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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | You wanted the freak, to show to those doctor chums of yours to make a name for yourself. You my friend, I gave you the freak, on trust, in the name of science, and now I want him back! | „ |
| ~ Bytes trying to reclaim "ownership" of John Merrick from Dr. Treves |
Bytes is the main antagonist of David Lynch's 1980 film The Elephant Man. He is the greedy, heartless owner of a freak show in Victorian London who exploits and abuses John Merrick, his "star attraction".
He was portrayed by the late Freddie Jones.
What Makes Him a Hate Sink?[]
- He owns and operates a freak show, a business based on dehumanizing and humiliating people with deformities.
- He is especially cruel to John Merrick - beating, starving, and berating him, usually for no reason.
- He is particularly vicious when he gets drunk, flying into violent rages and beating Merrick within an inch of his life.
- He considers Merrick his property rather than a human being.
- He keeps the majority of the money he makes from the freak show for himself, paying his performers next to nothing and refusing to spend more than the bare minimum on their well-being, frequently allowing them to get sick or go hungry.
- He believes that Merrick, who is actually intelligent and sensitive, is intellectually disabled and calls him "an idiot".
- He "loans" Merrick to Dr. Frederick Treves not so Merrick can get the care he needs in the Royal Hospital, but because he simply wants the money.
- He beats Merrick so severely that Treves has to hospitalize him.
- He harasses Treves to return Merrick, accusing him (not inaccurately) of exploiting Merrick just as much as he does.
- He bribes a young boy to let him into the hospital so he can kidnap Merrick.
- He watches as a crowd of gawkers torment Merrick, doing nothing to protect him.
- He kidnaps Merrick and takes him back to the freak show.
- He treats Merrick with even greater cruelty and neglect than before to punish him for "abandoning" the show.
- His mistreatment leads to Merrick catching a fatal case of pneumonia.
- When he finally drinks himself to death, he presumably leaves his other performers with nowhere to go.
Trivia[]
- Bytes is a heavily fictionalized version of the late Tom Norman, who owned and operated the freak show in which Merrick was an attraction. Unlike Bytes, Norman was Merrick's close friend and full business partner.
External links[]
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 Hate Sinks
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