Jasmine
| Jasmine | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Age | 15-16 |
| Species | Human |
| Sex | Female |
| Height | 5'1" |
| Weight | Unknown |
| Background | |
| Series | Aladdin (movies,animated series) |
| Combat Styles | Princess of Agrabah, Princess of Heart |
| Hometown | Agrabah |
| Group | Unaffiliated |
| Occupation/Job | Princess on the Lam |
| Force: | Forces of Restoration |
| Theme Song | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVxUUotm1P4 |
| Quote | |
| I am /NOT/ a prize to be won! | |
| Recent Events | |
| Agrabah's world has fallen to the darkness; Jasmine's on the run from Jafar and Maleficent, desperate to find a way to save her home. | |
Summary:
The quintessential headstrong, rebellious princess, Jasmine's royal birthright gave her everything... except for the freedom to make her own choices. Spirited and intelligent, but also deeply intuitive and kind, she saw nothing in the endless parade of suitors seeking her hand except for ambition, arrogance, and greed. Fifteen and facing the rest of her life in isolation behind high palace walls, with only her tiger Rajah for company, she ran away. Innocent and naive, she quickly discovered exactly how sheltered she'd really been. Fortunately, she's a very fast learner, and with the help of the first man to ever impress her, managed to survive the experience; then, the news that he paid in blood for her irresponsibility shattered her world completely. That very night, she sensed the danger of the Heartless and fled the clutches of Jafar and Maleficent, who will stop at nothing to steal the Heart of one of the Seven Purest Lights. Alone in the vast, warring realms, pursued by endless agents of Ruin, Jasmine is getting more adventure than she ever dreamed of. She'll do anything to save Agrabah and the universe; a true princess, she knows that the needs of the people outweigh her own.
History:
Princess Jasmine is the daughter of the Sultan of Agrabah and a beautiful, brilliant, brave woman who died when she was very young. She's quickly growing up to be very like her mother, much to her father's mixed pride and chagrin. Her childhood was a lonely one, dominated by instruction in the manifold duties of rulership, or at least those deemed suitable for a woman. She studied dance and storytelling alongside laws and history, music as well as mathematics, embroidery and politics alike.
Mastering them all, she found great meaning in the lessons of justice and compassion, and deeply yearned for real responsibility and a way to serve her people, but resented that the whole wide world she'd studied was forever barred to her; fearing for her safety as the sole heir of the Sultanate, she was not allowed to leave the palace. The Sultan, the extremely creepy vizier Jafar, her lady-in-waiting and former nurse Aneesa, and the guards and servants forbidden from approaching her with familiarity -- that was her whole world, and it was largely an empty one. Not to be deterred from finding companionship, Jasmine befriended the animals of the menagerie, especially a tiger whom she called Rajah, as well as her mother's high-spirited horse, Sahara, who no one else had ever been able to approach, much less tame, since she died.
When she was but ten, six years before she was required by law to marry a Prince and secure a male heir to the throne of Agrabah, the first suitors began to arrive. At first she had no objection to serving her people in the expected manner, but as suitor after suitor revealed themselves to be nothing but arrogance and ambition, she grew disgusted, then extremely stubborn. She would marry for love as well as for duty; surely there was /someone/ out there who would allow for both criteria. A man truly worthy to serve Agrabah as its ruler would have to pass a litmus test of 'being a decent human being.'
Three days before her sixteenth birthday, no such prince had arrived, and her father would not be swayed on the topic of changing the law to allow her more time to find a suitable husband -- it had become a forbidden subject at dinner. She was as trapped as her beloved songbirds... only moreso, since they could fly freely into the blue sky when she released them, but she could not. Or could she? Distressed and desperate, she ran away from home, disguised as a peasant.
The big wide wondrous world was not quite as friendly as she'd expected; at first she wandered around happily enough, but a certain failure to understand the concept of 'money' to pay for the apple she'd kindly given to a starving child quickly had her in real danger. The intervention of a street urchin, Aladdin, rescued her hand, and she quickly discovered a kindred spirit in both cleverness and dissatisfaction with their lives. However, they were quickly interrupted by her father's guards, who had come to capture Aladdin for his many petty thefts; she tried to save his life in turn, by revealing her true identity and returning to the palace.
Unfortunately, on Jafar's orders, he was arrested anyway, and Jafar, noticing her interest in the boy, casually broke her heart by claiming he was executed 'for kidnapping the princess.' Jasmine was devastated; her irresponsible actions had serious consequences, costing the life of a nice young man whose name she had never even learned.
That night, her grieving reverie was broken by a terrible sense of danger, a feeling that burned behind her eyes and ran down to the base of her spine. She crept out of her room, only to overhear Jafar and Maleficent ordering strange creatures, the Heartless, to seize the city and its occupants and especially its princess. There was no way to reach her father in time; quickly disguising herself again, she fled for the second time in twenty-four hours, with monsters hot on her heels.
Though she was loath to leave the people of Agrabah in Jafar's clutches, Jasmine knew she could never free them alone. So it is that she's struck out to find aid -- an army, a Genie, maybe even a Prince -- whatever it takes to save her people. The wartorn state of all the worlds has not been lost on her, and she's beginning to wonder if she isn't caught up in greater events than even her world's.
Personality:
Jasmine is a surprisingly complex character for an early '90s animated feature, a bundle of contradictions. She's extremely clever, which tends to get her both into and out of a lot of trouble; she's highly educated academically, but completely innocent about certain aspects of the real world. She has a profound courage to her, a willingness to sacrifice herself to protect others, but can also be selfish, such as in her continuous refusal to marry to secure her father's throne for the next generation. (It's certainly laudable as well, an empowered young woman demanding better treatment, but from the perspective of dynastic responsibility, irresponsible.)
She is fundamentally compassionate at her core, quickly reacting when she sees anyone in need, though she doesn't always have the power to help them. This basic kindness, a love of people, is in part because she understands them so well -- deeply intuitive, she's extraordinarily skilled at reading people from a lifetime of suitor evaluation; she's excellent at relating to animals as well, and there are few wild beasts she couldn't tame with time and patience. She can be deceived, of course; she's not a living lie detector, just intelligent and perceptive (and also somewhat suspicious, especially of royal motivations).
Having been exposed to a great deal of royal arrogance and greed, Jasmine places a high value on selflessness, humility, and integrity. She tends to form very strong first impressions, but is also willing to grant second chances. Appearance is not the metric by which she judges another; in fact, she tends to reflexively distrust the beautiful, having met one too many Prince Charmings far darker on the inside than they were on the outside. That said, she values her own loveliness a bit more than she should, and takes a great deal of simple pleasure in taking care of her thigh-length hair. It's soothing. When she fled Agrabah, she packed a hairbrush for therapy reasons alone.
Never afraid to speak her mind or stand up for what she believes in, Jasmine makes a poor Princess (in the obedience sense), but would be a wonderful Queen. Her strong will cannot be thwarted by many obstacles; on the other hand, sometimes she clings to ideas out of pride and sheer stubbornness. Her standard response to opposition is royal arrogance, that particular stripe of intimidation; it's largely for show. She's quite friendly, even funny, by default, always interested in connecting with strangers and finding laughter and fun to combat the oppressive despair of the times.
Jasmine has always yearned for adventure, to see the world outside the Palace walls, and on some level she's actually enjoying the calamity she's caught up in, the grand journey she's been forced to take. She does and doesn't feel guilty about this; it's terrible to profit from her peoples' suffering, but there's no point in being continuously unhappy either, is there? She's doing everything she can to help them, and her misery would do nothing to ease theirs. Her heart is filled with light, and she can't help but find the silver lining in any situation.
Serving her people is Jasmine's highest calling, and right now Agrabah is in considerable distress. So are all the worlds, and Jasmine's a big picture sort of girl -- if pressed, she wouldn't place Agrabah's salvation above the multiverse's.
Abilities
In KH cosmology terms, Jasmine has a Heart of pure Light, making her one of the Seven Purest Lights, the Princesses of Heart upon which the fate of all worlds rests. She thus holds the power to open the Final Keyhole to Kingdom Hearts, can sense and hold back darkness through force of will, and can use the power of light to empower others. Her own heart is 'completely untouchable by darkness', incorruptible; among other things, this allows her to travel through the Corridors of Darkness without any negative effects.
(The distinctive downside of all that is having all the Heartless after her, forever, as well as anyone else who wants some cosmological leverage.)
Taking a nod from the animated series, she's also rapidly acquired some martial arts skills on her travels. (She's a ludicrously fast learner, arguably with photographic body memory, and keeps her body graceful and strong, as indicated by the pole vaulting in the first movie and various other acrobatics in the TV series, even before she was kidnapped to be formally trained. By amazons. Simply being around better fighters is teaching her at an alarming rate.) Besides unarmed fighting, her preferred weapon is the scimitar; she used to secretly watch the guards train with them. She's also amazing with a whip (at least when she's evil, haha), though she dislikes the weapon's oppressive connotations. She's much faster than she is tough (especially given her lack of armor).
Her most valuable asset, however, will always be her brain. Jasmine is very quick-witted, well able to analyze a situation and come up with a course of action, for others as well as herself. She keeps a cool head, and makes an excellent leader in a fight, able to both coordinate a plan and inspire her allies.
All the tropes, forever:
Badass Princess, Beware the Nice Ones, Also Beware The Tiger, And The Horse, Tamer of Beasts, But Not Poaching Belle's, Part-Time Deadpan Snarker, Multiverse Record For 'Most Rejected Suitors', Unimpressed By Prince Charming, Impressed By Compassion, Friend to All Children, And Living Things, Sometimes Fatally Friendly, Scourge of the Desert?!, Royals Who Actually Do Something, Flawless Cloak Disguise, Photographic Muscle Memory, Will Of Adamant, Or Stubborn As A Mule Depending On Perspective, If You Want Your Kingdom Saved Right, Do It Yourself, Heart of Purest Light, Pillar of the Universe, Serves Greater Needs Than Her Own, Darkness Detector, Ruin Magnet, Eternally On The Run
