MH: Jackson Journal Moment -Mattel vs KP-

I’m sure people are sick of me saying this, but I was thoroughly disappointed and unhappy with Jackson’s journal. I really hated the way they wrote him. I mean really! They went and retconned many things (like dad not being there, and mom being human), and they changed his transformation trigger to eth music (ok they did give a viable excuse for it, but I still don’t have to like it) but the one thing that really got me the most was this scene; the scene where he confronted his parent(s) about being Holt.

The top panel is what I felt the way they were portraying it. Basically it was just a “oh you’re the last one to know, and you’re an idiot for not knowing. Now go do your homework” sort of conversation and that is so stupid! Yes, if you know BOTH your parents are abnormals, and your relatives are abnormals, then yeah you should have expected you were abnormal too. I do get that, but seriously? They gave no excuse for not telling him that he and Holt were the same person. It was just such a poorly done scene.

The bottom panel is MY portrayal of the same scene in MY continuity. In my setting, Jack’s dad is dead, mom’s a geneticist who majors in abnormal genetics, and they’re on the run so no one catches on that Jack inherited the Hyde genes. He attends MH because of his mother’s ties, and she is 100% human. So it makes sense the whole “oh I’m human but I wanna be a monster” thing, whereas if both his parents were monsters he should at least be half fire elemental here! (and I still feel that’s a cop out species explanation but that’s another rant). And she didn’t tell him he was Holt to protect him from the people after them, and so he wouldn’t like hate himself too. Janet goes out of her way to keep them both in the dark, out of safety.

I’m also not loving the flat haired Jackson either; again “dork” and “nerd” do not mean the same thing, and as much as everyone calls him a dork, he’s not a dork, he’s a nerd (nothing against nerds mind you). So I tried to show the differences between Jacks too; mine has the fluffy hair the GB doll has and is blonde, not yellow haired.

And the familial structure…uhg! Book said that he lived with doctor mom and that dad was the Hyde and well died. Holt’s journal said he and mom were on the run, with no mention of dad AT ALL. Video game said Jack’s mom was related to Heath’s dad. Hot was listed as “Son of Mr. Hyde” and Jackson has been listed as “Son of Dr. Jekyll” and “Son of Mrs. Jekyll”. This “Mom is Hyde and Dad is fire elemental” doesn’t fit any of that!! If you wanna get into basic genetics, if Mom carries the Hyde genes, only one of her Xs would have it so it shouldn’t be active in her and yet it is, and she’d only have a 50% chance passing it along (which ok would excuse his “but I’m human ” whining BUT he would still have been half fire elemental), whereas if it’s Dad that’s the Hyde, that would mean his Y was infected so it’s a guaranteed pass along AND be active in male offsprings (which would make my crack daughter unable to inherite it though…darn…moving on). And why doesn’t Jack have dad’s last name then? Hmmmm??? And I feel like this now reduces the chances of Heath being half human, so that means he’s just a jerk and not dealing with mixed racial feelings, which sorta ruins his character a bit for me, but then again that was always a personal headcanon anyways. Still, it had been looking like they were trying to combine continuities for a whole, but now this giant retconn mess just makes me go “WTF?” at it all.

But so yeah…I’ve been very disappointed at Mattel’s writing lately.

Jackson Jekyll and his random (poorly thought out) parents © Monster High © Mattel
Janet Jekyll is mine