Evil Association

In The Replacement, Xander experienced the extreme version of the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome and immediately labeled the new Xander as evil. In this episode, Xander were split into two people: one carrying his stronger traits, and one carrying his weaker traits. Xander as his friends knows him was immature, quirky, lacks self-confidence. This was how the audience viewed Xander too. So when I saw the confident and mature replacement, I could not tight the two Xanders together. Together with Xander, I thought the new Xander was evil. The new Xander was labeled evil not because of his actions; on the contrary, all the actions the new Xander took were improving his or his friends life. However, because we already labeled him as the evil one, whatever the new Xander did made us speculate what his evil plan was.

This split personality was also showed in Dr. Jekyll who labeled Mr. Hyde as his evil counterpart. Dr. Jekyll had a very good reputation in the community that he lived in as an accomplished scientist. When he created a potion that could deform his body, Dr. Jekyll was thrilled. He didn’t view the person before and after drinking the potion as the same person; he called the deformed self as Mr. Hyde. Due to the extreme deformity, Mr. Hyde looked grotesque. In front of a mirror, Dr. Jekyll looked tall and accomplished, while Mr. Hyde was dwarfish and looked like a criminal. Due to the stark contrast between the two appearances, Dr. Jekyll pronounced that the dwarfish looking one possessed all his dark side. Again, like the new Xander, Mr. Hyde was labeled evil due to things that we relate evil with not of his action.