Archived Discussion Franchise / SherlockHolmes

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Looney Toons: Is this a genre, a format or a series? <grin>

Darksasami: Heh...it's practically a trope. A Stock Character, maybe?

... Or is there an entire page missing here? Free For All Characters, perhaps, or Public Domain Victims...specific characters that nobody owns everybody wants to take a shot at writing. Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, all those guys. And what about the historical figures everybody wants to use? Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Mark Twain, people like that always get abused on any show that does time travel...

Gus: Sherlock could be a specific instance of Great Detective, but Darksasmi's point is very interesting. Public Domain Character gets it, for me.

Looney Toons: Sounds good to me. Hm... I might have an interesting thought or two to add when the page appears...

Gus: I'll seed it,and shamelessly steal from Darksasmi in the process.

Red Shoe: I probably ought to have weighed in sooner, but I think Public Domain Character is the right place for it. I wrote this thinking of it as a series — a place for citations to link to, but that's not really accurate, and I don't think it's worthwhile to list each individual series for characters like this separately (Except for Sherlock Holmes In The Twenty Second Century, for the following reasons: 1. It's already been written).

the (debunked) theory that the character of Holmes was a thinly veiled stand-in for one of Doyle's medical school teachers.

Debunked? When? Have the documents in which Doyle says so been exposed as forgeries?

Alania: It's a fact that Holmes was based on Dr. Joseph Bell, but "thinly veiled stand-in" may be an exaggeration. Still, I'm removing the "debunked" bit.

Drow Lord: Since it would probably jar too much putting it on the main page, and is probably just the rantings of a stickler, I'll just say it here. By logic definition, Holmes doesn't do much deduction. He is, however, a master of induction. The former is noticing inevitable logical connections between two things (if only dogs have pointed noses, and the animal has a pointed nose, then it's a dog). The latter is, basically, an educated guess (the guy walks like a seaman, has an anchor tattoo, and frequents bars close to the water, so he probably is or was a sailor).

• Doyle himself Did Not Do The Research on a story about the KKK where he portrayed them as a disbanded (circa 1880) secret society that intimidated and killed people in a way that made it look like an accident. Yeah, lynchings happen by accident all the time. And that burning cross? Freak weather balloon accident.
  • This one might be mildly justified in that Doyle was an English writer describing what was a there a little known fringe orginization in what was considered a barely civilized nation.

It's the troper who didn't do the research. Holmes (and thus Doyle) was right about them being disbanded. There have been several organizations by that name, and none of them were active as of 1880 (nor would be until 1915). As for the tactics of that first Klan... well, Doyle was closer to their active time than we are, and furthermore didn't have his perceptions colored by the tactics of the later Klans. The first Klan did not engage in cross-burning, and they did engage in intimidation and murder. It's quite possible they engaged in secret murders as well, but even if they didn't, it was more likely artistic license on Doyle's part rather than a lack of research.

In the opening section, "When you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, however unlikely, must be the truth" is referred to as fallacious. This is incorrect. It is not fallacious, but it is rather unhelpful, given that the depth of knowledge required to eliminate all impossibilities virtually unattainable.

Basically, if you know everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) there is to know about a situation, then everything except the truth is rendered impossible given the facts. However, as I said, this is not useful because, if you know everything (again, everything being absolute knowledge) there is to know about the events surrounding an incident, you don't need to look for the truth in the first place. Still, I'm changing the article to remove the reference to logical fallacy. If you have any objections, please state them. -Paladineer

JBK 405: I am not a trained logician, but I believe the fallacy they refer to is the very description of the only possible event as improbable (Or unlikely). If it is the only possible explanation then it is not only probable, it is extremely probable (To the order of 100% probable). If all other explanations are impossible, and this is the only possible explanation, then by definition it is probable. Much like the frequent Straw Vulcan explanation of "The illogical solution is the logical solution" that's just not how logic works. Holmes (And Doyle) is smart, but in this case his statement is self-contradicting.

SenatorJ: If the '09 film was one of the more faithful adaptations, I don't know if I want to see the others.

• That's because most (nearly all) other adaptations completely bowdlerize Holmes' drug use, as well as omitting his physical prowess, and reduce Watson to a bumbling incompetent old man.
  • That's not really that many adaptations, just most fanfics and Guest appeareances Holmes makes in other series (like the Brave and the Bold one). Is more of a Pop-Cultural Osmosis that dates back from the Rathbone days. Most adaptations that pass the test of time, Like The Granada series, don't have the all the character derrailment. And the 2009 movie wasn't one of the most faithful adaptations, just a lot more faithful that trailers lead many to believe.

Mac Phisto: Would anyone object to making a page for Gene Wilder's "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother"?

• Vidocq: I think that there are other adaptations that are far more deserving, either because they are more notable or because they are one of the few examples of Pragmatic Adaptation in Sherlock Holmes. Adaptations like The Granada Series, The Russian Series (The Queen of England's favorite apparently) or The Hammer series. Or Notable ones like Without A Clue, Young Sherlock Holmes or the Universal Series. I am not against making a page for Gene Wilider's movie, just saying that there are many other movies and TV Series that should have a page.

Removed the following, under Wall Banger:

• While the story is fictional and highly exaggerated, his claims of murder, kidnapping, and enforced polygamy in mid-nineteenth century Mormon culture were true to some degree, making it more a case of Fan Dumb than Wall Banger. You can't vary your mileage much with the truth of what happened at the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

This is needlessly inflammatory, besides being factually untrue. There was no enforced polygamy, and the kidnappings and murders of the Mountain Meadows Massacre were committed by a small, isolated group, who were punished as befits murderers—by Mormon authorities—when the truth of their acts came to light. To call their acts "part of Mormon culture" and suggest that it was representative of the church during that period is like saying that pedophilia was a large part of the Catholic church back in The '90s.

SenatorJ: Haven't we a trope for the genius who refuses to give any of the details of his cunning plan until after the plan comes off, upon which point he talks of it at length? Holmes plays this dead straight. (A different series, A.J. Raffles, even deconstructs it.)