Jean Bison

Jean Bison

Jean Bison is a character from the video game, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, He is a prospector during the Gold Rush of 1852, Jean Bison, who was looking to strike it rich, took one too many chances and wound up buried and frozen alive during a freak avalanche. However, in the present day, thanks to global warming, he thawed out, leaving him out of touch with present day society.A product of his time, he dreamed of "taming" the Wild North by leveling the forests and placing dams on every river, with progress delivered at the sharp end of an axe. Serving as the shipping baron for the Klaww Gang allowed him to bankroll his one-man war against nature. Using his train system that spans throughout the Canadian plains, Jean Bison's abilities are of utmost importance to the Klaww Gang.

Jean Bison first appeared in Episode 2: "A Starry-Eyed Encounter", along with the first appearances of the Contessa and Arpeggio, at a ball Rajan was hosting. It is safe to assume he was a VIP at the event. He later appeared beside Rajan as they watch Sly dance with Neyla, commenting that he wished Rajan's spice shipments moved as well as Sly.

Despite his backwards, low-tech ways and old-style thinking, Jean Bison ended up with four of the Clockwerk parts: the Lungs, Stomach, and Talons. He attached the Lungs and Stomach to his three Iron Horse trains, allowing them to run day and night without stopping. He also hid the blueprints of them in his trophy bass. However, Sly and the gang were able to pull off some good old-fashioned train robberies, stealing all three parts despite his precautions. Before they did so, Sly overheard talk between Jean Bison and Arpeggio, who seemed to be his close partner, on a speaker phone about their plans with the Clockwerk parts. He asked Arpeggio is he could buy the Clockwerk brain from him, but Arpeggio told him that he already has the lion share of the parts. As Cooper was robbing Iron Horse 3, and before Neyla appeared in her biplane, Jean was seen walking around in a train car, vowing to protect the Clockwerk stomach after he bolted it down.

After losing three of his Clockwerk parts, Jean Bison escaped to his large lumber camp on the coast of Northern Canada and continued his true operation—using his giant attractor to collect the light energy of the Aurora Borealis into his Northern Light Battery for Arpeggio's blimp. While Sly heard him talking to himself, he also began preparations for his Lumberjack Games, a competition for which he put up his Clockwerk Talons - that he'd been using to cut down trees - as a trophy to bring in the competition. This drew Sly and the Cooper Gang like moths to a flame. After setting up the northern lights battery for their transport to Arpeggio's blimp, they entered the games.

However, during the games, Jean Bison persuaded the judges to give him tens, making the Cooper Gang knock them out and dressed up like them. Despite stellar performances and cheating to make Jean Bison lose, the three were captured as Jean saw threw their disguises and threw the talons at them. While the Cooper Gang was in his custody, Bison had his men raid the gang's hideout and steal all of the Clockwerk Parts that the gang had collected and sold them to Arpeggio (including the talons). He then revealed this to Bentley after he escaped and called him stupid for being a turtle. Bentley was then forced into a battle with Bison and, using the lumber camp's equipment, Bentley was able to beat him. As he laid there in defeat, he claimed how times have changed after losing. Just then, a man on the speaker told Bison that Arpeggio is coming to pick up the Northern Light battery.

According to the ending of Sly 2, although he was not arrested, Jean Bison somehow turned over a new leaf and went to work for the EPA, and froze yet again on a mission to save baby penguins.

Abilities

As a lumberjack who partakes in games, he is very skilled with an axe and at chopping. Wherever he goes, he carries a wooden stick with him as his main weapon. With the Clockwerk talons, his stick becomes a cutting instrument that Bison used to chop down an entire forest. While he fought Bentley, he also liked to throw bombs around.

Personality

He was considered to be a hero by Sly as he was once a frozen prospector. Although he was very cruel to nature as he tried to "tame" the Wild North, and Sly found him strange as why he was using the Clockwerk parts, despite his low tech ways . When he was on the speaker with his men, he treated them with respect and said they'll go hunt some bears. Jean also seemed to be Arpeggio's right hand man as Arpeggio trusted him with the lion share of the parts, and how Jean was able to reclaim the parts that were stolen by Cooper for him. After he was defeated by Bentley, he said times changed. This meant that he learned from his actions about destroying nature and made him redeem himself by working for the EPA.