Jack Garland

Jack Garland is the main protagonist of Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. He is an otherworldly stranger, that knows little of his past beyond an overwhelming urge to find and kill Chaos.
==History==
===Before Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origins===
Jack Garland is the Garland from the original Final Fantasy. Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin depicts one interpretation of his backstory and how he became an antagonist.
Jack originated from the Lufenian realm of Paradise, a veteran agent of a group known as Strangers who were deployed to Cornelia in a cycle of continuing the Lufenians' hold on this world via the chaos. Given a Dark Crystal that removed his memories so he would not give into emotion and be consumed in chaos, Garland gradually learned the truth during a previous mission and gave his crystal to Princess Sarah before forming a plan with his comrades and Astos to wrest control of Cornelia from the Lufenians. Garland lost his memories upon returning to Paradise and was sent back to Cornelia with his memories erased, having only a burning desire to kill Chaos.
===Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origins===
Jack arrived in Cornelia at the same time as Jed and Ash, the three meeting due to the resonances of their Dark Crystals. They went off to exterminate monsters under orders of the King of Cornelia to gain his trust and breach the Chaos Shrine.
After the three returned from their quest, Minister Lagone entrusted the key to the Chaos Shrine to them and Sarah asked Jack to look for a knight named Garland who was last rumored to have entered the Shrine and never returned. As they cut their way through a horde of monsters, the three reached the uppermost room with an intimidating throne and a figure clad in heavy armor that Jed assumes was Garland. The unknown person claimed they were to become Chaos and engaged them in battle. The warriors defeated the armored knight and discovered it was a young woman who also had a Dark Crystal. She introduced herself as Neon and told the trio that she was the last survivor of a group of warriors that realized Chaos was a myth and wished to become it to be slain by a hero and bring an end to the empty dream. Jack refuted her claims and walked away, with others following him.
Outside of the shrine, Neon joined the others, citing the prophecy of the Warriors of Light. She was accepted into the group and they returned to Castle Cornelia. The King was interested to see the fourth warrior and claimed the prophecy was being fulfilled. He offered them to restore light to the four Elemental Crystals that had been corrupted by the darkness and claimed they had slain Chaos, whom he did not believe to be real either. Since Sonne, the mayor of Pravoka, was the only one who knew the location of the crystals, Lagone sent them to learn the location. Upon reaching the place, the travellers learned that Sonne had died before their arrival and pirates had been protecting the town.
The group arrived to the grotto where the pirate ship was anchored and defeated the pirate captain Bikke, who told them to look for a dark elf named Astos in the Western Keep. The four faced off against a suit of animated armors controlled by Astos and made him reveal the locations of the crystals. Astos implored them to set out for the Wind Crystal first, using a mirage tower to get to the Flying Fortress, a Lufenian space station.
Jack and his allies, after some tribulations, arrived to the Flying Fortress where they defeated the Fiend of Wind, Tiamat. They discovered a woman named Sophia in the Fiend's place who also possessed a dark crystal and wanted to destroy Chaos. Astos arrived to the Fortress and applauded the warriors' efforts, giving them the locations of two more crystals.
Departing for the Earth Crystal, the five were sent to the Hallowed Massif, beneath which lies the Cavern of Earth where the Fiend of Earth, Lich, had made its lair. The Warriors defeated the Fiend, and Ash absorbed its darkness into his crystal, recovering some of his memories.
Jack and his friends were sent to Mount Gulg) where the Fire Crystal was being leeched off by the Fiend of Fire, Marilith. The creature was slain, and Neon also recovered her memories through her dark crystal.
Astos commended the Warriors for their efforts and dispatched them to the Sunken Shrine where the Water Crystal was kept. The rest of the Warriors started questioning Jack's goals, but he brushed them off and pushed forward. They defeated the Fiend of Water, Kraken, and Jed regained his memories, leaving Jack as the only one without any.
As the four arrived in Cornelia, the King told them the newly restored crystals were behaving erratically, seemingly tainted by the darkness. A messenger arrived with news that the castle was under attack by Bikke's pirates who were consumed by the darkness. Jack defeated Bikke and learned that Astos was waiting for him to tell the truth.
The party defeated Astos who revealed the Lufenians, an otherworldly-advanced civilization, were the true enemies to Cornelia and had planted memories into Jack and his companions to goad them into killing "Chaos", a form of darkness that stemmed from human emotions. Jack and his companions, save for Neon, were part of the "Strangers" program, a project spearheaded by the Lufenians to eradicate the darkness and create a utopia while using Cornelia as their experimental dumping ground for excess darkness. As Astos died, Jack absorbed his darkness and remembered his last name, Garland, and giving his previous dark crystal to Sarah not to lose all of his memories.
	
Jack set out for Cornelia to take the crystal, but found the city overrun by monsters. With the King and Queen killed, the Warriors of Light attempted to rally the people, but were rebuked by citizens who blamed them for all the disasters. Sarah managed to convince them to follow Jack, but as they reached the gates, she was fatally wounded and died in Jack's arms.
Devastated by the loss, Jack felt darkness gathering in himself. His allies attacked him and goaded him into killing them. By absorbing all of their darkness, Jack remembered the full plan and set out for the Chaos Shrine, now fully embracing Chaos. He breached into Lufenia and destroyed the Dimensional Crystal Matrix, a crystal used to allow Lufenians to travels across dimensions. As the Chaos energy leaked out, it took the from of a gigantic creature, Darkness Manifest, and attacked Jack. The Stranger defeated it and absorbed all the darkness before setting out with the Matrix, cutting Cornelia off the network and resetting the time loop.
Heading back to the Chaos Shrine, he sat on the throne, where his allies, now turned into the Fiends, congratulated him on finishing the plan. Jack still remained wary and believed the darkness should be balanced by the light and that eventually the true Warriors of Light would have to vanquish them, and to do that, they would have to train those warriors. Setting the plan in motion, he embraced the identity of Garland and kidnapped Princess Sarah, taking her to the shrine and waiting for four Warriors of Light to come and fight him. After slaying several Cornelian knights, he traveled away from the area with Sarah in tow, stopping only to observe the lightbreak heralding the arrival of the true Warriors of Light.
==Characteristics==
===Appearance===
Jack is a tall muscular man with light skin, with dirty blond hair kept in a short crop. He has a prominent horizontal scar running over the bridge of his nose and short stubble around his mouth and on his chin. His initial attire, dubbed "Stranger's" clothes in-game, consist of a dark-colored, asymmetric, button-up short-sleeved t-shirt, black pants, black lace-up boots, and black, worn, fingerless gloves with white wraps underneath them. This outfit is decidedly "modern" compared to the clothes of other characters, and is Lufenian in origin.
Before the events of the game, Jack wore lightly armored white garments with a capelette, featuring blue highlights and gold trimming, and a dark undershirt, dark fingerless gloves with golden-colored forearm guards, black pants and white and gold boots. 
As the knight Garland, Jack wears a dark armor and a horned helmet that is described as "terrifying to behold".
===Personality===
Jack is rude and single-minded, focused solely on his quest to kill Chaos, often interrupting others or dismissing them outright when they present information he deems irrelevant to this goal. Even with allies, he's blunt and taciturn, preferring not to mince his words or embellish the truth. Jack is often brutal in combat, even deriving pleasure from defeating and destroying strong opponent. Occasionally he uses crass language to address his enemies. Despite his demeanor, Jack has a caring side and holds deep attachments to his allies and comrades. He strives for a purpose after losing his original goal of killing Chaos.
Before he was like this, Jack was more caring and friendly with some sense of humor, amicable with Princess Sarah, even entrusting his Dark Crystal to her. He showed a great sense of camaraderie with Astos and disgust with the actions of fellow Lufenians, even deciding to rebel against them in order to eliminate their influence from Cornelia.
== Behind the scenes ==
Jack Garland acted as the main protagonist of Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, acting as the original identity of Garland from the first Final Fantasy game.
In the ending of "Different Future", Jack Garland acts as a boss fight. His lines in the beginning are a reenactment of what he says to the Warriors before the final battle. Despite this, however, unlike in Final Fantasy, he never actually transforms into Chaos.
== Gallery ==
Stranger of Paradise artwork.jpg|Promotional art featuring Jack's party and his "Garland" armor looming in the background.
Jack and Sarah.jpg|Jack abducting Princess Sarah.
Jack vs wol.jpg|Jack facing the Warrior of Light. Drawn by Tetsuya Nomura.
== Etymology and allusion==
Jack is named after the antagonist "Garland" from the original Final Fantasy.
==Citations==
pt-br:Jack Garland
ru:Джек Гарланд
Category:Characters in Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin
Category:Main characters