Protectors (The Girls | The OCs) | Supporting Characters | Others
Main Protectors (Seasons 1-3A)
In General
- Character Development: All three of them have evolved greatly throughout the series' run thanks to each other's influence.
- Expy: The trio is awfully similar to the main trio from Charmed (1998). bonus points for both girl trios finding the magic book in an attic.
- Fatal Flaw: One of the key reasons the girls are all so relatable to audiences is that they all have major common flaws that define their characters which they often try to overcome.
- Kelly: Her desire to take charge and not listen to her peers, stubbornness, overreliance on magic, and insecurities over losing her closest friends.
- Hannah: Her constant extreme paranoia over everything and desire to be proficient in everything including her classes.
- Darbie: Her inability to take charge and her clumsiness.
- Kid Hero: Kelly, Hannah and Darbie are the protectors of the Cookbook and are in seventh to eighth grade.
- Nice Girls: All three of them are great friends, not just to each other, they're also more than willing to lend a handing hand to others, including their classmates, and the townsfolk.
- Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Downplayed, considering none of the girls are bad people per se, and are each relatively friendly. However, Hannah would serve as the "nice" considering she was responsible and level-handed, even before coming across the cookbook and becoming a protector; Kelly would be the "mean", considering she's the one who's constantly obsessed with the magic, and is often a Control Freak who occasionally neglects her friends and her brother; and finally, Darbie would be the "in-between" considering she tends to be a bit of a slacker who neglects her duties, and was willing to use the magic for personal interests, but is still more down-to-earth than Kelly.
- Though, depending on the episode, the positions can switch to Darbie being the "nice" due to her cheerfulness and being the most friendly and least serious and Hannah being the "in-between", for being too serious, and not always respecting Darbie and her decision
- Not So Above It All: The trio isn't above using the cookbook's magic for their own needs. At least they learned from their mistakes, and have shown to be more responsible than other generations.
- Mirroring Factions: They claim to get along better than Becky's trio of protectors, but they've proven to be prone to arguments as well.
- True Companions: The three of had known each other since kindergarten and are rarely ever not seen together. They're usually extremely loyal to each other. It was even lampshaded on the show multiple times, to the point where they eventually got their own spice named after them.
- The Weird Sisters: They're a trio of magic protectors who just happen to be girls.
Kelly Quinn
- Played By: Olivia Sanabia; Sam Sonnett (young)
- Addictive Magic: She quickly becomes addicted to the use of magic in Season 2. Her friends even stage an intervention for her.
- Big Sister Instinct: Despite their constant arguments and differences, Kelly truly does love her younger brother Buddy, and will defend him from harm without hesitation.
- Character Development: She spends the first two seasons as a self-centered protector who's not only addicted to cookbook magic and perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to solve the mystery, not caring about who he hurts, she was also overly independent, and often viewed herself as superior to others, turning down their sides of the story. These points were even lampshaded when Kelly goes full baddie in Season 3. However, she does get over it and learns how to properly work with others, and even gives up her magic addiction after some time.
- Control Freak: Kelly can be pretty controlling with the magic.
- Fallen Heroine: She turns into an insecure, evil mastermind bent on keeping the cookbook forever, thanks to being the victim of the downside used to restore the magic spice garden and save magic from the last season's antagonist.
- The Hero: Technically, all three of the main girls can be considered this, but she's the one who gets the most focus.
- Hypocrite: She yells at Mama P for using the cookbook's magic for her own self-gain, even though she herself has also used the book for selfish desires — not as bad, but still.
- The Leader: She prides herself as being this, considering she's the one who obsessed with the cookbook and the magical mysteries the most.
- Main Character Final Boss: She's the main protagonist of the series, who unfortunate to get hit with the downside of a spell that corrupts her, makes her see her friends and everyone around her negatively, and turns her into the main antagonist of the show's third and final season.
- Never My Fault: Sometimes when something goes wrong between the trio, Kelly will point the blame on the other people. Luckily, she usually owns up to her mistakes and/or apologizes.
- Supreme Chef: One of her Establishing Character Moments is that she's proven to be a talented and experienced cook even before she became a protector.Kelly: I taste chicken... mushrooms... serrano... ooh, and tarragon. No, not tarragon... it’s roasted cumin.Jake: Nice.Kelly: Cooking’s in my blood.
- Terrible Artist: Drawing is not Kelly's strong suit, to say the least. She once tried to draw a sketch of Chuck's trailer, but it ended up looking like a dog.
- Token Evil Teammate: While Kelly's not actually evil by any means, she is the only member of the trio who's perfectly willing to cross any necessary lines to get what she wants and try a couple of dangerous magic risks without her companions' knowledge. (Using the Miso-Person's Soup despite knowing the price she'd pay for it, allying with Mama P just to try curing her grandmother and refusing to listen to the others' warnings about Ida's true nature, being overreliant on magic for even the simple things, refusing to acknowledge when she's screwed up several times, etc.) Her friends and allies have called her out for this multiple times. This comes into full play throughout Season 3, when it turns she had been poisoned from the cookbook, and wanted her trio to be the permanent protectors, since she saw them as the best group. On one hand, she not completely wrong, as all the opponents they had faced were former protectors that went rogue, and since they had always managed to beat them, it makes sense that Kelly would get an ego. But on the other hand, this technically means she's just as bad as they were, even though she's trying to "do what's right"
Hannah Parker-Kent
- Played By: Aubrey Miller; Reagan Kraemer (young)
- The Ace: She's shown to be very smart when it comes to schoolwork. In fact, she once stated the lowest grade she got was a B, and that was in a dream.
- Brainy Brunette: Has brown hair and is the studious, organization-driven one of the trio.
- Character Development: She starts off as an academic Control Freak, who was determined to get straight As in each of her classes, is always stressed out over the littlest things, and would constantly overwork and didn't always get along with her teachers. But later on, she stops being so overly paranoid with her surroundings and begins to mellow out and adjust to any changes that may occur
- Control Freak: Hannah takes her schoolwork very seriously. A little too seriously.
- Nice Girl: Serious and nerdy moments aside, she's very friendly, loyal and would occasionally goof off with her friends.
- Only Sane Woman: Falls into this whenever Kelly's too obsessed with the Cookbook magic and Darbie's not taking things seriously enough.
- Race Lift: She was of Hispanic descent in the book the series was based off, her last name being Hernandez, but is Caucasian in the series.
Darbie O'Brien
- Played By: Abby Donnelly; Lenore Brown (young)
- A Birthday, Not a Break: In Just Add Birthdays. Not only does Darbie have to keep a half-their-aged Kelly and Hannah out of trouble, but she also had to break into Mama P's pantry to get the ingredients for the cure. Doing it at night also helps.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: She's a pretty nice girl, but she's quick to turn to the magic cookbook every time something goes wrong, for all she knows, the side-effect could make the problem worse. Hannah calls Darbie on this in one episode. Plus, she hates math and tried to put her math teacher under an itch spell, which Hannah quickly rejects. In one episode she said that if they taught magic in school she wouldn't sleep in class. Except... yes she would.
- Character Development: She used to be The Load of the trio, who didn't serve much of a role aside from being the comic relief. Not to mention she was an absolute pushover and could never stand up for herself. This changes dramatically in the later seasons where she not only displays Hidden Depths and starts to actually contribute and support the gang in helpful ways, she also Grew a Spine and becomes a true independent hero in her own unique way.
- Does Not Like Spam: One episode stated that Darbie doesn't like Jell-O.
- As a matter a fact, there's quite a bit of food Darbie doesn't like, and only eats because of the magic that comes with it.
- Fiery Redhead: While Darbie's known for being fun-loving and innocent, there have been a couple of times when she's been pretty feisty and serious.
- Grew a Spine: As part of her Character Development, she stops being the fun-loving, pushover she was in the first season, and begins to trust her own instincts, and makes her own decisions. This is best displayed when she's placed in charge of the school play. The old Darbie would have just taken everyone's requests regardless of whether it was reasonable or not, but not the new Darbie, she's not going to be taking any of that and will boldly restore order and respect.
- Hidden Depths: At first glance, she doesn't seem to be good at problem-solving like Kelly or Hannah, but she's had quite a bit of clever ideas and interesting logic. Plus, one episode reveals she's an incredible drawer.
- Nice Girl: She's sweet, fun-loving, innocent and a great companion who usually doesn't put her interests over others.
- The Pollyanna: She's happy-go-lucky and a total optimist.
- Plucky Comic Relief: She usually the source of jokes in the series.
- Sad Clown: She's constantly making various jokes and has an overall upbeat and cheerful personality, but when you actually get to know her, she got quite a bit of insecurities. She doesn't always know what her purpose is in the trio, feels like Kelly and Hannah were the closest people she's ever had in her life, occasionally gets treated as The Load, and Season 2 especially had her dealing with her parents' divorce and getting to know her father's new wife-to-be. Poor Darbie.
- Spell My Name With An S: Darby or Darbie? The episode descriptions on Amazon Prime use Darbie, but the subtitles use Darby.
