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For other results, see Edward Carnby (disambiguation).

Professor Edward Carnby is the primary protagonist and central character of the Alone in the Dark series. He is voiced by James McCaffrey.

Edward Carnby is an independent researcher and private investigator specialized in paranormal phenomenon, graduated in Chemistry, Physics and History of Religions and Arts, who became a notorious figure after solving the case on Jeremy Hartwood's suicide in Derceto Manor in 1924, earning his reputation as the "Supernatural Private Eye."

Biography

Early Life

Edward Carnby was born in New Orleans in 1897, but no record was ever made of his parents’ identities. He was raised in St. Andrew's Home for Orphans and Foundlings. When he left on his 13th birthday, the Home secured for him a job on a farm outside of Plaquemine, where young Edward stayed for less than a week. Between 1911 and 1914, he started doing odd jobs for a New Orleans detective named Ted Striker. Carnby went on Striker’s payroll full-time in June 1914, mostly doing stake-outs and tailing people.

Carnby volunteered for service in the Marine Corps the day after the United States entered the war in Europe in April 1917. In the trenches near the river Marne, he captured a group of soldiers from a Bavarian infantry battalion. He was escorting them to a collection point behind the lines, when an artillery shell exploded nearby. Carnby went down, wounded and suffering from a concussion. When he came round, he found that his prisoners hadn’t been so lucky; all but one of them had been killed by the blast. The remaining captive had either been buried by flying earth or escaped in the turmoil. Carnby still had die man’s papers, though; he was a corporal named A. Hitler!

After the war. Edward Carnby opened his own detective agency in New Orleans. Business couldn’t have been all that good, because he was forced to accept some pretty low-life assignments. He had to wait until 1924 for his first break: A local antique dealer, Gloria Allen, paid him $150 to look for a piano in an old house called Derceto, someplace out in the bayou.[1]

Alone in the Dark

With nothing to do, amongst various threats and bills in envelopes, Private Detective Edward Carnby expects some contact from outside his office. This contact was Gloria Allen, an owner of an antique store, who asked for Carnby to find an old piano with secret drawers in the loft of an old mansion called Derceto in exchange for $150. Carnby accepted it, but he knew the mansion was no longer inhabited, so he read the police report on Derceto, and discovered that Jeremy Hartwood, its former owner, hanged himself, confirmed by the coroner as a clean-cut case of suicide. But Carnby gets even more excited when he hears stories about Derceto, such as murders, curses an all sorts of paranormal anomalies.

The next day, he hires a driver to take him to Derceto. When he arrives, he starts walking towards the entrance, along with the constant feeling of being watched. He opens the main door with the key that Gloria gave him, and walks up to the loft, where the piano is located. When he finds it, he opens the secret drawer, and when he discovers Jeremy's last letter, he hears thumping in the trapdoor and a window breaking out of nowhere. So he investigates further, considering Jeremy didn't simply kill himself for being crazy. A journal in the guest room and various creatures walking around the house are enough proof that Derceto is haunted.

Reaching the library, he finds out about the existence of Ezechiel Pregzt, an ancient pirate, who was buried in the region, in an underground tomb. Inside a secret room, locked by a hidden locket, Carnby finds a Talisman that holds the power to cease Pregzt's evil powers. When he opens a secret passageway, underneath Hartwood's study, he crosses a wooden bridge, which falls behind him. Now there's no turning back. he proceeds through the Chthonian's lair, falling in an abandoned tomb that resembles a sewer, with even more ferocious monsters than before.

Carnby eventually finds a treasure chest, which he opens with a key that he recovered in the dance hall, where he finds a strange gem. He pushes away a rock, just so he can enter a dark labyrinth. When he reaches its end, he finds a stone door with a diamond shaped carving, where he puts the gem.

When the door opens, Carnby finally faces Ezechiel Pregzt in person, now incarnated in the form of an evil tree, controlling every single being inside Derceto, earlier trying to drive Jeremy into madness. He goes down to the water level, where Ezechiel's tomb is located. While evading his guardian's fatal grasp, he places the Talisman on top of the grave and throws a lit lamp on Pregzt, lighting him on fire, killing him at last.

He grabs a hook just before making his move. As his tomb crumbles to the ground, Carnby climbs to a rock with an oddly shaped locket, which resembles a hook. He inserts the one he owns, and is back in the maze. A door to his right is opened in the exact same fashion. Carnby runs and climbs back to the Chthonian's lair, where he finds a small hole that leads straight into the mansion's cellar.

Carnby climbs the stairs. Everything is quiet and peaceful, and Ezechiel Pregzt is no more. He opens the entrance hall's door, and as he watches the beam of sunlight, he celebrates, and as he walks away in the crack of dawn, his driver stops by the gate, just in time.

From that day forward, Edward Carnby would be known as "The Supernatural Private Eye."

Alone in the Dark 2

It is 22nd of December, 1924, and Ted Striker finally tracked Grace Saunders down in Hell's Kitchen, and he aims to free her at last. Sneaking inside, he dodges the guards and climbs all the way to the second floor along the windows. He enters a room by the outer window, but his heavy steps attract unwanted attention, and even though he finds Grace, he can't rescue her on time, as a possessed clown chokes him to death with his bare hands. As Grace freezes in fear and terror, Elizabeth Jarret walks inside, laughing at his brutal death.

The same day, Supernatural Detective Edward Carnby receives a telegram from Stryker, saying as follows:

"Hell's Kitchen is cursed. Grace Saunders has been kidnapped by One-Eyed Jack. Help me. Stop"

Two days later, Christmas Eve, swearing to help Grace and his friend, Carnby takes a taxi to Hell's Kitchen. He attempts to ask for his entrance, but he is denied, as expected. Lucky he brought his own entrance ticket: a bomb hidden in his suitcase. Once it blows, he knocks out the bodyguard inside and steals his Thompson, which he uses to kill the other gangsters coming for him.

After he notices that not only the main door is locked, but it's also guarded by two giant gangsters, equipped with pirate pistols, he, then again, notices an unusually positioned sculpture. When he pushes it, it reveals a passageway to a labyrinth, which he follows until he finds an odd group of cards. He had earlier found a rope above a giant Diamond Ace, so he tries it once again.

When he steps on it, it opens, and he falls to the ground. Inside, there is a two-way cave. To the left: a trapdoor , and to the right: some kind of altar, a chest and an astonishingly drunk looking fool. The chest was empty, and as he pushed it, he drunk fool kept grinding at him, so Carnby hit him, making him fall to the ground and vanish in smoke, dropping a torn in half notebook, which Edward picks up. After he is done pushing the chest, he finds a metallic jack of diamonds. When he walks toward the altar, he notices a card looking carving, in which the metallic jack fits perfectly. When it does, the altar rises up and a strange looking spirit appeared, and was ready to attack. Oddly enough, the ghost is solid, and Carnby can defeat it easily with a few jabs.

The odd ghost drops a rusty pirate sabre, and Carnby picks it up on the way out. When he leaves the cave, he explores some more of the maze, and discovered live vines, that were slapping and twirling. The only blade in hand is the old sabre, so Carnby uses it. When the vines give, he follows, only to be surprised by Shorty Leg, who starts shooting him with a gun hidden in his wooden prostetic leg. So, Carnby reaches his revolver and unloads it in Shorty, who falls dead in the ground.

Shorty Leg was near a statue, and this statue seems awfully familiar. Carnby picks up a photo he looted earlier from one of the gangsters, and he can't help but notice that the statue's arm is supposed to be pointing lower. So, he ties a rope at the lower end of a hook he had found earlier and lunges it to the arm and pulls it. A somewhat hidden door opens, and when Carnby looks inside it, there are some ladders, and when he climbs down on them, he slips and falls down a slippery stone wall, leading him to some sort of cave.

Unfortunately, he stopped slipping above a plank, and at a moment of instability, the Thompson slips from his hand, the Revolver falls out of his jacket. He outnumbered and outgunned. He breathes carefully and proceeds, Picking up a lucky dime at the floor alongside a bag, a crank and an odd piece of newspaper. Looking away, he spots a fallen object, and when he gets closer, he notices it's a dead body, and when he gets even closer, he finds out it's the dead body of his friend, Ted Stryker.

Shocked, Carnby says out loud " It's Stryker! They killed him! I'll make them pay for that!" Despite the sadness, Carnby has to go on. In Ted's pockets, there is a pipe cleaner, which could come to be useful at some point, and a notebook. Placing it together with the other piece. It is finally complete, and Carnby can finally read it. It had a very desperate and sad message, as some sort of last testament, telling him to remind of old times' poker games and to rescue Grace Saunders. Carnby is now determined to not only rescue the girl, but avenge his friend as well.

Edward tries to open a metal door, but it's locked. He looks down the keyhole, but he sees nothing but pitch black, so he figures there is a key on the other side. He then puts the torn paper under the door and pushes the key with the pipe cleaner. It clings on the floor, and he pulls the paper, bringing along with it a key, which is used to open the door. Taking a second look at the paper, it was a cheap piece of parchment with a strange pact, and it looks like it was written by a musicman.

Carnby opens the door, he feels a cold wind, coming from a passageway in the wall up front, that led to the sea. But he can't help but notice the fat, lazy grunt, sleeping behind a barrel. While he's at it, he sees a barrel hooked up on a pulley, which was connected to a lever, just behind the same barrel as before. Edward blows the bag and pops it, making a very loud noise, waking up the grunt. Just after he gets up, Carnby pushes the lever, releasing the barrel, pushing the lazy loaf down the gorge beyond the passageway, who drops a loaded shotgun before his death plunge.

Alone in the Dark 3

A horse rented by Hill Century Studios was found in Johannesburg with a lipstick message written in its saddle: "Call Carnby", during an investigation by the The Mystery Examiner about a film crew that's gone missing in a ghost town in the Mojave named Slaughter Gulch, known by the local indians as The Field of Braves. The film studio boss, Greg Saunders, calls Carnby, asking him to investigate the disappearance of the film crew and of Emily Hartwood, who was also producing the film.[2]

After he realizes the town is haunted, he travels through the buildings, searching for Emily in every possible bit, learning more and more about the town's past and the corruption of its leader, Jed Stone, while still having to avoid the Elwood Brothers, former infamous bandits. When he finally stands before Jed to exchange Emily for a suitcase of money, Carnby is betrayed and murdered.

However, he returns, as he was carrying an Indian Medallion, which brought him back from Wasicum, the land of the dead, but in the shape of a cougar with jackal eyes. He's given the task to return an eagle statuette to it's proper place, so he can return to his human form once again.

After he does, he wakes up while being buried by former town sheriff Jack Dawson. He pops out of his grave and goes to an underground search for Emily and Jed, having to fight multiple creatures and solve various puzzles. He eventually finds out where Emily is and rescues her. Carnby reaches a boiler room, where he faces Jed Stone and the Elwood Brothers one last time, defeating them at last.

Him and Emily discover an abandoned locomotive, which can get them out of Slaughter Gulch. After Carnby puts the proper fuel in it and lights it up, they finally escape, abandoning Slaughter Gulch to its fate.

Alone in the Dark (2008)

At some point in time after the events of Slaughter Gulch, Carnby went on a journey across Eastern Europe and India, where he bought several rare objects, then traveled back to the U.S. and left again. He was last seen in Dehli and then disappeared in 1938, leaving no trace of his whereabouts. His body was never found.

And so, in 2008, an amnesiac Edward awakens from an exorcism. He sees two robed men and an injured old man, one of the men is ordered by Crowley to take Edward to the roof of the building and kill him. The guard is killed by an unseen force, allowing Edward to escape. As he wanders the building looking for a way out, he witnesses several people being killed or possessed by unknown demonic forces.

In his search for an exit, he meets Sarah Flores, an arts dealer. Together, they make their way to the parking garage, where they find Theophile Paddington, the man he met at the start, who claims to know what’s going on and who Edward is. He says that the chaos in the building was caused by the Philosopher's Stone that, until recently, was held by Edward, and that it had been taken by Crowley, who released its power. Paddington has the stone now, and states that in order to end the chaos, Edward must follow the Path of Light, before it is too late, much to Edward's confusion. The three of them take a car from the garage and head out into the city, finding it is in the same chaos as the building they just left, having to drive towards Central Park.

As a giant fissure wiping out the streets follows them, they drive across the streets of New York avoiding the surrounding destruction, until they crash the car in Central Park. Paddington gets injured and claims to be too weak to go on, he hands the stone over to Edward and tells him and Sarah to meet him at the Room 943 in the Metropolitan Museum, then kills himself. On the way to the museum, Edward finds out that his last name is Carnby through a call from Crowley. He tells his name to a doctor that he meets who tends to his wounds. As the doctor pulls Edward’s medical history, he informs that the only Edward Carnby in his records disappeared in 1938.

At the museum, the ghost of Paddington explains more about the stone. It contained Lucifer after he was cast out of Heaven, until Crowley released him. Lucifer now wants to use the stone to bring the end of the world. Paddington tells Edward that there is a secret in Central Park that will allow Edward to stop Lucifer. As Edward makes his way back to Central Park, Sarah remains at the museum, e-mailing excerpts from Paddington’s diary to aid Edward in his path.

Once at Central Park, Edward meets Hermes, who holds a stone similar to the one that Edward has. Edward is then revealed to be the Light Carrier, the holder of the Philosophers Stone, the walker of the Path of Light, and, subsequently, the perfect vessel for Lucifer. Edward and Hermes return to the museum to find Crowley holding Sarah at gunpoint, demanding Edward’s stone, who shoots Crowley in the head, finally killing him, then Hermes opens a cavern that leads to Lucifer’s gateway to reality.

Hermes combines his stone with Edward’s, and Lucifer's door begins to open. Edward wonders confused about how he can defeat Lucifer, and Sarah reveals that the prophecy of Lucifer ends with the paradox that "Lucifer's defeat is also his reencarnation", and Hermes tells Edward to take the stone, so he can face it, and Lucifer begins to manifest himself through Edward. As Lucifer begins to take Edward’s body, Sarah grabs the stone to prevent him from being possessed, and Hermes tells Edward to make a decision for all mankind, by killing Sarah or letting her live. Edward is then faced with a decision: shoot her or let her live.

  • If Carnby spares Sarah: Edward can't bring himself to shoot Sarah, they hug each other as the light fills the ninth ring of the gate. Sarah tests Edward's love, and he sees it, Sarah is no more, she has become the Light Bringer. And while Edward's memories are now lost forever, he faces an eternity ahead of him to fill with memories hunting down Lucifer and bringing his reign to an end. The scene fades to an unknown end.
  • If Carnby kills Sarah: Edward shoots Sarah, she topples off the outcropping, disappearing into the abyss. By saving Sarah's soul, he has ruined his own. Edward kneels in pain as the light fills the ninth ring and is taken over by Lucifer. Hermes laments his act, stating "the last free act of man was murder", and Lucifer stands saying "so it's his first free act". A Lucifer renewed lifts Hermes towards the door and relishes on his power: "I am the life bringer! I'm the fucking Universe!". Hermes shouts that "men will stand against him", and, as he hears demonic growls coming from inside the gateway, Lucifer says: "Did you think I'd come alone?" and smiles. Edward Carnby is now dead and the world now lies in Lucifer's hand. The scene fades to black.

Alone in the Dark: Illumination

Edward Carnby mentored his grandson, Theodore Carnby, telling him about his adventures as a supernatural private eye. He taught him all the details of every case, including the notes of the strange creatures encountered. The Hunter vowed that he too would help rid the world of the evil Darkness.

Personality and Traits

Throughout the trilogy, Carnby is really arrogant and unlikable, admitting to be pretty bitter towards other people, like when holding an exaggerated disdain towards his banker (even considering himself a victim), with little to no friends and a real lack of empathy and social tact, taking Jeremy Hartwood's suicide as an opportunity to satiate his curiosity, and despite knowing his friend Emily Hartwood went missing, he seems to care more about how much he will get paid for the job. He shows a really dry sense of humor towards the most unusual circumstances and is sarcastic towards others' observations and opinions, with a really gruff attitude towards Sarah Flores and Crowley.

He alleges to have made some enemies, receiving various threats by mail, leading him to think Gloria Allen to be a blackmailer, revealing some paranoia, indicating a troublesome past or bad reputation where he lives.

During gameplay, Edward Carnby shows himself to be really intelligent with the finest memory, capable of solving puzzles, disarming traps and quickly finding the meaning and/or use for a specific object, and is really skillful with basic martial arts, sword-playing ability and gun-play mastery, being able to transform everyday objects into powerful weapons, such as makeshift flamethrowers and molotov cocktails.

Quotes

  • Go and find the key to the irons to free me.

Trivia

  • Edward Carnby is inspired by John Carnby, the main character of the book "The Return of the Sorcerer" by Clark Ashton Smith, which consists of a scholarly recluse John Carnby hired to translate passages from the Necronomicon.
  • In Alone in the Dark, Carnby claims to be known as "the Reptile". However, the reason for this nickname is unknown. It is possible that it is because he is not very social or a cold blooded person. However, this nickname is not mentioned or even repeated in other games by any character, not even by himself.
  • Carnby's cowboy model is missing the left eyebrow. The same thing happens to his double.
  • Carnby's scar on the left side of the face cannot be seen in his picture with Theo in 1936, meaning he likely acquired it between then and 1938 before he disappeared, since it is registered in the NYC Medical Database.
  • The Hydravision version of Alone in the Dark (2008) shows some exclusive informations about Edward Carnby, and some conflicting ones:
    • Carnby was born in New Orleans, 1897.
    • Carnby is wanted by the Czechoslovakian and Russian police for classified reasons.
    • He went missing in New York in 1930 (In the Eden Games' version, he went missing in Dehli in 1938)
    • Carnby has a triangular birthmark in the upper left hip.
    • His long scar is not mentioned at all.
  • There are some confusions and inconsistensies regarding the exact time in which Edward was born, making the date unclear:
    • According to the Medical Database in the PS2/Wii version of Alone in the Dark, Carnby was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the year of 1897.
    • The document by Bureau 713, "The Secrets of the Shadow Hunter", from The New Nightmare Strategy Guide, indicates that an Edward Carnby born before the main protagonist was born in February 29, between the years of 1888 and 1899, and got involved in strange affairs between 1920 and 1939, which could be a match, since Edward disappeared in 1938 before returning in 2008. But since The New Nightmare never shows any links to other games in the series, this lineage is not mentioned in-game, and the planned sequels were never released to develop on this story, it's hard to point out if this information is canon to the original series' continuity.[3]
    • The Alone in the Dark Official Strategy Guide claims he was born in 1898.[1]
  • In Alone in the Dark (2008), if the player crashes the car too often, Theophile will argue that Edward was never a good driver.

Gallery

References

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