one of many things I love about Jack though is what a dirty fighter he is. like if you actually manage to coax this man into a physical fight, he will use every trick in the book to try and gain the upper hand ( and this is why I’m always ?????? at his duel with Christophe in TPOF. like I get the purpose it served in the novel but I still think it’s something where Jack’s character could have been written differently ), and one of his favourite techniques is by utilising his environment. he’s great at improvising with weapons by grabbing the nearest oar or plank of wood or whatever he has to hand and using it creatively to try to even the odds -- because, importantly when it comes to fights, Jack is frequently, if not mostly, outmatched. he has to rely on agility and intelligence to win a fight rather than brute strength ( and he also knows he’s not the greatest swordsman ) so he will never engage in a straight sword fight, he’ll always be trying to bend the rules to give himself an advantage.
something Jack is also good at is not getting too emotionally invested during a fight. he’s very good at thinking rationally and strategically -- usually about how to escape/flee/disarm his opponent rather than outrightly killing them -- and I honestly can’t recall a SINGLE sword fight he’s been a part of where he’s let his emotions get the better of him, either. but what does he do? he plays on the emotions of others by provoking them B)))
and this is another thing I want to talk about: why does Jack like winding people up so much? especially knowing how much of a keen survival instinct he has; it’s very contradictory that he cares so much about survival and yet he’d gladly put that at risk for the sake of a well-timed jibe or taunt that could easily end in him being run through. so, for one, he genuinely gets a huge amount of satisfaction out of it tbh, particularly when he dislikes the person he’s goading or if he detects something false, insecure or ignorant about their front or character. he enjoys proving people wrong and hates both ignorance and stupidity ( this is what makes him an ENTP af because he loves debate and wordplay and playing devil’s advocate ), so he will go to great lengths to make fools out of those people ( particularly if they’re of a high status. the matter of class actually factors into this a lot tbh ). also, I think part of his provocative nature is a form of recklessness and self-destruction. Jack is not overtly self-destructive, but there are very subtle ways that showcase it, and his insistence on always getting the last word in and provoking his enemies deliberately is one of the biggest ways in which he does this.
and finally, I think a reason why he loves playing the wind-up merchant is because it gives him an outlet for a lot of the pain and frustration and anger that he lives with and has built up over the years. he tries to avoid lashing out in violence when he’s angry, so using words as his weapon instead is a viable and effective alternative for him -- especially since he can run rings around people with his vocabulary and wit and is much more successful with that than he is in a fight. and again, this plays into how potentially dangerous he is as an individual, because everything he does is so calculated.
