sanguinarysanguinity:

educatedinyellow:

oldshrewsburyian:

holmesguy:

artemisastarte:

holmesguy:

artemisastarte:

sidgwicks:

A Sherlock Holmes Commentary, D. Martin Dakin, 1972.

I also struggle with this. There are very few things that could cause it, but two spring to mind in particular. One is that Holmes was so distressed by Watson’s marriage that he had to cut ties – he simply couldn’t bear the torment of having to watch his friend be married. The other is a deeply significant task similar to that detailed in ‘His Last Bow’.

Yeah, I tend to go back and forth on thinking of ways to justify it vs. deciding that it’s not completely true. Sometimes I imagine that Holmes managed for at most a few months, but ended up writing after all, and in EMPT Watson is just fabricating or exaggerating when he quotes Holmes as saying that he wanted to write but didn’t. When Holmes says he wanted Watson to write a convincing account of his death, I think that could be true, but I think initially Holmes was running away from his feelings and he’s just telling himself that getting Watson to write a convincing account was his plan, when really it’s just a convenient consequence. Sometimes I imagine that none of it happened and they both were in on it and Holmes faked his death for entirely different reasons. But then the idea of an epic top secret mission which he really couldn’t reveal to Watson is pretty tempting to believe, too.

My fic has the Hiatus happening for a mix of reasons, but I confess it is so hard to write it. I have actually reversed Holmes’ statement ‘I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to be indiscreet’ to Holmes saying ‘I feared lest my affectionate regard for you should tempt me to be indiscreet’ which puts a whole new slant on the matter.

Honestly I am so curious to see where your fic takes this!

This is an enigma that needs to be solved… I think the idea of Holmes simply not communicating with Watson is an impossibility requiring us to ferret out improbable truths. Naomi Novik’s short story, “Commonplaces,” follows @artemisastarte‘s hypothesis about Watson’s marriage being a source of deep distress to – and something of a crisis for – Holmes. And I myself have yielded to the temptation of hypothesizing indirect contact during the Hiatus.

For myself, I can’t see Holmes leaving Watson to grieve for three years as justifiable, either for the protection of his own feelings or because he thought Watson couldn’t safely be trusted with the truth. I’ve tried several times to make it more palatable to myself, I’ve written around it, I’ve read around it, and there are many beautiful ways of approaching the problem. But in my heart of hearts, I just can’t stomach it and prefer to imagine that the account Watson gives of the hiatus and his years of ignorance in “The Empty House” is not a true one. Heaven knows it’s full of plot holes anyway. It’s not a piece of the canon worth keeping, IMO, if it requires Holmes to treat Watson as though he can’t be trusted, or to place his own emotional safety above the most basic respect he owes to Watson’s feelings and friendship.

But I should add that I tend to opt out of this canon storyline as much because of my personal aversion to angst as anything else, and I know that many beautiful and wonderful stories do use this plot to delve deeply into both characters. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t want my own feelings about it to come off as dismissive of the other great approaches to the story that are out there in the fandom. I applaud everyone who writes about this, however they decide to handle it!

This is one of the things that I treasure about Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven Per-Cent Solution: it has Holmes go away with Watson’s full knowledge in order to get well again after he kicks cocaine. Everyone who cares about Holmes knows why he’s gone and that he intends to come back. Watson isn’t stuck mourning him, nor is Mrs Hudson stuck keeping a masoleum for the man for three years. And while he hasn’t left a detailed itinerary behind him, he’s not in deep hiding, either, which means it’s conceivably possible for his loved ones to get in touch with him, if they need to. (Gratuitous plug for my own fic, because I can.) It’s still terribly sad and worrisome – it’s not a parting anyone asked for, and there’s plenty of reason to fear for his safety while he’s gone – but it is stomachable as the ordinary kind of grief that happens between people who love and respect each other.

Which I suppose is the long way round of saying that I, too, prefer reading FINA and EMPT as being at least partially untrue. Because as @educatedinyellow says, the degree of distrust and/or disrespect shown to Watson is EMPT as written is… untenable.

I like the way Granada Holmes handled it; but still, yes, it’s hard to think about poor Watson kept in the dark for so long for such insufficient reasons. On the other hand, if you think about this in real-life terms: the *actual* gap in time between the publication of “Final Problem” and the publication of “Empty House” is about ten years. Up until the Return series, Holmes’s cases generally took place pretty close to the year in which they were published. If he were really being consistent with his previous MO, Doyle should have brought Holmes back to life 10 years after he disappeared. Just IMAGINE. From that point of view, setting “Empty House” only 3 years after “Final Problem” seems like an act of mercy–as if Doyle was thinking, OK, what’s the minimum number of years of separation I can get away with and still make Holmes’s ‘death’ have an impact? In retconning his own story, if you look at it that way, Doyle was subtracting 7 possible years of loss and grief. So if you look at it that way, everyone who then reworks the Hiatus in their heads to be shorter or less painful for Watson is just following in Doyle’s footsteps.

But if you have scruples about playing fast and loose with canon, there are many reasons Holmes might have done this which are left unstated in EH:

1) From a brutally utilitarian point of view, contacting Watson and letting him know what’s going on would probably have been extremely dangerous for Holmes. If you want to kill Sherlock Holmes, and you’ve decided you’re in this for the long haul, what are you going to do? Play whack-a-mole all over the globe while he stays one step ahead of you? No; you find Watson and put him under surveillance because one of these days, when Holmes thinks it’s safe, he’s going to drop him a line and then eventually come back. We tend to forget when we think about all this that a) Holmes went into that confrontation with Moriarty fully expecting to die, b) the plan to pretend to be dead comes to him in a flash while Moriarty is falling, c) he comes under attack from Moran and his goons almost immediately and d) he escapes with nothing but the clothes he’s standing in. He had no time to arrange this with Watson in advance, and no easy way of contacting Watson while he was still in the vicinity. So a certain amount of time would have to pass before he would even have been able to contact Watson.

2) Try to imagine Holmes sitting down to write to Watson, say, six months into this escapade, at a point when he’s reasonably safe and has fabricated another identity for himself and thinks he might be able to risk a letter, perhaps delivered in some ingeniously secret way by Mycroft. Exactly how does one write that letter? “My dear Watson, You will no doubt be surprised to hear from your old friend, who is not actually dead, even though he did watch you coming to that conclusion and allowed you to believe it for six months in order to save his own skin…” The worst of the damage is already done. Grief is at its most intense in the months right after the loss. He can’t save Watson from that. And what guarantee does Holmes have that Watson will even believe the letter is genuine? If you got a letter right now from a dead loved one, would your first thought be, “THEY’RE ALIVE! THANK GOD!” or would it be, “What sick son of a bitch is tormenting me with false hope?” When Holmes finally DOES come back, Watson has to grab him to satisfy himself that Holmes isn’t a ghost. (Yes, possibly also for other reasons, moving on.) Without Watson there in front of him, I can easily see how it would be much, much, much easier for Holmes just to go on, day after day, deciding not to write that letter than to face up to what he’s done.

3) Let’s say Holmes writes to Watson to let him know what’s going on, but doesn’t give Watson his location because a meeting would be too dangerous and asks Watson for his word of honor that he won’t try to find him. Watson gives it because he wants Holmes to be safe. So Watson’s next move is what? To try to take out the people who are threatening Holmes. And the result is what? Dead Watson.

So if you take all that into consideration…you don’t have to see Holmes as an inhuman machine to see why this situation is allowed to drag on for a few years, especially considering the fact that some of that time was spent exploring unknown regions. (Which in itself may have been an attempt at covert communication. Holmes says “You may have read” of Sigerson’s explorations, as if he’s expecting it…did he want Watson to read about them? Did he put clues in them? Did Watson just not read of Sigerson’s exploits, or miss the clues?) It’s also easy to see how Holmes would have mentioned precisely none of this to Watson, because knowing any of this wouldn’t make it any better. “I was afraid of dying,” “I was afraid to be honest with you about what I had done to you,” and “I was afraid to put myself through the grief and loss I put you through” are all things that don’t reflect particularly well on Holmes and wouldn’t bring Watson a lot of comfort. Watson, by this point, has been through the entire cycle of grief and the damage is done. I can see Holmes deciding, as he heads up to Watson’s study, that he’s not going to stoop to self-justification. Or maybe he does tell Watson all these reasons, and Watson decides they can’t go in the narrative because they show Holmes as being too human and too vulnerable.

John The Spin Doctor

darlingtonsubstitution:

gloriascott93:

i-love-the-bee-keeper:

Yesterday I was back working on my Dad’s notes on his Holmesian thoughts and discussions. I stumbled across notes on a debate that was held in The Domininion Pub, Liverpool, back in 1963 [not December, but July] during a Sherlock Holmes readers group. Preface: The Dominion was on the dock road, a seafarers pub, and one of the few that catered to queers. It was known for ‘queer evenings’ a few times a week. My Dad was a regular there. Several of the men were working class Holmesians, not welcome in Holmesian Societies, probably gay or bi, and considered outsiders.

Anyway on to my find: My Dad had drawn out an idea that had been discussed.

At the top: Watson’s Great Cover-Up

Then three subheadings: Cases. Vigilante. Invert.

Under ‘cases’ he has a huge list of the Sherlock Holmes cases including the mentioned but not explained cases. I presume there had been discussion on each one as to how John was twisting or inventing plot to hide things.

Under ‘vigilante’ he has the words Milverton killing. Now we all know that many readers felt that Sherlock had killed Milverton and the unnamed woman who just showed up at the right time to kill Milverton was a lie. [CAM Towers scene reinvented this scenario. Mary there to kill CAM first then kills Sherlock instead] But there are other instances in canon where Holmes displays a habit of being his own form of justice. Another notation which I haven’t even gone into yet is ‘Baskerville. Holmes secretly there.’ And finally ‘LAST’ for His Last Bow. Undercover Holmes could have done many things in the name of Altamont.

Under ‘invert’ is written ‘all’. I think he means ‘ALL’ of the canon Watson’s subtext. Everything proves that Holmes was gay.

But the main thing for me in reading this is that readers were seeing Watson as not just a narrator, a Boswell, but as a spin doctor. Watson himself being Holmes’ ALIBI whenever required. An upstanding doctor, a retired captain of the Queen’s Army, a stalwart citizen, a married man…..a perfect alibi for any dodgy behaviour. Watson was cover for Holmes’ need to go beyond the law at times regarding villains, and also to remain inside it regarding homosexual acts. Watson gave Holmes credibility. Watson was ALWAYS protecting Holmes in every word he wrote. Mofftiss touch on this in TAB repeatedly. John’s spin on Sherlock bleeds into their reality. John creates the legend as well as facilitates it.

I believe the now fandom famous ‘John’s Alibi’ is not an alibi for John but John’s alibi for Sherlock. John is spinning reality. Always has done. And Mofftiss have tried to incorporate this into the show and attempted to modernise it. If John is covering up for Sherlock killing Mary, how layered would that be with the Milverton kill/CAM Towers redo. Sherlock actually states; I killed his wife. Maybe he really did, and the rage from John is the cover up, the staged reaction for form sake.

All thoughts welcome on this.

Oh mercy this is so good.

Bless this precious piece of history @i-love-the-bee-keeper – thank you so much for sharing! I truly believe in my heart of heart this is the case — John-the-spin-doctor has been in control of the narrative, always — as Dr. Watson did in canon because every story is written in codes.

There’s a hidden narrative in every canon story, and I don’t mean just subtext. Albeit this is my personal opinion/speculation as I can’t find any collaborating evidence… but there IS a pattern. Nearly every story in canon is constructed the same way, as in two parts – Holmes and Watson domestics and conversations and/or Watson monologue/conversation about Holmes, then, the case. The signs are usually provided in part one, and as you read through part two you use the signs in part one to decode the real story in part two. Some signs I noticed to-date:

locations (as in NWES of London) in relation to past/present/future,

time (as degrees in a circle) a gauge of gay/straight (as the missing ring/bell, or, an incomplete circle is a reoccurring motif in many stories)

currency (something to do with 7% return/solution – working on this one)

physical features of characters (usually what’s considered defects in the Victorian era=crooked=criminal=gay)

languages and nations (France/French/Latin=heart and love, Germany=logic and the matters of the mind…..)

This is all very overly simplified obviously…. but in regards to Sherlock, I’m probably in the super minority that still believes we are simply never given the whole picture, i.e. the untold stories rather than dream-states. The theatric was for…… solving a past that our modern Sherlock and John never lived but must address, and that past is being manifested in all the M characters (as Mor in ACD canon because it all began with the, um, religious organization in A Study in Scarlet). Case in point:, the last six episodes of Sherlock, with TAB in the middle as a bridge, are all about the M characters: Moran, Morstan, Magnussen, Margrete Thatcher, Morphine (as in what it really means in canon – morphing of different characters, i.e., disguise), and finally Moriarty/Mycroft/Mary with Eurus as M inverted to W and the true meaning of the phrase “the Woman” for both Holmes and Watson.

And the reason our modern Sherlock and John must be the “face” of that past? Because Holmes and Watson are part of the collateral damage, and as an audience, we are being asked to confront what we know and believe to be “the true story” no matter where we stand.

Anyway, my apology for rambling on your post! Glad to see you on my dash once more, welcome back!

bakerstreetcrow:

love-in-mind-palace:

vivahate1988:

tendergingergirl:

bakerstreetcrow:

jcporter1:

isitandwonder:

callofthewilde:

bakerstreetcrow:

artemisastarte:

sussexbound:

Not to be that person, but “Thor Bridge” is Watson recollecting a case which occurred much earlier in his and Holmes’ timeline. The actual case is thought to have taken place sometime around 1900. Definitely post “The Empty House”, but about 10 – 14 years prior to “The Lion’s Mane”, when Holmes and Watson were, sadly, most definitely no longer living together.

From “The Lion’s Mane” (considered the second last Holmes story chronologically):

It occurred after my withdrawal to my little Sussex home, when I had given myself up entirely to that soothing life of Nature for which I had so often yearned during the long years spent amid the gloom of London. At this period of my life the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken. An occasional week-end visit was the most that I ever saw of him. Thus I must act as my own chronicler. (X)

And in ‘His Last Bow’ which takes place several years after “The Lion’s Mane”, it is clear that Watson and Holmes haven’t seen one another in years:

But you, Watson”—he stopped his work and took his old friend by the shoulders—“I’ve hardly seen you in the light yet. How have the years used you? You look the same blithe boy as ever.”

“I feel twenty years younger, Holmes. I have seldom felt so happy as when I got your wire asking me to meet you at Harwich with the car. But you, Holmes—you have changed very little—save for that horrible goatee.” (X)

This is where my own headcanon differs from ACDs, since mine allows for retirementlock.

I believe that by the time the last stories were written, the social climate had changed so much that ACD could never have allowed Holmes and Watson to live together, so he separated them perforce.

I don’t know if anyone here has read ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ by Flora Thompson, but there is an interesting bit in it which I think refers. It’s set in the Holmes/Watson period and chronicles a young girl’s journey to adulthood. But one bit has always stuck in my mind. In her remote Oxfordshire village, people were only tangentially aware of the news: it was an agricultural area, and life was hard on ten shillings a week. But ‘big news’ did get through, and one of the ‘big news’ things that did was the Oscar Wilde trial of 1895 which introduced the concept of homosexuality to the general populace of her village. Immediately after this, the small cottage in her village inhabited by two old soldiers who’d served in the wars together, and then set up house together – perhaps as pals, perhaps as a pair, who knows – was vandalised and graffitied with homophobic slurs. (I can’t access my copy right now to check, so I’m not sure if there was physical violence as well.) Fortunately for them, common consensus of the village was against the perpetrators, and I don’t believe they were driven out.

But that this could happen says a lot about how attitudes changed from 1880 to 1930: if anything the world became less tolerant during the period ACD was writing, not more. Hell, ACD himself censored his own comments about his friend George Turnavine Budd because he thought they were too revealing about his crush. The writings of Havelock Ellis, Kraft-Ebbing and Freud over this period brought homosexuality out into the open, but in order to decriminalise and ‘allow’ it, they medicalised it, and they medicalised it as ‘other’ and ‘wrong’, so it became less, not more acceptable.

It is in this context that we can read any ACD that ‘separates’ or delegitimises Holmes and Watson as a pair, such as the ‘repudiation’ of the Turkish Baths in later stories as ‘expensive and relaxing’ (read decadent and feminising) compared to the ‘bracing English article’ (read ‘not at all gay: who, me?’ but manly and decorous). The later separation into Watson in Queen Anne Street and Holmes lonely in Sussex can also be read in the same way, as ACD’s penance for allowing them to be seen as too close: a gay unhappy ending.

It’s important, I think, not to forget that writers don’t write in a vacuum, and that ‘tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis’: times change, and we are changed in them. The ACD who wrote the latter stories had lived through all the changes, and he changed Holmes and Watson to make them acceptable in their time. Had he made them openly gay, they might, tragically, never have survived to be with us today.

So, to cut to the chase, I think it is perfectly legitimate to allow at least the possibility of retirementlock!

This is such important and historically relevant analysis. Remembering also that his friend Wilder ended up going to prison for several years because of the homosexual subtext in his books.

Wilde and Sir. Doyle were friends and it likely affected Dr. Doyle greatly. He would not want the same to happen to him and would have been uniquely aware of the political climate he was writing in.

I also think the point that @datmycroft is important about how their rooms at Baker Street -did not have a yard-. The books mention Dr. Watson talking about looking outside their window to a tree in their yard, but where they lived in London had absolutely no room for a yard.

We already know that Dr. Watson is mentioned as being an unreliable narrator and I think that the canon ‘slip’ is in there as a sort of wink that even though he was forced to write them as being apart, that does not necessarily mean that they were and they did not actually retire together. Their living together in a house is the only way in which there could be a yard for Dr. Watson to see a tree in.

@vivahate1988 has also made some rather interesting and relevant posts regarding the subject. I found this post by them rather interesting.

Wilde’s death had been attributed to his time in prison having had a negative impact on his health. Sir. Doyle had to think of the risks involved with writing and his own safety.

It has been said several times that media does not happen in a vacuum and it is just as true back then as it is now. Media, politics and social structure have always been intertwined and it goes both ways. Just as Media affects culture, media is affected by culture and creators have to be aware of what fall out and reaction they may receive from their works.

This is going to sound terrible, you guys, but the way I always interpreted the canon was that John and Sherlock are in love, but they either separate due to the political climate of the time or personal reasons.

I think that because you can argue that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Watson and Holmes as mirrors for him and a combination of several men he seemed to harbor feelings for, and because Doyle inevitably permanently separated from all of these men, it would actually make sense within the narrative for John and Sherlock to separate.

However, analyzing the details with the tree/yard and with a more optimistic eye is completely valid and arguable. Either way, I have always thought of the pair as desperately in love even when apart, as they do say things to each other like, “I have seldom felt so happy as when I got your wire asking me to meet you”. I think that if they did separate, it was politics and safety reasons rather than personal ones because of the fondness between them after all those years. It could also be possible that they didn’t live together, but visited each other more often Watson let on in his narration.

Just name dropping here, but also remember what happened to ACD’s friend Roger Casement in 1916 (whom Doyle had used as an inspiration for the character of Lord John Roxton in his 1912 novel The Lost World). Shortly after Casement was hanged for treason in 1916, ACD wrote His Last Bow (published 1917). During his trail, the Black Diaries were published, once again creating an atmosphere of heightened homophobia combined with political mistrust. Nevertheless, ACD started a petition to pardon Casement, which was unsuccessful.

This case shows that still at the beginning of the 20th century even alleged homosexuality could cause social and physical death of the person labelled – it wasn’t just about some homophobic slurs. Being identified as homosexual could – combined with other factors – lead to physical extinction of the person involved. And ACD was made repeatedly aware of this fact in his social circle. Keep that in mind when reading Holmes and Watson.

Growing up in a small town in Texas in the 60’s every one who was gay either moved out of town or married and went deep into the closet, just hooking up at the one secret gay bar in town or cruising in parks. No one was open unless they enjoyed unemployment and gay bashing.
So as a kid reading about Watson getting married I just thought he was pretending to be straight so he and Holmes could avoid destruction.

All of theses are very good points. I honestly agree with @datmycroft that the line in ACD’s book Thor Bridge is a dead giveaway. Watson writes:

It was a wild morning in October, and I observed as I was dressing how the last remaining leaves were being whirled from the solitary plane tree which graces the yard behind our house. [x]

The place where they lived in 221B Baker Street was a town house with no back hard. Even back then the street that he chose for the fictional house was condensed and the buildings had no ability for yard.

It may look like upper Baker Street may have space, but there was a rail line that ran behind the houses. The only time in which Dr. Watson could have had a yard with Holmes is if they were in Sussex.

Sir. Doyle and Wilde were close friends.

Wilde’s books were used against him as evidence. In addition @isitandwonder point about Sir. Doyle’s friend Roger Casement being targeted for being homosexual, Sir. Doyle was uniquely aware of the issues of being homosexual and would have edited his books accordingly so as to protect himself.

Even with that, there was still a lot of subtextual romanticism in the books, and probably only the amount he thought he could get away with and still be safe. The cases were more important to write about then the underlying relationship yet somehow he still always emphasized Holmes and Watson’s dedication to each other.
It is entirely plausible canon that Dr. Watson had retired with Holmes but both of them made sure to edit any writings so as to protect themselves.

What is it with Lion’s Mane? Some Sher!!oly was attacking me on Twitter, claiming that Holmes had a fling with Maudie? That proves that Sherlolly is canon & has the estate’s approval. The estate only approves of Het Holmes adaptations.

That isn’t true at all – The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane takes place when Holmes is in retirement, and Maud Bellamy is a young woman. The only thing Holmes says about her is that ‘Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart, but I could not look upon her perfect clear-cut face, with all the soft freshness of the downlands in her delicate colouring, without realizing that no young man would cross her path unscathed.’

He doesn’t say this to her, he doesn’t say anything else of the sort about her, and he certainly doesn’t have a fling with her. All he does is say that he’s not into women but that he can see that she’s pretty and that young (straight) men would like her. I’ve written about the fact that this reads as far more gay than straight (taking background information into account as well) for the second and fourth issues of @retiredbeekeepers’ Practical Handbook of Bee Culture if you’re interested, but honestly, I think it speaks pretty well for itself.

As to the rest of their argument, I have no idea what they think that has to do with Sherlolly, and they’re wrong about the Conan Doyle estate. There are two excellent posts on this subject, which you can read here and here. I want to reiterate, in particular, that all of the Sherlock Holmes stories have been in the public domain in the UK since 2009, so the estate couldn’t interfere with BBC Sherlock even if they wanted to, and even if Andrea Plunket ever did have any right to call the Holmesian shots (which she didn’t), she died last year.

In short: you can tell whoever you were arguing with that they were completely, embarrassingly wrong.

I remember the pointless fight lmao. The lengths people go to establish something absurd.

Plucket is who people are really talking about when they mention “The Estate” and heterosexuality. Plucket was NOT actually a part of the Estate. She simply claimed she was. She was a homophobe trying to get money and with her death it is unlikely such behavior will continue. I feel it is important to emphasize that

that Plunkett was not a descendant of Sir. Doyle and and to reiterate Vivahate’s point that Pluckett did not actually have legal ownership of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. She just wish she did and too many people just let her get away with it so as to avoid the legal hassle of dealing with her. The REAL estate have generally been passive about the whole thing and have not come out as being against any kind of homosexual portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

Also, Molly Hooper is an original character created and written by Mofftiss. She is property of BBC. While Sherlock Holmes is public , Molly Hooper most certainly is not. Writers need to be aware of that because anyone who writes about her absolutely can be sued by BBC for taking intellectual property if they try to sell or make money off of their work.

She is not Maud and most definitely not a part of the original ACD canon or public domain.

Any literature written and sold based off of Sherlock Holmes and possibly inspired by BBC needs to -not- include Molly for copyright reasons.