Jack Barlowe

After his return, Jack still has the bulky frame, blond hair, familiar profile, hands, and glacial blue eyes Violet remembers from before his apparent death.

Long imprisonment leaves Jack emaciated and corpse-like, with red-rimmed eyes that remain blue at the center until he drains power from an imbued alloy medallion.

Jack is openly arrogant, cruel, and quick to use lethal violence. He boasts of becoming a future wingleader, mocks Violet’s weakness, kills a candidate on the parapet, and later breaks another first-year’s neck during assessment while minimizing responsibility.

After Nolon restores him, Jack’s public manner becomes unsettlingly subdued and even polite, but Violet and her squad do not trust the change. Varrish also considers him too unpredictable and murderous to use safely against Violet.

As a prisoner, Jack still takes pleasure in Violet’s suffering and uses information as a weapon. He admits that part of his answer to her is meant to hurt her by describing the torture she endured in the same chamber.

Jack’s relationship with Violet is hostile from their first meeting. He threatens to kill her after the parapet and carries that intent into Threshing, where he targets both Violet and the golden feathertail she protects.

Baide is Jack’s bonded dragon until he kills her to break Basgiath’s wards. His venin state lets him survive the loss because he claims he can replace the dragon bond’s energy by feeding from the ground.

Jack becomes an unwanted point of comparison for Xaden after Xaden channels from the earth. Jack mockingly calls Xaden his brother in the same venin “family,” while Violet insists Xaden is not like him and Xaden measures his own control against Barlowe’s history of draining.

Theophanie and Berwyn want Jack badly enough that Theophanie’s demand for Xaden’s “brother” means Barlowe. When Theophanie later throws a dagger at him before escaping, Xaden concludes Jack may know information her side does not want Violet’s side to learn.

On the parapet, Jack moves with enough speed and balance to pursue Violet across the narrow crossing after throwing another candidate to his death.

During his official challenge against Violet, Jack uses power at close contact, causing violent vibrating agony that transfers to Ridoc and Emetterio when they touch the fighters.

During his attack on the wardstone, Jack uses a shield from his outward-facing palm to deflect Xaden’s shadows.

Violet later identifies the violent power Jack forced into her during their challenge as venin power. Jack says the wards do not block all dark power and that venin inside them can still channel enough to survive and deceive others.

Jack can rapidly restore himself by draining power from imbued alloy. He is also able to explain parts of asim progression, though he withholds his Sage’s name and refuses several answers Violet wants.

By the battle against Theophanie, Jack is transported in the Rybestad chest, suspended and apparently sedated inside it. Garrick and Bodhi keep the chest shut after Theophanie’s dagger strikes it, and Garrick and Chradh remove it from the field.

During Threshing, Jack leads Oren and Tynan in an attack on the golden feathertail and Violet instead of searching for dragons. Violet stops him by driving a dagger into his sword arm, and he abandons the fight after ordering the others to kill her.

Jack finally receives an official challenge against Violet and repeatedly escalates it toward lethal force. Violet defeats him with an orange-based vial after confirming his allergy, and he survives only because her warning lets Emetterio get him to treatment in time.

During War Games, Jack attacks Liam from Baide’s back and stabs him through the side. Violet’s newly manifested lightning destroys the tower, sends Jack down the mountainside in a landslide, and kills him in the aftermath of the tower strike.

Jack’s return publicly overturns the belief that Violet killed him during War Games. Markham explains that Nolon spent months mending bone after bone after Jack was crushed under the mountain.

Jack saves Violet from falling off the academic turret after an assassination attempt. He frames the rescue as repayment for the second chance he received after facing Malek.

Jack attacks Basgiath’s wardstone from Baide’s back, kills Baide, and uses her blood to break the wards. He also confirms that he helped enemy attackers enter Basgiath and planted lure boxes across the college and up the path to the Vale.

After Violet alters Basgiath’s wardstone, Jack’s continued imprisonment becomes the practical test that the wards still restrain dark wielders. The attackers who try to open his cell make clear that enemy forces want him freed rather than simply dead.