Talk:Edward Mordake

Mordake, not Mordrake

According to source of this legend, he was Edward Mordake - not Mordrake: So, could someone move the page to 'Edward Mordake'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.77.116 (talk) 05:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

More sources

I think the article should not be removed. Even if something is related to rumors, let it be there with a tag that it is not proved.. or from unreliable sources or something like that. (G10sinha (talk) 17:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC))

It needs them. --V2Blast (talk) 06:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

"He also had a third testicle, which is recorded on his first YouTube channel." --removed this as it makes no sense at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.9.222.208 (talk) 14:13, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Contradictory things

The article states his extra face "could neither eat nor speak" but it "it whispered horrible things." 76.121.211.59 (talk) 03:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Me thinks that this article has served to advance an urban legend. 99.191.160.107 (talk) 22:32, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Further contradiction

"...and also frequently ask for a cigarette." While the second face whispering in the night may be a colourful term from the rather tormented Mr Mordake, the face that could not speak would clearly not be asking for a cigarette. The external link (http://thehumanmarvels.com/?p=125) presents quite a balanced account detailing what seem to be very few solid facts, but does state "While no voice was ever audible..." --Prodromoi (talk) 18:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Pasqual pinon didn't actually have any condition such as this. He had a large tumor or cyst on his head that he painted a wax face on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.220.168 (talk) 07:36, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Tagged for verifiability

The primary reference (Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine) is not adequate to support the statements in the article.Mjpresson (talk) 01:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm questioning the veracity of the photo on this page. I understand that doing a google image search for "Edward Mordrake" yields multiple copies of this image, but doing a google search for "Barack Hussein Obama" will tell you that he is the anti-Christ and a socialist, so that's not good enough for me. There are a number of hurdles in my mind to this photo being legitimate:

• The photo is of a higher quality than I would expect of a late 19th century photo, even of a wealthy individual.
• The primary source describes him as being incredibly private. I find it unlikely that he would consent to having a photo taken.
• If the photo were taken for technical reasons by -for instance- a surgeon who wished to explore the possibility of removing the face, there should be more of them, or at least it should have been taken from better angles than this.
• The hairstyle in the photo is one which would fit better with the 1960's or early 1970's than with the late 1800's.

Also, the primary source doesn't give any concrete information except for a cause of death and a name. The sources describes the face as being that of a beautiful woman, which is highly unlikely for a parasitic twin. The descriptions of the face smiling, sneering and 'gibbering without ceasing' are also highly suspect. They simply don't fit with what we know of parasitic twins. I could buy that there was a man by the name of Edward Mordake, who had a parasitic twin face, was schizophrenic and committed suicide at 23 years old, but that's about it, and that's not even close to being enough for an article. Since this article has already integrated the best sources available on the internet, the only way to really verify it would be for an investigator to look into it. Birth and death records, contemporary descriptions, medical reports, etc should all be available if the story is true. Until then, I think it's false and that this article should be deleted. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:21, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. The picture is obviously fake. It looks like a still from a crappy movie. However, the article has already passed AfD; it's reasonable to conclude that even if the story is false, the story itself is notable. Just my opinion, though.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The story may be notable (In fact, I think it is), but the article presents it as being factual, which is a major problem for me. I would be happy with a re-write to make it clear that it's apocryphal. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:28, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It actually didn't used to be like that. It probably just needs a deep revert to somewhere around when the AfD was. I've lost track of it until it started popping up on my watchlist recently and haven't cared enough to figure out where to revert it to. I'm all in favor if you'd like to do it, or I'll get around to it at some point.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

After looking at some of the edits made recently, I think a re-write would work. It would only take a few words here and there to change the tone of the article, and I'm loathe to remove some of the contributions that have been made since then. Even the image. I think it's fake, but it's certainly in the public consciousness as an image of this guy, and thus probably belongs in an article about him.MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:50, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I've done a bit of re-writing to make it more clear. I really really wanted to point out that all of the various sources all seem to point back to the book mentioned in the second paragraph as their primary source, but since that would be WP:OR I didn't. Maybe one day it will make it onto snopes.com and we can say it then, citing snopes as the source. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:20, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Nicely done!— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:24, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks :) I just did a few final things. I changed categories from 19th century people to urban legends, and removed the tags. I'm convinced that there are enough references, and since the article isn't presenting this guy as a real person, I think those sources are reliable enough.MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:59, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I also agree on the picture being likely fake. At least there are a lot of pictures in color, which were digitally altered for certain. But also the photoforensics of the one that is linked in this article looks fake. Thanks for the rewrite as well! I think it's much better now. --84.73.68.58 (talk) 10:22, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I was not aware of that site, and that's really cool. I used to work in photographic and video forensics, and the images they generate look just like the ones I used to make to check for composite images. I do kinda hate to say the next bit, however...

Those images aren't composited*. Neither the color nor the b/w one. Both are just low quality jpegs that have been re-saved dozens of times (and the bigger one has been digitally colored). If you look at the images, you will notice that the block size (the size of squares/rectangles of solid color) and the color cycle (the pattern of colors of those blocks) stay the same from the 'real' face to the 'twin' face. There's no point at which the latter face was digitally composited in. That being said, you might have noticed my asterisk up there. That's because analyzing the compression doesn't tell us anything about what might have happened to an original, uncompressed image. It could have been composited as a .psd, .bmp, .png or .tif file from uncompressed images, then saved down to a .jpg, but that's a lot less common than you might think. Also, it could be a physical compositing job, that's been scanned in. That being said, I don't see any of the obvious signs of that, such as light direction or intensity changes.

Finally, let me mention the first thing I noticed about the black and white version: The 'real' face is a constant shade, which is indicative of wearing the sort of makeup one would expect for a film or television actor, while the 'twin' face seems to have darker skin in certain areas, which would be consistent with the sort of makeup work done on a prosthetic. It may be a trick of the lighting, but I highly doubt that. It may be completely natural (not having a parasitic twin myself, I cannot comment on the variations in skin tone one might have), but that seems a bit far-fetched, too. Sorry if I seem a poor sport by disagreeing with someone who thanked me and supported my arguments, but I have a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease. :) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:29, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

You should criticize me! I have no problem with that. I'm just a complete amateur in contrast to you :-) --84.73.68.58 (talk) 15:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Age of death - self contradictory

The article states that he committed suicide at the age of 23, and then proceeds to quote Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine stating that he committed suicide in his 23rd year, i.e. at the age of 22. - Soulkeeper (talk) 18:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I changed the age of 23 part to follow the source. My feeling is that "23rd year" probably means "age 23" in English, whereas something like "1st year" probably does, as you imply, mean "age 0" in English, but I can't find a source and it doesn't matter much anyway, so I think we should just let the source do the talking. Is OK?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Possible to add this picture?

I just found this picture on a source site. I know nothing about uploading images to Wikipedia but perhaps someone does. http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pictures/view/83858344/ Photo # 28 or 28. 222.125.0.22 (talk) 15:55, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

It looks like a fake to me, but what do I know?— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)