John Ross (fictional character)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| John Ross Shannara character |
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|---|---|
| Other names | None |
| Race | Human |
| Gender | Male |
| Hair colour | |
| Eye colour | |
| Loyalty | The Word, Nest Freemark |
| First appearance | Running with the Demon |
| Birth | |
| Death | 2012, killed by demons Findo Gask, Penny, and Twitch |
John Ross is a fictional character from the Word/Void series by Terry Brooks.
As a postgraduate student, John Ross was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. He traveled England, and eventually discovered the mysterious Fairy Glen in the countryside of Betws-y-coed in Wales. There he met The Lady (the voice of the Word) and discovered that he was the descendant of Owain Glyndwyr, a Welsh "patriot and warrior" who also served the Word. He then became a "Knight of the Word" and returned to America to await the Word's instructions.
He was visited at his home by O'olish Amaneh, a Native American who was also a servant of the Word. O'olish, also known as Two Bears, gave John a rune-carved staff, and upon touching it, John was immediately crippled in his hip. The staff gave John his magic powers, but he requires it to walk, a reminder of how he is also dependent on the Word.
John has two primary magical abilities. The first is the ability to fire powerful energy waves from his staff which can disable almost any enemy. The second power, which is both a blessing and a curse, is his ability to see into the future in his dreams. Whenever John sleeps, he experiences his life decades into the future -- a future in which demons have overrun the world. In these visions he receives information about the past, information that he can use to hopefully change the outcome. The Word shows him in these visions what his next mission is, and he finds clues about how to accomplish it. During these experiences, John is a powerful, uncrippled Knight, able to destroy flocks of enemies with his magic, but he must remain alive in the future or he will die in the present as well. Complicating this is the fact that if he uses his magical staff in the present, he will lose the use of his magic for the duration of his next dream, leaving him vulnerable and in great peril.
Three times, John has crossed paths with Nest Freemark and each time both of their lives have been significantly changed as they fight battles on behalf of the Word.
[edit] External links
| Novels of Terry Brooks’ Shannara universe | ||||
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| Book I | Book II | Book III | Book IV | |
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| Word/Void: | Running with the Demon | A Knight of the Word | Angel Fire East | |
| The Genesis of Shannara: | Armageddon's Children | The Elves of Cintra | Untitled | |
| Prequel to Shannara: | First King of Shannara | |||
| The Original Shannara Trilogy: | The Sword of Shannara | The Elfstones of Shannara | The Wishsong of Shannara | |
| The Heritage of Shannara: | The Scions of Shannara | The Druid of Shannara | The Elf Queen of Shannara | The Talismans of Shannara |
| The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: | Ilse Witch | Antrax | Morgawr | |
| High Druid of Shannara: | Jarka Ruus | Tanequil | Straken | |
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| Other Shannara products | ||||
| The World of Shannara | Shannara PC Game | |||
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| Shannara on Wikipedia | ||||
| WikiProject — Characters — Creatures — Places — Objects — Related articles | ||||
