Jason Stackhouse

Jason Stackhouse
True Blood character
Ryan Kwanten as Jason Stackhouse
First appearance	Novel: Dead Until Dark Television: "Strange Love" (episode 1.01)
Created by	Charlaine Harris
Portrayed by	Ryan Kwanten
Information
Nickname(s)	Jay, Stackhouse, Jason Fuckin' Stackhouse, Girlfriend Fucker
Species	Human (fairy ancestry) Werepanther (books only)
Gender	Male
Occupation	Police officer (tv-series)
Family	Sookie Stackhouse (younger sister) Adele Hale Stackhouse (grandmother) Niall Brigant (great-grandfather) Fintan Brigant (grandfather)
Spouse(s)	Novels: Crystal Norris Stackhouse (wife; deceased) Michele Schulbert (wife)
Children	Unnamed child (with Crystal; miscarriage) Unnamed child (with Crystal; deceased) Marie Stackhouse (with Michele) Corbett Stackhouse(with Michele)
Relatives	Dermot Brigant (great-uncle) Claudine (deceased), Claudette,(deceased) and Claude Crane (both half cousins once removed) Hadley (cousin) Hunter Savoy (cousin once removed)
Nationality	American

Jason Stackhouse is a fictional character from The Southern Vampire Mysteries book series by author Charlaine Harris. Introduced in the first novel, Dead Until Dark, Jason is Sookie Stackhouse's older brother and road crew supervisor for Bon Temps.

Jason is known as a ladies' man and is associated sexually with many women in Bon Temps and other neighboring communities. He is selfish and often involves Sookie in his troubles. Sookie says, "What they didn't get was that (reckless and wild as my brother was) Jason's favorite person in the entire universe was Jason Stackhouse."^[1]

In the first book, Jason is suspected of killing a series of girls in Bon Temps. Videotapes of his sexual encounters with each girl were damning evidence against him. Jason is eventually found innocent. In later books he is implicated in other crimes, and despite his innocence these accusations continue to erode his reputation.

In Dead to the World, Jason disappears. This occurs shortly after he begins dating Crystal Norris from Hotshot, a community of werepanthers near Bon Temps. Finally, Sookie discovers that he was kidnapped by a jealous rival, who bit him repeatedly to turn him into a werepanther.^[1]

Jason is shown to greatly enjoy hunting with the panthers; but they don't fully accept him because he was bitten, not born.

Relationships

In the novels, Crystal gets pregnant with Jason's baby, but she miscarries. When she gets pregnant again, Jason happily marries her in a wedding in Hotshot. Sookie claims that Jason loves Crystal, but Crystal isn't sure that she loves Jason.^[2] The immature twosome quickly encounter marriage troubles, such as Crystal spending the household money on shopping instead of necessities. When Jason discovers that Crystal is having an affair, he tricks Calvin Norris and Sookie into catching her in the act. After that, Crystal moves back to Hotshot and Jason is shown to be dating other women.^[3]

Jason has been friends with Hoyt Fortenberry since they were children. Since Jason became a werepanther, their relationship has been strained; and it appears to end when Jason marries Crystal.

Jason then befriends werepanther Mel Hart, with unfortunate results. Crystal ultimately dies when she is crucified outside of Merlotts, and Jason again becomes a suspect, but eventually his innocence is proven.^[4]

Like Sookie, Jason has fairy ancestry. Other characters assume it is the source of his sexual attractiveness and conquests.

Television portrayal

In True Blood, an HBO series based on the books, this character is played by actor Ryan Kwanten.

In the series, Jason is introduced as Sookie's brother and a well-known ladies man in Bon Temps. Things start turning upside down for him when several women that he has been involved with are murdered, including his loving Grandmother, Adele Hale "Gran" Stackhouse.

The first victim is Maudette Pickens, a local married woman who periodically engages Jason in casual sex. It is discovered during one of these encounters, that Maudette had been paid one thousand dollars for a sexual relationship with a vampire. Maudette isn't ashamed of the fact, but Jason is skeptical about it. She also reveals that she videotaped the encounter. With this as a motive, Jason starts to have rough sex with Maudette with his hands around her neck. He later realizes she becomes unresponsive and assumes that he accidentally killed her. Frightened and scared, Jason packs up his things and runs out of the house.

Later Maudette is found dead in her home. The whole town assumes it's a vampire since it was known that Maudette enjoyed sexual encounters with vampires. However, Jason gets picked up by Detective Andy Bellefleur at his job and is interrogated. There it is discovered that Maudette videotaped her encounter with Jason, but was clearly alive after the sex, calling him an idiot and turning off the video camera. Jason then pleads his innocence, stating that he isn't smart enough to commit a murder. Still suspicious, the detectives let him go.

Jason then moves on to his ex-girlfriend Dawn Green (Lynn Collins). It is implied that the relationship ended due to Jason's philandering behaviour. Wanting to give him another chance Dawn gets involved with Jason once again. During sex, Jason finds vampire bite marks on her chest to which she accounts to hanging around to a period of which she frequented vampire nightclubs and encountered numerous vampires. Jason loses his erection and Dawn ridicules him, yells at him, kicks him out and ultimately fires a number of rounds at him. Dawn's neighbors overhear the commotion. The next morning, Dawn does not show up for work at Merlotte's and Sookie goes to her place, only to discover Dawn's dead body on the bed.

Jason later meets and falls in love with Amy (Lizzy Caplan), a psychopathic hippie V-juice addict who also is murdered under suspicious circumstances. Although Jason is a major suspect for all four murders (three of which are women with whom he has had sexual relations with and the other is his grandmother), it is finally revealed during the first season finale that all four murders are committed by Drew Marshall (also known as Rene Lenier). At this point, Jason's name is cleared although his reputation has suffered serious damage.

At the beginning of the second season, Jason joins the Fellowship of the Sun church, believing that God is guiding him to his destiny. Jason is inducted in the FotS's leadership program. Being favoured by the reverend Newlin and his wife, Sarah, he eventually moves in with them and starts a romantic relationship with the reverend's neglected wife, Sarah Newlin. Mistakenly led to believe that Steve, the reverend, has discovered her affair, Sarah attempts to shoot Jason. Jason barely escapes. At the close of the season, Jason shoots a knife-wielding Eggs Benedict Talley mistakenly believing that Eggs is threatening Andy. Eggs had been tormented by the terrible deeds the maenad Maryanne Foster had forced him to commit under her possession and had attempted to surrender himself to Andy by handing over the murder weapon (the knife). Jason is very protective of his sister, Sookie, and viciously attacked a man associated with the Fellowship of the Sun after he insulted Sookie.

In the third season, Jason and Andy work out a plan to pin the murder of Eggs on Andy. However, instead of coming down hard on Andy for murdering Eggs, the town praises Andy's heroics. This eventually gets to Andy's head and Jason, tired of letting Andy take all the credit, blackmails Andy into letting him join the police force. Throughout the season, Jason also pursues a mysterious Crystal Norris, who is hesitant on being with Jason due to her loyalty to her abusive father and boyfriend. Crystal later reveals that she and her family are from Hotshot, a town filled with werepanthers. The situation intensifies through the season as Jason tries to convince Crystal to abandon her town and her family for a life with him. In the end, Jason and Crystal tip off the Hotshot residents about a drug raid, but not before Crystal's half-brother and fiance Felton Norris, who is a V-addict, kills their father and kidnaps Crystal at gunpoint. Jason, helpless in the situation, promises to abide by Crystal's final request: he must take care of the other Hotshot residence in her absence. Later, in an act reminiscent of killing Eggs, Jason kills Franklin Mott, a sadistic vampire who had kidnapped and tortured Tara earlier in the season. Broken, Jason finally confesses his crimes, in particular the shooting of Eggs, to Sookie and Tara.

In the year since Sookie's disappearance, Jason has become a police officer partnering up with Andy Bellefleur. He, along with many other friends, had assumed Sookie had died and are shocked when Sookie reappears. Assuming she died, Jason had sold Sookie's house to an unknown company, later determined to be actually owned by Eric Northman.

True to his word, Jason continues to supply the Hotshot residents with food and supplies as he promised Crystal. On one of his visits, a resident traps him in an old freezer. He awakens later tied to a bed and is greeted by Crystal and Felton. They reveal that their intentions are to change him into a werepanther so that they can use him to breed more werepanthers with Crystal as Felton is infertile. After numerous women rape him, Jason, defeated and exhausted, refuses to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. He convinces her to free him, and Jason quickly escapes on foot. Felton doggedly pursues him as a werepanther, but Jason eventually kills him with a sharpened stick. Crystal is relieved to have Felton off her back, and wishes for Jason to return to Hotshot to resume his role as a "ghost daddy." Jason vehemently refuses the offer and runs off, only to collapse later on the roadside. He is then found by Hoyt Fortenberry and Jessica Hamby, who promptly revives him with her blood. As he is nursed back to health, he begins fantasizing about Jessica and, oddly, Hoyt.

Thinking he will turn into a werepanther through the upcoming full moon, Jason ties himself to his bedpost to protect others. Sookie finds him and learns about the situation - she assures him that she will make the best of the situation and will not shoot Jason. When night falls, Jason flees into the woods to protect Sookie, who subsequently chases him. Jessica, who is working at Merlotte's, senses Jason in fear (since she had fed Jason her blood) and quickly finds Jason to protect him. They eventually discover that he does not turn. Jason, relieved, bonds with Jessica. They eventually part ways, though not without some obvious sexual tension between them.

Jason is visited by Hoyt, who is clearly distressed by his relationship problems with Jessica. The next day, he looks for Sookie to tell her the good news about his non-turning but she is concerned about Eric, who has been bound by silver chains to prevent him from walking out into the sun (due to a dangerous witch spell by a newly resurrected Antonia). Realizing Jessica is in danger, Jason sprints to the mansion to rescue her. He is stopped temporarily by a guard, who he shoots (presumably non-fatally). He rushes to promptly save Jessica by throwing her back into the mansion. The spell is soon released and Jessica, indebted to Jason for saving her life, kisses him on the lips, which he returns. She apologizes and Jason places her back in bed under chains to rest and prepare for another possible spell. As per Bill's suggestion, Jason agrees to not report that Jessica killed the guard, a human. In turn, Jason would not be punished for the guard he shot "in the shoulder" outside. At night, Jessica visits Jason and tells him that she and Hoyt have broken up. Jason is angry that she would hurt his best friend and not only rejects her feelings for him but rescinds her invitation to his house.

The next day Jason gets a call from Hoyt - a possessed Lafayette has taken Arlene and Terry's baby and has threatened Hoyt with a gun. Jason responds to the call with Andy but cannot make much headway with Lafayette until Jesus comes and eventually puts the grieving mother spirit at peace. Later, Hoyt asks Jason to give Jessica a box of her belongings. Jason delivers the box - although he at first remains hesitant to get close to Jessica, they eventually make love in Jason's truck. Afterwards, Jason feels guilty knowing that it will ruin Hoyt if he finds out. He asks Jessica to glamour him to make him forget but she refuses and leaves angrily to feed on someone else.

Jason helps Sookie's cause to rescue Tara and other humans from Moon Goddess Emporium, which Bill plans to destroy in order to end the war with Antonia. He, Sookie, Jesus, and Lafayette approach the Emporium during daylight but Jesus discovers it is protected by a spell. Jesus proves his worth to Antonia by breaking through the barrier, and warns Sookie in his mind that Marnie has now turned sympathetic towards Antonia's cause. Soon the prisoners are broken free temporarily when the spell is lifted and Tara and Holly run out to the embracing arms of Sookie and Lafayette. Jason lags behind slightly and is caught on the outside of Antonia's newly cast spell, which causes everyone else to be cast inside the shop. When Pam, Jessica, Eric, and Bill come armed to defeat Marnie, they are unable to make any progress because of the barrier. Marnie asks Eric and Bill to sacrifice themselves for Sookie's release, and while they both agree, Pam does not and launches a rocket launcher at the barrier, causing a massive explosion and injuring Jason severely. Jessica feeds him her blood again. Eventually, Marnie casts a spell to draw the vampires towards the deadly barrier, but Jason holds them back long enough before the spell is broken (when Jesus draws Antonia out of Marnie). Marnie is then killed by Bill and the prisoners are released.

Jason tells Hoyt about his relationship with Jessica, and Hoyt does not take it well as he beats Jason up. Later that night, on Halloween, Jessica visits Jason and he invites her in. They have sex, and Jessica suggest they should just stay friends as she is not ready for a relationship.

At the beginning of Season 5, Jason is visited at home by Steve Newlin, who reveals he is a recently turned vampire and is a "Proud Gay American Vampire". Jason is uninterested in a relationship with Newlin and an angry Newlin attempts to bite Jason. Jessica arrives and threatens Newlin as she is basically the Queen of Louisiana since Bill is gone (unbeknownst to her, he and Eric are arrested by the Vampire Authority twice). Jason takes back his invitation from Newlin, who leaves immediately. Jason then goes to Merlotte's to see Hoyt, who is with his other 'true friends', but is coldly turned down. Jason still has feelings for Jessica and thinks the feeling is mutual, but upon going to visit her at Bill's she denies this, explaining she was just saying that to protect Jason from Newlin. Jessica is throwing a party, and Jason attempts to make a move on her but another guy makes a move before he can. A jealous Jason takes a sorority girl to have sex, but instead he takes her home.

Jason is later visited by an old school teacher with which he had sexual relations previously. They have sex but immediately afterwards Jason begins to feel like he is being used as a sex toy (as evidenced by his relationship with Jessica) and he runs from her home. Later on, Sookie visits Jason and emotionally confesses that she killed Debbie and had Tara turned into a vampire. Jason recommends that she keep things to herself. The next day Andy tells him that Debbie's parents have left because they found what they were looking for. Jessica then glamours him into forgetting about the case, doing Jason a big favor. That night he, Andy, and Judge Clemens take a trip to a Fairy nightclub and there Jason meets his cousin Hadley, who believes Sookie is dead after disappearing at the end of Season 3. She firmly believes that Sookie needs to be protected from vampires, though Jason believes otherwise. She lets slip that vampires killed Jason's parents (while he had thought it was a flood) but she runs away before revealing more information. Jason pursues her but things turn violent in the club and he and Andy are thrown out. The next morning Jason has a dream about his parents that turns violent when he visualizes their violent deaths by vampire fangs. He later tells Andy that the nightclub they had visited the previous night was indeed for fairies. Jason visits his parents' graves and seems to start believing that what Hadley had said is true. He visits Sookie and asks her to accompany him to the fairy club once more. Sookie is told that vampires did in fact kill her parents, and she angrily lashes out but her powers are fading - she eventually finds out since she is half fairy her powers will drain soon. Jason visits Jessica to find comfort about what he has discovered about his parents, and bonds with Sookie. He stops Sookie from draining all her powers and convinces her to use her powers to find out who killed their parents. They return to the fairy nightclub and attempt to connect with the spiritual world to discover their parents' killer. Sookie sees a vision but cannot identify the killer.

Jason is disheartened when he finds out that Hoyt wants to forget his time in Bon Temps and particularly wants to forget his first love Jessica, and Jason. Jessica glamours Hoyt, who then leaves town to go to Alaska. Jason stops him in the police cruiser to try and prevent him from leaving Bon Temps, but he knows that Hoyt is happier this way and reluctantly lets him go. Jason and Sookie dig closer to the truth in regards to their parents' murderer, and they learn that there is a war coming between the vampires and the fairies. Jason meets Jessica, who has been commanded by a psychopathic Bill to turn Jason into a vampire. Jason shoots both guards dead before he is turned, and learns from Jessica that Russel Eddington is on the loose. He then goes to warn Sookie and volunteers to guard the Stackhouse residence. When Russell and Reverend Newlin stop by, Jason is glamoured into giving away the location of the fairy nightclub. When the three of them arrive, Russell and Newlin cannot find the entrance - the Fairy Elder appears and stops Steve but falls prey to Russell, who then is able to see the entrance to the nightclub. Although the fairies combine forces to attempt to stop Russell, he cannot be stopped. Eric suddenly appears and stakes him. Jason begins having hallucinations of his parents, who begin turning him into an anti-supernatural bigot. When Eric and Nora request his and Sookie's help to snap Bill out of his trance, Jason agrees to come along if only to kill some vampires, which worries Sookie. When they infiltrate the Authority, Jason kills many vampires and guards the front desk while the others go about their business. Once Jessica and Pam are rescued, they take the elevator out while Sookie and Eric confront Bill. Jessica admits feelings for Jason but he rebuffs them, saying he cannot love a vampire.

When Season 6 begins, Jason is escaping the Authority with Jessica, Pam, Tara, Nora, Eric, and Sookie in order to evade the new Bill/Lillith entity that was created at the end of Season 5. On the news, the mayor indirectly declares war on vampires, calling for a vampire curfew and numerous other measures. Jason is ecstatic, but others are not as pleased. As the group takes refuge at a beach, Nora believes that Jason knows more about Lillith and Warlow, and glamours him into getting more information. Jason's growing hatred towards vampires intensifies and threatens to shoot Nora. The others see the conflict and Sookie says that Warlow was the enemy, not the entire vampire race. Jason takes this as Sookie taking the vampires' side, and he angrily storms off, leaving the party. He gets picked up by a mysterious driver. Jason shoots him when he thinks it is Warlow but it is only a vision and the car crashes. It turns out to be his fairy grandfather Niall, who has been watching over him his whole life. Niall warns of Warlow, who he discovers has escaped, and says his powers are not to be underestimated. When Sookie returns home, Niall introduces himself and later explains over dinner that the Stackhouses are part of a royal bloodline. He trains Sookie to control her powers. Later that night, Warlow attacks and Niall tries to catch him but fails. Jason gets ready for action but inexplicably collapses. The next day, Sookie tends to him as he recovers from his "concussion", during which Sookie reveals that their parents were not in fact racist against vampires but simply afraid of Sookie's powers. Later that night, Bill visits and restrains Jason while pleading Sookie for her blood so they can synthesize it. She refuses and their relationship is officially over.

Another attack occurs later that night and Niall discovers it is Nora, tracking Warlow as well. Jason convulses again and Ben Flynn, who turns out to be half vampire in addition to being half fae, gives him his blood. He recovers quickly, much to Sookie's surprise, and Jason, high on V, does a lot of pullups and has sexual fantasies of Ben. Concerned, he sees Niall and they conclude that Jason must've been fed V to hallucinate like that. They pursue Ben at his hotel room but get caught in his trap. Ben turns out to be Warlow, who glamours Jason into forgetting the whole situation and to not feel guilty about letting his grandfather fairy get captured by Warlow. Warlow eventually casts Niall into the same prison that he himself was trapped in. Back on the job and out of the house (Sookie has plans for Warlow), Jason and Andy go to a gas station to investigate where Andy's now-teen fairy godchildren have gone, but find that the clerk has been glamoured. When Jason returns home that night, he finds Sarah Newlin waiting for him outside, where she confesses that she has loved him ever since they met at the Fellowship of the Sun. They proceed to have sex. Afterwards, a distraught Jessica arrives and is still in shambles after killing most of Andy's fairy daughters but gets distracted when Sarah comes out and calls Jessica a dead vampire whore. Sarah is upset that Jason has had sexual relations with Jessica in the past. Jessica and Sarah struggle but Sarah eventually rescinds the invitation to the house, forcing Jessica out and right into the hands of the police that Sarah had called.

The next morning, Jason leaves a message for Sookie saying that he messed up with Jessica and has been acting irresponsibly as of late. He promises to make it up to her and everyone else. Jason then enters an army recruiting agency to join the LAVTF in order to rescue Jessica. He later shares stories with other soldiers, where he sees Sarah Newlin and privately tells her not to interfere with his plans. To torment Jason, Sarah takes him to see the fornication room, where Jessica and another man named James are supposed to have sex for research. James refuses to be a rapist and Jessica is taken away. Jason privately meets with Jessica and wants to take her away but she refuses, accepting her fate. She does ask to meet James, whom she would like to thank for being a gentleman, and Jason arranges this meeting, where James and Jessica make love. Sarah later throws Jason into Gen Pop now that the governor cannot protect him, but not before having his arm bled, making him vulnerable to the women vampires. Tara jumps to his protection. Violet claims Jason as her own as they get to know each other, and she successfully seduces him. Violet exclusively feeds on Jason in a special room and hence does not drink the tainted Trublood. When Eric, fueled by Warlow's blood, raids and kills all the guards in the compound, he finds Jason, drained of blood from Violet. Eric feeds him his blood to revive him, and Jason takes Eric to the "white room" where they discover that although Sarah has opened the hatch exposing the sun, Bill has entered the room and allowed himself to be fed on by all the vampires to give them immunity to the sun (although Steve Newlin is left to burn by Eric). Jason then realizes that Sarah is still on the loose so he chases her down and almost kills her, but eventually lets her go free because he doesn't want more blood on his hands. He and the rest of the vampire revelers celebrate at Bill's mansion, where he and Violet's relationship has intensified to the point where Violet does not allow Jason to even look at other women (like Jessica). Bill enlists Jason and Violet to ask for Andy and Adilyn's help to save Sookie from becoming Warlow's vampire/fairy wife. The group uses Adilyn's fae powers to teleport to the fairy realm where Sookie and Warlow are, where Jason shoots the chain binding Sookie and rescues her. Everyone but Bill and Warlow teleport back and they travel to Sookie's house to let Sookie rest. However, Bill and Warlow take their fight to the house, where Warlow locks Jason, Andy, and Adilyn in the cellar and knocks out Violet. Warlow finds Sookie in the bathroom and is about to take Sookie away when Niall returns from the dark realm and pins Warlow -- Jason, who has escaped thanks to Adilyn, then stakes Warlow.

Six months pass, and Hep V has mutated and transformed vampires into zombie-like creatures that run rabid at night. Jason and Violet have had a sexually active life but he has not had sex with her; Violet reminds him that she said she was going to make it hard for him. During a joint church session, newly elected mayor Sam announces that he and Bill have come up with a plan: to have all humans join in a monogamous relationship with a vampire in exchange for protection against Hep V mutated vampires, which is met with mixed reactions. Later, at the newly renamed Bellefleur's Bar & Grill, there is a party where all of Bon Temps enjoy food and drinks. Unbeknownst to them, a group of Hep V mutants are approaching the party.

References