Characters / Sherlock: Holmes and Watson

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Sherlock Holmes

William Sherlock Scott Holmes

"Who cares about decent? The game, Mrs Hudson, is on!"

Played By: Benedict Cumberbatch

The main character and the "hero" of the story, Sherlock Holmes is handsome, brilliant and the world's greatest consulting detective. Unfortunately, he is also rude, impulsive, selfish, sees little need to observe social niceties he doesn't understand anyway, and is altogether insufferable. Everything changes for him when he receives a new flatmate in the form of John Watson, who keeps him grounded.

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• Absent-Minded Professor: He's brilliant, but is sometimes so focused on details that he misses obvious things, and needs John to fill in the common-sense gaps. He's also very bad at looking after himself, having to be reminded to do things like eating.
• The Ace: Like his Victorian literary counterpart, Sherlock has numerous skills, including deduction, chemistry, music and combat, with a highly regarded intellect, many of his skills contributing to his skills as a consulting detective. Unfortunately, he also has anti-social tendencies which stem from a low opinion of other people, a flaw he works to overcome over the course of the series.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: In the books, Holmes is a tall scarecrow of a man with a beak of a nose. Arthur Conan Doyle often complained that most illustrations of Holmes at the time made him too handsome. In the show, he's played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who has something of a female following (and indeed something of a male following). John expresses irritation that Sherlock cuts such a striking figure, what with his collar and cheekbones.
  • In the books, he's also described as having a high-pitched voice, while Cumberbatch possesses a deeper voice.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Compared to his original literary counterpart, this Sherlock has been Character Exaggerated to be notably colder, haughtier, and more selfish. Interestingly enough, his Character Development goes in the opposite direction of the original Sherlock Holmes, who famously Took a Level in Jerkass after he faked his death — this Sherlock Took a Level in Kindness instead and warmed considerably up to people.
• Addiction Displacement: He outright admits he solves crimes as an alternative to getting high in "His Last Vow".
• Allergic to Routine: Sherlock has a need for intellectual stimulation that strongly brings to mind a drug addict's desire for the stimulant of their choice, and repeatedly goes to dangerous lengths in order to avoid becoming bored—a trait he shares with his arch-nemesis, Moriarty. However, possibly as a means to complement Sherlock, this particular version of John Watson is heavily hinted to be an adrenaline addict and a thrill-seeker.
• All of the Other Reindeer: In addition to being hated by the entire police force sans Lestrade, in "The Blind Banker", it is revealed that all his classmates hated him back in school (specifically university) too.

• Anti-Hero:
  • Sherlock solves crime for fun and not justice. Lampshaded several times. Apparently Sherlock likes to use season finales to remind people of this.
    • In "The Great Game":
      Sherlock: Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them.
    • In "The Reichenbach Fall":
      Sherlock: I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
    • In "His Last Vow":
      Sherlock: Oh, do your research! I'm not a hero, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Merry Christmas! [shoots Magnussen]
  • On the other hand, Sherlock clearly has his own set of morals and ethics, and often is driven by his determination to save innocent lives and stop particularly loathsome criminals. He does good things when he needs to, but approaches his crime solving as a hobby.
    Lestrade: Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and I think one day, if we're all very very lucky, he might even be a good one.
• Attention Whore: Not as much as some other characters, but he does have his moments. As he himself says in the first episode, the frailty of genius is the need for an audience.
• Awesome by Analysis: the Mind Palace. Good God, the Mind Palace.
• Badass Bookworm: In The Sign of Three, Molly mentions that Sherlock is a graduate chemist. But he is a very good fighter, in no small part due to his intelligence. He even tries to take on the freakishly huge assassin The Golem during 'The Great Game'.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: If not wearing his Badass Longcoat, he'll be seen wearing very stylish dark suits.
• Badass Longcoat: Sherlock sports a tailored, woolen one that costs £1,350.
  John: [to Sherlock] You... turning your coat collar up so you look cool.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: His deep bond with Watson comes from the latter being genuinely impressed with his deductive skills and making an effort to befriend him.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Combines this with Beware the Silly Ones. Sherlock threw a captured CIA agent out of a window after beating him up for attacking Mrs Hudson. He lost count of how many times.
• Big Brother Worship: If Mycroft's appearances in the mind palace are anything to go by, Sherlock definitely looks up to Mycroft intellectually, although the way Mental Mycroft belittles his brother indicates that this coexists with a great deal of resentment.
• Break the Haughty: A recurring theme is Sherlock's need to show off how clever he is, coupled with massive self-assurance in his intelligence, gets him in serious trouble time and again:
  • In "The Great Game", he responds to John angrily calling him out on not caring for the victims' lives by coolly responding that caring about them won't help him save them, so he won't make that mistake. Then John gets kidnapped and put at risk... and not caring suddenly isn't so easy.
  • In "A Scandal in Belgravia'' he unwittingly foils one of Mycroft's counter-terrorism operations to impress Irene Adler.
  • The entire plot of "The Reichenbach Fall", where Moriarty uses Sherlock's jerkass pride in his work to slowly destroy the detective's life.
  • In His Last Vow he made the assumption that Magnussen had all of his blackmail material locked up in a private vault underneath in mansion. So he makes a deal to exchange Mycroft's laptop for his file on Magnussen's file on Mary. When he finds out that there is no vault — Magnussen keeps it all in his head in a variation of Sherlock's mind palace, and Magnussen just tricked him into committing treason, Sherlock takes it hard.
  • In "The Six Thatcher" he gives a brutal Breaking Speech to a MI6 secretary who was a mole and was responsible for sabotaging a rescue mission Mary was on. To one up him, the secretary fires her gun at Sherlock only for Mary to take the bullet and die from the resulting injuries. This is what finally gets Sherlock to see how self-destructive his attitude really is.
    • On a personal level, his rivalry with Moriarty — even though both Holmes brothers orchestrated his downfall, Moriarty's memory still haunts Sherlock to the point that when Moriarty "returns" from the grave, Sherlock overdoses on Cocaine just to cope.
• Brief Accent Imitation: One of Sherlock's minor specialties:
  • Sherlock does a dead-on impersonation of a metrosexual yuppie to fool a woman into thinking that he lived at a posh apartment complex and let him in.
  • And then again in the third episode, he abandons his usual upper-crust tones for a more cockney accent, pretending to be a grief-stricken friend of the departed, but intentionally getting things wrong. He knows that people will automatically contradict any mistakes made by a stranger pretending to be a friend or relative, which means that she'll expose things that she wouldn't if he was actually an old friend of her husband.
  • In "A Scandal in Belgravia," he changes his accent briefly again, taking leave of his brother and other government functionaries in a more common accent and slang ("Laters!") and later pretending to be a priest who has just been mugged.
  • Toward the end of "A Scandal in Belgravia," Sherlock briefly adopts an American drawl to mock a CIA agent.
  • Moriarty seems to be putting on a generic English accent in the scene in "The Great Game" where he meets Sherlock while pretending to be "Jim from I.T.", but then reverts back to the actor's natural Dublin for when he reveals himself.
  • He does it again in the "The Reichenbach Fall," switching from his Irish accent to an American one here and there, without much reason.
  • "Doncaster" in Baskerville.
  • Sherlock spoofs a generic French/Italian accent while attempting his big reveal with John in the restaurant scene in "The Empty Hearse."
  • Sherlock puts on a decent Scottish brogue when getting past security at Sherrinford, his secret sister's prison.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Zig-Zagged Trope. If he thinks it's worth his while he'll run several blocks, break into private property, or lie and cheat to get information. If he doesn't, his level of laziness has to be seen to be believed:
  • In "A Study in Pink", won't lift his hand about three inches to grab the phone John offers him, forcing John to actually place it in his palm.
  • In "The Great Game", while fiddling with instruments, Sherlock asks Watson to hand him his phone, which is in his jacket. The one Sherlock's wearing.
  • In "A Scandal in Belgravia", gets John to Skype him a view of a crime scene because he doesn't want to get out of bed. Then can't be bothered to get dressed when summoned by the Queen.
• Brutal Honesty: Sherlock's M.O. Used for both comedy and drama: one time he might humorously extort someone with sensitive information, while another John might chew him out for being rude and tactless. From "A Scandal In Belgravia":
  Child: They wouldn't let us see Granddad when he was dead. is that 'cause he'd gone to heaven?
  Sherlock: People don't really go to heaven when they die, they are taken to a special room and burned.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Sherlock's behavior is very odd by most people's standards, but he's so good at what he does that most people put up with it.

• Can't Hold His Liquor: As shown at John's stag night. He had actually calculated a precise formula for alcohol intake to where both he and John would get reasonably buzzed through the course of the night but not stone-cold drunk. However John ends up derailing this by pouring more booze into their flasks when Sherlock wasn't looking, causing them to both get smashed.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Obviously."
  • "Not Good?"
  • "The game is on!"
• Celibate Hero:
  • Sherlock considers himself married to his work.
  • Moffat posits in an interview that Sherlock dismisses the charms of women because he finds them a distraction, and that he would not be living with a man if he fancied men (because it would also be a distraction).
    Steven Moffat: It's the choice of a monk, not the choice of an asexual. If he was asexual, there would be no tension in that, no fun in that — it's someone who abstains who's interesting. There's no guarantee that he'll stay that way in the end — maybe he marries Mrs Hudson. I don't know! (The Guardian, Jan 20th, 2012)
  • Cumberbatch weighed in on the matter to the blog Zap2It:
    Benedict Cumberbatch: For me, Sherlock's not gay. He's not straight, necessarily. He has a sexual appetite, but it's entirely swallowed by his work. He doesn't have time for it.
  • Cumberbatch was also asked in a 2014 interview if he could see Sherlock having sex in the show, to which he more directly replied: "Oh, he has. He shagged Irene Adler, that night they had together when he rescued her from beheading." Seeing as Steven Moffat has a different idea about what happened, this remains unconfirmed.
  • Magnussen's "file" reveals that he has a porn preference. It's apparently normal (though he was deep undercover by that point, so it is entirely plausible he completely fabricated said porn preference simply so Magnussen could find it.)
  • In "The Final Problem", Eurus deducts that Sherlock has had sex, although he neither denies or affirms it. Since her deductions are even better than Sherlock, it can be assumed by season 4, Sherlock has finally had a sexual experience and is no longer a virgin (according to Sherlock Holmes Wikipedia, Sherlock was born in 1983, so he was 35 when he lost his virginity.) And since she deducts it while Sherlock is playing Irene's theme, it was most likely with Irene Adler, who he is (presumably) later seen texting and may or may not be in a relationship with.
• Challenge Seeker: He's always looking for dragons to slay, and seeks challenge in small things as well. When he goes to surprise John with his return, he distracts and steals things from people to obscure his identity instead of putting on a disguise in advance.
  • Strong examples can be found in the first two episodes of the series: in the first Sherlock subjects himself to a game that he knows has killed four people already at a point where he no longer has any reason to, yet does so in order to satisfy his own genius and his desire to prove it. During the second he turns down monetary compensation for looking into a mysterious break-in because if it's something that piques his deductive skills, he needs no "motivation" (John, on the other hand, is a normal person who needs income so he "holds" it on Sherlock's behalf).
• Cloud Cuckoolander:
  • Owing to his not always paying attention to the world. In spite of his intelligence, he doesn't know who the Prime Minister is and even forgets that England has a queen instead of a king — something he used to know.
  • Despite being able to deduce an entire person's life with one look at them, he thought the morning tea that Mrs. Hudson would bring up for him "just sort of happened".
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Molly Hooper, Irene Adler, Kitty Reilly and Janine all seem to think so. Although, in a blog post, John says that Sherlock recognized the sign of attraction in a woman because, per Sherlock, he's so used to seeing them directed towards him.
• Complexity Addiction: Like in the series 2 finale he expects the other party to be more devious and circumspect than they actually are.
• Consummate Liar: Demonstrates several times that he is a rather convincing actor, pretending to be various roles as the situation requires. At one point he's so convincing he even fools the audience for a bit, crying and breaking down before laughing his arse off that John fell for it.
• Crazy-Prepared: Had 13 possible plans to escape Moriarty on the rooftop. Faking his death was one of them, although it's implied that it was a last-ditch option.
• Creepy Good: Owing to his sociopathic behaviour, even after it gets toned down significantly.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His sister Euros was a Creepy Child who tormented her brother under the assumption he was enjoying it (how bad it was isn't elaborated on, but it got to the point young Sherlock would violently scream if he spent too much time with her). Then, she killed his Best Friend Victor by drowning him in a well and tormented Sherlock by making him solve the "riddle" of what happened to him, which most likely attibutes to Sherlock's obsession with solving puzzling cases. Then their family home was burnt down by Euros in an attempt to kill Sherlock and they were forced to move away. Sherlock was so traumatized that he completely locked the memories away and created his own story of what happened.
• Deadpan Snarker: Being a self proclaimed high functioning sociopath may make you seem like a massive jerkass, but Sherlock shows how brilliant his wit is.
• Defrosting Ice King: Sherlock's friendship with John helps him slowly learn to open up to the other people in his life. His priorities at the end of the second season are wildly different from those in the pilot, or even the end of the first season. Hiding out for two years, separated from all of his friends, seems to have softened him up even more; in the third season, Sherlock is willing to sacrifice his own happiness so John can be a decent husband and father..
• Did They or Didn't They?:
  • With Irene Adler. Benedict Cumberbatch outright said that Sherlock and Irene slept together after "A Scandal in Belgravia" ended, while Steven Moffat on the other hand explained his idea of what happened which did not involve any sex between them. Fans might as well choose which statement they want to believe.
  • Complicating matters further is the reveal in "The Lying Detective" that Irene still texts Sherlock sometimes, with Sherlock being visibly embarrassed that John finds out, who asks him if he and Irene meet up for the occasional "nights of passion". Sherlock at most admits that he does text Irene back sometimes even as he "tries not to". Then comes "The Final Problem" where Eurus, who apparently rival Sherlock or even succeeds him in his deduction skills, hears him play Irene's theme and asks him "Oh, have you had sex?" Bottom line is we're probably meant to be as confused about Sherlock's relationship to Irene as his friends/siblings are with no clear answer being given as to what really has occurred between them off-screen.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Irene Adler has this effect on him, to the extent he noticeably stumbles over his words at one point and unwittingly foils a highly top secret and clandestine government plan, all in an effort to impress her.
  • However, it also gets averted when he appears to return her advances by holding her hand and staring deeply into her eyes, only to later reveal that he was taking her pulse and checking if her pupils were dilated (to deduct that she was genuinely interested in him).
  • During "The Sign of Three", whilst working out a case in his head, he briefly gets distracted by the mental image of (a very naked) Irene Adler, when musing about the very few people aware of John's Embarrassing Middle Name.
    Sherlock: [annoyed] Out of my head, I am busy...
• Ditzy Genius: Invoked. Sherlock only keeps important information in his "mental hard drive," which does not include tact, common sense or heliocentrism. He even deletes stuff he used to know, such as there being a queen of England as opposed to a king.
• Driven to Suicide: Appears to jump off a building to his death at the end of Series 2. Subverted soon after, when it turns out he faked his death instead.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Eerie owing to his sociopathic nature, even after it gets toned down a lot.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Inverted. Turns out his first name is actually William. Granted, it's a lot less catchy and unusual than "Sherlock".
• Epic Hail: Sherlock's solution to getting the police to arrive quickly is to casually fire a gun into the air!
• Even the Guys Want Him: And also the lesbians.
  John Watson: For the record, if anyone out there still cares, I'm not actually gay.
  Irene Adler: Well, I am. Look at us both.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Even Sherlock seems disgusted at the man who admits to murdering his girlfriend in Belarus, taking obvious pleasure in the fact he will likely get a death sentence.
  • He's also appalled in 'The Empty Hearse' at a man pretending to be his stepdaughter's boyfriend to purposefully break her heart. He even chews the guy out for it!
  • He becomes personally invested in stopping Magnusson and Culverton Smith as he finds their actions and modus operandi disgusting.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: A Played for Laughs example. When John shoots the cabbie in the first episode, he tells Lestrade that he's looking for a crack shot with military experience, a set of morals, and Nerves of Steel... then notices John and quickly takes everything back.
• Expy: Given that Steven Moffat was the showrunner, it's not surprising that he occasionally resembles the Doctor.
• Faking the Dead: Faked his own death at the conclusion of "The Reichenbach Fall" to save his friends.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His obsessive curiosity and constant need to not be bored leads him to irrational or cruel behavior that damages his relationships with his friends and sometimes even leads him to put his own life in danger.
  • His pride and tendency to underestimate his foes also gets him into trouble.
• Forgets to Eat: Cumberbatch purposefully lost weight to highlight this. From the unaired pilot:
  John: Aren't you going to eat?
  Sherlock: What day is it?
  John: ...Wednesday.
  Sherlock: I'm okay for a bit.
• Freudian Excuse: It's implied he had a very unhappy childhood:
  • Attempts by his parents to socialize him and Mycroft with other children to make friends failed, miserably. Both Mycroft and Sherlock scoff at the idea years later.
  • In Series 3, spending most of his development years with Mycroft is implied to have left a negative effect on his personality.
  • Until he met other children he always assumed he was an "idiot" due to only having Mycroft as a companion.
  • His mother by his own admission "has a lot to answer for" in regards to how her children turned out.
  • The death of his dog Redbeard hit him hard.
    • Only, as it turns out, it's even worse than that. Redbeard was not actually his dog. It was his childhood best friend's — Victor Trevor — pirate name. The two of them loved to play pirates together. His sister, Eurus, was so jealous that she outright murdered Victor, and then later set their house on fire. All the while, she drew disturbing pictures depicting Sherlock's death. All this happened when Sherlock was prepubescent, and she was a year younger than him. He was so traumatized by this that he erased all memory of Eurus from his mind, and made up memories of Redbeard being the family dog instead of his best friend.
• Friendless Background: It's strongly implied that John was Sherlock's first real friend. In A Study in Pink, both Donovan and Mycroft point out that Sherlock isn't the kind of person who make friends.
  • Turns out this isn't the case as his childhood best friend was murdered out of jealousy by his little sister.
• Friend to All Children: In "The Reichenbach Fall", he's very concerned about finding the kidnapped children and is very disturbed when they react in fear at seeing him. In "The Sign of Three", he befriends Archie through Brutal Honesty—and a shared interest in bizarre murders.
  Sherlock: You really do have to wear the outfit.
  Archie: What for?
  Sherlock: Grown-ups like that sort of thing.
  Archie: Why?
  Sherlock: I don't know. I’ll ask one.
• Functional Addict: An odd case. He claims he's one. Mycroft, John, and Molly don't buy it, and they all make various attempts to get him sober. There's evidence to support both sides of the argument; Sherlock doesn't take drugs recreationally, and is more than capable of staying on the wagon as long as he isn't bored — or stumped. Then he'll start taking anything he thinks can break the mental impasse. Mycroft has a gentleman's agreement to keep him from being picked up in such cases as long as he's written down exactly what he's taken so he can be treated.
• Geek Physique:
  • In the pilot, John discovers during the dinner stakeout that Sherlock does not eat when he's on the job and the pilot ends with him getting Sherlock to eat an actual meal.
  • In "The Blind Banker", Sherlock tells Molly he doesn't eat when he's working, as digestion only slows him down.
  • Cumberbatch appears to have put on those same few pounds he lost for the role between seasons to represent the fact that Sherlock now has a live-in physician. It also seems to track with the character becoming a bit warmer and more human-like, so the trope is currently being employed in reverse.
  • Then in series 3, Sherlock seems to have gone back to more of a Geek Physique again after his two years away — contrast the shirtless scene in "A Scandal in Belgravia" with the hospital scenes in "His Last Vow".
• Genius Bruiser: While a more skilled combatant such as John can handle him, it's clear that this guy would demolish the average person in a physical fight.
• Glad He's On Our Side: His sociopathy, his despising being bored, and his being a Mirror Character to Moriarty are frequently brought up, as well as how awful of a prospect it would be if he stopped helping the police and ended up committing crimes for thrills himself.
  • The writers speculate in one episode commentary that Sherlock stays on the side of the law as a self-imposed challenge: doing what Moriarty does would be too simple to stay interesting.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: His hair is often much curlier and messier than his opponents'.
• Good Is Not Nice: As he tells Moriarty in "The Reichenbach Fall", "I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them."
• Grammar Nazi: Deliberately corrects the grammar of a prisoner in Minsk at the start of "The Great Game" to make the man confess to murdering his girlfriend.

• Guile Hero: Most of his fights are won through pure observation and intelligence.
• Heartbroken Badass: During John's wedding in Sign of Three when he begins to realize how the marriage will affect their relationship. It upsets him enough that he can't handle staying around for the reception.
• Heroes Love Dogs: He seems to have a soft spot for dogs, as interaction with Toby the bloodhound indicates. As a child he had a beloved pet dog named Redbeard who had to be put down. It's still a touchy subject for Sherlock well into adulthood.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Appears to be struck by one twice in "A Scandal in Belgravia". Firstly, he drifts trance-like into Baker Street after the revelation Irene Adler is, in fact, alive. Later, he seems stunned into inaction for a while once he realises that he has fallen for the oldest trick in the book.
  • Freaks out in "The Hounds of Baskerville", when he experiences fear and doubt for likely the first time in his life.
  • Played with in "The Sign of Three" where, after being asked to be John's best man, he stared at John for what is implied to be at least five minutes
  • Between the revelation of the Appledore vaults and the arrival of the choppers in "His Last Vow," Sherlock is practically catatonic.
  • Mary dies in "The Six Thatchers" saving him. Having spent the whole episode proclaiming he was going to protect her he's left in shock as how let his arrogance lead to her death, while John has cut him out of life as a result.
  • Has two in "The Final Problem". The first when he realizes Eurus tricked him into forcing Molly Hooper to confess her love for him. The second when he breaks out of his trauma imposed amnesia to realize that his childhood dog Redbeard was actually his best friend Victor Trevor whose murder forced him into rewriting him as a dog to cope with the loss.
• Hidden Depths: During Watson's wedding he confesses to Janine, Mary's bridesmaid, that he loves dancing and has been waiting for a case that would let him show off his skills.
• Hypocritical Humour: During series three, episode three. He comes back to 221B and realizes that Mycroft is inside because the door knocker is straight, and says that he's OCD and straightens it without even realizing it. He then makes it crooked. Watson asks why he did that, and Sherlock's response is a genuine "Did what?"
• Iconic Outfit:
  • The deerstalker gets this treatment in-universe, to his exasperation, since he specifically grabbed it so he wouldn't be recognized.
    Sherlock: Why is it always the hat photograph?
  • Not to mention his popped-collared Badass Longcoat and Scarf of Asskicking, which are iconic in-universe and out—to the point that when Lestrade asks him not to be as... Sherlock... as he usually is, he just un-pops his collar.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex:
  • Despite his apparent disdain for "normal people", Sherlock constantly feels the need to prove his brilliance to others.
    Sherlock: That's the frailty of genius, John. It needs an audience.
  • Goads Lestrade into admitting that Scotland Yard needs his detective skills.
  • Explains every step of his deductions to John to prove they weren't a "trick".
  • Plays the Cabbie's suicidal Battle of Wits just to prove how clever he is.
  • Screws with Sebastian in "The Blind Banker" after Sebastian remarks that Sherlock's fellow students at university hated him.
  • Is rather surprised to hear John call his deductions "extraordinary."
    Sherlock: That's not what people normally say.
    John: What do people normally say?
    Sherlock: "Piss off!"
  • May stem from his childhood with Mycroft, in which Mycroft's brilliance led them both to believe that Mycroft was "the smart one" and Sherlock was stupid, until they tried making "friends" with normal people.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Called "Hatman" by the press, due to wearing a deerstalker to hide his face.
  • "The Reichenbach Hero" for his most famous case to date.
  • "Sir Boast-A-Lot", which Moriarty alludes to while telling a fairytale. According to Irene, he also calls him "the virgin".
  • "Shag-A-Lot Holmes" by a paper who got a falsified scoop from the woman Sherlock was temporarily engaged to.
• Insufferable Genius: He really can't help himself, not even after getting tossed out of a courtroom where he's the star witness and into a prison cell for showing off.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Zig-Zagged. It's hard to say what came first, Sherlock's incapacity of social interaction, or his aversion of it. Although Mycroft seems to have encouraged distance to others, his friendship with John proves that he is neither above nor averse to relationships with other people as long as it does not hinder his work.
• It's All About Me: It's entirely likely that Sherlock didn't know the earth revolves around the sun because he thinks that it actually revolves around him.
  Mycroft: (about Watson) He has gone on with his life.
  Sherlock: What life? I've been away.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In Series 3 with John. By the time of "Sign of Three" Sherlock is well aware that things will be different with him and John since John now has a wife and unborn child to care for, but this doesn't stop Sherlock from doing whatever he can to protect the couple and their happiness. This culminates in him even willing to go off and die to protect John.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Though he's undoubtedly an Insufferable Genius who starts out as more of a Jerkass, after he meets John, he begins to warm up to the people in his life. By the later series, he makes sincere efforts to be nicer to others.
  • In "A Study in Pink", Sherlock mistakes John's slightly awkward questions to determine his sexuality as John coming onto him. He is remarkably gentle and polite in trying to let John down easy. Keep in mind that this is the first episode of the whole series, where Sherlock's Hidden Heart of Gold was very hidden, and he still strayed well and frequently into Jerkass territory.
  • While Sherlock seemed to realize that Molly had some kind of fondness/infatuation with him, he didn't seem to realize the depth of her feelings until he accidentally insulted her in "A Scandal in Belgravia". Since discovering these feelings, though he occasionally lapses back into being rude to her (as he does with everyone), he's done many sweet things for her, including apologizing for his rude behavior, kissing her on the cheek on two different occasions, inviting her to be his assistant in case-solving for a day, and saying numerous nice things to her. ("You do count. You've always counted and I've always trusted you." "The one person he thought didn't matter to me was the one who mattered most. I couldn't have done it without you." "I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it.")
  • He was harsher towards Irene (who, to be fair, did manipulate him, trick him into foiling an important government scheme, and have a couple of Kick the Dog moments), and John believes that Sherlock "despised her in the end". Despite all this, he did confirm that her feelings for him were real...and then he rescued her from her would-be executioners.
  • Fakes his own death to protect Watson, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade in "The Reichenbach Fall". Note that he does this by jumping off of a building, likely using the same deductions he used to throw the CIA operative repeatedly out a window with non-lethal results on a larger scale. But he still fakes his death to save those he cares about by jumping off of a building, which still has the somewhat expected results of just nearly killing him instead.
  • Acknowledges this himself in his best man speech at John's wedding, calling himself an "arsehole" but saying that John makes him better. As "The Last Vow" shows, he'll get himself exiled on a suicide mission for his sake.
• Kaleidoscope Eyes: Benedict Cumberbatch's glass eyes can appear icy blue, grey or slightly green depending on how a scene is lit. This is especially noticeable during his phone call with Mycroft in The Sign of Three, as he paces through several different lighting angles.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: When it comes to John and Mary's happiness. Unbeknownst to either of them, after deducing that one of her former boyfriends invited to the wedding was still madly in love with her, he took matters into his own hands. He confronted him with the evidence, announced that he'll be downgraded to casual acquaintance and only allowed three visits per year (with John's supervision) and that he will be monitoring him closely. To say nothing of His Last Vow, in which he murders a man in cold blood so that John's wife will be safe.
• Lack of Empathy: Subverted ONLY when it comes to his friends.
• Large Ham: Check out his flouncing and pouting during "The Great Game". Made better by the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch is fairly good at subtlety, as actors go.
• Limited Wardrobe: Black suit, grey coat, dark shirt, blue scarf, black leather shoes. And now, a word from the fashion coordinator. Though it does expand to include the "purple shirt of sex".
• Like an Old Married Couple: Given that many people they know or meet assume John and Sherlock to be a couple and when Mrs. Hudson walks in on them arguing asking if they had “a little domestic,” I feel this fits.
• Love Is a Weakness: Constantly espouses this, believing things like sentiment and emotional attachment cloud the intellect (and, in his words, a "dangerous disadvantage"). While there have been instances where he has demonstrated his point (particularly when it came to Janine where he seduced her by faking a romantic relationship in order to gain access to her workplace: Charles Magnussen's office), he has proven he is still capable of having attachments.
• Mad Scientist: He keeps a human head in the refrigerator and human eyeballs in the microwave, both of which are being used in "experiments". Enough said.
• Manchild:
  • Especially when he's bored or irritated.
    Sherlock: This is childish!
    Lestrade: Well, I'm dealing with a child.
  • Admits it during a conversation with a boy in John's wedding.
    Sherlock: Grown-ups like that sort of thing.
    Archie: Why?
    Sherlock: I don't know. I'll ask one.
  • Also from John's wedding:
    Sherlock: You'll be great parents. You've had lots of practice with me.
  • In His Last Vow, after John has found him in a drug den.
  Sherlock: I'm undercover!
  John: No, you're not!
  Sherlock: WELL I'M NOT NOW!
  • When Mary shoots him, he temporally regresses into a child inside his mind palace, when looking for a way to maximize his survival chances.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's a very good actor, he can cry on cue and he knows what parts he needs to play in order to get someone to do what he wants.
  • He is rather shamelessly exploiting Molly's crush on him in "The Blind Banker" to prove a point to Lestrade's replacement for the the visible dots are used to intimidate the hostages.
  • Tricks victim's distraught family members into giving him information, lies his way into locked apartments, and so on.
  • A particularly egregious example is on his return in the third series. In the Underground below parliament he leads John to believe that he can't stop the bomb, he hasn't called the police, and they will surely die He begs for forgiveness, complete with quavering voice and tears. And having received John's forgiveness as he reconciles himself to their deaths Sherlock laughs and turns it into a Did You Actually Believe...? moment..
  • Another brutal example comes from "His Last Vow," when he seduces and becomes engaged to Janine in order to get access to her employer, Magnussen.
  • And again in "The Lying Detective" (note title). He desperately wants to see John, but John refuses to even see him after Mary's death. So Sherlock wallows in drugs and lets his behavior get so out of control that poor Mrs. Hudson is terrified, and drags him off to see John begging for his help (Sherlock had already worked out the location of John's psychiatrist and the schedule for his appointments). Even when he's piteously desperate for forgiveness, Sherlock finds manipulating people much easier than simply approaching them.
• Married to the Job: Celibacy aside, this is the reason he gives for why dating (or human social interaction in general) isn't "his area". You can count the number of people close to him in any sense on one hand.
• Mirror Character: Even Mycroft wonders if Sherlock's really that different from Moriarty; both near-peerless geniuses, insensitive as hell, and would rather be dead than bored. It's been suggested the key difference is that Sherlock is just a touch smarter — being a detective is more challenging than being a criminal mastermind, especially as Moriarty can outsmart most anyone he confronts; Sherlock's insistence on challenging criminals draws strife and conflict right to him. Also, whereas Sherlock is exasperated by people in general, he doesn't draw any personal pleasure from others' pain; Moriarty is genuinely sadistic.
• Motor Mouth:
  • Whenever he goes into a Sherlock Scan. It's entirely possible that Cumberbatch doesn't need to breathe; for example, just listen to his explanation of John's phone or much of "Hounds of Baskerville". And whenever Irene Adler is around he somehow manages to go even faster.
  • In one interview, Gatiss comments on the extreme length of the deduction in Baskerville; apparently, on Cumberbatch's script he actually wrote "Sorry, Benedict" next to it.
• Must Have Nicotine:
  • It's impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London nowadays, so Sherlock confines himself to patches. It just might end up being "a three-patch problem".
  • Goes absolutely haywire in "Hounds of Baskerville" when he's detoxing, turning the entire flat upside down and outright begging John to give him a cigarette.
  • Noted in "The Sign of Three" where a patch can be seen under his shirt.
  • Not even hiding the fact that he's smoking and doing other drugs as of "His Last Vow."
  • After Mary's death in "The Six Thatchers", he's completely fallen off the wagon due to his shock and guilt from what happened and basically spends the entirety of "The Lying Detective" high on drugs. It gets to a point where Wiggins, of all people, thinks he's going too far.
• The Navigator: Has all the streets of London memorized and can predict a cab's likely path and come up with an intercept course in a matter of seconds.
• Nightmare Fetishist: He appraises things from a purely intellectual level — not an emotional one — and that can lead into this trope. Grotesque crimes are "interesting", "ingenious", or "elegant".
  Sherlock: Four serial suicides and then a note! Oh, it's [like] Christmas!
• Noble Demon: Freely admits—in fact, insists — that he's a "high-functioning sociopath".
• The Nose Knows: Among other things Sherlock is able to detect that two different people are wearing the same deodorant or the same character wearing two different deodorants.
• No Social Skills:
  • Insults his friends, gets on trains covered in pig's blood and holding a harpoon, and visits Buckingham Palace practically naked.
  • It wasn't until "The Sign Of Three" that he realized that John actually thought of him as his best friend. And John had to tell him.
• Not So Stoic:
  • Whenever John is genuinely threatened or in danger. Stick him in a bonfire, strap a bunch of bombs to him or point a gun at the good doctor's head, and Sherlock's cool mask will evaporate in two seconds flat.
  • Also two moments in "The Great Game": When the elderly blind woman begins to talk about the soft voice of the person who kidnapped her, Sherlock frantically warns her against it, knowing that the kidnapper will likely detonate the bomb he has strapped to her as punishment, which he does. Later on, when attempting to solve the riddle of how the painting was faked before the kidnapper blows up a child, he's clearly freaking out. Despite his supposed interest in puzzles over people, the prospect of these two lives being lost deeply disturbs him.
  • When Mrs. Hudson is taken hostage, he rescues her, has Watson take her downstairs... and then proceeds to beat the crap out of her attacker and toss him out the window. Repeatedly.
  • Is visibly shaken after his "encounter" with the titular creature of ''The Hounds of Baskerville", and even admits his fear to John.
• Oblivious to Love: Sherlock is mostly oblivious to Molly's crush on him, to the extent that he's convinced that she's dressed up for the Christmas party and has carefully wrapped a present because she must be off to see a new boyfriend. At the same party, he finally learns the truth, directly after humiliating her, causing a My God, What Have I Done? moment.
• Odd Friendship: On the face of it, Sherlock and John have absolutely nothing in common. However, their shared Allergic to Routine tendencies end up making them rather inseparable.
• Ominous Adversarial Amusement: In an interesting twist, he displays this, despite being the hero. In "The Reichenbach Fall" it seems like Moriarty has blocked all Sherlock's exits and left him with no choice but to kill himself in order to save his friends. Sherlock, seemingly in despair, asks for a moment, Moriarty walks away... and then hears Sherlock laughing. Laughing because he has just seen another way out.
• One Head Taller: Sherlock and John◊. In "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock lampshades this when someone remarks he looks taller in his photographs. He responds that he simply makes good use of "a good coat and a short friend". John seems unimpressed — as if he's only just realised he's 5'7". Or like the thought had suddenly struck him that Sherlock only asked him to hang around in the first place because he would make him look tall and imposing by comparison.
• One-Man Army: At the end of "A Scandal in Belgravia", he wipes out an entire terrorist cell single-handedly, armed only with a scimitar. "The Empty Hearse" reveals that after faking his death, he spent 2 years travelling the world to burn Moriarty's entire syndicate to the ground.
• Part-Time Hero: Sherlock is known to "shutdown" and isolate himself from everyone if he's not his normal self.
• Pet the Dog: His apology to Molly for verbally tearing her apart on Christmas, complete with a sincere kiss on the cheek.
  Sherlock: Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper.
• Phone-In Detective: Well, Skype-In Detective, anyway. After achieving internet fame via John's blog, Sherlock decides he isn't leaving the flat for "anything less than a seven". John is left to do all the legwork, so that Sherlock can solve crimes that happened in rural locations without even having to put clothes on.
• Prayer Pose: Sherlock uses this pose frequently, but as a sign of concentration while he's thinking, rather than any form of actual prayer or supplication. The books often describe Sherlock as sitting with his hands steepled below his chin.
• Protagonist Title: The show is simply called "Sherlock".
• The Proud Elite: He's a tall, aloof, stylishly dressed Insufferable Genius who can be pretty offputting in how he relates to others, but there are people he genuinely cares for.

• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Sherlock's brilliant deductive reasoning comes at the expense of common knowledge and ability to interact socially.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Sherlock wears a blue scarf.
• Sherlock Scan: Naturally! John first endears himself to Sherlock by being audibly impressed at Sherlock's "trick".
  John: Fantastic.
  Sherlock: [momentarily distracted] Do you know you do that out loud?
  John: Sorry, I'll shut up.
  Sherlock: No, it's... fine.
• Shoot the Dog: The inevitable result of revealing to a high-functioning sociopath that killing you is the only way to save his best friend's marriage (and his brother's ability to remain unbiased).
• Slasher Smile: Sports an epic◊ one when he's dealing with David in "The Sign of Three".
  David: They're right about you. You're a bloody psychopath!
  Sherlock: High-functioning sociopath. With your number. [grins]
• Sociopathic Hero: Played with regularly. Sherlock has all the classic signs of a fictional sociopath: a general lack of empathy; self centred behavior; total disregard for laws; regular use of fake charm, lies and manipulation to achieve his goals; he even goes so far as to call himself one. Ultimately subverted however, since when push comes to shove Sherlock really does care about his friends. It's suggested that Sherlock has tried to mold his mind into sociopathic thought patterns in order to function better as a detective.
  Sherlock: I'm not a psychopath, Anderson, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.
  • In His Last Vow, this is averted in an Ironic Echo:
    Magnussen: No chance for you to be a hero this time, Mr. Holmes.
    Sherlock: Oh, do your research. I'm not a hero, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Merry Christmas!
• The Spock: John even calls him "Spock" in "The Hounds of Baskerville".
• Sticky Fingers: John's laptop, Lestrade's warrant card, an ashtray from Buckingham Palace, and Mycroft's clearance ID.
• The Stoic: Shows little emotion most of the time, especially compared to those around him at crime scenes or during an investigation.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Ice towards almost everyone, but sugar towards his friends, especially later in the series.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Who cares if he executed Magnussen in cold blood. He is Sherlock.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Since he's played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Molly noticed.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Compared to his Gentleman Snarker brother Mycroft.
• That One Case: Moriarty. His "return" from the grave freaks out Sherlock so much that in "The Abominable Bride" he OD's on cocaine and conjures up an alternate him in Victorian London in his mind palace just to cope and figure out how the hell Moriarty could've done it. He eventually concludes that Moriarty is truly dead and that he doesn't need to be afraid of a dead man any longer. Too bad he's wrong.
• Too Clever by Half:
  • His need to be challenged gets the better of him sometimes and he ends up doing things any normal person would back the hell away from.
  • This attitude also hampers his detective work, since his aversion to boredom means he prefers complex theories to how crimes are committed instead or more mundane ones, and he's always caught off guard when the solution is ordinary.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Series 2, which comes back to bite him in the finale.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Over the course of the series undergoes this due to John's influence. He's already become a little bit nicer from the beginning to the end of Series 1, and has changed a lot by the end of Series 2. By Series 3, he's a very different person; spending two years alone on the run, separated from his friends (with half of them thinking he's dead) must have made him appreciate them all the more. He also becomes nicer to his clients, taking a case of a little girl's missing rabbit and showing some sympathy for the traumatized Henry in "Hounds", and sympathizing with a woman whose stepfather is manipulating her in "Empty Hearse".
• Tranquil Fury: You'll never realize he's angry until after he's beaten the crap out of you. Or shooting you.
• Troll: Even when he's not bored out of his mind he can occasionally be an ass to get a rise out of people.
  • Tells John in the first episode that he pickpocketed Lestrade's police badge just because Lestrade annoyed him, and further says he's done this many times and has several such badges in his flat.
  • Fools John into thinking that they're both about to die since he can't disarm the bomb and he hasn't called the police just to watch him freak out and finally come clean with his true feelings.
  • On a similar level is him using John to test a fear-inducing gas.
• True Companions: Sherlock with John naturally. Perhaps also throw Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson in the mix.
• Undiscriminating Addict: In "The Lying Detective", it is revealed that when Sherlock Holmes needs to get really high right now he has no preferences, he will just take whatever he can get his hands on (when he's just casually using, he stick to nicotine patches). His brother Mycroft, knowing this fact and having no way to stop him, only asks Sherlock to keep a list of what he takes in case he ever needs medical assistance.
• Undying Loyalty: To the Watsons. In particular John.
• The Unfettered: Accused of being a psychopath by most of Scotland Yard. Also has no problem ignoring 90% of the laws if it'll help him solve a case or help a friend. In order to protect John and Mary in "His Last Vow" he murders Magnussen in front of John, Mycroft, and three armed policemen.
• Unkempt Beauty: As Shezza, his underground drug addict persona.
• The Un-Smile: Invoked to scare the hell out of David. To the audience it's equally hilarious and unsettling.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Gets called out a lot when he says or does cruel things to people around him, mostly by John. In fact he delivers one to himself in his best man speech at John's wedding, pointing out the sheer number of flaws and personality quirks that make him a terrible person and friend, but which John's patience has helped him to better overcome.
  • He has one of these himself when Mycroft rudely tells Mrs. Hudson to "shut up".
    Mycroft: Oh, shut up, Mrs. Hudson!
    Sherlock: Mycroft!
    Mycroft: [pauses] Apologies.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Averted. Sherlock is his middle name. His first name is William.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: He gets very irritable when he's high off drugs, best not to piss him off.

John Watson

Dr. John Hamish Watson

"How— oh, never mind."

Played By: Martin Freeman

The deuteragonist of this story. An army doctor who was injured in the war in Afghanistan, the series starts with him going to therapy and looking for a flatmate. He becomes one of the first people to appreciate Sherlock's incredible analytical skills, and Sherlock in turn realizes that John's therapist is wrong—he's not having trouble being back from the war because of post-traumatic stress, but because he misses the excitement. John becomes an invaluable aid to Sherlock, especially as his conscience.

---

• Adaptational Badass: Conan Doyle's Watson was quite the man of action, but this John Watson isn't just Dr. John Watson he's Captain John Watson.^note  We don't know what rank Doyle's Watson held during his brief stint in the army, but he was most likely a Lieutenant or at the very least received a Lieutenant's pay grade. Compared to most adaptations (including the originals), Watson is a formidable combatant who can and will kick Sherlock's ass in a straight fight. Occasionally, he's able to observe details that nominally more intelligent persons will miss (even if he doesn't always make the right connections).
• Allergic to Routine: As much as he complains about Sherlock's behavior, there's nothing in theory to stop him simply walking away — except, as Mycroft points out, he's nearly as big a danger-junkie himself.
• Aloof Big Brother: Harry is very supportive of John, but he's distant because he doesn't like her drinking.
• Anger Born of Worry: He reacts to Sherlock being alive by hitting him multiple times.
• Badass Adorable: Whether it's shooting a guy dead under improbable odds, sassing back criminal masterminds who've kidnapped him or ordering around CIA agents who have a gun to the back of his head, chances are he'll be doing it in a cardigan. Also is strongly implied to be one of those people who start celebrating Christmas in October.
• Badass Boast: John gives a particularly good one in "The Abominable Bride" when he's getting really tired of Sherlock's drug habits.
  John: We'll see which of us is a soldier, and which is a drug addict!
  Sherlock: You're a doctor.
  John: I'm an Army doctor. I'll break every bone in your body while naming them.
• Badass Bookworm: He's an ex-army doctor.
• Berserk Button: Actually punches out the superintendent of Scotland Yard because he called Sherlock a "weirdo," probably partly so he'll be arrested as well and can stay with Sherlock, but the fact that he chose that way to do it says something.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Though a friendly and laid back man, John is still an ex-soldier. He has no compunction about killing someone if they're putting the people he cares about in immediate danger. Lampshaded in "A Scandal in Belgravia":
  John: Remember, Sherlock, I was a soldier! I killed people!
  Sherlock: You were a doctor!
  John: I had bad days!
• Blood Knight: John isn't traumatized by combat so much as he misses it. It's rather downplayed, though, since it's not something John is really proud of.
  • Sherlock himself comments on these tendencies after Mary is discovered as a rogue intelligence agent and John asks whether or not everyone in his life is a 'psychopath'.
    Sherlock: You were a doctor who went to war. You're a man who couldn't stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie. [...] John, you are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You're abnormally attracted... to dangerous situations and people.
• Boring Yet Practical: Prefers to use diaries and cameras to record data instead of bizarre memory techniques. Also prefers to call the police using a phone instead of a gun, and would like Mycroft to call him instead of kidnap him.
  "You know ... I've got a phone. I mean, very clever and all that. But you could just phone me. On m' phone."
• Brains and Brawn: The Brawn, to Sherlock's Brain.
• The Caretaker: To Sherlock, going so far as to ditch his girlfriend on New Year's Eve just to make sure that Sherlock doesn’t relapse.
• Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: To the point where he can't hold down a regular job at a hospital or clinic since looking after Sherlock is his full-time job.
• Combat Medic: He is a military doctor, after all.
• The Conscience: To Sherlock, reminding him what is good or at least how to behave in public.
• Curse Cut Short: Almost every episode. Most memorably in "The Great Game", when he opens the fridge in 221B and finds himself staring at a severed head inside.
  • As Series 2 goes on, more of John's curses are left in-episode, mostly to demonstrate that the tone has gotten noticeably darker. He has two particularly PG-13 words in Episode 3.
• Deadpan Snarker: Oh so very, very much. He gets the majority of the most delicious lines of snark in the show. From the very first episode:
  Mycroft: [about Sherlock, after kidnapping John and bringing him to an abandoned warehouse to simply talk to him] He does so love to be dramatic.
  John: Well, thank God you're above all that.
• Distressed Dude: Despite his supposed badassery and Blood Knight tendencies, actually requires rescuing from kidnapping and imminent danger way more than Sherlock. Lampshaded by Magnussen.
  Magnussen: Look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Frequently. At Buckingham Palace, he gets so carried away imagining that he nearly drops the fine china.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Hamish. He dislikes it so much that Sherlock couldn't goad him into divulging it and only found out by looking at his birth certificate. His middle name becomes a plot point in "The Sign of Three".
• Foil: To Sherlock. An obligatory aspect of his character.
• Friendly Sniper: Once shot a guy through two windows, in another building. With a pistol.
• Genre Blind: To an extent, In The Great Game, Sherlock implies that Moriarty is one of the people who reads Watson's blog. This revelation does not stop Watson from maintaining his blog or putting fairly personal information about him and Sherlock on it.
• Giver of Lame Names: Sherlock is consistently unimpressed with the case titles John comes up with.
• Good Is Not Soft: One of the sweetest people in the series, but dauntless in the face of intimidation, capture or imminent death. And not above shooting a sufficiently bad man.
• Handgun: He somehow managed to keep his service pistol, a Sig-Sauer P226, and is scarily proficient with it.
• Handicapped Badass: Even when being affected by the fear drug in "The Hounds of Baskerville", he's still the one to kill the hound.
• Heroic BSoD: After Sherlock's apparent "death" at the end of Series 2, and later, after Mary's actual death in Series 4.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Sherlock.
• Hospital Hottie: Although he's hardly ever in scrubs.
• Hypocritical Humor: He accuses Sherlock of being a Drama Queen at a critical hour and tells him to just finish solving the case without the theatrics and gloating. Sherlock eventually does so but says John's just as guilty himself, which Mary agrees with.
• If It's You, It's Okay: When he tells Irene he's straight, she implies this about him and Sherlock.
• In Harm's Way: When your best friend is a crime solving sociopath, and your wife is a retired professional killer, you really have no excuse.
  • Lampshaded in "His Last Vow":
  Wiggins: Somebody hit me.
  Mary: Huh?
  Wiggins: Just some guy. (stares at Watson)
  John: Probably just an addict in need of a fix.
  Sherlock: Yes, I think in a way, it was.
• Jumped at the Call:
  Sherlock: You've seen a bit of trouble too, I bet.
  John: Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime, far too much.
  Sherlock: ...Want to see some more?
  John: Oh, God, yes.
• The Lancer: The title character's best friend, who is (somewhat) more down to earth, prepared to tell him off, and fills several gaps in his skillset.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Given that many people they know or meet assume John and Sherlock to be a couple and when Mrs. Hudson walks in on them arguing asking if they had “a little domestic,” I feel this fits.
• Logging On To The Fourth Wall: His blog documenting his and Sherlock's adventures, which is widely read in-universe, can be found here.
• Magnetic Hero: For someone who doesn’t go out of their way to make friends, people seem to quickly take a liking to him. At any rate, he’s a far more likable hero than Sherlock.
• Married to the Job: He started to catch this from being around Sherlock; none of his girlfriends were able to put up with their adventuring for long. Fortunately, Mary adores Sherlock possibly even more than John does — but it's still unlikely they would have got to the point of marriage had Sherlock not been off the scene for a couple of years.
  Jeanette: My friends were wrong, you know. You're a great boyfriend — and Sherlock Holmes is a very lucky man.
• The McCoy: The emotional Foil to Sherlock.
• Minored in Ass-Kicking: He's generally known for his equanimity, but if you make him angry, you'll know about it.
• Mistaken for Gay: By Mrs Hudson, Irene Adler, and several of his short-lived girlfriends. At least until he meets Mary.
• Morality Pet: For Sherlock, letting him know whenever he's said or done something "not good". Lampshaded by Moriarty.
  "Oh, [John]'s sweet. I can see why you like having him around. But then, people do get so sentimental about their pets".
• Mysterious Middle Initial:
  • In "A Scandal in Belgravia", John H. Watson finally reveals his much-speculated upon middle name: Hamish.
  • Which of course lines up with Conan Doyle's canon. For even more speculation, see the pre-season-two debate on DI Lestrade's first name. Conan Doyle only gave an initial (G) which BBC expanded to Greg.
• Nerves of Steel: You'd be amazed by how much he goes through completely terrified and yet keeps his calm no matter what. It's telling that the only time we really see him panic is when Sherlock drugs him with a chemical specifically designed to cause irrational levels of fear, and even then he keeps his head enough to get to the safest place possible and continually report what's going on.
  • There's a Freeze-Frame Bonus in The Blind Banker where you can see his resume, which says he's a trauma surgeon. That makes him combat trauma surgeon and people don't get that job without Nerves of Steel on several levels.
• Nice Guy: John Watson is a decent, friendly and moral human being. Just don't piss him off.
• No Bisexuals: Part of the Running Gag with people questioning his and Sherlock's relationship has him claim how he's "not gay", with neither him or any of the people accusing him taking bisexuality into consideration.
• Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: A variant; John says "Nothing ever happens to me" to his psychologist's suggestion that he blogs everything that happens to him. And then a couple of scenes later, he meets Sherlock...
• The Not-Love Interest: To Sherlock.
• Not So Above It All: Sherlock's Brutal Honesty has rubbed off on him by the time of Series 3.
• Odd Friendship: With Sherlock. He's a military veteran and Nice Guy, while Sherlock is a high-functioning sociopath (moreso initially).
• Only Friend: To Sherlock, at least for a very long time — and everyone who knows Sherlock is amazed that he's even managed that much. And as Sherlock almost affectionately points out in "The Hounds of Baskerville":
  Sherlock: I don’t have friends. I've just got one.
• Only Sane Man: Frequently. Especially when Mycroft and Sherlock are yelling at each other and playing tug-of-war with a bedsheet protecting Sherlock's modesty. In the middle of Buckingham Palace.
  • Lampshaded dramatically in "His Last Vow" when Sherlock points out John is attracted to unstable, dangerous people, pointing out himself, Mrs Hudson (who formerly worked for a drug cartel and was an exotic dancer) and his own wife, who was a CIA assassin.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Sherlock's uncanny abilities and intelligence lead people to forget that John is both tough enough to be a soldier and smart enough to be a doctor.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: He is a 5'7"(1.70m), mild-mannered, jumper-wearing killing machine. Once punched Sherlock (6'0 [1.82m] and a badass fighter in his own right), splitting his cheek, then knocked him to the ground and put him in a choke-hold, all the while explaining that it wasn't a good idea for Sherlock to antagonise an Afghan war veteran who killed people when he had "bad days." He is also a very, very good marksman, since he killed Jefferson Hope, and, while tied to a chair at the time, killed the Chinese gangster. Oh, and threatened death on a professional killer when said professional killer grabs Sherlock in a headlock in an attempt to strangle him or snap his neck, which proves that, if you get this gentle soul pissed by threatening his friend's life-he WILL calmly, cooly kill you. The last episode of the second season has him breaking a guy's nose with a single punch, which results in a bloody nose.
• Reaction Shot: John's very good at these.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: John Watson's more emotional Red Oni to Sherlock that is a cold and intelligent Blue Oni.
• Retired Badass: John occasionally reminds people that he was also a soldier in the army.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: In the first episode, a mysterious unidentified man offers him a generous stipend just to report Sherlock's movements. He scorns the notion.
  • All the more striking because he has recurring money troubles and is far more interested than Sherlock in any honestly earned money that comes their way.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: John subverts and inverts this trope. You'd expect him to be traumatized given his situation, but he actually misses the danger. His hand shakes when he's not thinking about the war! Hence his enthusiasm to help Sherlock. Even an exploding mine barely fazes him.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: With Mary. It's implied by Sherlock in this post on John's blog.
  They're both perfectly acceptable friends in their own way but then they start talking and I wish I really had died.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Does this often, either to be refuted by Mycroft or Sherlock or to demonstrate how averse to common sense the latter can be.
• Straight Man: More down to earth than Sherlock is.
• Throwing Off the Disability: His limp is psychosomatic, meaning that he can lose it when he forgets about it. In fact, he was actually shot in the shoulder, meaning that his leg is completely fine.
  • This is a subtle joke at the expense of Conan Doyle, who absentmindedly changed the location of Watson's war wound from the shoulder to the leg between books.
• Tsundere: Towards Sherlock and their odd partnership. He constantly acts like he's being dragged into things by Sherlock when he could be doing something better with himself and says virtually everything that comes out of Sherlock's mouth includes the subtext of "punch me in the face", yet he stays because everything it entails is what he thrives on.
• Undying Loyalty: To Sherlock, shown on several occasions.
• Unfazed Everyman: From who else but himself? He adjusts remarkably quickly to the weirdness that comes with being Sherlock Holmes's sidekick.
  John: We've only just met.
  Mycroft: And since yesterday you've moved in with him and now you're solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Him and Sherlock. Hardly a moment passes when they aren’t snarking at each other.
• The Watson: Well, duh. Occasionally Played for Laughs.
  "How— oh, never mind".
  • Also lampshaded by Magnussen in "His Last Vow":
    John: I don't understand.
    Magnussen: You should have that on a t-shirt.
• Weirdness Magnet: Sherlock implies he's naturally attracted to this, although only unconsciously. Mary agrees.
• What the Hell, Hero?: If Sherlock's getting one of these, chances are good that John will be the one lecturing him, and chances are that he'll be the only one Sherlock will even try to listen to. Turned around on himself in Series 4 when John's own upstanding character takes a nosedive; having a text-based affair after his wife has recently given birth and beating his best friend to a bleeding pulp. Rather sweetly Subverted in that Sherlock doesn't give him a chastising speech but is warmly accepting of John's flaws.
  Sherlock: It's not a pleasant thought, John, but I think from time to time we might all just be human.
  John: Even you?
  Sherlock: No. Even you.
• With Friends Like These...: With Sherlock and cranked up in "The Hounds of Baskerville" when Sherlock drugs John and then locks him up in a lab to conduct an experiment that involved scaring the crap out of John, a war veteran who still suffers from nightmares and flashbacks related to the battlefield. It's surprising that John didn’t at least take a swing at him afterwards.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Violence against women seems to bother John. He's notably guilty about Soo Lin's death in "The Blind Banker", becomes noticeably distressed at the crying woman in "The Great Game", and while he had no problem punching the Superintendent of Scotland Yard for calling Sherlock a "weirdo", he ignores Sally Donovan rubbing it in that Sherlock was not to be trusted.

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