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Character: The Skin Taker
“You shouldn't have opened that box, shark bait! But now you let me out, and I'll have your hide!„ ~ Jawbone quote in the channel zero.
“To GRIND YOUR SKIN!„ ~ The Skin Taker, when asked why he grinds his teeth.
The Skin Taker is a skeleton marionette, and an inhabitant of the Abysmal Kingdom, who was summoned to Candle Cove. He is known to roam around candle-lit caves and seashores. He is the most prominent figure of Candle Cove and its associated lore, frequently serving as a source of nightmares. He in the TV show Channel Zero, was also called Jaw bone and was the main antagonist(if you can really call him a one due to the show in Channel Zero being shown in only snippets and always seem to be about Bravery Cave). It also is later told that the real “Skin Taker” is the dream version of Jawbone and is part of Eddie Painter, who created the entire show/dimension in Channel Zero. Eddie Painter, or the "Tooth Child", is the main antagonist of the first season of the horror anthology series Channel Zero. He is the twin brother of Mike Painter, who had created the show Candle Cove in order to lure children to their deaths.
Appearance[]
He is a skeleton with glass eyes, which are too big for his sockets. He wears a top hat and cape made from his victim's skin. Most noticeably, he has a jaw which can only move side to side. He mentions that his jaw moves this way to grind skin. In the tv show Channel Zero however, he is called Jawbone and wears a black cloak and a more traditional pirate hat. That being said, his dream form that is actually called Skin Taker looks like a humanoid covered in skins and faceless with an hat every once and a while. As Eddie Painter he has a few different appearances, such as his normal child visage and The Tooth Child. The Tooth Child is basically a small child like build made entirely out of teeth. His boy form is just a regular boy wearing a red long sleeve shirt.
ASPECTS[]
The Skin Taker is very calm, but also sadistic. He does not acknowledge skinning his victims as cruel he thinks he is doing them a favor. The Skin Taker thinks being dead is like another version of being alive, as he speaks to the dead as if they were still alive. However, like many villains, he is abusive towards his henchmen. One notable incident involved him curb-stomping Horace into the body of a rat. As Jawbone he seems much more Joyful and goofy, his voice matching that. He is seen laughing as he chases Percy and when he talks about taking his hide. He still seems slightly sadistic but toned down and is even shown on the Laughingstock with Percy and Horrible Horace. He doesn’t even see hostile to them during that. Eddie however is at first just a normal kid but becomes dark and cold. He doesn’t seem to care about killing people and almost seems to be humored by it. He in his tooth child form however just seems to be more emotionless though that could be because how it walks, and doesn’t talk or show expressions. Eddie is even a little hostile to his brother Mike though he seems to have some what forgiven Mike(for killing him).
EPISODES[]
In his earliest appearances, The Skin Taker acts as a secondary antagonist, by tempting Percy to commit assault, battery or even murders or suicide. His most notable early appearance involves Janice and Percy entering a cave and finding him grinding his teeth. When asked by Janice why he does, he responds with the page quote, notably staring directly at the viewers as he says it. He is known to be present in six episodes, but he may have been in more of the ones that were unaired. His scenes are generally lengthy and considered frightening. His signature songs, "Come, Come, Rip" and "One Year Closer", contain some ambiguous and dark themes. (Although the latter very obviously speaks of Janice being closer to death, and thus closer to becoming another victim.) The Skin Taker is not defeated in every episode. He has managed to kill pirates from both tribulations and crafted (on-screen and off-screen depending on the episode) pieces of clothing from their skins. The most notable victim is the rival pirate Milo, who had assumed he could garner more power by working with the Skin-Taker, unaware of who was really in charge. This character is, by far, the most controversial part of the show. Of course, in the original Candle Cove was revealed to be of dubious existence given how everyone who remembered it was actually watching static. However, this greatly emphasizes The Skin Taker's sinister qualities, as well as the rest of the show.
ASSOCIATED LORE[]
In other accounts that branch outside the series and create a sort of mythos for Candle Cove, The Skin Taker appears as a notable figure of malice and nightmares. His performer Michael Colon is noted to have endured a horrendous nightmare in which his son was murdered by The Skin Taker and had his face added to the skeleton's hat. Sadly, Colon's son Trevor was murdered for real, and the killer remained at large. In one narrative, "Candle Cove: Tales from the Laughingstock", Colon is interviewed by an unnamed writer attempting to gather information about the series for a book. Colon relates this nightmare and ultimately takes his own life when the nightmares return to him following the interview. Assorted other narratives present The Skin Taker as a foreboding sign of what is to come. The protagonist of "Candle Cove: Day of the Dead" recalls how her son received a macabre statuette of The Skin Taker playing a piano not long before he was murdered by a man for playing the Candle Cove theme.
CHANNEL ZERO[]
Candle Cove was adapted by channel SyFy as the first six-episode season of a series called Channel Zero. Here, the Skin-Taker had two separate personas. In a pocket dimension, he was called Skin-Taker, and his default form was a baggy, decomposed humanoid who wore a bicorn hat and kept sticking nails into his head. He groaned and moved in a convoluted way. When he appeared on the TV as a vision to kids, he was called Jawbone, looked like a stereotypical skeleton pirate, with a classic bicorn hat, but wore his trademark human-skin cape. On the show, 'Jawbone' acted like a demented, highly strung maniac who was prone to fits of laughter, and he had a goofy voice. His catchphrase was tweaked, as he said 'I will have your hide' instead of 'to grind your skin.' Eddie used to be best friends with his brother, and more often than not, they were heavily bullied. At this time, Candle Cove was running on the air, brainwashing children. Without any warning, children were beginning to disappear in multitudes in an event infamous to Iron Hill, the Iron Hill Murders. Eddie seemingly develops psychic abilities, and uses them to seek vengeance on his oppressors. When one of the main bullies confronted them, Eddie manipulates him into licking his hand as if he were a dog, only to then cause him to walk off a cliff. Horrified by the senseless brutality, Mike quarrels with his brother, leading him to unintentionally killing him. Out of remorse, he buries Eddie deep in the woods, and eventually leaves Iron Hill. Frances, who had been previously healed of her chronic seizures, constructs a vessel for Eddie's spirit made entirely of human teeth. Eddie tasks her with luring more children to be brainwashed, and he plans on continuing his murder spree by taking possession of Mike's body. 28 years later, Mike returns to Iron Hill and immediately concludes that the murders are the result of the puppet show. After confronting Frances, he reunites with his brother's spirit, and he is whisked into another dimension in which the real Candle Cove takes place. Eddie also kidnaps Mike's daughter, and gives him an ultimatum; he'll release his daughter only if he allows him to leave with his body. Mike reluctantly agrees to his brother's demands, but he manages to save time by tricking Eddie into playing a card game with him. Meanwhile in the real world, Marla, the twins' mother, tearfully smothers Mike's body, thereby severing Eddie's link to the physical world at the cost of Mike being trapped with his brother. The season ends with Lily sitting in front of the television. Candle Cove began to air on the television, but Lily is saved when the ghostly Mike appears and shuts off the television. Whether or not Eddie can physically interact with the world is currently unknown.
Stats/Abilities/Skills/Equipment:[]
Strength: Speed: Durability: Intelligence:
Powers: ▪Magic,Voodoo, and Necromancy: He is proficient in death magic, but rarely uses it. It is implied he used necromancy to summon skeletons.
▪Communing: In one episode it was revealed he uses the skins of the dead to communicate with them, but this ability was only used in one episode of the show.
▪️Flight?: though this could just be a style in the show, he was said to appear out of no where, and just float down from the sky. This could also just be how people remember it in the original story, “Candle Cove” and possibly retconned by later stories. This could also be a version of teleporting[see teleportation below]
▪️Siren Song: In the song “In the Cove” he is able to manipulate and control a girl, just by singing to take her to where he plans to skin her.
▪️ Reality warping: Eddie is shown multiple times changing reality. He first starts small by making a Hook appear under Katie’s bed. Along with making the show appear on tablets and computers, even manifesting physical representations of the characters from the show.
▪️Psychic powers/Madness and Fear Inducement: Skin Taker is shown having an affect on people’s mental psyche. This is shown mostly in “Candle Cove: Day of the Dead”. Eddie also shows this when he was manipulation the kids of IronHill and causes hallucinations for Mike(his brother) and the parents of the kids.
▪️Brainwashing: Eddie is constantly doing this to kids, making them merely drones for his own usage.
▪️Capable of creating a world/dimension: Eddie created the entire show and dimension of Candle Cove. It was made by simply his mind. He was also shown being able to take people there, for the cost of two teeth.
▪️Possession: Again this is about Eddie. He posses Mike’s daughter and is planning to fully posses Mike, though that plan fails.
▪️Technopathy: Candle Cove is many times shown in Channel Zero taking over multiple forms of technology, from TV’s to Cellphones and Landline phones.
▪️Transcendental Immortality(Characters whose true selves exist independently from the plane where they can be killed): this is only true of Eddie. After he was killed he still existed and was able to affect the world. Though the affects he could cause where limited. But the main fact is he was able to exist outside a body just in Candle Cove for years and probably can exist there forever.
▪️Teleportation: This was mostly shown by Eddie in his Tooth Child form. It seems to constantly teleport from place to place without being seen. He is also shown doing this when he appears to Katie in the hospital.
▪️Ship: Has a few Pirate ships
▪Followers: Skin Taker/Eddie have had many different followers. Skin Taker
- the Abyssal Things
- the Skeleton Crew
- Horace Horrible.
Eddie
- the kids of IronHill
- the puppets
- A version of Horace: is show the same size as an average human.
- Pirate Percy: no feats shown
- Laughingstock: no feats shown
- Cloud: No feats shown
- Mrs. Booth
▪️Equipment:
- Knifes
- Meat Hooks
- Pirate Sword
- Skinning Equipment
Trivia ▪ His birthday is on the same day as Janice's. ▪ His appearance can be compared to that of Baron Samedi. ▪ He often breaks the fourth wall, and talks directly to the audience. ▪ The reason he has no skin is because Poppy skinned him to avenge his victims. ▪ He enjoys throwing tea parties, but it is unknown who he has them with. ▪ Some note that his movements are highly realistic, much like those of Poppy. ▪ It is hinted during the show that he refers to a higher authority, speculated to be an Eldritch Abomination. ▪ His wife is revealed to be Mrs. Skin-Taker, but it turned out to only be a dream, so her actual existence is unconfirmed. ▪ A man anonymously claimed to own some records that indicated that there were pirates who went by the "Skin-Taker", but with no indication that any were like the antagonist in Candle Cove. It is also unknown if the records are real or fraud, since the man also claims that they just happened to disappear before historians could check for authenticity. ▪ His cape gets longer and longer during the series. At one point, after Janice's actress changes, it gets almost twice as long, which is the most noticeable time when this occurs. It is unknown if this was coincidence, or if the developers did it on purpose as a rather dark joke.