The Stupid Helmet

Hyde would not be that verbally expressive, in my estimation. He has enough trouble expressing his emotions when in private with Jackie (or anyone trusts). Hopefully, he'll have grien more comfortable with it by the wedding. But Hyde is hardwired not to be verbally effusive.

I think he would have developed a silent, gesture-symbolic way of communicating his feelings to Jackie. He'd use a specific gesture as his vows, and she'd be the only one to understand.

Whenever I read in T7S fanfic Hyde speaking to Jackie like a generic romance novel character, I cringe. 😵‍💫 Hyde has, what I've called for over a decade, emotional constipation. Pushing out the words that express his feelings is very difficult. If he begins soliloquizing to Jackie about his love for her, unless he's under a magic spell of some kind, it's not Hyde.

A significant amount of emotional pressure is one reason he'd get out the words. At his and Jackie's wedding, he'd refuse to read vows he wouldn't write down anyway. He'd freeze up if he had to speak on the spot.

The best he could do is, "Jackie, you know how I feel. We wouldn't be getting hitched if I didn't plan on followin' through on what that means."

As usual, the answer depends on where Jackie and Hyde are in their relationship. From your ask, sounds like they're well-established and fully committed to each other.

Hyde's "jealousy" about Kelso is actually an insecurity specific to Kelso because of Jackie's relationship to Kelso and how she uses Hyde during S2-S3 to deal with her grief over Kelso.

Random dudes, I don't think Hyde would care too much about by the time he and Jackie have chosen to live their lives together. The exception is if they're having communication issues, meaning a problem exists in their relationship they haven't worked through yet. Otherwise, Hyde might tease Jackie about her new man-friend.

Donna grew up.with platonic mane friends, Hyde included, so I doubt Hyde would feel threatened by that. If one of those friends was attracted to Jackie and wanted more, Jackie herself would put an end to that. Unless the guy were aggressive and didn't understand, "No," is a complete sentence, Jackie would off-handedly tell Hyde about the non-situation.

Hyde (proud): That's my chick.

Jackie (straddling his lap, facing him): Exactly. (She cups his cheeks.) And you're my man, the only one I want.

They make out.

***

If Jackie needed help with an aggressive male "friend" who won't stop pursuing her, at work she'd go to HR. If HR were useless, she'd use her lawyer. At college in the early 1980s, from what I've gathered from various sources, she'd have little to no resources on campus (I'd have to do real research to be accurate about this subject). Hyde beating up the guy could get him tossed in jail and her tossed from the school. So this situation is quite the conundrum.

Her dad would be out of prison by then (his sentence would only be nine months; this fact I did research, specific to his stated crimes, Wisconsin, and 1978. I actually found an almost one-to-one case that occured in Wisconsin that very year, and the man was sentenced nine months, which is the standard maximum).

Jack Burkhart would be Jackie's best bet in getting this guy off her back. Jack would deal with the college administration.

Over the years, other people and I have received somewhat heated asks that demonstrate a lack of knowledge about what John Gardner, literary author and teacher, called the fictive dream and how it applies to all stories -- including That '70s Show.

For people who'd like to learn why certain of Hyde and other T7S characters' actions are (considered) OOC (by others), read this meta. You'll also learn about what's called character drift, a problem that afflicts many TV shows.

No main character on T7S is exempt from the writers forcing them to act against their long-established natures to serve plot and punchline. When plot and punchline is put first, character consistency suffers.

Hyde sleeping with the nurse in S5 tends to divide T7S fans about whether or not it's in-character. Read this meta for why I believe it's not in-character and why the showrunners and writers seemed to have known it was out of character, too. Reading the text (i.e. dialogue and actions of the characters) closely often reveals the truth. 🧐

Ah, I misread part of your previous ask. I thought you’d referenced only when Eric helped Jackie in season 4 in “Jackie’s Cheese Squeeze," which is why I didn’t write about “The Pill” (S1). Sorry about that. 😊

I absolutely think Eric is altruistic many times when he’s supporting or protecting someone. I also don't think Hyde is always purely altruistic when he’s supporting or protecting someone. It’s both/and, not either/or. The thesis of my response to your original ask is that Hyde and Eric experience different types of consequence when they do support others. Whereas Eric generally takes emotional risks that don’t, or won’t, have an existential aftermath that might threaten his safety, Hyde often negates his own safety to help someone else. Altruism and self-sacrifice are not the same. My previous post goes into extensive detail about these differences, so I won’t rehash it here.

The text of “Prom Night” (1x19) doesn’t support your interpretation of Hyde’s reasons for going to Prom. In fact, it disproves them. The scene in the basement between Jackie and Hyde is as follows.

Jackie sighs loudly a few times while Hyde watches TV.

Hyde: Jackie, if I asked you what's wrong, will you stop doing that?

Jackie: It's the prom. Stupid Michael's taking stupid Pam Macy. And I don't have a date, but I told him I did, and I'm a complete loser.

Hyde (laughs then stops himself): No, you're not.

Jackie: It's just that, like, I thought he was gonna ask me. And now everyone who's anyone is already going.

Hyde: That is so true.

Jackie: How would you know? You're not even going. ... You're not even going! And I bet you clean up real good.

Hyde: Well, I do, but I won't. See, that's a big part of who I am.

Jackie: Look, I know we've had our differences, but --

Hyde: Jackie, we've had nothing but differences. In fact, don't we kind of hate each other?

Jackie: Yes, but this is the prom! [Starts crying in Hyde's lap.]

Hyde: Jackie, stop. ... Stop crying. ... Stop it. [Pauses for a beat.] Look, do you want to go to the prom?

Jackie stops crying, straightens up, and says, "Yes."

End scene

***

Your ask claims (in a somewhat combative manner) that "Hyde went to [P]rom [because] he's a teenager and didn't want to be left out (...)

The episode reveals the opposite. Jackie says not once but twice to Hyde, "You're not going [to Prom]."

Your ask also claims Hyde wants to go to Prom "because he wanted to get laid (...) ."

In the scene transcribed above, Jackie tries to coax Hyde subtly into taking her to Prom by saying, "And I bet you clean up real good." Hyde sees through what she wants, however, and rejects it by saying, "Well, I do, but I won't."

Hyde has absolutely no interest in attending Prom. Getting laid at Prom is not in his head. He goes only because Jackie cries (or fake cries), and he's uncomfortable with her pain. He wants to make her pain stop, which is why he goes to Prom, and it's the only reason he goes.

In order to reconcile Jackie and Kelso at Prom, Hyde knows he has to distract Kelso's date, Pam Macy. He does so by asking if she's "ever seen the backseat of a Lincoln Continental," and she answers, "Lots of times." He follows up by saying, "Would you like to see another one?" She says, "Sure."

Hyde is clearly asking Pam to fool around, likely to have sex, in Jack Burkhart's car. Hyde "get[s] laid" because of a series of choices and events that lead to it. Not because it's a motive to go to Prom.

One is entitled to one's own opinions but not to one's own facts.

But I appreciate the mostly respectful manner in which you argued your point of view. I understand that people become emotionally attached to fictional characters. I'm not exempt from this phenomenon. But I also prefer to keep my emotions out of analyses or debates about characters.

I've written many analyses where I rip plenty of Hyde's choices and behavior to shreds (based on the text of the show). He's an inconsistently written character, and I choose what's consistent about his depiction throughout T7S to decide what I consider the canonical Hyde. Others might choose different consistent aspects than I do to decide their canonical version of Hyde. Another segment of T7S's fans accept everything shown on-screen as canonical despite significant discrepancies in characterization in different episodes. None of us is wrong. We simply have different approaches to the text.

Eric, I think, is the most consistently written character on T7S. He's not at 100% consistency. He's manipulated to serve plot at times just like all the main characters are. He's also an underdog, to use your term, and it makes sense that he'd be protective of another underdog if he recognizes a person as such.

Protecting the vulnerable is part of who Eric is, to be sure, but it's not one of his core drives. It is one of Hyde's, though, and essentially compulsive for him. Therein lies another difference. This is not a value judgment but an observation.

Hi!

My post on the subject covered that aspect of Eric without giving specific examples. Same as Hyde, no specific examples.

I’ll quote my post then explain with examples the difference between Eric’s selective empathy with Hyde’s more universal one. Then I'll discuss what's at stake for Eric vs. Hyde when they show and act on empathy.

Depends on where (and when) they are in life. Let's say the pregnancy was planned.

He'd be quite nervous about screwing up for Jackie or their kid. Kitty, Red, W.B., and any male friends who'd been through this experience before him (Kelso only if he and Brooke had a child or children after Betsy) would help and support him.

Hyde might become far more involved than anyone but Eric or Jackie expected (out of Hyde's friends). It's similar to Hyde in "The Good Son (1x25). He becomes very responsible once he moves into the Formans' house. He does chores more than willingly but, seemingly, happily. A far cry from the claims of him being "lazy, just like [his] father]" by Edna.

Ultimately, he'd be very attentive and present. Dealing with Jackie's fluctuating hormones would be a struggle at first because he won't be able to do anything right (through no fault of his own; hormones can be a-holes). He'd learn quickly that gentle pushback will have a chance of working far better than a firm boundary-setting.