Comments | fs_playground: A question about "A Scandal in Bohemia"

fs_playground

A question about "A Scandal in Bohemia"

Mar 21, 2013 15:49

While rereading the first short story of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," I couldn't help but wonder why Irene Adler and Godfrey Norton had to marry before noon and why they had to flee the country in such a way after their marriage. Was it their fear of the King who might use more drastic measures to silence Irene? What were those " ( Read more... )

encounter in venice (new version), sherlock holmes, a scandal in bohemia

Comments 12

holmesfreak1412 March 21 2013, 15:32:08 UTC

Lol. You remind me of the first time I have read that story. I mean, Adler seems to be so strong a character and the King too gentle for them to go into such drastic flight. i have been curious and came to the same conclusion actually. but since bigamy is almost a unexplored (but common) offense in my country, I don't think I have ever though of it odd.

xd. If you haven't invented Apah, there wouldn't be the Cure. And my life would have been easier.

fs_playground March 21 2013, 15:38:20 UTC

I don't know, the King didn't seem gentle to me, just dumb and paranoid, which is a dangerous combination in such a powerful figure. If he had really married her, it would have explained his anxiety, her marriage problems, her fleeing the country with her husband, and her letter to Holmes in which she also reassures the King that she loves and is loved by a man better than him and that he has wronged her terribly (marrying her in secret and then abandoning her for a better match?). Also, we don't know whether she really threatened him. He could have lied to Holmes while he was simply anxious about her photo which she, wise as she was, kept to protect herself because he could try to silence her as she had become a threat.

Oh well, it made my life more difficult as well. Maybe I should simply learn to resist plunnies and retire from the fanfic world after finishing my multi-chapters. I'll have a lot of time to think about it until then. XD

holmesfreak1412 March 21 2013, 15:47:13 UTC

I'm overstating. (Gentle is practically what I call everyone who's so hopelessly dumb) But yes, bigamy does make more sense. And I agree about what you said. Somehow, I never see Irene as a blackmailer (except at the Guy Ritchie movie where she almost seems like the countess Poirot loved more than Irene Adler)

Somehow, with you saying that, I suddenly am not looking forward to the end of your fics. I'll miss the romantic procrastination of yours so much.

fs_playground March 21 2013, 15:58:27 UTC

I also wonder about the thing why the marriage did to happen before noon. It must have something to do with the British law at that time. Maybe they would have had to wait for another day to marry, which they couldn't because they already bought the tickets to leave the Continent?

Lol, romantic procrastination... Calling it that makes it sound really nice.

Thread 10

juneaddams March 22 2013, 14:52:19 UTC

always took it that the king being a slimy douche, and her house having just been essentially burglared by a man whose profession at the time was only a few steps above unscrupulous, she probably didn't want to wait until the king escalcera....escalated his harassments. Like, today he hired a detective to break into her house, the next day he could stoop even lower, pay hoodlums to create accidental-looking fire at her house, maybe.

Also from sources I'm too lazy to track down / cite right now and therefore this could be incorrect, apparently Irene's profession as opera singer wasn't the most respectable profession among the Victorians? So that could be why the clergyman was being fussy about it.

I think the King did lie about the reason for wanting the photo back, though. I can't see Irene blackmailing him. She's not that sort. I think he's just paranoid, as all two-timing douches tend to be. Good on Holmes for not shaking his hand.

fs_playground March 22 2013, 19:09:18 UTC

Oh, it's true that being an opera singer wasn't respectable although I do wonder what reason the clergyman had (the fear that she was already secretly married to another?)

After staring at the story for a while, I discovered that she seemed to have left in a hurry and that she might have not planned to leave the country before the incident with Holmes. Still, I wonder why the marriage was so rushed (maybe she was afraid because she heard that the King was in London?)

Haha, I was amused at the ending, too, when Holmes left the King without a handshake. .