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The Pawn Story
Years later, a heavily bandaged amnesiac recovering from facial reconstruction arrived in Salem. known only as “The Pawn.” He was initially known only as "the Pawn", a name given to him by Stefano DiMera because of his love of chess. Stefano originally possessed and controlled him via brainwashing before Stefano's lieutenant, Ilya Petrov, assumed control of him. Victor Kiriakis took control of the Pawn after Victor had Petrov executed.
After escaping Victor's control, the Pawn renamed himself "John Black" after a name he saw on a war memorial. He took a job in hospital security, befriending Dr. Marlena Evans. Through hypnosis, Marlena uncovered evidence that John was her presumed-dead husband, Roman. Believing this to be true, John regained Roman’s memories, and the two renewed their vows, until Marlena was seemingly killed in a plane explosion.
Five years later, Marlena resurfaced, having escaped captivity. Roman investigated her disappearance and discovered the truth in Mexico: the real Roman had been held prisoner by Stefano, who had implanted his memories into the Pawn. Learning he was not Roman, John chose to remain John Black and search for his own past. Though he still loved Marlena, she returned to Roman. John and Marlena later had an affair, which ended when Roman discovered it and divorced her.
John later discovered he was actually Forrest Alamain, brother of Lawrence Alamain, whom Stefano had brainwashed into believing he was Roman as part of his vendetta against the Bradys. With Victor’s help, John learned of his Alamain heritage, claimed his birthright, and established his own business.
Stefano resumed tormenting John by sending him three puzzle pieces that formed an image of a window and column, leading John to Maison Blanche in New Orleans. There, Stefano and Celeste captured him and imprisoned him in the basement, planning to re-brainwash him. Celeste secretly aided John, hinting that the key to his survival lay in his cell, where he found a crucifix, a prayer, and a block engraved “John Black, 1984.”
Using a recording of John’s voice, Stefano lured Marlena to New Orleans and imprisoned her with John. As Stefano prepared to erase John’s memory, Marlena attempted to distract him, while Stefano cruelly taunted John with a diary containing the truth about his past—then burned it before his eyes.
Later, a charity event brought numerous Salem residents to Maison Blanche. Roman arrived to arrest Peter Blake, while a jealous Celeste ignited a gas leak that set the house ablaze. Roman rescued John and Marlena as chaos erupted. John’s appearance in chains stunned Kristen and Tony, who were horrified to see Stefano alive. Tony retrieved a computer containing files on John’s past but was blinded in the process as Maison Blanche burned to the ground. Stefano once again escaped.
John later discovered he had once been a priest. He explored returning to the church but ultimately chose another path. During this time, he fell in love with Kristen Blake, only to learn she was Stefano DiMera’s adoptive daughter. Though shaken, John eventually accepted the truth. Kristen, however, had been forced by Stefano to marry Tony DiMera, who was presumed dead. Tony secretly faked blindness to keep her, but when the truth came out, Kristen divorced him and reunited with John.
Tony soon learned he was dying from a terminal illness. Consumed by jealousy and rage, he devised a plan to kill himself and frame John for murder. John was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to die in the gas chamber. At the last moment, a mysterious “woman in white” uncovered Tony’s diary, exposing the truth. Marlena received the evidence, John was exonerated, and his execution was stopped just in time.
The woman in white later revealed her identity as Rachel Blake, Kristen and Peter’s mother. Years earlier, Stefano had become obsessed with her. When she rejected him, he planted a bomb in her husband’s car, injuring Rachel and leaving her scarred. Stefano imprisoned her at Maison Blanche. A young Father John attempted to rescue her but was caught. To protect his secret and further his vendetta against the Bradys, Stefano erased John’s memories and turned him into the Pawn.
Traumatized, Rachel lost her memories, escaped captivity, and lived for years in isolation at Aremid, believed dead by all, including Stefano himself.
Marlena confronted Stefano, accusing him of ordering John’s death. Stefano abducted her, but John rescued her, though Stefano escaped by helicopter, vowing to return.
Stefano soon resurfaced and enlisted Kristen’s help. After learning John loved Marlena more than her, Kristen agreed and provided Stefano with flight details for Marlena and Rachel. Stefano staged his own capture using a latex mask, allowing Marlena to fly, while he secretly disguised himself as Rachel and boarded the plane. He then faked a plane crash, leading Salem to believe both he and Marlena were dead.
Stefano took Marlena to underground caverns beneath Paris, where he ruled as “king” and intended to make her his queen. As Marlena sank into depression, Stefano used special goggles that let her see John and her children. When Stefano realized John was using the second set of goggles, he bombed the warehouse housing them and convinced Marlena that John had died.
John eventually learned Marlena was alive and set a trap at a grand Paris ball, knowing Stefano would attempt to steal Marie Antoinette’s crown for Marlena. Amid disguises and chaos, Marlena briefly reunited with John, until Stefano drugged and abducted him, escaping with the crown.
Back underground, Stefano put John on trial and sentenced him to beheading. Vivian and Ivan intervened just in time, freeing John. During the escape, an explosion injured Marlena. As John carried her to safety, Rachel held Stefano at gunpoint near a gas tank. Rachel fired, causing an explosion that left both her and Stefano presumed dead.
Kristen discovered that John was still in love with Marlena. Believing a pregnancy would secure him, she worked to keep John from learning that Marlena loved him too. When Kristen miscarried, she became desperate and fully embraced her DiMera instincts.
Stefano promised to help Kristen keep John, urging her to marry him quickly and blackmailing her doctor into hiding the truth that she was no longer pregnant. He then brought Susan Banks, a pregnant woman who looked identical to Kristen, to Salem. Disguised with a blond wig and false teeth, Susan agreed to impersonate Kristen and give her baby to her in exchange for money.
As Marlena grew suspicious and confided in Laura Horton that Kristen might not be pregnant, Susan became increasingly unstable, obsessed with John and the baby. Stefano had a secret room built in the DiMera Mansion to control Susan, but events spiraled. Marlena uncovered the truth and was locked in the room instead. Soon after, Susan trapped Kristen in the room with Marlena.
Susan planned an Elvis-themed wedding to John, forcing Kristen and Marlena to watch from captivity. In a frantic attempt to stop it, Kristen tried digging through the wall, struck a gas line, and knocked both herself and Marlena unconscious.
Laura confronted “Kristen” at the mansion and slapped her, sending Susan’s false teeth flying. Susan confessed everything, and John rescued Kristen and Marlena from the secret room. With Kristen’s schemes exposed, John ended their relationship and reunited with Marlena.
John continued searching for his past and traveled to Lugano, Switzerland, where he learned he had once been a priest. He also uncovered a possible connection to Princess Gina, whose identity Hope had assumed for years after the real princess’s death.
John and Marlena married on July 5, 1999, and honeymooned in Hawaii. Their happiness was short-lived when Hope, once again controlled by Stefano as Princess Gina, reawakened John as the Pawn. Stefano discovered the lovers together, threw John overboard, and left him for dead. Marlena later found John alive on the beach. He had no memory of his time as the Pawn and resumed his life with her.
Later, much of Salem flew to France to search for Hope, unaware that Rolf and Bart had sabotaged the plane to test John’s resurfacing memories. When a bomb was discovered onboard, John’s mercenary instincts returned. He ejected the bomb just before it exploded and took control of the plane after the pilots were incapacitated. When fuel was drained, the plane crashed into the ocean, leaving everyone stranded safely on a deserted island.
After Hope was rescued and restored, John returned to Salem. His memories of life as the Pawn continued to surface, though he kept them from Marlena. Complications arose when Hope became pregnant and John was briefly believed to be the father. Ultimately, it was revealed that Bo was the child’s real father, relieving everyone, though John felt a quiet sense of loss.
Stefano told his son E.J. that he was preparing a new Pawn. Curious, E.J. broke into Dr. Rolf’s lab and was shocked to find John alive, despite having been presumed dead after a hit-and-run. Marlena and Hope rescued him, but John was emotionless, memory-less, and clearly reprogrammed by Rolf. Stefano was arrested and sent to prison.
John, Marlena, Bo, and Hope traveled to Ireland, where Colleen Brady revealed she was John’s mother. Years earlier, she had fallen in love with Santo DiMera, believing his wife was dead. When she learned the truth, she fled while pregnant, later giving birth in Argentina and placing her son, named Ryan, for adoption. Colleen eventually learned that Stefano discovered Ryan, turned him into the Pawn, and blamed the Bradys for his cruel upbringing.
Back in Salem, John embraced his DiMera identity and moved into the mansion, immersing himself in the family business. His increasingly reckless and criminal behavior alarmed Bo and Hope. John’s cold detachment extended to inappropriate taunts about the past, further proving how much he had changed.
Fully embracing his darker side, John spiraled into self-destructive behavior and began an affair with Ava Vitali. Unable to reach him, Marlena filed for divorce. Eventually, John realized his life lacked meaning and tried to reconnect with Marlena. During this time, his obsessed therapist nearly killed him in a plot against Marlena, leaving John paralyzed, but restoring his memories.
When a possible cure was discovered, John and Marlena remarried at his hospital bedside and left Salem together for treatment in Switzerland.
In September 2011, John and Marlena returned to Salem for the dedication of Horton Square, with John fully recovered after successful therapy. Soon after, Hope was stunned to learn she was legally married to John, a union that occurred in Alamainia when she was Princess Gina and he was Stefano’s Pawn.
Determined to divorce, John and Hope traveled to Alamainia, only to have their passports confiscated. Stefano kidnapped them and revealed that their alter egos had once stolen an Anastasia egg for him, which he never received. He forced them to revert to Gina and the Pawn to retrieve it, threatening Marlena and Bo if they refused.
After recovering the egg, John and Hope planned to double-cross Stefano and use it to escape. As they nearly gave in to their alter egos, photos of Marlena and Bo restored their true identities. Inside the egg, they discovered a coded gold coin. As a means to escape from Alamainia, John and Hope substituted the coin, handed it off to Stefano, and left for the airport.
Thanks to the help of an ISA agent, they managed to elude Stefano and headed back to Salem. By the end of the year, John and Hope's divorce was finalized.
Megan Hathaway, Stefano DiMera’s daughter, arrived in Salem in 1984 and helped him search for the Three Prisms, believed to cure any illness when united. Hoping to heal his inoperable brain tumor, Stefano pursued the artifacts but recovered despite never obtaining all three.
When Megan realized Bo Brady loved Hope Williams, she became obsessed with reclaiming him and plotted to kill Hope. Before she could succeed, Megan was murdered by Larry Welch after he caught her spying on him.
Stefano cryogenically preserved Megan’s body, intending for her to be revived when medical science advanced. Once restored, presumably by Dr. Rolfe, Megan resumed her quest for the Prisms. In 2022, she kidnapped Steve Johnson and John Black, using Stefano’s old conditioning methods to turn John back into the Pawn.
The Pawn and Steve targeted Li Shin, forcing him to surrender his Prism by threatening his sister. When Megan later tried to kill John’s son Paul, John broke free of the conditioning and saved him, while Marlena restored Steve. Megan ultimately reunited all three Prisms and used their knowledge to heal Bo Brady’s brain tumor, restoring him to life.
While traveling, John learned he was not the son of Colleen Brady and Santo DiMera. Desperate for answers after her child’s death, the orphanage had falsely identified John as her son, leaving him once again without knowledge of his true parents.
The truth eventually emerged: John was born John Robicheaux in 1953 in rural Louisiana to Timothy and Maude Robicheaux. Timothy, a kind farmer, was drafted into the Korean War and presumed killed shortly before John’s birth. Unable to raise him alone, Maude placed John with adoptive parents, then later in an orphanage. He was ultimately adopted by Leopold and Philomena Alamain, taken to Europe, and renamed Forrest Alamain.
Timothy survived the war but suffered a fractured skull and long-term amnesia. Fellow soldier Joseph Bell stole his identity, became Yo Ling, and partnered with Soviet agent Ilya Petrov. They located John, staged Forrest Alamain’s death, and took him to Winterthorne, where he was indoctrinated and trained as an assassin.
Petrov later partnered with Stefano DiMera, helping him “program” John into his obedient Pawn. In 1985, John was wagered in a high-stakes yacht race and won by Victor Kiriakis, who brought him to Salem. Through implanted memories, John was convinced, and convinced others, that he was Roman Brady, allowing Stefano to infiltrate the ISA and torment the Brady family.
In September 2023, John encountered an amnesiac veteran who proved to be his real father, Timothy Robicheaux. Timothy regained his memories and was finally reunited with John and his family.
Konstantin Meleounis claimed to know the truth about John and Steve’s past, John as the Pawn and Steve as his handler under Victor’s control, and a violent incident in Greece in the 1980s. In 1986, Victor sent Steve and the Pawn to Greece to intimidate Konstantin for crossing him in the underworld. Konstantin believed the Pawn killed his daughter, Catharina, and came to Salem seeking revenge against Victor, Steve, and John. The feud ended with Konstantin’s death, and John planned a return to Greece to find closure.
After disappearing on that trip, John was later found captive in a Missouri warehouse, with no memory of how he got there. This sparked speculation involving Clyde Weston and even Catharina herself. John eventually learned the truth: he had not killed Catharina. Instead, Victor had ordered the Pawn to fake the deaths of Catharina and her mother so they could escape Konstantin and emigrate to America.
Soon after, John vanished again while on a secret ISA mission investigating a nuclear device in Estonia tied to his old enemy, Orpheus. He was later recovered and returned to Salem, only to be critically injured in an explosion while attempting to retrieve an experimental drug to save Bo Brady.
John died from his injuries on June 2, 2025.