Jasper Hale

'"You truly are one frightening little monster." - Jasper Hale

Jasper Whitlock Hale is a fictional character from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.

Personal History
Jasper Hale, formally known as Jasper Whitlock was born in 1843, and grew up in Houston, Texas. In 1859 when he was only seventeen he lied about his age, stating he was 20, and joined the Confederate States Army to serve in the Civil War. He quickly rose through the ranks, and became the youngest Major in the Confederate Army.

Jasper was turned into a vampire in 1863 by a vampire named Maria. He was 20 years old when this happened. Maria was fighting a territorial war for claim on the big cities in the south eg. Mexico City (the more people in the city, the more you can feed without gaining the notice of the humans, or the Volturi (who could be described as the Vampire High Council), who act as the pest control to keep the vampire world unnoticed by the human population). Jasper was turned because Maria recognized that he was high-ranking in the army, and therefore that he already has some knowledge of combat skills. She wanted a strong male vampire who could fight alongside her. When Maria found out about his peculiar ability to control the emotions of those around him, and calm an entire room of extremely volatile, new-born vampires, she found him even more useful.

Jasper's responsibility was to train the young vampires, and then kill them when they were no longer useful to Maria (after about a year, the strength of a new-born vampire begins to fade). After about a century of this, he grew wary of the lifestyle. An old vampire colleague of his, named Peter, persuaded him to escape from Maria. For a time, he wandered with Peter and his companion, Charlotte, but soon became aware that he was still depressed with so much human sacrifice. As a result, he ran away and wandered on his own, before he found Alice Cullen, who he later recognized as his true love, waiting for him in a half-empty diner in Philadelphia, where he was sheltering from the rain. She had seen through her prescience they would find the Cullens and live there together in relative peace. He has been with her ever since. He married Alice and she became Alice Whitlock, though when they are under the pretense of youth she reverts to being Alice Cullen around others.

The Cullens tell humans that Jasper is Rosalie's twin brother; for this purpose, they both take the Rosalie's surname "Hale". Rosalie and Jasper are pretending to twins, and foster children to Esme and Carlisle. Out of the whole coven, Jasper has the hardest time being around humans, due to his untrained upbringing as a young vampire in an army environment. He was not taught control or how to regulate his blood lust. Edward states that all human blood is equally tempting to Jasper, unlike the rest of the family, who can notice the variations in blood scent in different humans. Jasper is tired of being the "weakest link," and has taken a bet with his brother, Emmett, that in the year after Bella Swan, Edward's girlfriend is turned, she will kill a great number of humans because of her temper and impatience. This is only because Jasper no longer wishes to be seen as weak.

Appearance
Jasper is 6' 3" tall, has golden honey blond hair and is muscular, but lean. Being a vampire, he has extremely pale skin and bruise-like purple shadows under his eyes, and is also extraordinarily good-looking. He has gold eyes, like all animal-feeding vampires, but they turn blacker as he gets thirstier. He has many crescent shaped scars on his arms from the vampire bites he got while fighting for dominance with Maria's coven, but are very difficult to see since they are white on white.

Vampire Abilities
Some vampires have extra abilities beyond the norm which is an amplification of an ability they had as a human eg. an intuitive mind could be able to read minds as a vampire. Jasper's extra ability is being able to manipulate the emotions of those around him because of the extraordinary charisma he had as a human. He is also an empath, meaning that he can feel all the emotions of the people who surround him. As all other vampires, he also has super strength and speed, granite hard skin, immortality, and a keen sense of smell and hearing. In Eclipse, during the training Jasper gives the Cullens and Quileutes, it is noted that Jasper was on par with Edward's skills despite Edward's mind reading ability. This is seen during their sparring which only stopped when Carlisle hinted for them to stop suggesting that it could have continued perhaps indefinitely.

Personality
Jasper could be mistaken for cold because of his highly analytical and military mindset. However, his relationship with Alice displays his warmer side. The fact that he suffered depression after his years in Maria's service suggests a strong sense of conscience and grief over his perceived wrong-doings. When he was human he is described as having been extremely charismatic and therefore as having been extremely likeable. It also shows that he is a strong and forceful leader through his rapid ascent through the ranks of the Confederate Army. The fact that he is always a soothing presence shows that he wishes others to feel good and at ease and will do his best to make that occur. Jasper is highly intuitive but also never takes advantage of his miraculous gift which shows he is not a malicious soul as he could manipulate anyone to do as he pleases but he chooses not to. In the opening chapter of the yet to be published Midnight Sun Jasper is shown as being deeply ashamed of his urge to drain the life from the humans around him. It also shows that he has what could be described as a lower thirst threshold in that he has trouble controlling his thirst sooner after feeding than the others.

Trivia
He is the only Cullen who does not have a car. However, he has a motorcycle that Edward gave to him.

Movie Portrayal
It was announced on February 19, 2008 that Jackson Rathbone would play Jasper in the upcoming Twilight movie.