The titular heroes tasked with keeping the universe in balance. This only refers to the characters from the animated series. For their counterparts of the original comics, see here.
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In General
- Adaptational Comic Relief: in the first season, the girls have their quirks flanderized and there is very little focus on their deep personal issues like in the comics. This gets averted in the second season and would probably have been explored more if the show had lasted longer.
- Adaptational Superpower Change:
- Will's element in the comics is Pure Energy which grants her the ability to empathize with animals, communicate with machines and conjure pink energy blasts and shields. The show changes this to "Quintessence", which is basically electricity by another name. While she retains her ability to communicate with machines, her ability to talk to animals is excised.
- This applies to the Psychic Powers the girls develop in season 2:
- Irma retains the ability to implant suggestions in people's minds and change the color of clothing but loses her ability to see visions through hydromancy.
- Cornelia has telekinesis like her comic counterpart but doesn't have prophetic visions.
- Hay Lin is the only one of the girls who can turn invisible in the show, a power all the girls had. She also lacks her comic counterpart's psychometry powers.
- Averted with Taranee who retains her telepathy from the comics (everyone had it, but Tara's was by far more powerful than the others' combined).
- In the comics the Guardians could transform without the Heart, though they needed Will using the Heart to be at full power. In the show they always need Will using the Heart to transform.
- Adaptation Personality Change:
- In the comics, Will is often very insecure, and has low self-esteem and parental issues. In the cartoon, she is more of a normal Standardized Leader who is much less angsty.
- In the comics, Irma is the girliest of them all, as well as the most immature, and she likes to make jokes to irritate Cornelia. In the cartoon, she becomes a tomboy, whose sarcasm is often a reaction to Cornelia's ego and immaturity.
- In the comics, Taranee is a reserved nerdy girl. The animated series makes her even nerdier, and also an extremely shy Nervous Wreck, though she gets better in the second season.
- In the comics, Cornelia is a mature, elegant, and serious Proper Lady. In the cartoon, she's a vain, bratty, and spoiled Valley Girl, taking part of Irma's personality from the comics.
- Badass Adorable: They're all cute young girls with magical powers.
- Badass Crew: Each Guardian is a force to be reckoned with individually, but they are unstoppable when they fight as a team.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: “Guardians, unite!” Said by Will when she holds the Heart of Kandrakar, right before they transform.
- Elemental Powers: They each have control over one of the classical elements; most obviously Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay Lin, but in the second season Will finally develops the power of the fifth element, Quintessence.
- Five-Token Band: Will and Cornelia are white (and Will's mother is Ambiguously Brown). Irma is implied to be Latina. Taranee has a black father and an Asian mother. Hay Lin is Chinese-American.
- Guardian of the Multiverse: They protect Earth and other realms from attempted conquerors.
- Winged Humanoid: The girls have wings in Guardian form, granting them the power of Flight.
Will Vandom
Voiced by: Kelly Stables
And, uh, lightning!
The leader and Guardian of Quintessence.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: In the comics, Will's friends in her old town Fadden Hills didn't really like her and only hung out with her out of pity, and she also had an arc dealing with her father returning and threatening to take Will away from Susan if he didn't get money. While the animated adaptation doesn't confirm if the former happened, Will's relationship with her father is much better.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: In the comics, Will's element was "absolute energy" which manifested itself in hot-pink blasts and shields. She also possessed empathy with animals and could turn herself invisiblenote . In the show, Will's power is Quintessence which allows her to control electricity and communicate with machines.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: In the comics, Will's eyes were brown, but become red in the cartoon.
- Adaptation Name Change: A minor note. In the comics, her full name was "Wilhelmina". In the cartoon, it's never outright confirmed, but is implied to be "Wilma" instead.
- Badass Normal: She is the only Guardian without Elemental Powers in season 1. It's not until the third episode of season 2 that her powers over Quintessence start to manifest now that the Heart and the Aurameres no longer have to maintain the Veil. Averted in the comic, where she has those powers from the start.
- Book Dumb: Especially math. A "C" grade is pretty good for her, according to Hay Lin.
- Character Development: By season 2, Will was able to effortlessly manipulate Phobos. She has even has toned down a lot of her Hot-Blooded tendencies.
- Character Tics: Will blows up her hair in frustration.
- The Chessmaster: Has a stint in the second season, and actually succeeded at playing Phobos like a fiddle. If only Cedric hadn't seen that coming and decided to try his luck as the conqueror of the world...
- Curtains Match the Window: Usually not Red Eyes, Take Warning, but if you hit her Berserk Button enough...
- Element No. 5: Quintessence, pretty much the same thing but used as Life Energy and Shock and Awe.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Her mother calls her, "Pink Perky Poopy Pumpkin".
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: In the second season she gains lightning and technopathic skills. Plus, the show Guardians can only transform when Will uses the Heart of Kandrakar.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: In its most basic form, the Quintessence power just shoots lightning. But it can also animate non-living things, give appliances their own personalities, turn mindless Astral Drops into sapient living Altermeres, and quite a few other things (Nerissa uses it to create the Knights of Destruction, for example).
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It was her decision not to tell Elyon that the girls were Guardians and Elyon was the lost princess of Meridian that ultimately allowed Phobos to manipulate Elyon for half the season after telling her the truth and showing her that her friends had been keeping secrets/lying. Cornelia gave her quite a bit of crap over it.
- Not a Morning Person: Implied. Will's hatred of waking up in the morning isn't shown a lot, but the European opening shows her being awoken by her alarm and immediately falling back into bed.
- Shock and Awe: In season two, Will is finally granted her own elemental ability of Quintessence (also referred to as Aether). Quintessence manifests itself in whitish blue lightning, which she can use to animate inanimate objects, fire offensive lightning bolts and produce a full body pulse, shockwave or discharge of electrical power and energy. In addition, her powers grant her Technopathy, the ability to talk to electrical appliances.
- Spider-Sense: Will was able to detect Nerissa's location in "F is for Facades" after the villainess used her own Quintessence powers.
- Technopath: In season 2, Will acquires this ability, gaining a strong connection to electrical appliances, and can communicate with them.
- Took a Level in Badass: In the first season of the show, she had a mostly passive participation in battles, with her key contributions being that she was the source of the girls' transformations and coming up with tactics for them to use. In season 2, she gains the ability to shoot electricity and control inanimate objects, allowing her to be more active in fights. She also shows her Guile Hero capabilities in season 2.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: She also doesn't take threats against her boyfriend well. At all. Shagon played this up in the animated series to make her hate him by insinuating he'd done something to Matt which was true, From a Certain Point of View.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: She has no offensive powers in the first season, and literally uses "Heart" (as in the Heart of Kandrakar) as her transformation phrase. Her only magical abilities before Season 2 are flight, using the Heart to give the other girls their full abilities, creating an Astral Drop when she needs to be in two places at once, and Thinking Up Portals (and that last one is only after the Heart absorbs the Seal of Phobos). However, she is good at directing the other girls in battle.
Irma Lair
Voiced by: Candi Milo
The Guardian of Water.
- Adaptational Curves: In the comics, Irma was slightly chubby. In the animated series, she's as skinny as her friends.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Greg Weisman claims that the animated version of the character is a lesbian, and she noticeably is the only Guardian who isn't dating someone by the end of the series. The comic counterpart has a boyfriend, however, and even in the show Irma expresses clear interest in Andrew Hornby, which would make her either bisexual or closeted.
- Adaptational Wimp: Unlike in the comics, the cartoon version of Irma is only able to manipulate water in its liquid state. This becomes critical in "N is for Narcissist", when she is left completely helpless after Tridart freezes her hands solid.
- Big Sister Instinct: When Nerissa tricks Irma into thinking Will caused a stunt that could've gotten Chris hurt, Irma is genuinely angered.
- Break the Haughty: In "G is for Garbage" and "L is for Loser", Irma's temper and selfishness almost cause her to lose Blunk and Martin's friendships (in fact, both episodes are named after what she calls them in a moment of anger). Both episodes have her undergo Character Development, as she comes to deeply regret her actions and tries to make a genuine effort to be forgiven.
- Character Development: Irma slowly learns to control her temper and more negative attributes. And while she has a ways to go by the end, she was making progress.
- Charm Person: In season 2, one of her new powers is a basic form of mind control. Irma telepathically relays a command to her target, who inexplicably feels compelled to execute it.
- Deadpan Snarker: The comedienne of the team (Blunk's nickname for her is "Funny Girl"), Irma is prone to making sarcastic quips, be it when she is joking with her friends or facing life-or-death situations. This is best exemplified in "V is for Victory", where her reaction to Nerissa imprisoning the original Guardians is to calmly remark that "[the Seal of Nerissa] must be getting pretty crowded".
- Embarrassing Nickname: Her mother still calls her the nicknames she had when she was a baby.
- Girliness Upgrade: A slight downplayed example. During season 2, while she tends to keep her spunky and sarcastic personality, she starts wearing more feminine clothing.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: She has shown to have bad control over her temper. On two occasions, it made her say some terrible things to her friends Blunk and Martin. She learns to try and control it in "O is for Obedience".
- It's All About Me: Shows an egocentric attitude in "O is for Obedience", but seems to have gotten over it by the end.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Irma is self-centered and sometimes speaks before thinking, but is willing to admit her mistakes and has a noble heart.
- Jumped at the Call: Irma was the most psyched to be a Guardian.
- Making a Splash: Irma has total control over water.
- Personality Powers: A small subversion: it's actually Will who's on the swim team, not Irma.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation: In the comics, Anna is Irma's stepmother, but the cartoon makes her Irma's biological mother instead. Consequently, Irma and Chris are still siblings in the cartoon, but are now consanguineous.
- Third Wheel: Well, ninth wheel. It's subtle, but despite being fairly boy-crazy, Irma is the only one of the Guardians who is single by the end of the series. This is most evident during a scene from the epilogue where Will, Taranee, Cornelia, and Hay Lin are all walking on the beach with their boyfriends, but Irma is absent.
- Tomboyness Upgrade: In the comics, she was snarky but has the girliest clothes of all the girls. In the cartoon, she becomes a tomboy, probably to create a Tomboy and Girly Girl dynamic with Cornelia.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: She and Cornelia snipe at each other on a regular basis, but are still good friends underneath.
Taranee Cook
Voiced by: Miss Kittie
The Guardian of Fire.
- Acrophobic Bird: In the first episode, she is shown to be afraid of both fire (the element she commands) and heights (she mentions getting nauseous just from wearing heels). These fears disappear after the first episode.
- Adaptation Personality Change: While she was reserved in the comics, her cartoon counterpart became even nerdier, shier, and a full-on Nervous Wreck, to begin with.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the comics, Taranee and Will were new students together and became best friends because of it. Here, Will is the only newcomer to Heatherfield and Taranee has known Cornelia, Hay Lin, Irma and Elyon for a while, though she was new the previous year.
- Affectionate Nickname: Called "sugar plum" by her father.
- Badass Bookworm: Taranee is very good at utilizing her scientific knowledge in battle.
- Bespectacled Cutie: As in the original comics.
- Blind Without 'Em: As shown in "K is for Knowledge", her vision gets very blurry when she hasn't got her glasses on (after she accidentally destroys her contact lenses)
- Character Development: Especially in the show where she starts out as timid and fearful and eventually becomes a bona-fide badass and a rebellious teenager.
- Cowardly Lion: Taranee gets scared easily when doing her Guardian duties. She grows out of it.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: A mother variant. Theresa didn't approve of Taranee dating Nigel, who'd been a delinquent in the past. She comes around though.
- Dreadlock Rasta: Only in her Guardian form.
- Dreadlock Warrior: In her Guardian form.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: The only one whose hair changes after transforming.
- Fireball Eyeballs: When Taranee gets angry, her eyes turn hot and reflect fire in her glasses lenses.
- Goth: Invoked. Her way of trying to not be a "good girl" in the premiere of Season 2, "A is for Anonymous". Until Nigel tells her that's what he likes about her.
- I Just Want to Be Special: In "A is for Anonymous" she fears that no more Guardian life means she'll become an "anonymous wallflower" again. Her best friends prove her wrong.
- Playing with Fire: Taranee has total control over fire.
- Power Stereotype Flip: Pyrokinetics in fiction tend to be hotheaded and bold. Taranee is a Shrinking Violet who is the most easily scared of the Guardians. This changes somewhat in season 2 where she starts to show her rebellious and assertive side more.
- Telepathy: Taranee gains this ability in season 2, allowing her to read her fellow Guardians' minds, converse with them and transmit their thoughts to each other.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Taranee's eyes have a tendency to flare slightly with actual fire when someone (usually her mother or Narissa) is treating Nigel badly.
- Wreathed in Flames: Her zenith form as shown in "Z is for Zenith".
Cornelia Hale
Voiced by: Christel Khalil
The Guardian of Earth.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Cornelia is still a hero in the cartoon, but was more abrasive and rude, especially to the newcomer Will. Thankfully, she gets better.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Cornelia in the TV show, who is a proud Alpha Bitch bordering on Valley Girl before undergoing Character Development, is very different from Cornelia in the comics, who is a mature, refined young lady who is more firm than her appearance lets on.
- Alpha Bitch: In the show, she starts off as a rude and overly vain Spoiled Brat who is more prone to insult Will before her Character Development. She eventually evolves into a nicer Lovable Alpha Bitch (in the comics she was a Lovable Alpha Bitch from the beginning).
- Big Sister Bully: Cornelia could be a little meaner than she had to toward Lillian. When it was revealed in "U is for Undivided" that Lillian was the Heart of Earth and Cornelia was chosen as a Guardian to protect her, Cornelia's attitude changed. By the end of the season 2 finale, Cornelia might have averted this trope.
- Big Sister Instinct: Even though she finds Lillian annoying, Cornelia is very protective of her sister. And Nerissa coming after her sister really pisses her off.
- Big Sister Mentor: She will become this to Lillian since she is the Heart of Earth, and Cornelia is the Earth Guardian.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: More so in the cartoon, where she's more selfish, bratty, and boy-crazy than in the comics.
- Break the Haughty: Seeing the problems caused by her arrogant and selfish attitude made her suffer this in "F is for Facades" and "N is for Narcissist".
- Butt-Monkey: If one of the Guardians screws up, chances are Cornelia's the one hit in the face, or drenched in water, or otherwise screwed.
- Character Development: She becomes nicer as the show goes on. In Season 2 especially she loses a lot of her narcissism, selfishness, and meanness.
- Cool Big Sis: Downplayed. When she's not fighting with or being a Big Sister Bully to her little sister Lillian, Cornelia acts very sweet, friendly and protective towards her.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Cornelia has total control over earth.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Cornelia doesn't appreciate being called "Corny", especially by Irma.
- The Fighting Narcissist: Cornelia is the most vain of the girls and is still a powerful Guardian. Her vanity
- Friend to All Living Things: She has a connection to plants, even being able to communicate with them, or "green speak".
- Green Thumb: Her power over earth extends to plants as well as soil and rock. In "Q is for Quarry", she learns to communicate with plants from Kadma.
- Irony: Water's her biggest fear and she has plant powers. Plants can easily suck up water with their roots.
- The Lancer: If someone's going to argue with Will, it's usually going to be she. When they're on the same page, though, Cornelia will back her up as much as the others.
- Logical Weakness: Cornelia's powers heavily depend on a pre-existing source of earth or plants, since she is the only Guardian who cannot generate her own element at will. In "N is for Narcissist", she outright tells her friends that she can do nothing to help since the current arena has no soil for her to manipulate. In "V is for Victory", Cornelia's only contribution in the main battle is to cover her opponent in yucky algae, explaining that, since they are fighting above a pool, she has to "work with what (she) has".
- Mind over Matter: In season 2, Cornelia gains telekinesis.
- Most Common Superpower: Mostly in the cartoon, especially in the episode "N is for Narcissist". In the comic, being the only one actually happy with her body shape, her Guardian form is the flattest.
- Narcissist: Subverted in "N is for Narcissist". Most of the episode has Cornelia showering herself with praise, much to her friends' annoyance. However, come the end of the episode, she takes full responsibility for her irresponsible actions, showing that she is capable of acknowledging that she is far from perfect.Cornelia: I'm not just pretty, I'm gorgeous!
- Poisonous Person: In "J is for Jewel", Cornelia creates giant flowers whose toxic pollen incapacitates Raythor and the Tracker.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Her relationship with Caleb is this for much of season 1 and the beginning half of season 2. By the end of the show, they spend much less of their time together bickering, though.
- Took a Level in Kindness: After going through a lot of Break the Haughty moments, Cornelia becomes more sensitive and understanding.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: She does not react kindly towards anyone attacking Caleb and will hunt down just about anyone who threatens him. Justified in that, by the end of the series, her boyfriend is the only main character without superpowers going up against their very powerful, very magical enemies.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: She and Irma snipe at each other on a regular basis, but are still good friends underneath.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When Phobos tells Elyon the truth about her origins and manipulates her into a Face–Heel Turn, Cornelia gives Will quite a bit of crap over it, since it was Will's decision to keep Elyon Locked Out of the Loop in the first place.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Cornelia is terrified of water.
Hay Lin
Voiced by: Liza Del Mundo
The Guardian of Air, and the only one related to a member of the previous Guardians. Her grandmother Yan Lin is the former Air Guardian and current Mentor to the group.
- Adaptational Modesty: A downplayed version. The animated series gave her tights with her outfit, where her legs showed in the comics.
- Be Yourself: Taranee explicitly states that she admires how Hay Lin is just herself, and doesn't care what other people think. She even likes wearing braces when she gets them temporarily, because they're shiny.
- Beware the Silly Ones: As much of a Cloud Cuckoolander as she is, both Phobos and Nerissa manage to underestimate her in season two. Both of them preparing to defeat her when she's at her lowest, only to receive a hell of a beatdown when she gets her Heroic Resolve.
- Big Eater: In "S is for Self" during the double date where she eats a total of 42 Moo shus before she has dessert. The only person who can best her is her grandmother.
- Blow You Away: Hay Lin has total control over wind.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Much more apparent in the comics, though she can get serious just as easily as the others.
- Cuckoo Snarker: Hay Lin may be the epitome of this trope. It can be incredibly jarring how she flips back and forth from child-like Cloud Cuckoo Lander to full-on Deadpan Snarker, and everything in between... sometimes in the same scene. And unlike some cases of the trope, she's never portrayed as Obfuscating Stupidity - this is her actual personality.
- Extremely Protective Child: She is very protective towards her grandmother when the latter is threatened.
- Friend to All Children: Implied in "F is for Facades" with her minor scene with Lillian, Cornelia's younger sister.
- Hidden Depths: The second season has Hay Lin reveal some self-esteem issues.
- Identical Grandson: Hay Lin is basically a pigtail-wearing version of her grandma in her youth.
- Like Brother and Sister: Has this dynamic with Caleb, who lives beneath her family's restaurant when he is on Earth.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "T is for Trauma", Hay Lin isn't her usual cheerful, goofy, smiling self... she's quiet, frowning, depressed, and (at the end) very pissed off. We know that if someone like Hay Lin can resort to this, that means that the Big Bad went too far.
- Raised by Grandparents: Downplayed. Hay Lin had both of her parents in her life but she was also brought up by her paternal grandmother.
- Shipper on Deck: Hay Lin is the most openly supportive of Caleb and Cornelia getting together. In just the second episode, she tells Caleb Cornelia likes him and asks if he has a girlfriend.
