Sherlock motherfucking Holmes, or: This is not a primer. Well, not really.

[zarah5]

Sherlock motherfucking Holmes!
(or: This is not a primer. Well, not really. Maybe a little.)

So, maybe you are like me and vaguely remember Sherlock Holmes from your childhood or early teens. If that is the case, you probably remember him as this genius detective, very precise, more than a little conceited yet rightfully so, and maybe you also remember his loyal friend Dr. John Watson, flatmate, chronicler and admirer of Holmes, a reliable veteran of the war with a better aim, yet a mind not quite as sharp as that of Holmes. Maybe, if you were a careful reader and already wearing your slash goggles, you noticed a few peculiarities about their relationship.

And then along came Sherlock Holmes (2009) and upped the stakes.





Allow me to sketch a rough portrait of our characters with a few short quotes from Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, which describes the beginning of Holmes’ and Watson’s friendship. By chance, they end up sharing a flat, and not only does Holmes woo Watson by playing the violin for him, no, Watson, recovering from a battle wound, also confesses to a growing obsession:

As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself.

Now, as you may have noticed, in this direct quote from the book(!), Watson describes Holmes as someone whose appearance draws attention, as a man blessed with a delicate sense of touch who stimulates Watson’s curiosity. Why yes.

Watson is obsessed enough to try his hands at a list to characterise Holmes. The list reads as follows.

Sherlock Holmes-his limits
1. Knowledge of Literature.-Nil.
2. ” ” Philosophy.-Nil.
3. ” ” Astronomy.-Nil.
4. ” ” Politics.-Feeble.
5. ” ” Botany.-Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology.-Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry.-Profound.
8. ” ” Anatomy.-Accurate, but unsystematic.
9. ” ” Sensational Literature.-Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

I will fix anyone who smirks at Watson’s assessment of Holmes’ anatomy knowledge (accurate, but unsystematic, ha) with a very stern gaze and declare that the thought never even crossed my mind. No, really. Really.

Holmes, on the other hand, won’t be outdone and happily shares his own first impression of Watson with the very same:

‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the
tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’

Watson doesn’t like it when his person and wrists are being analysed like that and goes to sulk in a corner. Like so:

“This fellow may be very clever,” I said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”

True, very true. Fortunately, Watson comes to see the raw genius that is Holmes fairly quickly, leading to the following exchange:

“(…) if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”
“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”
My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

What a lovely way Conan Doyle has of telling us that

a) Holmes wants to be anything but ordinary in Watson’s eyes
b) Holmes is anything but ordinary in Watson’s eyes
c) Holmes blushes for Watson and
d) Watson compares Holmes to a blushing girl who’s just been complimented on her beauty.

I think that’s quite enough, in terms of the books. Now, the movie.

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet: Sherlock Holmes, Version 2009!







Robert Downey Jr.’s reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes is, quite like the original, a man whose genius borders on insanity, scatter-brained when it comes to average, daily tasks such as turning off the stove or remembering to bring a revolver when hunting criminals. He also uses his quick mind to win fist fights.

Holmes likes:

1. Watson
2. Conducting scientific experiments with unsuspecting animals
3. Watson
4. Riling up the landlady
5. Watson
6. Opera
7. A challenge
8. Boxing
9. Irene Adler
10. Watson
11. Going quietly insane, and sometimes not-so-quietly
12. Stealing Watson’s clothes
13. Watson

Holmes does not like:

1. The idea of Watson leaving him for a woman
2. Said woman
3. Stagnation
4. The idea of Watson leaving him, full stop

In fact, Holmes spends a good part of the movie trying to talk Watson out of getting engaged to someone that isn’t him. But wait! We should take a closer look at Watson before delving further into the delightful, emotional stupidity of one Sherlock Holmes.

Well, then. Allow me to introduce you to John Watson, version Jude Law. Since some time has passed between the initial meeting laid out in the first book, Watson has recovered from the war and is no longer the wide-eyed admirer of Holmes that he used to be. He is quite pretty, though, a fact that probably didn’t escape Holmes’ keen eyes.







Unfortuntely, there are some things that annoy Watson. Quite thoroughly so. Especially when he’s tired and in prison and it’s at least partly Holmes’ fault:

WATSON: I've been reviewing my notes on our exploits over the last… seven months, would you like to know my conclusion?
HOLMES: Uh, if you-
WATSON: I am psychologically disturbed.
HOLMES: How so?
WATSON: Why else would I continually be led into situations where you deliberately withhold your plans from me? Why else?
HOLMES: You've never complained about my… methods before.
WATSON: I'm not complaining.
HOLMES: You're not? What do you call this?
WATSON: How-how am I complaining? I never complain. When do I complain about you practicing the violin at three in the morning? Or your mess? Your general lack of hygiene, or the fact that you steal my clothes?
HOLMES: Ah, we have a barter system-
WATSON: When do I complain about you setting fire to my rooms?
HOLMES: Our rooms.
WATSON: The rooms! When do I complain that you experiment on, on my dog-
HOLMES: Our dog.
WATSON: On the-on the dog!
HOLMES: [simultaneously] Gladstone is our dog.

And yet.

And yet Watson is incapable of resisting Holmes; he’s there when Holmes needs protection, he can’t stay mad even when Holmes is being a complete and utter arse, he’s late to tea with the future in-laws, he can't quite hide his own jealousy upon learning that the fabulous Irene Adler is back, and he is the only one who can bring Holmes out of a self-imposed hermitage with nothing but a suggestion of dinner:

HOLMES: There's nothing of interest, for me, out there, on Earth. At all.
WATSON: So you're free this evening?
HOLMES: Absolutely.
WATSON: Dinner?
HOLMES: Wonderful.
WATSON: The Royale?
HOLMES: My favorite.
WATSON: Mary's coming.
HOLMES: [gives WATSON a disbelieving look] Not available.

How can you possibly resist a Holmes that, in his jealousy, arranges for a fortune-teller to foresee a wart-covered future for Watson's potential wife? How can you resist this wonderful duo that behaves and bickers like an old married couple -- well, except with less sex. Probably. At least as far as the books and movie are concerned; for all that every scene is dripping with unresolved sexual tension, we never get an outright confirmation of just what Holmes means when he asks if Watson has any cultural inclinations this evening.

Anyway.

Take it, people! Take what’s offered and run with it! Sure, the books say that Watson ends up marrying Mary (only to move back in with Holmes a few years later after her death), but since when is canon more than the starting point, eh? And quite frankly, canon hardly ever gives us starting points as amazing as this one right here. Or, in the words of Watson uttered to one Sherlock Holmes: You look gorgeous.

Yes, he does. Yes, they do.

In summary:



A few links:

Communities:

• holmeswatson09 is the quickly growing community for things that fit more into the movie verse; it also accepts RPF.
• cox_and_co is more traditional.
• sherlockkink is the resident kink community.
• holmes_big_bang is having sign-ups for poor souls who want to write epic fic. (Guess who signed up? Guess?)
• holmes_rpf is for real person fiction and related things that have been given to us by the movie franchise.

Nice things:

• insevens brings you pictures along with many wonderful movie conversations between Holmes and Watson, some of which I used for this.
• digipulse gives you a picspam with lots and lots and lots of movie stills - basically, it's a walk through the Holmes/Watson scenes of the movie.
• ember_top_hat20's wonderfully fun fanvid to Tik Tok made me thoroughly enjoy that song, which I didn't think was possible.
• misread_'s amazing fanvid to the Stars' Your Ex-Lover Is Dead is brilliant, if sad.
• talitha78's lovely fanvid to Adam Lambert's Fever captures a lot of the UST between Holmes and Watson.
• lamentalone's fanmix comes with a take on Holmes' character that seemed very accurate.
• liotsuki's fanmix carries the title Consequence and is short, but sweet.
• huntress1013's fanmix It's Elementary was posted before the movie came out and takes a more book-oriented, but still awesome look at their relationship.
• I also made a mixtape myself, by the name of These Flickering Lights, or: 18 songs to celebrate the ambiguous relationship of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, complete with pictures and quotes and more things you never knew you didn’t need. Plus one ridiculous extra song; if you make a Holmes/Watson video to that, I will love you forever and worship the ground you walk on. Worship, I tell you!

ETA: Don't - and I repeat: do not - miss cog_nomen's elaborations further below!