[OOC] Character Info
In Character Information
character name: "Jack"
Fandom: Samurai Jack
Timeline: End of Season 4
character's age: Kind of tough to pinpoint; late twenties to early thirties.
canon powers, skills, pets and equipment: Expert swordsmanship, highly skilled with other melee weapons as well as the bow and arrow, very acute senses, jumps good // Wields a magical sword that is highly effective against evil beings
non-canon powers: Resistance to mind-based abilities (In canon, Jack has been able to overcome numerous obstacles like this, even when Aku's very essence was implanted into his body. This would be more of a "willpower" effect; if he's caught off-guard, there's little to no resistance, but if he's on full-alert he can repel such things), indestructible sword
canon history: The story of Samurai Jack begins waaaaaaaaaaay back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Far off in the cosmos, three godlike entities pursued an unnamed formless black monster, chasing it through space as they whittled away at its body. In the chaos of the moment, however, one single shred of the beast flew away from the battle, travelling inadvertently to our humble planet, crashing with the force of a small meteor. Over time, the small tentacle-shard-thing began to grow, eventually taking on the form of something akin to a tar pit. As creatures stumbled into it and were devoured, the evil would grow, shooting tall spires into the sky to mark its heightened power. This process continued into the dawn of man, through the ice age, and up to the time of feudal Japan, when the evil had spread to the point of nearly devouring an unnamed city. There, we see the emperor suiting up for battle to make a stand against the growing monstrosity. This emperor is Jack's father-to-be; Jack's mother is still pregnant with him at the time. Armed with his best troops and a magical elixir meant to foil the evil, the emperor rides to battle.
Aaaaaaand all of his men get eaten. Leadership yay! The emperor does make it, however, and dips an arrow into the elixir; after firing it into the pit of evil, one would think that all was well! But it's not. Turns out that the poison arrow freed the evil, now revealing itself to be the shapeshifting demon Aku. Awakened and ready for action, Aku defeats the emperor, ties him to a tree, and forces him to watch as he lays waste to the remaining survivors. GAME OVER, RIGHT? Nope. While Aku is busy being all evil and such, the horse that one of the godlike figures from earlier was riding on shows up, frees the emperor, and takes him to a faraway mountain where the deities speak to him, explaining that he has been chosen to battle Aku for the sake of the world. Together, they forge a blade from the emperor's righteous soul; this sword is the only weapon on the planet that can harm Aku, as it is the pure good to counter Aku's pure evil. With that, the emperor returns to his home on a flying cloud (flying nimbus?), engaging Aku in combat now that he can actually hurt him. Aku pulls out all the stops; he battles him in his natural form, in the form of a giant spiderlike creature, and even as hundreds of human-sized warriors. It's a long, tiring battle, but in the end the emperor hacks them all down until only one human-sized Aku remains. Realizing that he's kind of screwed, Aku tries to run away, but the emperor hurls the sword through its back, banishing it "forever". At that very moment, his wife gives birth to the baby who, many years from then, would come to be known as "Jack". The emperor declares that they need to form a plan, in case the evil that is Aku should return once more.
Years go by uneventfully, as the boy is raised as a young boy living in peaceful times. Surely nothing bad can happen! EXCEPT NOT. During some freaky solar eclipse, the remains of Aku revive themselves and SURPRISE HE'S BACK. First order of business: revenge, of course. Aku strikes at the city again, taking the emperor into his clutches. The emperor shouts to his wife that they must "do as planned", and apparently she understands. While Aku laughs victoriously, she grabs her son and the sword, sneaking them both out of the city on a boat as it burns behind them. She drops her son off on a boat that meets them offshore, but rides away with the sword, leaving him with the captain. AND SO BEGINS A TRAINING MONTAGE.
The boy, quite literally, travels the world in his training, gaining unique skills from each location. From the captain, he learns navigation and sailing. From there he journeys to India, where he learns to become a skilled horse rider. Next stop is Africa (holy crap that had to be a hell of a trip), where he trains in combat with a staff. From there they head to Egypt, which is where Jack studies... hieroglyphics and stuff, it's not exactly clear but HE GETS SMART I GUESS. We next see him as a teen in Rome, where he trains in hand-to-hand combat, specifically wrestling. Then we're off to England, where he learns archery from... I'm pretty sure it's Robin Hood, looking at the guy (not to mention he does the whole splitting arrows trick) but that's not important; main point is that he learns archery. We then see him training with vikings on a ship in stormy weather, in order to buff him up and such. From there he goes to train with the Dutch, becoming skilled at throwing axes (which he... never does again, as I recall, but I guess it's handy). Moving on along, he trains with... they look like Huns, I guess, and he learns spear-throwing from them. Then he goes to train with some monks in hand-to-hand martial arts, as well as fighting with a glaive. After this world adventure, he makes his final stop at some mountains, where he reunites with his mother; by now he is a full-grown man, and his mom is an elderly woman, but they still recognize each other's faces. After hugging briefly, he is given his traditional gi and the magical sword, now fully prepared to take on Aku himself. First, though, he breaks into a mine where Aku has slaves working for him, slicing down his minions and freeing the slaves. One of them, it turns out, is his father, and they have a short discussion regarding how the sword is but the tool, and that the samurai himself must have the inner strength to defeat Aku. And so he rides off again, this time straight to Aku's lair.
Aku and the samurai duke it out, and good seems to be winning most handily. The samurai stands over Aku, blade prepared to finish him off for good, but Aku has one final trick up his shapeshifting sleeve. With some sort of screech, he opens a portal in time itself, throwing the samurai into the distant future by several thousand years. During this time, Aku not only takes over the world, but even spreads his reach to other planets, taking worlds into his grasp.
--AND THEN, SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS LATER, A SAMURAI FALLS ON A FLYING CAR OUT OF A PORTAL IN THE SKY. After slicing a car into pieces (hey, it was shooting at him) and barely escaping a massive garbage compactor, he encounters some of the locals who think he's pretty fucking awesome for what he just did; for one reason or another, they all refer to him as Jack. The name sticks. From these locals, Jack learns that Aku's in charge of everything now, much to his dismay. It's only when he enters a local pub, kicks some ass, and catches the attention of some talking dogs that he is able to find out the truth. The dogs scan him with a device, revealing that he is from the year 25 B.A; that's Before Aku, which is when Aku took over the world. At this point Jack learns just what Aku's spell did, and realizes he must now seek a time passage to return to the past so as to defeat the lord of darkness once and for all. AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE PREMISE.
Jack's adventures take him to every corner of the earth, slaying the minions of Aku and freeing those trapped under his influence. He gradually rises from a nameless wanderer to a man of legendary status; those who hate Aku see him as a hero, a beacon of hope and a brighter future for them all. Those who side with Aku see him as the man with the largest bounty in the world on his head, seeking to cash in. Other than this progression of popularity, though, there is little continuity to the episodes, as they can be viewed in almost any order and still make perfect sense. The only exceptions are those which feature the Scotsman.
So let's discuss that.
There comes a point in the series where Jack must cross an impossibly long and narrow bridge, but not even halfway across he finds the path blocked by a Scotsman who wishes to cross in the opposite direction. Jack tries his best to negotiate a way they can both cross without making him backtrack all the way to the beginning - even going so far as to offer hanging off the side of the bridge so the Scotsman can pass - but the larger man refuses, determining that they'll have to fight for the right to cross. Though originally opposed, Jack changes his mind when the Scotsman cuts his hat in half (a favor he returns by shanking his bagpipe). And so the two fight. And fight. And fight. For - LITERALLY - a full day straight. It comes to the point where they can both barely lift their swords, and at THAT moment they're set upon by bounty hunters. As it turns out, Aku's got a bounty on Jack AND the Scotsman, so the two of them together are a prime target. Long story short they jump off the bridge, run away, meet more bounty hunters, and unite to defeat them all. With this they both come to respect each other's skills, and agree that any enemy of Aku is a friend of theirs. Scotsman and Jack, BFF's.
They part ways for some time, but the Scotsman eventually tracks down Jack again when he discovers that his wife has been kidnapped. Jack teams up with him again, but before he can embark on the quest he must prove himself manly enough to gain the blessing of the Druid, who pretty much runs things where the Scotsman's from. The test is one of strength; Jack must compete with a man four times his size in hurling a boulder as far as he can. The man throws it quite a distance, and Jack's... doesn't. At risk of failing, he asks the other man how many stones he weighs (twenty, it turns out). Pretending to shake the man's hand, Jack instead hurls him with some judo, far enough so he lands atop the same boulder the large man threw before. In a later episode the Scotsman calls this cheating, but for now it means Jack passed and can go help the Scotsman save his wife. Who is really big and ugly and loud and pretty much could have rescued herself any time she wanted! Making this adventure by and large a waste of time, other than to further display that Jack and the Scotsman have got each other's backs.
Which we REALLY learn later, when the Scotsman has to save Jack for a change. While taking a random ferry across the ocean, the Scotsman spots an employee who looks just like Jack; more than that, he's CERTAIN it's Jack, who has somehow "lost his brain" and calls himself Brent, working as "like, the water boy?" Refusing to believe that Brent and Jack are not the same person, he snags him from the boat, beginning an epic journey to find just what happened to Jack's memory (as well as his sword and gi). They use various clues to backtrack Jack/Brent's steps, finally finding themselves on an uncharted island where three Sirens make their home. Apparently Jack had tried to free all of those under their spell, so they sang a melody to rob him of his mind. The Siren's melody doesn't affect the Scotsman, however, as he... prefers his wife's singing. Yeah. Anywho he fights the sirens, eventually blasting out noise from his bagpipe enough to drown out their song; before they can finish the Scotsman off, Jack's memories return, and he grabs his sword to take them down in one stroke. Happy ending, and another chapter in the bromance of the Scotsman and Jack.
The series never truly concluded, unfortunately. However, there was one episode where Jack found a portal in time, but was unable to defeat its guardian and was sent away. The end of the episode suggests that he did not have the right to use the portal yet, as it ends with an image of a much older Jack with a long beard and flowing red cape. As such, though it has not happened yet, we can assume that Jack will indeed return to the past and right all the wrongs of Aku.
personality: First and foremost, Jack believes in good and justice. Even though he ultimately quests to return to the past and defeat Aku, he will always put that goal on hold the instant he happens upon anyone who needs his help. He can not ignore a cry for help, and will rush to aid anyone in need at the drop of a hat. This often puts him in situations where he almost bites off more than he can chew - rather often, these situations are traps - but even after countless such experiences he will continue to help first and ask questions later, putting his life on the line for complete strangers constantly.
That doesn't mean he's one hundred percent strong and pure, however. Jack does have a temper, and though it is a mile long road to break it, it can be done. Now this won't push him to RAGE KILL SLASH MURDER mode - nothing will do that - but he maaaaay find a clever way to give some sort of payback (such as jabbing the Scotsman's bagpipe). He'll never use his blade on a person themself unless they've truly warranted it, though.
Jack often speaks in a gentle, polite tone unless provoked, and does his best to behave with honor in all things. Respect is a very important keyword in Jack's personality; he shows respect to all things by default. Whether that courtesy and respect is reciprocated has a large amount of weight in Jack's judgment of a person's character, though it is not impossible to change his opinion after the fact. I
n combat, Jack is not just about hack and slash action, though he's perfectly adept at it. He's a cunning and quick-thinking warrior, able to quickly analyze the environment and use it to his advantage. He's used such tactics to fend off both entire armies and single foes alike, of varying shapes and sizes without hesitation.
As a final note, Jack sucks with modern technology. He's from feudal Japan; he just does.