Gideon is the ghost of an English Third Fleet naval officer. He appears in the Australian Sitcom Ghosts and is portrayed by Brent Hill.
Biography[]
History[]
Gideon was midshipman of HMS Bounty when the 1789 mutiny happened. Remaining loyal to Lt. William Bligh, he was forced to leave the ship on a small boat with him and other officers, where he was put in command of the privates scrubbing excrement from the boat.[1] During the ordeal he was forced to drink the urine of said privates to survive.
He sailed to Australia on the 1791 Third Fleet, which transported convicts to the Sydney penal colony. By the early 1800s he was third commander of the ship Salamanca and tasked with founding a new town in the area where Ramshead Manor would be built later. His next in command was Gerard Larkin. Despite obvious signs of the area being occupied, such as embers and tanned skins, Gideon insisted that it was completely uninhabited and attributed the evidence to an intelligent animal other than man. He then released a pair of rabbits with hope that they multiplied, but waited for the next day before releasing cane toads.
Gideon ruled the colony from a small tower house built on the site of Ramshead Manor. Though he tried to be friendly with the natives, whom he claimed as subjects of the King, he was an ineffectual leader. Using printed signs, he tried to threaten indigenous hunters with hanging for killing livestock, then let them off with a warning. He did the same to the colonists who killed natives in retaliation.[2]
Death[]
When the natives rebelled, Gideon was handed a pistol and encouraged to talk to them by Larkin, who reassured that they trusted him. Gideon was then mortally wounded by a spear and died in the tower house after breaking the shaft with his fall. After this, Larkin assumed control and was enshrined as the town's founder (hence named Larkinell) while Gideon became the first ghost of Ramshead Manor.[2]
As more ghosts haunted the grounds, Gideon claimed leadership for being first. The others mostly let him, but only Satan took him seriously and called him "Boss". When Alfred died, Gideon tried to claim the master bedroom for himself, but he was disputed by Miranda. After Kate and Sean inherited the place, Gideon called them invaders and encouraged the other ghosts to use their powers to scare them away, until Satan pushed a ladder when Kate was standing on it and she was injured. Back from the hospital, Kate was now able to see and hear ghosts.
Once again, Gideon told Kate to leave, saying that the room was already taken. Kate refused and Gideon eventually accepted her as the new "Captain" of the house.[3]
Appearance[]
Gideon is a portly man wearing a 18th century navy uniform and wig. He has a broken spear shaft embedded through his chest and his face is slightly sunburned.
Personality[]
Gideon is haughty, nationalistic, proud of his state as the oldest ghost in the property and his navy service, specially on the Bounty, which he retells constantly. However, he is ultimately weak in character, caving when he meets opposition, and easy to manipulate. He has an authoritative, borderline paternalistic relationship with Satan and Joon, and is closest with Eileen, whom he begrudgingly respects and bickers with like an old married couple.
Trivia[]
- Gideon's steed Jemima shares name with the little girl ghost Jemima of the BBC series Ghosts.
- He would be 12 when Bounty set sail from England in 1787 and 14 when the mutiny happened. This would be possible for someone born into nobility and the son or nephew of a naval officer.
- His ship Salamanca is possibly named after the 1812 Battle of Salamanca (a.k.a. Arapiles) in the Peninsular War.
- His uniform has one epaulette on the left shoulder, indicating his rank of commander at the time of his death.
- His release of rabbits and cane toads is an humorous reference to the introduction of these animals to Australia, which had disastrous consequences on the local ecosystem. The rabbit plague is actually attributed to an introduction in 1857 (though there is evidence of rabbits as far as the First Fleet in 1788), while cane toads were only introduced in 1935.