The long version (spoilers ahoy!)
Dec. 9th, 2012 12:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiritofwinterIn the winter of 1712, a boy named Jack fell through the ice on a pond near his home in Burgess, a town in colonial New England. He and his younger sister had overestimated the thickness of the ice when they decided that morning to go ice skating; neither realized they were in any danger right up until the moment Jack's sister found herself stranded in the middle of the frozen pond, ice cracking under under feet. Jack removed his skates so he could creep closer to his sister without breaking the ice; despite his own fear, his one concern was to keep her from panicking and to get her to safety. He was able to push her off the thin ice, but in the process fell through himself.
Though Jack died that day, his story did not end there. The Man in the Moon, having seen Jack's sacrifice, took him from the water and resurrected him as a winter spirit. Jack was granted power over cold and ice, from creating frost patterns on windows to summoning whole blizzards, as well as the ability to ride on the winter winds. What he lacked, however, was self knowledge--in dying, Jack had forgotten who he was. As a being of the spirit world, too, Jack could only be seen by those who believed in him; to all others, he was intangible as well as invisible.
Jack remained a relatively minor spirit for the next three hundred years; as those who believed in him were few and far between, he eventually became accustomed to a life lived utterly alone. Naturally, he was known to other spirits and fairies, but it wasn't long before Jack earned a reputation among them for being childish, self-serving, and destructive. He had always been a joker and a trickster; given power over the cold as well as forced anonymity, Jack soon took to using his powers for his own amusement, often to the detriment of others. While he would not do anything to deliberately harm anyone, Jack saw no problem with inconveniencing both fae and humans for a laugh, and honed his instinct for causing chaos.
Three hundred years after raising Jack from the ice, the Man in the Moon chose him as a new guardian of childhood, joining North (Santa Claus), Bunnymund (the EasterKangaroo Bunny), Sandy (the Sandman), and Tooth (the Tooth Fairy). It was only at this time that Jack discovered he had ever been anything other than his present self. It was at this point that he learned that the teeth collected by Tooth contained each child's most important memories, and that his teeth were among those in her collection. Unfortunately, he learned this in the wake of an attack by Pitch Black, the boogeyman, in which Pitch stole all the children's teeth and kidnapped Tooth's fairies as part of his plan to destroy children's belief in each of the guardians. Though Jack was reluctant to become a guardian (and Bunnymund was reluctant to accept him as one), Jack agreed to help thwart Pitch's plan in order to retrieve his own teeth and learn about his past.
Jack's relatively selfish motives nearly proved to be the downfall of the guardians. While he should have been helping to guard Bunnymund's Easter eggs on their way to the surface world, Jack instead found his way to Pitch's lair, drawn there by the memories calling him from his teeth. While he did attempt to rescue the fairies being held there, the end result of his absence was that the eggs were destroyed before they could be hidden for children to find, and Bunnymund suffered the same loss of power as Tooth when the children of the world realized he had not come and began to doubt his existence. Jack, for his part, retrieved his teeth but was unable to help the fairies or to take back the teeth of the children of the world.
Disgraced and outcast by his teammates when they realized where he'd been when they had needed him, Jack retreated to Antarctica. He was confronted there by Pitch, who attempted to form an alliance with Jack. Jack refused, unwilling to be feared rather than loved in order to gain the recognition he wanted, and Pitch revealed that he had Baby Tooth, one of Tooth's fairies, whom he threatened to kill if Jack did not hand over his staff. Jack handed the staff over to Pitch, who snapped it in half and cast Jack and Baby Tooth into a crevasse.
Despairing, Jack finally opened the container holding his baby teeth at Baby Tooth's prompting and learned the truth about his past. Knowing his past made him finally understand the reason the Man in the Moon had made him a spirit and chosen him as a guardian, and gave him the strength to repair his staff and return to the world. With the other guardians--and with the help of a handful of children, the last in the world to believe in any of them--Jack ultimately defeated Pitch and returned the world to its former balance. He was formally inducted as a guardian, and would go on to watch over the children of the world with his new friends in perpetuity.
See Jack's profile for the short, spoiler-free version.
Though Jack died that day, his story did not end there. The Man in the Moon, having seen Jack's sacrifice, took him from the water and resurrected him as a winter spirit. Jack was granted power over cold and ice, from creating frost patterns on windows to summoning whole blizzards, as well as the ability to ride on the winter winds. What he lacked, however, was self knowledge--in dying, Jack had forgotten who he was. As a being of the spirit world, too, Jack could only be seen by those who believed in him; to all others, he was intangible as well as invisible.
Jack remained a relatively minor spirit for the next three hundred years; as those who believed in him were few and far between, he eventually became accustomed to a life lived utterly alone. Naturally, he was known to other spirits and fairies, but it wasn't long before Jack earned a reputation among them for being childish, self-serving, and destructive. He had always been a joker and a trickster; given power over the cold as well as forced anonymity, Jack soon took to using his powers for his own amusement, often to the detriment of others. While he would not do anything to deliberately harm anyone, Jack saw no problem with inconveniencing both fae and humans for a laugh, and honed his instinct for causing chaos.
Three hundred years after raising Jack from the ice, the Man in the Moon chose him as a new guardian of childhood, joining North (Santa Claus), Bunnymund (the Easter
Jack's relatively selfish motives nearly proved to be the downfall of the guardians. While he should have been helping to guard Bunnymund's Easter eggs on their way to the surface world, Jack instead found his way to Pitch's lair, drawn there by the memories calling him from his teeth. While he did attempt to rescue the fairies being held there, the end result of his absence was that the eggs were destroyed before they could be hidden for children to find, and Bunnymund suffered the same loss of power as Tooth when the children of the world realized he had not come and began to doubt his existence. Jack, for his part, retrieved his teeth but was unable to help the fairies or to take back the teeth of the children of the world.
Disgraced and outcast by his teammates when they realized where he'd been when they had needed him, Jack retreated to Antarctica. He was confronted there by Pitch, who attempted to form an alliance with Jack. Jack refused, unwilling to be feared rather than loved in order to gain the recognition he wanted, and Pitch revealed that he had Baby Tooth, one of Tooth's fairies, whom he threatened to kill if Jack did not hand over his staff. Jack handed the staff over to Pitch, who snapped it in half and cast Jack and Baby Tooth into a crevasse.
Despairing, Jack finally opened the container holding his baby teeth at Baby Tooth's prompting and learned the truth about his past. Knowing his past made him finally understand the reason the Man in the Moon had made him a spirit and chosen him as a guardian, and gave him the strength to repair his staff and return to the world. With the other guardians--and with the help of a handful of children, the last in the world to believe in any of them--Jack ultimately defeated Pitch and returned the world to its former balance. He was formally inducted as a guardian, and would go on to watch over the children of the world with his new friends in perpetuity.
See Jack's profile for the short, spoiler-free version.
