IN: James Black was born in Hackensack, New Jersey on 1 May 1800. James' mother died when he was very young and he had difficulty getting along with his stepmother. Black ran away from home to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at age 8 and was apprenticed to a silversmith. At age 18 he migrated westward and took jobs on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

In 1830, Black made the famous Bowie knife for Jim Bowie who was already famous for knife-fighting from his 1827 sandbar duel. Bowie's killing of three assassins in Texas and his death at the Battle of the Alamo made him, and Black's knife, legends. After Bowie's death in 1836, Black did a brisk business selling his knives to pioneers bound for Texas. Everyone seemed to want "Jim Bowie's knife." Black forged his knives behind a leather curtain and kept his process a secret. Black's knives were known to be exceedingly tough yet flexible. Many claimed that Black had rediscovered the process to make Damascus steel.  James Black's wife Anne died in 1838; and in 1839, while Black was in bed from an illness, his father-in-law Shaw broke into Black's house and brutally attacked him with a club. Black's life was saved by the family dog; he survived, but his eyes were severely damaged by the attack. He went north to seek medical advice, where his eyes were further damaged by the inept ministrations of a Cincinnati, Ohio, physician. When Black returned to Arkansas he discovered that his father-in-law had sold his business and property, illegally, and disappeared with the cash.  Black lived on a local plantation for a couple of years until Dr. Isaac Newton Jones took him into his home. Black lived with the Jones family for the next 30 years. He attempted to pass on his knife-making secrets to Daniel Webster Jones, but unfortunately he could not remember the technique. Jones would later become Governor of Arkansas. James Black died on 22 June 1872 in Washington, Arkansas.  More skeptically, "...[T]here is no direct contemporary evidence to establish that James Black made a knife for James Bowie... The story rests solely on Black's claims made well after he had been adjudged mentally incompetent..." "...[T]he only time that [James Bowie] verifiably used a knife in a personal encounter was on the Sandbar in 1827..." "...[T]o this day there is no known knife bearing his name that is proven authentic, nor positively identified as the work of James Black. Neither is it proven beyond doubt that he even made a knife of any type!" Shifting the question (and the burden of proof) from people to knives, "...[T]he Black explanation remains the most logical way to understand this part of the Bowies' history."

Did he survive the attack?

OUT: Black's life was saved by the family dog; he survived, but his eyes were severely damaged by the attack.


IN: Pinhead is a fictional character from the Hellraiser series, first appearing as an unnamed figure in the Clive Barker novella The Hellbound Heart. The name "Pinhead" is derived from a sobriquet given to him by the crew of the first Hellraiser film; he is first credited as such in Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Nearly thirty years after The Hellbound Heart was published, the character was given the designations the Hell Priest and the Cold Man in the sequels that followed, The Scarlet Gospels and Hellraiser: The Toll. Pinhead is one of the leaders of the Cenobites, formerly humans but transformed into creatures which reside in an extradimensional realm, who travel to Earth through a puzzle box called the Lament Configuration in order to harvest human souls.

According to Clive Barker, as the writing of the Hellraiser script took place during the height of the A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween film series, his intended portrayal of Pinhead as an articulate and intelligent character was initially not well received by the producers: some suggested that Pinhead should act more like Freddy Krueger and crack jokes, while others suggested that he be a silent character like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. Barker insisted that Pinhead's personality be more evocative of Christopher Lee's portrayal of Count Dracula: "Part of the chill of Dracula surely lies in the fact that he is very clearly and articulately aware of what he is doing - you feel that this is a penetrating intelligence - and I don't find dumb things terribly scary - I find intelligence scary, particularly twisted intelligence; it's one of the reasons why Hannibal Lecter is scary, isn't it? It's because you always feel that he's going to be three jumps ahead of you."  Though described by Pinhead's human half in Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth as being "very persuasive and very inventive", Pinhead prefers using coercive methods in order to obtain his goals, a fact which brings him into conflict with his ally, the demon Princess Angelique.  Pinhead can be reasoned and bargained with. In both Hellraiser and Hellraiser: Hellseeker, Kirsty Cotton bargains with Pinhead to offer him more "souls" in exchange for her own (in particular, her human adversaries), thus resulting in her life being spared. In Hellraiser: Revelations, Pinhead is prepared to take Emma to the cenobite realm for having opened the box before other characters explain that she was forced to open it at gunpoint by her boyfriend; Pinhead agrees to let Emma go and take Nico instead.  In his demonic incarnations, Pinhead is irreverent toward Christianity: in the third film, club owner J.P. Monroe exclaims "Jesus Christ," to which Pinhead mockingly replies, "Not quite.", and later on mockingly imitates the stigmata in a church, and states in the fourth "Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?" In Clive Barker's Hellraiser comics published by BOOM! in 2011, Pinhead has reached a crisis point in his existence and now yearns for spiritual salvation and the opportunity to reach Heaven, and puts into motion a plan to destroy his fellow cenobites as a means of atonement.  Paul T. Taylor, who portrays Pinhead in Hellraiser: Judgment, described the character as "twisted and intelligent". Finding Pinhead's mannerisms and demeanor to be unique among horror icons, Taylor tried to capture that in his performance: "It's about the stillness. He's already so terrifying that when he makes a move, it means something. He's very economical and when he speaks, he's so eloquent." Taylor also incorporated the uncomfortable make-up and costume into his presentation of the sadomasochist, stating "Pinhead's always in agony so he likes it. I feel like I was in character the whole time, and I don't mean that in some sort of artistic, lofty way. I mean I maintained the demeanor the whole time because I had to."

What is Pinhead's personality like?

OUT:
an articulate and intelligent character