The Vortex || Character Bios :: Jake : the Leader

Jake:
The Leader

Jake was who could be considered the most typical person before he and his friends met Elfangor. He was an average student, an average friend with an average family and life and hobbies. His brother Tom was a Controller then, too, but he didn't know it. He didn't have to pretend he had no idea what Tom was up to and the hidden meanings of his words, because he really didn't. Maybe he looks back on that time and realizes the truth of the phrase: "ignorance is bliss."

Though as soon as Elfangor's ship crashed in the famed abandoned construction site, Jake started showing his leadership qualities. He would always stand front, and speak for the group. And when there was talk of a leader, everyone instinctively looked to him.

However, when it comes to his family, even Jake can be uncertain. Unlike Marco, who does not let his view of the "clear bright line" be obstructed, Jake has a little problem with destroying family members for the sake of the war. However, he is extremely angry at the Yeerks for taking his brother, the one who has infested Tom in particular, and sometimes he feels as if he wouldn't stop at anything to avenge him, even if it means killing Tom in the process.

Lately, though, his firm grip on the "leader" role has been slipping. He's always been a little stressed by all the responsibilty, but it seems that the pressure has been getting too much for him, and sometimes he just wants to let someone else do it all for him. Maybe Rachel will slowly replace him as the leader. Maybe the Animorphs will fall without a guiding voice. We can only wait to find out.

Character Quirks:
Jake really doesn't have that many quirks to him. Please note that this is NOT the same as having no personality -- as many people have accused him of. He simply doesn't have a distinctive personality -- he's not a warrior, or a moralizer, or a morphing nothlit, or a joker, or a lone alien. He's just Jake. However, even though he is a natural-born leader, he is under enormous pressures and has had to go through a lot that the others didn't. For one thing, he has to play dumb for his brother Tom (you should ALL know by now that he's a Controller, so I'm not even going to say it again) which sometimes tears him up, becoming a Controller himself, which unlike it was for Cassie, was a somewhat traumatizing experience, then plus he died in #11, and then had the whole leadership thing getting to him, and then there was Crayak out to get him, and he died again in MM3. Gee, give the guy a break.

" . . . Jake, the reluctant leader. Jake, the oh-so-tiresomely decent one. A sanctimonious killer: my least favorite kind."

-- the Drode

Enemy Opinion:
Jake is one of the most notable to the enemy because he acts as the leader. The other most notable would be Rachel, because she always violently charges at everything. But just as Aximilli instantly gave him the title of Prince, the others recognize him, always leading, always in front. Visser Three admires him, or at least his morph, and the other Yeerks are just afraid of him. Crayak has chosen Jake as the central target for his vengeance, though whether because he was the first to see him: through the barriers of death when Temrash died, or because Jake was the one who disabled the Howler's killing system, or because he knows that with Jake gone, the Animorphs, the only thing keeping the Yeerks from taking over Earth and his own forces from taking over them, would crumble, it's evident that he likes Jake the least of the six.

Relation to the Group:
Well, uh, Jake is the leader (I've said that, what, eighty times?). Sometimes he seems almost neutral on most debates and issues. He's usually the one to say "Okay, let's vote. Who says this . . . and who says this . . .?" He thinks like a true war leader: trying to do whatever damage to the enemy they can without hurting any of his own people or innocent "civilians." He is always for the strong, yet cautious approach; make sure not to get caught, be careful, watch out for Controllers . . .

Rachel:
Rachel is his cousin, and as they live in the same town they were the kind of relative-friends growing up where their parents would leave them at the other's house until they were old enough to go with their parents or stay home alone. They were good enough friends so that Cassie had a good excuse to be hanging around Jake besides "he's cute." As the Animorphs progressed on, and Rachel became more and more ruthless to her enemy, Jake would often have Rachel do something that required a good bit of vengeance and firepower that none of the others had. She wonders sometimes if he's "using" her for killing -- like he uses Ax for information.

Tobias:
Tobias and Jake actually didn't seem to be that good of friends at the beginning. Tobias was going to be dunked in the toilet by some bullies and Jake, being Jake, fended them off. After that, the two were friends, but not great ones, with Tobias kind of "hanging around." (Being a quiet, shy person, I can understand this; he finally found a friend, and he was glad to have one, even if he didn't have much to say). After they became Animorphs, Jake seemed much more friendly (as in warm, chatty, friendly) to him, maybe because he blamed himself a little for Tobias's condition.

Cassie:
What can I say? They like each other. They're both a little shy about it, though, and seem a little afraid of saying anything openly suggesting their feelings, unlike Rachel and Tobias (in #23, Rachel practically said "Okay, Tobias, do you love me, or do you want to be a bird?") though they were the first to kissed. Though it wasn't a moonlight-and-soft-music kiss, it was more like a thank-God-you're-alive-'cause-I-saw-
you-plummet-to-your-death kiss. Cassie doesn't go headfirst into danger much, but when she does, Jake is horribly worried about her and will do anything to protect her.

Marco:
Simply put, they're best friends. They've known each other since they were babies, and they're the perfect personality matches: Marco is optimistic (despite complaining about everything) and looks for the element of humor in everything, while Jake is focused and grounded. Without him, Marco says, Jake would become prematurely 40. The only problem is sometimes the tension gets to him, and he got onto him a lot. But Marco's always there for Jake in the end.

Ax:
Ax and Jake have actually come to be pretty good friends since he was first rescued from the Dome Ship. There's their famous running joke: "Don't call me prince." <Yes, Prince Jake.> Though Ax has this kind of perpetual respect for him that would impede the shorm thing he has going with Tobias. And Jake seems to find Ax nice, invaluable, though somewhat annoying. Lately, though, Ax has found his bonds of loyalty stretching, especially with the orders Jake has been giving.

Fan Opinions:
Most people seem generally indifferent to Jake. They say he doesn't have much of a personality, so they can't have much opinion of him, though they feel sorry for him. As I've said before, he DOES have a personality, he just doesn't have that distinctive quirk that all the others do, but he still have a personality. The ones who really like him are mostly girls who watch AniTV and think Shawn Ashmore's cute, or people who like him because of the Cassie&Jake romance.

TV Jake:
Jake might be the hardest person to play because there's no distinctive piece trait to build around. As you can tell from a good analysis of the TV Animorphs, usually that's all there is to them: their recognizable trait. And I'm no expert in the field of either acting or creating characters, but I'd have to say TV Jake, at the core, is someone totally different from the Jake I know from the books. And although I'm not going to bash Shawn's appearance (I find him neither cute nor ugly) he looks nothing like Jake should look, though he'd make a good substitute in a pinch.

Personal Bias:
Jake is part of what I call the "lower triad" of main characters. The top triad is Rachel, Tobias and Cassie, who I all like equally in different ways, and there is the "lower triad" of Jake, Marco and Ax. I also like them all equally in different ways, just to a lesser extent. I actually think he's neat.

Latest Character Development:
In Jake's latest book, #31, he went through some definite conflict as a difficult situation forced him to choose between protecting one of the two people he cared for most; his dad --- or his brother Tom. He took several unreasonable risks that in earlier books he would have chastised himself for even thinking about, and it seems that he truly is crumpling under the pressure of being a leader, and now more than ever he needs the support of his friends and those he loves if he is to remain standing.