Gabe

Lore & Background

Gabe Locke comes of age in the shadow of Key House, a sprawling Victorian manor in Matheson, Massachusetts, whose collection of antique keys each unlocks a different supernatural ability. As the eldest child of locksmith Matt Locke, Gabe grew up around tools, locks, and the quiet rhythm of a family that understood mechanisms. The arrival at Key House shatters that rhythm, and Gabe finds himself the one his father expects to step up, to be the steady one, even while the house itself is rewriting the rules of reality around him.

His relationship with the keys is more complicated than his siblings'. Where Bode discovers keys with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, Gabe approaches them with the skepticism of a teenager who wants a normal life. He resents the way Key House has consumed the family's attention, the way his father's obsession with the house's history has become a second parent. Yet when the Tomb family—ruthless interlopers who want the house and its keys for their own ends—close in, Gabe's protective instincts as the oldest sibling become his sharpest weapon.

The emotional core of Gabe's story is the tension between wanting to be seen as an individual and being defined by his role in the family. He is the one who drives, the one who makes the practical decisions, the one who snaps at Bode for being the 'chosen one' while simultaneously being the first to throw himself in front of danger for his little brother. In a story saturated with magic, Gabe's power is the most human kind: stubborn, reluctant loyalty.

In Their Own Story

The kitchen light hummed its low fluorescent buzz. Gabe sat at the table with a cold cup of coffee, a textbook open to a page he hadn't read in twenty minutes, and his phone face-down on the wood. Down the hall, he could hear Bode whispering to Kinsey, the particular hushed register they used when they'd found something new in the back rooms. Something clicking. Something that wasn't supposed to click.

He rubbed his eyes. Matt was at the workbench again, bent over a lock the size of a dinner plate, muttering about tumblers and pins like a man praying. The house creaked around them, settling into its bones the way an old ship groans in a harbor. Gabe could feel it in the floorboards, a faint vibration, as if the walls were breathing.

He picked up his phone. Put it back down. Picked it up again. Typed a text to his friend: *can't come over. house is doing the thing again.* Deleted it. Typed: *family emergency.* Sent it.

Down the hall, the whispering stopped. Footsteps. The particular quick, light-footed gait of Bode heading toward the kitchen. Gabe closed the textbook.

"What did you find this time?" he asked, not looking up.

A pause. Then, quieter: "Gabe. You need to see this."

He stood. Poured the cold coffee down the sink. Followed his brother into the dark hallway where the light from the back rooms made the wallpaper look like it was shifting, just slightly, just enough. The house was breathing. It was always breathing. And Gabe, the oldest, the one who was supposed to be fine, walked toward it anyway.

Reader's Guide

Gabe is the eldest Locke sibling, son of Matt Locke the locksmith, and the brother who is supposed to hold things together. In the family's hierarchy, he sits between his father's authority and Bode's spotlight, which makes him the most quietly frustrated of the group. His relationship to Key House is one of reluctant stewardship: he didn't choose the house, but he's the one most likely to be the one making the practical calls while everyone else is marveling at a key that lets someone breathe underwater.

In Joe Hill's comic, Gabe's arc tracks the slow erosion of a teenager's desire for normalcy. He resents the keys, resents the Toms, resents being the 'responsible one' in a family that keeps making impossible choices. His loyalty to Bode is fierce and unspoken, the kind that shows up in the way he positions himself between his brother and a threat without asking to be thanked. His ultimate fate in the comic is tied to the family's final stand against the Tomb family, and his choices in those closing pages define what the Locke name means after the dust settles.

The Netflix adaptation (2020–2022) keeps Gabe as the eldest but shifts some of the family dynamics and pacing across its three seasons. Where the comic compresses Gabe's growth into a tighter narrative, the show stretches his interactions with the other siblings and gives him more screen time as a voice of grounded skepticism. Both versions agree on the core: Gabe is the one who wants out, the one who stays anyway, and the one whose loyalty is the family's real anchor.

Did You Know?

• Locke and Key was created by Joe Hill, the son of horror novelist Stephen King, and first published as a comic series before being adapted for Netflix.
• The fictional town of Matheson, Massachusetts, where Key House sits, is a recurring setting across both the comic and the show, giving the story a grounded New England feel against its supernatural elements.
• Gabe's role as the eldest sibling positions him as the family's practical problem-solver, a deliberate contrast to Bode's role as the key-discoverer and narrative driver.
• The Netflix adaptation ran for three seasons (2020–2022) and, while it followed the broad beats of the comic, restructured several family dynamics and character arcs to suit a serialized television format.