Characters / Borderlands: Jakobs

Spoilers Off for games prior to Borderlands 3 as well as for spoiler characters that are marked as such. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

Borderlands Character sheets
Playable Vault Hunters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Krieg) | The Pre-Sequel (Claptrap) | Borderlands 3
Supporting Characters: Borderlands | Borderlands 2 (Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC) | The Pre-Sequel | Borderlands 3
Spinoffs and other media: Tales from the Borderlands | Tiny Tina's Wonderlands | New Tales from the Borderlands | Other media
Weapon Brands: Atlas | Dahl | Hyperion (Handsome Jack) | Maliwan | Jakobs | Torgue | Tediore | Other Weapon Brands
Other: Bandits and Bandit Factions (Children of the Vault) | Hodunk and Zaford Clans | Creatures (Eridians and Vault Monsters) | Raid Bosses

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"The Jakobs family has been assembling quality firearms for over 300 years, and although the world has changed quite a lot since Montgomery's grandfather bolted on the sandalwood grip of the company's first revolver, our family tradition and commitment to building a superior product is still as true as ever. The employees at Jakobs may not all share the same last name anymore, but we're still family. And we want you to join us. When you invest in a Jakobs, you're not only getting the most powerful firearm money can buy; you're also joining the biggest family of satisfied gun owners the world over. Whether you're shouldering one of our renowned rifles or staring down the barrel of one of our timeless pistols, you can be sure each and every shot packs the reliability and strength that only a Jakobs can offer."

Founded by the Jakobs family and headed by Montgomery Jakobs, the Jakobs corporation prides itself on high-quality firearms with a classical aesthetic. Their guns often feature wooden handles, making them a rarity among manufacturers.

Jakobs guns generally feature high damage, high accuracy and critical damage bonuses at the cost of tiny magazines, long reloads and no elemental damage. As of the second game, their guns simply fire as fast as you can press the fire button and often feature hidden bonuses to critical hit damage. As a rule, Jakobs does not manufacture shields (bar one, the Rough Rider in 2) or grenades.

In Borderlands 3, they've augmented their guns with the ability to ricochet shots from enemy to enemy upon scoring a critical hit. They are also involved in the war against the COV after Montgomery was assassinated.

General

In General

• Aerith and Bob: All known members of the Jakobs family have unusual first names contrasting with their rather mundane last one. The list include Singleton, Maddox, Montgomery and Wainwright.
  • Curiously enough, while all of the above names don't really function as first names in real life, they do exist as surnames.
• The Aesthetics of Technology: Jakobs weapons all resemble antiques ripped straight from a western (except for the high end models that include a wheel as the magazine) or World War 2 at the very latest, complete with plenty of wooden components.
  • They don't stray far from this in Borderlands 3, though some of their guns seem to now come with a few futuristic accoutrements.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: At their worst, anyway. While they're a multi-galaxy-spanning MegaCorp that has plenty of abuses of workers that we've personally seen, such as letting their workers die at Pandora's Jakobs Cove and leaving Gehenna to die after bombing it back to the 1860s... they made a point of staying out of the Last Corporate War, and come across as far better than their competitors.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Jakobs doesn't make a single design that doesn't look like it dates back to 1950 at best, and these designs frequently square up against lasers, elemental capacitors, and E-Tech... and often win.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Especially relevant with Jakobs guns, as they have a greater crit multiplier than other manufacturers. In 3 critical hits also make bullets ricochet to another target giving them a degree of crowd control as long as you're a decent shot.
• Badass Family: Being a crack shot is evidently expected of the Jakobs family, which is why Wainwright feels like an Inadequate Inheritor due to being half-blind (though still very capable with shotguns).
• Beware the Silly Ones: Despite making weaponry that'd be primitive even today, Jakobs is nonetheless one of the most dangerous corporations out there. Not only do they make some of the most outrageously lethal firearms in the Borderlands universe, but it's heavily suggested that they or their management have a very strong grasp of how to use the Eridian-derived technology, going by the Jakobs Manor's Vault puzzle and the blacksite on Gehenna.
• Bilingual Bonus: Their "Skookum" line of rifles comes from an American Aboriginal word for "strong."
• Boring, but Practical: Downplayed. Jakobs guns are far from aesthetically-boring and they usually have the highest average damage per shot count, but they virtually never have elemental damage (Save for a few Uniques throughout the series) thus there is no Damage Over Time, aside from a few very rare exceptions. That said, Jakobs weapons are generally so high in quality that high-rarity Jakobs guns may generally last you for quite a while. Jakobs pistols in particular are commonly said to be the best pistols for general use in 2 and The Pre-Sequel, lacking any bells and/or whistles but hitting like a truck all the same.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: 3 reveals that Typhon DeLeon came up with their slogan after seeing Montgomery take out a creature in one shot. Monty liked it so much that he made it official.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: The Jakobs corporation is stationed on Eden-6, a Single-Biome Planet that's effectively one single large swamp. They also have a facility on Pandora in very similar terrain.
• Characterization Marches On: Compare the hilariously negligent characterization of Jakobs from The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned with their surprisingly caring attitudes and business practices in Borderlands 3. Monty Jakob's characterization in 3 serves to somewhat bridge the two depictions, and their facility on Gehenna in A Fistful of Redemption makes it clear that, whatever their leadership is like now, they have as many skeletons in their closet as any other corporation.
• Crippling Overspecialisation: With the exception of a very small handful of Legendary and Unique guns from Borderlands 2 onwards, Jakobs guns never have elemental capacitors, and so tend to be less effective against armoured or shielded targets. That being said, they're still capable of some high damage numbers, often more than enough to punch through that defense anyway with critical hits.
• Critical Hit Class: Pretty much sums up Jakobs as a manufacturer, particularly with their new gimmick in 3.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The lack of an auto-firing option in 2 can easily set down several users from hammering shots in accord with its maximum firing speed, especially when the Jakobs gun in question is an assault rifle. Fulfilling the firing speed, on the other hand, allows a hilariously large damage output from their respective magazine sizes.
• Family Business: The Jakobs corporation has been owned and operated by the Jakobs family, with Montgomery being the current president and his son Wainwright as the heir.
• Gatling Good: In 3, Jakobs produce automatic weapons in the form of rare rifle variants that also function as hand-cranked gatling guns. They even make a Legendary rifle called the Gatling Gun, which functions a lot more like a Vladof spinigun barrel - only MUCH faster.
• Green Rocks: Core, or malleus mutatio, the Applied Phlebotinum behind the advancements they developed (and left behind) in their Black Site on Gehenna. Its closest real life parallel seems to be uranium, as it was used as the core component in a Fantastic Nuke and has mutagenic properties (just like radiation does). However, it's far more naturally volatile, sizzly, and aggregates in crystals like native sulfur.
• Hand Cannon: The longest pistol barrel in Borderlands 2 is of Jakobs manufacture, although ironically the guns actually named "Hand Cannon" are Torgue pistols with either Bandit, Dahl, Maliwan, or Tediore barrels.
• Honest Corporate Executive: Jakobs seems to be legit in their ideals of honesty and family values. They're also relatively pro-environment, as their operations on Eden-6 have mostly left the planet's ecosystem unharmed save for the logging facilities used to collect the wood used in their weapons and other products.
• Hufflepuff House: Aside from playing a minor role in the "Zombie Island of Dr. Ned" DLC, Jakobs as a corporation has relatively little attention given to it until 3, where the Jakobs family are the central focus of the Eden-6 plotline.
• I Call It "Vera": The Legendary "Maggie" Pistol, which Monty evidently named after his own wife.
• More Dakka: Subtler than most examples, but the Masher pistols and assault rifles fires more than one bullet with a single trigger pull and you can fill the room with lead if you fire fast enough.
• Moral Myopia: The Jakobs Corporation is beloved on its main planet, Eden-6, where its workers truly are treated as family, and readily form a resistance out of personal loyalty to the Jakobs family when Aurelia takes over on behalf of the Children of the Vault. Their treatment of their workers on Pandora, however, is negligent and callous, and their Black Site on Gehenna devastated the world's ecosystem so badly its people refuse to speak Jakobs' name.
• More Dakka: A Jakobs pistol or assault rifle can empty its clip really quickly and messily, although overall dakka levels are kept down by clip size and how fast you can pull the trigger (assuming it's not a Sniper).
• New Old West: Their guns are all western-themed in a futuristic setting.
• Non-Elemental: Elemental Jakobs guns are exceedingly rare. With the exception of a few Uniques and the Hot Mama, Jakobs guns never have any elements attached aside from a few explosives here and there. 3 introduced more: King/Queen's Call, Rowan's Call, The Companion, Seventh Sense, Clairvoyance and Wedding Invitation.
• Pinball Projectile: In 3, their guns gain the ability to ricochet to other enemies upon critical hits. This gets especially silly with the Wagon Wheel, which spreads out six on crits. And the Duc, which fires out two on crits. Which are then remotely detonated.
• Pistol-Whipping: The Law, one of the two best firearms in Borderlands 2 for melee specialists (and possibly the best once the Order shield is equipped), is a Jakobs wheelgun with a nasty bayonet.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: While the first shot a Jakobs gun fires is usually quite accurate, follow up shots end up going everywhere at once thanks to their vicious recoil and slow recoil recovery, combined with their ability to fire as fast as you pull the trigger.
• The Rival: As of Borderlands 2, they have an especially vitriolic relationship with Hyperion, frequently badmouthing them in their radio ads.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Jakobs handguns always take the form of revolvers and pack quite a punch. Their high rate of fire is represented by fanning the hammer like a Western gunslinger. Jakobs sniper rifles also often use a revolver mechanism: in Borderlands 1 and 2 their sniper rifles use Colt's mid-19th century revolver rifles with another kind of mechanism — a pump action in Borderlands 1 like the Colt Lightning carbine, and Borderlands 2 upgrades to the more modern and still nowadays ubiquitous bolt action.
• Samurai Cowboy: Downplayed. While Gehenna is the biggest example of this trope, echoes of Japanese culture and aesthetics are still present elsewhere, mixing with the Cattle Punk essence of this corporation: ranging from the clothes the customer service lady wears in 1's Jakobs Cove DLC, to the architectural style of Jakobs Manor.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: The Shoddy, either Jakobs has a subsidiary that makes gag weapons, it's a genuine knockoff and the game is gently aware of this trope, or it's a failure and their marketing department is trying to spin it as being this. Either way, it's advertised as "100% genuine Fakobs". It's certainly got the performance of a knockoff - the pellets instantly fall to the ground the second they leave the muzzle.
• Skill Gate Characters: Sadly, a lot of Jakobs guns fall into this category in 2 on Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (and OP levels) and in 3 on higher Mayhem levels. While Jakobs guns are truly devastating on early to late game in normal modes they usually are outclassed by other elemental guns since enemies become so bulky in high difficulty modes that without elements they just cannot do enough damage to keep up, let alone surpass other brands. Most exceptions usually defy the non-elemental rule of Jakobs guns.
• Slogans: "If it took more than one shot you weren't using a Jakobs!"
• Small Girl, Big Gun: One of Jakobs's rifles is as long as Gaige is tall.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Downplayed. While Jakobs Coach Guns, Longriders, Scatterguns, Bushwhacks and Quads are by no means bad (in fact their accuracy and damage are very good), their recoil kicks hard and their signature tiny (often single-shot) ammo capacity means you spend a lot of time reloading. Jakobs, however, is very good at loading multiple-slug bullets into other kinds of guns, with things like the Masher/Maggie (shotgun pistol) and the Skullmasher (shotgun sniper rifle).
  • However, if you play as Gaige and have the Anarchy skill, you might actually want to use a Jakobs shotgun, because their tiny magazines and the constant reloads you'll do as a result can make you easily rack up 30 stacks or more in a single gun fight.
  • Played much straighter in 3, as Jakobs makes a much wider range of shotguns, probably the most varied range of any manufacturer^note Pump-Action, Semi-Auto, Lever Action, weird crank pump action or Break Action, with two-shot, tube or box magazines and drums on some Legendaries, that allow you to put that high damage to much better use.
• Simple, yet Awesome: The Jakobs design philosophy. They don't look as futuristically fancy as other weapons — even at higher rarity levels, their Bling-Bling-BANG! doesn't match the aesthetic touches given to other manufacturers at the same level. They're almost always Non-Elemental, and always have small magazines(their shotguns are often single shot). However, their statistics are consistently off the charts, and when they hit, they hit hard. A Jakobs sniper rifle with a reasonable rarity can last many levels beyond when the player picked it up.
• Sniper Pistol: If a Jakobs pistol doesn't fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, it's probably this. Case in point, the Rex from Borderlands 2 and the Unforgiven from Borderlands 3, which are incredibly slow but boast ridiculous critical damage.
• Sniper Rifle: In two flavors:
  • For the DMR/Battle Rifle, look no further than a Jakobs Assault Rifle; sure, they're semi-auto only, but given their high damage, and Jakobs being the Critical Hit Class of the manufacturers, they fit well in that role.
  • Their snipers are slower bolt-action weapons, but given the raw damage numbers that they're capable of, it's probably more accurate to label them as anti-materiel rifles. Notably, in Borderlands 2, a bolt-action blue-quality Jakobs far often outdoes a semiautomatic one in terms of damage.
• Starter Equipment: Nisha, fittingly, starts every new game of Pre-Sequel with an Ornery Iron with fixed Jakobs parts plus a sight. In Borderlands 2, if you paid the Premiere Club DLC, you start with a Gearbox-branded Jakobs rifle.
• Steampunk: Their non-weapon products (phonographs, chests, etc.) seem to have this bent, with a bit of Diesel Punk and futuristic additions thrown in.
  • Their installations on Gehenna however, take a full nose-dive into Art Deco.
• Talking Weapon: Strange as it may sound, Jakobs has one; the Hot Mama, an Effervescent sniper rifle whose voice module speaks with a seductive tone and flirts with the user.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • While the standing as a corporation can still be morally questioned^note The Zombie Island DLC of 1 showed them as having Bad Boss tendencies, not evacuating their workers from the zombie apocalypse-ravaged island they own, and being absurdly ineffective at doing much of anything to help those still stranded on the island. While this may not make Jakobs a straight example of the Token Good Teammate, it's still probably an improvement over working at Hyperion., Jakobs is at its closest to ever be docile to its consumers and employees, without pushing radical militarism, brute advertising, or comedic abuse of workers compared to other companies - the workers on Eden-6 genuinely like working for them. Also, unlike corporations such as Hyperion, it stayed out of the Last Corporate War. It is also noted that it has been aware of Hyperion's unstable leadership and how it functions.
  • Zig-zagged in ''3'', though. On the one hand, it's shown that Monty Jakobs was a Benevolent Boss to his employees as well as actively trying to prevent the Vault of Eden-6 from falling into the wrong hands. The company cultivated a family-like atmosphere that results in the people on Eden-6 being deeply loyal to the actual Jakobs family and hating Aurelia for her takeover. On the other hand, the Bounty of Blood DLC for 3 reveals that they were involved in extremely dangerous experiments in bioweaponry rivaling even the Eridians and nuking Gehenna to hide what they did.

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Jakobs Family

Wainwright Jakobs

Yes, THAT Jakobs

Voiced by: David Wald

The son of Montgomery Jakobs, the heir to the Jakobs corporation, and Sir Hammerlock's boyfriend.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Hammerlock calls him "Winny".
• Badass in Distress: Of sorts. Gets possessed by an eldritch artifact and captured by Eleanor, the leader of the Cultists on Xylourgos, and thus, most of Guns, Love, & Tentacles revolves around trying to save him from himself (and the psycho cult that kidnapped him).
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Despite the fact that his company specializes in precision firearms and dreaming of being a gunslinger as a kid, he's half-blind and thus a naturally terrible shot. Thankfully, Typhon DeLeon recognized this and told Wainwright he'd be better off using shotguns.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: He seemed to think he was doing this with Hammerlock, since he thought that his father blamed Hammerlock for pulling him away from the company. It's unconfirmed if Monty actually felt this way, though.
• Drink-Based Characterization: An enjoyer of finely aged whiskey (which he overindulges in when his partner goes missing).
• Handicapped Badass: He's been blind in one eye since he was a kid, meaning he's a terrible shot with any gun that requires precision. He compensated for this by getting really good with shotguns on Typhon DeLeon's suggestion, and he puts them to good use against Troy the Ratboy.
• Hayseed Name: While his first name is weird, and his last one is normal, the GL&T script read reveals his middle name to be Del Frisco.
• Gay Cowboy: Well, an uranic Southern Gentleman that would not exactly be out of place in a secession era story (or the Space Western that Borderlands as a whole is), but close enough.
• Genre Blind: In "Guns, Love, and Tentacles", it's clear that he has never seen a horror movie and would last about thirty seconds in one, and given that the DLC is basically a horror movie, he does exactly that.
  • First, he goes out into the creepy town he's having his wedding in all by his lonesome, and doesn't think that maybe not going out into the creepy town without backup (Amara, Zane, FL4K and Moze notwithstanding) would be a good idea.
  • Second, upon hearing creepy chanting and evidence of occult activity, rather than turn around and go back the way he came, he somehow mistakes it as a themed-wedding and barges right in, hoping to get some advice on what to do during his wedding. This leads to a shootout the moment he figures that the cult will be adding him to the list of sacrifices.
  • Third, after the shootout ends with the present group of cultists dead all around him, he notices the cursed artifact (a ring) that has conveniently rolled to his feet and puts it on (or rather, the ring puts itself on), leading to him getting possessed by the spirit bonded to it. This results in the Vault Hunters mounting an extremely bloody crusade to save his life, which, admittedly, does do a lot of good for the people of Xylourgos.
• Inadequate Inheritor: His logs found through Eden-6 show that he sees himself as such. He's a terrible shot, which for a gun company known for its precision and "one bullet, one kill" attitude is pretty bad. He also prefers peace and quiet, and has no interest in business ventures. He actually felt Clay was a more suitable man to run Jakobs. It's never quite confirmed if his father actually saw him this way, but Hammerlock doesn't believe Wainwright is as inadequate to run the company as he thinks he is.
  • Ironically, his father thought that he was an inadequate predecessor because he felt he didn't accomplish much in life.
• I Shall Taunt You: Wainwright irks Troy Calypso by calling him "Ratboy" and saying he has to suck on Tyreen's teat just to survive.
• Last of His Kind: The sole remaining Jakobs heir by the time of the game.
• Law of Inverse Recoil: A rare playing straight of this trope in an universe where every other gun has (mostly) realistic recoil, and a fairly egregious one at that - Wainwright not only holds his shotgun with one hand and remains perfectly straight while firing it, it's (obviously) a Jakobs, which have famously high recoil. Possibly justified, as shotguns are his weapon of choice and he has gotten really good at using them.
• The Nicknamer: He refers to Troy as "Ratboy" and Aurelia as "the harpy".
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Delivers an impressive one right before introducing Troy Calypso to the smoking end of a Jakobs shotgun:
  Wainwright: Fill your hands, you zealot scum!
• Prematurely Bald: He has a massive bald spot on the back of his head.
• Queer Establishing Moment: No later than around a minute and a half after you meet him in person:
  Wainwright: Alistair Hammerlock, love of my life. If they kill him, I got nothin' left.
• Ragin' Cajun: A Fantasy Counterpart Culture variant. He's as badass as they come, thickly accented and lives in a bayou; he just so happens to not be from Earth.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Wisely sides with the Crimson Raiders and makes the Jakobs company a dependable ally, once they help him have full reign over the company.
• Shared Family Quirks: He has his father's love of puzzles and overcomplicated mechanics.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: He uses a Jakobs shotgun due to being half-blind and is extremely good with them, reloading and aiming at insanely fast speeds. The Ratboy never saw it coming.
• Southern Gentleman: Downplayed. He's got a very strong Southern accent, is charming and likes to wear a grey three-piece suit. On the other side, he's not above swearing frequently, taunts his opponents, and wears very baggy grey pants. He's also not from Earth.
• Straight Gay: He's a Southern Gentleman in a relationship with Hammerlock, but you'd never be able to tell he's gay if he didn't flat out tell you.
• Spanner in the Works: Wainwright's decision to go trapezing about the town of Cursehaven kicks off a series of events that results in the The Cult of Xylourgos getting wiped out. Let us repeat that. One man, in a fit of insecurity, went on a quest to make sure his wedding day was perfect and set in motion the events that violently toppled a cult terrorizing a planet for years.
• Talks Like a Simile: Very, very fond of this trope.
  Wainwright: Jakobs Estate has more entrances than a harlot at a bordello for squids, if you don't mind a tight squeeze.
• You Killed My Father: He hates the Children of the Vault because they tortured his father to death.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His decision to go venturing around Cursehaven in search of ideas for what to do for his wedding leads to the Crimson Raiders discovering the existence of a psychotic cult hell-bent on sacrificing people to their leaders so one of said leaders can live forever alongside his beloved, that the creepy dead vault monster on the equally creepy planet isn't entirely dead and leads to him spending most of the story possessed by one of the said cult's leaders.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: During the credits, he proposes to his boyfriend◊ by getting down on one knee and presenting him with an engraved Jakobs revolver saying "Will you marry me?" Hammerlock tearfully accepts.
  • Taken a step further in Guns, Love, & Tentacles. After being saved from having his body and mind be consumed by an Eldtrich abomination, Wainwright immediately has the marriage ceremony commence in Gythian's heart cavity as the perfect venue and has the Vault Hunter marry them.

Montgomery Jakobs

Voiced by: Mark Stoddard

The former president of the Jakobs corporation and father of Wainwright, he was assassinated by the Calypsos sometime before the events of the game.

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• Complexity Addiction: He and his son loved puzzles so they filled the Jakobs Mansion with various esoteric puzzles that the players (and later Wainwright and Hammerlock) needed to complete to progress.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He can be heard on the radio in 2.
• Gut Feeling: An unusual example, in that we only find out about his hunch that the "War of the Vaults" will happen at some point in the future when said war is already in full swing.
• Inadequate Inheritor: One of his last logs that are found involves him worrying about being an inadequate predecessor to Wainwright, unsure of what he's accomplished in his life.
• The Nicknamer: Also calls Aurelia "harpy" when she interrupts one of his ECHO musings.
• Only Sane Man: By the standards of the series; while not without his flaws he seems to largely lack the overt cruelty, insanity and megalomania common among other corporate heads.
• Parental Neglect: Implied. Wainwright thinks fondly of him, but also wishes he had cared more for him. And then there's the fully equipped bedroom, kitchen, and drinking room full of "Swampbloom Ale" hidden under the Jakobs Estate... Monty's Den indeed.
• Posthumous Character: He's dead by the time players reach Eden-6 but he still has influence over the story.
• The Scrooge: Monty is not willing to spend his fortune on much, be it evacuating his employees during a zombie outbreak, repairing his own manor, or renting a clown for his son's birthday.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Monty was beloved by the people of Eden-6 for being A Father to His Men and was able to inspire Undying Loyalty from those around him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While generally honest and well-meaning, Monty could often times act as a cantankerous boob. This is best seen when he knowingly paired an expensive Maliwan weapons system with an incompatable Tediore nav system, and then changed the weapons system's personality setting for his own amusement. He would also be the one responsible for Jakobs' negligent actions in the first game.
• The Voice: He's never made a physical appearance in the series. Presumably he's one of the busts found in Jakobs Manor but it's not clear which one. A movie poster seems to feature him and a Jabber butler.

On Eden-6

Clay

Smuggler. Gunslinger. People Person.

Voiced by: Major Attaway

A shades-wearing smuggler and talented gunslinger who you can find on Eden-6.

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• Book Dumb: He's not the most well-educated person around; While he values the use of language, he has a habit of picking up common sayings and quotes from people he's killed.
  Clay: People don't expect me to be well-read. But i've finished as many books as I've killed men. Yes sir, I got a cemetery of books up in my brain here.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Subtle, but apparently his dream was to own two planets and travel between them via waterslide. He also brags about how he doesn't have an ego problem because he never looked at a mirror.
  Clay: What was I doing? Oh right. Thinking.
• Cool Shades: Wears some with one dark brown lens and the other that resembles a revolver's cylinder.
• Corporate Samurai: As a gunslinger in the employ of Jakobs, he's a rare example of a heroic one that isn't a Defector from Decadence like Roland, Athena, Axton, or Moze.
• Establishing Character Moment: His intro: he gets the drop on two CoV goons, quickly makes them drop their guards by talking and throwing money away, and shows he's very quick on the draw putting a bullet in each of their heads before the CoV have a chance to fire even once.
• Foil: To Zer0. While both are Corporate Samurais Clay follow the western theme of the Jakobs family being a gunsliger while Zer0 is a mix of samurai/ninja/assassin. Clay favors revolvers in combat while Zer0 is all about snipers and swords. Clay has a suave and direct way of speaking while Zer0 is still talking in haikus.
• The Gunslinger: The Quick Draw type. He's introduced distracting two bandits by throwing money into the air before whipping out his revolver and shooting them dead.
• Heel–Face Turn: In his past, he was in a smuggler clan until a mission brought him into contact and was caught by Montgomery Jakobs. Instead of killing him, Monty spared his life. Clay has been a loyal friend to the Jakobs family ever since.
• Loveable Rogue: Clearly intended to recall this archetype.
• The Nicknamer: He likes to call the Vault Hunters "smooth operators" after they've proven themselves liberating Reliance from the CoV.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: He prefers to be called Clay, rather than Clayton.
• Quick Draw: His intro has him drawing his revolver and firing from the hip so fast the two CoV bandits didn't even have a chance to react despite having their guns ready.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: After killing the traitor Archimedes, Clay mentions Aurelia attempted to pay him to sell out Jakobs. However, due to his Undying Loyalty to Monty Jakobs, he refused.
• So Proud of You: Invoked and zigzagged. When he discovers his partner and best friend took Aurelia’s bribe, he gushes about how proud he is of him for snagging such a good score. He still kills him for the transgression, though.
• The Social Expert: Clay has a very suave voice and a way with words. His title card even describes him as "People Person".
• Undying Loyalty: To Montgomery Jakobs and the Jakobs family by extension. He refuses to sell them out to Aurelia when given the offer to, and actively helps you hunt down traitors to the family.

GenIVIV

Voiced by: Blythe Renay

GenIVIV A.I. body

GenIVIV regular appearance

The Combat A.I. for the Jakob's corporations' ship, the Family Jewel.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Betrays the Jakobs family in order to get herself into a better combat body. Later, once she's expelled from the Jewel, she hijacks control of Santuary III and attempts to get it destroyed in an asteroid belt until BALEX intervenes and usurps control from her.
• Climax Boss: She's fought for the first piece of the Eden-6 Vault key.
• Fate Worse than Death: After being kicked out of Sanctuary's mainframe, BALEX suggests she gets put into a latrine body. Marcus says he has just the thing...
• Faux Affably Evil: She calls people "cutie idiots" all while being a cold-hearted psychopath.
• Mecha: She resides in a Maliwan combat mech to fight you. However destroying her mech body does not essentially kill her...
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: To BALEX.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: The time she spent on Eden-6 was used to, among other things, learn jabber mating calls. She uses this to summon packs of horny jabbers to attack the Vault Hunters and BALEX, the aftermath of this leaves BALEX very weirded out.
• Vocal Dissonance: One wouldn't expect to hear such a cutesy, girly voice for a Combat A.I.. An Echo log reveals she had a more low pitched voice before changing it to better please Montgomery Jakobs.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: GenIVIV (the Roman numeral for "four" twice), pronounced "Genevieve". BALEX complains that numerals don't work that way.

BALEX

Voiced by: Ice-T

A navigation A.I. who worked alongside GenIVIV on the Family Jewel. A disagreement between the two led to a crash landing, him being installed into a pink teddy bear, and evicted from the vessel.

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• Benevolent A.I.: Compared to GenIVIV. He helps the Vault Hunters reach and defeat her. He then manages to kick GenIVIV out of Sanctuary's computer system, and becomes its main A.I., to boot.
• Character Catchphrase: "Navigated, bitchES!"
• Character Tics: Has a habit of navigating, spaceships or people, which GenIVIV points out much to his embarrassement. He has to remind himself not to do it during the mission he's accompanying you.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • While still stuck inside his teddy bear body, he can hijack robot bodies by being placed over them. He controlled his first bot by being replaced with the bot's head. For the combat bot, whose head is too high up to reach, he was instead placed somewhere a bit... further down.
  • Also the thing about BALEX giving, erm, infesting the Family Jewel (GenIVIV) with "Ratch". It gets worse the more you think about it.
• Eaten Alive: You find him in the middle of something, with said something being "a big fucking dinosaur", soon after you land on Eden-6.
• Fun with Acronyms: Tries to pass his name as some technobabble but goes only until the third letter in his name (Binary Automated Logistical) until he runs out of ideas and sheepishly reveals his name is actually a Portmanteau.
• Hidden Badass: He may have been built by Tediore and his main purpose is navigation, but as an A.I., he can hijack any machine he is plugged into, including a combat bot.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Twice. He fumbles the controls of a med bot and throws himself on the ground trying getting used to it, and does it again on a Maliwan combat mech which causes him to fly away from the Family Jewel. Until he disables the anti-collision safeguards and crash lands right on top of GenIVIV smashing her barrier.
• Irony: An echo log reveals he was explicitly bought because of how cheap he was when Montgomery Jakobs blew the AI budget on GENIVIV. Balex ended up consistently loyal to Jakobs and has a far more stable mind and affable demeanor while GENIVIV is completely nuts and traitorous.
• Nice Guy: BALEX is one of the few people (A.I.?) that are helpful from the get go and never ask for rewards or helps you with ulterior motives. He also reminds people of Sanctuary how much of a badass you are.
• Portmanteau: His name comes from Montgomery Jakobs being unsure of whether to name him "Barry" or "Alex" and deciding to just mash the names together.
• Precision F-Strike: Drops one during the "The Family Jewel" quest. Unusually for this series, it isn't censored.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Unlike most robots in the series, he speaks with an human-sounding voice and is far from monotonous.
• Vocal Dissonance: Rather jarring hearing Ice-T's voice from a pink teddy bear, no?
• You Get What You Pay For: Inverted. Balex cost so little he was bought to make up for how much GenIVIV cost. He ended up being the far better purchase.

Chadd

Voiced by: Connor Thomas Cleary

A resident of the town of Reliance who seeks the ultimate thrill. He recruits the Vault Hunter to witness/assist him in increasingly ludicrous death-defying stunts.

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• Artificial Limbs: Chadd's left arm is a prosthetic arm. Given his lifestyle it's actually surprising this is the only artificial limb he has.
• Blood Knight: It's not just limited to fighting; Chadd is nuts for any kind of life-risking insanity.
• Catchphrase: "Taste the DANGER!" It's also his last words.
• Dare to Be Badass: Jumps into life-threatening stunts that gives even the Vault Hunters pause with little or no sign of fear, though regret and agonizing pain tends to follow in short order.
• Dumbass Has a Point: The second of his stunts - base-jumping without the parachute - would be suicidally stupid in real life. The thing is, the Vault Hunter will likely have performed such a jump at least once by this point (dropping into the core of the asteroid base to shut down Katagawa's orbital laser) with no negative side effects.
• Fearless Fool: He's way out of his depth doing things like bar-knuckle boxing predatory saurians, but he doesn't show a lick of fear.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: He tries to fist fight Saurians. This ends about as well as you can guess.
• Great Way to Go: Dude dies after being launched into orbit via gasoline boosted elevator. The Vault Hunters envy not the way he died, but that he died happy, doing what he wanted.
• Hot-Blooded: The man does what he does with a burning passion that could roast the fires of the Firehawk.
• No Indoor Voice: Chadd tends to shout every sentence.
• Rule of Three: You help him with three increasingly ridiculous stunts. After injuries he suffered in the first two, the third ends up finishing him off.
• Take That!: To extreme stunts and adrenaline junkies.
• Too Dumb to Live: To put it charitably.
• Too Kinky to Torture: He doesn't seem too put off by serious internal injuries after fighting dinosaur-like aliens or jumping off a high ledge.
• Violation of Common Sense: Challenging predatory dinosaurs to a fist-fight, jumping off a high ledge without a parachute, rigging an elevator with rocket boosters... Basically, everything Chadd does.

On Jakobs' Cove

Dr. Ned

Dr. Ned Blanco

I'm Helping!

As of 1 (Dr. Ned DLC, original appearance). Click for: ^{Dr. Ned second appearance} - ^{Claptrap DLC}

Voiced by: Ric Spiegel

Zed's identical twin brother, who is not just Zed with a mustache. The main antagonist of the Zombie Island DLC.

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• Affably Evil: In spite of the fact that he's a Zombie Apocalypse-unleashing, murderous Mad Scientist, he's pretty chatty and pleasant towards the Vault Hunters. He makes brownies, offers them some, then remembers he probably shouldn't be giving brownies to the people who want him dead.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Invoked. Intended and subverted. He goes down quite easily; he doesn't even have full miniboss durability, at most he's just equal to a regular Badass. Followed by credits rolling past at lightning speed. Then they're suddenly ripped away and Undead Ned screams "It's not over yet!" Along with a character intro screen of Undead Ned with the text "HOLY F*#KING SHIT!!!"
• Berserk Button: His assistant, Bill, making popcorn when people are trying to work. This evidently ends up turning into a deep hatred of popcorn in general.
  Ned: You smell like popcorn. Now I'm pissed!
• Came Back Wrong: Thrice. Upon being killed in "Zombie Island", he almost instantly revives as Undead Ned. Then, in "Claptrap's New Robot Revolution", he is revived as Ned-Trap, then as Undead Ned-Trap.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He actually makes note of the decision to dedicate himself to evil, records it, and idly hopes nobody happens to find the recording and learn of his nefariousness.
• Deadly Doctor: Aside from the zombies, he can put up a pretty good fight one-on-one.
• Evil Twin:
  • Of Dr. Zed. At first, it can be assumed that Ned is Zed with an obvious fake moustache spouting suspicious denials ("I am Dr. Ned, who is totally not Dr. Zed in disguise"). However, other sources (such as the Game Of The Year Edition Guide, the fourth Claptrap webisode, DLCs 3 and 4 and, of course, Borderlands 2) confirm that they are indeed two different people - brothers, specifically.
  • In the Headhunter DLC of the third game, T.K. Baha hints that there's a third sibling (possibly making them triplets, not twins), named Ted, that is even worse than him. However Baha also pretty much says that none of the DLC is canon anyways.
• Flipping the Bird: In his second intro.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: It seems his initial motives for creating the zombies were altruistic (research into cheating death), but upon realizing that the results were useless for anything other than mass destruction he just shrugs his shoulders and decides to be a Card-Carrying Villain instead. His reasoning seems to be I Meant to Do That: if his creations are going to wreck havoc anyway, he might as well fully embrace it and consider himself a successful villain rather than a grossly incompetent scientist.
• King Mook: When you fight him at the end of the DLC, he fights just like a regular pistol bandit, only with more health and a slightly unique weapon. Then he goes One-Winged Angel and turns into a huge undead monster.
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  • When you first meet him.
  • When wounded, Dr. Ned-trap might say "Pour alcohol on the wound. Also in my mouth."
• Mad Scientist: Not only created zombies, but Wereskags as well.
• Maker of Monsters: His experiments are responsible for the zombies and wereskags of Jakob's Cove, which he uses to defend his lab.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Turns out he's a bad guy... who knew?
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: By the end of the first Borderlands storyline, he's a twice-undead cyborg physician.
• Obviously Evil: He's not even really trying to hide it. The time he made the Vault Hunters wait while he lowered his hand-cranked elevator, forcing them to fight off a massive horde of zombies, going so far as to drop the counter-weight twice comes to mind.
• One-Winged Angel: Undead Ned, a far tougher battle than the one just before it.
• Porn Stash: There are huge stacks of dirty magazines in his secret lab.
• Roboteching: When you fight him he's armed with a Purple-rarity submachine gun with a unique barrel that makes it fire drunken bullets that spiral randomly and ricochet off walls.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Denies frequently that he's just Zed with a moustache. In the Robot Revolution DLC, it's shown that he's telling the truth, as both Zed and the newly activated Ned-Trap are both seen. Similarly, Zed is still present in the sequel, and the Pre-Sequel and Tales canonizes all the events of the Robo-lution.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: Played for laughs, given how Obviously Evil he is.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: How the Claptraps bring him Back from the Dead.

Hank Reiss

Hank Reiss

Nice Hat!

A man who was turned into a were-skag by Ned when he was given the anti-zombie antidote. Identified by his hat.

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• Apocalyptic Log: His ECHO correspondence with his wife, which gradually tells the tale of the zombie outbreak in Jakobs Cove and first hints at Ned's direct involvement in same, and ends with him going to Ned as a volunteer test subject for the skag-based cure.
• Monster Progenitor: The original wereskag, ultimately responsible for every other wereskag's existence.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Technically a wereskag, but wereskags are more like werewolves than skags are like wolves in the first place. The main difference? The mouth, which opens like a flower. Oh, and wereskags would have never existed if Ned hadn't injected Reiss with skag stuff in the first place.
• Tragic Monster: He was a loving family man before transforming into a wereskag.
• Turns Red: Once his health gets below a certain threshold, he howls and gains a ton of it back. If you don't take them out fast enough, other wereskags do the same.

Father O'Callahan

Father Jackie O'Callahan

A local preacher who tried to fight the "evil" of Jakobs Cove before being infected with the Wereskag virus.

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• And Then John Was a Zombie: The Vault Hunters are hired to find out what happened to him, learning through ECHO recordings that he was "nicked in the neck" by Hank Reiss.
• Badass Preacher: He appears to be an actual priest who decides to "kick evil's arse".
• Determinator: Fighting the zombies and Hank Reiss is tough, but he stays strong through prayer...and the whiskey in his flask.
• Oh, My Gods!: References the Guardian Angel at least once.
• Tragic Monster: A Badass Preacher who tried to help Jakobs Cove and was turned into the very "evil" he was fighting. Being Good Sucks on Pandora.

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