Rose


 * This article is about the character Rose; you may be looking for the character's villainous alter ego Huntsgirl.

Rose is Jake Long's main love interest, later girlfriend, the younger sister of twins unknown to her for most of her life, and also the Huntsman's former minion in the Disney Channel animated series American Dragon: Jake Long. She was voiced by Mae Whitman.

History
Rose was a member of the Huntsclan. There is a birthmark on her right palm and wrist resembling a Chinese dragon, otherwise known as the "Mark of the Huntsclan". Initially, Rose revealed very little about her past or history. She was simply "the new girl" at Jake's school, and nothing was truly learned about her early childhood until much later in their relationship.

According to her the Huntsclan was her only family for as long as she could remember – saying earliest memory was "lying in my Hunts-crib, crying out for my Hunts-nanny to change my Hunts-diaper". Her skills were exceptional enough to have been accepted as apprentice to the Huntsman himself while working in the field in New York. Taken under his wing as his ward, he personally indoctrinated her with his views about magical creatures as being disgusting and unnatural, and in the methods of hunting.

During a class ski trip, Jake discovered Rose was also the Huntsgirl and was uncertain whether to love or fight the girl of his dreams, but eventually realized that he strongly cared about her and that his strong romantic feelings for her were indeed mutual and genuine. Which later prompted him to reveal to her his identity as the American Dragon while being hunted by the Huntsclan along with other captive magical beings.

Rose had been told by the Huntsman that both of her biological parents died shortly after she was born before being taken in and raised by the Huntsclan. However during a shared dream experience where she and Jake spent time together while asleep, she discovered that her parents as well as a twin sibling did not die. Rather, the Huntsman, as well as Huntsclan members working undercover in the hospital, kidnapped Rose shortly after her birth, having noticed her dragon-shaped birthmark. The names and whereabouts of her family remained largely unknown until after her wish for the Huntsclan to be destroyed, where having never been taken by the Huntsclan, she and her family moved to Hong Kong, China. However, her twin remained unseen.

After Rose's wish for all Huntsmen to be destroyed—herself included, Jake immediately wished she had never been a member of the Huntsclan. This ended their relationship until the Dark Dragon attacked the Dragon Council in Hong Kong and Rose regained her memory after being shown a picture of her and Jake at the dance. In a display of her innate natural prowess and abilities, she helped Jake fight and defeat the Dark Dragon.

Initially, her two sides were kept a secret, and as Rose was generally sweet and caring, but rather modest and somewhat shy. The demands of her double life frequently left her with short encounters with Jake, who would normally be left very nervous and utterly twitterpated and lovestruck in her presence.

As the Huntsgirl, her good-hearted and sweet personality was almost the complete opposite: a daring, dedicated, and somewhat vicious persona filled her duties as a Huntsclan apprentice. She shared the same beliefs of the Huntsclan – of the vile and unnatural nature of magical creatures, especially dragons – and was compelled to carry out actions with that mindset.

As her alter-ego was exposed to Jake during the ski trip, she disappeared only to later return after retraining with the Huntsclan. The lines between her dual existence became less distinct. Rose's more violent nature as the Huntsgirl often surfaced in her normal identity as she began to try and associate with Jake and his duties. It also caused her more "normal" life as Rose to surface in her duties as the Huntsgirl, which had her being perceived as acting oddly in the face of the Clan and her superior. After finding out Jake's secret, her 2 lives blended into one as she reviewed for herself what was right and decided to help Jake protect the magical world, eventually losing all of her memory of the Huntsclan due to Jake's wish that "Rose was never taken by the Huntsclan".

However, in the last episode, she regains her memory and helps Jake and his friends save the Magical World and defeat the Dark Dragon once and for all.

Interests
A few of her "normal" interests included an obsession over teen sensation Jaren MacCarther, as well as a talent for acting as she won the lead female role in the Millard Fillmore Middle School production of Antony and Cleopatra.

Abilities
More of her natural abilities can be illustrated through her acts as the Huntsgirl. Rose has amazing acrobatic skills, as she is seen making tremendous leaps and bounds while fighting with large magical creatures. She also has skill in hand-to-hand fighting and other physical combat techniques as well as skilled use in almost all of the Huntsclan's frequently used weaponry, of which the most primary one being a staff/spear which all Huntsclan members seem to carry. She is also a good archer with excellent accuracy. She has also shown a somewhat deep understanding of various magical creatures and items, even discovering the various aspects of the "Dream Corridor" through her Dream Charm.

Physical Appearance
Rose is considered by many, especially Jake and Brad, to be a very attractive young woman. She has baby blue eyes, shoulder-length blonde hair, and a slender, almost hourglass-like figure. Also, in her next year of school, she is shown to have pierced ears.

When first encountered as the Huntsgirl, her Huntsclan uniform was green. However, upon returning to the Huntsclan Academy it was changed to a dark purple-red. When she moved to Hong Kong, her pink pants and white tee-shirt outfit was replaced with her new school's uniform which is the norm for Hong Kong schools indicating she goes to a private school. The school's colors may be yellow and blue.

Season One

 * "Old School Training" (first appearance)
 * "Dragon Breath"
 * "Act 4, Scene 15"
 * "Body Guard Duty"
 * "Shapeshifter"
 * "The Ski Trip"
 * "Fu and Tell" (mentioned)
 * "Keeping Shop" (mentioned)
 * "The Hunted"

Season Two

 * "Half Baked"
 * "The Academy"
 * "Breakout"
 * "Dreamscape"
 * "Fool's Gold"
 * "Switcheroo"
 * "The Love Cruise"
 * "Homecoming"
 * "Siren Says" (mentioned)
 * "Shaggy Frog" (mentioned)
 * "The Hong Kong Longs" (final appearance)

Personal Conflicts
Like Jake, Rose must deal with the personal conflicts in her life by being both Rose and the Huntsgirl. That is, until when Jake wished she had never been taken from her parents by the Huntsclan, thereby erasing her life as Huntsgirl from ever happening.

Secret Identity
By Rose secretly being the Huntsgirl, apprentice to the Huntsman, made her situation a parallel to Jake's, as neither were allowed to have what could be called a normal childhood experience. A good example of this was during the days leading up to the school play in which Jake looked forward to the opportunity to kiss her, and they were trying to rehearse their parts while also as Huntsgirl and American Dragon were fighting for possession of a Magical Scarab. Her secret identity was exposed while on a school ski trip weekend, even though she was unaware Jake was a dragon. Eventually, her life as the Huntsgirl was erased when Jake used the Aztec Skulls in order to save her from actual destruction by wishing she had never been kidnapped by the Huntsman.

Jake Long
Bumping into Jake as she was starting to attend Millard Fillmore Middle School, Rose instantly became the object of his strong and pure romantic love and affections. At first, she was not too romantically involved with Jake, instead spending time with Brad, a member of the football team. She gradually began to spend more time with Jake at school sponsored functions, such as a dance, rehearsing for a school play, and eventually even a first date in while on a class ski trip.

Rose's life as the Huntsgirl was something which kept interfering with her time with Jake. He eventually discovered Rose to actually be the person whom he had been fighting for months, and became hesitant to even spend mere seconds around Rose. She became rather worried, displaying apparent feelings for Jake, for his avoidance of her. During her participation in the Huntsclan's Grand Equinox Hunt, she soon started to realize that there was a rather familiar persona from the American Dragon, despite him being a creature she had been wanting to slay ever since she first laid eyes upon him. Her suspicion turned out to be correct, as Jake revealed his identity just as she was about to slay him. Surprised and confused, she quickly ran off, sparing his life without leaving any trace of her destination for him to find.

It was soon revealed that Rose was transferred back to the Huntsclan Academy for her failure to slay the American Dragon during the Grand Equinox Hunt. After she discovered Jake and Spud in the guise of Huntsclan Trainees trying to recover the details of the Huntsman's plot, she decided to help them with their mission. Rose even helped Jake by staging a fight to fake his being slain by Rose so that she would be transferred out of the Huntsclan Academy and back to New York, where she would once again attended Millard Fillmore Middle School.

After that, Rose and Jake were able for a time to pursue their romantic feelings for each other since the confusion involving their secret identities was gone, such as when Rose said she would "love to hang out" with Jake, and when she tried to tell him something that she apparently "would never have the courage to say in the real world", although he woke up before she could finish what she was about to say.

However, their interaction with each other in public grew to be rather risky. Rose's close relationship with a dragon was nearly exposed due to the meddling of Huntsboys numbers 88 and 89, but was put to rest when she presented proof of her slaying of the dragon back at the Academy, that of the hide of the slain dragon; which was in reality skin Jake had shed earlier due to his ten-year molting cycle. In an effort to spend more time together away from the diligent watch of the Huntsclan, Rose used a pair of matching Dream Charms to contact Jake within his dreams where they could have private and literal "dream dates".

Rose eventually learned from Lao Shi that Jake had become distracted from his duties as a dragon due to his relationship and feelings for her. Therefore he advised them to keep their relationship strictly professional. After Jake hit her with one of Cupid's love arrows, she realized it was indeed for the best to reluctantly end their romance.

However, soon enough the Huntsman found out about Rose's betrayal. Instead of having her killed, he blackmailed her into getting for him the remaining three Aztec Skulls so that he could make one irreversible wish, except at the last moment Rose stepped in to make the wish instead, asking for the destruction of all the Huntsclan instead of all the magical creatures as he had planned. As she too was about to be wiped from existence, Jake did the only thing he could to save her by making his own wish for her to have never been taken by the Huntsclan. Wording which would not conflict with her own as she would never have been Huntsclan, and thus not eligible for destruction.

The next day at school Jake bumped into Rose once more, except she had no memory of him other than his looking familiar. While at first Jake was excited at the prospect of starting over with her, she told him her parents were moving to Hong Kong the next day. Although not expecting to see her any more, Jake was happy to see her with her true family as she always should have been.

Months later, when Chang and Bananas captured Gramps in Hong Kong in an attempt to get Jake to betray the dragons of the world, Jake tracked down Rose for help, hoping to rekindle a spark of her memory of her natural innate Huntsclan training away. However Rose and her parents, convinced he was unbalanced called the local authorities to take him to a mental hospital. Jake escaped and went to face the Dark Dragon on his own, unaware he had left his jacket behind at Rose's place, a picture of them at pre-wish Homecoming in its pocket. Just as when it seemed the Dark Dragon had won, Rose appeared, to help turn the tide against him. After all was finished, Rose explained how she had found the pre-wish picture, and somehow it restored her memory, apparently her feelings for them, leaving them free to resume or restart their relationship without any hindrance.

Brad Morton
Football jock Brad Morton would never miss a chance to flirt with Rose, and that annoyed Jake to no end. Earlier on, it seemed like he had a chance with Rose, but during a school dance, he ditched her for the new girl, Jasmine, who was Jake's date for the evening. Because of this, Rose has since started to view Brad in a less friendly light, as she seemed rather annoyed when she was made to sit next him on the bus, and appeared to be mildly uncomfortable when he flirted with her twice afterwards. Eventually, Rose had become completely disdainful of Brad and had no issue with humiliating him (she splashed punch on him when he flirted with her). This could have just been a sign that her heart completely belongs to Jake now, but it's also possible that this is a sign that Rose has truly lost all patience for Brad's antics.

Trivia

 * Rose's voice actress Mae Whitman also did the voices of Katara in Avatar: the Last Airbender, Shanti in The Jungle Book 2, Yuffie in Kingdom Hearts II, Leslie Dunkling in Teacher's Pet and Teacher's Pet: The Movie and ironically Cynder form Eternal Night and April O'Neil from TMNT.
 * Rose's last name is never revealed.
 * Rose has the distinction of being both a villain and a hero at various times.
 * In an early draft, Rose was going to end up slaying Sun, but the Disney Channel considered it was too dark and too Jetix. Rose was also set to lose her memory, just as she did in the actual episode, and stay in New York without remembering Jake but the Disney Channel told the writers that it would be too confusing to those who missed watching the show. Rose moving to Hong Kong was a last-minute addition.
 * Jake's relationship with Rose was originally similar to Max Goof's relationship with Roxanne.
 * The boys like the girls, but are too shy to actually talk to them, only to find out that the girl already likes them.
 * Jake's relationship with Rose is also similar to Hercules' relationship with Megara.
 * The hero falls in love with the girl upon their first meeting, but then is devastated to learn that their love interest is working for the villain.
 * In Season 2, Jake and Rose started their first real kiss.
 * In Season 2, it was revealed Rose's last name was Killdragonosa. Her last name in this episode originally came from one of the early incarnations of American Dragon: Jake Long according to Eddie Guzelian and Matt Negrete. However, this is not her real last name, just the one given to her by the Huntsclan.
 * In a way, Jake's relationship with Rose is somewhat similar to Goliath's relationship with Elisa Maza
 * A male winged creature of legend forming a working/romantic relationship with a human female, despite the fact that such a thing would no doubt be frowned upon by others.
 * Rose apparently has seven sets of Huntsclan garbs which she alternates by days in a hidden closet along with all her other Huntsclan items which is accessed by twisting the neck of a unicorn in her room, possibly a representation of breaking its neck.
 * It would seem that every time Jake says, "Hey!" to Rose, she would always reply by saying, "Hey yourself."
 * Rose was considerably thinner in Season 2, though her face looked more matured than in Season 1.
 * Rose's outfit seem to have changed from Season 1 to 2.
 * In Season 1, she wore a pink headband and wore clog-like sandals while in Season 2 her headband was gone, she wears a flower necklace and her sandals became flat.
 * Rose had a pink headband in Season 1, but didn't in Season 2. The same can be said for the blue borders on her shirt.
 * Rose's pink headband with a flower on it can be seen in Rose's Print Shop on Disney Channel Games online.
 * In Season 2, Rose's first Dragon killing was Jake, but thanks to the potion he and Spud made, Jake was alive once more.
 * In Season 2, it showed Rose had a twin of unknown gender, but this sibling was not seen.
 * It seems that after she and the Huntsman left their tower, she now lives in a broken down subway.