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This is an in-character journal for Riley Poole, specifically for use at the Landel's Damned community. I do not own this character or any of its affiliates.
Series: National Treasure
Series' Medium: Two movies
Character: Riley Poole
Age: 30
Sex/Gender: Male
Canon Role: Sidekick of the protagonist, all-around comic relief, resident computer genius.
"Real" Name: Duane Lewis
The history section contains spoilers for both films. Read at your own risk!
Please give us a personal history of your character's life and explain to us in detail how they grow and develop over the course of their canon:
We know Riley was born in the United States, and that he was stuck in some kind of boring office job before Benjamin Gates enlisted his help. Since this recruitment occurred in DC, it's safe to assume that's where Riley currently lives, and his familiarity of the area means he's probably lived there for a while. However, the absence of any family members over the course of both movies implies that he was born somewhere else in the country and moved to DC later.
As a technological genius with a slightly cynical sense of humor, Riley was probably bullied a lot growing up, allowing him a laid-back and somewhat pessimistic view of the world. He doesn't seem very ambitious at first, but he did leap at the opportunity to join Ben Gates in his hunt for a mythical national treasure. Ben's family name was a source of mockery in the academic world, as most of the men in the family believed this large treasure, hidden during the American Revolution, to be real. A clue was passed down through the generations, first given to Ben's ancestor by Charles Carroll. The clue said 'The secret lies with Charlotte,’ but not even Charles Carroll knew who Charlotte was.
Ben figured out that the clue meant a ship called the Charlotte, but he needed help tracking it down, as well as the financial backing of someone who supported his treasure hunt. He found Riley for help with the first part, and a man named Ian Howe for the second. With their combined expertise, they tracked the ship down to the Canadian Arctic, and found it buried under the ice and snow at the exact coordinates Riley had predicted. Over time, they unburied most of the ship, and carefully began exploring it.
The treasure was nowhere to be found in the frozen Charlotte. The group carefully descended into the ship's hold, where Ben rummaged through the gunpowder barrel the captain had been guarding and found an old meerschaum pipe wrapped in cloth. There was a riddle on the pipe, a riddle which Ben quickly worked out right there; it referred to a map drawn in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. He and Riley despaired at ever being able to find the treasure, to which Ian responded with the revelation that’d gotten most of the money from illegal activities. He told Ben not to worry, and that he'd make all the arrangements in stealing the Declaration. Ben, whose knowledge and passion for American history exceeded that of most college professors, refused. There was a stand-off, and a lit flare was dropped into the gunpowder on the floor. Ian and his friends managed to escape the ship, but without Ben and Riley.
This was the first truly dangerous situation Riley had ever been in, so he was lucky that Ben knew there would be a smuggler's hole nearby. The two of them sequestered themselves away from the resulting explosion, leaving Ian to drive away assuming they were dead.
Once Ben and Riley got back to DC, they started trying to warn everyone that Ian was going to steal the Declaration. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, however, both wrote them off as lunatics, especially when they had to explain about the treasure map on the back of the ancient document. Ben made an appointment with the National Archives under the pseudonym Paul Brown, and he and Riley met with Dr. Abigail Chase, despite Riley's insistence that anyone crazy enough to believe them wasn’t going to help. Dr. Chase, of course, didn’t believe them. Out of options, Ben decided that he was going to steal the Declaration himself and walked away, leaving Riley in a confused state of half-panic.
Riley agreed with Ben that stealing it would be the best way to protect it from Ian, who would destroy the document if it helped him reach the treasure. But Riley then took Ben to the Library of Congress in an effort to prove to him that the Declaration has some of the best security possible, and that stealing it simply couldn't be done. Ben presented his own plan – heading to the preservation room during the upcoming National Archives gala, when there would be much less security surrounding that room. Riley tentatively agreed that it might work. Perhaps the explosion in the Canadian Arctic gave him a taste for adventure, or maybe he'd seen what Ian was capable of and had chosen to trust his first real best friend. Either way, he committed to the 'evil plan.'
Ben broke into the preservation room at the National Archives during the gala, as planned. Riley made sure the document would be there by carefully setting off one of the heat sensors under the bulletproof glass in the display, causing it to be withdrawn for examination. He then helped Ben by establishing a feed to the security cameras and advising him through an earpiece. Ben used Dr. Abigail Chase's fingerprint and password, sneakily obtained, to enter the preservation room. Just as he was running out of time, he ran into Ian Howe, who was attempting to steal the document during the gala as well.
That bulletproof glass came in handy, as Ben used it as a shield while he escaped into the elevator. Riley, who heard the gunshots over the earpiece, helpfully told Ben to hurry up. When Ben eventually did so, he was followed by Abigail, who was suspicious of his intention at the gala from the start. When she realized what he'd done, he handed over what she thought was the Declaration and let her go, and he and Riley prepared to drive off. But when Ian kidnapped Abigail, Ben instructed Riley to drive after the truck so they could rescue her.
Riley is normally only a mediocre driver at best, but the intensity of the situation seemed to help. During the frantic car chase, Ian ended up with the document Abigail was protecting, and Abigail ended up safely in the van with Ben and Riley. Ben tried to calm her down by showing her that he had the real Declaration of Independence from the start, and that Ian had nothing but a souvenir. This elicits a smile of pride from Riley, and a stream of anger, unsurprisingly, from Abigail.
Riley and Ben had a clean room all set up for revealing the invisible map on the back of the Declaration, but since Ben was forced to pay for the souvenir version with a traceable credit card, they couldn't go back to Ben's house. Abigail joined them for the ride to Ben's father's house in New Jersey, because she wouldn't let the Declaration out of her sight. Ben and his father had been estranged for many years because of the treasure, but he agreed to help them out regardless.
With Patrick Gates's help, the trio realized that lemon juice and heat revealed the invisible ink on the back of the Declaration, and they discovered a key that could only be understood using the original Silence Dogood letters written by Benjamin Franklin. Patrick Gates should have had them, but he admitted upon questioning that he donated them to the Franklin Institute instead.
While Ben and Abigail went to buy some new clothes to replace their gala wear, Riley headed to the Franklin Institute and enlisted the help of a young student to go and find the exact letters indicated by the revealed cipher, paying him a dollar for every group of them. When the student runs off the find the last four to complete the ending - “Pass and...” - Riley noticed that the bus in front of him had a picture of the Liberty Bell, and the words 'Pass and Stow.' Having figured out the clue, he left before the boy got back.
Ben assumed they’d missed the specified time to be at the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall and find the next clue involving shadows, but Riley got excited at this because he finally knew something about history that Ben didn’t. Basically, daylight savings wasn't established until after WWI, meaning they had an hour more time than they thought they did.
Jumping forward to Independence Hall, Ben found the brick the tower's shadow was pointing to on the roof, and brought back to Riley and Abigail a custom-made set of glasses possibly designed by Benjamin Franklin himself. The glasses were the way to read the map on the back of the Declaration, a map which said only 'Heere at the Wall.'
Ian, however, had caught up to them by that point. They separated to throw him off, Ben with the glasses, Riley and Abigail with the map, and each got chased by Ian's friends through the city. After nearly losing each other in a crowded shopping center, Riley and Abigail almost managed to lose their pursuers. Unfortunately, Abigail tripped and dropped the Declaration in the middle of the road, and Riley pulled her out of the way before she could get hit by a truck. Ian ended up with the map, while Riley and Abigail barely managed to escape.
Riley called Ben to let him know they lost the Declaration, but Ben was arrested by the FBI before he could meet up with them again. Alone and, once again, out of options, Riley despaired of anything going right for them ever again. Abigail, on the other hand, asked Riley if he knew how to get in touch with Ian.
Abigail and Ian struck up a deal where Ian would help Ben escape from the FBI, as long as Ian got the treasure map in the process. Once Ben was free, the entire group met up at the Trinity Church in New York on Broadway and Wall Street, the location the map was referring to. It turned out that Ian had taken Patrick Gates hostage, in an effort to force Ben to cooperate in finding and then handing over the treasure.
The glasses revealed a second hidden clue within the hidden clue: 'Beneath Parkington Lane.' Riley was the one to discover the grave in the back of the church where a certain Parkington Lane was buried. When they pulled the coffin out of the niche, it revealed a tunnel that led them down underneath the Trinity Cemetery, and into a winding circle of staircases leading at least five stories deeper underground.
The wooden stairs had been weakened over time by termites and water damage, and it made for a treacherous way down when one of Ian's friends fell through and was lost forever to the abyss the staircases are surrounding. Every member of the party had to jump for their life at some point; Riley didn’t hesitate, but he was definitely shaken afterwards.
Once they made it all the way down, Ben and his father threw Ian a fake clue leading to Boston, causing him to trap them down there, take his remaining crony, and leave to pursue it. When Ben revealed the real clue in the room, no one is more excited than Riley to step into what they all think is the treasure room – only to find that it's empty. Riley snapped them all out of their self-pity when he complained that they still didn't have a way out, and they were still going to die down there. But Ben, insisting that they must have cut a secondary shaft out, searched around and found that there was another door, opened with the same pipe that they found on the Charlotte. And beyond that, of course, was a huge room simply glittering with over ten billion dollars of treasure. Riley, interestingly enough, was less impressed by the treasure than he was with the sight of a staircase and another way out far across the room; it actually caused him to shed a tear of joy.
The discovery of the treasure seemed to solve all their problems. Ian and his friends were arrested by the FBI, and blamed for stealing the Declaration of Independence. Ben had made a new friend in the FBI, and accepted 1% of the treasure as a reward – much to the chagrin of Riley, who preferred the original offer of 10%. Ben and Abigail used their cut to buy a historic estate together, whereas Riley bought himself a shiny new red Ferrari convertible.
The next few years, however, turned out to be less than perfect for any of them. Riley wrote a book about his adventures finding the treasure of the Knights Templar, including several other government conspiracy theories he believed to be real. Nobody seemed to take his book seriously, and even at book signings, potential buyers always assumed he was Benjamin Gates. During one such disappointing book signing, Riley's new car got towed, because of a corrupt accountant and, as he puts it, “turns out the taxes on 5 million dollars is 6 million.” His beloved car gone and dangerously close to bankruptcy, Riley trudged home and ran into Ben Gates, who had problems of his own – namely, that one of his ancestors was now being blamed for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Of course, the only way to prove the innocence of the Gates name was to find the treasure that Ben's great-great-grandfather was supposedly trying to protect from the Confederates. Riley was eager to help out in this endeavor. Ben and Abigail had split up since Riley last saw them, so Riley helped Ben break back into their aforementioned estate to find the John Wilkes Booth diary page. He hacked the alarm code in less than 25 seconds. Unfortunately, Abigail caught them in the act on her way home from a date, but she agreed to help them inspect the page with the help of a small bribe on Ben's part regarding their furniture.
They discovered the remains of a cipher from the facing diary page, but they couldn't decode it without the same 5-letter word Ben's ancestor had. When Ben listened to the family story from his father again, he worked out that the word was 'death,' and Riley's computer program used that to work out the missing parts of the cipher. The final answer was 'La Bouillie' - the man from France who built the Statue of Liberty. Ben realized, however, that it wasn’t the most famous statue in New York they were after; it was the one in Paris.
Riley and Ben flew to Paris as quickly as possible, where Riley used a remote-controlled video helicopter to inspect the statue from a distance. Even though this search led to fruition – something called the Resolute Twins – Riley was still slapped with a fine from the French police for his use of the helicopter in a public space, which he wasn’t too happy about.
The Resolute Twins were referring to a pair of desks built from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. The nearest one was in Buckingham Palace, so that's where Riley and Ben went next. In a series of events remarkably similar to their plan for stealing the Declaration of Independence, Ben infiltrated the palace with Riley helping out from afar using technology, security cameras, and an earpiece. Surprisingly, Abigail showed up before Ben could execute his plan, and Ben used her arrival and anger with him to start a scene in the middle of a tour group, landing them both in a detained security cell. Ben filled Abigail in on the plan once they were alone.
Riley opened the security door remotely, allowing the pair to sneak into the dumbwaiter and take it up into the palace proper, and get a good look at the Resolute desk. The drawers turned out to be a combination lock, and when Ben put in the year from the inscription on the Statue of Liberty's base, a hidden compartment popped open to reveal half of a mysterious tablet that didn't look like it had anything to do with President Lincoln.
Riley set off the fire alarms to give Ben and Abigail cover to escape, and he quickly joined them on their way out. They were followed, however, by Mitch Wilkinson, the man who first brought to attention the supposed treason of Ben's ancestor and who is also after the treasure. When Ben realized this, they ran to their car and launched into another frantic car chase, this time through the city of London and with Ben driving, as Riley remembered too late that they drive on the right hand side in England.
Ben ran a red light during the chase, and used the traffic camera to take a picture of the symbols on the tablet. He then threw the tablet out the car window into the Thames River, forcing Mitch to leave them alone and retrieve it, while Riley hacked into the London traffic database to get them a copy of the photo and, therefore, the symbols.
When they took the photo home to DC and Ben's father, Patrick Gates told them the symbols related to the City of Gold. This was the treasure Ben's great-great-grandfather was trying to protect from the Confederacy. Ben and his father both realized that Ben's mother was the only one who could translate the ancient Native American language, but when the group went to meet her, Riley elected to stay behind outside of her office after hearing horror stories of how she treated people. Emily, Ben's mother, told them they only have half of the tablet, and Ben knew the other half was in the other Resolute Desk, which sits in the Oval Office of the White House.
Riley came up with the idea to use the annual Easter Egg hunt on the lawn in front of the White House as a cover, and Abigail used her new boyfriend – Connor – to get her and Ben into the Oval Office while everyone else was preoccupied with the hunt. Abigail distracted Connor so that Ben could search the Resolute Desk, in which he found nothing but a strange seal in place of where the tablet should be.
Riley recognized the seal when Ben told the rest of the group about it – he'd written about that seal in his book. It was a different version of the Presidential Seal, and it sits on the Presidents' Book, which is a mythical book owned by U.S. Presidents explaining the secret history of many famous events in the country's history. Whatever was on the tablet would now be in the Presidents' Book, if it existed. Riley believed the book was real, and Ben was convinced when his friend in the FBI told him it was real. But the only way to see the Book was to talk alone with the President, which was deemed impossible in this day and age. Ben decided that the only way was to kidnap the President of the United States. Riley, after a few moments of disbelief, was the first one to agree to this plan.
Riley subtly made sure that the President's upcoming birthday party would be held at Mount Vernon, and Ben managed to sneak into the party and manipulate the President into helping him search for an underground tunnel on the property that was never found. Ben trapped them inside this tunnel, separating them both from the Secret Service, and explained the entire situation to the President. He only barely managed to escape with his freedom and – in the end – the location of the Presidents' Book. It was in the Library of Congress.
Ben, Riley, and Abigail met up at the Library and headed upstairs to the section the President specified, which they had to sneak into. Ben found the Book in a hidden compartment at the back of the shelf, and Riley excitedly pointed out several conspiracy theories shown to be true as they flipped through the pages to find a photo of the tablet from the Resolute Desk. Information included along with the tablet pointed them towards Mount Rushmore, which made Riley happy: “Mount Rushmore was a cover-up!” They had to hurry out of the Library, though, when the FBI showed up on its doorsteps to find and arrest Ben. Once again, the trio split up, and they didn't manage to avoid detection completely. They ended up having to rev their car out of the parking lot, leaving at least one police car destroyed in the process.
When Ben's mother gave Patrick a nonsense translation of the symbols on the second tablet, Ben knew she must be being threatened by Mitch Wilkinson. So when Mitch took her to Mount Rushmore to find the entrance to the City of Gold, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick were there to meet him. After discussing it, the group decided to leave all guns behind and work together to find the City.
On the top of Mount Rushmore, everyone followed the clue’s instructions and poured water over the stone, looking for the 'noble bird.' It turned out to be an imprint of an eagle over a hole in the rock, and Ben stuck his hand into the hole despite Riley insisting that he take on the risk himself. Ben found a catch at the back of the hole, which opened a wall of rock into the side of one of the cliffs.
Once inside, one of the large counterweights collapsed and trapped them inside the cave. The only way out was forward, hopefully towards the City. It wasn’t long, though, before Riley, Ben, Abigail, and Mitch fell through an ancient trapdoor and landed on a large platform balancing right at its center, forcing the four of them to stand on each side and balance the whole thing out. With nothing underneath them but a black hole and no way up but a very old ladder several feet high at one corner, the four had to work together to raise each person high enough to reach that ladder; and one of them was going to have to stay behind.
Mitch made sure he went first, and Riley volunteered to be last, though he wasn’t happy about it. Abigail went next, but the moment her weight left the platform, the entire contraption started to break. This forced Riley to jump for the ladder in Ben’s place, while Abigail and Mitch rolled a heavy golden idol onto the breaking platform to provide enough weight for Ben to leap up and grab Riley's hand. The four of them managed to make it to safety, and head on for the City of Gold together.
Their trek led them into an indoor waterfall, and when they triggered the mechanism to drain the water, it revealed a tunnel going down through the rock. That tunnel, naturally, led to the hidden City of Gold, which had been submerged completely underwater before they arrived. They reunited with Ben's parents inside the huge cavern, but before they had a chance to properly explore the city – and before Riley had a chance to stick too many gold bricks into his backpack – the sides of the cavern began to break down, and the entire place started to flood. They were forced to head for wherever the central drain was, where a large rotating column controlled the only door out of the cavern. Once again, someone had to stay behind. When Mitch held a knife to Abigail's throat, Ben immediately surrendered and agreed to hold the door open for the rest of them.
Riley and Ben's parents refused to leave him behind, but the current was growing too strong - it forced them through the door into the drainage tunnel. Mitch swam back to help Ben when Ben's mother almost got trapped under the door, causing them to trade positions, and when Ben offered to save Mitch, Mitch refused – as long as Ben told everyone that the Wilkinson family helped find the City of Gold. Riley, shaky with relief once Ben was safe, finally introduced himself to Ben's mother as they stumbled out into the open.
They turned themselves into the FBI once they got out, and everyone in the group got Presidential pardons in person from the President for their activities. Ben kept his promise to Mitch, and the City of Gold got officially explored under the strict observation of Ben's mother. Riley, meanwhile, finally got the recognition he deserved for his book when a beautiful female fan he didn’t expect asked him to sign it for her. Ben and Abigail got back together, and Riley – some time later – left his house in DC to find his red convertible sitting at the curb, with a letter stating that it was for Mr. Riley Poole, tax-free.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
I'm taking Riley from the end of the second movie, right at that point where he accidentally puts the Ferrari in reverse and crashes his beloved car into the one behind it. It's rare for someone not to remember how they got to sleep or how they got to where they're sleeping, and so Riley would assume, when he first woke up, that he was having some sort of post-hangover nightmare, which crashing his newfound car was a part of. He’d assume he must have gotten blackout drunk the night before to the point where he couldn't even remember where he was.
Having been through some difficult-to-believe adventures with Ben, he'll be less skeptical of Landel's than he might otherwise be, but it would take a lot to make Riley believe in anything that's supposed to happen at night without seeing it for himself. He might actually prefer that explanation over the one the nurses give him, though.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
It's easy to sum Riley up in a few words, but that would obviously be leaving out far too much. Riley is a cynical, sarcastic, impatient, and snarky computer genius. He's the so-called comic relief of the film, the character that evens out Ben's intensity and keeps him grounded, the character who frequently points out how bizarre and unlikely their situations tend to get.
But there's so much more to him than just that first glance. For one thing, Riley is actually somewhat of a noble gentleman. He pulled Abigail out of the way of an oncoming truck in the first film, and by the end of the second, he'd even volunteered to be the one left behind balancing over a black hole while everyone else got to safety. This isn't due to some underdeveloped sense of importance; in fact, Riley is unique in that he's a computer genius who knows how essential and awesome he is, and won't let anyone forget it. He actually grew petulant at one point when he believed that Ben was ignoring him. So when Riley offered to be the one left behind, or to take on the risk of a potentially deadly trap rather than Ben, his sole motivation was to help his friends.
While he started out working in a cubicle for some big-name computer company, Riley has really grown into the adventure that Ben introduced him to. In some ways, he's well-suited to it; he's clear-headed, cautious, a strategic thinker, and he doesn't freeze in the face of danger. While I wouldn't quite call him adventurous, Riley certainly doesn't turn down the offer when it comes along. One of the reasons for his persistence under duress is money and/or gold, of course, but Riley has demonstrated that he knows what's more important, and that no amount of money in the world would be enough to make him betray someone's trust or put someone in direct danger.
Riley is more of a follower than a leader, but he has the potential to make a good leader himself. He certainly has the ability to come up with crazy plans. He's most comfortable, however, letting someone else take the spotlight and critiquing the proposed plan as he sees fit. Riley's engaging and often dry sense of humor is usually an effort to dispel the tense atmosphere, lighten the mood, or keep himself sane as the dangers just seem to keep piling up. Very much a cynic in his view of the world, Riley believes in several conspiracy theories surrounding the United States – but, being an intelligent cynic, he does his research before trying to claim anything.
Riley has a very healthy and rare mix of practicality and idealism. He often expresses a wish that things were different, that the world was better, and that bad guys didn't exist; but he's quite practical if and when the situation calls for it. When a danger is among them and the bad guys are close, Riley doesn't waste any time hoping something goes well or wishing he was somewhere else. If he has the ability to, he acts. This is a very tempering influence on Abigail, who seems to freeze occasionally when something bad is happening, but gets jolted into action when Riley yells at her or pulls her in a certain direction. Riley also doesn't let his idealism get in the way of the facts; although he agreed with Ben that stealing the Declaration was the only way to protect it, he refused to risk landing them both in prison until Ben presented him with a plan that even Riley had to admit might work. He's willing to take risks, but he won't take stupid or unnecessary ones.
When he's working away at something on his own, Riley tends to be chewing bubble gum, possibly to help stay relaxed. He also talks out loud occasionally, especially when he's nervous, and usually to make jokes. Little bumps in a plan can make him anxious, especially if it isn't something he foresaw, and sudden scares have a tendency to rattle him. To his credit, though, Riley seems to get over that rattled feeling fairly quickly.
In stark contrast to that aforementioned 'noble gentleman' and practical side, Riley can and does sometimes become very childish. He's constantly jealous of Ben's immense knowledge of history, so when Riley finally knew something that Ben didn't, he took up precious time to gloat. When he feels slighted in the second film time and time again because none of his friends seem to have read his book, he has no qualms with letting them know exactly how he feels, although he puts those feelings aside soon enough to focus on the job at hand.
Riley's also not a natural liar. He doesn't usually think of manipulation or lying through his teeth to get out of a dangerous situation, although he does well enough when he realizes that's what someone else is doing. When Abigail caught them red-handed breaking into her house, Riley hid at first rather than try to come up with a convincing lie for being there, like Ben did. When they ran into police officers outside the Library of Congress, Abigail was the one to start putting on a show of panic and confusion, with Riley following suit moments later.
Riley is basically a bit of a dork, with an appetite for adventure and an eye for detail. He’s persistent, cautious, witty, grounded, and a healthy dose of sarcasm for the discerning adventurer. He’s absolutely the best tech expert and sidekick Ben Gates could have asked for.
Please give us a physical description of your character:
Riley stands at about 5'8”, with a slim body build, and dark brown hair that's usually either messy or carefully combed back. He worked hard on growing a slight goatee, but he's otherwise usually clean-shaven. He has blue eyes – so light that they almost border on gray – and a naturally disarming smile that almost constantly sits on 'sarcastic' throughout the movies.
What kinds of otherworldly abilities does your character have, if any?:
Heh, none. I'm sure he wishes he had some, though.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpasses the norm?:
Riley is a tech expert and computer genius, knowledgeable in various, seemingly unrelated, areas of science, and an all-around intelligent guy. He's hacked into the National Archives and the Buckingham Palace without breaking a sweat or leaving a trail, and he defused Abigail's state-of-the-art security system in under 25 seconds. He's probably built his own computer before, and given how he manages to put together sophisticated gadgets in the movie from cheap parts, he's done it multiple times.
Series: National Treasure
Series' Medium: Two movies
Character: Riley Poole
Age: 30
Sex/Gender: Male
Canon Role: Sidekick of the protagonist, all-around comic relief, resident computer genius.
"Real" Name: Duane Lewis
The history section contains spoilers for both films. Read at your own risk!
Please give us a personal history of your character's life and explain to us in detail how they grow and develop over the course of their canon:
We know Riley was born in the United States, and that he was stuck in some kind of boring office job before Benjamin Gates enlisted his help. Since this recruitment occurred in DC, it's safe to assume that's where Riley currently lives, and his familiarity of the area means he's probably lived there for a while. However, the absence of any family members over the course of both movies implies that he was born somewhere else in the country and moved to DC later.
As a technological genius with a slightly cynical sense of humor, Riley was probably bullied a lot growing up, allowing him a laid-back and somewhat pessimistic view of the world. He doesn't seem very ambitious at first, but he did leap at the opportunity to join Ben Gates in his hunt for a mythical national treasure. Ben's family name was a source of mockery in the academic world, as most of the men in the family believed this large treasure, hidden during the American Revolution, to be real. A clue was passed down through the generations, first given to Ben's ancestor by Charles Carroll. The clue said 'The secret lies with Charlotte,’ but not even Charles Carroll knew who Charlotte was.
Ben figured out that the clue meant a ship called the Charlotte, but he needed help tracking it down, as well as the financial backing of someone who supported his treasure hunt. He found Riley for help with the first part, and a man named Ian Howe for the second. With their combined expertise, they tracked the ship down to the Canadian Arctic, and found it buried under the ice and snow at the exact coordinates Riley had predicted. Over time, they unburied most of the ship, and carefully began exploring it.
The treasure was nowhere to be found in the frozen Charlotte. The group carefully descended into the ship's hold, where Ben rummaged through the gunpowder barrel the captain had been guarding and found an old meerschaum pipe wrapped in cloth. There was a riddle on the pipe, a riddle which Ben quickly worked out right there; it referred to a map drawn in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. He and Riley despaired at ever being able to find the treasure, to which Ian responded with the revelation that’d gotten most of the money from illegal activities. He told Ben not to worry, and that he'd make all the arrangements in stealing the Declaration. Ben, whose knowledge and passion for American history exceeded that of most college professors, refused. There was a stand-off, and a lit flare was dropped into the gunpowder on the floor. Ian and his friends managed to escape the ship, but without Ben and Riley.
This was the first truly dangerous situation Riley had ever been in, so he was lucky that Ben knew there would be a smuggler's hole nearby. The two of them sequestered themselves away from the resulting explosion, leaving Ian to drive away assuming they were dead.
Once Ben and Riley got back to DC, they started trying to warn everyone that Ian was going to steal the Declaration. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, however, both wrote them off as lunatics, especially when they had to explain about the treasure map on the back of the ancient document. Ben made an appointment with the National Archives under the pseudonym Paul Brown, and he and Riley met with Dr. Abigail Chase, despite Riley's insistence that anyone crazy enough to believe them wasn’t going to help. Dr. Chase, of course, didn’t believe them. Out of options, Ben decided that he was going to steal the Declaration himself and walked away, leaving Riley in a confused state of half-panic.
Riley agreed with Ben that stealing it would be the best way to protect it from Ian, who would destroy the document if it helped him reach the treasure. But Riley then took Ben to the Library of Congress in an effort to prove to him that the Declaration has some of the best security possible, and that stealing it simply couldn't be done. Ben presented his own plan – heading to the preservation room during the upcoming National Archives gala, when there would be much less security surrounding that room. Riley tentatively agreed that it might work. Perhaps the explosion in the Canadian Arctic gave him a taste for adventure, or maybe he'd seen what Ian was capable of and had chosen to trust his first real best friend. Either way, he committed to the 'evil plan.'
Ben broke into the preservation room at the National Archives during the gala, as planned. Riley made sure the document would be there by carefully setting off one of the heat sensors under the bulletproof glass in the display, causing it to be withdrawn for examination. He then helped Ben by establishing a feed to the security cameras and advising him through an earpiece. Ben used Dr. Abigail Chase's fingerprint and password, sneakily obtained, to enter the preservation room. Just as he was running out of time, he ran into Ian Howe, who was attempting to steal the document during the gala as well.
That bulletproof glass came in handy, as Ben used it as a shield while he escaped into the elevator. Riley, who heard the gunshots over the earpiece, helpfully told Ben to hurry up. When Ben eventually did so, he was followed by Abigail, who was suspicious of his intention at the gala from the start. When she realized what he'd done, he handed over what she thought was the Declaration and let her go, and he and Riley prepared to drive off. But when Ian kidnapped Abigail, Ben instructed Riley to drive after the truck so they could rescue her.
Riley is normally only a mediocre driver at best, but the intensity of the situation seemed to help. During the frantic car chase, Ian ended up with the document Abigail was protecting, and Abigail ended up safely in the van with Ben and Riley. Ben tried to calm her down by showing her that he had the real Declaration of Independence from the start, and that Ian had nothing but a souvenir. This elicits a smile of pride from Riley, and a stream of anger, unsurprisingly, from Abigail.
Riley and Ben had a clean room all set up for revealing the invisible map on the back of the Declaration, but since Ben was forced to pay for the souvenir version with a traceable credit card, they couldn't go back to Ben's house. Abigail joined them for the ride to Ben's father's house in New Jersey, because she wouldn't let the Declaration out of her sight. Ben and his father had been estranged for many years because of the treasure, but he agreed to help them out regardless.
With Patrick Gates's help, the trio realized that lemon juice and heat revealed the invisible ink on the back of the Declaration, and they discovered a key that could only be understood using the original Silence Dogood letters written by Benjamin Franklin. Patrick Gates should have had them, but he admitted upon questioning that he donated them to the Franklin Institute instead.
While Ben and Abigail went to buy some new clothes to replace their gala wear, Riley headed to the Franklin Institute and enlisted the help of a young student to go and find the exact letters indicated by the revealed cipher, paying him a dollar for every group of them. When the student runs off the find the last four to complete the ending - “Pass and...” - Riley noticed that the bus in front of him had a picture of the Liberty Bell, and the words 'Pass and Stow.' Having figured out the clue, he left before the boy got back.
Ben assumed they’d missed the specified time to be at the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall and find the next clue involving shadows, but Riley got excited at this because he finally knew something about history that Ben didn’t. Basically, daylight savings wasn't established until after WWI, meaning they had an hour more time than they thought they did.
Jumping forward to Independence Hall, Ben found the brick the tower's shadow was pointing to on the roof, and brought back to Riley and Abigail a custom-made set of glasses possibly designed by Benjamin Franklin himself. The glasses were the way to read the map on the back of the Declaration, a map which said only 'Heere at the Wall.'
Ian, however, had caught up to them by that point. They separated to throw him off, Ben with the glasses, Riley and Abigail with the map, and each got chased by Ian's friends through the city. After nearly losing each other in a crowded shopping center, Riley and Abigail almost managed to lose their pursuers. Unfortunately, Abigail tripped and dropped the Declaration in the middle of the road, and Riley pulled her out of the way before she could get hit by a truck. Ian ended up with the map, while Riley and Abigail barely managed to escape.
Riley called Ben to let him know they lost the Declaration, but Ben was arrested by the FBI before he could meet up with them again. Alone and, once again, out of options, Riley despaired of anything going right for them ever again. Abigail, on the other hand, asked Riley if he knew how to get in touch with Ian.
Abigail and Ian struck up a deal where Ian would help Ben escape from the FBI, as long as Ian got the treasure map in the process. Once Ben was free, the entire group met up at the Trinity Church in New York on Broadway and Wall Street, the location the map was referring to. It turned out that Ian had taken Patrick Gates hostage, in an effort to force Ben to cooperate in finding and then handing over the treasure.
The glasses revealed a second hidden clue within the hidden clue: 'Beneath Parkington Lane.' Riley was the one to discover the grave in the back of the church where a certain Parkington Lane was buried. When they pulled the coffin out of the niche, it revealed a tunnel that led them down underneath the Trinity Cemetery, and into a winding circle of staircases leading at least five stories deeper underground.
The wooden stairs had been weakened over time by termites and water damage, and it made for a treacherous way down when one of Ian's friends fell through and was lost forever to the abyss the staircases are surrounding. Every member of the party had to jump for their life at some point; Riley didn’t hesitate, but he was definitely shaken afterwards.
Once they made it all the way down, Ben and his father threw Ian a fake clue leading to Boston, causing him to trap them down there, take his remaining crony, and leave to pursue it. When Ben revealed the real clue in the room, no one is more excited than Riley to step into what they all think is the treasure room – only to find that it's empty. Riley snapped them all out of their self-pity when he complained that they still didn't have a way out, and they were still going to die down there. But Ben, insisting that they must have cut a secondary shaft out, searched around and found that there was another door, opened with the same pipe that they found on the Charlotte. And beyond that, of course, was a huge room simply glittering with over ten billion dollars of treasure. Riley, interestingly enough, was less impressed by the treasure than he was with the sight of a staircase and another way out far across the room; it actually caused him to shed a tear of joy.
The discovery of the treasure seemed to solve all their problems. Ian and his friends were arrested by the FBI, and blamed for stealing the Declaration of Independence. Ben had made a new friend in the FBI, and accepted 1% of the treasure as a reward – much to the chagrin of Riley, who preferred the original offer of 10%. Ben and Abigail used their cut to buy a historic estate together, whereas Riley bought himself a shiny new red Ferrari convertible.
The next few years, however, turned out to be less than perfect for any of them. Riley wrote a book about his adventures finding the treasure of the Knights Templar, including several other government conspiracy theories he believed to be real. Nobody seemed to take his book seriously, and even at book signings, potential buyers always assumed he was Benjamin Gates. During one such disappointing book signing, Riley's new car got towed, because of a corrupt accountant and, as he puts it, “turns out the taxes on 5 million dollars is 6 million.” His beloved car gone and dangerously close to bankruptcy, Riley trudged home and ran into Ben Gates, who had problems of his own – namely, that one of his ancestors was now being blamed for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Of course, the only way to prove the innocence of the Gates name was to find the treasure that Ben's great-great-grandfather was supposedly trying to protect from the Confederates. Riley was eager to help out in this endeavor. Ben and Abigail had split up since Riley last saw them, so Riley helped Ben break back into their aforementioned estate to find the John Wilkes Booth diary page. He hacked the alarm code in less than 25 seconds. Unfortunately, Abigail caught them in the act on her way home from a date, but she agreed to help them inspect the page with the help of a small bribe on Ben's part regarding their furniture.
They discovered the remains of a cipher from the facing diary page, but they couldn't decode it without the same 5-letter word Ben's ancestor had. When Ben listened to the family story from his father again, he worked out that the word was 'death,' and Riley's computer program used that to work out the missing parts of the cipher. The final answer was 'La Bouillie' - the man from France who built the Statue of Liberty. Ben realized, however, that it wasn’t the most famous statue in New York they were after; it was the one in Paris.
Riley and Ben flew to Paris as quickly as possible, where Riley used a remote-controlled video helicopter to inspect the statue from a distance. Even though this search led to fruition – something called the Resolute Twins – Riley was still slapped with a fine from the French police for his use of the helicopter in a public space, which he wasn’t too happy about.
The Resolute Twins were referring to a pair of desks built from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. The nearest one was in Buckingham Palace, so that's where Riley and Ben went next. In a series of events remarkably similar to their plan for stealing the Declaration of Independence, Ben infiltrated the palace with Riley helping out from afar using technology, security cameras, and an earpiece. Surprisingly, Abigail showed up before Ben could execute his plan, and Ben used her arrival and anger with him to start a scene in the middle of a tour group, landing them both in a detained security cell. Ben filled Abigail in on the plan once they were alone.
Riley opened the security door remotely, allowing the pair to sneak into the dumbwaiter and take it up into the palace proper, and get a good look at the Resolute desk. The drawers turned out to be a combination lock, and when Ben put in the year from the inscription on the Statue of Liberty's base, a hidden compartment popped open to reveal half of a mysterious tablet that didn't look like it had anything to do with President Lincoln.
Riley set off the fire alarms to give Ben and Abigail cover to escape, and he quickly joined them on their way out. They were followed, however, by Mitch Wilkinson, the man who first brought to attention the supposed treason of Ben's ancestor and who is also after the treasure. When Ben realized this, they ran to their car and launched into another frantic car chase, this time through the city of London and with Ben driving, as Riley remembered too late that they drive on the right hand side in England.
Ben ran a red light during the chase, and used the traffic camera to take a picture of the symbols on the tablet. He then threw the tablet out the car window into the Thames River, forcing Mitch to leave them alone and retrieve it, while Riley hacked into the London traffic database to get them a copy of the photo and, therefore, the symbols.
When they took the photo home to DC and Ben's father, Patrick Gates told them the symbols related to the City of Gold. This was the treasure Ben's great-great-grandfather was trying to protect from the Confederacy. Ben and his father both realized that Ben's mother was the only one who could translate the ancient Native American language, but when the group went to meet her, Riley elected to stay behind outside of her office after hearing horror stories of how she treated people. Emily, Ben's mother, told them they only have half of the tablet, and Ben knew the other half was in the other Resolute Desk, which sits in the Oval Office of the White House.
Riley came up with the idea to use the annual Easter Egg hunt on the lawn in front of the White House as a cover, and Abigail used her new boyfriend – Connor – to get her and Ben into the Oval Office while everyone else was preoccupied with the hunt. Abigail distracted Connor so that Ben could search the Resolute Desk, in which he found nothing but a strange seal in place of where the tablet should be.
Riley recognized the seal when Ben told the rest of the group about it – he'd written about that seal in his book. It was a different version of the Presidential Seal, and it sits on the Presidents' Book, which is a mythical book owned by U.S. Presidents explaining the secret history of many famous events in the country's history. Whatever was on the tablet would now be in the Presidents' Book, if it existed. Riley believed the book was real, and Ben was convinced when his friend in the FBI told him it was real. But the only way to see the Book was to talk alone with the President, which was deemed impossible in this day and age. Ben decided that the only way was to kidnap the President of the United States. Riley, after a few moments of disbelief, was the first one to agree to this plan.
Riley subtly made sure that the President's upcoming birthday party would be held at Mount Vernon, and Ben managed to sneak into the party and manipulate the President into helping him search for an underground tunnel on the property that was never found. Ben trapped them inside this tunnel, separating them both from the Secret Service, and explained the entire situation to the President. He only barely managed to escape with his freedom and – in the end – the location of the Presidents' Book. It was in the Library of Congress.
Ben, Riley, and Abigail met up at the Library and headed upstairs to the section the President specified, which they had to sneak into. Ben found the Book in a hidden compartment at the back of the shelf, and Riley excitedly pointed out several conspiracy theories shown to be true as they flipped through the pages to find a photo of the tablet from the Resolute Desk. Information included along with the tablet pointed them towards Mount Rushmore, which made Riley happy: “Mount Rushmore was a cover-up!” They had to hurry out of the Library, though, when the FBI showed up on its doorsteps to find and arrest Ben. Once again, the trio split up, and they didn't manage to avoid detection completely. They ended up having to rev their car out of the parking lot, leaving at least one police car destroyed in the process.
When Ben's mother gave Patrick a nonsense translation of the symbols on the second tablet, Ben knew she must be being threatened by Mitch Wilkinson. So when Mitch took her to Mount Rushmore to find the entrance to the City of Gold, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick were there to meet him. After discussing it, the group decided to leave all guns behind and work together to find the City.
On the top of Mount Rushmore, everyone followed the clue’s instructions and poured water over the stone, looking for the 'noble bird.' It turned out to be an imprint of an eagle over a hole in the rock, and Ben stuck his hand into the hole despite Riley insisting that he take on the risk himself. Ben found a catch at the back of the hole, which opened a wall of rock into the side of one of the cliffs.
Once inside, one of the large counterweights collapsed and trapped them inside the cave. The only way out was forward, hopefully towards the City. It wasn’t long, though, before Riley, Ben, Abigail, and Mitch fell through an ancient trapdoor and landed on a large platform balancing right at its center, forcing the four of them to stand on each side and balance the whole thing out. With nothing underneath them but a black hole and no way up but a very old ladder several feet high at one corner, the four had to work together to raise each person high enough to reach that ladder; and one of them was going to have to stay behind.
Mitch made sure he went first, and Riley volunteered to be last, though he wasn’t happy about it. Abigail went next, but the moment her weight left the platform, the entire contraption started to break. This forced Riley to jump for the ladder in Ben’s place, while Abigail and Mitch rolled a heavy golden idol onto the breaking platform to provide enough weight for Ben to leap up and grab Riley's hand. The four of them managed to make it to safety, and head on for the City of Gold together.
Their trek led them into an indoor waterfall, and when they triggered the mechanism to drain the water, it revealed a tunnel going down through the rock. That tunnel, naturally, led to the hidden City of Gold, which had been submerged completely underwater before they arrived. They reunited with Ben's parents inside the huge cavern, but before they had a chance to properly explore the city – and before Riley had a chance to stick too many gold bricks into his backpack – the sides of the cavern began to break down, and the entire place started to flood. They were forced to head for wherever the central drain was, where a large rotating column controlled the only door out of the cavern. Once again, someone had to stay behind. When Mitch held a knife to Abigail's throat, Ben immediately surrendered and agreed to hold the door open for the rest of them.
Riley and Ben's parents refused to leave him behind, but the current was growing too strong - it forced them through the door into the drainage tunnel. Mitch swam back to help Ben when Ben's mother almost got trapped under the door, causing them to trade positions, and when Ben offered to save Mitch, Mitch refused – as long as Ben told everyone that the Wilkinson family helped find the City of Gold. Riley, shaky with relief once Ben was safe, finally introduced himself to Ben's mother as they stumbled out into the open.
They turned themselves into the FBI once they got out, and everyone in the group got Presidential pardons in person from the President for their activities. Ben kept his promise to Mitch, and the City of Gold got officially explored under the strict observation of Ben's mother. Riley, meanwhile, finally got the recognition he deserved for his book when a beautiful female fan he didn’t expect asked him to sign it for her. Ben and Abigail got back together, and Riley – some time later – left his house in DC to find his red convertible sitting at the curb, with a letter stating that it was for Mr. Riley Poole, tax-free.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
I'm taking Riley from the end of the second movie, right at that point where he accidentally puts the Ferrari in reverse and crashes his beloved car into the one behind it. It's rare for someone not to remember how they got to sleep or how they got to where they're sleeping, and so Riley would assume, when he first woke up, that he was having some sort of post-hangover nightmare, which crashing his newfound car was a part of. He’d assume he must have gotten blackout drunk the night before to the point where he couldn't even remember where he was.
Having been through some difficult-to-believe adventures with Ben, he'll be less skeptical of Landel's than he might otherwise be, but it would take a lot to make Riley believe in anything that's supposed to happen at night without seeing it for himself. He might actually prefer that explanation over the one the nurses give him, though.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
It's easy to sum Riley up in a few words, but that would obviously be leaving out far too much. Riley is a cynical, sarcastic, impatient, and snarky computer genius. He's the so-called comic relief of the film, the character that evens out Ben's intensity and keeps him grounded, the character who frequently points out how bizarre and unlikely their situations tend to get.
But there's so much more to him than just that first glance. For one thing, Riley is actually somewhat of a noble gentleman. He pulled Abigail out of the way of an oncoming truck in the first film, and by the end of the second, he'd even volunteered to be the one left behind balancing over a black hole while everyone else got to safety. This isn't due to some underdeveloped sense of importance; in fact, Riley is unique in that he's a computer genius who knows how essential and awesome he is, and won't let anyone forget it. He actually grew petulant at one point when he believed that Ben was ignoring him. So when Riley offered to be the one left behind, or to take on the risk of a potentially deadly trap rather than Ben, his sole motivation was to help his friends.
While he started out working in a cubicle for some big-name computer company, Riley has really grown into the adventure that Ben introduced him to. In some ways, he's well-suited to it; he's clear-headed, cautious, a strategic thinker, and he doesn't freeze in the face of danger. While I wouldn't quite call him adventurous, Riley certainly doesn't turn down the offer when it comes along. One of the reasons for his persistence under duress is money and/or gold, of course, but Riley has demonstrated that he knows what's more important, and that no amount of money in the world would be enough to make him betray someone's trust or put someone in direct danger.
Riley is more of a follower than a leader, but he has the potential to make a good leader himself. He certainly has the ability to come up with crazy plans. He's most comfortable, however, letting someone else take the spotlight and critiquing the proposed plan as he sees fit. Riley's engaging and often dry sense of humor is usually an effort to dispel the tense atmosphere, lighten the mood, or keep himself sane as the dangers just seem to keep piling up. Very much a cynic in his view of the world, Riley believes in several conspiracy theories surrounding the United States – but, being an intelligent cynic, he does his research before trying to claim anything.
Riley has a very healthy and rare mix of practicality and idealism. He often expresses a wish that things were different, that the world was better, and that bad guys didn't exist; but he's quite practical if and when the situation calls for it. When a danger is among them and the bad guys are close, Riley doesn't waste any time hoping something goes well or wishing he was somewhere else. If he has the ability to, he acts. This is a very tempering influence on Abigail, who seems to freeze occasionally when something bad is happening, but gets jolted into action when Riley yells at her or pulls her in a certain direction. Riley also doesn't let his idealism get in the way of the facts; although he agreed with Ben that stealing the Declaration was the only way to protect it, he refused to risk landing them both in prison until Ben presented him with a plan that even Riley had to admit might work. He's willing to take risks, but he won't take stupid or unnecessary ones.
When he's working away at something on his own, Riley tends to be chewing bubble gum, possibly to help stay relaxed. He also talks out loud occasionally, especially when he's nervous, and usually to make jokes. Little bumps in a plan can make him anxious, especially if it isn't something he foresaw, and sudden scares have a tendency to rattle him. To his credit, though, Riley seems to get over that rattled feeling fairly quickly.
In stark contrast to that aforementioned 'noble gentleman' and practical side, Riley can and does sometimes become very childish. He's constantly jealous of Ben's immense knowledge of history, so when Riley finally knew something that Ben didn't, he took up precious time to gloat. When he feels slighted in the second film time and time again because none of his friends seem to have read his book, he has no qualms with letting them know exactly how he feels, although he puts those feelings aside soon enough to focus on the job at hand.
Riley's also not a natural liar. He doesn't usually think of manipulation or lying through his teeth to get out of a dangerous situation, although he does well enough when he realizes that's what someone else is doing. When Abigail caught them red-handed breaking into her house, Riley hid at first rather than try to come up with a convincing lie for being there, like Ben did. When they ran into police officers outside the Library of Congress, Abigail was the one to start putting on a show of panic and confusion, with Riley following suit moments later.
Riley is basically a bit of a dork, with an appetite for adventure and an eye for detail. He’s persistent, cautious, witty, grounded, and a healthy dose of sarcasm for the discerning adventurer. He’s absolutely the best tech expert and sidekick Ben Gates could have asked for.
Please give us a physical description of your character:
Riley stands at about 5'8”, with a slim body build, and dark brown hair that's usually either messy or carefully combed back. He worked hard on growing a slight goatee, but he's otherwise usually clean-shaven. He has blue eyes – so light that they almost border on gray – and a naturally disarming smile that almost constantly sits on 'sarcastic' throughout the movies.
What kinds of otherworldly abilities does your character have, if any?:
Heh, none. I'm sure he wishes he had some, though.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpasses the norm?:
Riley is a tech expert and computer genius, knowledgeable in various, seemingly unrelated, areas of science, and an all-around intelligent guy. He's hacked into the National Archives and the Buckingham Palace without breaking a sweat or leaving a trail, and he defused Abigail's state-of-the-art security system in under 25 seconds. He's probably built his own computer before, and given how he manages to put together sophisticated gadgets in the movie from cheap parts, he's done it multiple times.
