James Etten is a main character in Goosebumps. He is portrayed by Miles McKenna.
History
James and his best friend, Isaiah Howard, went to get food from Nora Parker, but since the card reader at her place was broken, she gave them some saltines to eat instead. As they left, they watched Lucas Parker ride a skateboard off the roof, injuring himself, and agreed they found him weird.
At school, they had a pep rally, where Isaiah gave a rallying speech while James wore the mascot costume and hyped up the crowd. When they left the pep rally, they saw Sam in the hallway and James panicked because he had a crush on Sam. Allison approached them, taking Isaiah's attention away when she showed them a video that she'd made inviting people to a party at her house for Halloween that had been edited to add farm animal noises. When James said over 1000 people had seen it, Allison wondered what she'd done to make someone at school hate her so much. The video was sent to her parents, forcing her to change it to another location. Isaiah suggested the Biddle House, as he believed the owner wasn't moving in until the next day. They went to the house to set up for the party. When the power went out, Isaiah went down to the basement, but James refused to go with him. When Isaiah came back, he scared them by taking a picture with a camera he'd found in the basement.[1]
This resulted in James hitting his head on a cuckoo clock, which trapped him in a time loop. Every time he tried to leave the house, he ended up back at that moment and had to re-live it. He decided to use this to his advantage, looking up things about Arsenal to connect with Sam, who was a sports fan. They ended up kissing and when Sam asked James to leave with him, James first went to the clock and broke it. He was relieved when that allowed him to leave. The next morning, he was shocked when several duplicates of himself appeared in his house. They captured him and hid him in his family's mine, taking his place.[2]
One of the dupes went to school for James and pointed out Isaiah to Nathan Bratt, the house's owner, when he came in looking for Isaiah, who had left his bag at the house.
Isaiah came to Dupe James later and showed him the camera he'd found at the house, which he had discovered showed future events when pictures were taken. However, when he showed Dupe James the pictures, they went blank, so Dupe James didn't believe Isaiah. He took a picture of Isaiah, which to Isaiah, showed him with a broken arm. Later, at the game, that picture came true, with Isaiah breaking his arm in a tackle.[1]
Dupe James ignored Isaiah over the next several days, not answering his texts or his phone calls.
Dupe James was at home when Victoria Chen-Lopez came over with her daughter, Isabella. His mom had him take Isabella to the game room, where they played pool. On one of Isabella's turns, she hit a pool ball and it hit Dupe James, splattering him into goo.[3]
The real James remained trapped in the mine for a week, until Isabella figured out what was happening and brought Isaiah and Margot with her to rescue him. He was upset to learn that Isaiah couldn't tell the different between him and the dupes, but Isaiah said it was because he was always changing himself to be liked. They fought off many more dupes until they were able to escape. Once they were free, they went to the Harbor Stop so James could get some pancakes. While he ate, Margot decided to call her mom, who told her she couldn't trust the other parents and she'd be there soon.[2]
Eliza realized James had been out all night and asked if he was with someone special. He refused to tell her anything. At school, James and Isabella lamented how wild their previously boring lives had gotten. Not wanting to keep waiting for Margot's mom, they decided they could trust her dad and agreed to talk to him about everything that was happening. Isaiah also wanted to include Allison in their group because she'd seen something in the woods the night of the party, but Allison denied having seen anything. Before they could talk to Stokes, Margot told them they couldn't trust him after all. Then they connected Lucas's strange behavior to worms that had also come from the Biddle house, meaning Lucas was also involved.[4]
When Margot called for a meeting at James's place, they gathered and waited for her to come up. While they waited, Isaiah told James he'd broken up with Allison, which excited James. When Margot arrived, she told them her mother hadn't shared anything.
They met again when Bratt gave Margot a scrapbook, which she discovered allowed her to see into the past to when their parents were in high school. They felt it was too dangerous to keep using, but Margot insisted, wanting to get answers. When Margot got stuck in the memory, they wheeled her body to the Biddle house, where another memory took place, and entered the memory themselves. They saved Margot from burning up in the fire and then watched as their parents walked out of the flames, carrying a case. They realized they were watching their parents kill someone, but Margot and Isaiah believed there had to be more to the story. They wanted to know what was inside the case and Bratt invited to tell them if they came inside his house.[5]
The teens came in and listened to Bratt tell the story of Slappy the Dummy and Ephraim Bratt, leading up to the death of Ephraim's great-grandson, Harold Biddle. Based on his telling, they believed their parents had actually tried to help Harold and were his friends, but Bratt insisted they were murderers who had bullied Harold. They asked him how he knew all this and he told them the twist was that he isn't Bratt, but Harold. He scared the by turning into Harold right in front of them.[6]
General Information
Personality
Physical appearance
Notes and Trivia
Gallery
Episode Stills
