Jake Long

Jake Long

Good

Gender Male

Hair color Black with Green tips

Eye color Black

Relationship Rose

Family Jonathan Long (Father) Susan Long (Mother) Haley Long (Sister) Luong Lao Shi (Grandfather) Gregory and Andrew (Cousins) Lee (Uncle)

Friends Fu Dog Trixie Carter Spud

Enemies Huntsman and Huntsclan Professor Hans Rotwood

Voice actor Dante Basco

Jacob "Jake" Luke Long is a young dragon who appears as a Chinese American teen who lives in New York City as its Magical Protector.

Personality

Jake in Season 2

Jake lives with his parents, Jonathan and Susan, and his eight-year-old sister, Haley Long. A descendant of a family of magical dragons, his two best friends are the feisty Trixie Carter and seemingly dimwitted Arthur "Spud" Spudinski.

On his thirteenth birthday, his magical abilities emerged fully and he was set to protect an underground magical community existing within his city and throughout the world. The emergence of his dragon powers also made him the first official magical dragon guardian of America; "The American Dragon". Under the training of his grandfather Lao Shi, and his animal guardian, Fu Dog, Jake would be taught in the methods of his dragon abilities, and his duties as a magical guardian. Due to his youth and while still in training, his territorial home base has initially been mainly restricted to the area of New York. However, anytime he is anywhere else in America, such as the forests of New Jersey during a camping trip with his father his authority extends to these other areas as well as he is destined to become the representative dragon for the whole country.

Although Jake Long is still in the early training stages to be the American Dragon, his destiny includes being the guardian, protector and champion to magical creatures secretly living alongside humans in and around New York City, and eventually the rest of the country. Among them are a herd of unicorns in Central Park, leprechauns on Wall Street, gargoyle nesting atop the Empire State Building, the Triborough Troll Bridge, a mystical community between NOHO and SOHO, and mermaids in the East River. According to his grandfather, the Greater New York is the American Dragon's territory and if he can make it here, he can make it anywhere. However that means Jake must figure out how to control his newly awakened dragon abilities, such as fire breathing, flying and shape-shifting; allowing him to perform his duties. Meanwhile, Grandpa must figure out how to decipher his hip-hop grandson's colloquial language style.

Jake lives in a Westside brownstone. His father, a businessman, is as human and American as apple pie, completely unaware he has married into a family of dragons. Jake's mother is a professional caterer who is also a dragon but without transforming capacity as often times dragon abilities may skip a generation. Jake tries to ignore his brilliant yet pesky younger sister Haley, a nascent dragon, to no avail. Jake's Dragon Master is his wise Grandpa and the former Chinese Dragon who, upon arrival to the United States, established an electronics shop on Canal Street and took Jake under his wing. Despite the generation gap, Grandpa is patiently training Jake to master the fundamentals of being a dragon, unlock his potential, and to be on time for his lessons. Grandpa's sidekick, the not-so-patient Fu-Dog, acts as Jake's animal guardian.

Jake initially comes off as the average, laid-back teenager who presents himself as the king of cool, and to a certain degree he is pretty cool. This is frequently proven by his tendency to keep up with the newest developments and styles, such as video games, popular music and extreme sports. Jake is shown to have a particular passion for skateboarding and is very proficient at it as well. Unfortunately, more often than not, Jake has a tendency to be stubborn and, at times, careless, both of which tend to come back and bite him in the end. He frequently looks for shortcuts in his day-to-day life and usually pays the price for this when he fails to think things through. Though, in Jake’s defense, the responsibilities that he has do prove to be rather overwhelming. Another flaw in Jake’s character is that he occasionally loses his focus of the task at hand, but he does usually regain it when he has to.

Also, there are times when Jake is far too cocky and a bit too quick to leap into action, which has often backfired on him, especially when dealing with opponents who are smarter than he gives them credit for. Fortunately though, when all is said and done, Jake proves to be a very responsible teenager, he is always quick to acknowledge when he’s the one at fault and always takes it upon himself to set things right no matter what. He is also shown to be very resourceful when he has to be, frequently coming up with very plans and strategies on the fly and knowing when to use his Grandfather’s lessons when they’re needed.

Jake is shown to care deeply for those around him, but he’s not always sensitive towards other people’s feelings. For example, he once spoke out against his father, Jonathan, which led to Jonathan feeling a bit hurt. He is shown to have a longstanding rivalry with his little sister, Haley, and he absolutely hates it when Haley lords her accomplishments over him and makes him look inferior by comparison. However, despite Jake’s issues with Haley, it is shown that he would not hesitate for a moment to help her when she needed him. Jake is, at times, put at odds with his grandfather, but even so, it is shown that he has nothing but respect for Lao Shi. He also has a very close bond with his Animal Guardian, Fu Dog.

Jake has nothing but loyalty towards his friends, Trixie and Spud, and they reciprocate this by being unquestionably loyal to him as well. At times, Trixie and Spud are often quick to inform Jake that his courses of action aren’t always right, but there are times when they go along with it and allow Jake’s actions to play out. Jake is also shown to be very trusting of his friends with almost everything, including his secret.

Finally, the person who Jake cares the most about is Rose. In one occasion, it was implied that he cares for her more than his own life. While many of his associates felt that Jake was making a mistake by having a crush on Rose (due to her identity as Huntsgirl), Jake still trusted his love interest fully, mainly because she once had the perfect opportunity to slay him yet passed it up. Jake had trouble letting Rose go at first, but it did seem clear that he genuinely wanted to move on. Though when all is said and done, Jake loves Rose more than anything and would never allow anything to happen to her.

It is implied that Jake is a bit superficial, but in truth, he does put some stock in a person general personality more than he does their appearance.

Jake's dragon form (season 1)

Jake's Dragon Form (season 2)

Dragon Abilities

As a dragon, Jake possesses many different supernatural powers and abilities. Some episodes of the series revolve around Jake gaining new powers or developing current ones. Here is a list of his currently known Dragon Powers:

1. Shapeshifting/Transformation: Jake has the ability to transform between his human-form, and his dragon form. The nature of the transformation shifted between Seasons 1 and 2. In Season 1, Jake's transformation was accompanied by flames that quickly ran across parts of his body (this was also usually accompanied by a small "transformation scene"). In Season 2, his dragon transformation is accompanied by an engulfing, thick, blue aura that usually would stem from his hands and cover his body as he transformed. Jake also is able to independently transform an individual part of his body (arms, legs, ears, eyes, etc.) into its dragon counterpart. It's revealed in "Shapeshifter" that he (as well as all dragons) possesses latent "all-purpose" transformation powers, which allows him to transform into any person he chooses. That ability, however, can only be accessed through use of a special potion, which also robs him of the use of his other dragon powers.
2. Flight: Just because Jake has wings doesn't mean he flies with wings alone. He gets a little help from his magic. With his wings, and his magic he can fly quite fast and he is quite maneuverable. It's an ability used frequently in combat - for dodging and attacking, alike - and also allows him to travel across the city in a quicker fashion. In "Body Guard Duty", Jake's highest (and only recorded) flight speed is clocked at 179 mph.
3. Super-strength/Dragon Claws: As a dragon, Jake possesses superhuman strength (or rather dragon strength). This ability is complemented by his dragon claws, which have been shown to be able to rip through solid concrete and other durable forms of matter. His feats of strength have been exhibited numerous times throughout the series, such as being able to hold or overpower large magical creatures (see "Family Business", "Breakout"), or be able to uphold large inanimate objects (see "The Legend of Dragon Tooth", "Hero of the Hourglass"). His claws can also pick locks, as seen in "Supernatural Tuesday".
4. Eye/Ear of the Dragon: As a dragon (and when he individually transforms his eyes or ears when in human form), Jake's vision and hearing are increased exponentially. He's able to utilize a natural form of infrared vision, allowing him to see through the darkness, and see at longer distances than normal. His hearing is able to pick out individual sources of sound, that may be either far away from him, or obscured by noise-blocking obstacles. These powers were used more often in Season 1 than Season 2, but they occasionally made appearances.
5. Fire-Breathing: A stable associated with any dragon mythology, Jake possesses the ability to breath fire at will. He's able to either produce a steady stream of flame, or concentrated balls of fire. Relating to this, there's also instances shown where Jake has the ability to somewhat manipulate the fire that he produces (see "Old School Training", "The Hunted", "Nobody's Fu"), where he's able to handle a fireball he produces without any harm to his hand.
6. The Doppelgänger Technique: A dragon power revealed and used in "The Doppelganger Gang". This power is revealed as an inherent skill all dragons possess: the ability to project one's personal chi into a temporary copy of one self - a doppelgänger. It's claimed as a helpful defensive technique, used to distract or fool enemies during battles. The ability to create multiple doppelgängers is possible, but at the cost of losing one's own life energy and causing themselves to become weaker overall. The turnout of a created doppelgänger depends on which of the chi amplifiers it is formed from; a doppelgänger formed from the positive purple chi amplifier will be good and always have its creator's back, while one formed from the negative green chi amplifier will be evil and turn its back on its creator (as evidenced by Jake's accidental creation of "Evil Jake" though Jake successfully reabsorbed him). Hence you get the saying 'You are your own worst enemy'
7. Dragon Armor: When in dragon form, Jake's skin is extremely tough and highly resistant to damage. Though, according to Rose, dragons have a soft underbelly. It has also been shown they have a weakness with the skin behind the left ear; a lethal strike in that area will result in instant death.
8. Dragon Tail: Like many dragons, Jake has a tail. Like his arms, it has impressive strength as well as excellent length and maneuverability. Jake occasionally uses it for a sneak attack upon an enemy (see "A Befuddled Mind") or to access objects out of his normal reach.
9. Dragon Feet: It gives Jake a little extra height. He only used it once while trying to kiss Rose in "The Ski Trip" and getting taller on a photo in "Supernatural Tuesday".

Notes

• Jake's address is 182 Shorn Eagle Dr, as mentioned in Bite Father, Bite Son.
• Jake and Rose's Voice Actors, Dante Basco and Mae Whitman, also voice Prince Zuko and Katara in Avatar: the Last Airbender.
• One or two viewers have noted that even though he is called the American Dragon, Jake is a European Dragon rather than an Amphithere, which is primary dragon in the myths and folklore of the Americas. The reason for this is probably that Amphitheres are virtually unknown in popular culture, so presumably animators opted for a more iconic species. Jake is also a Western Dragon.
• Jake is a dictionary example of an "anthrozil" from the book series Dragons In Our Midst, albeit more powerful than any anthrozil in the books. An anthrozil is someone who has one dragon parent in human form, and one pure-blood human parent.
• The Chinese word for dragon is 'long'.
• Jakes catchphrases are "Aww man!" and "Dragon Up!", which he says almost every time he turns into a dragon.
• Although Jake says he developed his dragon powers at 13, he displays a little bit of power at the age of 7, when he accidentally breathes fire during a race at Camp Mugwomp.
• Jake and crew had also appeared in "Morpholomew", a crossover episode of "Lilo and Stitch: The Series".
  • Through which places them in a shared universe with:
    1. Kim Possible
    2. Recess
    3. The Proud Family
  • Ingrid the Third from "Fillmore!" and two Middleton Cheerleaders, specifically called cheerleaders and not just in costume, from "Kim Possible" appear in the season 1 episode "Halloween Bash".

Gallery

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Jake Doing Ballet