[ from app; personality + background sections ]

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AU Information: Differences: First and foremost, this AU diverts from the original canon by taking place within a modern timeframe – for Jean Louis, 1975-2040. As such, the characters are thoroughly modernized, from the way that they dress to their vocabulary. In terms of characterization, the most striking difference for Jean Louis is probably the addition of a background story and the fact that he deals within a much wider, much more dangerous network of organized crime. All of this makes him slightly more arrogant than his canon persona and slightly more laid back with regards to his ambitions; just a bit more likely to feel satisfied, once in a while, with what he’s achieved. Other than that, the plot is drastically different from the original play, in that Michel Lavreau’s family isn’t implicated in Barrault’s murder. Similarities: Jean Louis’ characterisation is close to unaltered. Personality: As always, Jean Louis’ main characteristic is greediness. He wants more – and when he’s had it, he builds up new ambitions. Like in the play, he doesn’t seem to know when to stop and in this AU, he’s never subjected to any situations in which he’d have to actually reconsider his plans. He just takes and takes. And to be very honest, he loves his life. Due to the way modern society works, Jean Louis has much more power in this AU than in his original canon and as a consequence, he’s incredibly self-satisfied with both himself and his general existence. He’s not desperate for power or glory – he already has it. In spades. Awesome. The fact that I’ve given him an abusive background story doesn’t really change his personality; he’s controlling, manipulative and skeptical of other people’s intentions to the point of being paranoid. To him, others are there to be used. And if they let themselves be used by him, they’re weak enough to deserve whatever he gives them, too. Jean Louis relationships to others are generally marked by a distanced kind of disinterest. He doesn’t mind small-talking and is somewhat extroverted, but he’s only ever superficially polite if he can be bothered. If they’re people of importance to his overall plans and if pissing them off would be a miscalculation. As Jeanne notes in the original canon, he’s nice to look at and horrible to interact with; this holds true for his AU personality as well, mostly because other people just don’t matter to him much at all. In our AU, there are two exceptions for different reasons: Mireille and Marcel. Marcel, obviously, for their similarities and their shared background. Mireille… well. That’s always complicated. In canon, Jean Louis clearly perceives Mireille as his prize of war. He’s won her fair and square, by killing her father and making her dependent on him. In our AU, this is mostly the same. He didn’t originally want Mireille for the sake of power. It was a fling, something he very much enjoyed and wanted to take further. Barrault, however, got in the way of his plans by asking him to terminate their relationship. Jean Louis didn’t exactly get the man killed for this – for Mireille. He got him killed for putting himself in the way of something Jean Louis wanted at the time because he can’t ever deny himself anything. Especially not when this ‘thing’ is another person – company, in Silver Wolf, is the single most important thing for every character. So one blatant complication about their relationship is this secret; that Jean Louis had her father killed. Another problem is Jean Louis’ lack of morality. He doesn’t care what he has to do to get what he wants and this ruthlessness very often clashes with Mireille’s principles. Like in canon, they end up fighting over it regularly and Jean Louis’ temper usually gets the better of him, resulting in him abusing Mireille to shut her up. In canon, he does so by pulling her around. In this AU, he also slaps her. Whereas in canon, Mireille’s gender plays a role in keeping her compliant, in a modern setting she meets him word for word, with the result that he can’t see any other way to shut her up. And shut her up it does; it works every time because he keeps the circle going, attempting to buy her forgiveness by pampering her in the days following. More importantly, they never talk about it. Mireille doesn’t bring it up because she thinks that’s the best thing for the both of them and Jean Louis certainly won’t force the issue, no matter how pathetic it makes him feel. Overall, Jean Louis’ and Mireille’s relationship is based on mutual need – and love, possibly, though you’d have to take the concept apart to understand what they’ve truly invested in it. To Jean Louis, Mireille is close to perfect; she’s beautiful, she’s smart and she needs him, making it possible for him to enjoy her company without fear of betrayal. All of this would be pretty uncomplicated, really, if his actions didn’t serve to erode this foundation with every abusive episode. Every time he hits her, he knows that she might as well leave and never return; but on the other hand, he can’t tolerate the way she stands up to him and makes his arguments seem empty and false. He’s caught in a dilemma: being lonely is preferable because you know you won’t be betrayed. But life loses its meaning when you’re by yourself, as per the Silver Wolf canon philosophy and Jean Louis wants to enjoy his life, thank you very much. Like in canon, he genuinely believes that he loves Mireille – but of course, his understanding of love is, at best, rather twisted. He did kill her father, after all. Control, to Jean Louis, is imperative. And with the exception of those monthly fights, he never loses it. He works to keep it, both with regards to himself and his surroundings. He’ll always aim to introduce structure and organization where it’s lacking, though it’s important to note that as a character, he’s pretty chaotic. He’d rather make mistakes and fix them than spend a lot of time, perfecting his plans. In that, you could probably say that his impatience makes him sloppy while his temper makes him prone to rashness. A bit uniquely to this AU, Jean Louis is also used to things panning out the way he wants them to – in existential terms, you could probably say that he’s immensely spoiled, despite his horrible background. He doesn’t tolerate powerlessness or hardship very well, which shows both in his abusive treatment of Mireille and in his general world view. If something bad happens, he usually blames it or takes it out on others, resulting in him never having to actually deal with the consequences of his actions. He gets away with this in our modern setting due to how easily he manipulates both evidence and circumstances to fit his wishes. I suppose you could say that as opposed to his Victorian canon-self, modern day Jean Louis’ ruthlessness makes his life too easy due to the way our world works in the 21st century. And when placed in a setting where he can’t deploy the usual tactics, there is definitely room for some serious character development. Background: Jean Louis was born in January, 1975. His entire background story differs from canon, since he doesn’t actually have one in the original play. Considering the importance of family relations in Silver Wolf as a general thing, however, I’ve chosen to give him one. His parents, in this AU, were Eríc and Fleur Duroc, a happily married couple who were quite thoroughly in love with each other. A child probably seemed to them like a fitting addition to their otherwise well-functioning relationship. But unfortunately, neither of them actually, truly wanted children and Jean Louis, for his part, was a difficult child. While polite towards adults of authority, he tended to be a bit of a bully towards children his own age. Dominating and manipulative. Towards his mother, he was distanced and dismissive of her (admittedly awkward) affections and she quickly stopped trying, losing interest in her role as a mother. She grew distanced herself, withdrawing to her private rooms to write and lose herself in a world of fantasy. Eríc, as a consequence, was entirely left out of the picture. They did attempt to fix the problem – sadly, by getting more children. In this AU, Jean Louis has three younger sisters; Regate, Antoinette and Bernadotte. But it only worsened the problem and put a serious strain on their economy. Eríc, being the sole worker in the family, took to drinking in a grand show of clichéd (but sadly common) reactionary patterns, and so, the scene was set for very dysfunctional family environment. Jean Louis grew up with an almost unnatural disregard for the problems in his family. They didn’t affect him and he didn’t care. Being the couple’s only boy and the oldest, to boot, he had a tendency to get in the line of fire when Eríc got violent from drinking. As Jean Louis was entirely unafraid of confrontations and very out of touch with his few, empathic skills, he very often ended up unwillingly provoking his father to violence. While it didn’t scare him, as such, it made him paranoid; people really couldn’t be trusted. He left his family without a backward glance at the age of 10, fearing that his father would end up killing him (it wasn’t unlikely). Through a series of more or less fortunate circumstances, he ended up moving in with Marcel whom he’d met on the street and who lived with his father in the industrial district of Luxembourg. In this AU, Marcel is the closest thing Jean Louis has to actual family, though their friendship is quite superficial and mostly based on the two of them, taking advantage of each other. In the present day, the only sibling he has any contact to is Regate and only because she initiated contact more than a decade later because she needed financial support. In terms of education, I assume that the 70s were less attentive about problem children and abusive families than modern day society (which, let’s face it, is still far from perfect). Jean Louis attended school as frequently as he could, but to be honest, he didn’t have the attention span necessary for higher education or indeed, for anything he didn’t care about. When he ran away from home, it took the system 2-3 years to notice and to place him in foster care. By this time, it was way too late. Jean Louis and Marcel were neck-deep in crime and already very well-versed in covering their tracks. As such, neither Jean Louis nor Marcel are registered anywhere in terms of criminal records; this is mainly due to Marcel’s uncanny organizational abilities. From early on, Jean Louis’ sole intellectual interest was politics and controlling people. As such, this was the natural way for him to go and as is typical for him, he found a way and made it happen. The fact that his foster parents were well-off and capable of providing him with proper education and decent contacts probably played a big role. Uncaring about parental bonds, Jean Louis simply took what they offered (money and contacts, primarily) and cut contact once he’d had what he needed from them. By age 18 (1993), he joined the newly-started ‘Centre-Democratic Party’ in which Barrault was one of the main figures. Ten years later, he’d become one of Barrault’s closest colleagues and he set his eyes on the State Minister position as well as Barrault’s only daughter, Mireille. From here on, our AU follows canon more closely. When Barrault gets in the way of Jean Louis’ ambitions, he has the man killed in what looks to be a horrific car accident. In this AU, he gets Marcel to do it, which means that there are no screw-ups and no evidence. In other words, as opposed to canon, in our AU the plan is successful. Barrault dies and Jean Louis marries Mireille, with whom he’s had an affair a year prior to Barrault’s death. In Jan. 2012, they’ve been married for 5 years. He takes over Barrault’s position as Minister of State in Luxembourg. As in the play, Jean Louis deals with weapons illegally and earns a lot of money on that account. The world being much more accessible due to globalization and modern communication technology, Jean Louis has a wide, well-functioning crime network beneath him which he runs with practiced familiarity. His main line of business includes dealing weapons to specific, African rebel groups, supporting on-going conflicts between the different sides and keeping the war alive. His main contacts in Europe are in Belgium and the Netherlands, respectively. Marcel is his primary accomplish, the two of them being almost equally ruthless and certainly, equally power-hungry. To the public, the man serves as Jean Louis’ personal security guard while in reality, they are definitely partners in crime. Mireille, on the other hand, is Jean Louis’ link to normalcy. Their marriage is stabile and, to the public, perfect. They’re both rich and successful and they put a lot of energy into portraying this image to the outside world, donning expensive designer clothes and representing Luxembourg as style icons as well as political figures of importance. Their 2011 state visit to America is both a way to promote this public image and to nurse the alliance between the US and Luxembourg, forged back during WWII.