Jack Donovan is a 26 year old country boy with a Business Degree. Formerly an employee of SpyTech Inc., Jack's currently supported by his good friend Morgan Evans. Jack stands at about 5 feet nine inches. He has a slender build, like a long distance runner from his Cross Country running. His hair is a curly blonde, which adds to his whole childish sort of appearance. Unsurprisingly, because he looks very youthful, he’s carded quite a bit.
Character Information
Name: Jack Donovan
Occupation: Business Man and Cowboy
Deity: Hermes/Mercury
Pantheon: Greek/Roman
Journal: msg_in_a_bottle
PB: Charlie Hunnam
History
Jack was born in rural Texas, near Greenville. His parents owned a ranch, but never made much money. He learned to ride horses, fix fences, and all other numerous ranching habits. But like all things, life is never so simple. As he grew older, Jack grew more reckless.
By 14 he was already a known face to the local authorities for criminal actions, breaking and entering on at least three occasions, minor thefts of farm equipment, and generally labeled a ‘hell raiser’. He’s parents, while always proud, considered sending him to boot camp one summer because of his reckless behavior, but backed out when he joined the track team.
When he got his license (at fifteen), he used to race a Ford truck down the old dirt roads. He raced friends, and he raced anything…until the tickets started pouring in. At 17 he was involved in a particularly ugly wreck that thankfully did not leave anyone injured, though it totaled both the truck and the car Jack hit. Jack was charged with reckless driving, and driving while intoxicated. The judge revoked his license for one year, and gave him 150 hours of community service. The judge promised the next time he came before the courts for anything he’d be serving three to five years minimum.
Graduating from High school when he was 18, Jack and his best friend (Morgan Evans, whom he’d grown up with) went out to a wild party. Jack, well known as a playboy all through high school, got the scare of his life that night. Jennie, a girl that Jack had an on going sexual relationship with, came up pregnant. Freaking out she ran to Jack, telling him she was going to have his baby.
Like any 18 year old boy, Jack flipped out. He and Jennie spent most of the night outdoors screaming at each other about what they should do. She wanted to keep it, Jack didn’t want to be a father. That night Jack was involved in a second major wreck. By sheer luck, the police ruled that it wasn’t Jack’s fault. But only because people lied for him, mostly Morgan.
Jack never told Morgan, though, what brought on the drinking and bad mood that night. Jack and Jennie never told anyone about the kid, even after they went to an abortion clinic. Jack and Jennie parted after that, writing for a while to each other before finally losing touch completely. She had been the closest thing to a girlfriend Jack had ever had, and she was the last.
That august, Jack started as a freshman at the University of Texas. There he was a member of the track team, on scholarship. Six weeks into the semester he rushed Sigma Nu. He went in as a Business major, and by his sophomore year he was putting his business skills to the test. In the Frat Jack arranged and ran an illegal casino. Luck was certainly on his side with running this thing, too. Amazingly he ran it for three years without ever getting caught, despite all the close calls.
Spring of 2001 Jack was offered a job in a D.C. based company called, Spytech Inc.. Having won several business school awards, graduating with honors and athletic awards, Jack accepted the job and left college with a bright future ahead of him. He had full intentions of continuing on to get his Masters degree, and start his own company. However, his schedule and success at Spytech did not give him enough time to accomplish that goal.
He still runs every day at five am, and is active in sports and recreational activities. He’s been promoted to a project manager, and has never quite mastered a dating life, but then many say he has no life. Recently though, Jack was fired from Spytech, and is under investigation for Corporate Fraud. This makes finding a new job particularly hard. And while his friends know he is fired, no one knows that the police are looking into his history.
Personality:
A sports enthusiast, Jack spends a lot of time outdoors. He likes to run in the mornings, and play football, soccer, ultimate Frisbee, anything involving athletics in the afternoons. He’s also a bit of a technology nerd. He likes the newest and the brightest gadgets that he can find (and afford). He likes the ladies, though it has been suggested (by others) that he is a bit of a Nancy boy.
He’ll read a book when a good one is present, he isn’t above learning, and he is always a bit on the cheeky side. However, anyone that knows Jack will avidly inform you that he’s a prankster. April Fools is his favorite day of the year, but he doesn’t limit his antics to those things. He’s a bit a petty thief, but only steals the little things…things that aren’t missed by anyone or anything. And mostly, he only does it to amuse him.
Strengths:
Quick and clever, Jack is good at thinking on his feet. He’s fast, and not just in the way that most people think. He’s proficient, and dependable. He’s got a head for business, and a bit of luck with gambling. And we must not forget he is in extremely good health. Jack also has a knack for finding people and places he really wants to find…even when he has no real way of doing it.
Weaknesses:
He has trouble being serious, and is overly playful at times. He is a bit overly forward with the ladies sometimes, loud, obnoxious and sometimes rude. He steals things, and likes to be the center of attention. He tells lies as if it were the only thing he knew how to say, and he has commitment issues.
Memories:
Jack's memories of his past life, or lives in this case, come out in his dreams. However, unlike some of his fellow 'deities', Jack stead-fastly refuses to acknowledge the memories as anything more than dreams. His ability to sometimes pick up on languages quickly, particularly in dreams where he remembers speaking them, he attributes to wide imaginations.
Social:
The wife of Damion Sorosin, and the reason for Damion's sudden interest in Jack. She is aware of who Jack is even though Jack himself is unaware of his…'godly' potential.
A young, Irish man that Jack offered a job at Spytech to. They met in a bar, and began to talk. Afterward, Jack and Ree when off to egg the office of Ree's former boss.
Cameron, or Cam, is Morgan Evan's boyfriend. He and Jack have met a couple of times, but things are a bit strained between the two. Mostly, on Jack's end, there is jealousy involved.
The CEO of Acheron Industries. Damion and Jack met at a FOSE convention, where Jack made a sell of SpyTech's newest product. Damion has expressed interest in hiring Jack, but also is secretly the man behind all of Jack's recent woe's.
A girl at a coffee shop that Jack struck up a conversation with one night. They’ve gone on one date of sorts, and remained friends since. Since Jack’s lost his job and Morgan’s dating, he’s been hanging out with Diana more and more. Neither are interested in dating, but neither object to a possibly sexual relationship.
A young woman that Jack has a delicate relationship with. While never one of them like each other, both are more than willing to flirt (and claw at each other), before falling in bed together.
Detective Townsend works for the Washington Police departments. Recently he has begun to investigate Jack for corporate fraud, and the disappearance of Alan Kingston, Jack's former boss.
A young woman Jack and Morgan met in the Smithsonian Mall while playing Frisbee. He's promised to take her out to dinner, but really is more concerned to just climbing into bed with her.
Jack’s long time best friend and roommate. Morgan and Jack have a lot of history, but mostly they’ve always been a team. Lately that team has been a little threatened by both a sexual relationship (on night and a threesome), and Morgan’s coming ‘out’ and new boyfriend. However, Jack doesn’t let that stop him from claiming Morgan as his best friend.
A young escort that Jack and Morgan had a sexual encounter with. While awkward, Jack's still interested in keeping a tab on her with intent to call and having another evening out.
A gentleman that Jack got into an illegal boxing match with. While Seth won the match, Jack gave the fight a good go. Afterwards, though, Mallory gave Jack a strange statement to chew over: "You don't know? Ha! You are a god." While Jack has since forgotten, or lost interest in the idea, would like to avoid Seth at all cost.
Hermes
Hermes, in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of commerce in general, and of the cunning of thieves and liars. The Homeric hymn to Hermes invokes him as the one
"of many shifts (polutropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods."
As a translator, Hermes is a messenger from the gods to humans, sharing this with Iris. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes gives us our word "hermeneutics" for the art of interpreting hidden meaning. In Greek a lucky find was a hermaion.
Hermes, as an inventor of fire, is a parallel of the Titan, Prometheus. In addition to the syrinx and the lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and the sport of boxing, and therefore was a patron of athletes. Modern mythographers have connected Hermes with the trickster gods of other cultures.
Hermes also served as a psychopomp, or an escort for the dead to help them find their way to the afterlife (the Underworld in the Greek myths). In many Greek myths, Hermes was depicted as the only god besides Hades and Persephone who could enter and leave the Underworld without hindrance.
In the fully-developed Olympian pantheon, Hermes was the son of Zeus and the Pleiade Maia, a daughter of the Titan Atlas. Hermes' symbols were the rooster and the tortoise, and he can be recognized by his purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and the herald's staff, the kerykeion. Hermes was the god of thieves because he was very cunning and shrewd and was a thief himself from the night he was born, when he slipped away from Maia and ran away to steal his elder brother Apollo's cattle.
Hermes was loyal to his father Zeus. When the nymph Io, one of Zeus' consorts, was trapped by Hera and guarded over by the many-eyed giant Argus Panoptes, Hermes saved her by lulling the giant to sleep with stories and then decapitating him with a crescent-shaped sword.
In the Roman adaptation of the Greek religion, Hermes was identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.
Hermes is Related To:
Anteros - nephew
Apollo - Brother
Aphrodite -
Ares - Brother
Artemis - Sister
Athene - Sister
Dionysus - Brother
Hecate -
Hephaestos - Brother
Nemesis -
Pasithea - Niece
Peitho - Wife
Epithets of Hermes
Argeiphontes
Hermes' epithet Argeiphontes, or Argus-slayer, recalls his slaying of the many-eyed giant Argus Panoptes, who was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera herself in Argos. Putting Argus to sleep, Hermes used a spell to permanently close all of Argus's eyes and then slew the giant. Argus's eyes were then put into the tail of the peacock, symbol of the goddess Hera.
Logios
His epithet of Logios is the representation of the god in the act of speaking, as orator, or as the god of eloquence. Indeed, together with Athena, he was the standard divine representation of eloquence in classical Greece. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (probably 6th century BC) describes Hermes making a successful speech from the cradle to defend himself from the (true) charge of cattle theft. Somewhat later, Proclus' commentary on Plato's Republic describes Hermes as the god of persuasion. Yet later, Neoplatonists viewed Hermes Logios more mystically as origin of a "Hermaic chain" of light and radiance emanating from the divine intellect (nous). This epithet also produced a sculptural type.
Other epithets included:
Agoraios, of the agora
Acacesius, of Acacus
Charidotes, giver of charm
Criophorus, ram-bearer
Cyllenius, born on Mount Cyllene
Diaktoros, the messenger
Dolios, the schemer
Enagonios, of the (Olympic) games
Enodios, on the road
Epimelius, keeper of flocks
Eriounios, luck bringer
Polygius
Psychopompos, conveyor of souls
Cult
Though temples to Hermes existed throughout Greece, a major center of his cult was at Pheneos in Arcadia, where festivals in his honor were called Hermoea.
As a crosser of boundaries, Hermes Psychopompos' ("conductor of the soul") was a psychopomp, meaning he brought newly-dead souls to the Underworld and Hades. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hermes conducted Persephone the Kore (young girl or virgin), safely back to Demeter. He also brought dreams to living mortals.
Among the Hellenes, as the related word herma ("a boundary stone, crossing point") would suggest, Hermes embodied the spirit of crossing-over: He was seen to be manifest in any kind of interchange, transfer, transgressions, transcendence, transition, transit or traversal, all of which involve some form of crossing in some sense. This explains his connection with transitions in one’s fortune — with the interchanges of goods, words and information involved in trade, interpretion, oration, writing — with the way in which the wind may transfer objects from one place to another, and with the transition to the afterlife.
Many graffito dedications to Hermes have been found in the Athenian Agora, in keeping with his epithet of Agoraios and his role as patron of commerce.
Originally, Hermes was depicted as an older, bearded, phallic god, but in the 6th century BCE, the traditional Hermes was reimagined as an athletic youth (illustration, top right). Statues of the new type of Hermes stood at stadiums and gymnasiums throughout Greece.
Birth
Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia to Maia. As the story is told in the Homeric Hymn, the Hymn to Hermes, Maia was a nymph, but Greeks generally applied the name to a midwife or a wise and gentle old woman; so the nymph appears to have been an ancient one, or more probably a goddess. At any rate, she was one of the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, taking refuge in a cave of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.
The infant Hermes was precocious. His first day he invented the lyre. By nightfall, he had rustled the immortal cattle of Apollo. For the first sacrifice, the taboos surrounding the sacred kine of Apollo had to be transgressed, and the trickster god of boundaries was the one to do it.
Hermes drove the cattle back to Greece and hid them, and covered their tracks. When Apollo accused Hermes, Maia said that it could not be him because he was with her the whole night. However, Zeus entered the argument and said that Hermes did steal the cattle and they should be returned. While arguing with Apollo, Hermes began to play his lyre. The instrument enchanted Apollo and he agreed to let Hermes keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre.
Hermes' offspring
Pan
The satyr-like Greek god of nature, shepherds and flocks, Pan was often said to be the son of Hermes through the nymph Dryope. In the Homeric Hymn to Pan, Pan's mother ran away from the newborn god in fright over his goat-like appearance.
Hermaphroditus
Hermaphroditus was an immortal son of Hermes through Aphrodite. He was changed into a hermaphrodite (person with both male and female parts) when the gods literally granted the nymph Salmacis's wish that they never separate.
Tyche
The goddess of luck, Tyche, or Fortuna, was sometimes said to be the daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite.
Abderus
Abderus was a son of Hermes who was devoured by the Mares of Diomedes. He had gone to the Mares with his friend Heracles.
Autolycus
Autolycus, the Prince of Thieves, was a son of Hermes and grandfather of Odysseus.
List of Hermes' consorts and children
Aglaurus Athenian priestess
Eumolpus warlord
Antianeira Malian princess
Echion Argonaut
Apemosyne Cretan princess
Aphrodite
Eunomia
Hermaphroditus
Rhodos
Tyche
Carmentis Arcadian nymph
Evander founder of Latium
Chione Phocian princess
Autolycus thief
Dryope Arcadian nymph
Pan rustic god
Eupolomia Phthian princess
Aethalides Argonaut herald
Herse Athenian priestess
Cephalus hunter
(Also Ceryx)
Crocus who died and became the crocus flower
Pandrosus Athenian priestess
Ceryx Eleusinian herald
Peitho ("Persuasion" his wife according to Nonnos)
Sicilian nymph
Daphnis rustic poet
Theobula Eleian princess
Myrtilus charioteer
Born of the urine of Hermes, Poseidon and Zeus
Orion giant hunter
Unknown mothers
Abderus squire of Heracles
Hermes in the myths
The Iliad
In Homer's Iliad, Hermes helps King Priam of Troy (Ilium) sneak into the Achaean (Greek) encampment to confront Achilles and convince him to return Hector's body.
The Odyssey
In Odyssey book 5, Hermes is sent to demand from Calypso Odysseus' release; in book 10 he protects Odysseus from Circe by bestowing upon him a herb, moly, which would protect him from her spell.
Argus Panoptes/Io
Hermes, at the request of Zeus, lulled the giant Argus to sleep and rescued Io, but Hera sent a gadfly to sting Io as she wandered the earth in cow form. Zeus eventually changed Io back to human form, and she became—through Epaphus; her son with Zeus—the ancestress of Heracles.
Perseus
Hermes aided Perseus in killing the gorgon Medusa by giving Perseus his winged sandals and Zeus' sickle. He also gave Perseus Hades' helmet of invisibility and told him to use it so that Medusa's immortal sisters could not see him. Athena helped Perseus as well by lending him her polished shield. Hermes also guided Perseus to the Underworld.
Prometheus
In the ancient play Prometheus Bound, attributed to Aeschylus, Zeus sends Hermes to confront the enchained Titan Prometheus about a prophecy of the Titan's that Zeus would be overthrown. Hermes scolds Prometheus for being unreasonable and willing to endure torture, but Prometheus refuses to give him details about the prophecy.
Herse/Aglaurus/Pandrosus
When Hermes loved Herse, one of three sisters who served Athena as priestesses or parthenos, her jealous older sister Aglaurus stood between them. Hermes changed Aglaurus to stone. Hermes then impregnated Aglaurus while she was stone. Cephalus was the son of Hermes and Herse. Hermes had another son, Ceryx, who was said to be the offspring of either Herse or Herse's other sister, Pandrosus. With Aglaurus, Hermes was the father of Eumolpus.
Other stories
In the story of the musician Orpheus, Hermes brought Eurydice back to Hades after Orpheus failed to bring her back to life when he looked back toward her after Hades told him not to.
Hermes helped to protect the infant god Dionysus from Hera, after Hera destroyed Dionysus' mortal mother Semele through her jealousy that Semele had conceived an immortal son of Zeus.
Hermes changed the Minyades into bats.
Hermes learned from the Thriae the arts of fortune-telling and divination.
When the gods created Pandora, it was Hermes who brought her to mortals and bestowed upon her a strong sense of curiosity.
King Atreus of Mycenae retook the throne from his brother Thyestes using advice he received from the trickster Hermes. Thyestes agreed to give the kingdom back when the sun moved backwards in the sky, a feat that Zeus accomplished. Atreus retook the throne and banished Thyestes.
Diogenes, speaking in jest, related the myth of Hermes taking pity on his son Pan, who was pining for Echo but unable to get a hold of her, and teaching him the trick of masturbation to relieve his suffering. Pan later taught the habit to the young shepherds.
//Most of the Hermes information came from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes //
Greek Deities
Anteros - Vincent Antony Erasmus | Aphrodite - Emma Fields | Apollo - Kevina Evelyn Lippencott | Ares - Isadora "Dora" Austin | Artemis - Malcolm Gibbons | Dionysus - Morgan Ashford | Hecate - Hazel Rhode | Hephaestos - Cameron Hoyte | Hermes - Jack Donovan | Nike - Alainna Sorosin | Pasithea - Galen Thomas | Peitho - Daniel Morgan Evans | Thanatos - Kieran Dagny Townsend
