Dear SKB,
Ironic that though you do not buy into my understanding of PF, you express the general concept so very well:
Should Shade and Kinbote be "one body; two distinct minds, or one damned mind after the other"
This is really a very apt description. Shade (hadeS) is very much a damned person, but he does try and he does fight while Kinbote is very much a devil reveling uninhibitedly in his wickedness. So it is very much a case of one damned mind after the other.
To those concerned about the ethics of the situation, I should think Shade more culpable than Kinbote. Jekyll is culpable not so much for letting Hyde out the first time (the kinbote event) but for allowing him out subsequently. However a comparison between Shade and Jekyl, who has actually to imbibe a drug in order to release the other, leaves Shade the less guilty, since Kinbote 's two breakthroughs - - the first when he arrives in New Wye, the second when he takes over completely - - are preceded by cerebral strokes suffered by Shade. On the other hand, Shade is very likely the author of his daughter's suicide - - Kinbote's sins are picadillos in comparison.
Carolyn