Who is Jack Ryan? No, really, I’m asking. The character, created by airport novelist and perennial dad favorite Tom Clancy, has been featured in dozens of novels, films, and video games—and, now, a TV show on Amazon. He’s been portrayed by a murderer’s row of leading men: Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October, Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, Chris Pine in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and Ben Affleck in one I’m not going to bother looking up. Now, in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, John Krasinski is the latest to take on the mantle.
But who the heck is this guy? The assorted books and adaptations tell us that Ryan is a former Marine turned CIA operative who eventually becomes president—but what are his identifying characteristics? His quirks? His likes and dislikes? Sherlock Holmes famously played the violin, smoked a pipe, and injected cocaine into his veins; other than a predilection for glaring at submarines, does Jack Ryan even have a personality?