holy shit this got long.
recurrence: If I apped Jesse, I honestly couldn't see him spamming it up all over the place.
... whoops. I HONESTLY THOUGHT MY PRIMARY WOULD BE HEISUKE. Anyway, this is that big fat essay on Jesse that I've been wanting to do for awhile but had to wait for canon confirmation on things. And now that I have it, here we are!
THE SHORT OF IT: Jesse St. James is not nearly as big of a douchebag as most people going into the show thought he was going to be. Hilariously, when considering some of the other men on the show, Jesse is almost a stand up guy! This is sad. In any case, here is that essay I have been meaning to do ever since I apped him on his motives, his relationship with Rachel and others, as well as random bits of headcanon and whatnot.
Jesse's motives
Jesse originally cozied up to Rachel because Shelby told him to. She's Rachel's biological mother and wanted to get close to her (or so she claims) but couldn't due to the deal she had in place with Rachel's dads, so she had Jesse befriend her in order to get Rachel to eventually seek Shelby. ... well, he was supposed to befriend her but ended up dating her and trying to get into her pants because he's a total winner.
Jesse: Look, when you told me to seduce her-
Shelby: "Befriend her" was the word I used, actually.
Jesse: ... Whatever!
BASICALLY, Jesse did not originally go in ~totally in love~ with Rachel. He deliberately transferred to William McKinley in order to get closer to her and nudge her towards Shelby. He even mentioned to Shelby that he did it because he saw it as a means to practice his acting. 8D But (at least, as far as he knows, I'm still wondering if Shelby's telling the truth) he didn't do it to sabotoge New Directions or to poach Rachel for Vocal Adrenaline. He did it because Shelby told him to, which means a few things:
1) His interactions with the rest of New Directions were fairly genuine.
He's obnoxious, yes, but he's fairly chill with most of the people he interacts with. He has nothing against them! They're not a part of his "mission" - Rachel is. At this point in canon, I doubt Jesse has any strong feelings on them, but it's nice to know that he really has no reason to fake nice. HE CAN DO WHATEVER, Rachel's his priority. /o/ eta: Which is to say, he doesn't care either way? He definitely didn't go out of his way to put them at ease! But he doesn't care about antagonizing them or anything either.
-> As a side note, while he had no intention of sabatoging New Directions, Jesse sort of sabotoged them by taking most of the male leads (according to Finn in "Laryngitis," anyway - Schue keeps giving the solos to Jesse). He doesn't intend this to hurt the rest of the group! He just sees it as "well as long as I'm here I should get what I deserve 8D". He doesn't feel bad about that in the least since ... Schuester keeps giving him the parts. But it's not his intention to shake things up with them. He's there for Rachel.
2) Shelby is important to Jesse. ish.
For Jesse to be willing to go along with this plan and transfer schools just to help reunite the mother with her daughter, Shelby has to be important to Jesse in some way, shape, or form. He is definitely full of himself and totally saw it as an opportunity to perfect his acting, but he also seemed, well, pretty damn concerned about Shelby in that scene in the car with her. We never really see Jesse like that! ... except with Rachel recently. In any case, they didn't go the "Vocal Adrenaline is trying to poach Rachel Berry for its own team since Jesse St James is graduating" route. I am actually not entirely convinced that they're not still going to go there, but at least as far as Jesse is concerned, he's just bringing Rachel to her mother.
Jesse on Rachel (and other people)
Jesse honestly likes Rachel. :x I could essay on this, but have this conversation with goldstarring instead:
"They finally outright SAY that Jesse was on a mission to get close to Rachel, although Jesse admits he's starting to like her"
he was supposed to befriend her, not seduce her
WINNAR
. . . omg
i love conflicted characters
yessss
he probably realized it around JOEYGATE
WHY AM I MAD
... OH
........ oh :(
jgfdks some of the comments on LJ
"shelby sent jesse to befriend her daughter... so he tries to fuck her? wow, okay." "she was sneaky hot, he couldn't resist her. i feel like he may have missed the point of the assignment." "She makes one bad music video and he jets off for a week. He's a really bad spy."
:3?
* Jesse^St^James THE BEST SPY EVER!!!!
You know Shelby's just sitting there
head in hands
ohhhhhhhh man
that explains that look she gave him
when she was stood watching them kissing
jdshkdfHAHAHA
he was like "WAT"
"I'M DOING WHAT YOU SAID!"
jesse is the worst minion ever
awww i am so glad he's not an irredeemable shitbag. and also that they don't break up over run joey run because that would have been so dumb.
yessss
jesse just ran off to be hurt for awhile
and probably wonder WHY he felt hurt
and then someone from vocal adrenaline pointed it out
and he went "............. o"
"NO"
"I AM THE BEST SPY!"
kurt and i think he was probably kissing pretty people from vocal adrenaline all week but just feeling upset and frustrated with himself. "WHY AM I NOT HAPPY!11"
YES
So. Jesse started out doing all of this just because Shelby told him to. He had no particular feelings towards Rachel either way, although I'd imagine that his commentary on "Don't Rain on my Parade" was probably genuine (with a side of "hay bb" with his totally smooth acting skills). But over the course of the first four episodes of the second half, he seems to get a bit more relaxed around her? Like it's not just some farce he's going through for Shelby. He's very obviously coming onto her during the "Hello" scene in the first episode back and there's something forced about his interactions with her in those first two episodes, but by "Home," he's pretty comfortable with her.
"Bad Reputation" then has Jesse looking genuinely hurt by the whole "Run Joey Run" debacle (for those who do not watch Glee: they had to "rehabilitate" bad songs, Rachel chose a 70s TEENAGE DEATH SONG and made a music video with Finn, Jesse, and Puck without telling them that, uh, the others were going to be in it and then screens it in front of the club. Finn and Jesse get super pissed and Jesse storms off for an episode, humiliated and upset. Puck just thought the video sucked). Part of this is definitely his pride being wounded! Jesse St. James just isn't used to being used like that. He's the one who does the using, damnit!
But when he goes off on her about it at the end of the episode, he honestly seems like he trusted her and she did something that ended up violating that trust and hurting him. I think that it's at this point that Jesse starts to realize that he actually does like Rachel Berry, and it's a bit of an "oh shit" moment for him. I don't think anyone's really challenged him like she has (and, to an extent, the way the kids in New Directions have) in the past! And then he outright says in "Dream On" that he's falling for Rachel and he doesn't want her getting hurt.
tl;dr, Jesse has feelings and this is sort of a foreign concept for him.
He was definitely popular at Caramel HS and in Vocal Adrenaline, and there's no doubt that he got a lot of action (just from his comments in "Power of Madonna" and the whole fact that he interprets "befriend" as "seduce"), but Vocal Adrenaline is kind of crazy-intense. They have insanely long practices, chug Red Bull instead of water, and hired a crazed tiny tyrant for a choreographer. They're nuts. This is not the best environment for fostering friendships and other happy relationships! I really, really doubt that Jesse actually has people he considers to be friends in Vocal Adrenaline. Which isn't to say he's off in a corner all SAAAAD AND ALOOOOONE - more like he was surrounded by people but didn't have anyone he really could be close with (nor did he want to).
So transferring to William McKinley and spending time with Rachel as well as the others is a completely different experience. A MAGICAL ONE. It is probably the first time that Jesse has been exposed to, you know, BONDS!!1 and WORKING TOGETHER and TRUE FRIENDSHIP and other shit pulled from a shounen manga in a long, long time. He mentions to Shelby that he's actually starting to like Rachel and, again, makes it clear that he doesn't want her getting hurt. I do think that New Directions and particularly Rachel are starting to have an effect on Jesse and that he's starting to open up. Not that, uh, he wasn't open before, but more like they're showing another side to him. It's like how Finn was seen as this jock that was just floating through life and doing whatever, and then he joined glee club and really started to shift. It's the same with Jesse, although he's from the other end of the spectrum. ish.
More randomass bullet points. (aka headcanon)
- Jesse IS genuinely a good kid. He is literally a male Rachel - he says and does stupid things and he is confident and cocky as hell (as per Jon Groff). But he has the talent to back it up. He is not a backstabbing little shit! I DIDN'T APP ANOTHER SOCIOPATH, GUYS, BE PROUD! Jesse did, however, go into the relationship with Rachel with ulterior motives. It's just that they weren't as bad as people thought they were be, but he still wasn't being 100% honest with her. And, yeah, he was using her at first in a way.
- Jesse is kind of a tool for Shelby to use, isn't he? Even if she's telling the truth about Rachel, she's still using him to bring Rachel to her. This makes me wonder if he'll realize that and how he'll feel about that later on.
- Onto more headcanon-y stuff! He raised his hand in "Home" when Mercedes asked who "felt fat, felt like they weren't worth very much, felt like they were ugly" etc. Rachel didn't raise her hand, neither did Finn. When Kurt asked what I thought, I initially said that I thought this was a bit of column A and a bit of column B in terms of whether Jesse was being truthful or just fucking around with ND. But looking back on it, I honestly think it is mostly column A. I don't think there's any ulterior motive there and Jesse really did feel that way about himself at one point or another. He's talented and smart and is basically a perfectionist! Which can have consequences on one's psyche, because when you're trying to perfect things constantly, you get this feeling that nothing you do is right. So there probably were times when he didn't feel like he was worth very much, particularly in the environment he'd been in. Jesse St. James is pretty damn sure 99.5% of the time that he is fucking awesome and you'd better recognize! ... but there is that .5%.
- He's more interested in music in general, not just Broadway musicals and the like. He also turns up his nose at the autotune trend of late but listens to songs with it anyway because it's catchy and he figures he could flip it up himself and sing it better. AND IN TUNE. WITHOUT AUTOTUNE, SUCK ON THAT! ... Jesse has one of those 64 gig iPod touch players and is always swapping music off because it's too damn full. To be fair, he loads it up with music videos and shit too, because he can.
- Pride is his cardinal sin. NOT THAT IT WASN'T OBVIOUS OR ANYTHING.
- Being sick in camp has been the worst thing ever for Jesse. He's not even keeling over like a bunch of the plague-ridden people, but it's just as bad for him because he can't exactly sing when he's hacking up a lung. And he knows pushing it while sick could lead to damage to his vocal chords or worse and whatnot.
Voice-related "D:"-ness aside, it's also bad because people actually keep trying to help him and he doesn't know how to react! Jesse is used to a sort of dog-eat-dog environment where you have to look out for number one and it's sink or swim, so people actually poking at him and helping him is new and different. He's not ungrateful - he really meant it when he thanked people like Rachel and Faust, for example - but he doesn't know how to feel about it or how to react. He's Jesse St. James, damnit! He can handle this shit! Leaning on people is for normal people! And so on.
- The fallout from all of this is going to be hilarious.
- No, he is not seriously helping Sue out. This one is a chance to perfect his acting skills. 8D But if you are a singer, you should tell me!
... sum this shit up already.
Jesse isn't a bad guy. He's not a good guy by any means - he's arrogant, cocky as hell, and can be really freaking obnoxious at times! But he isn't there to tear New Directions apart or poach their best singer. He really does have feelings for Rachel, too. When the rest of the season airs and we all update, this will be Very Special.
This also means that I don't have to retcon anything and nothing changes for Jesse or his relationships with other people. Which is nice! I mean, I'd been playing with the idea that "well, there's a chance he's just faking all of this" in mind, but it is very, very nice to not have to do that. I am extremely interested in seeing how the show rolls with his character from here.
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? ... PIMP ME MUSIC SINCE I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH?
ETA FOR "FUNK": None of this changes. :x The "Another One Bites the Dust" scene had Jesse looking kind of shitty about pulling that and he was definitely conflicted during THE EGGING OF RACHEL BERRY. That wasn't his idea - it was probably VA's female lead? He was definitely not that thrilled about it. This is basically the same arc that Finn had at one point! With the bullying and peer pressure and whatnot. Prrrrobably what happened there was that Jesse went back to VA and they wanted him to prove he was back in with them 4 rlz. or something. PEER PRESSUREEEEeeee.
... whoops. I HONESTLY THOUGHT MY PRIMARY WOULD BE HEISUKE. Anyway, this is that big fat essay on Jesse that I've been wanting to do for awhile but had to wait for canon confirmation on things. And now that I have it, here we are!
THE SHORT OF IT: Jesse St. James is not nearly as big of a douchebag as most people going into the show thought he was going to be. Hilariously, when considering some of the other men on the show, Jesse is almost a stand up guy! This is sad. In any case, here is that essay I have been meaning to do ever since I apped him on his motives, his relationship with Rachel and others, as well as random bits of headcanon and whatnot.
Jesse's motives
Jesse originally cozied up to Rachel because Shelby told him to. She's Rachel's biological mother and wanted to get close to her (or so she claims) but couldn't due to the deal she had in place with Rachel's dads, so she had Jesse befriend her in order to get Rachel to eventually seek Shelby. ... well, he was supposed to befriend her but ended up dating her and trying to get into her pants because he's a total winner.
Jesse: Look, when you told me to seduce her-
Shelby: "Befriend her" was the word I used, actually.
Jesse: ... Whatever!
BASICALLY, Jesse did not originally go in ~totally in love~ with Rachel. He deliberately transferred to William McKinley in order to get closer to her and nudge her towards Shelby. He even mentioned to Shelby that he did it because he saw it as a means to practice his acting. 8D But (at least, as far as he knows, I'm still wondering if Shelby's telling the truth) he didn't do it to sabotoge New Directions or to poach Rachel for Vocal Adrenaline. He did it because Shelby told him to, which means a few things:
1) His interactions with the rest of New Directions were fairly genuine.
He's obnoxious, yes, but he's fairly chill with most of the people he interacts with. He has nothing against them! They're not a part of his "mission" - Rachel is. At this point in canon, I doubt Jesse has any strong feelings on them, but it's nice to know that he really has no reason to fake nice. HE CAN DO WHATEVER, Rachel's his priority. /o/ eta: Which is to say, he doesn't care either way? He definitely didn't go out of his way to put them at ease! But he doesn't care about antagonizing them or anything either.
-> As a side note, while he had no intention of sabatoging New Directions, Jesse sort of sabotoged them by taking most of the male leads (according to Finn in "Laryngitis," anyway - Schue keeps giving the solos to Jesse). He doesn't intend this to hurt the rest of the group! He just sees it as "well as long as I'm here I should get what I deserve 8D". He doesn't feel bad about that in the least since ... Schuester keeps giving him the parts. But it's not his intention to shake things up with them. He's there for Rachel.
2) Shelby is important to Jesse. ish.
For Jesse to be willing to go along with this plan and transfer schools just to help reunite the mother with her daughter, Shelby has to be important to Jesse in some way, shape, or form. He is definitely full of himself and totally saw it as an opportunity to perfect his acting, but he also seemed, well, pretty damn concerned about Shelby in that scene in the car with her. We never really see Jesse like that! ... except with Rachel recently. In any case, they didn't go the "Vocal Adrenaline is trying to poach Rachel Berry for its own team since Jesse St James is graduating" route. I am actually not entirely convinced that they're not still going to go there, but at least as far as Jesse is concerned, he's just bringing Rachel to her mother.
Jesse on Rachel (and other people)
Jesse honestly likes Rachel. :x I could essay on this, but have this conversation with goldstarring instead:
"They finally outright SAY that Jesse was on a mission to get close to Rachel, although Jesse admits he's starting to like her"
he was supposed to befriend her, not seduce her
WINNAR
. . . omg
i love conflicted characters
yessss
he probably realized it around JOEYGATE
WHY AM I MAD
... OH
........ oh :(
jgfdks some of the comments on LJ
"shelby sent jesse to befriend her daughter... so he tries to fuck her? wow, okay." "she was sneaky hot, he couldn't resist her. i feel like he may have missed the point of the assignment." "She makes one bad music video and he jets off for a week. He's a really bad spy."
:3?
* Jesse^St^James THE BEST SPY EVER!!!!
You know Shelby's just sitting there
head in hands
ohhhhhhhh man
that explains that look she gave him
when she was stood watching them kissing
jdshkdfHAHAHA
he was like "WAT"
"I'M DOING WHAT YOU SAID!"
jesse is the worst minion ever
awww i am so glad he's not an irredeemable shitbag. and also that they don't break up over run joey run because that would have been so dumb.
yessss
jesse just ran off to be hurt for awhile
and probably wonder WHY he felt hurt
and then someone from vocal adrenaline pointed it out
and he went "............. o"
"NO"
"I AM THE BEST SPY!"
kurt and i think he was probably kissing pretty people from vocal adrenaline all week but just feeling upset and frustrated with himself. "WHY AM I NOT HAPPY!11"
YES
So. Jesse started out doing all of this just because Shelby told him to. He had no particular feelings towards Rachel either way, although I'd imagine that his commentary on "Don't Rain on my Parade" was probably genuine (with a side of "hay bb" with his totally smooth acting skills). But over the course of the first four episodes of the second half, he seems to get a bit more relaxed around her? Like it's not just some farce he's going through for Shelby. He's very obviously coming onto her during the "Hello" scene in the first episode back and there's something forced about his interactions with her in those first two episodes, but by "Home," he's pretty comfortable with her.
"Bad Reputation" then has Jesse looking genuinely hurt by the whole "Run Joey Run" debacle (for those who do not watch Glee: they had to "rehabilitate" bad songs, Rachel chose a 70s TEENAGE DEATH SONG and made a music video with Finn, Jesse, and Puck without telling them that, uh, the others were going to be in it and then screens it in front of the club. Finn and Jesse get super pissed and Jesse storms off for an episode, humiliated and upset. Puck just thought the video sucked). Part of this is definitely his pride being wounded! Jesse St. James just isn't used to being used like that. He's the one who does the using, damnit!
But when he goes off on her about it at the end of the episode, he honestly seems like he trusted her and she did something that ended up violating that trust and hurting him. I think that it's at this point that Jesse starts to realize that he actually does like Rachel Berry, and it's a bit of an "oh shit" moment for him. I don't think anyone's really challenged him like she has (and, to an extent, the way the kids in New Directions have) in the past! And then he outright says in "Dream On" that he's falling for Rachel and he doesn't want her getting hurt.
tl;dr, Jesse has feelings and this is sort of a foreign concept for him.
He was definitely popular at Caramel HS and in Vocal Adrenaline, and there's no doubt that he got a lot of action (just from his comments in "Power of Madonna" and the whole fact that he interprets "befriend" as "seduce"), but Vocal Adrenaline is kind of crazy-intense. They have insanely long practices, chug Red Bull instead of water, and hired a crazed tiny tyrant for a choreographer. They're nuts. This is not the best environment for fostering friendships and other happy relationships! I really, really doubt that Jesse actually has people he considers to be friends in Vocal Adrenaline. Which isn't to say he's off in a corner all SAAAAD AND ALOOOOONE - more like he was surrounded by people but didn't have anyone he really could be close with (nor did he want to).
So transferring to William McKinley and spending time with Rachel as well as the others is a completely different experience. A MAGICAL ONE. It is probably the first time that Jesse has been exposed to, you know, BONDS!!1 and WORKING TOGETHER and TRUE FRIENDSHIP and other shit pulled from a shounen manga in a long, long time. He mentions to Shelby that he's actually starting to like Rachel and, again, makes it clear that he doesn't want her getting hurt. I do think that New Directions and particularly Rachel are starting to have an effect on Jesse and that he's starting to open up. Not that, uh, he wasn't open before, but more like they're showing another side to him. It's like how Finn was seen as this jock that was just floating through life and doing whatever, and then he joined glee club and really started to shift. It's the same with Jesse, although he's from the other end of the spectrum. ish.
More randomass bullet points. (aka headcanon)
- Jesse IS genuinely a good kid. He is literally a male Rachel - he says and does stupid things and he is confident and cocky as hell (as per Jon Groff). But he has the talent to back it up. He is not a backstabbing little shit! I DIDN'T APP ANOTHER SOCIOPATH, GUYS, BE PROUD! Jesse did, however, go into the relationship with Rachel with ulterior motives. It's just that they weren't as bad as people thought they were be, but he still wasn't being 100% honest with her. And, yeah, he was using her at first in a way.
- Jesse is kind of a tool for Shelby to use, isn't he? Even if she's telling the truth about Rachel, she's still using him to bring Rachel to her. This makes me wonder if he'll realize that and how he'll feel about that later on.
- Onto more headcanon-y stuff! He raised his hand in "Home" when Mercedes asked who "felt fat, felt like they weren't worth very much, felt like they were ugly" etc. Rachel didn't raise her hand, neither did Finn. When Kurt asked what I thought, I initially said that I thought this was a bit of column A and a bit of column B in terms of whether Jesse was being truthful or just fucking around with ND. But looking back on it, I honestly think it is mostly column A. I don't think there's any ulterior motive there and Jesse really did feel that way about himself at one point or another. He's talented and smart and is basically a perfectionist! Which can have consequences on one's psyche, because when you're trying to perfect things constantly, you get this feeling that nothing you do is right. So there probably were times when he didn't feel like he was worth very much, particularly in the environment he'd been in. Jesse St. James is pretty damn sure 99.5% of the time that he is fucking awesome and you'd better recognize! ... but there is that .5%.
- He's more interested in music in general, not just Broadway musicals and the like. He also turns up his nose at the autotune trend of late but listens to songs with it anyway because it's catchy and he figures he could flip it up himself and sing it better. AND IN TUNE. WITHOUT AUTOTUNE, SUCK ON THAT! ... Jesse has one of those 64 gig iPod touch players and is always swapping music off because it's too damn full. To be fair, he loads it up with music videos and shit too, because he can.
- Pride is his cardinal sin. NOT THAT IT WASN'T OBVIOUS OR ANYTHING.
- Being sick in camp has been the worst thing ever for Jesse. He's not even keeling over like a bunch of the plague-ridden people, but it's just as bad for him because he can't exactly sing when he's hacking up a lung. And he knows pushing it while sick could lead to damage to his vocal chords or worse and whatnot.
Voice-related "D:"-ness aside, it's also bad because people actually keep trying to help him and he doesn't know how to react! Jesse is used to a sort of dog-eat-dog environment where you have to look out for number one and it's sink or swim, so people actually poking at him and helping him is new and different. He's not ungrateful - he really meant it when he thanked people like Rachel and Faust, for example - but he doesn't know how to feel about it or how to react. He's Jesse St. James, damnit! He can handle this shit! Leaning on people is for normal people! And so on.
- The fallout from all of this is going to be hilarious.
- No, he is not seriously helping Sue out. This one is a chance to perfect his acting skills. 8D But if you are a singer, you should tell me!
... sum this shit up already.
Jesse isn't a bad guy. He's not a good guy by any means - he's arrogant, cocky as hell, and can be really freaking obnoxious at times! But he isn't there to tear New Directions apart or poach their best singer. He really does have feelings for Rachel, too. When the rest of the season airs and we all update, this will be Very Special.
This also means that I don't have to retcon anything and nothing changes for Jesse or his relationships with other people. Which is nice! I mean, I'd been playing with the idea that "well, there's a chance he's just faking all of this" in mind, but it is very, very nice to not have to do that. I am extremely interested in seeing how the show rolls with his character from here.
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? ... PIMP ME MUSIC SINCE I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH?
ETA FOR "FUNK": None of this changes. :x The "Another One Bites the Dust" scene had Jesse looking kind of shitty about pulling that and he was definitely conflicted during THE EGGING OF RACHEL BERRY. That wasn't his idea - it was probably VA's female lead? He was definitely not that thrilled about it. This is basically the same arc that Finn had at one point! With the bullying and peer pressure and whatnot. Prrrrobably what happened there was that Jesse went back to VA and they wanted him to prove he was back in with them 4 rlz. or something. PEER PRESSUREEEEeeee.