plaidadder:alexxphoenix42:What the hell Moffat and Gatiss?Does anyone remember at the end of TAB whe

plaidadder:alexxphoenix42:What the hell Moffat and Gatiss?Does anyone remember at the end of TAB when John Watsonshows up to swelling brassy chords at the waterfall, clearing his throat, andbrandishing a big … gun to ask Moriarty to step away from Sherlock?  I do. He reminds Moriarty that’s there’salways two of them after all. Didn’t he read the Strand magazine? Apparently Moffat and Gatiss did not read the original ACDtales because they absolutely broke the cardinal rule of a Holmes and Watsonadaptation. Namely they failed miserably at having Holmes and Watson – togetheras they’ve always been. Whether one ships Johnlock, or simply revels in thecenturies-old friendship that binds these two characters, it was bizarre and devastatingto be presented with the mess that was series 4. To have a Holmes who ridiculeshis Watson, eschewing him for the company of his assassin wife, or a Watson whoorders his Holmes away and then beats him badly enough to require a hospitalstay, feels like crimes against the natural order of things. It just isn’t thedone thing, old bean. I am reminded of a common writing trope that many femalewriters are lambasted for, namely the creation of the “Mary Sue” a self- insertcharacter that allows the writer and fan to interact with the world andcharacters they love. While there is some misogyny going on with the criticism(some charitable folks have genderbent the term to include a male self-insert charactersas“Gary Stu” but it’s certainly less well known and used) I feel thecondemnation of Mary Sue’s are apt when the new character ruins the flow of thestories. There’s nothing wrong with adding in original characters to yourpastiche or fanwork if they enhance the story. Look at Molly Hooper or SallyDonovan. They’ve been wonderful additions to the Sherlock universe. Then look at the souped-up Mary Morstan, Eurus Holmes and tothe degree that we saw her, cute  RosieWatson. What in the world did the lastthree do to enhance the Holmes and Watson stories, the detective and hisfaithful Boswell out solving crimes, and righting wrongs? They absolutelyderailed them like large boulders blocking the natural flow of a stream. Holmesand Watson ceased to be once Moffat and Gatiss started inserting all thesecharacters that ruined the dynamic that drew us to these tales in the first place.Why??? This has continued to be my head scratching questionas I contemplated the train wreck that started in series 3 and flew off therails to a fiery crash with series 4. Were Moffat and Gatiss jealous of ACD’ssuccess? Did they feel the need to self-insert characters that wanted todissect and destroy one of the most enduring couples in western literature?Something in these writers psyches wanted to fire bomb Sherlock, and I can onlythink it wasn’t enough for Gatiss to be play Mycroft, or wear a fat suit, or ruinthe character’s dislike of legwork by dressing up as a fisherman, no, he andMoffat had to wiggle into the very fabric that constructs the Holmes and Watsonstories and dissolve them from the inside out. I doubt anyone in the media is evergoing to call them out for writing devastating Mary Sue characters, so I’lljust throw this out to fandom. I see you Moftiss.I wouldn’t call it a Mary Sue problem so much as an OFC problem. I mean yes, they do have a Mary Sue problem, but I think that problem manifests primarily in their characterizations of John and Sherlock. Mary Morstan is explicable as another manifestation of Moffat’s unfortunate fixation on sexy ninja assassin women who are dominant physically but subordinated to the male protagonists in every other way. I have no idea what explains their decision to build S4 around an original non-canon character that had been neither introduced nor prepared for in seasons 1-3.I do want to point out, though, that what John/Watson says in TAB about their always being together in ACD canon is not, strictly speaking, true. In “Blanched Soldier,” which was published in 1926, Holmes narrates, and notes at the beginning that Watson has married again:“I find from my notebook that it was in January 1903, just after the conclusion of the Boer War, that I had my visit from Mr James M. Dodd, a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.”Bitter much? Well, this second wife has been the subject of a lot of fan speculation; we know absolutely nothing about her and Watson never refers to her in his own narration. I personally don’t take the 1903 date too seriously; it was chosen because the story is about a character who recently fought in the Second Boer War, which ended in 1902. What matters more is the date of the story’s publication. Because sometime around 1917, it appears, Doyle decided he was going to split Holmes and Watson up.In “His Last Bow,” published in 1917, Holmes has been working undercover in the US under a fabricated identity for two years, apparently without Watson. In “Creeping Man” and “Illustrious Client” (1923-4), Watson mentions that he’s living on his own and not at 221b any more, and talks about Holmes in “Creeping Man” as if their relationship is essentially dead and Holmes only continues associating with him out of ‘habit.’ From the preface to “His Last Bow” and from Holmes’s narration of “The Lion’s Mane,” it is made clear that Holmes retires to his beekeeping life on the Sussex Downs alone, with Watson only coming for the “occasional week-end visit.”And yet, most fans do in fact remember Holmes and Watson as being “always together,” and I would say there are three main reasons for that:1) We always imagine Holmes and Watson as Victorian, because that’s when they were created; and in the Victorian period, with the exception of those three years that Holmes spends ‘dead,’ they are always together–despite the fact that during much of this time Watson is married and not actually living in 221b, it still seems as if Holmes is his primary relationship. Even in the 1920s, Doyle was still setting most of his Holmes stories in the 1890s, in which they’re always at 221b together. It’s only in the small number of stories written and set in the 20th century that Holmes and Watson drift apart.2) The stories that happen during the 20th century ‘drift’ are not fan favorites. I don’t personally like “His Last Bow,” but it’s a decent enough story. “Creeping Man” is batshit crazy, “Blanched Soldier” is weak, and “Lion’s Mane” just awful. The ones you don’t reread tend to drop out of the ol’ headcanon.3) Holmes and Watson always together is what I would say about 98% of Holmes fans have always wanted, all the time, ever since Study in Scarlet. Consequently, there’s a long fan tradition of ignoring or explaining away Watson’s marriages, Watson’s “rooms in Queen Street,” and Holmes’s solitary retirement.The Granada adaptation decided to embrace #3. Watson never marries (at the end of Sign of Four, Mary just walks away and Watson watches her go) and they are always living together (Watson continues working as a doctor after the Return, which is how they explain the absences sometimes required by the original story’s plot). For whatever reason, Moffat and Gatiss decided to do the exact opposite of what most Sherlock Holmes fans have always wanted–not just right now, but since 1887. They drive a wedge in between John and Sherlock in “The Empty House” and the distance just keeps getting wider until the last 2 minutes of “The Final Problem.” In a way, you could argue this brings them closer to Doyle, who did a lot of things his fans didn’t want him to do, #1 being killing Holmes off in the first place. But that doesn’t change the fact that in S3 and S4, Moffat and Gatiss are increasingly selling a product that has already been rejected by the Holmes fandom.  -- source link

More pics about