Steady on...

[evilhippo]

This is one of those odd little browser-tab-closing posts, partly for my own benefit. There's a really excellent discussion on the myth of genius in Sherlock going on at the moment, which I am promising myself I won't get involved in (especially in regards to the semantics of morality/amorality, and authorial intention. Aaaaaargh I could set fire

Comments

[apple_pathways]

Ah, Sherlock Holmes as the Ubermensch, the genius who should be allowed to act without restraints from society.

What always amazes me about Holmes, at least in canon, is how incredibly, perfectly moral he is (at least within the bounds of his little literary world). He always answers to a higher calling, some absolute ideal of Justice that exists outside the formal laws of Scotland Yard. Any criminal we're led to feel any sympathy for is pardoned and set free. Any criminal who is caught and punished is painted as the perfect picture of evil and castigated to the maximum extent of the law.

At the end of each story, you're led to believe that each and every person has received their just desserts, and order is restored.

I think that's part of what I love so much about the stories: I want to live in that world!

[evilhippo]

Ah-ha, there's the Nietzschian reference that's been lurking at the corners.

You've made that point much better than I could've. I think what trips a lot of people up (at least in regards to the discussion that was happening on the community there) is Sherlock's quasi-amoral approach to that morality. His black and white distinctions don't overlap perfectly with the conventional blacks and whites. I also think this kind of perfectly moral universe is impossible to uphold in a modern setting, or with modern writers (I don't think anyone writes that way anymore outside of children's stories--modern audiences don't seem to want to embrace that kind of black and white storytelling), which makes it doubly hard for the BBC series to really give Sherlock the definitive morality he has in the books (and, I guess, it's possible they don't want to, but I don't think an argument can be made for him being immoral in either context, even if he is occasionally a jerkface.) Maybe that's what was making me kind of uncomfortable with that

[apple_pathways]

I think Law & Order comes close to that morality play storytelling. Except for the episodes where we're meant to feel "moral turmoil" over the case, and they intentionally leave things unresolved/resolved unsatisfactorily, the episodes tend to end with with the feeling that just the right amount of justice has been achived: the reprehensible murderers and rapists get the death penalty, and anyone who's shown to be even remotely sympathetic is given a deal that we're led to believe exactly matches their level of worthiness. (I love Law & Order; again, I'd like to live in a world where "justice" is a measurably achievable goal