| NOTE: This page is only about Charmcaster's canon version (also known as Prime version), since neither her version of "Time Heals"'s timeline or the reboot version was voted Inconsistently Heinous. |
| “ | You don't know anything! You're not even a real sorceress. You're an... an idiot savant! | „ |
| ~ Charmcaster to Gwen after discover that this one have her charms book. |
| “ | I am Charmcaster! Daughter of Spellbinder, conqueror of Addwaitya, ruler of Ledgerdomain, and I will not be denied- | „ |
| ~ Charmcaster before being teleported away by Zs'Skayr.[1] |
Hope, also known as Charmcaster, is a major antagonist in the Ben 10 franchise.
She is a enemy of Gwen, as well as the niece and apprentice of Hex. Like her paternal uncle, she depends on magic to fight. Though like most villains, she despises Ben, her hatred is mostly turned towards Gwen for their shared affinity in magic, mirroring Ben and Kevin's rivalry in the original series. Charmcaster played a key role in the series as it was by stealing her spell book Gwen learnt to use her own magical powers. She is Spellbinder's daughter, Hex's niece and the archenemy of Gwen Tennyson.
She was voiced by Kari Wahlgren.
Her Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Her Heinous?[]
In General[]
- She is extremely envious of Gwen Tennyson, due to Gwen stealing her magic book and learning magic much faster than her, going out of her way to try to kill her, taking sadistic pleasure in doing so.
- As showed in "The Charm's Way", she is very abusive towards her rock creatures, insulting them constantly such as when she called one of them a "useless lump".
- Despite being given several chances, she never really redeemed herself.
- While she does have some comedic moments, they are very brief and are dry humor at best, and most of them only reinforce how arrogant she is.
- Even though Ben 10 is a high-standard franchise and Charmcaster has to compete with the likes of Vilgax, Zs'Skayr, Zombozo, Driscoll, the Highbreed, Darkstar, Albedo, Ragnarok, Agreggor, Addwaitya, the Forever Knights, Dagon, Eon, Malware, and Maltruant, she still stands out for her mass genocide, trapping magic users in a potential fate worse than death, and her more personal villainy towards Gwen. She is more heinous even than her uncle Hex.
Ben 10[]
- In her first appearance, in the episode "Tough Luck", she attacked many prison guards to free her uncle Hex from his cell.
- She helped Hex try to steal the Key of Bezel to recreate the Amulets of Bezel, knowing that he intended to use them to take over the world.
- Tricked the Tennyson family into believing she was good to take the key from them and betrayed them to deliver the item to Hex. It was enough to make Gwen resent her greatly.
- When Hex was succeeding in recreating the amulets, she betrays him to keep their power all to herself, even though he is her family and the only one left.
- In "A Change Of Face", she causes fires and mass destruction in a town to get the Tennysons' attention.
- She attempts to switch bodies with Ben to gain access to the Omnitrix.
- When she accidentally switches bodies with Gwen, Charmcaster accuses her of being the true Charmcaster, even knocking her out with a punch so she can't tell the truth, and has Gwen who was a 10-year-old girl at the time, sent to jail. She deceives Max and Ben for the rest of the episode.
- When Gwen escapes from jail and returns, she knocks all of them down and tries again to switch bodies with Ben, but fortunately fails.
- Although she works with the Negative 10, she has no regard for any of them and only joined them to get revenge on Gwen. This is clear from her feud with Rojo and how they all fight among themselves in the end.
Ben 10: Alien Force[]
- In the episode"In Cham's Way", she sends her stone golems to kill Ben, Gwen, and Kevin.
- She disguised herself as a girl named "Caroline" in order to seduce Kevin out of spite towards Gwen and later she kisses Kevin in order to brainwash him to serve her, succeding in doing so.
- She stole Gwen's mana out of envy for her magic, which was a very painful process for her.
- When Gwen challenged her to a 1v1 fight without magic, she refused to fight fair and attempted to kill Gwen using a bolt of mana.
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien[]
- In "Hit 'Em Where They Live", she joins Vulkanus and Zombozo to kidnap Ben's mom.
- She attempts to personally kill Gwen throughout the episode.
- She fought Kevin at the park and tried to kill him.
- In "Where the Magic Happens", when Gwen finds her, she immediately starts trying to kill her, even though Gwen was assuring her that she just wanted to talk, and only stopped when she mentioned Ledgerdomain.
- In "Enemy of My Frenemy", Charmcaster became corrupted with power during her time fighting for Legerdomain and relapsed into her evil ways when the denizens she had fought to free from Addwaitya, turned on her and fought a massive civil war to decide who would become the new ruler, a war which Charmcaster won. Building a device that drains the souls out of living things, she enacted a plan to drain the life force of her world in order to perform a ritual that would bring her father Spellbinder back to life. Ben, Gwen, and Kevin attempted to stop her, but their souls were sucked out as well, killing 600.000 of souls in the process.
- In "Couples Retreat" she, along with Darkstar, fought Ben, Gwen and Kevin and later she fought Gwen by herself.
Ben 10: Omniverse[]
- She turned Addwaitya into a totem offscreen and although he did kill her father and her people, this is still a villainous act.
- In "Mystery Incorporeal", she turned Darkstar into a totem and although he did only use her for power and was a villain who betrays everyone for his plans, this is still a villainous act.
- In "Charmed, I'm Sure", upon retrieving the Alpha Rune, she immediately betrays the trio and begins attacking them.
- In "Charm School", Charmcaster attended Friedkin University at Hex's word, hoping that the two of them could be closer. However, Charmcaster only came to Friedkin University to obtain a powerful artifact known as the Staff of Ages. Charmcaster's first attempt that getting the Staff of Ages was a failure due to Hex being powerful in his library. She later managed to turn Hex into a totem after impersonating Professor Xagliv.
- She fought Ben's team throughout the episode, and even wanted to turn Gwen into a totem.
- In "Third Time's a Charm" she tricked Gwen into coming to Ledgerdomain and turned her into a totem in order to absorb her magic.
- She summoned Bezel, a master magician only for her to turn him into a totem so she can absorb his magic.
- She turned into a dragon and tried to kill Ben's team throughout the episode.
- Despite being last seen helping the heroes, there is nothing to indicate that she has redeemed herself or that she even regrets her past crimes.
What Makes Her Inconsistent?[]
- She is very tragic. She lost her father and her people to Addwaitya, was forced to run away from her home with her uncle, and grew up in a Juvenile Prison, where she was bullied every day. This made her obsessed with the idea of becoming a great sorceress, not to mention being raised by Hex, who also developed a thirst for power, with him even admitting in Omniverse that she needed a better role model to follow while growing up.
- She is often manipulated by other people, such as when she fell in love with Darkstar, who pretended to love her, only to for her to find out that he was using her for mana, she was heartbroken by this and kicked him out of his dimension and in Omniverse, she was also manipulated by Addwaitya, even swearing that was she the one in command. While this doesn't make her a scapegoat - it can be conidered a taste of her own medicine for always manipulating and using other people - these are still tragic events that have greatly regressed her mental health.
- She cares for a lot of people.
- According to Derrick J. Wayt, the late art director of Omniverse, although she and Hex have a complicated relationship, to say the least, they still care for each other. Additionally, she broke him out of prison and took care of him when he was turned into a baby.
- She also loves her father very much, even going as far commit genocide so she can ressurect him. Additionally she cried when he refused to be ressurected at the cost of other souls.
- Although she hates Gwen, she seems to respect her to some extent. She admits in "Where the Magic Happens" that she was impressed by her natural talent for magic and envied her for it, and from the way the two interacted in the episode, it seemed that deep down she enjoyed the non-hostile time she and Gwen had.
- Despite being taken seriously most of the time in the first three series, she has plenty of comedic moments that detract from her villainy, especially in Omniverse, such as when she calls Gwen an "idiot savant" or when she argues with Darkstar and Addwaitya when they were totems inside her bag, leading everyone to beleieve that she hears voices and has gone crazy.
- She seems to have moral agency issues, as in Ultimate Alien, she was mostly corrupted by the Alpha Rune's power, and the same thing happened when she regained it in Omniverse, even though she was genuinely affable towards Ben, Rook, and Hobble in the episode.
- She has some standards such as when she saved a boy from being hit by a truck for no pragmatic reasons and when she found out that Darkstar was using her, she stopped fighting Ben's team and drained Darkstar's energy in order to be defeated.
- She is On & Off, because since Ultimate Alien, sometimes she helps or joins the heroes:
- In "Where the Magic Happens" she teams up with Ben, Gwen and Kevin in order to free Ledgerdomain and defeat Aggregor, protecting them multiple times, even helping the trio escape and staying to fight for Ledgerdomain.
- In "Charmed I'm Sure", she teams up with Ben, Rook and Hobble in order to take the Alpha Rune from Zs'Skayr, protecting them multiple times and although she betrays them it is only because Addwaitya told her so.
- In "The Most Dangerous Game Show", she once again teams up with Ben and the other girls to escape from the Null Void and defeat Charles Zenith.
- But ultimately, the main reason why Charmcaster can't be Near Pure Evil is because the narrative shows sympathy for her. Ben, Gwen, and Kevin all show feelings of sympathy for her in the Ledgerdomain's episodes of Ultimate Alien, and Hex himself expresses sadness for what she's become. Even Gwen, who is her arch-nemesis, showns sadness for her when she defeats her in Omniverse, rather than celebrating her victory, and expresses a wish that one day they could be friends.
Trivia[]
- Until now, she is the only Ben 10 villain to be Inconsistently Heinous.
- According to Duncan Rouleau of Man of Action, both Kevin and Charmcaster were created specifically to be foils for Ben and Gwen, to reflect more personal conflicts within them based around their youth, and who would gradually shift from villains to anti-heroes. If Gwen had received a spinoff series, then Charmcaster would have joined the former's side just as Kevin had joined Ben's. If that had happened, it would have made Charmcaster's heinousness even more inconsistent.
- Neither her counterpart from the timeline created in the Alien Force episode "Time Heals" nor her version from the 2016 reboot count. The former has subverted most of her redeeming qualities and moved far beyond her tragedy, and the latter does nothing that passes the reboot's heinous standards, in addition to being taken far less seriously.
External links[]
- Charmcaster on the Villains Wiki
- Charmcaster on the Heroes Wiki
- Charmcaster on the Ben 10 Planet
