OOC: Profile
Name: Xerxes Break (at one point, Kevin Regnard)
Fandom: Pandora Hearts
Gender: Male
Age: 24…in appearance. Actual age is a bit fuzzy, and still grounds for debate, but it is far older than 24.
Time Period: During Retrace 30, when he collapses after his confrontation with Duke Barma
Appearance: Here
Wing Color: White
History: Here
Personality:
Kevin Regnard, once upon a time, was a very loyal, very dependable, very dependant knight. His life was the family he served, and his life was shattered when they were killed. Kevin Regnard's personality was discarded with his name, when Xerxes Break came into being.
Break's facade is so attached that, at times, it is truly impossible for even the most observant of people to seperate his facade from his true personality. He acts cheerful, flamboyant and nearly...childish. He eats sweets near constantly, and Break seems to delight in little tricks like ventriloquism, making things appear (and disappear) and appearing where he is least expected when it is least expected. Break loves to tease people, especialy those who give such a nice reaction and he seems to speak in constant sing-song. Often, Break will act overly flamboyant--his clothes are made to emphasize this, with his floppy sleeves and ridiculous coat--and far too amused, as if he is enjoying a private joke that nobody else knows.
And perhaps he is. For that is only a facade, and his real personality is well-hidden beneath it; very few people ever get more than glimpses of his true personality.
The truth is, quite simply, that Break is cold. Extremely intelligent, unbelievably observant and perceptive, Break will know what it is you are hiding...Sometimes even before you do. Break does not underestimate people, and rarely will he overlook something; he will piece together every part of a person's past just to be sure that he is not missing a key piece. And it will not be difficult--if there is one thing Break has had a lot of practice at, it is extracting information, while not giving anything on himself away. Rarely will he need to, however; often, Break already knows. With this in mind, he gives off the feel that he knows something more than everyone around him. And typically, he does.
Break is solitary. For all of his ridiculous behavior, all of his baffling teasing and invasions of personal space, Break does not allow people to grow close to him. He holds everyone as far away as possible, because attachments are dangerous, attachments make it difficult to sacrifice the pawns when it becomes necessary....Attachments are what shattered him before. Break prefers, even, to make someone hate him if they are growing too close. Despite this, Lady Shelly and Lady Sharon managed to destroy this resolution.
Lady Shelly and Sharon are the most important people in Break's world now, and he will not allow anything to happen to them. The motives could be construed to be selfish ones: Break cannot deal with a loss similar to the loss of the Sinclairs, and he knows it. But...Lady Shelly drew him out of his depression and self-condemnation, and it is, perhaps, not surprising that he is so loyal to her and her daughter, who sees him as an older brother. He might say that he is "a person who lives only for himself", but when it comes to the Rainsworth ladies, the resolution falls through. He might say that he had purely selfish reasons for sacrificing everything he had lived for to save Sharon's life, but...Of course, that is merely a defense he puts up, yet another layer of his facade. Break is protective of them, and the fastest way to provoke a response is to do something to Sharon or to Shelly (heaven forbid.). Of course, if Break foresaw the plan, he will simply be a smug bastard while he implements the counter plan he is sure to have created.
Break is strange (or, rather, stranger) in the sense that despite being a very cold, very manipulative person, he does have morals. It is a very skewed moral scale, but they exist nonetheless. He might twist his words, or someone else's, and he might avoid and deflect any questions he doesn't want to answer, but he rarely lies. And while he might see no problem with sacrificing pawns, he still cares enough about the people around him to do his best to keep them alive. He will use them, yes, use and manipulate whenever it is useful, but Break does not indiscriminately sacrifice the people around him.
And he absolutely despises people who use others as an excuse. Break feels that one must take responsibility for their own actions--it is only an excuse, in his eyes, to say that one did it for someone else. Break's views are unyielding on this, both due to Vincent's forever use of "if I do it for brother, it isn't wrong" and, even more so, the terrible mistakes he made "for master", the terrible mistakes that truly ruined his life and the lives of the people he cared about. It is a lesson he learned well; perhaps almost too well, for now Break refuses to ask for help and does his absolute best to live only for himself.
Break has (and pardon the unavoidable pun) been broken before, when he lost everything he had lived for, and when he realized that he bore part of the guilt...Break suffered nearly too much loss. Now he live only because he had a goal, a reason; Break is only still alive because he has something that ties him to this new life. But he is an almost painfully realistic person. Break is aware--perhaps almost too aware--that he doesn't have much longer to live. Because of this, he is goal driven and completely determined to at least, as a final act, finish what he needs to finish, to achieve the goals that he has been working towards.
After that...Well, Break's predictions are very rarely wrong.
Strengths:
Physical: He’s agile, quick on his feet, and has trained himself for fighting. Not only was he once a knight, the world he lives in is dangerous, and he must be able to fight to accomplish his goals. Break is very adept with a sword, which he has hidden within his cane, or just using the cane itself. We see his abilities plenty of times, whether in the Abyss when fighting the Will of the Abyss, or when he fought and more or less annihilated Cheshire. Of course, he’s quite lithe and thin, which means that in terms of physical strength, he isn’t as strong as he is quick and able to hit where it will hurt.
Mental: Break’s mental strengths are his strongest abilities. He’s unbelievably perceptive and intelligent, often noting things about people simply by watching and observing, or perhaps asking a few discreetly veiled questions. He manipulates easily, and knows so, often telling people directly to their face that he is doing said manipulating, and yet still managing to easily twist people’s opinions and thoughts and actions.
Gathering information, having become one of Break’s sole purposes in life, is one of his strongest skills. He will follow a shred of information until he has pinned down something solid, as he does with Alice’s memories, where he went so far as to research the scenery of the events to be sure his hypothesis was correct. Generally, his theories are correct, if only because he gathers as many facts as he possibly can before making them, or at least before he shares them with anyone (when he does share them). Going hand in hand with his abilities to gather information are his abilities to piece it all together; he can take a few pieces of the puzzle and figure out what, exactly, it is supposed to be.
Emotional: The way Break treats emotion is as something that he no longer needs and has discarded. That isn’t true, of course, and he still feels attachments, though he tries to push people away. As for emotional strengths, his coldness and distance could be considered a strength. He’s rarely swayed by such things as tears and pain, for while he is a, generally and mostly, good person when all is said and done, he is driven by his goals, and so a few sacrifices of ‘pawns’ are, he thinks, expected to reach them.
He’s very adept at using emotions, whether of his own or otherwise, in manipulation. Break is aware of what personal space is, of course, but he is also quite aware of what it can do to some people to invade that space, and so he will. He can offer a charming smile, based on the occasion, or rile people up with teasing and smirks. In other words, the sole use Break sees for emotion is again in the manipulation of others.
Weaknesses:
Break has a special distaste for his own weaknesses, even more than the usual person’s dislike of weakness. He knows that any weakness of his can lead to an advantage in Vincent’s moves, or any of his enemies’ moves. But he is also quite aware of quite a few of these weaknesses, though it is simply another character flaw that Break, though aware of the majority of them, is either unable to fix them or unable to make them useful in such a way that they are no longer weaknesses.
Physical: Physically fit or not, Break does have some physical weaknesses. He is missing an eye, which will cause some depth perception problems, no matter how skilled he is. He seems to have generally managed to work around it, as his skills with his cane and sword are more or less flawless, but this could very well be where his weakness with guns comes from. We are told that guns are one of his weaknesses; judging by how well he was able to take care of Gilbert when he was pointing a gun at him, however, it would seem that his weakness is in the use of them, again likely thanks to only having one eye, and therefore unable to properly aim. It could also be that he is uncomfortable with a different weapon than that he is used to, though he generally shows a tendency to think quickly on his feet and make use of his surroundings well, such as his manipulation of his own memories to trap Cheshire, so perhaps not.
Mental: Break has a few practices that could be considered less than the most efficient when it comes to piecing together theories. For one, he has the tendency to come up with a theory and then look for evidence to support said theory, rather than looking at the entire picture after he has made said theories. While often his theories are correct, it does leave him open to missing something. Also a weakness would be his determination for his goals. We see very clearly in the manga that, when his goal is in sight, he chose the actions that were less cautious, not only leading to a weakening of himself, but the kidnapping of Sharon. In effect, while Vincent did outmaneuver him, it was Break’s actions that allowed it. And finally, Break has little consideration for his own health. He is well aware that he is dying, and therefore he takes very little care when it comes to remaining uninjured and unharmed. He is not overly reckless, of course, but he does not pay it the attention it likely deserves.
Emotional:
Ironically, this is where Break is weakest. For all of his attempts to push people away, that clearly fell through thanks to Shelly and Sharon’s kindness. So he does form attachments, while attempting to pretend that he has not. This leads to any number of problems, such as his lack of communication to Sharon-in an attempt to protect her, he tells her little that he should likely tell her-or his unwavering struggle to protect Sharon, even when she feels she can protect herself. This loyalty and attachment gives him a weak spot, and Vincent exploited it once already, by poisoning Sharon to force Break to do what he wanted. But denying these attachments means that he is unable to turn them into a strength; for example, he is unable to work with Sharon when it comes to more serious matters, for he is always attempting to protect her. And therefore, they remain a major weakness in the armor that is his façade.
Furthermore, he still possesses immense guilt for not only the death of Lord Sinclair when he thought he should have been able to prevent it, but for the death of the youngest daughter, which he, accurately, traces back to his actions. This guilt does gnaw away at him, despite his best attempts to pretend like it doesn’t affect him. We see how it still affects him after the confrontation with Duke Barma; it causes him to break his façade, even, and admit to his foolishness and the guilt he feels. So while he hides it under his smiles and smirks, it does still bother him.
Fandom: Pandora Hearts
Gender: Male
Age: 24…in appearance. Actual age is a bit fuzzy, and still grounds for debate, but it is far older than 24.
Time Period: During Retrace 30, when he collapses after his confrontation with Duke Barma
Appearance: Here
Wing Color: White
History: Here
Personality:
Kevin Regnard, once upon a time, was a very loyal, very dependable, very dependant knight. His life was the family he served, and his life was shattered when they were killed. Kevin Regnard's personality was discarded with his name, when Xerxes Break came into being.
Break's facade is so attached that, at times, it is truly impossible for even the most observant of people to seperate his facade from his true personality. He acts cheerful, flamboyant and nearly...childish. He eats sweets near constantly, and Break seems to delight in little tricks like ventriloquism, making things appear (and disappear) and appearing where he is least expected when it is least expected. Break loves to tease people, especialy those who give such a nice reaction and he seems to speak in constant sing-song. Often, Break will act overly flamboyant--his clothes are made to emphasize this, with his floppy sleeves and ridiculous coat--and far too amused, as if he is enjoying a private joke that nobody else knows.
And perhaps he is. For that is only a facade, and his real personality is well-hidden beneath it; very few people ever get more than glimpses of his true personality.
The truth is, quite simply, that Break is cold. Extremely intelligent, unbelievably observant and perceptive, Break will know what it is you are hiding...Sometimes even before you do. Break does not underestimate people, and rarely will he overlook something; he will piece together every part of a person's past just to be sure that he is not missing a key piece. And it will not be difficult--if there is one thing Break has had a lot of practice at, it is extracting information, while not giving anything on himself away. Rarely will he need to, however; often, Break already knows. With this in mind, he gives off the feel that he knows something more than everyone around him. And typically, he does.
Break is solitary. For all of his ridiculous behavior, all of his baffling teasing and invasions of personal space, Break does not allow people to grow close to him. He holds everyone as far away as possible, because attachments are dangerous, attachments make it difficult to sacrifice the pawns when it becomes necessary....Attachments are what shattered him before. Break prefers, even, to make someone hate him if they are growing too close. Despite this, Lady Shelly and Lady Sharon managed to destroy this resolution.
Lady Shelly and Sharon are the most important people in Break's world now, and he will not allow anything to happen to them. The motives could be construed to be selfish ones: Break cannot deal with a loss similar to the loss of the Sinclairs, and he knows it. But...Lady Shelly drew him out of his depression and self-condemnation, and it is, perhaps, not surprising that he is so loyal to her and her daughter, who sees him as an older brother. He might say that he is "a person who lives only for himself", but when it comes to the Rainsworth ladies, the resolution falls through. He might say that he had purely selfish reasons for sacrificing everything he had lived for to save Sharon's life, but...Of course, that is merely a defense he puts up, yet another layer of his facade. Break is protective of them, and the fastest way to provoke a response is to do something to Sharon or to Shelly (heaven forbid.). Of course, if Break foresaw the plan, he will simply be a smug bastard while he implements the counter plan he is sure to have created.
Break is strange (or, rather, stranger) in the sense that despite being a very cold, very manipulative person, he does have morals. It is a very skewed moral scale, but they exist nonetheless. He might twist his words, or someone else's, and he might avoid and deflect any questions he doesn't want to answer, but he rarely lies. And while he might see no problem with sacrificing pawns, he still cares enough about the people around him to do his best to keep them alive. He will use them, yes, use and manipulate whenever it is useful, but Break does not indiscriminately sacrifice the people around him.
And he absolutely despises people who use others as an excuse. Break feels that one must take responsibility for their own actions--it is only an excuse, in his eyes, to say that one did it for someone else. Break's views are unyielding on this, both due to Vincent's forever use of "if I do it for brother, it isn't wrong" and, even more so, the terrible mistakes he made "for master", the terrible mistakes that truly ruined his life and the lives of the people he cared about. It is a lesson he learned well; perhaps almost too well, for now Break refuses to ask for help and does his absolute best to live only for himself.
Break has (and pardon the unavoidable pun) been broken before, when he lost everything he had lived for, and when he realized that he bore part of the guilt...Break suffered nearly too much loss. Now he live only because he had a goal, a reason; Break is only still alive because he has something that ties him to this new life. But he is an almost painfully realistic person. Break is aware--perhaps almost too aware--that he doesn't have much longer to live. Because of this, he is goal driven and completely determined to at least, as a final act, finish what he needs to finish, to achieve the goals that he has been working towards.
After that...Well, Break's predictions are very rarely wrong.
Strengths:
Physical: He’s agile, quick on his feet, and has trained himself for fighting. Not only was he once a knight, the world he lives in is dangerous, and he must be able to fight to accomplish his goals. Break is very adept with a sword, which he has hidden within his cane, or just using the cane itself. We see his abilities plenty of times, whether in the Abyss when fighting the Will of the Abyss, or when he fought and more or less annihilated Cheshire. Of course, he’s quite lithe and thin, which means that in terms of physical strength, he isn’t as strong as he is quick and able to hit where it will hurt.
Mental: Break’s mental strengths are his strongest abilities. He’s unbelievably perceptive and intelligent, often noting things about people simply by watching and observing, or perhaps asking a few discreetly veiled questions. He manipulates easily, and knows so, often telling people directly to their face that he is doing said manipulating, and yet still managing to easily twist people’s opinions and thoughts and actions.
Gathering information, having become one of Break’s sole purposes in life, is one of his strongest skills. He will follow a shred of information until he has pinned down something solid, as he does with Alice’s memories, where he went so far as to research the scenery of the events to be sure his hypothesis was correct. Generally, his theories are correct, if only because he gathers as many facts as he possibly can before making them, or at least before he shares them with anyone (when he does share them). Going hand in hand with his abilities to gather information are his abilities to piece it all together; he can take a few pieces of the puzzle and figure out what, exactly, it is supposed to be.
Emotional: The way Break treats emotion is as something that he no longer needs and has discarded. That isn’t true, of course, and he still feels attachments, though he tries to push people away. As for emotional strengths, his coldness and distance could be considered a strength. He’s rarely swayed by such things as tears and pain, for while he is a, generally and mostly, good person when all is said and done, he is driven by his goals, and so a few sacrifices of ‘pawns’ are, he thinks, expected to reach them.
He’s very adept at using emotions, whether of his own or otherwise, in manipulation. Break is aware of what personal space is, of course, but he is also quite aware of what it can do to some people to invade that space, and so he will. He can offer a charming smile, based on the occasion, or rile people up with teasing and smirks. In other words, the sole use Break sees for emotion is again in the manipulation of others.
Weaknesses:
Break has a special distaste for his own weaknesses, even more than the usual person’s dislike of weakness. He knows that any weakness of his can lead to an advantage in Vincent’s moves, or any of his enemies’ moves. But he is also quite aware of quite a few of these weaknesses, though it is simply another character flaw that Break, though aware of the majority of them, is either unable to fix them or unable to make them useful in such a way that they are no longer weaknesses.
Physical: Physically fit or not, Break does have some physical weaknesses. He is missing an eye, which will cause some depth perception problems, no matter how skilled he is. He seems to have generally managed to work around it, as his skills with his cane and sword are more or less flawless, but this could very well be where his weakness with guns comes from. We are told that guns are one of his weaknesses; judging by how well he was able to take care of Gilbert when he was pointing a gun at him, however, it would seem that his weakness is in the use of them, again likely thanks to only having one eye, and therefore unable to properly aim. It could also be that he is uncomfortable with a different weapon than that he is used to, though he generally shows a tendency to think quickly on his feet and make use of his surroundings well, such as his manipulation of his own memories to trap Cheshire, so perhaps not.
Mental: Break has a few practices that could be considered less than the most efficient when it comes to piecing together theories. For one, he has the tendency to come up with a theory and then look for evidence to support said theory, rather than looking at the entire picture after he has made said theories. While often his theories are correct, it does leave him open to missing something. Also a weakness would be his determination for his goals. We see very clearly in the manga that, when his goal is in sight, he chose the actions that were less cautious, not only leading to a weakening of himself, but the kidnapping of Sharon. In effect, while Vincent did outmaneuver him, it was Break’s actions that allowed it. And finally, Break has little consideration for his own health. He is well aware that he is dying, and therefore he takes very little care when it comes to remaining uninjured and unharmed. He is not overly reckless, of course, but he does not pay it the attention it likely deserves.
Emotional:
Ironically, this is where Break is weakest. For all of his attempts to push people away, that clearly fell through thanks to Shelly and Sharon’s kindness. So he does form attachments, while attempting to pretend that he has not. This leads to any number of problems, such as his lack of communication to Sharon-in an attempt to protect her, he tells her little that he should likely tell her-or his unwavering struggle to protect Sharon, even when she feels she can protect herself. This loyalty and attachment gives him a weak spot, and Vincent exploited it once already, by poisoning Sharon to force Break to do what he wanted. But denying these attachments means that he is unable to turn them into a strength; for example, he is unable to work with Sharon when it comes to more serious matters, for he is always attempting to protect her. And therefore, they remain a major weakness in the armor that is his façade.
Furthermore, he still possesses immense guilt for not only the death of Lord Sinclair when he thought he should have been able to prevent it, but for the death of the youngest daughter, which he, accurately, traces back to his actions. This guilt does gnaw away at him, despite his best attempts to pretend like it doesn’t affect him. We see how it still affects him after the confrontation with Duke Barma; it causes him to break his façade, even, and admit to his foolishness and the guilt he feels. So while he hides it under his smiles and smirks, it does still bother him.