Sherlock: NOT a Sociopath ?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Mmmm...yes, but not his parents. And Mycroft but not for nearly 8 years from the time he met Watson at Bart's

[wildwoodflower]

  In canon, Holmes never mentions his parents, ever. Watson remarks in one story that he thought Holmes to be an orphan. In another story they are on a train and Watson is admiring the country side and the farmsteads and homes along the way. Holmes then tells Watson that these isolated houses fills him with more terror then does the darkest, dirtiest, most crime filled back street in all of London. Watson is totally aghast. Holmes then tells him the reason. It is because terrible crimes can go on behind these sedate, private walls that go forever unreported, unnoticed. That the people have no respect for the law, indeed, feel that they are above it.

 

  It is quite a long discourse, and is posted here in the Forum somewhere, any way. From this scholars have deduced that Holmes's home life had been far from a happy one. Back in the Victorian era and even before, men ruled the home, completely and depending on the man and his temperament, it could be a happy home, or not. The thoughts that either one of Holmes's parents had an affair that ended very badly, something both Sherlock and Mycroft at least knew about or even witnessed goes way back. Some attribute Holmes's drug use to some kind of event similar to this.

 

I know those sources! I meant the source for it within the actual show Sherlock. Which was answered thanks. That "scholarly" speculation about the father and the dark, deep secrets of the country was the inspiration for Nicolas Meyer's Seven Per Cent Solution.

 

 I always have to laugh at the idea of the Holmesian "scholar" as if his reading of the text is somehow sacrosanct and the last word and wasn't (when first published in scholarly fan newsletters and university press magazines) subject to the same arguments and disagreements between each other about how  a passage could be interpreted as any fan of any show on any forum today. And boy did they argue. Old school Doctor who fans got nothing on those guys.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I don't think they are going after anything "sacrosanct" I think they are more interested in why Doyle would use such discourses and what they would mean in the actual world that Holmes was a part of. Even in fiction, in the course of character development we usually get a lot of back story. Some kind of a history, for Sherlock Holmes we get none. And I think it is this enigma that excites the imagination and makes people want to know more about what Doyle was doing for this character. He leaves us hints, a glimmer of what and who this character is and how he became "the world's only Consulting Detective" without specifically spelling it out. The scholarship is real and has become very vital. Without it, forensic science would not have gotten started as early as it did. Doyle wrote about it but what he actually used to solve cases, he did not. It took scientists reading the stories to have those "AH HA" moments and expound on them.

[Janine M. Adler]

here is a beautiful analysis of Sherlock's psyche and his actions in 

 

http://wellingtongoose.tumblr.com/post/73246764901/his-last-vow-why-being-a-high-function-sociopath-is 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

You, Janine Adler, are a very valuable resource in understand Sherlock. Bless you.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Wow, what a fascinating analysis!  Thanks, Janine -- and welcome to Sherlock Forum!