The Psyche Behind The Character

[Carol the Dabbler]

As I understand it (not a Holmesian scholar myself, just a magpie of random info), Conan Doyle originally named his detective Sherrinford, but then changed it to Sherlock.  Baring-Gould later appropriated the name Sherrinford for a character that he introduced.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I used to have that "Gaslight" rules book. Loved it but lost in one of my many moves.

 

Yup, In stead of Sherlock we may have had a Sherringford, or some other quirky name. I am so glad he hit on sherlock Holmes and stuck with it. But I suppose a rose, by any other name, is still a rose. A hero is still a hero.

[Carol the Dabbler]

In stead of Sherlock we may have had a Sherringford....

... and his faithful companion Ormond Sacker.  

 

I agree with you, Conan Doyle (eventually) chose good names for his characters -- and I don't think it's merely that they sound right because we're used to them, they really are more appropriate, especially in the case of the good doctor.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Oooooh, this would have been the thread for me - too bad I wasn't around when you started it...

 

I like what people have pointed out here about John Watson, that he gives the impression of being just as "damaged" (although probably less delusional) as Sherlock. They work as friends because there are a lot of similarities between them. And I still think John is emotionally repressed - so much so that he finds it embarrassing when Sherlock tries to"make up" in the Hounds of Baskerville and cuts him off with the curt comments that are so lovable in the eyes of the audience. He is different from Watson in the original, but not a total reinvention. If you read Doyle between the lines, a lot of Freeman's Watson can be found there: danger seeker, "an exceptional talent for silence", very loyal, the type who has only one or two close friends but those for the rest of his life.

 

Concerning Lestrade: In "The Empty House", Holmes stages everything so that Lestrade gets the full credit for the capture of Moran. I expect that at the beginning of series 3, we will see Lestrade has been demoted and at the end he will get his old position back with Sherlock's help. If Moran is indeed going to be a terrorist who holds all London hostage, his arrest could be prestigious enough for that.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Concerning Lestrade: In "The Empty House", Holmes stages everything so that Lestrade gets the full credit for the capture of Moran. I expect that at the beginning of series 3, we will see Lestrade has been demoted and at the end he will get his old position back with Sherlock's help. If Moran is indeed going to be a terrorist who holds all London hostage, his arrest could be prestigious enough for that.

 

Ooh, I like that!  It could work very well indeed.  Looking forward to seeing what "really" happens in that regard.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Yes, it is getting more and more dangerous to speculate because "The Truth" is so near people could actually still remember one's crackpot theories when they see it...

 

Lestrade. I feel I never do Lestrade justice, he's sort of eclipsed by the rest of the cast. But he's great. I think he is the actual representative of the audience or "the ordinary guy" here, not Watson. They must have had to make him up almost from scratch, because the original Lestrade doesn't even have the same face from story to story and his relationship with Holmes varies from very antagonistic to very friendly.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

  They certainly have given Lestrade a lot more meat in the BBC Sherlock, I really like Rupert Graves as Lestrade too.

[T.o.b.y]

It seems that Lestrade here takes on part of the "Watson" role, looking after Sherlock a bit as well as representing the "ordinary mind" that is baffled by Sherlock's genius. That might have enabled the writers to make John less ordinary himself, and also less of a perfect assistant / biographer and more his own man.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 Yup, John gets to have some fun and become more of a part of the action and story.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Good point -- in the original stories, we don't get a clear picture of Watson, because he's so busy describing Holmes.

 

They must have had to make him up almost from scratch, because the original Lestrade doesn't even have the same face from story to story and his relationship with Holmes varies from very antagonistic to very friendly.

 

Right!  His face is "ratlike" in one story, then resembles a bulldog in another.  Is he a Shapeshifter?

 

[T.o.b.y]

He's a perfect example of why I think one shouldn't read too much into Conan Doyle's characterizations, that's for sure... I still do it all the time though, it's just too much fun.

 

They didn't give Lestrade two faces on the show, but they did use two names from the original for him: DI Gregson and DI Lestrade became Greg Lestrade.

[T.o.b.y]

Can't help it, no matter how well I like Lestrade my mind will always wander back to the title character...

 

What intrigues me the most about the way Sherlock is written and played here is his overall incredible sensitivity combined with total obliviousness about some things.

 

I think he is far from the "machine" it took the original Dr Watson so long to read as an actual human being. He seems hyper-alert, not only with his physical senses but also emotionally. And that creates an impression of incredible vulnerability. As a viewer, you have this constant concern for him. It's not that he doesn't inspire respect and admiration for his talents, but the way I respond to him is totally different to the way I do to the original figure. While whenever Mr Holmes appears on scene, I give a sigh of relief and go "oh thank god you're here to sort out this mess", Sherlock seems more likely to become a mess himself.

 

While he is so responsive to every little slight, Sherlock seems almost completely indifferent about what annoys the heck out of John: the common misconception of them as a couple. If he notices it at all, he seems to find it mildly amusing at best. Maybe he even likes it a bit, because it stops people from asking questions about his private life and keeps women at a distance who would only make him feel uncomfortable?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Doyle gave Lestrade just a initial for Lestrade's first name, the letter "G". This can found in "The Adventure of the Card Board Box" So there are stories that give him everything from George, to Greg, to Gascon to Gaspard.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for identifying the story, Fox -- I've been wondering.  And I have another name to add to your "G" list -- Gareth Lestrade, from Elementary.

 

Must say I like "Greg" the best.  Wonder if T.o.b.y has guessed right about why Moftiss chose that name (which might explain why they say just "Greg" instead of "Gregory").

 

I was just checking Ariane DeVere's transcripts, and Lestrade's first name is mentioned only in "Hounds" (three times).  And I had never caught this, but not only is Gregson's name seen in Sherlock's email lists in the pilot, but he's also mentioned in "Reichenbach":

 

CHIEF SUPERINTENDANT: Not used him on any proper cases, though, have we?
LESTRADE: Well, one or two.
ANDERSON (softly): Or twenty or thirty.
CHIEF SUPERINTENDANT: What?
LESTRADE: Look, I’m not the only senior officer who did this. Gregson ...
CHIEF SUPERINTENDANT (interrupting): Shut up! An amateur detective given access to all sorts of classified information, and now he’s a suspect in a case!

 

(They could still have borrowed part of his name for Lestrade, though.)

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

(They could still have borrowed part of his name for Lestrade, though.)

 

 Anything is possible with this crew.

[T.o.b.y]

Yes, I guess so. Maybe I was just over-interpreting again and they just called him Greg because they liked the name.

 

And that's all my brain can think about Lestrade before it darts back to "psyching" (do people actually say that?) Sherlock.

 

Another interesting aspect of his character is how he has this sort of disdain for "little" things, like cleaning, shopping, paying bills, obeying the law, making conversation... It's as if he lives in a world of his own, and all that matters is what goes on there. For some reason, that does not only make him come across as terribly egocentric (a term the original Watson uses for him), but heroic, too, in a way. "All that matters is the work", and I love his contempt when anybody's insignificant feelings threaten to get in the way of that - especially John's actually very understandable feeling of being annoyed with him and needing a break.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

Another interesting aspect of his character is how he has this sort of disdain for "little" things, like cleaning, shopping, paying bills, obeying the law, making conversation... It's as if he lives in a world of his own, and all that matters is what goes on there. For some reason, that does not only make him come across as terribly egocentric (a term the original Watson uses for him), but heroic, too, in a way. "All that matters is the work", and I love his contempt when anybody's insignificant feelings threaten to get in the way of that - especially John's actually very understandable feeling of being annoyed with him and needing a break.

 

  Which gives some psychoanalysts the idea that Sherlock Holmes was either on the autism spectrum, was bi-polar, or the younger son of landed gentry because this behavior is classic for all three. High functioning autistics are very creative, highly intelligent and often create their own niches in life....as...."I am the only one in the world, I created it myself" line from Sherlock, and they also tend to live in their own little world. The same can be said for the bi-polar patient. Watch Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes. Brett was bi-polar and brought a lot of those traits to his portrayal of his Holmes.

[T.o.b.y]

I thought "bipolar" when I read about the dramatic mood swings in the original. And the autism angle also is obviously pretty accurate. But my mind sort of recoils from narrowing Sherlock Holmes down to a few medical diagnoses. He's a hero, not a patient! And his symptoms are mainly those of greatness...

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

  Back in Victorian times, he certainly wouldn't have been a patient. As long as his behavior patterns didn't make him a menace to society, or was an embarrassment to his family,  they tended to over look a lot. Live and let live.

 

  And even today, a good many autisic people are not patients, many live normal very productive lives, depending where they fall on the spectrum. But I know of one boy, well, a young man now, who is savant, low IQ but very artistic and is selling his creations. He will always have to live in an assistant living situation. But he can cook for himself, but he will never be able to drive. Shopping drives him crazy. He can only take stores for about 25 minutes at a time.

 

Sherlock is certainly heroic, no matter how you slice it.

[T.o.b.y]

  Back in Victorian times, he certainly wouldn't have been a patient. As long as his behavior patterns didn't make him a menace to society, or was an embarrassment to his family,

 

You know, I've never thought about that before, but maybe he was an embarrassment to his family? He certainly does not have much contact with it - Watson for a long time thought he was an orphan and didn't have a relative in the world.

 

 

[T.o.b.y]

  And even today, a good many autisic people are not patients, many live normal very productive lives, depending where they fall on the spectrum.

 

Oh no, did I make it sound as if being autistic automatically would make you into nothing but a patient? That was certainly not my intention, so sorry! I get annoyed with those diagnoses in real life, too. On the one hand, they are important for other people to understand those whom they fit and so make it easier for them to get along, in a way. On the other hand, if somebody is known to have any kind of mental "disorder" or simple variant of the norm, he or she is automatically seen as nothing but that - "the autistic guy" or "the anorexic" etc. It's ridiculous - who would ever dream of defining somebody as "the diabetic" or "the asthmatic"?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Oh no, I didn't think you were be offensive, not at all. You made a good point and that was just clarification, nothing more.

 

 No, in Victorian times if a person with a personality problem was an embarrassment, they usually ended up in an asylum of some sort or were locked away in their home.

[T.o.b.y]

Well, obviously Holmes was too highly functioning for that. But considering that he's supposed to be the son of a country squire (albeit the younger one) and has a very influential brother, he lives a pretty eccentric and lonely life. Certainly an unusual one by his day's standards. Watson likes to describe him as "bohemian". To me, that reads as a euphemism for "does not really fit in". He just can't get along with the common routines in regular households (even though he has his own habits that he doesn't like to vary). There is one story where he can only be persuaded to go on an overnight visit with Watson because they assure him that it's a bachelor household and he can smoke, stay up all night, throw the cushions about and hang around in his dressing gown all he likes... I have so much sympathy for that way of life (even though I don't smoke).

 

I think that the dislike of a regular civilized household was supposed to be one of the reasons for the original Holmes' dislike of women, because in those days, they represented just that - unless they were like Miss Adler, of course.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

  As the younger son of Gentry, he would be given a lot of space to be himself. Being "connected" especially in those days, the authorities tended to turn a blind eye to the goings ons of the peers of the realm. Hence England could have a prince who was a pedophile and perhaps, have been linked with the "Ripper Murders" and the police just whistle along their merry way.

[T.o.b.y]

Well, yes, and the younger son of anybody was usually not required to be very representative. But one still wonders why Holmes never mentioned his family before and then suddenly decided to introduce Watson to his brother. (Well, the real explanation is, of course, that Doyle had only just made that brother up and hadn't given much thought to the subject before).