app: empatheias

[kanyounot]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Froda
Contact: frodabaggins
Age: olllllllllllld
Current Characters: N/A


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Kanan Jarrus
Age: ~30
Canon: Star Wars: Rebels
Canon Point: Post 3x03 "The Holocrons of Fate"

Background: Have a wiki!

Personality: Kanan Jarrus is a man who has spent a lot of his life running - from the Empire, and from his own guilt. He was a fourteen year old padawan when the Clone Wars ended with Order 66 - the clone troopers turning against the Jedi and slaughtering them. Kanan's own master, Depa Billaba, sacrificed herself to save his life, and he ran.

This amounted to a massive crisis of faith for Kanan. He literally spent the next several years wishing that the Force would just go away and leave him alone already, because his faith in it had been shaken so severely by the events at the end of the Clone Wars. How could he possibly trust the Force if it hadn't prevented the betrayal which led to his Master and so many others being murdered? Why should he place his faith in something that only got everyone he ever cared about killed?

So Kanan abandoned the Force (as much as it's possible for a Force-sensitive to abandon it), abandoned the Jedi teachings he'd grown up with, wandered the galaxy and spent most of his time sleeping around, and taking odd jobs for beer money. He tried being a bouncer, but he started more fights than he broke up, and as a bartender he drank more than he served. In short, Kanan was a hot fucking mess, and he never stayed in one place long enough to put down any roots, or form any attachments. Until Gorse, and Hera.

It is both difficult to describe the impact Hera has had on Kanan's personality, and also tempting to over-exaggerate it. The fact of the matter is, the fundamentals of Kanan's personality have always been there. He was raised in an understanding that the job, the duty of a Jedi is to help people, and while he absolutely tried to cut himself off from anything related to the Jedi after Order 66, he was never completely able to subdue his own chivalrous impulses. Numerous characters comment on the way in which he occasionally sticks his neck out to help people - just for its own sake - despite his frequent protests to the contrary. And his desire to follow Hera - while certainly at least in part due to the attraction he felt for her from the moment they first met - was also due to his own curiosity about her and her cause. Nonetheless, while Hera never asked him to change, never expected him to change, she has certainly had a huge impact on his development. She's helped him find a focus for his energies, and through her, he took some of his first steps to embracing his Force abilities again.

And the process that began with meeting Hera, fully blossoms once Kanan meets Ezra Bridger, the Force sensitive kid from Lothal who would become his Padawan apprentice. As with Hera, Ezra enters his life almost by accident, and it's through Ezra that Kanan is able to face down a lot of his own self-doubts. Because hoo, boy, does Kanan ever have some self-doubt. He's rather reluctant to take Ezra on, in fact (and largely does so at Hera's suggestion), but not because he doesn't think Ezra can do it. It's because he doesn't think he is qualified enough to be the Master Ezra needs. He has grappled with this a lot, in large part because he never finished his Jedi training and therefore was never knighted. Eventually, he finds himself knighted (by a manifestation of the Force itself, no less) in a Jedi Temple on Lothal, but one of the biggest personal obstacles Kanan consistently faces is his own self-doubt.

This is only exacerbated once Kanan is blinded. Losing one of his senses like that, makes him believe that he has let everyone down, that he is now useless, a burden. Incapable of helping anyone, least of all himself, now that he can no longer see. His experience with the Bendu has helped him to break down some of those last barriers between himself and the Force, and he has regained some of his old confidence after pulling away so thoroughly from his loved ones, but this is an ongoing process for him.

"Smartass with a heart of gold" is a good way to describe Kanan. He long ago learned to deflect difficult emotions with humor, and still often does this, even in really serious situations. He likes to smart-mouth people he considers enemies, especially anyone who works for the Empire - maybe not the most Jedi-like thing to do, but then, in some ways, Kanan is only maybe three-quarters Jedi.

As far as the Rebellion goes, Kanan is a true believer and wholeheartedly supports the overarching goal of overthrowing the Empire - but he retains a certain level of distaste and distrust for what he calls "protocol" and he has remained outside the formal chain of command in the rebellion itself, while Hera rises up the ranks. This is due in part to his own Master's ambivalence about Jedi being in the military - Depa Billaba had raised her concerns with her Padawan many years ago and Kanan shares her feelings about this. Additionally, he has concerns about becoming part of a larger organization that might consider it necessary to sacrifice his little crew for the greater good, and he doesn't want to see his found family broken up over it.

Ultimately, Kanan is a good guy who, after a lot of questioning has managed to find a pretty solid faith - in himself, in the Force, and in his crew, whom he cares for very deeply. He's embraced the role of Jedi Knight, albeit still with a bit of an unorthodox edge (particularly when it comes to those pesky emotional attachments), and he can be a real smartass when he wants to be.

Abilities: Kanan's a Jedi, so he can do a bunch of cool Jedi stuff using the Force~! Let's see if I can remember all of them!~

- Telekinesis! Objects, people, five tons of rock, he can move it, pull it, throw it, whatever!
- Super jumping power! He can jump farther/higher than the average person, maybe do a sweet flip in midair if he's feeling really Extra today.
- Enhanced senses, reflexes, and healing.
- Talks to the animals: Kanan has been seen making telepathic connections with animals - to calm them, etc.
- Jedi Mind Trick/Telepathy: limited, but Kanan is skilled in the Jedi Mind Trick, which he can use to make people do things (if they are weak-willed enough). Like, convincing that stormtrooper to let him pass without checking his ID or whatever.
- Force sense: pretty vague and handwavey but Kanan can sense people and animals and such through the Force, can pick up on emotions, stuff like that. This works best when he's meditating and/or particularly focused but he can do it to a limited extent pretty much any time.
- Precognition: Very limited, but basically the Force allows him to sense stuff before it happens so like, he's really good at dodging. Also he may occasionally be prone to a Force Vision - a glimpse into the future, but these are rare and fragmentary and very difficult to interpret.

(I'll have a permissions post for this stuff.)

IN ADDITION TO SPACE MAGIC, Kanan has some other stuff he's good at.

- Lightsaber combat: Favors Form III, aka "Soresu" aka "The Way of the Mynock", a primarily defensive form that is especially good for deflecting blaster fire and other ranged weaponry, and favors tight, efficient movements that are suited for close quarters combat, like in a narrow corridor. He can toss in a few Form IV moves for more offensive capability but he's mostly a defender.
- Hand to hand combat: Back in the day, Kanan got into his share of bar fights, and he can still throw a sweet right hook if he needs to, or make use of a broken bottle or chair leg.

Alignment: Piphron, please! Kanan's issues with self doubt and trusting the Force and his own personal faith lend themselves well to this alignment, I think.

Other:
Space dad loves local troublemaker, more at 11


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: TDM thread

Emotion Sample: Some literal warm fuzzies.

Questions: