John Francis

John Francis is a former antagonist and a rogue mercenary in Zack Snyder's Kantai Collection series. He served as the primary antagonist for the first cour's second half, but has also been present as a recurring antagonist, bordering on anti-hero onwards.
He was one of the members of Squadron Fleet Zero and Shane Marcus' closest friend after the events of the battle in Iron Bottom Sound, until he is revealed to be a leader of the terrorist group know as Harbingers of Dread, which unbeknownst to everyone, worked for EVOLVE. After a war against Squadron Fleet Zero in Hong Kong, he was defeated. He was taken as a prisoner, receiving a life sentence for his actions.
John remained imprisoned in EVOLVE's prison outpost for two years, until he is freed from his cell by his former allies and joined them in infiltrating EVOLVE in order to expose their true colors, drawn into the conflict with the EVOLVE in the process. After helping the Naval Military to achieve the victory in the final battle against EVOLVE and expressing genuine remorse for his actions in the past, John and Shane make peace with each other and John departed to find a new life elsewhere.
==Personality==
John is initially introduced as an erudite boy with an easy-going, straightforward and honest personality. After he met Shane in 2037, the latter accepts the friendly and unreserved nature of his actions and lets him approach. After two years' time they spend together, John and Shane became interested in each other and build a friendship based upon mutual appreciation. They also bond over their shared loss of family.
Later, it is revealed that John was a secret agent and the leader of the mercenary terrorist group Harbingers of Dread working for EVOLVE. John makes it clear that it's because he has no other options, adding that while he is apathetic about the Abyssals destroying the world, he wouldn't mind their destruction as well, since they killed his family, his sister included. Yet, he also despises Diego Takamura's heinous actions, especially his betrayal of Naval Military for the Abyssals in pursuit of godhood. Furthermore, he hates people who take everything for granted, an attitude generated by a sense of isolation. He begrudgingly followed orders from EVOLVE to betray his comrades and assist the Abyssals to terraforming Hong Kong. 
Despite his betrayal, John's close bond with Shane is completely genuine and clearly displayed in which he becomes momentarily distracted by Shane telling him what his older sister, Natalie, had hoped that could have been eventually achieved, which was peace. However he is critically injured by Shane as a result and is taken as a prisoner in order to spend the rest of his days as a prisoner as punishment for the crimes he committed and to serve as a reminder that people are capable of change.
By 2041, John is now completely powerless and trapped in a degraded form of existence as a prisoner in EVOLVE. Despite this however, he is still shown to be strong and has maintained his sanity despite his captivity as well as his menacing attitude. He is even shown to be brave enough to still taunt the man who put him there, Max, about his late subordinate Josh even though he is completely at Max's mercy and can potentially be killed in an instant and appears to have hopes for freedom as he tells Max that the Naval Military is not saving the world in the least, but that they are simply preparing it for something darker to come. Despite this, John confides in Shane that he greatly misses his late sister, appreciating the fact that she is not alive to see him in such a state, and admits to her that, since the Abyssal war before EVOLVE came, he had lost everything and now he has due to what he has become, showing guilt for the destruction and death he caused along the way. 
After being forced to dismember one of his former men's corpse and feed it to an Abyssal revenant, John appears to have lost his mind to a degree from the trauma, holding his Joker card and muttering to himself that there's always a way out. John proves to be so traumatized that he suggests cutting himself up as a solution to the tracker on him. When Natalie, who is revealed to be still alive and a prisoner whom Max shared a close bond with, is held at knifepoint by the warden during the prison rebellion that Max and Shane instigated, John finally snaps out of it and gives himself up as the leader of the rebellion and attempts to sacrifice himself as a martyr before being forced to beg after Natalie is set to be executed with him. Only Shane and Max leaping to his defense spared John and Natalie from death. Before leaving the prison after evacuating the innocent prisoners, John smashes open the warden's head and leaves behind his Joker in the remains as a calling card for one of Alana Leonard's personal bodyguards and blowing up the prison with him and his guards still inside for Alana to see on-camera, evidently as an act of retribution for what she put him through.
The events at EVOLVE prison compound, specifically being faced with the perspective of being someone on the other side of a tyrannical and sadistic leader's control, gives John a new understanding of how his own actions impacted those that he had once betrayed. John finally understands what he did to Shane and genuinely apologizes to him for lying to him during their days together and betraying the squadron and is even willing to sacrifice himself to kill Alana, knowing that it is a likely suicide mission and wanting to spare Shane that.
John and Shane are able to make peace and John reveals that his actions are completely selfless and motivated by a desire to leave behind a better legacy than being the monster that he once was and to save everybody else, outright admitting that they are all better than him.
Category:Characters
Category:Male Characters
Category:Protagonists
Category:Antagonists
Category:Main Characters
Category:Former Antagonists
Category:Naval Military
Category:EVOLVE Naval Corps