Asylum-"The devil doesn't reside in hell, Mr. Walker. He lives right here in the frontal gyrus; the occipital lobes. Inside those beautiful brains lies the secret of understanding the darkness of the human psyche, and ten of them put together are not as dark as what resides right here in this cute, blond melon."

Dr. Arden was a man of science with little regard for the archaic, religious practices of his employers. However, he was not without a twisted moral code, as he expressed great disdain for vulgar, loose women. He loved fine wine and Chopin. He had also made anti-Semitic comments on numerous occasions.

He was an older man, standing tall at 6′7″, with a shaved scalp and Van Dyke beard. There is reason to believe that he suffered from an abnormality or disfigurement of his genitals.

A small box on his bedroom dresser contained Nazi memorabilia and a series of amateur photos depicting women bound, beaten and perhaps dead, giving credence to accusations of war crimes and suspicion in a police homicide investigation. He was originally the supervising physician at Briarcliff when it was a tuberculosis ward; Monsignor Timothy Howard allowed him to stay on under the belief that his research could aid humanity. He regularly performed tortuous experiments on the patients of Briarcliff Manor and did not believe in using an anesthetic. Arden's lab was sealed off from the rest of the asylum's staff, affording him the privacy to pursue his twisted experiments.