It took a few dialogues with him to figure out why this felt vaguely familiar, only to realize he reminded me of Grobnar, the gnome bard from Neverwinter Nights 2. Despite the change in developers between the two games, these two were basically the same stock character: the goofy comic relief support role spouting random nonsense.
Except... I despised Grobnar. NWN2 was in most ways a kid-friendly reiteration of DnD tropes, plagued to a large extent by a "baby's first RPG" feel to the setting and characters. Just as Qara was a G-rated pale imitation of Ignus from Planetscape: Torment, Grobnar seems to have been a cutesy re-hashing of Jan Jansen. Except... I actually like Jan. What gives?
The trick to writing a good stock character seems to be allowing that character to own its situation. Grobnar, like most of NWN2's roster, lacked that extra layer of self-awareness. He was nothing but an annoying little pissant spewing white noise. Yet this ignored one of the most basic rules of the good old DnD alignment wheel: alignments, as I understand them, were not meant to be just quirks. Chaotic Neutral is not a mental disease. Jan Jansen spouts gibberish about turnips and his improbably large clan of relatives getting eaten by gryphons, but he does so as a performance artist who consciously enjoys promoting such storytelling.
The writers made this awareness come through in dialogues such as his taunting of Viconia, where the player is allowed to join in on the joke and feed Jan extra material ... which Jan picks up and runs with, batting not one bushy eyelash in the process. He knows it's bullshit. He just loves being able to spout bullshit. When push comes to shove Jan shows actual awareness and concern for his family and occasionally some rather cool-headed insights during your adventures.
Chaos allows for pockets of order. Randomness is not homogenous. Freedom less so.
Given the six year lapse between the two games, I wonder how much of this difference between our two gnomish jesters can be taken as illustrative of D&D's own decline toward the idiotic simplification of the alignment system in 4th edition?
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edit 2018/11/15
For two years now I've been trying to think of a way to fit Jan to the old "My Name is Yon Yonson" rhyme but it is just freaking impossible to rhyme with Athkatla! Anyway, here goes turnips:
My name is Jan Jansen
A victim of scansion
I live in Athkatla
In a grand turnip mansion
As a wizard and thief
I can beggar belief
With stave or a cutlass
And then vanish briefly
The goblins I meet
As I walk down the street
My name ask exactly
And so I repeat:
My name is Jan Jansen
A crossbow distraction
Abstractedly tactful
Chaotic recursion
And so I repeat:
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