports them into the past.
• Tragic Time Traveler: Halfway through the first season, he steals one of the Commission's suitcases and winds up being sent back to... the Vietnam War. Not only does he develop PTSD, but he falls in love with a soldier only to watch him die in the frontlines. He leaves the time period a broken wreck (or well, a worse wreck than he already was), and when the Umbrella Academy travel back to the 60s he desperately tries to convince Dave not to join only for it to be implied that Klaus himself gave Dave the motivation to join in the first place.
• Troubled Fetal Position: His response to his accidental journey through time, complete with Broken Tears.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: As young as thirteen, Klaus was setting things on fire, stealing sips of alcohol, and rolling joints at the breakfast table.
• The Unfavorite: Shares this role with Viktor, as Reginald considers him to be his "greatest disappointment" due to Klaus opting to numb his powers via drugs instead of facing his fears.
• Undiscriminating Addict: Klaus is not especially choosey when it comes to his intoxicants of choice. In his Establishing Character Moment, he's implied to have overdosed on heroin; in a flashback sequence, he's seen rolling joints under the dinner table; he dismisses Ben's suggestion of eggs for breakfast by remarking "you can't smoke eggs"; Hazel and Cha-Cha steal some hash chocolate from his belongings; he's seen taking pills before Ben stops him... and finally, when none of the others are available, he hits the booze hard. Of course, he's more than prepared to make use of substitutes: in season three, he's seen stealing and drinking mouthwash from the hotel bedrooms.
• Unwanted Revival: In the final episode of season 3, Klaus ends up dead again; this time, he's not eager to return after getting betrayed by Reginald and being left to kill himself in order to escape the apocalypse, and much prefers the idea of staying in the afterlife with Luther. It takes a thorough brow-beating from Luther before he'll even consider the idea of returning to save the day.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In the first episode, Klaus steals an ornate pearl-inlaid box from Sir Reginald's study in the hopes of pawning it for drug money, but not before throwing the contents into a dumpster outside the Academy. It's later revealed that Harold Jenkins saw him do it and found Reginald's journal among the discarded contents — thus forming the basis of his entire Evil Plan and from there, the apocalypse.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to Viktor's autobiography, Klaus began his descent into drug-addled eccentricity as a result of their father's experiments and has been on a downward spiral ever since. Flashbacks show that he was a kindly, supportive member of the family before the drug addiction took hold and transformed him into the wildly-eccentric petty criminal he is today; in one scene, he can even be seen tearfully hugging Allison in the aftermath of an extremely painful tattooing session.
• Useless Superpowers: His ability to speak to the dead is largely useless unless he's lucky enough to find a few that are interested in providing him with information; Klaus rarely has that kind of luck - and spends several moments in season 1 being tormented by screaming ghosts. Even once he gains the ability to make ghosts corporeal, he doesn't appear to have the ability to actually control them, hence why he associates almost exclusively with Ben and almost never uses the power in season 3. However, it's indicated that his true potential allows him to genuinely command the dead: in season 2, his Future Badass incarnation directs a horde of ghosts against the Soviet invaders, while after tuition from Reginald in season 3, Klaus is able to seemingly banish the ghosts that once menaced him.
• Would Hurt a Child: He has no qualms with slugging Five across the face, even if it was so they would have an excuse to get the guy they're talking to in trouble.
• You Can't Fight Fate: To Klaus's despair in Season 2, his attempts to prevent Dave's death in Vietnam by dissuading him from enlisting in the army don't succeed at all. In fact, Klaus' presence sped it up by unintentionally pushing Dave's homophobic uncle to pressure Dave into signing up for the military several days before it happened in the original timeline. Klaus does seemingly make peace with Dave's locked-in fate by the Season 2 finale, as he quietly kisses Dave's dogtags one more time before going back with the others to his original time.

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