User blog:WalrusGuy/PE Proposal: Laughing Jack

I figured I would propose a villain from the Deltora Quest series, known as Laughing Jack.

Who Is He?
He's a servant of the Shadow Lord. He also happens to be the brother of Tom and Ava. Before he was known as Laughing Jack, he was known as James Gant.

What Has He Done?
He tricks people into owing him money. He owns a gambling ship known as Lady Luck. In the event that the person who wishes to play his games doesn't have money, there's a casket that they can borrow money from. What they don't realize is that they actually have to pay three coins for every coin that they take out of the casket.

After the Lady Luck sinks, he adopts similar tactics, tricking people into owing him large amounts of money after they accept loans from him. If he's not satisfied with the value of their possessions, he simply murders them.

In the event they can't pay up (which is likely), Jack will enslave them. Rowing the boat is very dangerous as chances are they will end up drowning. Eventually, they will be sent to the Shadowlands, where the Shadow Lord would either experiment on them or force them to fight to the death.

His worst actions (IMO anyway) come when the Shadow Lord demands that he put out the light in the Bone Point Lighthouse, which only Red Han can do. To do so, he scams Red Han out of hundreds of gold coins. That is money that he can never pay back.

Laughing Jack strikes a deal with Red Han. If Red Han turns out the light, he'll forget all about the debt. But he still refuses so he kidnaps hsi daughter.

If Red Hans refuses to put out the light, he gets to watch his daughter Verity die a slow death from starvation and dehydration. Things don't go to plan, but the idea's still there.

Since he didn't have any slaves at the time and the wind had stopped blowing (stranding them at the lighthouse), he eventually condemned his crew to damnation promising them all the coins in his collection in exchange for their servitude. In the event he took out coins from his own casket, he would take to the oars himself.

After he killed Verity (as she was no longer useful to him), Laughing Jack then turned Red Han into a horse, browbeating him and whipping him into servitude. And yes, that's basically a fate worse than death in itself.

He decides to take Jasmine hostage, though to be honest, I think that's just about the least evil thing that he's done. This leads to him being condemned when he unintentionally violates his own bargain.

Heinous Standard
Many villains in the Deltora Quest series are beasts (such as the Wennbar and the Glus), but they don't act out of malice and simply wish to feed. Laughing Jack however acts solely out of greed. Of course, another exception is the Shadow Lord himself, who hates everything that is good and pure.

Redeeming Qualities
As I said, he's the brother of Tom and Ava. However, he doesn't show love to either of them, and was actually willing to kill the latter. He's not Thaegan who actually loved her children. He certainly didn't care about his crew either. He treated them unfairly even before he cast his curse upon them.

He also works for the Shadow Lord, but this is done out of pragmatism. He wanted access to magic, which the Shadow Lord gave him in exchange for servitude. And unlike the creatures that the Shadow Lord created such as Ols and Grey Guards.

Final Thoughts
Personally I tihnk he's just as bad as the Shadow Lord himself, in his own way.