Drawtober Prompt 3- Midnight Feast

I had a lot of different plans for this prompt but I ended up with the simplest one. This Hyde one is mostly symbolic, so I wonder if anyone will figure it out?

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gabrielied

Well, I'll take this as a challenge then.

Immediate key things I note in the drawing:

- the spirals in hyde's eyes which usually notates not only his being in control but also a sort of lack of control/hydes lust for blood. The spirals will often show up when he's acting out/discussing violence.

- sharp nails and pointed teeth, usually used to make something appear monstrous/inhuman. With the prompt I immediately thought vampire but I think its broader than that

- the fruit. I'm thinking this is an apple with a tree sproutung out of it. My friend noted that it was more elongated than a normal apple, and thought it was a heart, so we're going with it being a sort of mixture of heart and apple

- hyde has bandages around his neck and wrist. I immediately think of henrys bandages arms when he cut himself up on glass, but wrist bandages can also mean s*icide attempts or just general harm/injury

- the vest he's wearing is patterned with the jekyll family insignia/crest

- the expression in his eyebrows. I dont have the exact word for the emotion, but they're furrowed, almost in a look of regret or a desperate plea? My friend also said it could be a look of "should I feel bad about this?"

Okay now to use these to find potential symbols/readings of this picture:

Immediately the eating of an apple brings up biblical iconograpby with the forbidden fruit and the tree of knowledge. Thats usually symbolic for loss of innocence/lust for knowledge, which fits henry pretty well. If it's also a heart as well as a fruit, it could be symbolic for henrys heart, his good, and hyde is taking a bite out of it (destroying it/revealing the truth).

The tree growing out of the heart/apple could represent the spreading of sin. Throughout the comic and original story its been emphasized that jekyll is just as bad as hyde, but is controlled by his status in society and able to mask himself behind it. (I'll touch more on this later)

So if the apple is the original sin, then the apple/heart is the 'root' of Hyde's sins. It's Henry's heart, he is the root of his own issues. At the end of the day, Henry is the source of his own problems. Yes, Hyde is an offshoot of him consuming Henry, but he created this monster, he created this temptation. The branches are the sins (the murders, the lies, etc.) but Henry is the source.

I think the claws/fangs do follow the typical monster iconography. Hyde is often defined as a monster, all the evil inside Henry unpacked. These details are subtle, easy to hide, but hyde is flaunting them. Henry constantly masks his issues, but Hyde is proud to show them. Those spirals in his eyes are perhaps a lack of control, but they could also be freedom. As dark as Hyde is, he is blunt and truthful, and admits to his faults, somethign Henry is never capable of. They're both monsters, but Henry dresses himself up as an innocent person.

Speaking of, the vest. The jekyll family symbol. In the original story, henrys confessions admit that he enjoyed being hyde. He continued to take hj7 because it allowed him the freedome of doing whatever he wanted outside the rules of society. Ad hyde, he could indulge his lusts, then take a draught of hj7 and immediately be jekyll, where his status and name protected him from suspicion. Eventually, it goes too far and jekyll tries to save humself, but like the apple being the seed of the tree, jekyll is the seed of hyde. Henry wears his emblem like a mask, using his name and status to hide himself. He refuses to admit his mistakes and is often able to get out of them by name alone (the university incident, for example). Here, Hyde is wearing the Jekyll emblem, symbolizing how he and jekyll hide behind their status.

The bandages I admit are stumping me a little. My best guess is they symbolise a covering of scars. Henry hides his past, his trauma. He constantlg makes himsslf forget what he doesn't want to remember, or changes details. Heck, we still don't know the true story for how his father died. He shdouds his past, shrpuds his trauma/deeds, in order to keep this perfect image of himself stable. In that same way, he blames hyde for all of his evil, taking no blame himself.

Now, the expression. This could be a desperate plea from Henry, but I'm not sure about that. I think its more a reflection, like part of Hyde knows that what he's doing is wrong, but he has lost control and can't stop consuming. The while story is very symbolic for a loss of control/going too far. In the origin story, Jekyll took hj7 to the point where he was more Hyde than Jekyll, and sventually was stuck as Hyde. Letting oneself go is a slippery slope,and the dynamic between Henry's adamant refusal to admit guilt and Hyde's reckless frenzying is toxic, a dangerous back and forth that has been fracturing Jekyll, destroying him. I think theres def other ways to intsrpret the expression, but this is my best guess to match my other analysis.

So, yeah. Long winded probably doesn't make sense, but there ya go @midorilied

#immediately picks this apart

@midorilied / midorilied.tumblr.com

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