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Page 14
Posted July 10, 2016 at 11:15 pm
The transformation!! Only about 14 pages after most people were hoping to see it!! Quick detail thing I need to geek out about: "Fire and salt" refer to chemical reactions here, but fire and salt are also substances used in certain Shinto cleansing rituals. I'm not sure exactly how--Shinto is a super hard religion to learn about, and the book out there about it aren't big on specifics--but given that Japan was open to foreign trade by 1885, it's not impossible that Jekyll drew some inspiration for the transformation potion from Shinto! (I would say he learned it from Virginia Ito, but Jekyll created the potion before he started the Society.) This was a particularly nerve-wracking page because the transformation is the most iconic aspect of the original Jekyll and Hyde story. People have tackled it in all sorts of ways--some adaptations use a big, dramatic musical number, others show Hyde as a giant metaphorical spider crawling up over Jekyll's writhing body, that weird Mary Reilly movie adaptation did that thing where Hyde emerged as a screaming baby head out of Jekyll's neck . . . Yikes. I have no idea who made that creative decision. I decided to go with a pretty clean, simple transformation here, because in this scene, the transformation isn't some new, horrible experience for Jekyll, or a battle of wills, or a traumatizing revelation to a helpless observer. It's the opposite of all those things--it's part of a routine, a much-practiced changing of the guards. It's still super, super painful, but it's nothing new. . . . which makes all of this seem super dull and insignificant, but hey!! Hyde is here!! Everyone say hello to Mr. Hyde!! Yay!!