Sherlock Holmes

Well I knew Holmes was going to die. I was just expecting something a little more epic. And his death accomplished killing some stranger. I mean the Napoleon of what now?

Oh, yes. That, too. No matter the hype, you can't balance an iconic character against some guy we met in the last twenty pages and call it even.

The thing is, Doyle was seriously considering it back towards the end of Adventures. He could have laid the groundwork a lot more thoroughly. That he didn't a) is a sign that he was never really unwavering about it and b) ended up yielding a lot of really good stories, so I'm not complaining.

The fandom should definitely have let him rest after LAST, though. That was a proper send-off, and his copy after that was just lousy.

edited 10th Jun '12 10:08:16 AM by DomaDoma

My favorite short Holmes story is The Dying Detective. Hound of the Baskervilles is my favorite Holmes story of all, though. I love it so much.

I see you've chosen the two most squirm-causing villains in the Canon. Coincidence?

Probably not. I think I like those stories because it's so satisfying to see Holmes win at the end...well, I guess that applies to most of the canon, but I feel it especially in these two.

I find it amusing that there is a character page for the characters as portrayed in the film series as apposed to anything else... currently trying to think of a good list of character tropes from the stories themselves for the sake of a soft split.

Given the mystery short story format, all the character tropes I can think of are spoilers. And there isn't a trope for "thinks implying he's screwing his sister makes him look more legitimate and may be right", or "her man isn't the person she thinks, which is totally and completely a win for her because fat chance she could have changed his ways through the purity of her love", or "talks like someone put a bunch of nineteenth-century American colloquialisms into a blender". Through a combination of creativity and the passage of time, most of the descriptors that come to mind don't really work for a trope page.

edited 23rd Jun '12 6:01:59 AM by DomaDoma

But you can still apply Deadpan Snarker to Holmes, The Medic to Watson etc.

edited 23rd Jun '12 10:35:04 AM by PurpleDalek

I'd say make a section for the main characters (Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Mycroft, possibly Mrs Hudson), and another section for prominent/popular one-off characters (Irene Adler, Moriarty, Moran, Milverton, etc.)

Other suggested tropes:

Holmes

• Celibate Hero
• Forehead of Doom
• Grey Eyes
• Guys are Slobs: Watson complains about him leaving his possessions in odd places, and doing experiments in the kitchen.
• Insufferable Genius
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Master of Disguise
• Memetic Outfit
• Red Oni, Blue Oni (Blue)
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky
• The Spock
• The Stoic

Watson

• Badass Mustache
• Butt-Monkey: Becomes this whenever Holmes asks him to make observations or deductions.
• Cloud Cuckoo Landers Minder
• Combat Medic
• Muggle Best Friend (of a sort)
• Overshadowed by Awesome
• Red Oni, Blue Oni (Red)

edited 7th Jul '13 10:28:48 PM by PapercutChainsaw

I have a confession to make: when I first tried to read the stories, I had a really, really hard time getting into them. They tend to be longwinded, sometimes contradictory, and some of the cases are downright impressive. But then I saw the Granada Series and noticed for the first time how sarcastic the character is....I reread some of the stories (those I liked in the series the best) and from a more adult perspective, I could appreciate the way the narration flows a little bit more. Nevertheless, it took Sherlock to make me really study the stories, I totally went and hunted for canon references. The more I look, the more I noticed neat little details. And, btw, I think the three wives idea is nonsense, the stories are simply not in chronically order. "Valley of Fear" for example definitely belongs before "The final Problem" (and works way better if you read it that way, then you get a little bit more built-up for Moriarty).

I think there needs to be at least two wives in the picture. "The Blanched Soldier", narrated by Holmes, takes place 1903. He mentions that at that time, Watson had "deserted (him) for a wife."

Mary Morstan is implied to have died prior to "The Empty House", which was set in 1894.

Two wives, Mary's the first. In my opinion.

Then again, I say there are three Moriarty brothers all named James.

Why three? Apart from the obvious, I mean.

How do you know that it happened in 1903?

It gives the date in the story.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if ACD simply confused the dates of the stories set before the Final Problem and the two stories in which Watson is married are supposed to happen in the stretch of time during which Watson rarely saw Holmes.

Honestly, I think ACD got confused/stopped caring about continuity in general fairly early on. There's inconsistencies about the location of Watson's wound, Watson's wives, Watson's disappearing puppy, Watson's first name, the landlady's name, Lestrade's physical appearance,etc, etc.

I find the "Watsonian" approach to analysing the books almost impossible for that reason.

The best part of being a Holmesian is trying to come up with explanations for the inconsistencies.

The books series taught me one thing: if one man devised a puzzle, another man can solve it.

That is an almost direct quote from Holmes himself.

On Watson's first name, I think someone proposed the theory that Mary calling him "James" that one time was a reference to his (alleged) middle name of "Hamish."

As for his war wounds, I subscribe to the theory that he was shot twice.

Also also, the line "I keep a bull pup" may be a reference to his Bulldog army revolver, if my glance at Victorian army slang is correct.

edited 16th Jul '13 11:00:29 AM by Accela

The image of Watson with a pet bulldog (that I guess he sold at some point) is too cute to pass up.

As for the wound, I like the BBC adaptation's explanation: He was shot in the shoulder, but it caused a psychosomatic limp in his leg (which he still refers to as a "wound").

Which acts up because of the weather? But then, by his own admission his health was thoroughly ruined when he came back to London, so who knows. Perhaps it's an old injury which started to act up from time to time after the war.

I like two wound explanations, one of which says that says he was kneeling down in such a way that the wound went through both his shoulder and leg, and another of which says he was hit in a certain organ in the groin and didn't want to say so.

Well, perhaps the shoulder wound (or the fever he got later on) caused nerve damage, which he sometimes felt in the legs...that's entirely possible. Nerves are strange.

The migrating wound problem wouldn't be so odd if A Study in Scarlet hadn't gone into explicit medical detail on the nature of the injury.

I have read the "actually shot in the ass and didn't want to admit it" theory. It makes me giggle.