#im in tesrs over the description of the book tho it’s so cute

[wibble-wobbegong]

Jack the Ripper and ST: Part 2, ‘Eddy’ Victor and James Stephen

Among the hundreds of suspects for who really was Jack the Ripper, one of the strongest contenders was actually a duo; Prince Albert ‘Eddy’ Victor and James Kenneth Stephen.

In part 1, I emphatically argued for Edward’s role as JTR, but he may not have been working totally alone. Of the four suspects I’ll discuss in these parts, Eddy fits with Edward extremely well and the only reason he wasn’t taken in as JTR was because it would’ve been physically impossible for him to be in the place of the murders. That wouldn’t exactly be an issue for our Edward, would it?

Below the cut, I’ll establish parallels because they’re genuinely just as interesting than the murders themself, the relationship Eddy and James had, how they would’ve functioned as murderers vs how Edward and his partner did function as murderers, and how both of them died.

Establishing Parallels

Edward

First, the most obvious of parallels, names. Prince Albert Victor os the name he’s known by historically, but his full name was Albert Victor Christian Edward and the name the world called him was Eddy.

In his full name we see direct connections to Victor, Edward’s father, Christianity (which is a major theme in the show after the Creels are introduced), and, of course, Edward. The prince could’ve paralleled Victor Creel, but he chooses to go by Eddy. Not Victor, not even Edward, but Eddy. Now, this guy definitely is meant to parallel Edward Creel when we look at his childhood (which we will), but his choice of going by Eddy not only reinforces Eddy being Edward, but it contributes to the theory of Edward becoming Eddie by overtaking his corpse as his own mangled body is unusable after the burns — aka, Eddie puppet theory.

Even more than just the names, there were reports of Eddy as a child that sound eerily similar to our own Creel history. It was said that Eddy had an, “…elegant and possessive mother… ‘want of manliness’… ‘shrinking from horseplay’… [and a] ‘sweet, gentle, quiet and charming’ nature.” That doesn’t sound familiar? Try this one.

“…they would like to make a man of the world of him. Into that world he refused to be initiated.”

Come on.

Eddy also had a younger brother, born so close in age they were treated like twins. They went through education together and the educators refused to separate them because, without his brother, Eddy’s teachers felt like they could not teach him. He was far too “mentally absent”. Broken, if you will.

Again?

thanks em

Another fun little experience Eddy had once he was older was with Oscar Browning, who, “made pets of those undergraduates who were handsome and attractive.”

I’m not even gonna say it because I hate it!

Even moreso, his family held the high expectation for him to marry a woman who was charming, sensible, and pretty. He failed to achieve this goal several times, likely because he was homosexual.

Peter

Yeah. He’s here because god forbid I make ONE post without him working his way in. Here’s a real nice parallel to James Stephen — where Peter is most heavily noticed by the Saint Peter painting in the Russian church, James Stephen was a member of the Apostles intellectual society. Saint Peter us one of Jesus’ twelve Apostles.

James Stephen also has a cousin names Virginia Woolfe! This would also mean that Edward and Peter were likely cousins, seeing as Virginia is Edward’s sister, and then being cousins…. is really fucking funny.

I love it when bad couples parallel bad couples.

One more little thing is that James Stephen was a poet, and much of what he wrote can reflect the show with mentions of curses and melodies,

as well as the concept of twins demonstrating the contrast and similarity as a huge theme in mankind.

Peter’s parallels may not seem strong right now, but it’s hard to draw a ton of parallels to a character who doesn’t yet exist. Just trust me.

Homosexuality

When James and Eddy met, it was because James had been chosen to tutor Eddy before he was to be sent to Trinity College. While Eddy would’ve been 24, figuring out the time this took place in Edward’s life isn’t difficult because of the Brenner figure I mentioned earlier. Eddy met the man who would treat people as his pets during his first semester at Trinity College, which draws the comparison between the lab and the college, effectively placing Peter and Edward’s time right before Edward was sent off to Brenner. Makes pretty damn good sense if they’re meant to be an alternate version of Creelarke.

I’d like to consider this time to be when Peter and Edward were in some sort of summer program together, or something similar. This post by @aemiron-main points out the very likely possibility of Owens being Edward’s father and how, although I have called Peter Owens’ son in the past, the inly information we have that connects him to Owens is that he has Peter’s old school projects. Considering the summer camp is directly connected to both Ruth and Rose being in the same place as Petey McHew, we get this: Rose (Creel), Ruth (Owens), and Petey (Peter) were all in the same place at the same time during the summer.

It’s possible that Owens, as Edward’s father, had Peter help Edward in a summer school before they moved to Hawkins for the new school year.

This relationship is especially fascinating because James was a Christian man who actively participated in Christian activities (see; apostles society) — it’s likely this summer was teaching more than math and science. Where Hames was highly intellectual in comparison to Edward, this may translate to Peter’s greater success at pretending to be normal and straight compared to Edward’s ability to do the same.

Any feelings James felt for Eddy were very intense despite this. Strong enough to write about hating a specific woman and a specific man in his poem Men and Women. He was enraged by everything about this woman and this man was described in grief as his body became vacant of his soul and was nothing more than a corpse. He also mentions a missing eye replaced with glass in this man. Familiar?

It’s all familiar because the duffers fucking hate me and want me dead.

James also killed himself because of Edward’s death. By the way. What normal, heterosexual behavior.

Eddy was also heavily accused of homosexuality numerous times throughout his life by family, friends, press, and even historians. It wasn’t just James either, oh no, the entire Cleveland Scandal (involvement with a homosexual brothel) followed him for the rest of his life.

These bitches gay.

As Murderers

Here’s where things get really interesting.

1886 — two years before the Whitechapel murders — James suffered a massive head injury. He was struck by an object from a moving train, permanently altering his brain.

His behavior quickly devolved and he became deluded that he was a painter of great genius…

…and he eventually proclaimed that the doctors told him he would either die or go completely mad.

He was committed to an asylum in 1891.

Not only is the Phineas Gage parallel coming back, it’s being tied to the time Will was being used as a puppet by Edward. Edward learned that tactic from somewhere.

In the theory that James and Eddy were a murderous duo, it was suspected that James was the one controlling Eddy because his profile matches JtR so well. His hatred for women and mental status are the source of this belief. Their relationship in murder was described as, “…mutually dependent, with Stephen as the dominant partner.”

This dynamic could very sell explain why there’s so much puppetry in Vecna’s image.

i ran out of image room :(

Although Peter is no longer an active participant, Edward is still being guided by his ideals. Puppeteered, even. It isn’t something he rejects.

There are so, so many parallels between characters in ST and JtR’s victims, but this is already long. I’ll simply say that the death of Mary Jane Kelly is extremely similar to what we see in Mother Alice’s bedrooom, and I already pointed out the F in the first part. I’d only recommend looking into MJK if you’re very comfortable with looking at gore.

Also, Eddy’s tomb is surrounded by Saints. Peter follows him to death and beyond (which is about to be really ironic).

Deaths

I’ll keep this bit quick.

James died in 1892 due to mania triggered by the death of Eddy. He starved himself for 20 days as an act of suicide, seeing as he was in an asylum and didn’t have many choices. The timeline would indicate that Peter died in 1964, which also happens to be the year Kali was born in London.

That deserves its own post I think.

More importantly is Eddy’s death. Supposedly, he died if pneumonia, but it is theorized that his death was faked to remove him from his line of succession to the throne, which is cool on its own but what makes it really good is that media chose Eddy to be the one who takes the Dracula persona I mentioned in part 1. There was also a novel written after his death called the The Prince of Mirrors which is about his life with James.

There also happens to be a Sherlock Holmes interpretation of him in Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years, which shows him as a tyrannical ming who rules after the mysterious deaths of his grandmother and father. The throne he supposedly died to be removed from.

There’s a lot influencing this after-death image of Eddy in Dracula and kingship, which makes Vecna’s name of the Undying King pretty ironic.