Guardians
There's much to talk about when it comes to the Guardians of Kandrakar.
What is a guardian?
What do they look like?
What do they do all day long?
What guardians are there?
Are they all from Earth?
Are there always 5 guardians in a team?
Are the members always female?
... these are only a few examples of the many questions revolving the status of "Guardian".
On the right(mobile: below) you can see the guardian teams along with the link that will take you to a sub site for each team going into more detail of their respective history, missions, and members.
Overall guardian information can be found below.
Teams
Guardian Definition
A guardian is a female (it is never explained, why only females become guardians) being of one of the many worlds that holds exceptional powers. These
powers don't have to be elemental. Orube for example held the power of a warrior and still was able to perform magic.
A guardian is a protector of Kandrakar, an ambassador. She represents the fortress where ever her missions take her and brings its justice to the worlds. A
guardian is the active part of Kandrakar.
The guardians have the duty to strive and uphold balance within the many worlds. They are called by the Oracle and sent on missions, given tasks and tests they
have to pass.
While the rules of Kandrakar have never clearly been spoken of, there are several mentioned throughout the comic when being broken. So guardians are probably expected to act on
the rules and customs of the fortress.
A team of guardians also has to be able to control the Heart of Kandrakar as a union.*
Once the Oracle said: "The guardians' power lies in them being united in mind and in spirit... not in action!" On several occasions in the comic, the group W.i.t.c.h. grew weaker due to personal
problems between members or being apart for a longer time.
Apart from their duties, guardians also have privileges. For one, they are welcomed to the fortress and have the right to call it their home. It is unclear, why Yan Lin was able to join Kandrakar, whereas Cassidy was not after their deaths.
*This suggests that C.h.y.k.n. failed not necessarily just because of Nerissa, but because of their missing team spirit.
How to become a Guardian
In order to become a guardian, one must posess an exceptional power. This doesn't necessarily have to be magic, it seems. Excellent warriors for example could just as well become guardians. This is supported by Orube (who can perform magic, though it is uncertain if this is through her new connection with the Heart or if she was capable of it before) Also, Endarno's candidates for a new guardian group are fighting without magic. This does of cause not prove that they are not able to perform magic at all.
In any case, the candidates have to prove their worth in order to be chosen.
Also the Heart cannot simply be taken from a keeper. The keeper has to renounce her title or, in case of Nerissa there has to be a trial - the Khandran in order to take the Heart by force.
This seems to be difficult or else Endarno would have performed the trial on Will to take the Heart. Probably there needs to be a pressing matter, something that justifies the assigning of a new keeper. I could also imagine that the Heart itself could separate from its keeper, since it has an own conscience.
A new guardian can also be assigned if a former guardian quits. This is what happened with Taranee. She temporarily left W.i.t.c.h. and in her stead Orube became a member to uphold the 5-members
rule and stabilise the group.
History of the Guardians & Former Groups
Thousands of years ago when Kandrakar was created, N'ghala chose the very first guardians. Even back then, all of Kandrakar had to remain passive, observant and wise. But evil could not always be stopped by the mind. They needed soldiers, protectors to act on their behalf and bring their justice to the worlds. Guardians.
At first there were two guardians. But two weren't strong enough to control the power of the Heart of Kandrakar, so three were chosen and then four. After time, five seemed to be the perfect number.
If you look at the picture above, N'ghala is all the way at the top, below her the first two guardians, then three guardians and after that there are four guardian teams of four. Below it becomes a little hard to tell. There are five teams of five guardians on the right and it is suggested that there will be equally as many on the left. Below that we can see C.h.y.k.n., the predecessors of W.i.t.c.h. who also were a team of five and all the way at the end is W.i.t.c.h.
This indicates a total of 18 guardian generations.
However the five guardians you see in the picture on the left don't seem to appear on the wall in Kandrakar.
The picture is from issue 9 where the W.i.t.c.h. girls watch the history of the Veil on the bridge to Kandrakar. It is possible these five women are only examples of guardians.
But if they truly represent a guardian group that is not portrayed on the wall of memories, we must assume that there were more than 18 guardian teams.
About the deeds or characteristics of former guardian teams there is almost nothing known, apart from the fact that their amount of members increased over time to be able to handle the Heart of Kandrakar. The only team aside from W.i.t.c.h. that has been mentioned in the comics is C.h.y.k.n. Any information on their history can be found in their respective sub page.
The Age Matter & Gift of Xin Jing
There has always been the question of age when it comes to the guardians. In issue 27 the Oracle explains the gift of Xin Jing. It is said that the constant transformation between one state and another would exhaust a guardian and so Xin Jing created the gift of regeneration. With it, the guardians can heal faster and also live longer. It even repairs small 'damages' like bad eye sight. Yan Lin, like he says "served Kandrakar for a very long time... longer than any common mortal ever could have done."
Also the gift can be accepted, denied or passed on to someone else. The question is, if that gift is being made to each generation, or if the gift - once given away - is lost for future
generations. If so, it would mean that WITCH were the first to deny (Taranee) and pass it on to safe Maqi's life, the son of Ari.
But how long does a guardian live exactly?
First of all if we assume that the above noted 18 guardian teams truly were the only teams in the history of Kandrakar, each generation must have aged far beyond a normal humans' life. After all
the Kingdom and Fortress is said to be several thousands of years old.
If we say the average guardian lives about 80 years and multiply it with the amount of teams, we get this equation:
80 x 18 = 1.440
Theoretically we would have to use 70, considering that most guardians won't be chosen right after birth so their actual guardian years in a normal human life would lie between
50-70 years.
The other option is that there were far more guardian teams than the 18 seen on the wall in Kandrakar.
In the celebratory omnibus of the first arc of the comics it is written that Yan Lin was guardian one millennium before W.i.t.c.h. This is confirmed through the explanation of the Oracle. If we say, most guardian teams did use the gift of Xin Jing and through it, became around the age of 1000 years, we'd have this equation:
1.000 x 18 = 18.000
In the end we can only guess how old guardians truly become.
Guardian Look
While developing the W.i.t.c.h. girls, the artists originally intended to show their element symbols somewhere on the outfits. They tested where to place them for example by the collar or on the chest or the belly. Finally they decided against it, at least for the first transformation.
For the New Power uniform set, however they reused this idea. But since W.i.t.c.h. is the only guardian group mentioned and shown in said second transformation you can read more about it under their subpage. The text below hence focuses on the first guardian forms that we get to see of W.i.t.c.h. and C.h.y.k.n.
Colour Scheme & Design
While each guardian outfit is unique, each one follows a certain design that I will try to point in the following.
The most obvious thing is the colour scheme.
The scheme consists of 8 colours that always stay the same. For one the violet that is used for either bottom or top of the uniform. Then we have the teal-green
also for top or bottom. Both colours can also be used for accessories like protective sleeves or ribbons in Hay Lin's case.
Then we have the lighter, almost lemon green and sky blue (sometimes looks like another green) of the tights. At least in case of the two recent guardian teams
the striped pattern is only used for tights or socks of a kind and reach up to the waist at maximum.
The boots or shoes are always in a dark violet (at the beginning dark purple) and finally we have another light green and light
blue tone for the wings. The "framing" of the wings is almost black. Sometimes it looks like very dark green or blue.
Like mentioned above, each uniform usually consists of the striped tights or socks, a pair of shoes or boots in dark violet, a top and bottom of some kind. The belly is left free of clothing. Sometimes there is an accessory and of cause a set of fragile looking fairy wings. The wings are small and not made for flying. Hay Lin can lift her body thanks to her element so she doesn't really use the wings.
The style of each uniform depends on the character of its wearer. For example Cornelia's uniform is elegant while Taranee's is very sporty.
Another similarity are the swirls, how I call them. Each uniform has at least one or two swirls somewhere. Either on the bottom, the top, the collar or sleeves. Sometimes there are several in different places.
The Exception
The only uniform that breaks the colour scheme is Nerissa's. Her outfit is missing the lighter violet. Since her uniform consist of a dress she does show her belly but there is no accessory or anything like it that has the distinctive violet colour.
This could either mean that a uniform can also consist of either violet or teal like Nerissa's OR the artists forgot about their own rules when drawing the girl. Since she was only shown once in her guardian form, it is not unlikely.
Apart from this questionable detail, her uniform does follow the general design. The dress even has a small recess to show her belly.