The Crooked Man

### Aliases

God of Doors, The Shadow on the Threshold, The World Serpent, The Doorman, He Who Walks Between, Bendy Boi, Structurally-Superfluous Gentleman

# The Crooked Man

## Overview

### Summary

An Entity of unfathomable power, The Crooked Man exists within the dimension known as The Backrooms and serves as a gatekeeper of sorts, and a jailer for the other Entities therein.[1] With an awareness of the entirety of The Backrooms, similar to a spider in its web, The Crooked Man can be roused from its deathlike sleep if too many beings either enter or exit The Backrooms in too short of a time-span -- "when the walls crack" -- although the exact specifics of this is unknown.[2][3]

In the event that it detects an disturbance in The Backrooms, it will rise from its home -- a location described as being between the Levels, as a rat might live between walls and floors of a building -- and attempt to capture the offending creature.[4] Often, this has fatal results for The Crooked Man's quarry.[5]

During the 2022 Fall Semester, Eleanor Black and the Survival Club discovered the existence of The Crooked Man during a Tillinghast Field experiment in an attempt to find a way to bring back students who had no-clipped into The Backrooms.[6] They encountered it again during their rescue operation and finally confronted it in order to save Avram Scotch and get back to Poppy Valley.

## Characteristics

### Appearance

The Crooked Man appears as an impossibly large creature with a humanoid torso, head, and arms with thin, stretched skin similar to that of a mummy and with a coal-black complexion that seamlessly blends in with the shadows from which it arrives. Its most notable feature is its elongated spine, which seems to extend infinitely from wherever it originates. Its lower body, if it exists in a form that can be called such, has never been seen.

It has a human-like head hidden under a mop of scraggly hair of the same color as the rest of its body, behind which its face cannot be seen. The only visible features The Crooked Man has are a pair of round, expressionless eyes which emit a glowing white light. It is theorized that it has some form of eyelids or is capable of closing its eyes, as without these being visible, The Crooked Man is virtually impossible to see in the dark.

### Powers and Abilities

The most well-known ability of The Crooked Man is to extend its spine and arms to a seemingly infinite degree. It bends at knuckle-like joints which snap and crack as it moves, creating an ominous sound as the Crooked Man approaches, and allowing it to turn around corners and maneuver through impossible spaces. It is believed that The Crooked Man possesses some degree of awareness of the space around his hands, regardless of their distance from his body, but it will typically be observed extending its spine rather than its arms in order to better perceive its target.

The Crooked Man is incapable of speech, but it has been observed making guttural sounds akin to laughter from time to time. To communicate with the Survival Club, it had assumed control of Avram Scotch's mind by gripping her head to establish a psychical link and speaking through her mouth. The effects of this are unknown, but Avram was observed with what appeared to be a thick black fluid dripping from her eyes, which had also turned completely black.[7] The Crooked Man was also capable of transferring some of its own memories into Avram, whereupon she witnessed it rise from its "home" in the Backrooms.

It is understood that The Crooked Man possesses a godlike level of power in order to fulfill its role as the Doorman and is considered to be more than capable of dealing with the majority of the Entities within the Backrooms, to the point that most will flee from its presence. However, it is possible to wound The Crooked Man to some degree, such as in the case of whatever injured it to the point where a relatively large exodus of Entities found their way into Poppy Valley while it attempted to recover.[8] It is unknown whether it is possible to actually kill The Crooked Man, or at least to any degree that could be considered "death" in the way that humans define it.

While it might not be considered a "power" in the traditional sense, the sight of The Crooked Man is enough to drive most people to madness, although it is possible that The Crooked Man might have some control over it. When Eleanor Black first saw it, she had a seizure and passed out, but was heard mumbling the nursery rhyme, "The Crooked Man" in her sleep.[9] When she saw it again at the end of the rescue operation, she once again devolved into reciting the rhyme on Twitter, although in a much more coherent fashion, suggesting that this was done consciously rather than as a result of seeing The Crooked Man.[10]

### Weaknesses

While the extent to which it harms it has yet to be determined, the Survival Club learned that the presence of Tillinghast Fields causes the Entities within the Backrooms, including The Crooked Man, a level of pain along with acting as an attractant, although it seems as though to something of The Crooked Man's power, it is more of an annoyance.[11]

## Trivia

* The admin for the Nora Black account has said that The Crooked Man is her favorite creepypasta as well as her favorite monster from The Conjuring cinematic universe, which is why she wanted to put her own spin on the creature and create an original design.
* As a celebration of hitting 200 followers, Nora's admin drew a picture of The Crooked Man playing Double Dutch and pat-a-cake with the Nora character and using its spine as a jump rope.[12]