Jean Kirstein (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
isaytheeneigh) wrote2014-05-09 11:30 am
isaytheeneigh) wrote2014-05-09 11:30 am
(no subject)
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Jean Kirstein
CHARACTER AGE: 15-16
CANON ORIGIN: Attack on Titan
CHRONOLOGY: After chapter 57, where he’s discussing doubting Levi and Erwin.
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Randomize, please!
BACKGROUND: The insinuation of the world of Attack on Titan is that it’s a world like our own, albeit many years into the future (2,005 years, to be exact). Titans attacked humanity at some point, and after that, humans began to lose their territory until they erected a walled society to keep themselves safe. Five years before the main story of the manga, titans attacked the outermost wall after a hundred years of peace, and ended up killing a great number of people and driving the humans deeper within the walls. The protagonist of Attack on Titans, Eren, watched his mother die in this event, and afterward vowed to kill all titans.
Despite this bleak attitude, the world after this wasn’t completely filled with people who were aware that they could die. Still, one of the rising sentiments was that people should join the military and then join the inner wall’s police. There are three different branches of the military: the ones who reinforce the walls and generally remain stationary, the survey corps, who go out to fight titans and try to reclaim territory, and the inner police, who are generally corrupt. By ranking high in training, the top ten have the opportunity to choose where they might want to go (and many seem to join the inner police, preferring a life of luxury to risking themselves out with the survey corps).
As a member of the 104th training class, Jean Kirstein, who grew up in the peaceful town of Trost which lied just beyond the second wall (and was left relatively unaffected), joined the military because it was the popular thing to do. While the series hasn’t gone completely in depth with his background, the understanding is that he hoped to move from one place of privilege to another without a whole lot of danger. He knew he had to perform well to get a high ranking, but he cared little for using his strength to protect others. What did it matter if humanity was going to die anyway?
Soon after graduating and before he had the opportunity to follow his intended path, Jean and his fellow trainees ended up in a battle in his hometown. There, Jean saw the true nature of titans for the first time, and he ended up having to act decisively to save the lives of others. “Decisively” meant that there were moments when he might have had to sacrifice others, and he nearly died in the process, even believing at some point that he was a goner until Eren, magically turned titan, showed up and saved the day.
More happened after that. There was a controversy regarding Eren’s role as a titan, but they ultimately managed to plug the wall that had been broken to all titans in, and in the aftermath of the battle, Jean found his friend Marco in the rubble. This circumstance, combined with the battle that Jean had just been in, changed him forever from the previously selfish and self-interested teenager.
The exact nature of Marco’s relationship with Jean is unclear. The two of them are most certainly friends, but whether they were best friends is not made apparent. They both wanted to enter the inner police force, but many of the trainees wanted to do that. Either way, Marco told Jean that he had the mindset of being a good leader because he could understand other people’s weaknesses and desires. He’s not a strong person, exactly, but he could see what people wanted.
Combining his experience with this knowledge, Jean chose to cast aside his previous plans to join the survey corps. In his time with the survey corps, Jean has gradually grown, coming to understand that most of the methods to save humanity are actually rather ruthless. He comes to criticize these various methods, and even comes to distrust his commanders as a result. After all, he’s seen plans that would have saved lives be kept from the majority because they needed to be executed a certain way. He’s seen many of his friends be left to practically die. He’s seen various tactics be executed time and time again. He is a good soldier, willing to go along with certain plans (such as acting in the part of someone he dislikes), but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s happy with everything he’s seen.
Since then, he’s grown discontent with all of it, and he’s said that he didn’t sacrifice himself for people to continue dying. The big part of Jean’s development throughout all this is his shift toward a more humanistic standpoint, believing that ruthless and pragmatic approaches to saving lives don’t do anything but get more people killed.
Attack on Titan at Wikipedia | Attack on Titan volumes summaries | Jean Kirstein at the Attack on Titan Wiki
As a note, while the last will reference the anime and relationships with Marco and Mikasa that have specified definitions, I am pulling only from the manga as a resource.
PERSONALITY: By nature, Jean was not exactly someone who would be a “good person.” Having grown up in a life of privilege, he set out believing that he would do what was necessary to live a life of comfort. He knew about the titans, but having never experienced them himself, he didn’t fully understand the reality of them. In many ways, Jean hoped to remain ignorant, locked away behind the innermost wall where people there claim that titan attacks are nothing more than false claims to scare people into behaving. The fact that this is where Jean began says a lot about who he is now.
Early in the manga (and thusly early in his training and into his graduation), Jean sees himself as a realist. He believes that humanity stands no chance of defeating the titans, and as a result, he would prefer to close himself off from the possibility of dying at their hands. It’s very apparent that Jean would like to live out his life without any troubles, and he believes the only way to achieve that is by living in the innermost walls away from most of the troubles. He thinks only of himself, and some way to protect himself. Simply put: he believes the only way to live is to live selfishly.
It says a lot that his choice of joining the survey corps is not only to help others but also seen as a sacrifice. To some degree, Jean still thinks of himself as he engaged in this decision, and the heavy burden he has decided to take on his shoulders by putting his life on the line. He sees himself as an expendable member of the corps, but he takes issue with the fact that anyone can die at any moment, increasingly growing frustrated with it over time. While most of the corps believes in an approach that endorses a necessary evil approach, he comes to take issue with that mindset repeatedly. After all, that’s not the way to save humanity—and by extension, that’s not the way to save someone like him. He sees himself as a corpse, but he can only think of other people in that decision. He doesn’t want people to die, and to some extent, it’s because he doesn’t want himself to die. Thinking of joining the survey corps as a sacrifice of one’s self is a very simple summary of this, and it shouldn’t be a sacrifice.
While Jean has come into his own with his humanistic—albeit somewhat selfish in that—point of view, it’s important to remember that, more than anything, he is still young. As a teenage boy, certain tendencies haven’t been stamped out of him. The most significant of these is that he likes to antagonize others. While his antagonistic approach to others used to come in loudly boasting and picking fights with others, he’s become more muted for the most part, picking out flaws in others and making fun of them from time to time. Most recently, he made fun of Sasha for an incident during their training days, but he doesn’t start arguments with his rival Eren. The two of them used to fight in explosive ways, but now he understands things differently. Of course, he still strongly dislikes Eren’s loud and idealistic approaches to anything; that hasn’t stopped in any way.
This antagonism has taken a different shape: Jean has decided to be the one who points out the flaws in things, and he attaches this tendency to the right places. Whereas before he might have picked on a friend needlessly, now he does it to point out that someone’s approach to things is unethical. He has decided to make himself into the counterpoint, the individual who speaks out when necessary. In some ways, this is an extension of what Marco had suggested for him. As a leader, he would be able to understand what other people want, and he decisively approaches that mindset well. The big thing is that instead of being “an honest guy” who is basically a jerk and makes fun of people, he’s harsh in his phrasings and he doesn’t skirt around the truth. After Eren isn’t able to help people, Jean points out that, essentially, all the eggs have been placed into the “Eren basket.” He demonstrates this not through metaphor, but in cold facts. He lists the number of people who have died. He lists how many people have been injured. He explains the likelihood of recovering from various battles. In the end, it’s pointed out to him that he’s being a bad guy, but his words get through to Eren and motivate him. Jean himself cares little that he’s the bad guy so much as he’s saying what needs to be said.
An extension of this tendency, however, is that Jean isn’t very good at mincing his words. Not only is he antagonistic, but he has a tendency to be overly blunt, believing that what he has to say is important. Over time, he has certainly learned to not say something around certain individuals, but he doesn’t always do that. For him, it’s not always antagonism that encourages his bluntness. Sometimes he decides to cut straight to the point, and that desire doesn’t always come across in the best way.
Another aspect of that antagonism and even the bluntness is that Jean hasn’t always been the most even-tempered of people. He’s definitely someone who is as hot-blooded and harsh as the protagonist Eren (though definitely without him shouting about killing all titans, that’s definitely never been Eren). Here, too, Jean has grown. He definitely is someone who displays a variety of emotional tendencies, expressing annoyance and agitation over having to go undercover as Eren because he dislikes him. He wears his emotions often right on his sleeve, doing a poor job of hiding them unless the moment itself is particularly serious. Jean’s tendency to overreact to things in his own way has definitely changed over time, however. He keeps himself in check when he needs to, and he knows what he has to do in order to manage that.
His tendency to keep himself in check has helped foster another part of his personality that had always been there, but in another direction: his ability to observe others. He is no tactician, but he is surprisingly good at people. He can read other people and do or say what’s necessary in a give moment to get something done. This aspect of his personality is made apparent during the battle of Trost when he keeps himself in check, but it returns later and has definitely been a large part of him coming to distrust his commanders. He observes certain situations with a clear mind before he comes to criticize them. In many ways, this is a show of maturity on his part. Whereas before his pessimism about humanity’s chances and realism meant that he tried to run away from these observations, but now he is largely doing the opposite.
More than anything, the best way to view Jean now is more balanced. He is still selfish, but he is applying his selfishness in a different way, understanding how all of humanity deserves to be saved. He is coming to understand the desire to save all of humanity, and he wants to give his all to do exactly that—including his life. But he doesn’t want his sacrifice to be a pointless one. This is not because he wants glory or anything like that, but he actually wants to fight for a chance for humanity to live. What point is there if people continue to die? For this reason, he has been humbled to great extents because of his willingness to help out others, but he does believe that what he has to say is definitely important. He thinks little of himself in the process, but given the circumstances, who wouldn’t? That is one aspect of his sacrifice, but it’s only a sliver of it. He wants his death to mean something, so he’s going to go out swinging … and he’s going to do it in all directions if necessary.
After all, it’s been remarked that since he joined the survey corps that he became more righteous and preachy about what’s the right thing to do. That’s not an inaccurate assumption, and it’s a long, long, long distance away from someone who didn’t care about right or wrong because everyone was screwed anyway. He’s certainly someone with a level of self-righteousness, but he is more than willing to make his voice known. He’s willing to be that opposing voice even if it’s the last thing he does. In many ways, that’s how Jean chooses to lead.
POWER:
Transformation into a horse: One a day, Jean will have the ability to transform into a charolais horse. He can hold the form for as long as he wants, but walking around as a horse is the very opposite of being incognito, so the likelihood he’ll keep it up is low. If someone puts shoes and a saddle and bridle onto horse-Jean, he will be able to keep those from transformation to transformation, while not holding them in his human form. However, when he does turn back into a human, he will be naked.
Empathic healing: Jean is able to heal anyone, but not from anything. This will be an ability that develops over time, starting with small cuts before extending beyond that. He will never be able to regenerate limbs, and in fact, if someone had the ability to generate limbs, his healing might conflict with that, causing things to work differently (think of healing an amputee in the proper way so that there’s no risk of infection). He’ll be able to help larger wounds and with bloodloss. The catch is that he’ll be able to feel what the person is feeling at the moment. Pain, agony, fear, anger, and anything else will be something he’s able to tap into, and how affected he is by these emotions will affect how well he can heal.
CHARACTER NAME: Jean Kirstein
CHARACTER AGE: 15-16
CANON ORIGIN: Attack on Titan
CHRONOLOGY: After chapter 57, where he’s discussing doubting Levi and Erwin.
CLASS: Hero
HOUSING: Randomize, please!
BACKGROUND: The insinuation of the world of Attack on Titan is that it’s a world like our own, albeit many years into the future (2,005 years, to be exact). Titans attacked humanity at some point, and after that, humans began to lose their territory until they erected a walled society to keep themselves safe. Five years before the main story of the manga, titans attacked the outermost wall after a hundred years of peace, and ended up killing a great number of people and driving the humans deeper within the walls. The protagonist of Attack on Titans, Eren, watched his mother die in this event, and afterward vowed to kill all titans.
Despite this bleak attitude, the world after this wasn’t completely filled with people who were aware that they could die. Still, one of the rising sentiments was that people should join the military and then join the inner wall’s police. There are three different branches of the military: the ones who reinforce the walls and generally remain stationary, the survey corps, who go out to fight titans and try to reclaim territory, and the inner police, who are generally corrupt. By ranking high in training, the top ten have the opportunity to choose where they might want to go (and many seem to join the inner police, preferring a life of luxury to risking themselves out with the survey corps).
As a member of the 104th training class, Jean Kirstein, who grew up in the peaceful town of Trost which lied just beyond the second wall (and was left relatively unaffected), joined the military because it was the popular thing to do. While the series hasn’t gone completely in depth with his background, the understanding is that he hoped to move from one place of privilege to another without a whole lot of danger. He knew he had to perform well to get a high ranking, but he cared little for using his strength to protect others. What did it matter if humanity was going to die anyway?
Soon after graduating and before he had the opportunity to follow his intended path, Jean and his fellow trainees ended up in a battle in his hometown. There, Jean saw the true nature of titans for the first time, and he ended up having to act decisively to save the lives of others. “Decisively” meant that there were moments when he might have had to sacrifice others, and he nearly died in the process, even believing at some point that he was a goner until Eren, magically turned titan, showed up and saved the day.
More happened after that. There was a controversy regarding Eren’s role as a titan, but they ultimately managed to plug the wall that had been broken to all titans in, and in the aftermath of the battle, Jean found his friend Marco in the rubble. This circumstance, combined with the battle that Jean had just been in, changed him forever from the previously selfish and self-interested teenager.
The exact nature of Marco’s relationship with Jean is unclear. The two of them are most certainly friends, but whether they were best friends is not made apparent. They both wanted to enter the inner police force, but many of the trainees wanted to do that. Either way, Marco told Jean that he had the mindset of being a good leader because he could understand other people’s weaknesses and desires. He’s not a strong person, exactly, but he could see what people wanted.
Combining his experience with this knowledge, Jean chose to cast aside his previous plans to join the survey corps. In his time with the survey corps, Jean has gradually grown, coming to understand that most of the methods to save humanity are actually rather ruthless. He comes to criticize these various methods, and even comes to distrust his commanders as a result. After all, he’s seen plans that would have saved lives be kept from the majority because they needed to be executed a certain way. He’s seen many of his friends be left to practically die. He’s seen various tactics be executed time and time again. He is a good soldier, willing to go along with certain plans (such as acting in the part of someone he dislikes), but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s happy with everything he’s seen.
Since then, he’s grown discontent with all of it, and he’s said that he didn’t sacrifice himself for people to continue dying. The big part of Jean’s development throughout all this is his shift toward a more humanistic standpoint, believing that ruthless and pragmatic approaches to saving lives don’t do anything but get more people killed.
Attack on Titan at Wikipedia | Attack on Titan volumes summaries | Jean Kirstein at the Attack on Titan Wiki
As a note, while the last will reference the anime and relationships with Marco and Mikasa that have specified definitions, I am pulling only from the manga as a resource.
PERSONALITY: By nature, Jean was not exactly someone who would be a “good person.” Having grown up in a life of privilege, he set out believing that he would do what was necessary to live a life of comfort. He knew about the titans, but having never experienced them himself, he didn’t fully understand the reality of them. In many ways, Jean hoped to remain ignorant, locked away behind the innermost wall where people there claim that titan attacks are nothing more than false claims to scare people into behaving. The fact that this is where Jean began says a lot about who he is now.
Early in the manga (and thusly early in his training and into his graduation), Jean sees himself as a realist. He believes that humanity stands no chance of defeating the titans, and as a result, he would prefer to close himself off from the possibility of dying at their hands. It’s very apparent that Jean would like to live out his life without any troubles, and he believes the only way to achieve that is by living in the innermost walls away from most of the troubles. He thinks only of himself, and some way to protect himself. Simply put: he believes the only way to live is to live selfishly.
It says a lot that his choice of joining the survey corps is not only to help others but also seen as a sacrifice. To some degree, Jean still thinks of himself as he engaged in this decision, and the heavy burden he has decided to take on his shoulders by putting his life on the line. He sees himself as an expendable member of the corps, but he takes issue with the fact that anyone can die at any moment, increasingly growing frustrated with it over time. While most of the corps believes in an approach that endorses a necessary evil approach, he comes to take issue with that mindset repeatedly. After all, that’s not the way to save humanity—and by extension, that’s not the way to save someone like him. He sees himself as a corpse, but he can only think of other people in that decision. He doesn’t want people to die, and to some extent, it’s because he doesn’t want himself to die. Thinking of joining the survey corps as a sacrifice of one’s self is a very simple summary of this, and it shouldn’t be a sacrifice.
While Jean has come into his own with his humanistic—albeit somewhat selfish in that—point of view, it’s important to remember that, more than anything, he is still young. As a teenage boy, certain tendencies haven’t been stamped out of him. The most significant of these is that he likes to antagonize others. While his antagonistic approach to others used to come in loudly boasting and picking fights with others, he’s become more muted for the most part, picking out flaws in others and making fun of them from time to time. Most recently, he made fun of Sasha for an incident during their training days, but he doesn’t start arguments with his rival Eren. The two of them used to fight in explosive ways, but now he understands things differently. Of course, he still strongly dislikes Eren’s loud and idealistic approaches to anything; that hasn’t stopped in any way.
This antagonism has taken a different shape: Jean has decided to be the one who points out the flaws in things, and he attaches this tendency to the right places. Whereas before he might have picked on a friend needlessly, now he does it to point out that someone’s approach to things is unethical. He has decided to make himself into the counterpoint, the individual who speaks out when necessary. In some ways, this is an extension of what Marco had suggested for him. As a leader, he would be able to understand what other people want, and he decisively approaches that mindset well. The big thing is that instead of being “an honest guy” who is basically a jerk and makes fun of people, he’s harsh in his phrasings and he doesn’t skirt around the truth. After Eren isn’t able to help people, Jean points out that, essentially, all the eggs have been placed into the “Eren basket.” He demonstrates this not through metaphor, but in cold facts. He lists the number of people who have died. He lists how many people have been injured. He explains the likelihood of recovering from various battles. In the end, it’s pointed out to him that he’s being a bad guy, but his words get through to Eren and motivate him. Jean himself cares little that he’s the bad guy so much as he’s saying what needs to be said.
An extension of this tendency, however, is that Jean isn’t very good at mincing his words. Not only is he antagonistic, but he has a tendency to be overly blunt, believing that what he has to say is important. Over time, he has certainly learned to not say something around certain individuals, but he doesn’t always do that. For him, it’s not always antagonism that encourages his bluntness. Sometimes he decides to cut straight to the point, and that desire doesn’t always come across in the best way.
Another aspect of that antagonism and even the bluntness is that Jean hasn’t always been the most even-tempered of people. He’s definitely someone who is as hot-blooded and harsh as the protagonist Eren (though definitely without him shouting about killing all titans, that’s definitely never been Eren). Here, too, Jean has grown. He definitely is someone who displays a variety of emotional tendencies, expressing annoyance and agitation over having to go undercover as Eren because he dislikes him. He wears his emotions often right on his sleeve, doing a poor job of hiding them unless the moment itself is particularly serious. Jean’s tendency to overreact to things in his own way has definitely changed over time, however. He keeps himself in check when he needs to, and he knows what he has to do in order to manage that.
His tendency to keep himself in check has helped foster another part of his personality that had always been there, but in another direction: his ability to observe others. He is no tactician, but he is surprisingly good at people. He can read other people and do or say what’s necessary in a give moment to get something done. This aspect of his personality is made apparent during the battle of Trost when he keeps himself in check, but it returns later and has definitely been a large part of him coming to distrust his commanders. He observes certain situations with a clear mind before he comes to criticize them. In many ways, this is a show of maturity on his part. Whereas before his pessimism about humanity’s chances and realism meant that he tried to run away from these observations, but now he is largely doing the opposite.
More than anything, the best way to view Jean now is more balanced. He is still selfish, but he is applying his selfishness in a different way, understanding how all of humanity deserves to be saved. He is coming to understand the desire to save all of humanity, and he wants to give his all to do exactly that—including his life. But he doesn’t want his sacrifice to be a pointless one. This is not because he wants glory or anything like that, but he actually wants to fight for a chance for humanity to live. What point is there if people continue to die? For this reason, he has been humbled to great extents because of his willingness to help out others, but he does believe that what he has to say is definitely important. He thinks little of himself in the process, but given the circumstances, who wouldn’t? That is one aspect of his sacrifice, but it’s only a sliver of it. He wants his death to mean something, so he’s going to go out swinging … and he’s going to do it in all directions if necessary.
After all, it’s been remarked that since he joined the survey corps that he became more righteous and preachy about what’s the right thing to do. That’s not an inaccurate assumption, and it’s a long, long, long distance away from someone who didn’t care about right or wrong because everyone was screwed anyway. He’s certainly someone with a level of self-righteousness, but he is more than willing to make his voice known. He’s willing to be that opposing voice even if it’s the last thing he does. In many ways, that’s how Jean chooses to lead.
POWER:
Transformation into a horse: One a day, Jean will have the ability to transform into a charolais horse. He can hold the form for as long as he wants, but walking around as a horse is the very opposite of being incognito, so the likelihood he’ll keep it up is low. If someone puts shoes and a saddle and bridle onto horse-Jean, he will be able to keep those from transformation to transformation, while not holding them in his human form. However, when he does turn back into a human, he will be naked.
Empathic healing: Jean is able to heal anyone, but not from anything. This will be an ability that develops over time, starting with small cuts before extending beyond that. He will never be able to regenerate limbs, and in fact, if someone had the ability to generate limbs, his healing might conflict with that, causing things to work differently (think of healing an amputee in the proper way so that there’s no risk of infection). He’ll be able to help larger wounds and with bloodloss. The catch is that he’ll be able to feel what the person is feeling at the moment. Pain, agony, fear, anger, and anything else will be something he’s able to tap into, and how affected he is by these emotions will affect how well he can heal.