BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Did Moftiss „assassinate“ Sherlock as a character?

RavenMorganLeigh · March 2, 2015 9:44 pm

nakahara wrote:
Do you remember the first time you watched a "Study in Pink"? How we as viewers were kind of put into John´s shoes and felt such a sense of wonder as we watched Sherlock. Sherlock did many weird, confusing and seemingly nutty things during that episode, but "there was a method in this madness" and we witnessed again and again that Sherlock´s puzzling deeds had logical purpose, that he was actually very competent in his job and could procure a wonderful results in it? When John was gushing praises like: "fantastic!", "awesome!" at Sherlock´s deductions, didn´t you feel the same with him? Weren´t you in awe over this enigmatic man? I hope I was not the only one who felt that way.

So, why is this character mostly described as "arsehole" (not by everybody and everytime - but these descriptions are abundant, you certainly saw them many times yourself)? Why do I see reactions like these concerning John´s and Sherlock´s friendship?

http://abundantlyqueer.tumblr.com/post/75683139007/i-will-say-this-for-sherlock-ive-been

Why are some fans percieving Sherlock´s character this way? is he really written as an asshole in this show? If not, where is that disconnect between people´s perception of him and the show?

Or do people use wods like "arsehole" and "dick" because there are no suitable words to describe character of this complexity in an easy way and so people opt for this as a kind of "shortcut"?

Or is it because people like dichotomies and because they already cast John into the role of a positive character, they must put Sherlock into a darker shade? Is this why they are so bent on Sherlock´s punishment?

Concerning Sherlock´s development, Sherlock certainly evolved in the show already, so aren´t names like "dick" and "arsehole" a bit "dated" now? What exactly should I understand under the title "a good man" into which Sherlock should finally evolve? Like, isn´t he already "good" enough? Which of his characteristics should be changed for him to be finally worthy of that epiteth? And how to make him "a good man" and not loose his provocativeness and outrageous originality, which makes him interesting as a character?

I hope it writers don´t plan something heavy-handed, like remodelling him into an entirely "normal" man. That would be a shame, like in that story about a man who saw stork for the first time and wondered what a stange "pigeon" that is. So he cut a piece of stork´s long beak and his long legs, cut away pieces of his tail and wings and when a mutilated stork lay helplessly in front of him, he clapped his hands in delight and said: "Wonderful! You finally resemble a proper bird!"

I really, really hope this is not a fate that writers have in store for Sherlock.

Me,too.

Though, reading some of the fanfic out there-- there's a notion of "Team John" running rampant-- where the fans want John to (a) have all the power in the relatiuonship-- (b) re-make Sherlock into a "normal" person, (c) punish Sherlock and have him attone to John--for eternity.

I can't help but think that Mofftiss' characterization of Sherlock made this dynamic happen.

ukaunz · April 1, 2015 11:14 pm

Before BBC Sherlock, I hadn't really had any exposure to Sherlock Holmes. I had never read any of the ACD stories, or seen a movie or TV adaptation. I knew the (clichéd?) image of Holmes, with his deerstalker, cape and pipe, and "Elementary, my dear Watson", and something about the Hounds of Baskerville, Holmes and Watson chasing monster dogs on the moors... That's about as far as my Holmesian knowledge went.

Now after watching the three seasons of Sherlock early this year, I thought I would read the Doyle stories from the start. I've so far only read A Study in Scarlet and about 2/3 of The Sign of the Four, but at the moment I can't actually see how BC's portrayal of Sherlock can come from the descriptions in the ACD stories. I love Sherlock, and Benedict's version of the character, but so far I just can't see his "high-functioning sociopath" in Doyle's original. Sherlock Holmes seems to be quite a friendly, genial chap. When I read the scene where Watson first meets Holmes at Bart's, I thought Holmes was hilarious, exclaiming in excitement and wanting to share his latest discovery with Stamford and Watson, chuckling away and clapping his hands and bouncing around with energy. So different in feel (to me) to the scene in A Study in Pink.

Reading TSotF, I'm getting a bit more of a feel for Doyle's Holmes. There's a scene where to he wants information from a woman who has a 6 year old boy. Here's a quote from the book:

"Dear little chap!" cried Holmes, strategically. "What a rosy-cheeked young rascal! Now, Jack, is there anything you would like?"
The youth pondered for a moment.
"I'd like a shillin'," said he.
"Nothing you would like better?"
"I'd like two shillin' better," the prodigy answered after some thought.
"Here you are, then! Catch! — A fine child, Mrs Smith!"

He goes on to pretend to be interested in something in order to get the information out of Mrs Smith. Quite different to the cold blooded way Sherlock acts in The Great Game, crying actual tears to get the wife of the missing man to talk and then instantly dropping the act and walking away. Doyle's Holmes may be slightly manipulative to get people to talk to him when on a case, but he's (so far) not ruthless about it.

He is quite happy to invite Athelney Jones to dinner and sit and chat with him for hours on various topics. BC's Sherlock can hardly stand to make small talk. Watson says he has his black moods, but mostly he seems cheerful and energetic and able to function normally.

I'm sure I need to read more to get a better sense of his character... or see some of the other adaptations. I also need to read more of this thread. There are some very clever people here much better than I at analysing characters. Thanks for posting your views!

Last edited by ukaunz (April 1, 2015 11:16 pm)

Vhanja · April 1, 2015 11:33 pm

ukaunz, what you write here is very interesting, because I am at the exact same place when it comes to reading ACD Sherlock Holmes. I've read A Study in Scarlet, and am 2/3 in The Sign of Four. And my knowledge about Sherlock Holmes before watching BBC Sherlock and reading what I have so far was exactly the same as yours.

I do believe we need to read more to get a broader understanding of Sherlock Holmes, however I do think we need to keep something in mind: In the ACD books, Sherlock Holmes is probably in his late 50s or so when we first meet him. BBC Sherlock is 20 years younger. It is normal to become a bit more round around the edges as you mature, and a bit more straight forward and "in your face" when you're young.

BBC Sherlock hasn't yet matured to the Sherlock Holmes we read about in the ACD stories. In addition, you have to see throught he Victorian language. We are much more direct in our speech today, and I reckon that a polite man in his 30s today might be considered rude in Victorian times because of it. So there is a huge difference between what is considered too straight-forward in ACD Sherlock Holmes, and what is considered rude in our time and age.

If you take these two things into consideration, I think BBC Sherlock shows a very fitting young Sherlock compared to ACD's older, Victorian version.

ukaunz · April 1, 2015 11:55 pm

I originally thought Holmes was about that age too Vhanja, but I think that may be an incorrect impression. In the The Sign of the Four chapter titled A Break in the Chain, Athelney Jones says "your friend Mr Sherlock Holmes is a wonderful man, sir ... He's a man who is not to be beat. I have known that young man go into a good many cases..."

So I decided to google a bit for more info. Found this thread on another forum:
http://www.sherlockforum.com/forum/topic/904-what-age-are-sherlock-holmes-and-john-watson/

More evidence that both Holmes and Watson are younger than we may have thought

Last edited by ukaunz (April 1, 2015 11:57 pm)

Vhanja · April 2, 2015 12:01 am

Thanks for that link. I still have to say, BBC Sherlock is younger than any other movie/tv adaptation I know of, they all picture Sherlock and Watson to be at lest in their mid 40s.

Even so, my second point still stand.

Last edited by Vhanja (April 2, 2015 12:02 am)

ukaunz · April 5, 2015 12:08 pm

I've started reading The Hound of the Baskervilles today, after reading A Scandal in Bohemia yesterday (which I was a bit disappointed in, to tell the truth). I got a bit confused about which order I'm reading them in, I think. How are you going with your canon reading, Vhanja? Off topic, but I am curious

Vhanja · April 5, 2015 12:15 pm

Just finished The Sign of Four (and watched Jeremy Brett's adaptation of the same yesterday). I was thinking perhaps leaving HoB for a while and start on some of the shorter stories.

nakahara · April 5, 2015 12:46 pm

Vhanja wrote:
I do believe we need to read more to get a broader understanding of Sherlock Holmes, however I do think we need to keep something in mind: In the ACD books, Sherlock Holmes is probably in his late 50s or so when we first meet him. BBC Sherlock is 20 years younger. It is normal to become a bit more round around the edges as you mature, and a bit more straight forward and "in your face" when you're young.

.................

If you take these two things into consideration, I think BBC Sherlock shows a very fitting young Sherlock compared to ACD's older, Victorian version.

The very last Sherlock´s adventure (in a chronological order) is "His Lat Bow" where it is mentioned that Sherlock is 60 years of age (that means he was born in the year 1854). He retired from active detective life when he was 50 and only solved some cases here and there from there on.

That means that he couldn´t be actually 50 while solving most of his memorable cases.

When he met in Watson during "Study in Scarlett", it was 1881, which means Sherlock was only 27 years old. I guess he solved most cases between 30 - 40 years of age. So BC and MF are actually the perfect age for our heroes, probably the closest to SH and JW actual age in all adaptations.

miriel68 · April 6, 2015 8:29 am

Well, I am not sure ACD had pondered all these questions when he began to write SH stories. It is quite frequent for the writers to mess up timeline and their characters' age. And of course age perception was different in his time. In the nineteenth century a 30 years old man was already "mature". Remember Ellen O'Hara? She was 32 and considered "middle-aged" )

NatureNoHumansNo · April 6, 2015 11:45 am

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

I must admit
This is NOT the character I read about and admired as a 12-years old, this isn't the guy in all the Basil Rathbone movies I watched , this is something else entirely. What Mofftiss has done is to write an OOC Sherlock Holmes.

As someone who discovered and loved Sherlock Holmes adventures from the ACD story, I'm always keen to see variations and adaptations about my favourite detective.
And I take them as they are, with the particular angle the adaptators will enlight, the circumstances in which they've been made : Basil Rathbone filmed 3 SH movies a year, with few money, during WWII and some of them aimed at gathering british people against nazis while Guy Ritchie films with the hollywood huge material means, and his movies has to bring back as much money to the producers as possible.
Then, knowing that no adaptation will be "the ultimate one", I can enjoy freely each and every of them and still keep a critical look on them.
I'm fond of Basil Rathbone 2 first, but I'm not convinced by Nigel Bruce as Watson, I like the granada serie, but I sometimes think they could have been " lighter" stuck to the canon, Jude law is a great Watson, but the plots are a tad too "dejà vu"...
About the BBC Sherlock, I think their strong suit is humor, and they developped the character in that direction. A antisocial/rude Holmes and a annoyed/grumpy Watson. those features can be seen in the original stories, they just emphasise them....because that's fun, and that works.
For me, there are strong suits in this serie ( a great Watson, very clever dialogues, excellent actors, very modern filming etc.) , as well as weakness ( flaws in plots, mycroft is too omnipresent for my taste etc.)
IMHO, the best way to enjoy it is to look at it halfway between the canon and as a pure creation.

REReader · April 7, 2015 3:42 pm

NatureNoHumansNo wrote:
IMHO, the best way to enjoy it is to look at it halfway between the canon and as a pure creation.

Considering that Moffat has said himself that he is writing Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, that is probably the perfect way to look at it, since all fanfiction is a mixture of the original material and the new author's ideas!

NatureNoHumansNo · April 8, 2015 8:53 am

REReader wrote:
Considering that Moffat has said himself that he is writing Sherlock Holmes fan fiction!

It would be interesting to know what are their limits, in the process of creation, relating to the canon.

Kittyhawk · April 9, 2015 8:26 pm

I'm in the lucky position of having forgotten most of the original Sherlock. I feel even luckier not to have read the above-quoted blogs (why do people watch a show if they don't like the central character????)
BBC Sherlock is intelligent, good-looking and has a sense of humour. I like him as he is - right from the cab ride to Lauriston Gardens when Watson compliments him on his analysis and Sherlock remarks: "That's not what people normally say." "What do they normally say?" "Piss off!" - the little smile accompanying the last sentence won me over. (Just like I've always liked Dr. House because he didn't make a fuss when a patient knocked him down.)
So I quite simply don't understand much of the above discussion and I certainly don't think that Moftiss have assassinated Sherlock's character (I haven't yet heard the commentaries to Season 3, though).

However, as I've just started reading "A Study in Scarlet", I think that they don't really do Sherlock justice either: When we meet Sherlock in the book he has just discovered a means to identify blood stains with certainty - he's working at the forefront of forensic medecine. ACD's Sherlock does not just "have the mind of a scientist" - he is a scientist. (But I admit that if Moftiss wanted to bring that across, we'd have another version of CSI, who are, IMHO, Sherlock Holmes's natural successors).

Kittyhawk · May 23, 2015 10:11 am

nakahara wrote:
.....
It doesn´t help that Moftiss too paint him with this brush, for example in their HLV commentary: horrible, cruel, vile, inhuman and cold, nasty, you should loath him, fascinatingly awful, terrible (did they try to create an encyclopedia of negative names for Sherlock? All those nasty epithets are used in less then 5 minutes of the commentary – I abhor to know what was in the rest of it.)

.....

Yesterday I finally listened to the HLV commentary and I agree with nakahara: Sherlock Holmes comes off much worse in the commentary than on screen. I would have wanted to say to Moftiss "Hey guys, are you aware that you are describing your hero here (or at least the high-functioning sociopath protagonist)? Why do you make him sound like one of the more despicable villains in tv history? Or, if you feel that way about him - why did you write him like this?"

Vhanja · May 23, 2015 10:25 am

Kittyhawk wrote:
Yesterday I finally listened to the HLV commentary and I agree with nakahara: Sherlock Holmes comes off much worse in the commentary than on screen. I would have wanted to say to Moftiss "Hey guys, are you aware that you are describing your hero here (or at least the high-functioning sociopath protagonist)? Why do you make him sound like one of the more despicable villains in tv history? Or, if you feel that way about him - why did you write him like this?"

I think HLV was meant to be a sharp contrast to TSoT. In the latter, Sherlock becomes almost fluffy. He is shown as loving, caring, warm, vulnerable and borderline soppy in public. It was bordering on becoming quite OOC. So they've stated that they made Sherlock very cynical and cold in HLV, to show that he was NOT just the fluffy bunny we saw in TSoT. Kind of an emotional whiplash for the audience, deliberately done by Moftiss.

SusiGo · May 23, 2015 10:33 am

But the funny thing is that at least to me he does not come over as cold and cynical in HLV. Quite the contrary.
The Janine story is Canon and we also learn that she is quite capable of defending herself and using her acquaintance to her own advantage. No broken heart there. And the rest is about Sherlock sacrificing himself for John (and his family). And in Canon the blackmailer is killed as well - by a woman who is protected by Holmes. I really do not see much coldness and cynicism in that episode.

Vhanja · May 23, 2015 10:51 am

You don't find him using Janine like that cold and cynical? You don't find him viewing her loving him as something to be dismissed as "human error" cold and cynical?

Then I guess we have pretty different understandings of what it means to be cold and cynical. To me, his fake relationship is the very definition of those terms.

Then there is the fact that he became a cold-blooded murderer. Yes, the murder was understandable and can be justified. But he still killed an unarmed man.

Last edited by Vhanja (May 23, 2015 10:53 am)

SusiGo · May 23, 2015 10:58 am

The way I see it, Janine never wanted a longer relationship. She knew from the wedding that Sherlock was different in many ways and yet she felt attracted, maybe even challenged by him. And the way she behaves in the hospital does not feel like an act to me. The wedding shows us that she was looking for an interesting man, for some fun or sex of both, not for the love of her life. And the speed with which she switches from heartbroken betrayed near-fiancée to cool money-making businesswoman is quite impressive and might be called cynical as well. If anything, they are quite on a par.

Vhanja · May 23, 2015 10:59 am

I think it's a bit scary that one of Sherlock's least human actions gets rationalized like this just because of who Janine is.

Harriet · May 23, 2015 11:05 am

Vhanja wrote:
You don't find him using Janine like that cold and cynical? You don't find him viewing her loving him as something to be dismissed as "human error" cold and cynical?

Then I guess we have pretty different understandings of what it means to be cold and cynical. To me, his fake relationship is the very definition of those terms.

I don't find it either. Actually, I'm quite sure that Janine to some extent knew she was part of a game, and didn't mind playing her part.