Jack Skellington is an iconic figure. Don’t believe me? Just look around where you live, you may see him on television or stickers on houses around Halloween, or maybe even on your neighbor’s kids backpack. But what I see however is a manifest of kindness that plans, for the good of others, but is blind to the blatant flaws. We’ve all seen the movie “Nightmare before Christmas” and in turn seen this kindness and care in action. The reason I chose Jack to relate to one of my dear friends is that vulnerability, makes him human; he can be related to; he’s not some untouchable super hero who is larger than life. He’s a troubled man who hides it well to all but the one closest to him.
Both Jack and my friend A.J Lugmao are very kind individuals. It’s not uncommon to see him helping the elderly with a door, or a friend with schoolwork. Just like it’s not uncommon for Jack to go around helping the towns people. He’s helped the mayor on many occasions, seeing as how he is sought for advice. Either would do anything to help anyone, which brings me to my next characteristic one that is both good and bad just depends on the situation.
Remember that one person you knew, who no matter what always had a plan that would allow everyone to “benefit”? Yeah. Well that’s A.J for you, he’s always putting everyone’s best interest ahead of him or at least he thinks he is. For example there was this one time that I had to work, I was mowing neighbors’ grass well I was being lazy in thought that day and didn’t really want to go do it. A.J “Mr. Help Everyone Else” offered to do it for me, saying it would be better if he did it rather than me gripe about it and stress through the day. Saying I’d be happy, and everyone’s yard would be cut. Jack also has done similar things that he thought would allow everyone to benefit, such as when he kidnapped Santa so he could go on “vacation” while Jack ran Christmas that year.
Jack is by far my favorite character, and A.J my best friend but these two have a major flaw. While both are amazingly kind and in turn devise ways of doing things so everyone benefits they miss something crucial. Everyone isn’t benefitting, where they see benefit others may see a loss. Using Santa’s kidnapping again, this is shown when Jack tries to run Christmas. Not only do the kids get frightening toys and Jack is seen as a terrorizer and attacked for it, but Oogie almost eats Santa. So where Jack seen Santa benefitting on vacation he missed that it wasn’t actually a benefit and the kids didn’t enjoy their gifts. Going back to when A.J wanted to cut grass for me, he missed seeing that if he cut the grass, I would lose money because I’m not getting paid for it, that and what if he messed up in the yard because he didn’t know how the customer liked it? So while their intentions are good and well, they miss the flaws that stop the plan from actually being beneficial.
My friend A.J isn’t as well-known as Jack Skellington, probably because he’s missing the years of television that Jack has on him. However they are very similar in personality. Both are incredibly kind, and can be seen at any given time helping those that need it. They like to plan things to make everyone’s life easy, and beneficial. However they miss the blatant flaws that render their plans futile in actually being beneficial. This makes them who they are though, and even though their plan may fail they always end up fixing it in the end and leaving responsibilities to their bearers, while handling their own to truly allow everyone to benefit.