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Jarod (Japanese: ジェルド Jeld) is a soldier of Begnion who served Duke Numida of Numida. He was the general of Begnion's occupational garrison in Daein under Numida's command, and perpetuated a brutal regime over the country which drove its people into poverty and famine, intended by Jarod to strip away any chance of the people of Daein ever having the will to fight back. He was a bitter enemy of Micaiah and the Dawn Brigade, and became increasingly obsessed with hunting them down and defeating Micaiah as she led the Dawn Brigade, and later the Daein Liberation Army, to more and more victories over the Begnion garrison.
Jarod was born as part of a minor noble house in Begnion, but when he joined the Begnion army, he earned his rise through the ranks through his own skill and not his bloodline. He first entered the service of Numida by joining his private army.
After Ike and the Crimean army defeated King Ashnard of Daein and ended the Mad King's War, Crimea chose not to take control of Daein for itself and handed responsibility over the country to Begnion. Begnion established an occupation garrison in Daein to secure the country. Numida was apppointed as the occupational governor of Daein, and Jarod was given leadership of the garrison itself under Numida's command. Jarod established a series of labor camps and forced all adult Daein men to work in them, aiming to break them both physically and mentally to prevent the chance of them ever fighting back. This also led to poverty and starvation, as farms and other industries were no longer tended to. Jarod also used funds stolen from Daein to fortify its troops and buy the service of mercenaries to reinforce its numbers.
Jarod first became aware of the Dawn Brigade and the "Silver-Haired Maiden" who led them three years into the occupation, in the summer of 648, after they evaded capture in the capital Nevassa and fled the city. After the Dawn Brigade raided a manor in the countryside to retrieve medicine for Laura's abbot, Jarod kidnapped Laura and used her to lure Micaiah into a trap, arresting both and taking them to Glaive Prison, where they later escaped. During this time he authorized a Begnion expedition into the Desert of Deathto find the rumored heir to Ashnard and put a stop to his attempts to raise a liberation army.
Later, when Micaiah returned as the leader of Pelleas's liberation army and began to lead successful resistance campaigns against the occupation, Jarod and Numida determined that it was necessary to put an end to the Daein Liberation Army before their superiors in Begnion could find out about the resistance or of their abuses, and so Numida gave Jarod all the funding he needed to achieve this. However, through the efforts of Sothe and Tormod, the Begnion empress Sanaki found out anyway and formed an inspection team to confirm the abuses in Daein. Numida ordered Jarod to finish off the Liberation Army before they could encounter the inspectors, so Jarod formed a plan to lure them to their deaths in Shifu Swamp, but after this failed Numida betrayed Jarod and claimed to Sanaki that all of the garrison's crimes were conducted without Numida's knowledge at all.
Sanaki sent a command to Jarod to have all forces stand down in anticipation of the inspectors, and Jarod realized that Numida had betrayed and scapegoated him. Jarod knew that Numida and the rest of the senate would work to silence Jarod and his soldiers, to prevent them from implicating Numida, and knowing that the end was near, Jarod resolved to at least bring Micaiah down with him as revenge for driving him to this point. On the evening of a Liberation Army celebration at the news of Sanaki's intervention, Jarod and his men ambushed Micaiah after she left the celebration alone, and threatened to kill her to put an end to the real symbol of hope of the Liberation Army, dismissing Pelleas as worthless in comparison to her. He was foiled by the arrival of the Black Knight, who worked with Micaiah to defeat Jarod and his soldiers, but Jarod himself was spared as his lieutenant, Alder, took a blow from the Black Knight for him. Micaiah let Jarod escape to bury Alder.
Having been driven into a corner by his defeat by the Black Knight, Jarod took his revenge with one last, massive act of defiance. He murdered a Begnion emissary and took control of Daein Keep, then unleashed a catapult assault on the city of Nevassa to destroy it. Micaiah and the Daein Liberation Army launched a counter-attack to seize Daein Keep back from Jarod, who led his men in a last stand to die gloriously in battle, rather than be dishonored by surviving or fleeing. Jarod died at the hands of Micaiah's forces in this battle, bringing an end to the war for Daein's liberation.
External links[]
- Jarod at Fire Emblem Wiki, the Fandom wiki on Fire Emblem.