Subtext Interpretation... What Do You See?

[Carol the Dabbler]

You're saying that it's very difficult for them to tune things out. I can relate to that -- I was raised to do one thing at a time, so I never got into the habit of studying with the radio on. When my college roommates (and later on, the people at adjoining desks) would do that, it would drive me nuts. It got easier over time, but I never could understand why anyone would intentionally distract themselves when they needed to get some thinking done.

 

So anyhow, that explains why Sherlock notices everything. He can't help it! But being able to put everything together, despite all the stimuli, must be even more of an accomplishment for him than it would be for a non-Asperger's genius.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

They do tend to be savant in some area. For Torren is anything to do with electronics. He can make old outdated electrical boxes work. The other day, with just spare radio parts, he built a small working ham radio set. For Sherlock it's science and deduction. Spare body parts in the fridge and luckily for criminology and the Met, he is methodical and they are successful and he does make advancements.

 

Also the drug use. Most autisic people do turn to drugs if they are self aware. Sherlock is highly that. Torren, not so much. Plus Torren is more to lower middle spectrum where Sherlock is very high functioning. Torren will never be able to drive a car nor ever live on his own. But back to the drugs. Their synapses already work like they are on cocaine. So taking a drug actually helps calm this activity down and lets them focus and concentrate better. But it's a double edged sword because in the end the addiction will destroy that artistic, free thinking mind if not kill the person first.

[aely]

It could be said that Sherlock has some autistic traits (most people have a couple), but not enough to give a diagnosis (in the UK at least) by what we see on screen. This is covered by wellingtongoose and fennishjournal who are a medical student and a psychologist/psychotherapist respectively.

 

Me, I just have experience with my family and friends and sometimes I think Sherlock has Aspergers, and sometimes I don't.

 

Having 3 nephews with Aspergers, a sister who teaches ASD kids (who is on the autism spectrum herself), 4 other extended family members and a fair few friends who have Aspergers, I am familiar with people who would be classed as high functioning. In my family the Aspergers seems to go along with an ability for maths - my eldest nephew with Aspergers is doing maths at Cambridge for example.

 

My personal experience leads me to dispute your statement about drugs an d autism

Most autisic people do turn to drugs if they are self aware.

though I don't know what official statistics show. I think I would agree with 'many' autistic people turning to drugs, but not 'most' but having said that the autistic people I know are either family members or sub-cultural friends (goths and geeks) and probably have a degree of acceptance in those environments that they wouldn't get from society in general, which would make them less stressful. I know my Aspie friends find so-called 'normal' people very difficult to deal with at times. Fandom was responsible for giving one of my Aspie friends her life back, so geek support can work.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

And in Victorian times, the original Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have had any kind of diagnosis what so ever. As long as he could take care of himself and not be a burden on his family or society, and act fairly normal for the social norms for the times, he would have been allowed to just go about his business. Back then his drug use wasn't a issue of any kind. It was an accepted past time. Opium dens and such readily available and accessed.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... taking a drug actually ... lets them focus and concentrate better. But ... in the end the addiction will destroy that artistic, free thinking mind ....

That very point was made on Elementary last night.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

It was made in the Granada Sherlock Holmes series as well several times. In the episode "Devil's Foot" it shows Brett's Sherlock dumping his vial of cocaine and burying his syringe in the sand on a beach.

[SolitaryCyclist]

It was made in the Granada Sherlock Holmes series as well several times. In the episode "Devil's Foot" it shows Brett's Sherlock dumping his vial of cocaine and burying his syringe in the sand on a beach.

 

I read an interview with Jeremy Brett, and he actually asked the Doyle estate if he could make a point of rejecting the cocaine, hence the scene in Devils Foot, which is proably one of my favorite stories, and Brett dramatizations. His interaction with Watson (Edward Hardwicke, my favorite Watson before Martin Freeman) is wonderful to watch.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

And I think some where in the canon Dr. Watson makes the statement that he had been able to wean Holmes off drugs but he knew the monster was only sleeping but could never be fully vanquished. That may be somewhere in the Granada series. I do know there is an Brett episode where Watson spots the leather case holding the syringe in a drawer at Baker Street and asks Holmes how can he take the risk of damaging the one thing he valued the most, his mind, by taking the drug.

[T.o.b.y]

Could somebody please explain a few things to an innocent German girl?

 

1.) What are slash goggles?

2.) Where did the odious expression "bromance" come from and how could I eliminate it?

3.) What do ships have to do with people in love? Honeymoon cruises or what? 

 

I love subtext (or my brain does, anyway). And when I read the original stories I do get the very strong impression that Watson loves his colleague and that there is a remote physical (but not sexual) side to that love. Just the way he describes him: "inscrutable eyes", "enigmatic smile", etc, etc, etc. Plus minute accounts of every physical contact that are not needed to tell the story, plus numerous "thrills", plus almost breaking into tears in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and the fainting and so on and so forth. I think this was totally unintentional on Doyle's part. But by contrast, the way he wrote the romance between Watson and Miss Morstan is very flat and cliché.

 

Concerning Mr. Holmes, he does not come across as asexual, but the monk idea is a bit too glorified. The impression I got reading is that he finds sex disturbing and strong emotions in general a hindrance in his work. I don't think of him as misogynist, I think he "dislikes" women because he is sexually attracted to them and this attraction bothers him. In Dr. Watson he seems to have found somebody whom he can love without feeling weakened or destabilized. That love is expressed pretty freely, even tenderly and affectionately at times - which, for me, is another indicator of there being absolutely no sexual side to it, knowing Holmes.

 

It must have been very hard to carry this kind of mutual affection into the modern version because today's audience is so sexualized. I admire the writers for not choosing an easy solution like "we'll just declare them a couple" or "we'll just pretend they're only colleagues".

 

As for me and my personal goggles: I want Sherlock to stay single. He's very welcome to get a little something from Irene now and then, but I do not want to see a big romance between them. John can marry, if he likes, but if I were in charge of the script (and we can all be grateful that I'm not), I would probably divorce him after a few years and send him back to Baker St, keeping Mary on as an ex-wife - more interesting, in my opinion, and more like real life.

 

 

[Caya]

Could somebody please explain a few things to an innocent German girl?

 

1.) What are slash goggles?

2.) Where did the odious expression "bromance" come from and how could I eliminate it?

3.) What do ships have to do with people in love? Honeymoon cruises or what? 

 

Not my language either, but I'll try my best.

 

1) What one wears (figuratively) when one sees every interaction primarily for its possible (or not so possible, or really far-fetched) slash implications. Kinda like seeing things through rose-coloured glasses.

 

2) Urban Dictionary claims Dave Carnie coined it. Personally, I like the term, especially as a non-slasher. It's closer than a mere friendship but not sexually oriented. You could use "brothers from different mothers" or one of the other expressions denoting similar concepts, but they tend to be wordier.

 

3) I think that's just short for relationship.

[T.o.b.y]

Thank you! I guess I like what "bromance" means, I just think it sounds silly. Like a kind of beer. The idea is far from new, of course... Think of Achilles and Patroclus, for example.

[T.o.b.y]

 

1) What one wears (figuratively) when one sees every interaction primarily for its possible (or not so possible, or really far-fetched) slash implications. Kinda like seeing things through rose-coloured glasses.

 

Uh... what are "slash implications"? I thought "slashing" referred to blood and gore movies...

[Caya]

No, in this context slash denotes, literally, this: / . Less literally, it's a relationship, generally a male-male one (I've seen the term femslash used for females). Carol would know that better than me, but I think it stems from Kirk / Spock stories in the early Trek fanzines, spoken: Kirk slash Spock.

 

And Achilles and Patroclus are maybe not the best example of bromance, given that among the ancient Greeks such relationships very often did have a sexual connotation.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

In this context is Slash means males having sexual relations with men or female sexual relations with another female. Why the fanfiction writers get hung up on this I don't know. One online explaination was that these fanficton stories are written by heterosexual females who have the mindset that if they can't have the male lead, at least in their world, no other woman could either, so they feel better having Kirk/Spock, Sherlock/John, or here's a new one....Chekov/Khan....but there you are.

 

 

And the term "bromance" is endearing especially when it comes to Sherlock and John. Though I have a book that was supposed to be about bringing Sherlock out of the Victorian age to the 21st Century and some of the essays chosen were by writers that thought that "bromance" meant homosexuality. I keep the book for the cover art, not for the content.

[T.o.b.y]

Thanks again! I must be really clueless, because I have since 7th grade thought of those two Greek hunks as the quintessential male best friends / brothers from different mothers as you put it (that sounds a lot nicer than "bromance"!). Achilles had loads of women, didn't he? Didn't he fall out with Agamemnon about a woman? Well, of course "having" women never kept anybody from anything...

 

Hmmm, well, what about... Winnetou and Old Shatterhand? I'm sure the Americans don't even know them, but they're a good example, though far less ancient. Now don't tell me they're supposed to have had sex as well...

[T.o.b.y]

 these fanficton stories are written by heterosexual females who have the mindset that if they can't have the male lead, at least in their world, no other woman could either, so they feel better having Kirk/Spock, Sherlock/John, or here's a new one....Chekov/Khan....but there you are.

 

Well, that sounds entirely plausible. Like Lara Croft was never allowed a boy-friend because she was supposed to "belong to" the male gamers.

 

And why not. Dream on by all means. I'd better not examine my own "I want Sherlock to stay single, please" attitude all too closely, I guess..

 

[Caya]

The Straight Dope (about the safest link I could find, but still somewhat NSFW) has a brief primer on Ancient Greek sexuality in case you're interested, and there are many more out on the web (but those tend to be illustrated with paintings on vases and similar, so forgive me if I don't link to them).

 

I must admit I never understood the attraction of slash pairings - I figured it was either akin to situational homosexuality (when there are few interesting female chars in a verse and you want to write romance, there's basically either slash or introducing an OC) or simply "one guy hot, two guys hotter". But I like your explanation a lot better, Fox .

[Carol the Dabbler]

No, in this context slash denotes, literally, this: / . Less literally, it's a relationship, generally a male-male one (I've seen the term femslash used for females). Carol would know that better than me, but I think it stems from Kirk / Spock stories in the early Trek fanzines, spoken: Kirk slash Spock.

 

Circa 1970, Star Trek (original series of course) fan fiction had a sub-genre called the Kirk & Spock story (or K&S for short), which focused on those two characters and their professional and personal relationship.  (Nowadays, I suppose they would be called "bromance" stories.)  By the mid-70's, there was a sub-sub-genre called the Kirk/Spock story (or K/S), wherein their personal relationship had developed romantic and/or sexual aspects.  As Caya says, this was called "slash fiction" simply because the "/" punctuation mark is called a "slash" in the US.  (So if it had originated in the UK, it might be called "stroke fiction," and one can only conjecture what effect that might have had on the content.)

 

Even though I very much enjoy stories about strong friendships, I don't care for the term "bromance" either.  However, I suspect that it'll only go away if it's replaced by something that sounds even worse.  Too bad that the English language has never fully adopted the Spanish term "compadre."  (I guess you can't simply say "friend" these day because of the devaluation of that term -- I've seen Facebook members' pages where they claim to have hundreds or even thousands of "friends.")

 

I believe that in addition to meaning "relationship," the word "ship" is most often used as a related verb -- if someone believes that John and Sherlock are (or ought to be) a couple, for example, they might express that as "I ship Johnlock" (unless Aely is around, in which case she would whack them with Irene's riding crop for daring to moosh the names together so disrespectfully).

 

... when I read the original stories I do get the very strong impression that Watson loves his colleague and that there is a remote physical (but not sexual) side to that love. .... But by contrast, the way he wrote the romance between Watson and Miss Morstan is very flat and cliché.

 

I see Watson's rather stylized depiction of his romance with Miss Morstan as being due to his Victorian reticence to be explicit about such matters.  Unlike his friendship with Holmes, this is romantic, and after all, there's a lady involved.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Wow, I am really learning things here. Now, what does NSFW stand for? Or can't you write that out outside the "over 18" section?

 

About Dr. Watson and Miss Morstan: What was there that he could have been explicit about? Nothing before their marriage, surely. What I mean is that the way he writes about her gives me no idea of who she is and why he fell in love with her, specifically. It just doesn't feel real to me as a reader. Of course, this probably isn't so much Watson's fault as Doyle's, who I guess was just bad at romance or didn't really want to write it, just shoved it into the story because he thought it would sell and besides would give him an opportunity to finally get rid of Sherlock Holmes.

 

On the other hand, Doyle / Watson (oh god, can I now not put a "/" between two names without suggesting they have sex?) was very well able to create a portrait of Holmes that swept me off my feet at first read - and that without making him handsome or strictly speaking charming or even young.

 

There are plenty of beautiful Victorian romances where love, admiration and even desire are expressed very well within the limits of what was acceptable. It might not be fair to list "Jane Eyre" here, because it was written by an exceptional woman ahead of her days, but take "David Copperfield" if you like.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

NSFW stands for Not Suitable For Work -- in other words, something you wouldn't want the boss to look over your shoulder and see on your monitor.

 

Watson's already getting flack from Holmes for writing up the stories as "adventures" instead of as scientific treatises.  Now the poor fellow's also got to answer for not writing a palpable romance as well!      In all fairness to the good doctor, I don't believe he saw the romance as what the story was about.  It was merely an incidental occurrence (albeit with major personal implications) during a proper adventure.

 

Oh, and when I said "explicit," I did NOT mean in the fan fiction sense of the word!      Just in a none-of-our-business sense.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Yes, I think I get the message, Carol. Watson is supposed to be writing about his work with the great detective for the public at large - and why would he tell them how he feels about his fiancée. Right?

 

Are there actually men around who like the idea of "bromance"? Or is it a female thing - us wishing men were more like us?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Right.  Plus I suspect he was sufficiently embarrassed by what little he did say about Mary and his feelings for her.

 

As for male attitudes toward "bromance," I'd bet you a pile of money that they'd die before they'd use that word!  But they do seem to engage in it, at least in certain "us against the world" circumstances like war or persecution.  Then there's what may be a mock version that accompanies sports (spectator or participatory).

 

But for the most part, I suspect you're right, it's wishful thinking by women -- just as male characters written by women are thoughtful and sensitive.

 

And men retaliate by wishing we were all bimbos. 

 

[Caya]

Fictional characters don't count, I guess? That leaves Barney Stinson and Dr. Gregory House out of the picture .

 

One real life example I could think of on top of my head is Robbie Williams. In the description of the making-of video for Shame, he (or whoever writes the text on his official YouTube channel, so I guess he's at least okay with it) uses the term "bromance-fuelled video" for the Shame songvid. But well, it's Robbie Williams after all .

 

eta: tv tropes (warning, tv tropes link to follow - there goes your afternoon if you click on it) calls the concept Heterosexual Life Partners, maybe you like that term better.

[T.o.b.y]

Well, if we're mostly indulging in wishful thinking anyway, we should maybe be more understanding towards those whose wishes take a more sensual direction...

[Carol the Dabbler]

Martina:  Looks like I should have been more explicit -- I meant that I doubted any men would use the word "bromance" to refer to their own non-sexual, non-romantic close friendships with other men.  It just sounds too much like "romance," so I'm not surprised to hear that some people misunderstand the term.

 

Are you saying that "heterosexual life partners" is supposed to mean the people in a "bromance"?  I wasn't aware that bromancers had to consider themselves "life partners" (as in "partners for life"?) -- and besides, "heterosexual life partners" sounds like my husband and me.

 

And T.o.b.y:  Definitely, everyone to their own wishful thinking!