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Name: Jack Benjamin Door: Door Pass, Dominant by unknown birthday Canon: Kings Canon Point: End of Series Age: Not explicitly stated, but it's generally understood he should be mid to early 20s, so I'm going wiiiith 24 Appearance: Picture History: Kings Wiki Entry + Jack entry Personality: CW: mentions of suicide, skeevy non-con sentencing In KINGS, the dichotomy of Good and Bad is blurred. Even the heroes and figures of integrity like Samuels and David lack this clear divide. You see shades of people in various frequencies. Maybe someone like David does a lot of good and works hard for those things, but nevertheless, he has something inherently dark and even cruel within him simultaneously. It's the same with Jack. There's very realistic shades of him that come from very different places. Jack has motivations that he believes are pure: being a good son, proving himself to his parents and the nation, being worthy of the crown. However, just because those motivations are genuine, it doesn't mean methods he'll take to reach his goals will be similarly sincere, or that he'll end up reaching those goals with as clear a conscious as he'd like. There's a part of Jack that genuinely wants to lead by David's virtuous example, but there's also a part of him that can have a man shot in cold blood with a single raise of an eyebrow for dissent. These parts are not mutually exclusive. They're all a portion Things Jack Is Capable Of. Jack is the kind of person who is constantly in internal conflict - one scale weighing against another to decide what the outcome will be, and he is very bad at keeping that scale from tilting wildly. Although he is very good at hiding that internal conflict, his motivations, wants, intuitions and values are often colliding and fighting for what his ultimate decision will be. As poised as Jack is, his control is admittedly in tatters, which is not something he’s particularly fond of. Nonetheless, he is a product of it. One of the most apparent things about Jack is that he has a gross need to prove himself - to Silas specifically, but also to himself. Being the first-born son and therefore first in line for the crown, there's a lot of expectation that is put upon him, and Jack desperately wants to meet it as well as surpass it. Jack has had his parents’ approval and pride held upon him like a threat, pressed upon him since he was first able to understand what people were saying to him, it carries on well into adulthood for him. This is a huge driving point of his motivation throughout the show. Jack is dangerously ambitious and driven. He has goals and he makes plans on how best to reach them, willing to sacrifice most anything to reach something that is important to him. Jack knows the weight of (ignoble) sacrifice better than anything else, and he's taught himself to believe that everything is expendable in the light of what he wants. Even things he doesn't want to be expendable - just things Silas had told him were so. Things Silas has decided don't fit into the inventory of a king, like personal desires, love, and a want for a contented lifestyle (Silas's mistress and child in the countryside, Jack's love for Joseph). He tells himself they're expendable and tries to purge their importance from him, though he is mostly unsuccessful. That generates the deep regret, anger and bitterness that Jack carries around with him constantly. In fact, this is something he admits to Michelle when they're talking about her feelings for David: "Whatever it is you don't want him to see, or hear, or know. You can bury it. You can bury it so deep you won't find it yourself anymore. But you'll wish you hadn't." Willpower is one of the stronger traits Jack possesses and he wields it like a sword against himself. He believes, or wants desperately to believe, that if you tell yourself something long enough, eventually you will start to believe it, and this is something that Jack is consciously trying to do. He wants to make himself another person by sheer willpower alone. Jack genuinely believes he is fighting for his life and reiterates this to Michelle in one seminal scene in Judgment Day: MICHELLE: Whose life is more secure than yours? You're the Prince. JACK: And you're the Princess. Born first by four minutes, eldest by a hair. Are you really that innocent that you haven't thought about it yourself? Or are you just too ashamed to admit you have? MICHELLE: No one wants your crown. JACK: Not yet. You can't produce an heir, so what? You could still take right of place. I see the way you look at Shepherd. I see the way your father looks at him. All it takes is one wedding, and he can make of the pair of you a king and queen. And me? Suddenly the court jester. I will not sit by and be plowed into obscurity by someone else's ambition. Not after all I sacrificed." Jack is absolutely desperate in what he's doing throughout most of the series after David comes to Shiloh. He's perceptive in the way that he can see how the cards are falling, and how unsteady his position in the family is. After the conversation in which Silas tells him to bury his sexuality, along with the life he has with Joseph, Jack is wholly committed to making certain that the gains he receives from denying that part of himself is worth it. 'Not after all I sacrificed' is a powerful line for him, considering the way Jack's been shoehorned into the mold of a person that he should be if he wants one day ascend to kingship. He's been told by Silas that this is what he has to do: he has to give up what makes him happy in exchange for power, which is supposed to be better than the temporary joys of his subjective desires. Giving up something you want for something that makes you better as a whole. Jack's never had that grasp, not like Silas does, but he believes it's supposed to be worth it. It has to be worth it, if he's giving up so much, he thinks. This is something that becomes much more pertinent for him after Joseph's death, when that sacrifice really sinks into Jack. All in all, Jack is consumed by fear - for himself, for his place in life, fear of his father and what his father thinks of him and what his father will do to him if he doesn't satisfy, of the general public and how he looks in their eyes, of himself, of never fully finding something to genuinely make him happy, of his sacrifices not being worth the end product, and so so largely, that he is on the wrong side. Given his up-bringing, Jack believes he is navigating the world the right way, but the introduction of David, of his morality that Jack was taught isn't possible, that faith starts to sake, and Jack is terrified of facing what trusting his father has turned him into, and how little he did to stop it. Along with what that means for who he is, and the quality of his soul. To a certain degree, Jack is desensitized to cruelty. He is, at times, cold and willing to get his hands dirty, illustrated by what he says to David in the church about how taking a life changes you and stains your blood. He's become a little bit too comfortable with this mindset, enough that he can decide that letting David's brother be executed, or killing a minister that speaks against him in the throne room is an acceptable loss. Jack would likely say that that level of being detached works well for him, but the thing is that he'll shove off that blame like he will everything else, telling himself that it was needed, or that it wasn't his fault, or that he had to do it for some reason or other. Jack uses self-delusion as a tool to protect himself, and hide from fears he doesn't want to face. He's manipulative, pragmatic and opportunistic. Jack looks at his life like a game of chess, trying to figure out the best path to a win, and he tries to force numbness onto himself to make himself able to easily do that. Largely, he's successful, but if he was completely, he wouldn't need to drown himself in escapism or feel like he has to make up for all the sacrifices he's made. A lot of who Jack is results in a conflict among what he wants, and what he thinks he needs and what's more important. That's what ends up having him swinging a lot between Will Jack Be A Good Guy and Will Jack Be An Asshole so very often in the show. The painful thing when you're watching is that you know Jack can and wants to do the right thing, but it's a fight against himself to get to that point the large majority of the time. He is immensely selfish. He wants to do good and be magnanimous, but Jack comes first, and he has things he feels he's owed - entitled. Just because his life was shit and there's some clear paths you can see that made him what he is, that doesn't justify the fact that Jack can easily shoot someone standing between him and what he wants and step right over their corpse. Maybe not someone like Michelle or Joseph, but that's because they're important to Jack. Jack can want to be a good guy and do the right thing, but Jack has a fairly low price for doing otherwise, and he feels justified in that. Or is able to tell himself he's justified enough, in it that he'll keep going with the selfish idea instead. There's a great jealousy in him towards David and how easily he gets what Jack's been wanting so long, and Jack's so prone to being deeply envious of people who have things that he doesn't. That breeds bitterness as well, and Jack will tend to feel sorry for himself too. Not that he doesn't have a reason to be bitter for what his life has been because of his parents and station, but he's not really noble enough to strong arm through it and say I'M GONNA BE THE GOOD GUY ANYWAY. He's been hurt and he has hurt himself and he wants payment for that. Payment he likely knows he probably won't get, on some level, and that makes him angry. Jack has a brutally realistic (erring on pessimistic) view of the world, jaded and bitter. His life has never been something completely his own and he knows it never will be, so he has to set another goal and just accept that it's shit. Although he does accept it, there's still that stinging animosity in him that taints everything he says and all the ways he jokes and how he looks and treats people with that sourness he holds onto so tightly. Much of Jack's outward appearance, and the show he puts on for others, is a performance and a facade. He's intimately aware that he's always being watched and he makes a point to show what he wants people to see (lying is like breathing to him). Because he knows, not only can he not be what he is as far as his sexual orientation goes in the public eye, but he also has to gain the kind of favor that Silas has. He has to make the country love him, and he's pragmatic in the way he tries to use himself and the media as a tool to see that that happens. After his meeting with Joseph when the lights go out in Shiloh, he tells him "You're the only real thing I ever touched." That's one of the few moments Jack really is simply himself, alone, when the lights are off and he knows no one is watching him except Joseph. Jack, who he is, and what he is - the majority of his range of emotions and fears and desires - are all so far back into a closet (hahaha, closet) that he's practically making moth ball castles. It's interesting to realize that Jack doesn't really have any actual friends. He talks about people like they're objects, things, and he doesn't trust people enough to really invest anything of himself in them, unless they're Michelle, David, the Reverend or Joseph. He also feels massively isolated and separated from most people as it is. He tells David: "The thing about royalty is, there's no end to what people will do to get close to you. Like it'll rub off and suddenly make them less obscure. Something in the way my mom set up the monarchy. They think we're something other than human." And Jack most definitely believes that he exists in a bubble, separated from the rest. It's important to note, though, his public persona is detached from who he actually is. After the first few episodes, there's no other evidence that Jack actually indulges in the club and hedonistic lifestyle on his own unless it's useful to him somehow. He gives the press a lot to look at so that maybe they'll be distracted from the things they could actually dig up on him. It's a tactic, like all things are to him. His personality, for a large part, is only really exaggerated in charm and roguishness and his interest in other people is all given a tint and a skew, because, in his opinion, the best lies are rooted in truth. The rest remains largely the same in how condescending he is and how he walks and talks like he owns every room he comes into and any person he talks to, though he does it in a more bad-boyish manner, so that it can come off as amiable. When he makes cracks at people or situations, he smiles when he does it so it comes off as witty and sharp and teasing, rather than cruel and critical and stabbing (as it is when he says it behind closed doors). In public, he wants to come off as attractive and youthful, with an edge of narcissism and arrogance and princely brattiness - just enough to be endearing but not off-putting. He's spent his entire life perfecting his ability to lie about who and what he is and how he acts and what he thinks, so it's something he's become very good at. In actuality, Jack's vicious, brutal, frank and uncaring if he's hurting feelings left and right. He's prideful and judgmental and not worried about letting people know, if he doesn't think their opinion is worth sugarcoating himself for. He's intellectual, able to speak in philosophies and ideologies and make deeper commentary on things, like his talk with David in the church: It changes the color of your blood. Paints your conscience. You did that for me. DAVID: I tell myself I had no choice. JACK: There's always a choice. DAVID: You don't owe me anything. JACK: Words don't settle debt." But he's to the point with it. He's not going to wax poetic like Silas does. He'll be dry and frank about things, and most definitely scornful. If he thinks something is hilariously shitty in an appropriate kind of way, he'll point it out with a wry tone and a smirk, eyebrows raised over a glass of wine. He has a dark sense of humor, able to easily joke about morbid things, and is more often than not harsh, especially in judgments of others. A Prince in every sense of it, Jack practically prances around like royalty and loves it. Ego is a large thing with him, as you'd expect it to be, and he'll go indulge that ego to make himself feel better with the kind of 'I can have anyone I want any time I want and that makes me more important than I believe I am and more important than my father makes me feel like I am, even if I'm certain I'm not' idea. He's dismissive and underwhelmed as well, walking down the street looking for his endangered, missing sister with a bottle of beer casually in hand, going 'princess? princess? nope' with a laugh, like it's all a joke. A lot of things going on feel like a joke to Jack. All in all, Jack's come to a point of apathy in his life after so much self-editing to force himself to fit into the little box he believes, and has been told, he needs to. At times, he's tricked himself into no longer caring about many things, and finds it difficult to connect to those parts of himself that didn't start out as cold as they are now. More so, he's started to lose control of these things - when he chooses to care and when he chooses to be cold, and you see Jack, throughout the series, start to unhinge on that breaking point. It generates a kind of deep, sickened self-loathing, disgust and frustration for himself that he feels helpless to amend, coming out when he has conversations with Michelle about his character or his mistakes, with his Mother about having killed Joseph, and with Katrina, commenting on the tar on his soul. Most people are pieces on a chessboard to Jack and he sort of likes them better that way. Not that he isn't incapable of forming meaningful relationship with people - like with Joseph and like with David - but he doesn't like to, as much as it'll relieve loneliness for him. They make a structural weakness on him and Jack wants to be untouchable. If he wants to get what he wants, he can't let himself be that malleable. He realizes a lot more about himself and about the world around him and where he stands in it than he wants to admit or face, and that's where we get his knack for escapism factoring in. Like with not wanting to be malleable and affected - at the core of him, Jack is that malleable, unfortunately for him (not like Silas), and he knows that. He just doesn't want it to be true, and he wants to correct it. Or deny it so hard that it starts to be truth. He's massively affected by his mother and father's reactions to him, and even the public's to a point, despite how much he doesn't want to be. You see him indulging in a lot of things in the name of escapism. One of the most obvious examples of this is Jack's alcoholism. It’s possible that Jack has some kind of alcoholic drink in his hands more often than any other character in the show does, most especially in highly emotional scenes (or directly after). Sometimes he'll grab even just a glass of water as a sort of nervous tick. It'll be scenes when no one else is drinking, or he'll be pulling a flask out of his jacket (actively carrying alcohol around with him). The other thing he does is that he's fairly promiscuous, or at least likes to indulge in the idea that he is, and he flirts with everyone, if it's not the actual sex he's interested in (i.e., with women). When it is actually sex he's looking for, it's a quick proposition, made underhanded with no edge of flirting, like with the bodyguard at the end of Judgment Day. Perhaps he's seeking to be admired. Or maybe it's the freedom of frivolity for him, as well as good defense to put up - just looking like a condemned and carefree tramp instead of a person in genuine emotional turmoil. Again, Jack is all about "fake it until it feels real". With that point, it's important to note - Jack's gone the entirety of his life faking an enjoyment for sleeping with women, and for being the playboy sort of figure. Most days, Jack looks at his body more of a tool than an intimate piece of himself, and thus, doesn't seem to appreciate when others touch him without being invited. There's even a few times he won't hug his own mother back. Jack probably settles himself with this fact of his life by telling himself it's something he's choosing to do, thus putting himself in control, rather than just flailing under the weight of these things he never wanted to engage in. Violence does it for him as well, like in the night club when he tells his bodyguard not to protect him and goads a man into hitting him several times, viciously, before he tackles him down and beats the hell out of him long past the point the man has stopped struggling. There's that edge of self-destruction that pervades throughout Jack’s character as well. Guilt and regret become a lot more prominent towards the end of the series. You see Jack torn among differing desires and fears. On one hand, he's trying to force himself to do what's right and be the kind of person he'd be proud of, and on the other, he's telling himself to suck all of that down and just be Silas - cruel and cold and efficient. It's a rapid snap from one end of the spectrum to the other, and he becomes very inconsistent and unpredictable. He makes these huge sacrifices, but you can see him drowning in regret, like with Joseph's death and his attempt to just let Ghent broadcast the DVD that would make him out to the public, or with how he can't stand to listen to David lying and saying that he's been a spy the whole time, after Jack's spent the last few days viciously accusing him and fabricating evidence as Silas asks him to. He starts to shove off the blame. Yes, his parents were absolute shit to him, and yes, they told him to bury what he is, but they can't make him do that. Jack did make that choice, and while guilt eats at him for it, he can make that lighter by shoving responsibility off on someone else - so he does. He lies to himself as well as he does to other people, and denies the acutely perceptive part of him that knows what he's doing, choking that down as well. He tells Rose, "He loved me. And I loved him. I loved him. I cut him out of my heart. Because that's what dad wanted. That's what you wanted. And now the only person who saw me - who really saw me, and still loved me. He's dead. Yes, that is what Silas and Rose both wanted and told him to do (Rose even slaps him and tells him "Good" after that line), but like he'd told David before - you always have a choice. He's a hypocrite that way when he's shoving his guilt off on someone else. Maybe they deserve it, yes, but it doesn't make him as free of it as he'd like to be. Even when going to give Ghent the DVD to broadcast ('it's a better story and you know it') all it takes is her giving him the out in striking a deal with him and he takes that just as easily. Jack's a kind of character that sways very easily between things like that, especially at the end of the series when things are falling apart for him. Jack likely doesn't even know for sure what he really wants out of life and out of himself anymore. Just all these tangled up emotions that he's trying to make sense of. Not to say that Jack is a complete sack of shit. He has his beautiful moments and the times he really does try to be good and live up to the ideal that he admires in David and his father, even, to a point. There is a love for his family in him, that starts off as the entirety of his immediate family - a want to protect Michelle and make his parents proud, but as he's beat down more and more in the show, that narrows. Really, down to just Michelle, specifically. By his canon point, after Silas had made him bend down and kiss the ground he walks on (saying 'your mouth's been in dirtier places', and calling him 'faggot' on national television), any affection Jack might have had for Silas is burned out. He likely doesn't have a lot of great feelings for his mother either (given how she didn't move to protect him and called his love for Joseph a mistake in character), but Michelle would still be precious to him. Probably still expendable to a point as far as her feelings go, but still his sister - his twin. His parents, while his mother was loving and tender with him, still always told him to burn out the parts of him they found unseemly. He knows Michelle wouldn't have told him that, if she'd known. Even after Joseph's death and his mother's disapproval of him, Jack's prepared to sacrifice his own secret and probably all chances at the throne not only out of spite for Rose but also to protect Michelle. That's one of those beautiful moments he has. As douchey and backhanded as Jack can be, he does have real dignity, for all he's trampled on and shoved down. He's not running from his extinction, and he's aggressive about fighting for and carving out his spot. He has the pride in him of royalty, even as low as he'll sink to get what he feels like he needs, but there is a spine in him. He won't cower from things, like he won't run when Silas marches back into Shiloh with Goliath tanks. While fear does drive him on a lot of things - fear of not being accepted or of being judged or damned or of being out of God's favor - it's not self-preservation that builds that in him. He even tells Silas to kill him, that he'd rather have that than run. It's a living hell Jack's afraid of. Continuing the life he's had with no payback for what all he gave up. Joseph says 'you're too brave to be a coward' about him, and that is true in a lot of aspects. If Silas and Rose hadn't instilled in him to hide what he is, he would have been out about it and told a lot of people to suck it if they had issue, but that's not the case. He knows he'll lose kingship and favor if he does, and Silas has raised him to believe that that is his life's entire purpose. To be an absolute sovereign. So when he pursues that, he pursues it aggressively, doing so much as to stand in direct opposition to Silas to try to make himself into that. Of course, it ends badly for him, but he does manage to show he has a backbone, unlike his uncle. He's coming into Duplicity from a very dark and very desperate place, which sets him up to be very ready to settle in an adapt to the new chance a life he'll have in the world. This is after Jack's coup failed and Silas has returned to take the crown. When Jack comes back into the throne room, after having refused to run with Cross, he tells Silas this: "You said I couldn't be what I was. God said I couldn't be what I wanted. There's nothing left for me but to die. Do it. Go on. Finish it. I'm ready." Jack is essentially suicidal at this point. After all that he's sacrificed, and all of it amounting to nothing, and knowing that his own father would rather see him groveling than happy, or even alive, at this point, he's ready to just give up. He's, in fact, trying to goad Silas into it. Probably because he knows he doesn't want to live with whatever alternative will come otherwise; he knows his father and he knows he's not merciful to anyone who tries to take what is his, like Jack did. And he's right to think that, considering when Thomasina says: "Your father wants for you a living death, to brick you into a wall with someone who loves you - who you can’t stand the sight of... until you produce an heir, which Silas will take, and raise right this time." This is a sentence he begs Thomasina not to leave him with, and remember, Jack is prideful and arrogant. Begging isn't something that comes easily to him. But that's the low point he's at just before arriving. Jack's essentially had everything he might have wanted stripped from him and given up on hope for it to get better, so when he comes to Duplicity saying he's got nothing better to go back to, he means it. It's a completely fresh start for him, and an escape from the things that caged him and made him miserable in his canon life - something he's wanted for himself likely for a long time, though didn't want to admit to, for the fact it meant admitting to defeat in the life he was born to, and in striving to be King. He will, however, quickly learn that a large portion of his problems weren't solely situational, and made the trip with him, underneath his skin. Powers and Abilities: Major Benjamin :: While his life isn't the military like it is for many officers of his station, Jack is a high ranking officer in the Gilboan army, and was likely put into it as soon as he was old enough. He's gained combat ability, marksmanship, leadership, survival skills and strategic thinking skill. He's no commando, and he isn't really the rough and tumble soldiers you typically think of, but he is still a soldier, and seemed to enjoy that life much more than he did the political one in Shiloh. Prince Jack :: Jack has been raised for something like 25ish years as an heir to the throne and bred just as that - to one day be a king. He's gained the etiquette and know-how that goes with navigating social and political situations with ease, as well as handling a body of government and being a strong leader, who can give commands and maintain authority. He can coerce and manipulate and twist words. He's skilled in diplomacy and acting charming when he's doing anything but. Michelle and Jack would have been given the best education all of Gilboa's gold could afford, Jack even more so given that he was to be Silas's legacy, so philosophies, arts, sciences, languages and all of the above would have been included. Jack is incredibly driven in acquiring all the advantages he can have, and education would have definitely been one. The Prosecution :: Given that Jack was raised to be King of his nation, eventually, he's also intimately familiar with their laws, and for about 2-3 episodes in canon, acts as the lead prosecution in a trail played out before King Silas. He does his job well enough that he manages to make the entire capital city come to despise David, who was previously the majorly celebrated national hero, and call for a ruling that would mean execution for him. While law under a monarchy would be drastically different from democratic law, Kings is set up to have a very modern feel to the monarchy as a whole. Other than that, Jack is just normal baseline human in canon. No powers. Inventory: Jack would be coming into the game in the expensive suit he was wearing for his coronation, with about four or five total rings on either hand, an expensive watch. For his three items: 1. A box of mints 2. A flask with whiskey in it 3. Joseph's suicide note DVD Samples: TDM top level, and if those threads don't show his dialogue well enough, there's a network thread on the TDM + a fairly old network post from the last game he was in. |
