(no subject)

[windowtothesoul]

→ IC
□ Name: Joe Carroll
□ Journal: windowtothesoul
□ Series: The Following
□ Canon point: Let Me Go (1.7)
□ History: http://thefollowing.wikia.com/wiki/Joe_Carroll
That link doesn't cover everything so I'll expand a bit. Headcanon will be in "bold italic."
Joe's interest in the macabre started at an early age. He found an outlet in Gothic Literature. He became particularly interested in the works of the American Romantic period but specifically those of Edgar Alan Poe. His stories fed the dark desires inside him and allowed his fantasy life to explore darker and darker turns. He came to the United States to go to University and later become a professor of Literature. He met his wife Claire sometime in that period. It's possible they met when they both were graduate students. I like to think they met in that period. However, it's also possible they met when they were professors at the same university. I'll be going with the former until canon proves otherwise.
Joe took on an ambitious project which was to finish Poe's last unfinished work, The Lighthouse. It was his life-long desire ever since he first read the story as a boy. He wanted to create something so amazing that the world would recognize his and his idle's genius. Something that would change lives in the way Poe's work changed his. Unfortunately his book was ill-received. It was completely torn apart by critics and had dismal sales on its first print. That was the trigger for his killings. Over next couple years he kills 14 female students. I'll talk more about how it triggered the killings in the personality section below.

□ Personality: Like many serial killers, Joe has fantasied and had an interest death since a young age. At the same time it wasn't something he acted on outside of the fantasy realm. Outside of writing. He used the works of Edgar Allan Poe as a sort of blueprint for his life. Of course, it is very skewed version, in that the works can be interpreted many different ways. But what draws him to it is the death of beautiful women and how Poe treats it. This bought Joe to the idea that true beauty comes in death. Something else he drew from Poe's work is creating a unique moral code that is distinctly his, that disregards existing laws and conventions and that code doesn't become apparent until he begins to kill(which I'll talk about shortly).

Joe himself is very smart and wants people to recognize his genius unless it serves a purpose to be under estimated. He is also a teacher down to his very core. He wants to share his knowledge and move people with his discoveries. Knowledge and freedom, to him, are things to be shared. Breaking free of conventions and becoming something more than you are is to reach your greatest potential. Unfortunately, in his case, being free is to kill, where before he was restrained by law and social consequences.

Some other core personality traits is massive amounts of charisma and ability to engage people and make them feel wanted or important or just giving them a feeling of belonging. He seems to understand human motivations very clearly. What people need to hear to make them feel relaxed or belonging. He has a very disarming charm and personality that even fooled, Ryan Hardy, the man who eventually caught him.

Now, Joe always had the urge to kill in him but what finally brought it to the surface and make him act on his fantasies was the failure of his book, The Gothic Sea. A complete rejection of everything he was trying to share with the world, a rejection of his genius and that of Poe's. He had poured so much of his heart and soul into it that its initial failure drove him to act outside conventions, break free and act on his own moral code.

His moral code relates to who and how he chooses his victims. His main victims were all young women who attended his classes. There were others he killed out of necessity such as Sarah Fuller's roommate but his goal was always the women he had in class. The ones he connected to and truly understood his message that death is a beautiful thing. It's those women, according to his code, would be the only ones to appreciate their own death. That leads me to something else he did to his victims. He took out their eyes, the eyes being, to him, the window into the soul. Where he would see the beauty of death slowly creep over them. The eyes were not just eyes, the represented so much more which is why he took them.

Within canon its suggested that he obtains sexual pleasure and even an erection from killing these girls. While Ryan Hardy(the man who stopped him) makes a point of saying that's too simplistic to describe what Joe does. To Joe it's not just that it's also art. An art to be appreciated and shared.

His last victim before he was caught was Sarah Fuller who survived due to Ryan Hardy finding them before Joe could finish. Even after Joe had nearly killed him by nicking his heart with his knife, Ryan managed to stop him. Joe spent the next nine years behind bars.

That brings us to the next part of his personality that by far is the most frightening. Joe decided he would write a new story, he would write this story in reality. He became obsessed with a new idea. He would build a world where people that think like him are accepted, a following, a cult. But that wasn't all there is to the story. Ryan, whom he does hate but also respects and thinks highly of, would be the flawed hero for his new story.

It's hard to say if Joe is even fully in reality anymore with how obsessed he is with continuing his story, casting characters and revealing chapters. Though his own admission, he's cast Ryan as the flawed hero. So he does have some understanding that what he(Joe) does is not accepted or even right. His actions toward Ryan are very perplexing. He clearly enjoys torturing Ryan by telling him these deaths are his fault but he doesn't want him dead. He's had more than one chance to kill Ryan and in the most recent one (1.7) he expresses that he wants Ryan to see the conclusion to the story and that dark parking garage is no place for the hero of the story to die.

Joe's intentions are not completely clear in regards to Ryan or his own plans. It's certainly apparent he wants Ryan to suffer but wants him alive.

There are other notable relationships in Joe's life. That of his wife Claire and his son Joey. Claire divorced him for obvious reasons after he was put on trail but Joe does tell her and say to many others that he does truly love her. He even says she is the only woman he has ever loved. He expresses a strange understanding to those who become attracted to her saying "It's easy to fall for a woman like Claire." Claire is another reason that I think he became so fixated on Ryan Hardy. Ryan and Claire had an affair after the divorce was finalized. Their affair didn't last due to Ryan's own issues but I think that made him more attractive to be cast as a flawed hero. By that time, Joe had a few follows who told him about the goings on outside his cell and it's obvious he knows about the affair.

Both Claire and Joey hold a special place for him and does wish to be together again with them. He wants them with him in his new society he's trying to build.

Now, Joe and his followers. His followers are other killers and want to be killers. They're people he's used powerful charisma and likability on to get them on his side. They're people who reached out to him while he was in prison or right before. Emma, I believe, was his first follower. A young girl completely infatuated with him. She's also the one he chose for the most important assignment. Her name was changed and she wormed her way into Claire's home as Joey's nanny.

His other followers all have been assigned similar tasks and important assignments. None of them have the full picture of Joe's ultimate plan either, not even Emma. This network of killers he's made, he uses them to help write this story of his.

□ Age: Late 40s
□ Gender: Male
□ Appearance: Joe is a tall middle aged man. He's in good shape but starting show a little extra weight on him. He has dark hair that's just starting to gray.
□ Abilities/Powers: Other than being extremely intelligent and skilled with the blade he doesn't have any beyond human special abilities.
□ Personal Items:
The collected works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Knife
Suit
Black track suit.

□ First Person Sample: http://dear-mun.dreamwidth.org/6881979.html?thread=215310267#cmt215310267
□ Third Person Sample: http://treebizarre.dreamwidth.org/18291.html?thread=2178419#cmt2178419