![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
app for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
consignment i had way too much fun formating that personality, sob
PLAYER INFO.
✖ Handle: Jen
✖ Contact: Wuzzafuzzle on AIM
✖ Are You Over 16: Y
✖ Other Characters Played in Consignment: none
CHARACTER INFO.
✖ Character Name: Benjamin, Jonathan "Jack"
✖ Canon: 3x13
✖ Character Appearance: tada
✖ Character Age: early to mid twenties. We'll call it 25.
✖ Pick A Number: 131, 209
✖ Canon Setting:
NBC's Kings is a modernized telling of the biblical story of David and King Saul, set in a world that, technologicalled and culturally, much like own own crica 2009, but geographically much different. This is a canonical map of the regions of import in Kings, and the world is still referred to as 'Earth'. The capitol city of Shiloh is where the majority of the show takes place, which was filmed, in majority, in New York City and appears similarly. Other regions are battle fronts and countrysides - much of the other regions of Gilboa being that sort of rural, countryside and smaller cities, not all of it as urban as Shiloh. Military is largely the same as wel, with tanks, guns and fighter jets. There isn't as much done with things like nuclear missiles and etc, but the idea is that the world is at the same place as ours on most things. The difference is that this world is ruled under an absolute monarchy, with Gilboa headed by King Benjamin Silas and his family. The crown is also, in many ways, controlled by Crossgen, a large company owned by Silas's brother in law, William Cross. This is a root of many political struggles that crop up in the show.
Religion, as you'd guess, is a large overarching and controlling theme in the show, something always prevalent and being referenced. Gilboa is a nation under God and when Silas speaks of his ascension to the throne, he talks of a sign that God gave him - a flock of monarch butterflies landing on his head to form a living crown. God is a very potent force within the show, giving clear signs and having implied conversations with certain characters like Silas and the Reverend Samuels and David Shepherd, so it's not meant to be an 'is God real, is God not real' thing. He's implied to be as prevalent a force as the bible writes him as, though there is not actual Voice Of God or Actor Of God shown - only shown in 'signs' and conversations characters have. One of the primary figures in the nation of Gilboa is Reverend Samuels, whose approval is needed if a person wants to hold favor of the people in the country. There's also an appearance of a supernatural woman who represents 'Death' and comes to Silas to barter a deal. It's difficult to say how much is real and how much is Silas being crazy, but a large part of it seems to be very real. She effects the physical world in ways that can be witnessed by others after. Not everyone is as committed to religion as Silas is, but it is a weighing factor in the lives of all citizens and characters in the show.
Kings is largely a political thriller, with tones of spiritual and philosophical drama, and people tend to speak in an, lol, pretentious but stylized manner occasionally, sort of harkening to the biblical roots, so you have people saying "Do not presume to tell us what to do. We are king and we do as seems right in mine eye. Say otherwise again and we will snap your neck right now" and maybe in a scene right after that "the crown pimp doesn't fight his own fights" or "you gonna freak out of me", so it's a weird mix, and you get both out of Jack. There's a lot of stress on Divine Right and fate and destiny, and Jack becoming unsteady when he realizes God hasn't given him a sign to bless his coronation as king, the idea that that means he won't be king settling with him. While Jack may not totally bible God's will is the one and only sovereign, there is a part of him that come to accept it, despite how much Jack doesn't want to. The same with a lot of people when they get knews that they don't want, like how Silas gets certain news that he needs to step down as king to make way for David and refuses. There's a lot of restrictions and facades that have to be put up by the royal family to keep with with political fuckery and keep differing plots against other characters underwraps and sway public opinion in a way that will be useful to their end goals, and that is largely Jack's entire life. He sort of exists in a bubble, separated from the rest of the world, and from himself, in a sense, considering he ends up having to hide a lot of who he is and what he really wants. What Jack says about the royal family is this: "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."
As much as the world is something that he can use to his advantage, he can also be crushed by it if he lets the public see things he doesn't want them to. The world of Gilboa is conservative, in a point. If Jack where simply any other person, or even a second son and not the son in line for the crown, his homosexuality wouldn't matter much. It may be a point of media attention and scandal, but it wouldn't destroy him, like Silas and Rose believe and preach that it will. He would not really have to hide it as much, aside from what Silas would decide the truth of it would give insult to him in the public eye. But because he is that important figure, it's something Jack's repeatedly told he cannot be. So he lives in this sort of little box that's assigned to him, being told he has to be this very specific thing and tend to his image obsessively if he wants the power that he's supposed to be getting.
There's also a large theme of war profiteering and doing what is ethically right in times of war, and pursuing peace in the most honorable means possible. It ties politics into spirituality and morality a lot, and you see a lot of people compromise one for the other - ethics for power, the clealiness of their soul in the wake of their ambition, like when Jack sets David's brother up for execution to move David out of his way to the throne. Katrina Ghent comments that this is 'at the cost of tar on your soul', and Jack tells her 'Don't you worry about my immortal soul. It's been starved.'
✖ Character History: Wiki entry for the show in general, but it barely covers Jack's involvement, so I'll go over that and try to keep just the main events in here. Incoming bulletpointed wall of text.
♦ Jonathan "Jack" Benjamin is the Prince of Gilboa (one twin sister, Michelle, as princess), the named successor for the crown, and represents the character of Jonathan from the biblical story of David and Saul. The series starts out in a war with a neighboring country called Gath and David Shepherd is a Gilboan soldier that goes against orders and crosses a blockade line to rescue two Gilboan hostages of whom he doesn't know the identity. One of these soldiers is Prince Jack, which has King Silas himself coming to the front line to see him and thank David. David is brought to Shiloh to be honored for saving the prince, which makes Jack massively asspained for all the attention David's getting. David is made Captain, and the official military liason to the media at large. The asspain is so strong in Jack.
♦ An argument crops up with Silas (while Jack is drunk), and Silas reveals that he knows Jack's gay, telling him to bury it and that he has to sacrifice what he wants when he wants power. There are some tears. Jack is not only asspained, but also sad and also drunk. Jack goes out of his way to try to tarnish David's image, and thus make his own path to the crown easier, and making himself look better in Silas's eyes, also while pushing the secret lover he'd had (Joseph), kicking him out of a club and telling him to stay away, cutting off their relationship.
♦ Jack buys the rights to a news network and tries to run uncensored footage of Silas's violent, harsh handling of the protests to cede land to Gath for the peace treaty in Port Prosperity. This backfires, considering Michelle is taken hostage, and it gets Jack in trouble with Silas, who sends Katrina Ghent to go buy the network back and cut footage. Silas does give him control of Katrina Ghent, though, as a minister on the royal council, as she only wants to be on the board for the power and status. Jack is given ability to make her decisions for her. Jack, however, plots with his uncle to throw a coup and dethrone Silas - something that is revisited throughout the series.
♦ David's brother is on trial for leading the insurrection in Port Prosperity. Jack feels that his position as heir to the throne is in jeopardy, considering Michelle was born four minutes earlier, and should she take David as a love interest/suitor (and Silas likes David better), she can easily take the throne from him. He tries to force David to denounce Silas as king (and lose favor with him) in exchange for saving his condemned brother. It doesn't work out, David won't do it. However, Silas gives his brother a pardon and sends him to a prison elsewhere. David stays and Jack's position is still unsturdy.
♦ David and Jack are sent on a mission into Gath, there are a lot of issues between David having good ideas and Jack (a Major in the military) pulling rank on him just because he doesn't like him. David ends up saving Jack's life and Jack's opinions on David, as a genuinely good person, change, and he decides he owes him a debt. He also decides he likes him, despite how jealous he is of him.
♦ On Silas's birthday, the lights in the city go out, and there's this theme of 'you can be whoever you want in the dark'. Jack takes the opportunity to go spend the evening with his lover, Joseph. He sleeps with him and stays there until the lights come back on, and then leaves, telling him 'the lights are on', and it has to be over again.
♦ The next episode sees Joseph making a DVD that speaks on how he loves Jack, knows Jack loves him, and believes the world should know it, and that Jack is too brave to be a coward (attempting to save him from his misery), before committing suicide. A copy is sent both to Jack and to the national television. The mail is intercepted by Queen Rose, though Katrina Ghent gains a copy of it, as well as a file of nude pictures of Michelle, to use to blackmail Rose. She's told she can choose only one to save, and Rose decides to save Jack and let Michelle's pictures be aired. Jack tells his mother that he loved Joseph and Rose tells him that it's a mistake of character. He tells her "This [mistake of character] is who I am." Jack goes to Ghent to give her Joseph's DVD in exchange for the camera with Michelle's pictures on it, intending to out himself like Joseph had wanted. However, Ghent offers him a deal - marry her and he can do whatever he wants and they can both get back at his mother. He takes the deal.
♦ Ghent dies in a convenient (read: arranged) car wreck. Jack still moves on to get a new fiance, despite the fact he could have been free, to show his father that he's committed to wanting to be king. Preparations for a wedding go forth. Silas, in revenge for David's secret romance with Michelle, sends David on a quest that he expects he won't come back from. When David does, with new information that he holds against Silas, David's popularity is sky rocketing. Threatened and paranoid, Silas has Jack help him set up false evidence to frame David as a spy against the crown, and Jack, working with his uncle's plans to overthrow Silas and turn the people against him, goes along with it for a very long time, acting as prosecutor. After being informed of the plan to kill Silas, David calls Jack to the jail to warn him of the plot, telling him it's the right thing to do, and Jack's taken aback by David's honesty. Either way, Jack takes this to heart, and on the next day, when David is about to admit to being guilty, despite his innocence, Jack interrupts him to tell the truth about the entire case, going up against Silas and fully aware he'll likely be executed for treason for it. He says later "I couldn't watch them do that to David."
♦ Gilboa becomes a tyrant nation while David is kept for execution and Jack is in hiding with his uncle, William Cross, wanted for treason. Rose makes a deal with Silas to accept Jack back (which works well for Jack because, when the coup begins, he can be next to Silas when he falls to take his place). Silas says "If he behaves, I won't cut his throat". His price is that Jack kneels and kisses the ground he walks on. After doing so, Silas tells Jack "That's the second time your mother has given you life. It'll be the last." During the ceremony to sign the peace treaty with Gath, Silas is shot at (Jack attempts to cover him and takes a bullet in the arm), and two bullets end up in Silas's chest. He's thought dead and Jack is set to ascend to the throne. Jack sees to it that David is saved from his execution and tells David that he intends to rule and rule well, leading by David's example and calling him his friend. In the council room in Unity Hall, Jack talks about seeking out peace again with Gath, but his uncle, Cross, who arranged the entire coup, interrupts him, taking control.
♦ Jack attempts to fight against Cross's decisions, but it becomes apparent that the entire military is now working for Cross. Silas has escaped from the ambulance he was in, and David escapes Shiloh to go find him and bring him back. Jack, meanwhile, is a puppet for Cross. His mother tells him "Don't do this, Jack. You don't know him. He's alive. I know it. He's alive, he'll come back, and he will kill us all." Which is, lmao, the dumbest thing you could have said to him if you wanted him to wait for Papa to get home and fix it (that Papa that wanted to kill him). Jack starts to come more and more unhinged as Silas is threatening to return to Shiloh and take back his crown (with David practically kicking his ass to do it). Jack becomes cold and cruel and has anyone in the council room speaking against Jack taking the crown shot. On the day that would be his coronation, Silas returns with Goliath tanks, and while Cross and his associates make a run from the country, Jack stays to face Silas, refusing to flee.
♦ In the council room, with Silas on his throne, Jack tells him: "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." Silas considers for a moment before telling him 'there are worse fates than death' and he's taken away. He's imprisoned within their home, and the sentence comes when Thomasina arrives with Lucinda, his fiance. "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." Elsewhere, Silas recieves a conversation from God that he should step down and cede the throne to David, which Silas stubbornly refuses. Michelle and David both are exiled and flee from Gath, Jack is left behind to his sentence. The end. THEY CANCELED THE SHOW AND JACK'S LIFE IS SAD AF, AND THAT'S HIS CANON POINT, THE END.
✖ Character Personality:
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.
JACK ON BEING GOAL ORIENTED;
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 dangerouly 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 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 ON BEING NUMB;
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. 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 escapisms 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 amongst 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.JACK ON BEING A GROSS PERSON RE: SELFISH, JEALOUS & BITTER;
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. 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 pessimist) 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.JACK ON PRETENDING HE'S NOT JACK;
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 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.JACK'S PERSONA VS THE TRUTH ABOUT JACK;
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.
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. He's maybe even a little too capable of forming connections to people, and that might be part of why he so aggressively avoids it. If he wants to get what he wants, he can't let himself be that malleable.
I AM JACK'S INCREASING ALCOHOL DEPENDENCY;
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 - 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 how often Jack has a drink in his hands. 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". 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.JACK ON GUILT AND REGRET;
Guilt and regret become a lot more prominent towards the end of the series. You see Jack torn amongst 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 hyprocrite 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.JACK IS SOMETIMES NOT A DOUCHECANOE;
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.
JACK'S SHITTY CANON POINT;
He's coming into CDC from a very dark and very desperate place, which sets him up to very easily be convinced into agreeing to the contract. 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 sort of 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 when the CDC officer comes to see him. 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 CDC saying he's got nothing better to go back to, he means it. Maybe he won't like the fact that he's effectively imprisoned where he is (and find a dark kind amusement in the fact that he's barely a step up form where he was), but he'll still prefer it from where he was.✖ Character Powers:
☩ 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, marksmenship, leadership, survival skills and strategic thinking skill. He's no commando, but he's no where near the rough and tumble soldiers you typically think of, but he is still a soldier.
☩ 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 anythign 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.
Other than that, Jack is just normal baseline human. No fancy powers.
CHARACTER SAMPLES.
✖ First Person POV: Jack on the CDC Test Drive.
✖ Third Person POV:
Ice water feels cool against his lips and healing as it passes through his throat, soothing on the ache he's felt since he came marching back into the Unity Hall council room, standing proud as he could in front of a father that saw him as an insect. It's not alcohol, of course, no. Silas wouldn't give a prisoner like him anything to curb the sting of his sentence. He'd likely rob him of sleep and private thought if he really could as well but thank whatever few mercies God has left for him that Silas can't quite work miracles yet. Lucinda lies asleep, curled on the mattress behind him, confused and afraid and still so damnably loyal to him despite it. The girl deserves better, he knows that, but it's her terrible luck to fall for the one who wouldn't give it to her. The door hinges creak behind him and Jack doesn't bother turning from where he is seated on the chest at the foot of the bed, watching an obsolete spot on the expensive wallpaper.
"Are we videotaping it for proof?" His voice is dry and rough from how constricted his throat has been. How he's felt emotion alone could choke the life from him. There's a sickened chuckle, and it's twined with an amused sardonicism. "He doesn't trust me even to fuck someone on my own now?"
"I doubt he does, but that's not what I'm here for." It's not a voice Jack remembers in the service prior, and he turns to look at the man. Dressed like a member of the King's guard, but Jack's met each and every one of them since employment. He's overseen most. But how surprising is it really that Silas would be hiding some from him? Listless eyes, red rimmed, travel over the agent for a moment, considering, before he simply shrugs, raising the glass to his lips again and wishing imagination alone would make water into wine. Or at least a sedative.
"Well, make it quick, I've got my King's life sentence of misery to get back to."
The suit paces closer, coming to stand squarely in front of the disgraced prince, a tablet in his hands but held screen against his thigh. Curious. "I'm here to offer you freedom, Jack. That sentence won't be yours and you won't have to see this room, or your King, ever again."
Ah. That's what this is about. Christ, he could laugh for hours at that if it wasn't so stingingly sad by now. Maybe Cross made it out of the country, but decided Jack made such a good little pawn that he sent some idiot into the belly of the beast to try to flash some tempting words at him and coax him back out. The whole thing all over again, but he already made this choice. He's a prince, even in this joke of a cell, not a fugitive. If he's going to fall from grace, he's going to face the oncoming impact with dignity. Not skitter way like a roach under the fridge when the lights come on. He snorts, waving a dismissive hand. "I told them already, I'm not running."
But the agent who's not an agent is persistent, adds on - "Freedom, and the crown."
Grey blue eyes blink dully at him in the dim light, and Jack's trying to decide if this man simply has no idea what's gone on in the last few weeks, or if his uncle genuinely believes that cute little trick will work again.
"A trinket doesn't make you a king." The words are snapped off bitterly, hissed almost. It makes you a fool with a metal collar on his skull. The more Jack thinks back now, the more he remembers William Cross constantly whispering at his father's ear. How much of a king had he really been?
"But the death of Silas Benjamin does." It's casual, like talking about doing some laundry later, or the latest gossip from Austeria. Has it been attempted so many times by now that people aren't afraid to say it allowed anymore? They should be.
"You're conspiring to kill your king. In case you didn't notice, that didn't work so well for the last guy who tried it."
"I'm not." Said mildly, as the tablet is switched on and held out to the prisoner. "The CDC is."
Hesitant eyes watch him before a hand comes up to accept the slim piece of technology, blinking down towards the screen. Things Jack can't quite understand stream. Videos of troops, all incongruent and strange but troops nonetheless, tanks that would dwarf Goliaths. Ships. Space. A globe burning like an inferno as it rapidly smolders in the expanse of space and while Jack doesn't understand it completely, he knows what it means. Pages of information scroll, his eyes passing over the words but not really absorbing them aside from how often he sees it - "CDC". Cosmic Demolition Crew. Whatever that's supposed to mean. He's still in a silent daze when the recruiter continues to speak, Jack's brows knitting as fingers touch over the images.
"At the least, we take you away from Gilboa. At the best, we give you Gilboa." Somehow, Jack doesn't doubt it. Not if what he sees here is true. Skeptical as he's been trained to be since he could walk, he doesn't doubt it. "What more do you really have to lose, Jack?"
That's the clincher, isn't it? What do you have left, Jack? Love? Family? Ambition? Integrity? Dignity? None. It's either been burned as fuel to attempt to rocket himself farther, or it's been stripped from him in punishment for those sundry attempts. This is a bad idea. It's another puppet master's hand up his back, telling him they'll give him what he wants if he just does them a few favors. He'd seen 'ENLIST' and 'TALK TO YOUR RECRUITER TODAY' flash on the screen and he knows this is an employment offer, and he knows he hasn't been given the whole length of the contract as of yet. Everything seems frozen at a standstill, and Jack pivots at his waist, looking back at the young woman breathing quietly on the bed behind him. Her life might have been easier if Jack never saw her as such a viable tool. Her life will probably be easier again once he's gone.
Jack's existence in Shiloh is a burning ship and he's not noble enough to go down with it. Eyes raise to the recruiter, and there's a decision held in them.
"Where do I sign?"
CHARACTER ITEMS.
✖ Pick a Team: Blue Team
✖ Mission Freebie: Silas's crown.
✖ Personal Item or Weapon: a tablet that only shows Joseph's video on loop (no other function), and if that's not possible, then just Joseph's DVD alone.
✖ Character Inventory:
> Military Dress Uniform