Erskine Ravel

"There's a special place in hell for traitors like me"

- Ravel, being confronted by Skulduggery for murdering Ghastly Bespoke and Anton shudder

Erskine Ravel is a secondary character turned antagonist of the Skulduggery Pleasant series. As the Man With The Golden Eyes, he orchestrated events throughout the series in order to fulfil his goal of exposing sorcery to mortals. It is unknown if he wanted to rule over mortals or genuinely save them.

Background
Erskine Ravel was born in 1606.

He joined the Dead Men unit during the war with Mevolent, and was eventually captured and tortured.

He was rescued by the Children Of The Spider and lived in squalor for the next few years, brooding over how poorly the magical community is treated by their restraints that prevent them from doing so much better for humanity. These thoughts would fester and become the basis for his plan.

He did eventually rejoin the Dead Men, but from that moment onwards, Erskine Ravel was a changed man, though he didn't let it show.

Personality
Ravel is charismatic and flirtatious, as shown in his early appearances, where he charmed Valkyre and made multiple attempts to seduce Tahith Low, much to Ghastly Bespoke's annoyance.

His charisma would come into play later, where he used it to gain influence over the people of Roarhaven and enact his plan.

He was also shown to regret his actions in Last Stand Of The Dead Men, wherein he lamented the loss of Ghastly and Anton, and said there was a special place in hell waiting for him. Most of this regret was gone by Dying Of The Light, where he reasoned that the pain inflicted on him by Darquese was too much for even him.

It is likely that the pain severed the sanity he had left, as he acts much more selfishly and unco-operative afterwards, as well as attempting to supercharge himself with the accelerator, despite knowing what happened to the previous users.

Fate
Erskine Ravel met his end in the closing chapters of Dying Of The Light. After supercharging himself and bringing the accelerator countdown to just over twelve minutes remaining, he refused to sacrifice himself, saying that he'd sacrificed enough.

Skulduggery stepped up to the accelerator and threw Ravel in, vaporizing him and ending the countdown. He reasoned with the Engineer that he did willingly give a soul; just not his own.