A Wetpaint Site | TV Fandex 100

The Wiki @ Landel's Damned

Farfarello

"Real" Name: Jason Whelan
Room: M40 (roommate: Roland)
Age: 20
Hair Color: White with auburn roots
Eye Color: right eye, hazel; left eye, n/a
Height: 5"10"
Main Language: English
Second Language(s): German, Japanese, small amounts of Irish, French, liturgical Latin

History
Farfarello grew up in Ireland, going by the name of Jei. He was a devout Catholic, like the rest of his family, and attended Sunday school with a nun by the name of Ruth.

At age six Jei discovered that the woman he believed to be his mother was, in fact, not, and that he was actually Sister Ruth's son. Crushed and enraged by the lies he'd been told and by the thought that a servant of God could betray her vows so badly, he snapped and killed his entire (adopted) family. He then repressed the memory of the crime, and Sister Ruth covered it up for him in some manner.

At this point there is a significant gap in canon information on Farfarello. The next time we see him, he is 20 years old, minus his left eye and in the care of Schwarz, though even they keep him restrained and locked up; according to the "Assassin and White Shaman" manga, this is because he attempts suicide whenever left to his own devices.

In the anime, he is shown killing and torturing priests because he blames God for the death of his family. He has no conscious memory of committing the murders, on some level he does know he is responsible and is therefore occasionally self-injurious to work out the subconscious guilt. He is not suicidal in the Landamned-verse.

As the murders were covered up by Sister Ruth, Jei was initially put into a low-security sort of institution--he has proven quite able to be calm and seemingly non-violent at times, and it's reasonable that he would have been in shock and relatively pliant at first. He escaped from this facility and spent the next several years on the streets, developing his fighting skills and becoming the willfully murderous person we see in Schwarz, rather than the emotionally distraught child he was when he killed his family. At some point during this time he lost his left eye and gained rather a lot of scars.

During this phase of his life he came to the attention of Brad Crawford and Schuldig, and they 'acquired' him themselves. He was kept in restraints and a cell while with Schwarz, and considered too dangerous to approach readily. It is stated in the manga that the slightest scratch on his person will earn violent retaliation, despite his supposed insensitivity to pain. He seems to tolerate Schuldig's presence in his cell more easily than he does anyone else's, perhaps because of Schuldig's powers, perhaps simply because Schuldig is shown to treat him with more respect than fear, and even something resembling camaraderie. As for the rest of Schwarz, in the manga Brad Crawford is never depicted dealing directly with Farfarello, rather he sends Schuldig to do it for him. Nagi is introduced to Farfarello only at the end of the second (and final) installment of the manga, though he has heard rumours of Farfarello's existence prior to that. It was also at this time that the name 'Schwarz' first came to be applied to the team of four, a deliberate choice to demonstrate their opposition to Weiss.

As to his insensitivity to pain, it is a true insensitivity rather than an indifference, and is a congenital nervous system defect. This seems to me the more interesting prospect, as well as the most logical one; if his insensitivity to pain was of more recent provenance, he would still remember the sensation of pain, and would have more awareness of his body's limitations than he seems to in the canon. And in episode 18 of the anime, he does say at one point that he wishes he could feel pain at least once, suggesting that he's never felt pain, even as a child. There are drawbacks to this sort of insensitivity to pain, as well--visual checks are the only way for a pain-insensitive person to know they have been injured, and this can lead to infections and serious complications if they neglect to self-check or otherwise fail to notice an injury. This may also explain Farfarello's extreme reactions to being cut or scratched by others, while perfectly willing (read: eager) to cut himself--when he is the one doing the cutting, he knows exactly how much damage he is doing, but if someone else injures him it could lead to serious trouble if he doesn't notice in time. Pain-insensitive persons also tend to be insensitive to temperature variation, which can have obvious and severe drawbacks as well. I will not be giving him the inability to sweat associated with CIPA, because the extreme risk of overheating is a bit too much of a handicap in the Landamned setup.

He is arriving at Landel's after the end of the "Assassin and White Shaman" manga, but before the beginning of the anime series. In short, he only vaguely knows who the Weiss boys are, and only because Schuldig has told him that they exist; he would and will not recognise them on sight, though depending on their timeline provenance, they may well recognise him.

Personality
Farfarello is generally a fairly quiet, reserved, melancholy-seeming sort of person. The fact that he is accustomed to isolation is compounded by the fact that he doesn't really trust anyone, with the possible exception of Schuldig and the rest of Schwarz. He's not at all talkative unless someone foolishly brings up the topic of religion.

He's quite loyal to Schwarz, for whatever reason, and seems to accept that whoever they declare an 'enemy' is indeed an enemy. When faced with an enemy, a threat, or a priest, he tends to fly into something similar to a berserker rage, except that he can be convinced to withdraw more easily than true berserker could. He is also more cruel and methodical than a true berserker--capable of inflicting pain for pain's sake, and enjoying it, rather than mindlessly attacking.

Patience is one thing Farfarello is definitely lacking--he has a very, very short temper and does not tolerate fools well.

Farfarello must absolutely be kept away from the chapel during Day Shift, as religious paraphernalia is one of his biggest triggers and the lack of overt symbols of God won't calm him down all that much, since the room is still clearly a chapel. He is extremely aggressive towards priests and other religious figures, actively seeking them out in order to torture them, taunting them by suggesting that there either is no God, or that He doesn't care and challenging them to continue believing even as they suffer extreme pain at his hands. At the same time he is also masochistic, harming himself rather than others, stating in Episode 18 of the anime that this is "desecrating the body [God] gave [him]." This strange combination of outward- and inward-focused hatred can be attributed to his extremely conflicted mental state; he simultaneously believes himself to be a victim of God and of fate, and realises on a deeper level that he is in fact a killer, and responsible for his own misery.

Somewhere in that morass of self-hatred, aggression, masochism, sadism, repressed memory, berserker rage and all-around fuckupedness there are still remnants of the hurt and confused little boy that was Jei, and this side of Farfarello comes out most when he is confronted with evidence of the truth about his family's death; he becomes agitated and visibly upset and is thrown off guard (relatively speaking) for at least a few moments. He recovers fairly quickly from this state, however, particularly if he is physically attacked--his reflexes may be a split-second slower, but by and large he is not significantly weakened even by such serious mental and emotional stress.

By no means is Farfarello simply a violent animal; though he is certainly insane, there's no reason to believe that Farfarello is stupid. In the anime he is shown as an active and interested student at Sunday school, good at reading and memorisation. He speaks at least two languages, and is possessed of a perfectly serviceable, if dark, sense of humour. The one major area in which he is less than advanced would seem to be sexuality and sexual desire; he doesn't really have a libido, per se, being much more interested in violence than in sex. He is willing to engage in sexual activities when approached by the right person (read: Schuldig), but it does not occur to him to initiate any--he certainly wouldn't know flirting if he saw it (however unlikely that may be).

Being out of solitary confinement and out of a straightjacket is a significant improvement for him, but he does not deal particularly well with people; the cafeteria is likely to make him quite twitchy, since it has more people in one place than he's been exposed to in years. Once he figures out that Crawford is without his powers and can't fight back, he is likely to exact some petty revenge for the whole "living in a basement cell" thing; nothing fatal or even seriously painful, Farf will rather take some pleasure in making Crawford exceedingly uncomfortable.

If anyone is likely to volunteer for Special Counseling, it's Farfarello.

Physical Appearance
(N.B. Farfarello has red hair and brown eye(s) in the manga, and white hair and yellow eye(s) in the anime. As with his memory, I am splitting the difference, and assuming red hair that has been bleached and hazel eye(s) that go yellow when he is worked up emotionally).

At 5'10" and with a build best described as "wiry," Farfarello does not have a physically commanding presence and could be dismissed as not dangerous, if one does not look closely; it's not until he moves that it becomes clear just how scary Farfarello can be. There's a sense of threat and determination to every move Farfarello makes; he has the controlled aggression of a predator and the grace of a martial artist.

Covered in many scars and wearing a black patch over his left eye, it's clear Farfarello has been through a great many fights in his time, has taken a lot of wounds and still come out alive. More often than not there are fresh wounds in evidence, either uncovered and possibly still bleeding, or wrapped expertly in bandages.

Farfarello's remaining eye is a pale hazel in colour, fading to yellow when he is angry or excited. Meeting his gaze is a singular experience, as there is a lack of humanity and mercy in his eye at even the best of times; at the worst, he has the look of a remorseless killer, a sadist, a monster.

If one looks beyond the scars and the eye patch Farfarello's face is surprisingly fine, almost delicate. Large eyes, pale skin, a pointed chin and amazingly full, pouty lips for a man give Farfarello a cold, distant beauty, like a stone angel gone horribly wrong.

There's a touch of the oldschool punk to Farfarello's look--four piercings in each ear and shaggy, spiky hair (bleached white at the ends and showing auburn at the roots) match his disdainful sneer and the hint of swagger in his walk.

Powers and Abilities
He is incapable of feeling physical pain, but this is as much handicap as benefit.

He's an extremely competent fighter, specialising in short blades but also capable of using other weapons as needed. In episode 18 of the anime he takes down both Omi and Ken, at the same time, without any difficulty; he is later defeated only when they take advantage of his momentary distraction, but he still manages to dodge Omi's attack and walk away from what should have been a deathblow from Ken. He is able to use a gun, though it does not seem to be a weapon he likes very much. He also seems to have some skill in torture. He apparently speaks German in addition to his native English, and through the magic of anime he can communicate perfectly well with the Japanese members of Weiss, so it can be assumed he speaks Japanese as well. This is not actually all that unrealistic, as he spends much of his time locked in a cell with nothing to do and learning languages would be a fairly safe activity for Schwarz to keep him occupied with. It is also likely he speaks a little liturgical Latin and smatterings of Irish.

lohengrin	Latest page update: made by lohengrin , Jul 29 2008, 12:16 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Edited by lohengrin 16 words added 1 image added 1 image deleted view changes - complete history)
	Keyword tags: character Farfarello Schwarz Weiss Kreuz More Info: links to this page