Yet have I something in me dangerous. . .

I've been tossing around a comparison of Jax Teller and Hamlet for a couple of weeks now and am finally ready to get some thoughts down on the proverbial paper.  I'm only scratching the surface with this blog - the comparison could go much deeper.

I was totally into the dark, brooding guys in high school; the guys who always seemed to be contemplating the more depressing aspects of life as they wrote in their black leather-bound journals using black ink and tiny, nearly illegible script.  Although they seemed to carry with them a certain ennui about life on their hunched shoulders, they carried it well - the dark yet neatly donned clothes, the ponytail so carefully slicked back.  So, when we read Hamlet in high school, I have to admit I always felt a certain level of affection for the perpetually prickly prince.  Despite how unfairly he treated Ophelia, I wanted to throw my arms around the suffering Dane and tell him that everything was going to be okay.  His tortured soul was so attractive.  He was so quick to act on some things - how he treated Ophelia, the impulsive murder of Polonius - but contemplative, even strategic in his plotting to avenge his father.  The audience is never entirely certain of his madness (Polonius even recognizes the method to it), never knowing if it is a function of his father's murder and his need for revenge, or if it is a carefully crafted ruse to distract everyone.  And, while we're suffering with him through his "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," Hamlet delivers some great lines to his rivals that makes us think:  "damn, I wish I was quick like that."

Jax Teller doesn't necessarily share Hamlet's appeal as the dark, brooding type.  The attraction to Jax is much more in the "bad boy" vein wrapped up in a male model package.  Yet, we all know Jax to be so much more dynamic than that.  We know, for example, that he's well read - how many of us actually got through Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in high school?  Jax tells Tara that the book almost made him a vegan.  We know how passionate Jax is about the Club - it defines who he is and gives him purpose - something Hamlet never really had. We've seen him contemplate his father's words on the roof of the clubhouse and journal his reflections...maybe he's even penning a new edition to The Rise and Fall of Sam Crow.

Where Jax and Hamlet are similar is much scarier when it comes to Jax's character arc.  Jax is both contemplative and impulsive.  Unlike Clay, he's a big picture guy.  Clay, like Hamlet's uncle Claudius, sees power as an ultimate goal.  We know that Jax understands that it isn't power that's necessarily important - it's what one does with power once it's achieved.  John Teller, like Old King Hamlet's ghost, provides some perspective for his son as he tries to navigate the tricky sphere of influence in Charming.

But Jax is so quick to act that he often undoes his own carefully laid plans.  Consider the episode in Season One when he had Half Sack dig up a dead body to use in a crime scene fabrication in order to distract the Lodi CSI crew away from the burnt gun factory.  Clay initially wanted Tig to find someone to kill, but Jax convinced everyone that using a member of the already-deceased would be better.  Good plan.  Very noble.   Yet on their way to stage the crime scene, a jerk in a mustang cuts Jax off.  They eventually run into the guy again, and guess what:  the guy ends up dead because Jax impulsively confronts him.  Now, Jax didn't actually kill the guy, but his actions created the right formula for the man's death.

Another area where the two characters overlap:  self-loathing increases as time passes.  Hamlet's is based on his role in the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia; Jax's as the MC unravels before him and he feels increasingly powerless to stop the downward spiral and somewhat at fault for it.

Where will these similarities lead Jackson Teller?

I was re-reading some of my favorite quotes in Hamlet today, and this line in particular gave me the chills about Jax:

"Though I am not splenitive (means to be angry, hot headed) and rash, yet have I something in me dangerous."  (Act 5, Scene 1).

And now we see the most impulsive act by Jax yet...to go nomad.  What will the fallout be?  How will he affect change in the Club if he isn't there?  Will Stahl try to turn him?  What will Tara do? We know from the previews for next week that Piney tries to convince Jax to stay, and that Gemma introduces Jax to the theory that his dad's death wasn't an accident (so juicy...did she have a role in John Teller's death? Is she omitting important information?). 

What is it about these characters that make them so appealing? For that matter, what is it about any fictional character that makes them so attractive that we spend our time blogging and tweeting about them?  I've thought about this a lot, and I have a theory:  they are at once larger than life and completely familiar.  We all know someone who reminds us of Jax or Bobby or Clay or Gemma.  Piney in particular reminds me a little too much of one of my relatives.  But we also don't know anyone like Jax or Clay or Gemma....or Hamlet.  They say things we never have the nerve to say and do things we're too chicken to do.  And we, like the Greek Chorus in Oedipus, must watch them make the worst mistakes while we shake our heads and shout "NO! Don't do that!  Zobelle is behind it all!"

They are fantastic, and they are real, and they are really fantastic.