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| “ | It's rather conforting...isn't it though, this world and all of it's cozy evil? | „ |
| ~ Professor Gilbert; Shaodw Hearts: From the New World |
Professor Gilbert is the third main antagonist in the videogame Shadow Hearts: From the New World and a central manipulator of most of the troubles that transpire in the game.
Marlow Brown and Johnny Garland
The story of Gilbert first starts with the tale of a young occultist named Marlow Brown, who was attempting to become a black magician. Marlow manipulated a man named Graham Garland into attempting a resurrection ritual with the book known as the Émigré Manuscript on his children. The Emigre' Manuscript has appeared in all the Shadow Hearts games and in the original game the series was built off of Koudelka, the book has been used many times in attempts to bring back the dead, but it has never ended well. Marlow and Graham accidently created Lady in their attempts to bring his children back to life. Lady killed Graham in cold blood and Marlow ran away terrified of the eldritch horror he had unwittingly released. Little is known about Marlow's activites in the mean-time except that he seems to have continued his research into how the Emigre's Manuscript exploited the malvolent demonic like energy known as Malice, his sanity seems to have suffered somewhat for his experiments. The game starts off with Gilbert asking junior private detective Johnny Garland to help him find his colleague Marlow Brown. Gilbert says that he was a former research partner and an old friend who had gotten into trouble with the law and he had payed his bail to get out of prison, but Marlow had escaped and run off so as bond guarantor Gilbert would owe quite a lot of money if his friend was not found. Johnny took the case and agreed to find Marrlow. Once Marrlow was tracked down and cornered a portal opened up in front of Johnny and Marlow was killed by an unholy abomination that came out of it.
Gilbert's Experiments
Johnny was saved by Shania a native-American, shamness with the power to call on guardian spirits of the planet and told him she had actually just happened upon Johnny while tracking down a Lady that killed her tribesmen. Shania suspected Marlow had some ties to the Lady. Johnny agreed to help her and her body-guard Natan by leading them to meet Gilbert to report the death of his friend so they could make any inquiries about Marlow to him. Gilbert had told Johnny he could find him in the Arkham University as a professor there. When Johnny, Shania and Natan got to the Arkham University though they would find a percular man named Frank, Frank too was looking for Gilbert and said he hadn't seen him on the Univeristy grounds yet then ran off. Exploring the Univeristy Johhny would find that Gilbert was unpopular both as an instructor and a colleague and he had moved his research to an underground lab off of the main campus.
Johhny, Shania and Natan managed to break into the small complex but found the halls were inhabited by monsters simlar to what had killed Marlow. Johnny pushed forward worried about Gilbert. In the complex they found Frank again and saved him, in an effort repay the act of kindness Frank joined them and told them he would open the door to Gilbert's office for them with his "special skills", which turned out to just be unlocking it with a key he found in the lab. When they got to Gilbert's office Johnny reported with a heavy heart that he had found Marlow but unfortunatly he had died. Gilbert seemed much less upset about the news than Johnny expected. Gilbert cared neither about being out a few thousand dollars nor about the death of his friend.
Gilbert leaving Johnny and friends to be killed by his monsters.
When they asked about the monsters runnnig through the complex Gilbert casually says that he seemed to have gotten a little carried away and created too many of them, but that he had started to keep them in cages and Johnny becomes quite aware of the mad-man he had been working for. Gilbert states that while he had nothing to do with Marlow's death he had a theory it would turn out as it did and was preforming a final experiment with him. Gilbert then opens simlar portals to that which opened infront of Johnny and Marlow and calmly walks out leaving the party to deal with the monsters.
Lady, Killer and Gilbert
Gilbert was looking for Lady as the final piece to the research he wanted to conduct with Malice. He did evetually find her as she was wondering through Chicago with her new-bodyguard, Killer. Lady had saved Killer's life and he had become quite infatuated with her, but Lady did not speak and Killer had many questions about her. Though Killer opted to kill Gilbert as soon as he tried to make contact with Lady, Gilbert managed to convince Killer to spare him as he was the only one who could elaborate on Lady's past and estimate her goals. Gilbert bartered his safty with Killer and Lady by feeding Killer a steady trickle of information as it came-up and showing Lady where the beacons were that she was looking for open to a gate to the Malice home-plane. While at first Gilbert played on Killer's desire to be with Lady by telling him she would become human when the gate opened eventually he revealed that Lady had no desire to be human again and was just being drawn back to her home-world and back to a state of pure Malice. Killer did not seem to care by the time Gilbert told him of Lady's true goals though and just wanted to help her.
As Johnny and friends pursued Lady several questions came-up involving her past for both Johnny and Killer. Johnny found out the truth about Lady from Roger Bacon, a character who has been present the adventures of each game in the series, who had writen the Emigre', Killer on the other-hand questioned Gilbert who had an involvment with the experiments with the Emigre' Manuscript that created Lady. Gilbert knew of the Emigre' Manuscript and the past attempts with it and became very intrigued when Marlow came to him with information on it, so Gilbert payed Marlow alot of money to conduct his research. Gilbert told Killer about Marlow and Graham, how they attempted to resurrect his children Johnny and Grace, while Johnny seemed to have been revived Grace was swallowed up by the Malice used in the experiment and her body was hollowed out as a vessel for the Malice, the resulting avatar of Maice was Lady. Though Lady's past was revealed Gilbert kept his safty intact by offering contiued assistance in speeding up Lady's attempts to open the Gate to the Malice-home plane.
Killer eventually died defending Lady against the party. In a rage over Killer's death Lady threw open the Gate and carried him in. Gilbert noted that she intended to raise him from the dead by filling his body with Malice in her homeworld but it seemed that Killer was already infected with Lady's Malice and apprently so filled to the brim with it that there was simply no more that could fill his body to resurrect him. While Lady went off to mourn Killer in her own way Gilbert stayed to bask in the power of the Malice home-world.
Gilbert Transformed
When Johnny and company followed Lady through the Gate they found Gilbert blocking their path. Gilbert told them he had been seeking the power of the Malice home-world all along and looked forward to having it wash over the planet. Gilbert saw the Malice as an indiscriminate source of power that would make everyone weak and strong alike into god-like Lovercraftain horrors. Johnny and his friend realized how far gone Gilbert had been for some time and told him to get out of their way and they would not hurt him, Gilbert declined the offer. Far from surrendering Gilbert decided to demonstrate the power he now had and focused the Malice on his body transforming himself into a eldritch horror. Unlike many others though after his transormation into a being of pure Malice, Gilbert seemed to remain in control of his senses, whether this was due to his knowledge, insanity or both is never stated.
Trivia
- After Gilbert leaves Arkham Univercity his lab is sold out to the newest researcher there, Professor H.P. Lovecraft, the real world writer of among many other things the Cthulhu Mythos. In the game professor Lovecraft continues Gilbert's research into eldrich monsters but for purely academic research purposes and summons past monsters for Johnny and friends to fight so they can train and he can study them.
- Gilbert's english voice-actor is Scottie Ray, who also voiced Zhuzhen in Shadow Hearts.