Charmcaster

**Hope**, also known as the **Charmcaster**, is a character from the *Ben 10* franchise.

Hex's niece and disciple, as well as Gwen's personal rival. At first appearing to be an unwilling and submissive servant of her uncle, Charmcaster shows her true colors when she double-crosses both him and the heroes in an attempt to gain the power of Bezel for herself. After her second defeat at the hands of Gwen, Gwen takes her spellbook away and learns magic from it, cementing the pair's rivalry.

In Ultimate Alien, it's revealed that her true name is Hope and that she comes from the dimension of Ledgerdomain. Her father and all other humans save for her and Hex were slaughtered by the evil Adwaita, who conquered the realm for himself. Hope's goal is to liberate her homeworld and also find a way to resurrect her father, no matter what the cost may be, and she thus walks the line between good and evil frequently.

In the AWA fics, Charmcaster is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

In the original series, Charmcaster wore a magenta coat with purple at the ends, underneath she wore purple long boots with black straps around them. She wore her Magical Charm Bag around her waist. Charmcaster wore her long silver hair in a low ponytail, and light purple and pinkish eyes, along with purple lipstick.

In **Alien Force** and **Ultimate Alien**, Charmcaster wore a purple dress with a pink ribbon around her waist and a black crown on her head. In addition to that, she wore black fingerless gloves. At the top of her dress, she had a cerise pink gem with a golden border, and she also wore long dark purple tights. She wore her long silver hair laid out that extended to her thighs, orchid eyes, and very dark purple lipstick. She looked slightly thinner and taller, and her ears were pointed. She was also said to be "cute" and "hot" by Ben and Kevin, respectively, and Darkstar calls her "beautiful".

In **Omniverse**, Charmcaster returns to a color scheme resembling her original series appearance, while retaining the skirt and some thematic elements from her **Alien Force/Ultimate Alien** appearance. Her stark white hair is now framed with purple highlights, and like the original series, she has her hair in a ponytail. She wears gothic "Eye of Horus" styled eye makeup and golden earrings. She is also more curvaceous than in her previous appearance.

Charmcaster has developed the ability to merge with her Rock Monsters to create a secondary armored form, that retains the stone texture and color of her creatures.

## **Personality**

Charmcaster is a complex person who has grown up without the guidance of her father. Her only role model was her uncle Hex, which had caused her to develop a delinquent attitude and a lust for power. Charmcaster had spent some time in Juvenile Hall, being the target of bullies, which only made growing up more difficult. Due to the harshness and misfortune that has befallen her with every encounter with Ben, and especially Gwen, Hope had become quite resentful and bitter. To compensate for her insecurities, she always acts very arrogant and ego-driven, striving to prove her superiority over others, Gwen above all, whose magical talents and power she is highly jealous of.

Though she seemed to have found some measure of redemption after defeating Addwaitya and avenging her father's death, she ends up becoming bitter and corrupted again, due the nature of Ledgerdomain and the power of the Alpha Rune. She began to improve after her father told her she was living her life wrong, but the faithlessness of Darkstar and manipulativeness of Addwaitya, who is now her prisoner, have caused her to stray from her path once more.

Despite her faults, Hope can be friendly and sociable when she feels like it. This is especially seen when she teams up with Ben's team in Ledgerdomain and Anur Transyl. In the latter instance, she has also relaxed and has more of a sense of humor than before, only dropping it when under the influence of the Alpha Rune's power. She has also become more childish than before, with both the cheerful innocence and the petty cruelty that comes along with it.

## **Abilities**

Like her uncle, Charmcaster depends on magic to fight. Charmcaster is highly skilled in various magical and mystical spells, although it is clear that because of her inexperience, she is not as strong and powerful as her uncle.

#### **Charmcaster's Magic Bag**

Instead of using a staff, Charmcaster has a magic bag from which she can draw all manner of magical mystical items, such as magical explosives in shades of glowing purple, throwing purple glowing blades, or even a variety of clay animals which she can magically enlarge and animate to do her bidding. Although small, the bag seems to have something of a pocket dimension inside (basically a magic satchel), allowing Charmcaster to store a wide variety things within it that logically should not fit (at one point, she produces Hex's magical mystical staff, an item that is at least four feet tall). The bag also appears to have some degree of sentience, as it found its way back to Charmcaster under its own power.

#### **Charmcaster's Spellbook**

Charmcaster possessed a miniature dark purple and gold-striped spellbook (which ten-year-old Gwen takes as keepsake) hidden in her long-sleeved purple-colored coat instead of her bag.

In **Ben 10: Alien Force**, Charmcaster does not use her bag anymore, relying mainly on mana manipulation. However, she is still seen using various spells, including levitation, manipulating mana for lightning-like blasts, telekinesis, mind control, elemental control (water, plants, etc.), altering her appearance, bringing life to inanimate objects, transmogrification, summoning and controlling her rock monsters, teleportation, and opening portals for viewing or transport. She can also summon objects to her hand by teleportation or from her magic bag. She now has a staff that's similar to her uncle's that she can use to emit mana blasts. This has only happened once, but Charmcaster has kissed Kevin, inducing him into some sort of hypnosis trance where she apparently had full control and was able to influence his subconscious mind, for he seemed to show full submission to her hypnotic commands, and before ordered him to "wipe his mind", what possibly and probably also influenced him.

Unlike Gwen, Charmcaster's magic has a lightning-like effect and a whiter coloration, while Gwen's is more solid and darker, also instead of creating balls of pure mana for projectiles attack, Charmcaster creates lightning bolts. An interesting fact is that when creating magical attacks the large sphere that forms on her hand is atom shaped (two thin rings can be seen), Also she never used a shield, unlike Gwen, mainly because when she attacks her spell will collide with and cancel the enemy's attack.

#### **Alpha Rune**

Prior to *Enemy of My Frenemy*, Charmcaster took over and ruled Ledgerdomain. She possessed the Alpha Rune, the most powerful magical artifact ever. With it she was strong enough to defeat Addwaitya, Gwen, Kevin and Ben easily, change the true name of Ledgerdomain every few seconds, and it also made her capable of calling the Old One to revive her father. While she still had godlike power over the realm,[8] she had stopped visibly wearing the Alpha Rune.

## **Trivia**

* 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 spin-off series, then Charmcaster would have joined her side just as Kevin joined Ben's.
* Charmcaster's intentions in **Ultimate Alien** were to return to Ledgerdomain and save her people rather than rule the world.
* In **Alien Force**, Charmcaster is in possession of Hex's staff. As stated in the original series, only a master magician can use it. This implies that she has become a master magician.
* Charmcaster is the only villain to have successfully killed Ben, Gwen, and Kevin, although it wasn't permanent.
* Charmcaster's "Caroline" disguise heavily resembles Sandra Tennyson, just younger.
* Charmcaster's original design, seen on the "**Ben 10** Complete Third Season" DVD, looked just like the one that was actually used except her coat was red instead of purple, her hair black instead of white, and with paintings on her face that made her resemble Hex.
	+ Thomas Perkins, her designer, has stated that these colors and features were meant to give a Charmcaster a fox-themed appearance.
* Charmcaster shares a few similarities with the superheroine Scarlet Witch of Marvel Comics mainly since they are both sorceress who were originally evil but turned good and both are related to a supervillain (Magneto for Scarlet Witch, Hex for Charmcaster).