Jacob Magellan Portman is the main protagonist of the Peculiar Children series and the male deuteragonist of the film. He is the grandson of Abraham Portman, and has the ability to see and control hollowgasts and handle souls in the Library of Souls.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Jacob's parents are Franklin and Maryann Portman. Abraham Portman suspected his grandson was peculiar, and had an ymbryne come visit to confirm it when Jacob was a toddler.[1] Abe played an important role in Jacob's childhood, telling him stories about his past, including stories of hollowgasts and the peculiar children residing in Miss Peregrine's loop. At six, Jacob dreamed of being an explorer, and was encouraged by Abe. Jacob was fascinated by his grandfather's stories as a child, but stopped believing in them as he got older.[2] According to his mother, Jacob had been making up imaginary friends since he was two.[3] He once had a dog named Snuffles, who broke away from Jacob one day with her leash still attached and strangled herself pursuing a squirrel after the leash wrapped around a branch. She was found by the family after three weeks.[4]
Jacob was born on Halloween, and up until he was eight years old was convinced by his parents that trick-or-treating candy was birthday presents. He was also very sensitive to TV violence as a child, even if it was cartoon, always crying if he saw any.[5] At around four or five, Jacob used to play hide and seek with his father, in which he was always the hider and his father always ths seeker. He was very good at it, as he could stay extremely quiet for long periods of time (an ability most other kids his age lacked) and wedge himself into small rear-closet crawl spaces without a hint of claustrophobia.[6]
He had his twelfth birthday party at an arcade.[4] That year, he was in a community theater production of Oliver Twist playing Orphan Number Five. He suffered stage fright so severe he faked a stomach flu and ended up watching the show from the wings in costume with a barf bucket between his legs.[7] In the same year, he crashed his mother's car into the garage door.[8]
Up until he was twelve or thirteen, Jacob and his grandfather went to the Mel-O-Dee, a "happy fixture in [his] childhood memories," nearly every Saturday afternoon, where Jacob would have a gooey tuna melt and a strawberry milkshake while Abe had a plate of liver and onions.[9]
In high school, Jacob was in a few gifted classes, which are part of the special education curriculum. His only friend in the normal world is Ricky Pickering, who he helped not fail class in return for protection from the "roided-out sociopaths" in the school halls.[10] Jacob's first kiss was with a girl named Janine Wilkins at a birthday party, who claimed she felt tired of being a "kiss virgin" and then swore Jacob to secrecy. Emma tells Jacob that Janine fancied him, as "a girl doesn't lose her kiss virginity to just anyone."[3]
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children[]
In the prologue, Jacob discusses how his grandfather showed him photos of the peculiar children when he was a child, but he grows up believing these tales were false and figments of his grandfather's imagination.
Jacob receives a concerning phone call from his grandfather while working at Smart Aid. Because of the severity of the call Jacob calls his father and tells him about the conversation, which Franklin dismisses. Jacob calls up his friend Ricky Pickering who drives him back to his house.
They rush to his house only to find him slain at the hands of a mysterious beast. With his dying words, Abraham tells Jacob what Jacob thinks to be a riddle, but are actually straightforward instructions. The "riddle" is about passing the old man's grave and going into the time loop, and Jacob believes this is more of his grandfather's ramblings. Jacob then catches a glance of the creature that murdered his grandfather only to find that others cannot see it. Dr. Golan, Jacob's psychiatrist, suggests that he take a visit to Wales to confront his trauma. Jacob is accompanied by his father to Cairnholm Island, Wales, where he finds an old suitcase filled with more pictures of the peculiar children in his grandfather's old orphanage. He also encounters Emma Bloom, his grandfather's old love interest and a peculiar with the ability to manipulate fire. Jacob then stumbles across a bar, where the people accuse him of being a Nazi and at this point, Jacob has unknowingly entered the loop his grandfather told him about. Emma and an invisible boy named Millard Nullings rescue Jacob and take him to Miss Peregrine, as Emma believes him to be a wight. Miss Peregrine then informs Jacob about his grandfather's past with the peculiar children, and Jacob is introduced to the other peculiar children that his grandfather had shown him pictures of.
Jacob returns to the loop several times in the next few days, spending more time with the children, and Emma tries to convince him to leave his old life and stay in the loop. Eventually, Jacob learns that his grandfather could also see the monsters, or hollowgasts, and also learns of the wights from Miss Peregrine. He struggles to decide whether to stay at or leave Cairnholm. After Martin's death, Jacob sneaks out of the inn to report it to Miss Peregrine, who puts the house on lockdown and also bans Jacob from leaving the loop, unless he doesn't return after leaving. He, Emma, Bronwyn, and Enoch leave the loop so Enoch can deadraise Martin and question him. They encounter Dr. Golan, who turns out to be a wight and sics Malthus the hollow on them. Jacob and Emma lure away the hollow so Enoch and Bronwyn can get back to the loop, and Jacob manages to kill it.
By the time Jacob and Emma return to the loop, Golan has kidnapped Miss Peregrine and Miss Avocet, and the children plan to rescue them. At the top of the Cairnholm lighthouse, Jacob eventually shoots and kills Golan, but not before the wight throws the caged, bird form ymbrynes into the sea. They lose Miss Avocet to other wights, but retrieve Miss Peregrine. With Miss Peregrine unable to change back into human form and her loop collapsed, the children decide to leave the island and search for another ymbryne who can help them. Before they leave, Jacob goes back to his father one last time and tells him he will be going away. At the end of the book, Jacob boards a rowboat with Hugh, Enoch, and Emma.
Hollow City[]
At the beginning of the Hollow City, Jacob doubts his ability to keep all of the children safe, for he doesn't know how to completely use his peculiarity. As the story progresses, his peculiarity develops the more he uses it, starting with the "compass needle" in his gut giving him a premonition on where the hollowgast in Miss Wren's menagerie is going to jump, allowing him and Bronwyn to kill it. At the menagerie, after learning of Miss Peregrine's dire situation, Emma apologizes to Jacob for dragging him into this, but he tells her that he chose it over his normal life himself, and he owes Miss Peregrine.
The children eventually find Miss Wren, who brings them into the Peculiar Archives where she attempts to return Miss Peregrine to human form. Jacob and Emma argue about him going home, with Jacob wanting to stay while Emma thinks he should no longer have a reason to. After the argument, Jacob goes off by himself to ponder it, and comes to the conclusion that it would be best for him to leave peculiardom after all. He wanders until he senses a hollow, which he finds encased in Althea's ice, barely alive, but spares it, and goes back to tell the other children of his decision to return to the present.
That night, Jacob has strange dreams that causes him to sleepwalk. At the end, his grandfather appears fighting a hollow and speaks to Jacob, telling him "Don't fight the pain, that's the key.. It's telling you something. Welcome it, let it speak to you. The pain says: Hello, I am not other than you; I am of the hollow, but I am you also... They are stupid creatures. Highly suggestible. Speak to them, Yakob." Abe then begins speaking the hollow's language. His last words to Jacob are that Jacob is more than he ever was. When Jacob wakes up, he finds himself atop the ice trapping the hollow he had found previously, with his hand on its head. Emma finds him there and frantically tells him to come, as Miss Peregrine is about to change back to a human.
The peregrine falcon that the children had thought was Miss Peregrine turns out to be her evil brother, Caul, who kills Althea and captures all the peculiars in the building with his forces. The wights take the peculiars into the present, where in the chaos of Peter-and-Joel's sonic scream, Jacob and Emma are rescued by Addison, though they are the only peculiars who escape. Jacob answers a call from his father, but suddenly senses the hollow from the Archives, which has now been unfrozen and had followed them. The hollow gets a hold of Jacob's neck and begins strangling him.
Jacob thinks to himself that he is as good as dead and can't do anything else but just stop fighting. Then, a strange thing happens: the pain shifts and becomes something else. He has discovered something quiet and gentle. That is when Jacob realizes that he can control the hollows as long as he stays calm and concentrated, and he speaks their language for the first time, getting the hollow under control. He returns to the call with his father and tells him he cannot come home yet.
Library of Souls[]
The book opens with Jacob, Emma, and Addison facing a hollowgast, afterward known as The Rogue Hollow. Jacob can no longer make himself speak in Hollow, but the hollowgast remains tamed from his initial commands and allows the trio to pass it without attacking. However, it follows them. Jacob is able to find its language within him again and tells the hollow to kill the wight that has found them, which it does, and the trio, along with a wounded Sergei Andropov, are able to escape onto a train.
Jacob, Emma, and Addison plan to track down their friends and ymbrynes who were kidnapped by the wights. The trail leads them to the entrance of Devil's Acre, where they gain passage in through Sharon. As Sharon is boating them along the river, Jacob realizes that the Rogue Hollow is still following them, and makes it kill the Ditch pirates questioning Sharon. In the Acre, he, Emma, and Addison attempt to get into the Wights' Fortress, but are injured by a hollowgast before Addison separates from the other two. Jacob and Emma are further injured by a mob of ambrosia addicts. Sharon's cousins rescue them, and they are brought to Myron Bentham's house. After recovering, Jacob and Emma meet Bentham, who tells them about the origin of the wights and hollows, and the Library of Souls. He agrees to help the pair into the wights' fortress if they can bring him a hollow to power the Panloopticon.
Jacob fights the Rogue Hollow in the Acre's bloodsport arena, where it was taken after the fight in the river. He subdues and frees it, and brings it back to the Panloopticon with Emma and Sharon. With the Panloopticon open, Jacob and Emma take one of the doors into the wights' fortress. There, they find their friends and the twelve ymbrynes captured by the wights. However, Caul sends a hollow for them to fight, and Jacob considers using a vial of ambro to enhance his ability. He is stopped by Miss Peregrine, who tells him he doesn't need it.
Jacob, about to be eaten by the hollow, shoves Mother Dust's finger down its throat. Both fall into the hollowgast nest, where the finger's sedative dust blows out into the air over him and all the hollows in the nest, briefly knocking Jacob out. When he wakes up, he has complete control over all eleven hollows around him, able to inhabit their minds and command them without speaking. Jacob, his hollows, and the rescued peculiars battle the wights and defeat many, but Miss Peregrine is captured by Caul again. Caul takes the peculiars to Abaton, where Jacob is one of the only people Caul brings into the Library itself along with Emma, Miss Peregrine, Bentham, and two wight guards. Inside, Caul forces Jacob to read the labels of the soul jars, and in the very depths of the Library, has him pour one of the most powerful souls into the spirit pool. Caul then shoots Jacob, but Jacob survives thanks to the peculiar sheep wool scarf Horace had knitted for him. He sees Bentham take a vial of ambro, and soon realizes that it is Abe's soul. Jacob attacks Bentham, who urges him to look in Bentham's pocket, where there is a recipe for loop collapse. The ymbrynes perform the loop collapse procedure on Abaton, and Jacob and the other peculiars inside manage to escape while Caul and Bentham are trapped.
In the final chapter, Jacob returns to his parents and goes home with them. They make him see a new psychiatrist, Dr. Spanger, and restrict his freedom. However, Jacob continues to exchange letters with Emma, until these letters are found by his parents and shown to his psychiatrist. As a result, Jacob is to be sent to an inpatient clinic for monitoring, which he is furious about but can see no way out of. To his shock, just as his family is about to drive him there, Miss Peregrine and the peculiar children arrive and save him. Additionally, now that the children's internal clocks have been reset from the Abaton loop collapse, Jacob and Emma can finally take their romantic relationship more slowly.
A Map of Days[]
The Conference of the Birds[]
The Desolations of Devil's Acre[]
Description[]
Physical[]
Jacob is described as a skinny person. Emma has called him handsome, though it could be partially because they were dating at the time.
Personality[]
Jacob describes himself as "cautious by nature, a planner- someone who likes to know what's around the next corner and the corner after that." After entering the peculiar world, where everything was uncertain and dangerous at the time, he had to become "flexible and sure-footed and brave." The new Jacob is ready for anything, while the old one, which has not been completely erased, wants something to hang on to. The old Jacob tends to put off thinking about things he doesn't want to think about.[11]
Particularly in A Map of Days, he is very ambitious in what he wants to do to help the peculiar world, and envisions the ymbrynes giving him an incredibly important and dangerous task despite him only learning he was peculiar months before. Upon being disappointed by them, he quickly decides that he doesn't need permission from them to continue his grandfather's work.[12] He has no qualms with sneaking out to achieve his goals, having been doing it to discover more about Miss Peregrine's home, question a deceased Martin, and take on H's mission despite not knowing the full picture in America. He can also be very stubborn, persisting in the rescue of Noor even after severely angering Miss Peregrine and H explicitly telling him not to.
Peculiarity[]
Jacob is meant to be a librarian of the Library of Souls. It is revealed at the end of Chapter 8 and the beginning of Chapter 9 in the first book that, like his grandfather, Jacob has the ability to see hollows, unlike other people, peculiar or not, who could only see their shadows. Jacob later finds that he is able to talk to and control hollows and starts to develop it. Two times after he and many hollows get sleep-dusted, he comes out able to control all of them at once, up to dozens. Aside from seeing hollows, as a librarian, Jacob can also see and touch the soul jars in the Library of Souls. His ability to control hollows comes from his descending from ancient, tri-tongued peculiars similar to modern hollows (although they were not soulless). According to Bentham, these ancestors' remnant is stronger in Jacob than his grandfather.
In The Desolations of Devil's Acre, although Jacob is at first unable to control Caul's stronger, evolved hollows because he doesn't know their new language, he still has a connection to them, one deeper than language. He is able to repeat some words of the new language after Horatio, and starts to understand it after a minute. The collective brain reboot from sleep dust allows him to inhabit them just as he did in Library of Souls, as the deepest minds of all hollows are the same.
Relationships[]
Abraham Portman[]
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Abraham is Jacob's grandfather, who immigrated from Poland to Wales and then, finally, to America. Growing up, Jacob calls him the most fascinating person he knew,[2] and the two were extremely close.[13] Due to Abe's knowledge of peculiars, he is initially discredited as being senile. It was he who told Jacob stories of the children's home and was very insistent that Jacob believes him, as he was aware of Jacob's peculiarity, he himself sharing the talent. His stories made a six-year-old Jacob want to become an explorer in order to have a life half as exciting as Abe's. As he got older, Jacob stopped believing in the stories. His father told him about the horrors of Abe's past, that the stories Jacob heard were an exaggerated version of the truth, and Jacob felt ashamed for being jealous of Abe's life and tried to be grateful for his own safe, normal one.
After Abe was killed by Malthus, his stories would eventually lead to Jacob's discovery of Miss Peregrine's home. In A Map of Days, Jacob finds himself both angry and guilty with Abe- angry that Abe hadn't shared enough about the peculiar world for Jacob to believe him, but guilty that he had pushed Abe away. Jacob was also hurt that his grandfather hadn't truly tried to prove his stories to Jacob, such as by trusting him with knowing about the secret bunker in Abe's house, secrets that Jacob would have guarded with his life.[13]
By the time of The Desolations of Devil's Acre, Jacob states that he used to really miss his grandfather, wanting to talk to him and show him who Jacob was becoming to make him proud. However, soon Jacob found that what he thought of himself is more important than what Abe would have thought, and started to move on. He still misses his grandfather as a "low, background kind of ache," but now thinks it better that Abe "stays gone."[14]
Emma Bloom[]
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Jacob and Emma as portrayed in the film.
At first glance, Emma mistook Jacob for Abraham and grew increasingly angry at the prospect of Abe having grandchildren, since he had once promised such things to her. After Miss Peregrine confirmed his human and genealogical status, she warmed to him, initially regarding him as the bearer of bad news. She befriends him easily, flirting all the while. His feelings for her contributes to why he decided to abandon his normal life for the peculiar world. The two demonstrate easy cooperation when called for and enter into a relationship during Hollow City. Despite the other reasons for Jacob staying in the peculiar world to help rescue Miss Peregrine, his ultimate one reason is that he wants to be part of any world that Emma is in. He risks a lot, but in doing so he has met people more alive than anyone he'd known before, has done things he'd never thought he could do, and survived things he never thought he could. It is painful to him when he sees Emma hurt, and is scared when she is in danger. He tells Emma that she makes him stronger and better.
However, they break up in A Map of Days after she phones Abe, and they recognize that Emma is not completely over Abe, and their feelings being unequal. For Jacob, around 10 percent of the reason is their age difference, and their inability to relate. They end up going back to being "just friends."
Emma does not entirely move on instantly, looking at Jacob in a way so that even Noor can easily tell that they used to be together.[15] She shows a bit of jealousy towards Noor as Noor and Jacob's relationship develops and Jacob sees that Emma pretending they were only ever just friends isn't working. In a talk about what happened between them, Emma confirms with silence to his question that she did still love Abe, and had fallen for Jacob because he reminded her so much of Abe. Jacob tells her that she made him face the fact that he would never be his grandfather, and now knows that she had never really given her heart to him in the first place. Jacob still believes that all the wonderful things he felt about her were true, but they just didn't make him in love with her as they once had.[16] Jacob also admits to himself that with Emma, he had never felt what he does with Noor: he describes his and Emma's old relationship as chaste and Victorian.[17] In The Desolations of Devil's Acre, Jacob in his mind states that he still loves Emma, but in "a dimmed and dusty way." In the end, they are still close friends and strong partners to each other.
Noor Pradesh[]
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After ending his romantic relationship with Emma, Jacob eventually falls in love with and enters another relationship with Noor.
She finds it difficult to believe what Jacob and his friends are saying about the peculiar world, and is reluctant to go with them.[18] However, after Jacob takes over from H in rescuing her from Leo Burnham, she takes his hand despite telling him she doesn't trust him.[19] In the process of the ensuing escape from New York, Noor warms up to him. They have a connection over both thinking they were normal and suddenly being thrust into the peculiar world, and Jacob is relieved that she seems to show wonder over peculiar things, rather than revulsion.[20] The first night she arrives in Devil's Acre, she hugs him, and Jacob feels "something small but powerful turn in [his] chest."[21] Despite his dislike of the fame he has in Devil's Acre, he did hope that Noor would find him impressive. When he tells her about his old life, he finds it nice that they are connecting over the same feelings when they entered peculiardom, and it makes him feel less alone.[15]
They deeply care about each other's safety, Noor being the first one to bring up that they're not letting Jacob go alone after Miss Peregrine asks for him to come to America to deal with a situation that involves a hollow. Jacob, in turn, is glad that Noor is not the one coming along, as he dislikes the idea of voluntarily bringing her near a hollow. They first display their feelings out in the open before Jacob leaves when she hugs and tells him to take care of himself, that she needs him in one piece, and Jacob kisses her on the top of her head.[22] Before going to Hopewell and possibly confronting the wights, Jacob tries to tell Noor that she doesn't have to come and risk her life as well, but she shuts this down and they agree that they are a team.[23]
When Jacob finds the time to think about her, he realizes that his feelings toward Noor are more chemical and visceral than with Emma, as well as tender. He often thinks about how Noor must be feeling, being so new to the peculiar world, and whether she is okay. On Jacob's return to Devil's Acre, Noor expresses great relief, and he greets her by kissing her. With this, they become a couple, or at least having "crossed a line of no return, rushing headlong into new territory. Past friendship."[17] While on their way to attempt to break into the Marrowbone loop, he feels dazed when she holds his hand, despite holding hands with a girl never being memorable before in his limited experience. It makes him lose his grip on everything else, but he wants to hold on forever.[23] He can picture her face and feel 10 to 20 percent less stressed, and imagining being close to her and kissing her turns his tension into desire.
Maryann and Franklin Portman[]
Maryann Portman is Jacob's rich, socialite mother. Demonstrating extreme vanity, it is often mentioned that she enjoys showing off her wealth. Although well-meaning, she and her son have a rocky relationship, she believes that her son has gone quite mad, and he resenting her blatant disaffection for him. Franklin is Abraham's son and father to Jacob. He and his son clearly demonstrate a somewhat closer relationship than Jacob and his mother, both understanding one another to some degree. It is he who accompanies Jacob to Wales in the first novel but then thinks that they shouldn't have gone to Wales.
At the end of The Desolations of Devil's Acre, Jacob talks to his freshly memory-wiped parents for the last time. He tells them that he is no longer angry at them, understanding that they could not have expected and did not sign up for dealing with Jacob's peculiarness, although they could have tried harder and been more open minded. Jacob also tells them that he is leaving them and the normal world. Although suffering from the side effects of being memory-wiped, Maryann cries and calls Jacob her little boy, while Franklin says goodbye and good luck. In the moment before they exchange a final "love you," Jacob feels like he and his father are a million miles apart and as close as they'd ever been.
Alma LeFay Peregrine[]
Ricky Pickering[]
He was Jacob's best and only friend before the peculiar children came along. He is a screw-up and a rebel, but Jacob is friends with him because they are beneficial to one another: Jacob helps him to not fail English while Ricky acts as a bodyguard to Jacob in the halls. Ricky was with Jacob when he found Abraham Portman dead in the woods.
Their friendship becomes strained when Ricky doesn't believe Jacob that there was a hollow that killed Abe, neither knowing that hollows cannot be seen by normals. Ricky shoves Jacob hard before leaving Jacob's house, and it would be months before they see each other again.
The Rogue Hollow[]
Jake has a soft spot for this particular hollow, as stated by Emma Bloom. When the hollow was set to work Bentham's machine, it screeched in pain, bleeding, and Jacob yelled, "You said it wouldn't hurt him!" Their connection is also strong enough so that Jacob can get it under his control far faster than other hollows, which has saved him multiple times in the books.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- His middle name, Magellan, is the surname of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. This reflects Jacob’s early ambition to be an explorer.
References[]
- ↑ Ransom Riggs Instagram livestream
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Prologue)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A Map of Days (Chapter 2)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hollow City (Chapter 13)
- ↑ Hollow City (Chapter 7)
- ↑ Hollow City (Chapter 11)
- ↑ Library of Souls (Chapter 2)
- ↑ Library of Souls (Chapter 10)
- ↑ A Map of Days (Chapter 6)
- ↑ Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Chapter 1)
- ↑ Library of Souls (Chapter 6)
- ↑ A Map of Days (Chapter 4)
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 A Map of Days (Chapter 3)
- ↑ The Desolations of Devil's Acre (Chapter 8)
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 5)
- ↑ The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 7)
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 9)
- ↑ A Map of Days (Chapter 15)
- ↑ A Map of Days (Chapter 19)
- ↑ The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 2)
- ↑ The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 3)
- ↑ The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 6)
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 The Conference of the Birds (Chapter 10)