Forewarned is forearmed: the first half is my rant and theories about The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which I believe are interesting. But if you want, you can skip to my "The Replacement" analysis at the end.
I questioned a lot, while reading this, the extent to which Jekyll could control his actions while Hyde; is Hyde the bad side of Jekyll, or just a mask behind which Jekyll can do whatever he wants? Is there a difference between the two? For example, if I could suddenly change my appearance at will, and use that appearance to act however I like knowing there would be no consequences, this wouldn’t make me a different person. This would just make me, Lisa, doing bad things behind a mask, pretending to be someone else.
When Dr. Jekyll looks down and sees the hands of Hyde, I feel as though implies that he is still completely aware and in control of himself in Hyde’s body. We talked about this in class, how the Hyde feels Jekyll’s presence and how Jekyll feels Hyde’s, but I think they are one in the same, just his impulses whispering to the one mind, rather than distinct personalities. For me, Hyde is just as mask – not a separate entity of Jekyll’s vices, and ungoverned by himself. Instead, I think he can be viewed as a mask that Jekyll hides behind, allowing him to do whatever he wants, but without consequence, since he is able to later return to his true face. I think his consequence in turning into Hyde permanently is that he no longer has a face to hide behind, and that whatever he does as Hyde won’t go away when he changes – he will have to be responsible for his actions, and take the blame. He becomes the outward appearance of his evil, and has to live with it for the rest of his life.
…And now, to connect this to “The Replacement.”
For me, the most interesting thing about this episode was that it was told through the perspective of, for lack of a better term, Lame Xander. Throughout the episode, we see Lame Xander peeking through windows at Cool Xander taking the lead in their life: Cool Xander getting his promotion, signing the lease on his apartment, and taking command of the investigation with the Scoobies. The significance of this point of view is that we feel Lame Xander’s loss, and empathize with him because of our own self-consciousness that we feel in ourselves. We know what it is to be awkward and ungainly, and so place more stock in Lame Xander than Cool Xander. The episode thus plays upon our own notions of self worth: we’d rather believe Cool Xander to be the enemy than think Xander (our ourselves) capable of actually being that Cool, because true confidence is rare; everyone has their doubts.
It also intrigues me that the two Xanders (as halves of the same being) fail to recognize each other as Jekyll recognizes himself in Hyde. The two Xander’s obviously share some traits (such as their sense of humor), so why don’t they realize that their counterpart is not evil?
I think a lot of this speaks to Xander’s internal conflict (had it been Buffy, the two sides of her character would have been the girl and the Slayer, which have been in conflict all seven seasons); he’s always been that guy with potential in the real world, but is always overshadowed by the supernatural capabilities and know-how of his friends. The two sides don’t want to recognize each other, because Cool Xander doesn’t want to admit Lame Xander’s presence, and Lame Xander sees Cool Xander as an impossibility. For these reasons, the two sides refuse to acknowledge one another, seeking the destruction of their doppelganger. But, as these things go, the sides can’t exist without the other – thus Whedon demonstrates that some parts of ourselves are inescapable, but that we do have potential to be the best of ourselves, with just a bit of confidence!
<3 Lisa
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