# Tell me about Mr. Hyde **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2005, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979 "2005-02-02T14:06:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/21 "2005-02-03T06:59:25Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > Quite true. However, the problem with doing a straight forward adaptation of the story is that everyone already knows the twist. In the original text, the revelation that Jeckyl is Hyde is _a shocking twist_ :eek: coming near the end, followed by about 20 pages of Jeckyll explaining how he did it. At that point in the story, a modern audience would say, “well duh”. Of course, you could say the same thing about **Hamlet** … ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/22 "2005-02-03T08:11:28Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Most people don’t realize it, but Barrymore actually looked like that. All those other photos of him, where he looked handsome? Really, really good makeup job. Wow. I guess all that drinking really took its toll on his looks. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/23 "2005-02-03T08:18:36Z")
> [@Odinoneeye](#): > > Of course the best looking hyde is Sean Young I don’t know, [Martine Beswick](http://www.fbo.com.au/DVDImages/8220008A.jpg) could give her a run for her money. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/24 "2005-02-03T12:49:14Z")
In the book, Hyde’s description is maddeningly vague – he gives the impression of deformity, without actually being deformed, his visage is ugly, leering, and evil, without actually having any features that one could identify as ugly, leering or evil. He’s a nondescript little guy with hairy hands, and he’s somewhat younger than Jekyll, and people tend to dislike him on sight. …and, yes, in Vol. II of Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hyde pretty much permanently takes over the show, refusing to change back because he thinks Jekyll would get him killed. As time goes by, it’s described that Hyde has taken over much of Jekyll’s personality. At the end, Jekyll is a small, pale, frightened little man without much will of his own at all, whereas Hyde is the Incredible Hulk, but much cleverer. The monologue mentioned above is where Hyde speaks about how Jekyll has probably “doomed us both.” When Captain Nemo asks how this is so, Hyde responds by explaining that by separating the two of them, he has also separated the parts that made each side whole. “Without me, he has no drives… and without him, I have no restraints.” ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/25 "2005-02-03T13:44:15Z")
Now, every movie I’ve seen has Hyde as a sexual predator & w/o having read LOEG, I still know what Hyde’s main MO is there. Is there any basis in the book? It’s been years since I’ve read it & I may have missed it (I think I was in fifth grade, around 1972 & wouldn’t have picked up on whatever Victorian euphemisms Stevenson would have used.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/26 "2005-02-07T13:18:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > If you haven’t done so, you should read the book. It’s infinitely superior to any adaptatio of the story. > > Since I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan, people got me a lot of “new” Holmes novels for Christmas. One of them was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes. It is a mediocre book. Not too bad, not great. Based on what I have read here, the author does the original representation of Mr. Hyde justice. That’d be Loren D. Estleman’s book. I’d put it above mediocre, myself – I’ve read Holmes pastiches that were far worse. Estleman had previously given us **Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: or The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count**. a quick read. I started and finished it while waiting in line to go up in the CN tower. > [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > If you haven’t done so, you should read the book. It’s infinitely superior to any adaptatio of the story. > > Quite true. However, the problem with doing a straight forward adaptation of the story is that everyone already knows the twist. In the original text, the revelation that Jeckyl is Hyde is a shocking twist coming near the end, followed by about 20 pages of Jeckyll explaining how he did it. At that point in the story, a modern audience would say, “well duh”. Quite true, but there’s more than just the twist. None of the adaptations really does as well with the rest of the story, either. And nowadays, everybody has to inject something new into the story as well. ---
**Author:** ![sciguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@sciguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciguy)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/27 "2005-02-07T18:54:32Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Now, every movie I’ve seen has Hyde as a sexual predator & w/o having read LOEG, I still know what Hyde’s main MO is there. Is there any basis in the book? It’s been years since I’ve read it & I may have missed it (I think I was in fifth grade, around 1972 & wouldn’t have picked up on whatever Victorian euphemisms Stevenson would have used.) Well, I happened to have picked up the original Stephenson novel a couple of weeks ago, along with some annotations and commentary at the end. In the book, Jeckyll concocts the potion because he had already been living a secret life (with vague mentions of “dark deeds”), and the guilt from these activities had been seeping into his “normal” life. By separating his moral and amoral sides, he could indulge in these activites without the guilt, since it would be “Mr Hyde” performing them, not Dr. Jeckyll. The actual details these dark deeds, either done by Jeckyll or by Hyde, were never mentioned, probably deliberately. But the commentary states that given the Victorian setting (and the period it was written) that they were most likely sexual. By not giving any clues, Stephenson let’s the reader supply their own list of perversions. The only “evil” acts of Hyde actually described in the book are knocking over a small girl (possibly with some beating by a cane, I can’t remember off-hand, but she was definitely injured), and beating an old man to death. ---
**Author:** ![ArrMatey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrmatey/32/3522_2.png) [@ArrMatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArrMatey)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979/28 "2005-02-07T19:15:05Z")
> [@Maus Magill](#): > > Hyde’s monolog to Nemo after some unspeakable acts in Volume 2 explanes it better than I ever could. Unspeakable, but in a way, horribly fitting. The greatness was that both he and the invisible man reverted to, in essence, what they really were: Monsters. The difference is that Hyde redeemed himself in the end. (Oh, and the ‘surprise’ that Hyde pulled on the invisible man? I’d been jonesing for it to happen since the first series, when it was set up. When it happened, I almost cheered, despite the ‘unspeakable’-ness of it.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-mr-hyde/287979.md?page=1)