Ephraim Darkwell is the overarching antagonist of the Goosebumps franchise. He is a powerful sorcerer known for creating living dummies, the most infamous of them all being Slappy the Dummy. He appears in Slappy, Beware the book celebrating the franchise's 30th anniversary.
Appearance[]
Darkwell looks just like the classic image of a wizard. He has a pointy hat, a robe, and a long white beard. He has grey eyes.
Overview[]
Darkwell was a wizard with a fondness for making dummies and bringing them to life. His past is largely unknown, but it is mentioned that he learned black magic and moved to a village to explore the powers he had learned, indicating he was not always capable of magic and learned it as opposed to having it naturally. He obtained a cottage on the outskirts of the village and used it as a home to build dummies and practice his magic. He built dummies and brought them to life with his magic, at one point crafting a dummy named Isaac to act as his nephew. At some point, the villagers saw him talking to his dummies and realized they were alive. Realizing that Darkwell was a sorcerer, the villagers banded together to form an angry mob and burn down his cottage. Though Darkwell had vowed to never use his powers for evil, his anger at the villagers caused him to break that vow. He created Slappy to terrify the world as revenge for humanity treating him like a menace. Slappy's first action was to stop the mob when they came to try and burn down the cottage. After that Slappy and Darkwell left together.
It is assumed that Darkwell created Mr. Wood, Goldie, and Wally. However, at some point Slappy left Darkwell. As Darkwell instructed, Slappy would terrify and enslave people. This went on for 200 years. Darkwell had warned Slappy that if he ever went a full day without doing something evil, he would permanently be put to sleep. At the end, Darkwell appears before Slappy, still alive in modern day (presumably as a result of the magic he had learned). Darkwell reveals to Slappy that he lied about Slappy needing to do evil every day he was alive to avoid permanently falling asleep. Darkwell had simply told Slappy that to motivate him to do evil as much as possible. Darkwell also reveals that he had experienced a change of heart over the centuries and realized the error of his ways. Darkwell says Slappy's chant backwards to put him to sleep forever, vanishing after doing so. Unknown to Darkwell however, Slappy had used earplugs to keep from hearing the chant, meaning Slappy was still alive and free to continue his evil with Darkwell none the wiser.
Personality[]
Darkwell was intelligent, knowing a variety of spells. He had a fondness for bringing his wooden creations to life. He had vowed to never use his powers for evil. However, after being wronged by the villagers, he retracted his vow and openly started referring to his work as evil, creating Slappy for the purpose of terrorizing the world as an act of revenge against humanity for mistreating him. He realized his mistake overtime and tried to put an end to Slappy's evil once and for all. Unfortunately, despite his intelligence, Darkwell proved rather oblivious, as he failed to notice Slappy using earplugs, didn't bother to make sure Slappy wasn't faking it, and was ultimately fooled by the dummy.
