Mister Jack Skellington

“*Fear and doubt are signs of a strong heart. They push your heart, strike out in new directions! Without them, your zest for life might fade... as would your taste for fear. And believe me, that would really ruin my fun.*”―Jack explaining his reasons for scaring people to Sora in *Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories*

**Jack Skellington** is the "Pumpkin King" of Halloween Town, and the protagonist of Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone film, *The Nightmare Before Christmas*.

Jack Skellington is the patron spirit of Halloween, portrayed as being on par with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny within his own holiday. As a living skeleton, he is immortal and can remove parts of his body without harm, as is often demonstrated for comic relief. He is the most important of many Halloween spirits, with the implication that their job is to scare people in the real world on Halloween night, though all in innocent fun.

## Background

### Personality

Jack is very much an *undead* gentleman, graceful and patient in equal measures and can usually be counted on to do what is in everyone's best interest.

Though his logic is sound, his reasoning can be questioned at times - he was quite thorough in his Christmas research but opted to go with what he and his friends knew when he decided to give Santa Claus the year off and take over for him.

He was also oblivious to Sally's feelings for him throughout most of the story, showing that while among the more intelligent citizens of Halloween Town, he is very oblivious at reading people's feelings. This is backed up by the fact that he barely even recognized Santa's distress when they first met.

It seems that Jack might be slightly naive at times, as shown that he trusted Lock, Shock, and Barrel enough that he believed that they would simply bring Santa Claus to him without causing trouble, despite them being in cahoots with Oogie Boogie, as well as not realizing all the chaos he was causing on Christmas Eve before it was too late.

Jack almost never loses his temper and hardly ever raises his voice, but Jack was unable to contain his contempt for Oogie Boogie and did not hesitate to severely punish his old foe for endangering his friends with grim dedication. The closest he got to losing his temper was when Lock, Shock and Barrel abducted the Easter Bunny by mistake and then promptly started fighting amongst each other after Jack pointed out that Santa's Door looked like a tree, forcing him to make a scary face and roar at them to intimidate them back into obedience with his original orders.

It is also shown that Jack enjoys things that are new to him. He quickly became delighted with Christmas and grew increasingly excited as Christmas was being remade in Halloween Town just as he pictured, even giddily laughing as he gave out presents on Christmas Eve.

He is also highly optimistic, as he is very certain everything will go perfectly... that is until he realizes how "Everything's gone all wrong." Even when in despair after ruining Christmas, he is able to cheer himself up by realizing he didn't mean to do what he did and that "nobody really understood" (whether he is referring to Halloween Town not understanding Christmas or humans not understanding his intentions is unclear, though he could mean both). He is also humble enough to admit that he has failed and is willing to hand back the reins to Santa Claus in order to rectify everything.

### Physical appearance

Jack is a tall and extremely slender white skeleton with a skull sporting a cross-stitch mouth and bony fingers. He sports a black-and-white, pinstripe formal tuxedo with a bat-themed bowtie. When temporarily taking over for Santa with delivering presents, Jack wore a Santa Claus suit sewn by Sally with a long, fake beard, but borrowed Santa's hat to wear himself. The suit was left badly burnt, charred, and tattered after Jack was shot down by the military's artillery guns, and Jack tore off what was left to reveal his normal, undamaged, attire underneath as he redeclared himself the Pumpkin King once more.

### Powers and Abilities

Being an undead creature gives Jack one major advantage that most other Disney protagonists don't have; near-invincibility. Dismembered body parts can easily be re-attached, as well as remotely controlled by his mind. Largely because of this advantage, he often makes it a hobby to remove his own head to "recite Shakespearian quotations". Though this doesn't mean he can't be killed, as in the film Jack states that for him, death would be his bones being ground to dust, this is supported by the fact that after his sleigh is shot down, everyone assumes he's dead. The Mayor even stating on his microphone that *"Jack Skellington is naught but a pile of dust"* while everyone but Oogie is lamenting over the supposed loss of Jack.

He is also shown being very agile and light on his feet. Being nothing but a skeleton, he has no muscles or organic tissue weighing him down, so he can perform great leaps and bounds through the air effortlessly, and despite having no muscles, he seems to be quite strong, one would think that without muscles he wouldn't be able to move or even lift things. Yet he has no issues lifting glass containers, presents, or even the rotund child of the corpse family as seen at the end of the film.

In *Oogie's Revenge*, he is given a gel-like weapon called the Soul Robber, which functions as a multipurpose shape-shifting weapon, most commonly used as a whip, as well as a grappling hook. In *The Pumpkin King*, he's also shown to have access to other weapons such as the Frog Gun, the Bat Boomerang, and Pumpkin Bombs.