The Ice Man and The Virgin

[T.o.b.y]

But does he really believe that "alone protects me"?  I think he says that as part of his hard-hearted "who gives a damn about Mrs. Hudson" routine, just to get John to leave before Moriarty shows up.  So he may or may not actually believe it.

 

This is a very good question. You are right, at the time when he says that he is putting on one of his acts to manipulate John's actions (and, as usual, it's working like a dream... good old Watson, you're such a sucker!).

 

But I think he must have really believed for a long time that he was best off and safest alone. At least that's how he seems to have lived his life. Of course, he could have been friendless because of his difficult personality. Maybe it's a combination of both: He might have had a very hard time with other kids when he was young and so came to associate human interaction with being hurt. Rather than trying to find friends he then trained himself to not need them. I don't think he's really supposed to be autistic, though. I like to believe in "the great heart behind the great brain".

 

I wonder whether, at the end of Reichenbach Fall, he decided to go back to being alone because he found that having friends made him too vulnerable. After all, Moriarty used them to pressure him. There might also be an element of the classic "hero pushes friends away to keep them out of the danger he's habitually involved in" in this.

 

If my last paragraph were true, Sherlock would have run both from his enemies and his friends. In that case the next big question would be: Why does he come back?

[Carol the Dabbler]

As in canon, he'll be free to come back once the immediate threat is dealt with, once Moriarty's people are defanged.

 

[T.o.b.y]

If it's only the immediate threat of Moriarty's network, then you are of course right. I was thinking more along the lines of the classic (super)hero logic: Stay away from me, my life is dangerous, you'll get hurt too and have no special powers to defend yourself with, I am so alone but won't show it because I don't want people I love being hurt, bla, bla, bla. It's an impression I got watching the episode and it probably stems more from my own reaction to Reichenbach than anything else. Those 90 min always leave me feeling extremely soppy.

 

Of course I hope that Sherlock has not become quite so heroic yet and never will. I want him to come back as (almost) the same egocentric, insensitive, arrogant, emotional virgin he went. He's very welcome to grow and learn but, as he himself would say: "don't be boring".

[Carol the Dabbler]

He's definitely giving off that vibe in "Reichenbach," but as to whether it's permanent or temporary, well, he's never acted that way before, so I'd hope it's just an ad hoc kinda thing.  Not that he'll just come back and everything will be the way it was, but once he's adjusted to being back (and to how things have changed in his absence), he'll presumably be pretty much his idiosyncratic self once more.

 

I'm mostly saying that from a real-world point of view, because I can't see Moftiss throwing away a character that's been working so well.

 

[T.o.b.y]

The real-world point of view is most often correct. But that point of view could also be that the personality of Sherlock will be made more and more generally acceptable because of the growing audience. He certainly changed between series 1 and 2.

 

On the other hand, it would be boring and unrealistic if the characters stayed the same over years and years, especially with all that happens to them...

[T.o.b.y]

Getting back to "the ice man and the virgin": I think one indicator that Sherlock is far from comfortable with sex is the way Moriarty behaves towards him. Moriarty knows his enemy very well and knows what sore spots he can lay his fingers on. He wouldn't "flirt" with Sherlock all the time and make sexual comments if he didn't know perfectly well that Sherlock would be irritated by that.

 

I always get the impression that Sherlock views sex (and bodily things in general) as somehow debasing, in Victorian terms "base and low". He might not be alarmed at it so much as disgusted.

[T.o.b.y]

While re-reading "The Devi's Foot", I just came across an interesting Holmes quote: "I have never loved, Watson, for if I did and the woman I had loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion hunter has done. Who knows?"

 

He's talking about a murderer they just let go because he killed only to take revenge for the death of his beloved.

 

"I have never loved" certainly rules out a secret marriage etc to Miss Adler in the original. Holmes also makes it clear that he is, in fact, attracted to women. And that he has a great capacity for love, but is too afraid of where that might lead him to use it.

 

Of course, Sherlock may be a different matter, but I can't imagine they ignored this when they were thinking about his character.

[T.o.b.y]

Taking this quote one step further on an interpretation road the author probably never meant to be walked, one could reach the conclusion that Holmes specifically shied away from loving anybody who could be easily harmed. That ruled out most Victorian women, for example.

 

With Sherlock, I get a similar impression. He is touchingly outraged when Mrs Hudson is attacked and I can imagine that he would not be willing and able to go through that level of concern about anybody often. Maybe he feels drawn to strong people - Irene, John, Mrs Hudson too, actually - because they can take care of themselves and don't put too much of a tax on the "great heart" that I suspect is lurking behind this great brain as well as that of the Holmes of bygone days.

[Carol the Dabbler]

And Greg Lestrade, and even Molly, who's as rational as they come, despite wearing her heart on her sleeve.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Yes, Molly does not come across as a weakling, although I have heard (or rather read) people call her "a doormat". We doormats have a hard being liked, I guess... got to stick together so I will just insert a "Molly, you are great!" here and move on.

 

Lestrade. Oh dear, I never do him justice. Yes, he is another good example.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

  Though it must be said, that scholars do think that Sherlock Holmes did have an affair of the heart very early on. In one of his early cases that he is telling Watson about, "The Gloria Scott" I think, that one of his Uni class mates, Victor Trevor, "had a sister, I heard, but she died of diphtheria in Birmingham."

 

 True he does put the qualifier, "I heard" in the sentence, but scholars wonder why, if she died sometime before, why does Sherlock mention her at all?  From that little throw away line, they speculate that he might have known her very well indeed  being in love with her...or even...some say...married. But they would have been very young, late teens anyway, if he was in Uni when she died.  He may tell Watson that he had never loved, but if he supposed that he would have taken revenge if his loved had been murdered, maybe he knew more then he was letting on. Which would be in character for Holmes.

[T.o.b.y]

And I thought I was prone to over-interpretation! Talk about subtext...

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Well, there might be some president for the scholars interpretation. Since so much of Holmes and even Watson lives are based on Doyle's own life experiences, Doyle himself was engaged to a fellow student, one of the first women to be allowed to attend his University while he was studying under Dr. Joseph Bell.  The female students were not well received by most the male students to say nothing how they were treated by the professors.

 

  Anyway, this young woman would be murdered by one of her fellow male students. Doyle and Bell knew who the murderer was, but he escaped to Canada. The official police report would rule her murder as a suicide.

[T.o.b.y]

Thanks, Fox. It's really great that you share all this information about Doyle and the public response to the original stories here, because I, for one, am way too lazy to read biographies (or anything else that is not "make believe"). 

 

I'd have thought that if Doyle had wanted to bring this horrific experience of his into the Holmes stories, he'd have made a bit more of it than just a passing sentence.

 

I'm getting the impression that a lot of people, scholars and "just readers" (or viewers...) have a hard time accepting the idea that Holmes is / was permanently single. And if they do, they have to make him asexual, which I think was never intended. It's just that not everybody pairs off in life. And even if they did, he's such a unique character (and fictional to boot), why would he have to follow the rules anyway? On a related note, why does he have to have a diagnosis like Asperger's or bipolar disorder or similar? I'm not saying there aren't hints galore that those might fit, but why can't he just be Holmes?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

    Why can't he be Holmes indeed and why can't people just be happy and accept him as he is, I can share that sentiment.

 

  If you want to delve deeper into Doyle's life in University and get to know Dr. Joseph Bell better, hop on over to Youtube and watch episodes of "The Murder Rooms" a series produced by the BBC.

 

  He might not to have gone to deep into this "lost sister of his Uni class mate" because of the back lash it might have brought against the police if he used "The Gloria Scott" as a rant.

[Carol the Dabbler]

  He might not to have gone to deep into this "lost sister of his Uni class mate" because of the back lash it might have brought against the police if he used "The Gloria Scott" as a rant.

 

Or -- resorting to real life again -- the details were probably far too painful for Conan Doyle to rehash.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 Yup, writing about Victor Trevor, and Sherlock's Uni days might have dredged up her memory, and instead of just letting it pass, he just dropped in the line to at least acknowledge her existence in those days.

[Carol the Dabbler]

A tribute, you might say. 

[T.o.b.y]

Very likely that it was a tribute, but that would make it Doyle's, not necessarily Holmes'. If Holmes is supposed to be Doyle's alter ego in that literal a sense, he would have had to get married and father children, too. Oh, wait, you say some people think he did just that with Irene, who was actually married to somebody else (and Holmes was best man at her wedding - I love that part!). Did Doyle have an affair with a married woman?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

But since it was in a Sherlock Holmes story being told in Sherlock's "voice", it would seem like it was Sherlock's tribute.

 

Doyle had an affair while still married to his first wife. Well, he dated the second woman....he would marry her after his first wife died.

[T.o.b.y]

His life story is getting more and more interesting...

 

Well, whatever Dolye did or did not intend to imply, he never openly paired Holmes off with anybody and I, for one, am glad he didn't. I really hope Sherlock will be allowed to stay the way he is, too. At the utmost, they could let him have a standing flirtation with Irene.

 

Just impertinent curiosity, Fox, and of course no need to answer, but do you like the idea of Holmes having had a wife in his uni days and / or a secret marriage to Miss Adler? Or do you merely find it interesting that some people read all this into the stories based on Doyle's biography?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

  I find it merely interesting. What ever has contributed to Sherlock's being so very antisocial, which seems to run in the family anyway, seeing how Mycroft was described as "being the most unclubable of men" hence the creation of the Diogenes Club, just piques my curiosity. I have always been the kind of person who loved to dig into the "background" stuff. Face value is fine, but it seldom gives the full picture, and this is certainly true when it comes to Sherlock Holmes.

[T.o.b.y]

...  What ever has contributed to Sherlock's being so very antisocial, which seems to run in the family anyway...

 

...Face value is fine, but it seldom gives the full picture, and this is certainly true when it comes to Sherlock Holmes.

 

Yes, he is a very mysterious character. That's probably part of his appeal, so I don't think it would be wise if the show tried to explain too much about him.

 

Mycroft seems to be even less "human" than him (at least on screen, Mycroft in the books is a rather pale, and as I have already remarked often enough in my repetitive manner, unnecessary figure). Do you have any theories on him?

 

You've got to wonder about their family. Was one of their parents more "normal"? The mother, maybe, given how Sherlock acts around Mrs Hudson.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Here's another Holmesian comment on himself and marriage (from "The Valley of Fear"):

 

"Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her."

 

Do those scholars really think he'd be so flippant if he'd had the kind of tragic experience they claim?

 

It might not be fair to argue about BBC's Sherlock based on what Doyle wrote all the time. It is an interpretation, not a strict adaptation, I am well aware. But when you don't have anything else to go on, I think the source is still best - especially since the creators seem to have used it an awful lot. (Besides, any excuse will do to quote Mr Holmes. His humor is really the best feature in those old tales.)

 

I can't quite resist pointing out, that at least his friend payed Sherlock the compliment of having to be actively pulled away from his "corpse"...

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

   Gatiss has said that "everything Sherlockian/Holmesian is canon". So he and Moffat are drawing from all sources from the Annotated books to movies. See especially "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes".

 

  And I am learning that the scholars must have been investigative to have learned about Doyle's engagement in his Uni days early on, and that in many cases, they have been right.

 

  As for Sherlock and his humor, I think as we have seen in the BBC Sherlock, he used it to through a smoke screen to cover his true feelings and to keep people at arm's length in looking to deeply into him and his past.