The Adventure of the Gloria Scott - Discussion Post

[the_arc5]

This week, we find out Holmes' freshman notebook is way more interesting than Watson's, dogs apparently find Holmes' ankles tasty, and Holmes is pretty much the worst houseguest ever.

DISCUSS.

Comments

[queerlyobscure]

1. I think that in the way of a reliable narrator, Watson writing down the story that Holmes tells him is potentially far more removed from the truth than just Watson telling us what he saw.

2. I love Victor, but much of that is because of extensive headcanon about what he's like. But to answer that without a bias unique to myself, I did always like him - as a plot device alone, he shows that Holmes didn't hatch fully formed. On another level, he appeals to me as being a particularly tragic character - mum and sister dead, dad a lying liar, and his best friend at university was Sherlock Holmes. The poor kid has had a rough start.

3. I note that he got over not getting along with dogs. And that he's honed the way he thinks - he didn't actually figure much out in this story, the solution landed in his lap, even though all the clues were right there. That imagination he keeps talking about seems to have come along later. That, and he wasn't actually trying to figure anything out. He didn't know he wanted to be a detective at the time,

[c0ntrarywise]

That does make Victor sound tragic. Poor guy D: Now he collects sea shells by the sea shore or whatever they tossed in at the end to explain his absence.

I loved your description of Holmes parents :D

[c0ntrarywise]

1. Not really. If Watson is to be relied upon as transcribing the story verbatim, then Holmes even romantacised the story and strayed from the logic - his cardinal sin.

2. A friend! I want to give Holmes a hug :) I like that Victor's a loner, too, and helps produce the Sherlock Holmes we know and love.

3. He seemed less methodical in his personality at the time. His methodoligies change by leaps and bounds in that he actually picks his job after this and all the minutia that comes with that.

4. First assumption for violence is always entertainment. ACD figured it would sell. Aside, I think something big enough had to happen to reasonably drive Victor Trevor away that we haven't seen him until now (and, I assume, never again).

5. ... No? I should possibly read these stories more closely :P Mr Trevor plays a pseudo-dad to Holmes in recommending he make his hobby a career, but I can't even recall the interactions between father and son proper.

[alexcat]

1. Well, we do see a different Holmes than the one that Watson knows, whether is always that different or whether it's simply because he was so young, who knows