Spyro the Dragon/Characters

Settle in, kiddies. This is gonna take a while.

Original Series
Characters from the original Spyro the Dragon series. This counts all games through the original PS 1 game to Shadow Legacy on the DS. While this series, The Legend of Spyro trilogy, and Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure technically share some characters, we'll be giving them separate entries, because their characterizations differ across the series. Skylanders character entries can be found on their own page.

Spyro
The Purple One himself. He's a young dragon living in the Dragon Realms. He can do the usual dragon things: Breathing fire, flying, hitting things with his horns... In the first game, he saved the world because he was the only dragon not transformed into crystal. After that, though, he became a member of the Frequent World-Saver's Club.
 * Badbutt
 * Bag of Spilling: Averted. All of the powerups he purchases from Moneybags in the second game are retained in the third.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: He makes quite a few nods to it.
 * Breath Weapon: Well, he is a dragon.
 * Captain Ersatz: of Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Elemental Powers: In the original few games, he stuck with fire a lot, but as the series went on, he branched out. Including into bubble.
 * Evil Laugh: He does one after defeating Gnasty Gnorc in the original game.
 * Mascot with Attitude
 * Playing with Fire: Of course.
 * The Other Darrin: He went from Rocko (in the original game) to Spongebob.
 * Use Your Head: No matter the game, his two basic attacks are usually "fire breath" and "hit it really hard with his horns."

Sparx
Spyro's best friend, and his health meter. With firefly magic, he keeps Spyro safe from harm. Inquisitive and helpful, he and Spyro stick up for one another through thick and thin.
 * Dragonfly Companion
 * Suddenly Voiced: In A Hero's Tail, he suddenly started speaking intelligibly.
 * The Unintelligible: In Year of the Dragon and Enter the Dragonfly, he only talks in buzzy kazoo-noises.

Gnasty Gnorc
The main villain from the first game; a powerful and brutal gnorc who was banished from the Dragon Kingdom and allowed to reign free over the dragon dumping grounds, which became known as Gnasty's World. When a dragon called him ugly on a TV interview, he reacted by turning every dragon (except Spyro) into crystal, and turning their gems into gnorc minions.
 * Big Bad: Of the first game. He's later The Dragon to Red in Hero's Tail
 * Demoted to Dragon: In Hero's Tail he's Red's Dragon. Suprisingly, it takes a lot more effort to defeat him as The Dragon than when he was the Big Bad.
 * Carry a Big Stick: He's always seen with a large mace which doubles as a magic wand.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: As mentioned above, he enslaves all the dragons because they called him ugly. To be fair, he was probably just looking for an excuse to use that spell anyway...
 * Flat Character
 * Get Back Here Boss: He spends most of his boss fight running away from you.
 * Informed Attribute: His strength - he goes down in two hits. For clarification, that's one less hit than the gnorc thief enemies in the first level hub.
 * More explicit in A Hero's Tail; when he pounds his mace to the ground, it's strong enough to send large lumps of rock falling from the ceiling, as well as create shockwaves. He also takes a lot more effort to take down compared to the two hits it took originally.
 * Power-Up Magnet: His ability to grab gems.
 * Shock and Awe: In A Hero's Tail he has trapped a sort of thunder-fairy in his mace, and thus he can cast lightning bolts and zap you.

Hunter
Another one of Spyro's good buddies, this, er, hunter lends his bow to Spyro's cause. Other than that--well...
 * The Archer
 * Depending on the Writer
 * Funny Animal: He's an anthropomorphic cheetah.
 * Butt Monkey: Getting his feet locked in solid rock, thrown into a wall, stuck in a hole, battered with attacks aimed at Spyro, being kidnapped, etc...
 * Ascended Extra: In his first appearance, he exists just to offer the odd tutorial and accidentally start the whole Ripto takeover in the first place. By the third game he's playable in some levels. He's also one of few characters from the original games to be reimagined and reused in the reboot.
 * Took a Level In Badass: From a bumbling sports-fan in the second game to a competent warrior in A Hero's Tail

Elora
A Faun from Avalar, and the series' first female character, she appears in Ripto's Rage as an associate of Hunter and the Professor. She is the one who tells Spyro to collect the Talismans and guides him on his quest to defeat Ripto.
 * First Girl Wins: More like Only Girl Wins, but she and Spyro do seem to have an implied interest in each other.
 * Put on a Bus: Despite Hunter, Moneybags and the Professor having large roles in the games post-Ripto's Rage, Elora disappeared entirely except for a cameo at the end of Year of the Dragon.
 * The Bus Came Back: After being entirely absent for the whole game, she appears in a cutscene at the end of Year of the Dragon to celebrate Spyro's latest victory.

The Professor
Another of Spyro's associates from Avalar, the Professor is a mole who is an unrivalled expert in superportal technology. He has a base in the Forgotten Worlds and later seems to move to the Dragon Worlds full-time. He has close ties to two other characters - his ex-lab experiment Agent 9, and his nephew Blink.
 * Absent-Minded Professor: Especially in the later games.
 * The Professor: Of course.

Moneybags
A greedy bear from Avalar whose main purpose throughout the series is to extort gems from you (sometimes in ludicrous amounts) in exchange for services (i.e. unlocking levels, opening passages and teaching you abilities) essential for progression. In Year Of The Dragon he is found in the Forgotten Realms where he apparently works for The Sorceress, though he is willing to help you if you bribe him.


 * Arms Dealer: According to some of his dialogue regarding the Zephyr/Breeze Harbor conflict.
 * Cash Gate
 * The Chew Toy: He is systematically humiliated (much to the amusement of the players) in Year Of The Dragon, possibly as karmic payback for joining up with The Sorceress.
 * Enemy to All Living Things: He brings it on himself, though it is noteworthy that the game picks exceptionally docile characters for him to piss off (the usually reserved Sgt Bird even saves his ammo and delays an escape attempt just so he can fire it all on the bear. Worth It).
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He is usually seen carrying a bag with the "$" symbol.
 * Everything Is Worse With Bears
 * Honest John's Dealership
 * Jerkass
 * Moneybags Hates Your Guts
 * No Hero Discount
 * Smug Snake
 * The Quisling: In Year Of The Dragon, assisting the Sorceress for, of course, Money, Dear Boy.

Bianca
A rabbit who starts out as The Dragon (no pun intended) to The Sorceress in Year of the Dragon, but after a Heel Face Turn falls in love with Hunter and becomes one of Spyro's allies. A skilled sorceress herself, her magical abilities have proven to be helpful several times.
 * Chickification: In the fourth game.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen
 * Flanderization: Bianca has been subject to some... controversy in the later games, where her formerly-badass personality is replaced by a comparatively weak, stereotypical female one, only showing up to be the Token Girl or to use her Deus Ex Machina spells.
 * Heck, not even her voice or design seems the same.
 * How Do I Shot Web?: Still training as a magician and thus some of her spells don't quite end up as planned
 * Humanoid Female Animal: Most evident in Enter The Dragonfly.
 * Minion with an F In Evil: While working for the Sorceress. She repeatedly tries to pull off a villainous facade in front of the heroes in an attempt to scare them off, though constantly flops due to her meek and clumsy demeanor.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Her reaction to the Sorceress announcing that she wanted the baby dragons for their wings, considering that Bianca had helped her to achieve this goal.
 * Heel Face Turn
 * The Renfield/The Dragon: To the Sorceress, at least at first.

Ripto
The main villain of the second game. Ripto had enlisted Crush and Gulp to wage war before he was accidentally warped to avalar by Hunter. Upon arrival, he set about enslaving the worlds in which his reign brought disaster upon Avalar until he was eventually defeated by Spyro.


 * Bad Boss: He can be a jerkass to his minions. However, it's shown that he actually does care about them to some extent.
 * Big Bad: Of Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage. Returns as the Big Bad of Enter The Dragonfly.
 * Card-Carrying Villain
 * Disney Villain Death: In the final battle he tries to flee via a mechanical bird. But after a dogfight with Spyro, he dies when he falls into a pit of boiling lava which was under the arena. However, he somehow survived that and returned for his revenge in Enter The Dragonfly.
 * Evil Sorcerer: Played straight in the second game.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Not to Spyro himself, but to Crush and Gulp. He mourns the loss of Crush and gives Gulp a generous offer if he successfully manages to kill Spyro.
 * Large Ham
 * The Napoleon
 * Obviously Evil
 * One-Winged Angel: At the end of the final boss battle of Enter The Dragonfly he turns into a gigantic troll-like monster to try and kill Spyro.
 * Shout-Out: His name is similar to the katakana for "Spyro".
 * Villainous Breakdown: When defeated in Enter The Dragonfly, he goes into a temper tantrum and yells about how much he hates dragons before escaping.

Crush
One of Ripto's minions next to Gulp. He wields a club as a weapon.
 * The Brute
 * Boisterous Bruiser: Played fairly straight
 * Dumb Muscle
 * Hulk Speak

Gulp
One of Ripto's minions next to Crush. He has two giant laser cannons on his back.
 * BFG:
 * The Brute
 * Boisterous Bruiser
 * Disc One Final Boss: After beating him, Ripto seems to be gone for good, but it turns out that while he was down for the count, the same couldn't be said for Ripto himself.
 * Dumb Muscle: Subverted. He's smart enough to know how to use the powerups that were designed for Spyro against him.
 * Hulk Speak
 * Suddenly Voiced: Very briefly in the Fourth Game.

The Sorceress
The main villain of Year Of The Dragon. A vain, selfish, tyrant who ruled the Forgotten Realms. She kidnapped all the baby dragons during the Year Of The Dragons so she could kill them for their wings so she could become immortal, forcing Spyro to come rescue them. Bianca was formally her Dragon but once she discovered the Sorceress' true intentions, she performed a Heel Face Turn and helped Spyro defeat her. In the running for the most evil Spyro villain.
 * Acid Pool: How she meets her end.
 * Bad Boss: Turns a lot of her minions into more powerful monsters against their will. She also shows no respect for Bianca.
 * Big Bad: Of Year Of The Dragon
 * Disney Villain Death: Falls to her death when the flying saucer she was fighting Spyro in was disabled. Special mention for falling into acid! Not to say she didn't deserve it though.
 * Didn't Think This Through: The Dragons lived in her kingdom till she got ticked off and banished them. Only afterwards did she discover they were the source of her powers...
 * Evil Sorcerer: It's in her name.
 * God Save Us From the Queen: Ruled the Forgotten Realms and is as evil as they come.
 * Meaningful Name: Unlike Gnorc and Ripto, she's simply known as the sorceress. And yes, she uses magic.
 * Not Quite Dead: Is thrown into molten lava by Spyro and seemingly killed, but she claws her way out and fights Spyro one last time before being Killed Off for Real by falling into an Acid Pool.
 * Powered by a Forsaken Child: Her spell literally required the wings of 150 baby dragons to work. While it's not explained if it hurt them, both her wands were powered by a dragon egg.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Subverted pretty hard. At first, it seems that she's stealing dragon eggs to bring magic back to her world. But it then turns out she's planning to kill the dragons sent to her world so that she can use their wings to cast an immortality spell.
 * Would Hurt a Child: Wanted to kill all150of the baby dragons she'd captured for their wings so she could cast a spell and become immortal. As if that wasn't bad enough, she didn't need to kill them, she just didn't want them squirming when she tore their wings off!

Ember
A pink dragoness introduced in A Hero's Tail, who is shown to have a crush on Spyro.
 * Fan Girl
 * Innocent Blue Eyes
 * Interspecies Romance: Eventually falls in love with an armadillo in Shadow Legacy.
 * Rose-Scaled Girl
 * Shallow Love Interest
 * Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: In addition to being pink, she has a necklace and a heart-shaped tail.

Flame
A supporting character in A Hero's Tail.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Voiced by Tara Strong, and sounds remarkably similar to Timmy Turner.
 * Palette Swap: Flame is basically Spyro with red scales instead of purple ones. There are some subtle differences (a wider snout on Flame, for example) but they're still really similar. Without going into the Model Viewer, it's hard to notice.

Red
The villain of A Hero's Tail. Formerly a dragon elder, his lust for power led him to be banished. He returns to the Dragon Realms years later, using Dark Gems to fuel his power.
 * Fallen Hero
 * Heel Face Turn: Becomes an ally in Shadow Legacy.

The Legend of Spyro Trilogy
There's a separate page, here.

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
Also has it's own page, here.