{"id":722,"date":"2016-07-17T05:44:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T05:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=722"},"modified":"2016-07-17T05:44:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T05:44:15","slug":"sherlock-bbc-benedict-cumberbatch-john-watson-steven-moffat-mark-gatiss-sir-arthur-conan-doyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Sherlock Holmes and The Case of Internet Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span>s the finale for BBC\u2019s critically acclaimed and commercially adored series aired this Sunday, birthing a slew of anticipation over the possibility of another season and vitriol toward the season that was, Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson went back to solving cases on 221B Baker Street. The <\/p>East Wind<\/a> blew Sherlock\u2019s delusions of a cold, high-functioning sociopathy wide open, and in his trauma, he found redemption. One sanguine montage later, chaos was restored. The more things change, the more they remain the same.\n\nThe same applies in a sadder context to the reaction pieces<\/a> that sprouted like fungi all over the internet, a few hours later. In 2016, Season 4 of Sherlock<\/em> was its most highly anticipated one yet; in 2017, it is the worst received one yet. Culture critics all over the world are aghast at the blatant sentimentality, the \u201cobvious\u201d leaps in logic that the storyline seemed to take \u2013 Mary\u2019s needless death, Watson\u2019s whale-inspired wails at the sight of her body, Sherlock\u2019s melancholy moustache, Mycroft\u2019s sex life, and worst of all, the sappy, emotional tenor of the show. Like our favourite super sleuth, the interweb is rife with deductions. Lazy performances, tired writing, Gatiss and Moffat losing interest, Mary\u2019s death (please get over the last one, Dr Watson already has) \u2013 there is a lingering scent of betrayal on the internet\u2019s breath. It\u2019s the classic end of the chase of a relationship, where upon discovering that the aloof, feline object of your affection is alive with emotional baggage of her own. We tend to sigh, act disappointed, and let the flame recede to embers. And so be it of our love affair with Sherlock. He\u2019s clearly no high-functioning sociopath. He loves his siblings and his best friend. What a dick.\n\nExcept that he isn\u2019t, just like Gatiss and Moffat aren\u2019t amateur fan-fiction writers or reddit trolls whose writing is so fresh out of depth and research that they have to plug the gaps with fan service. Let us not flatter ourselves. The showrunners of this series are certifiable Doyle scholars and any pandering on their part to our comment thread-based demands is their gracious thank you to our obsessive Tumblr-laden affections. \u201cThe Final Problem\u201d is an incandescent display of their mastery over the retelling of an age-old story. Canonically speaking, this is the part where Sherlock finally kills Moriarty after years of being haunted by his nemesis. In Moffat\u2019s version, Sherlock exorcises the ghost of Moriarty\u2019s game playing, carried out by his sister Eurus, one torturous step at a time, as the collective demons conjured by these two forces of nature drag Sherlock to hell. The setting of this disturbing experiment is Sherrinford, a high-security Alcatrazesque prison where the third Holmes sibling has been stashed since she was a child who burnt the Holmes family house down. The most terrifying aspect of this narrative is that, that it\u2019s not the worst thing she did.\n\nSherrinford is almost too surreal a location for this face off, akin to a decrepit version of Sherlock\u2019s mind palace. It\u2019s interesting to consider that Sherrinford was the name that Doyle wanted to give Sherlock when he first conceptualised this series. In a way, Sherrinford is a metaphor for Sherlock\u2019s mind and the internal journey he takes to the center of his spirit. Watson, in a moment of loaded brevity, simply says Sherlock gave Eurus context. But through the final installment of this series, the entire legend of Sherlock Holmes is contextualised \u2013 his hankering for a heartless state of being triggered by the heartbreak caused by the death of his best friend. He repressed this memory through drugs and adrenaline, vowed to solve all the puzzles he was ever given, and alienated himself from all human connection. But even Sherlock Holmes could not outrun himself forever.\n

When the first book on Sherlock came out, Arthur Conan Doyle was in his twenties. A Study in Scarlet lead to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, who was then described as \u201ccold, calculating, and awkward\u201d. <\/blockquote>\nPeople don\u2019t seem to want the empathic detective who agonises over torturing a girl who is in unrequited love with him. They wilt at the sight of a man who\u2019d rather kill himself than let his best friend die. His brother\u2019s attempts to goad Sherlock into shooting him are deemed insincere. It is sappy to see him talking to his long-lost sister through violins played in tandem. Every display of emotion is vulgar. Short version: The internet is pissed. Never mind that not only is none of this out of character for Sherlock, canonically speaking, but also very much in line with the arc that Doyle intended.\n\nWhen the first book on Sherlock came out, Arthur Conan Doyle was in his twenties. A Study in Scarlet<\/em> lead to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes<\/em>, who was then described as \u201ccold, calculating, and awkward\u201d. He detested emotions to a degree that Watson had to grudgingly admit that they were \u201cabhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind\u201d. But over the course of 50 years and thousands of stories, Sherlock becomes a man who professes his love for his best friend in a fit of vulnerability, participates in weddings and romances, and espouses Mary Morstan\u2019s many qualities as a fitting balance for John\u2019s. By the time Doyle published The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes<\/em>, the last piece of the series to ever come out, Sherlock had changed from an indifferent boy to a man who was in possession of \u201ca great heart as well as of a great brain\u201d or in Inspector Greg Lestrade\u2019s words, \u201cNot just a great man, but a good man.\u201d\n\nSince the point of the legend was never the cases that Sherlock solves, because they\u2019re only plot devices to aid his journey as a person, Doyle did not mince words when it came to emotionally loading his story. Even the placement of Dr Watson in this narrative is contrived. He is a proxy of the reader. A smart man, who chronicles this volatile genius at work, and jumps to the most obvious rationalisation of his antics, he echoes everything we feel \u2013 the awe, the anger, the frustration, and the inability of reconciliation of all of these disparate reactions that Holmes draws out of us, and of him. From a theoretical standpoint, Moffat and Gatiss have not betrayed the structure of this story for as much as a second. In fact, the artwork that is their filmmaking traces all the steps of the humanisation of Sherlock Holmes, one crack in the wall at a time.\n\nBut forget that, for just a minute and regard this. The purpose of all art, no matter how it is crafted, is to invoke a feeling. And bile is a feeling. We\u2019re not angry with Sherlock because we think it\u2019s badly written when most of us have enough self-awareness to know that we may never be able write something that magnificent in our lives. We\u2019re angry because we like our heroes to be alien to us. We don\u2019t like seeing chinks in the armour where the battle-axe falls. We don\u2019t want to hear about their trauma and intellectualise their gifts. We simply want to witness it in action, unsullied by reality and devoid of roots.So before you get carried away in the hate wave of the internet remember this, whether you like it or you don\u2019t, Sherlock Holmes is only human.\n\nDoyle didn\u2019t want it any other way.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moffat and Gatiss have not betrayed the structure of Sherlock for as much as a second. In fact, their filmmaking traces all the steps of the humanisation of Sherlock Holmes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nSherlock Holmes and The Case of Internet Hate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Moffat and Gatiss have not betrayed the structure of Sherlock for as much as a second. 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