Christopher Carrion

A fictional character created by Clive Barker, "Christopher Carrion" is the main antagonist in the New York Best-Selling Series, Abarat by Clive Barker.

Background

Also known as the Prince of Midnight, Christopher Carrion is described as being "As evil as evil comes". He is the Lord of the , also called Gorgossium. Carrion lives in the castle Iniquisit.

His nightmares take physical shape as creatures residing in a fishbowl-like tank which forms a collar around his neck and the lower half of his face. Tubes attached to the back of his skull allow the nightmares free passage from the depths of his head to the bluish fluid which fills this nightmarish collar. These nightmares are used to punish and toture, and seem to respond to his commands as though they have intelligence. In the books he takes an unexplained interest in Candy Quackenbush, and is intent on taking her alive though he could have had her killed much more easily.

Although he once believed he could love and be good, he was crushed by the only woman he wanted to be with, Princess Boa, whom he is suspected to have had assassinated on her wedding day. Princess Boa was strangled to death by a dragon, in front of her fiancé Finnegan Hob, who then vowed to kill every dragon in the Abaratian archipelago.

Family

His only living relative is his grandmother Mater Motley, who supposedly has committed patricide, matricide, and infanticide.

According to Carrion's own words, his only sister, Theridia, died by choking on the stone inside a Smyrion fruit in the Carrion's orchard on Pyon. His father, influenced by his terrible temper, did not stop to mourn for her but instead decided to punish the tree by burning it. When he set fire to the tree, the fire spread throughout the orchard, eventually burning their Night Mansion on Pyon, the Carrion family's ancestral home. Christopher's mother and twenty-six brothers, who were inside of the Night Mansion at the time, were all burned to death. His Grandmother, Mater Motley saved him from sharing his brothers' fates by snatching him from his cradle and carrying him to safety. It is unknown whether his father is dead or not. Later on, it was revealed that Mater Motley had started the fire, or at least drove it on, so that her grandson might be indebted to her for saving him.