SUPERFAN FIELD GUIDE · SPOILER-CONTROLLED

Five children. Two eras. One gloriously frightening mythology.

By Does Your Duck Quack

This is the reading-room wall I wanted as a fan: who the Five are, where the source-linked gates sit, what the Nexus knows, and how the dream world joins a scattered team—without turning the first screen into a minefield of finale spoilers.

Power of Five or The Gatekeepers?

SAME FIVE NOVELSThe Power of Five is the UK series name used by Anthony Horowitz’s official site and Walker editions. The Gatekeepers is the US series name used by Scholastic. It is a regional series-title change, not a sequel, adaptation or different continuity.

The titles and reading order remain Raven’s Gate, Evil Star, Nightrise, Necropolis and Oblivion. Collectors should still match publisher, territory, year and ISBN rather than treating the two series labels as different works.

Meet the modern Five

FIRST APPEARANCE · Raven’s GateMatt Freeman

Yorkshire. The first modern Gatekeeper we meet; foster care and a rehabilitation placement bring him to Lesser Malling.

FIRST APPEARANCE · Evil StarPedro

Peru. A local boy who helps Matt after the search for the second gate turns dangerous.

FIRST APPEARANCE · NightriseJamie Tyler

Nevada, USA. One of the fourteen-year-old twins performing a mind-reading act when Nightrise intervenes.

FIRST APPEARANCE · NightriseScott Tyler

Nevada, USA. Jamie’s twin; his kidnapping drives the third book’s pursuit and separation.

FIRST APPEARANCE · NecropolisScarlett “Scar” Adams

Hong Kong. The final Gatekeeper to be found, trapped in a city transformed by the Old Ones’ return.

The Five’s abilities and linked identity — reveal series spoilers

Read the novels before using this as a power checklist: Matt’s force of will can move and break physical matter; Pedro’s gift is healing; Jamie and Scott’s twin bond expresses itself through mind-reading and mental influence; Scarlett’s power is bound to weather and the natural world.

The books gradually make clear that “the Five” describes more than five gifted modern teenagers. Their connection reaches back to an earlier company of Gatekeepers, and the modern children occupy corresponding identities in the renewed conflict. That is why resemblance, memory and recognition sometimes arrive before explanation.

The Old Ones: a spoiler-light adversary file

What they are

Ancient beings representing a destructive evil outside ordinary human politics.

Why they are absent

Five children defeated them in the remote past; eight guardians protect the world from their return.

How they return

Human servants try to open sealed gates. The first book makes ritual, technology and local conspiracy parts of the same threat.

Why the Five matter

No single Gatekeeper is the finished answer. The title’s arithmetic is also its moral idea: power is completed through reunion.

Old Ones hierarchy and final conflict — reveal late-series spoilers

The enemy grows from a hidden pressure behind cults and corporations into an occupying force. By Oblivion, the King of the Old Ones has gathered that force for a final battle in the landscape that gives the book its title. The escalation is deliberate: village unease becomes world-ending war.

The Nexus: the human resistance

The official Evil Star synopsis calls the Nexus a secret organisation that helps Matt and Richard follow clues to the second gate. It also warns that there is a traitor inside. That combination defines the group: a repository of knowledge and international help, but never a guarantee of safety.

FUNCTIONFind and protect

The Nexus searches for Gatekeepers, studies the Old Ones and tries to place the right people near each crisis.

LIMITHuman and fallible

Its members can organise travel, evidence and protection, but they cannot substitute for the Five or remove betrayal from the story.

READER’S TESTTrust the evidence

“Nexus member” is not a moral shortcut. Horowitz keeps institutional loyalty under pressure.

FAN TAKEThe necessary briefing room

The group gives a worldwide mythology practical shape: names, routes, warnings and last-minute plans.

Gate map: confirmed passages only

The purple markers below are the two locations explicitly identified as numbered gates in the official book synopses. Gold markers are important settings or supernatural destinations; they are not silently promoted to “gate” status.

Power of Five gate and story-location mapA stylised world map marks confirmed gates in Yorkshire and Peru, with story locations in Nevada and Hong Kong. The ancient past and Oblivion are listed separately because they have no ordinary map coordinates.YorkshireRaven’s GatePeruSecond gateNevadaHong Kong
  • Confirmed gate
  • Story location / door
PlaceClassificationWhat the books establish
Yorkshire, EnglandRaven’s GateCONFIRMED GATEMatt’s placement in Lesser Malling leads to the first sealed passage. The official author synopsis identifies the gate and the Old Ones’ attempted return.
Nazca desert, PeruThe second gateCONFIRMED GATEThe official Evil Star synopsis identifies the Nazca Lines as the second gate. Lima and the wider Peruvian journey belong to the search route.
Nevada, USANightrise beginsSTORY LOCATIONJamie and Scott’s theatre act, Scott’s abduction and Jamie’s flight begin here. It is a major series location, not labelled as a physical gate by the official synopsis.
Hong KongMan Ho templeDOOR / STORY LOCATIONThe official Necropolis synopsis calls this a secret door and a possible route to survival. This guide does not relabel it as one of the two explicitly numbered gates above.
The ancient pastFirst battle eraTIME DESTINATIONNightrise sends Jamie ten thousand years into the past to witness the first battle and the creation of Raven’s Gate.
OblivionOld Ones’ gathering placeFINAL-BATTLE LANDSCAPEThe official finale synopsis describes a desolate landscape where the King of the Old Ones gathers his forces; it does not give that landscape a conventional map coordinate.

The wider world route

  1. 1 · YorkshireA closed village, a first gate and the discovery that Matt’s private unease belongs to an ancient war.
  2. 2 · PeruThe Nexus, a second Gatekeeper and the Nazca desert open the story from local horror into global mythology.
  3. 3 · Nevada → ancient pastThe twins’ American pursuit breaks chronological boundaries and lets the reader witness the first conflict.
  4. 4 · Hong KongScar completes the modern group while a poisoned city shows what an Old Ones victory looks like at street level.
  5. 5 · Scattered world → OblivionThe finale makes distance the obstacle: reunion has to happen before resistance can become whole.

Dream-world rules: the fan’s rulebook

This is an interpretive synthesis of repeated story events, not an author-issued technical manual.

Shared, not merely similar

The Five can encounter one another in a common dream space; the scene carries information across real-world separation.

Distance bends

Geography does not prevent a meeting, which is why the dream world becomes vital before the team can assemble physically.

Time is porous

The series links dreams, memory and the ancient conflict. Normal chronological assumptions are unsafe there.

It is not a free escape route

Dream contact does not erase danger, guarantee control or automatically transport a body to safety.

Dream world, doors and identity — reveal major spoilers

The dream world is both meeting place and evidence that the modern Five repeat an older pattern. Their ancient counterparts are not simply unrelated predecessors: the novels connect identity across the two eras through reincarnation. Doors can also become real routes at moments of crisis, but the books treat those passages as story events, not a universally controllable travel system.

Superfan caution: “dream,” “vision,” “memory” and “door” overlap in the series, but they are not interchangeable labels. When the text gives a passage a specific function, this guide keeps that distinction.

Ancient Five and modern Five

QuestionAncient eraModern era
What unites them?Five young defenders confront the Old Ones together.Matt, Pedro, Jamie, Scott and Scarlett are drawn from separate lives toward the same conflict.
What is known?Their victory, the first battle and the sealing of gates have become guarded history.Knowledge arrives piecemeal through powers, dreams, witnesses and the Nexus.
What changes?The first company fights before the modern institutions and technologies of the novels.Corporations, media, prisons, cities and global travel become tools or obstacles in the renewed war.
Core patternFive identities and complementary powers.The same pattern returns through reincarnation, but choice and sacrifice still matter.
Complete two-era chronology — reveal series-wide spoilers

Ancient era

  1. More than 10,000 years agoThe ancient Five confront the Old Ones in the first great battle.
  2. The sealingThe Old Ones are banished; gates and guardians preserve the barrier.
  3. Raven’s Gate is madeNightrise lets Jamie witness this past rather than merely hear its legend.

Modern era

  1. Raven’s GateMatt discovers the first gate and the scale of the returning threat.
  2. Evil StarMatt reaches Peru, meets Pedro and races the opening of the second gate.
  3. NightriseJamie searches for Scott; the story crosses into the ancient era and makes the two companies’ relationship explicit.
  4. NecropolisScarlett is found in Hong Kong and the modern Five are finally identifiable as a complete group.
  5. OblivionThe scattered Gatekeepers seek reunion as the King of the Old Ones prepares the ultimate battle.

Identity note: the modern Gatekeepers are reincarnations of the ancient Five. The recurrence explains recognition and continuity; it does not make the modern children passive copies. Their lived relationships and choices carry the finale.

Sources

Series naming, order, locations and premise-level claims use official author and publisher pages. Power, dream-world and reincarnation sections are clearly marked as spoiler-bearing synthesis from the five novels.