I know people have strong feelings about keeping their fandom life separate from real life but I have to tell you. Casually mentioning to everyone you meet that you're "working on a book about Sherlock Holmes" is the fastest way to move from the excruciating small talk zone to your neighbor asking in passing, "Are you still writing that book about Sherlock Holmes? I worked for a guy once who was crazy about Sherlock Holmes. I think he even wrote a book about him... The Six Percent Solution...?" and learn that your neighbor was a production assistant on Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

This is from 2019, but it was news to me.  

news to me too, thanks for the link.

The use of ‘Verisimilitude’ to create false theory... or are the writers using this to fuck us up?

I know, I know. Just hold your horses here and lets fall down a rabbit hole.

Wiki explains: Verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is a philosophical concept that distinguishes between the relative and apparent (or seemingly so) truth and falsity of assertions and hypotheses. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory.

In Holmes pastiche the use of a False Document is often in play.

Wiki explains: a false document is a technique employed to create verisimilitude in a work of fiction. By inventing and inserting documents that appear to be factual, an author tries to create a sense of authenticity beyond the normal and expected suspension of disbelief for a work of art. The goal of a false document is to convince an audience that what is being presented is factual.

A prime example of false document in a Holmes pastiche is TPLoSH, as we are introduced to the story by having the documents Watson left to his heirs [Rosie] discovered and they form the basis of an ‘untold canon story’ being released to the world. Mark and Steven in BBC Sherlock stated that their ‘truth’, their ‘template’ for their AU was based on their choice of false theory, verisimilitude, of a gay Holmes versus the other countless number of pastiche that theorise Holmes is straight and celibate, straight but has occasional trysts with Adler, or asexual. So BBC Sherlock is the fruit of a false document. I think Rosie may be the personification of this as her existence makes little sense in the overall plot of the show, yet is fundamental if the writers want to lay a trail back to TPLoSH.

Another use of false document in Holmesian pastiche is the work of Nicholas Meyer. He favours the ‘Lost Manuscript’ trope, a common false document, for his books. In The Seven-Per-Cent-Solution introduction, Myer uses the false document and states that The Final Problem and The Empty House were fabricated by Watson in order to cover up the events about to be told in the book, basically Sherlock facing his demons with a therapist and recovering from addiction. So two theories now in play, do you believe the canon, or is this the real story? Which theory sounds better and more true? So let’s pause here: The Final Problem and Empty House were fiction not factual according to a false document in Meyer’s work? They were just covering up Sherlock’s psychological journey to recovery? Could our TFP be the same? 

Meyer’s The Canary Trainer is another ‘lost manuscript’ false document. This time covering an adventure during Holmes Hiatus [due to recovery from drugs versus a fake death] and in which Holmes tries to replace Watson with a young Parisean, and has the icky affair in Montenegro with Irene Adler [yuk!] Do NOT read this book. However there are a few mentions of canary trainer in our show. I think one was in TFP wasn’t it? A clue to false theories being thrown our way? 

Finally in The West End Horror, Meyer opens with the ‘false document’ in the guise of a forward saying that a manuscript was brought to him by a female relative of Vernet [hello Eurus??? Miss me?] 

Anyway, moving on, I think we have false documents utilised in series 4, yes, you guessed them: Faith’s document written under the influence of the memory drug [the ultimate false document] which a few years later fell into the hand of the non-existent mad sister. John’s note which we never see, never know it’s contents, we just presume what it says due to Molly’s comments on handing it to Sherlock. And Mary’s out of character letter to John is another. These documents are to convince the audience that what we are seeing on screen is factual. Yet this theory when we compare it to the show’s previous theory of a gay Sherlock, bi John, two men in love, two inseparable men, one a devoted protector to his very core,……if we have to engage verisimilitude here, then the theory closer to the truth of canon is not the one proposed in series 4 of Sherlock. The original BBC Sherlock series 1- 3 plus TAB theory made more sense, based on the canon, and it was closer to the truth. 

Please add onto this if I shake any ideas loose. That canary trainer mention is haunting me. Also the crimes in The West End Horror, @isitandwonder are very akin to The Ripper crimes we were discussing last night. Could we see Smith and Faith in any of this? The West End Horror does include the character of Dr Moore Agar borrowed from The Devil’s Foot and is one of the cases in canon Watson ‘may some day recount’. You know me, any Devil’s Foot links are welcome. Thanks to @chocolate-nogged for her prompt to look at The West End Horror and Canary Trainer for clues.

@welovethebeekeeper I think you have your finger on the pulse… and the exercise in identifying false documents in S4 alone is staggering. Within the opening minutes, we have D-Notice and security footage; John’s jpeg blog post; Sherlock’s tweets (same visual treatment as John actively typing his blog previously); E’s phone number because the murkiness of Eurus’ identity; AGRA drives; Mary’s DVDs, and John/Faith’s note and memory as you mentioned. Then, almost inevitably, we arrive at TFP. But all this were built up from day one – by including John and Sherlock’s blogs, the on-screen treatment of texted messages, the images of newspaper and tv news footage as part of the narrative. The evolution has to be deliberate.

The connection to Language philosopher Steve Neale’s two types of verisimilitudes is incredibly compelling as well: cultural verisimilitude, the plausibility of the fictional work within the cultural and/or historical context of the real world, outside of the work; and generic verisimilitude, the plausibility of a fictional work within the bounds of its own genre. TFP is essentially a study in generic verisimilitude – Sherlock Holmes in many ways is its own genre, and regardless of our individual view re: Sherlock, detective mystery and horror generally don’t share the same conventions. The question, then, is why present to us this blatant crossover.

For Sherlock Holmes, queerness is never a monster. But for the genre of Sherlock Holmes, the mere mention of a queer relationship between Holmes and Watson is considered monstrous by many mainstream Holmesian societies. Our Sherlock was “trained” to forget about Redbeard, and it’s taken the monster in detective mysteries, three serial killers (the cabbie, Jack the Ripper, Culverton Smith), and a parody of Sherlock as a horror film, for us to get to this point:

“Then I restore the settings. Everyone assumes it was a fault, or you just gave up the ghost.” Culverton Smith likely is a mirror to Sherlock’s “therapist” during his years in the padded cell, but this time Sherlock survived – because he prevented further “virus” from re-entering the special wing of his mind palace (memory of his past) while John arrived just in time.

Who’s the canary trainer, then? The person that’s been telling Sherlock to repeat the same story, to sing the same tune?

“All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.” {x}

This study in generic verisimilitude is a commentary of the cultural verisimilitude of Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock – in moving Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to the 21st century, the plausibility of a queer relationship between Sherlock and John is much closer to the truth than their Victorian counterparts. And yet, here we are. If it weren’t for a sudden epiphany while rewatching TBB yesterday, and our discussions with @isitandwonder about Jack the Ripper, I’m not sure I can arrive at this conclusion.

So what’s next? My tinfoil-hat-wearing-self wants the clue about The Woman to mean something. But honestly, who knows? Series 5?

I wrote a VERY long meta over the weekend dealing with the meaning of the shitty narrative of s4 and especially TFP. Perhaps it will be ready for publication tomorrow. But I’m quite sure this isn’t just bad writing - it means something. My main question was: who’s the narrator?

@isitandwonder The answer I think is EVERYONE. It’s mixed narrators, just as in pastiche. They have thrown it all at us. Sherlock, John, Mary, Moriarty, Mycroft, are all in there. It’s chaos. They want to rug pull and they gave us insane wishfullfillment of everyone, of all the characters, of the fandom, of Holmesians, of the writers of pastiche. I know it sounds mad, but I think they went for chaos. 

Interesting discussion. I felt when watching S3, that those episodes were veering away from what felt like “sherlock holmes stories”, and S4 went right into the ditch. TAB worked for me, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe just having been well prepped with Heimish’s Ghost Stories are Gay Stories meta?

I like that you raise the different kinds of verisimilitude. There are things we are willing to accept in a Sherlock Holmes episode even though we know they don’t happen “in real life”, but other things, which they seem to be doing more and more of, not only don’t happen in real life, but throw us right out of the story too.

@fallingorlanding thanks for delving in and bringing ttis back. i knew it looked familiar, so i followed my own note back to this rb that also includes furher discussion.

THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION

In the collective imagination Holmes wears a deerstalker (not true), wears a cape (maybe), uses a magnifying glass (often), smokes a pipe (very willingly), is a heartless machine (only at a first glance ) and is a drug addict.

His habit of drugs, consolidated in the Canon, often, probably in order not to offend current morals, has been neglected by subsequent adaptations that have become fossilized on stereotyped and even not completely true characteristics.

The attitude towards drugs has changed over the past 130 years, to tell the truth, it has also changed during the course of the Canon itself. Sherlock Holmes will stop his vicious habit at some point.

You can’t even blame Doyle for having started it, substances such as morphine and coacaine, recently synthesized (1803 morphine, 1855 cocaine) were used in the medical field, were also given to children, and for voluptuous purposes. The same heroine, the last born, sees the light in the pharmaceutical field in the Bayer company. Toning drinks whith cocaine were common, the same CocaCola contained it in its first formulation. Cocaine was above all much appreciated by intellectual circles as it gave the feeling of being able to open the mind and stimulate mental processes. No wonder if a man like Sherlock Holmes may have wanted to linger in such a vice.

However, the negative effects of drug intake were gradually more evident. A doctor like Doyle couldn’t ignore the course of events and Watson’s position on drugs became rigid, even Holmes himself gave up on this practice (MISS).

The use of drugs wasn’t seen as pathological, a traumatic cause wasn’t sought in the habit of indulging. So wanting to see something more behind Holmes’s addiction could just be, perhaps, a distortion by what we know and feel now. However, even in the Canon the use of drugs is associated with a sense of abandonment and the consequent search for comfort (SIGN).

This is one of those rare glimpses in which the mask of Holmes slips and he appears as a sensitive man. Ignoring his habit takes away a chance to make the detective a creature less chilly and more human, imperfect. No wonder then that the two adaptations that for first tried to see Sherlock Holmes as the human being behind the detective didn’t leave out this habit and tried to suggest that there was something more behind it. I’m talking about The private life of Sherlock Holmes and The Seven-Percent Solution. But both adaptations, I must say, make promises they don’t maintain. We don’t know much more about Sherlock Holmes’ private life after seeing the film (I have not read the book), it is suggested that between him and Watson there is more than a friendship, or at least that Holmes would like more, but then they missed tyself in a maze of international plots, fatal woman  and submarine. But The Seven- Percent Solution is perhaps, in my opinion, even a greater disappointment.

Spoilers under the cut.

Weiterlesen

@raggedyblue: Thank you for comparing the book and the film. I know both and agree with you. And I found it very annoying how they changed the end of the film. Here Holmes boards the ship, meets the woman whose name I have forgotten and seems to be very friendly with her. Sailing into the sunset together. Which absolutely does not happen in the book. A strong case of a glued-on forced heteronormative ending if you ask me. 

I need to watch this one again, and clearly i need to read the book too. I always thought that ending seemed a bit pasted on.

This episode was also Freudian out the wazoo, so from a Viennese alienist perspective, there’s a lot to be said about Sherlock assigning his extremely sexualized enemy qualities belonging to his mother…

Speaking of the Viennese alienist, there’s Nicholas Meyers’ The Seven Percent Solution, in which Sherlock is treated by Freud for cocaine addiction.  Due to his drug use, Sherlock suffers from the fixed delusion that Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, when in reality he was Sherlock’s and Mycroft’s childhood math tutor.  After treating and curing the addiction, Freud uncovers the source of the delusion: a repressed memory of Sherlock’s father murdering his mother, and then killing himself, upon discovering her affair with Moriarity.  Freud notes that this traumatic incident has led to Sherlock’s addiction, to his chosen profession (crime-solving and righting injustice), and to his pronounced dislike of women; and further, that Sherlock’s unconscious mind has transformed Moriarity from a mere adulterous maths professor to an evil, criminal genius – a persona that better embodies Moriarty’s emotional significance to him.

Redbeard, anyone?

There are so many parallels between The Seven Percent Solution and TAB that I can’t believe I haven’t found any meta about this.  If someone out there knows of any, please point me in the right direction.

Oh wow that’s incredible! I only really know of The Seven Percent Solution as just the title of a book, you’ve really made me want to read it- that Redbeard parallel!

@baudown‘s description of The Seven Percent Solution also echoes a bit Moftiss’ original idea that the rift between Mycroft and Sherlock began because, when he was young, Sherlock worked out that their father had cheated on their mother. This of course was an idea that never materialized in a script (Ben let it slip during an interview and was promptly shushed by Moftiss). It was also way before Mummy (a maths professor) and Daddy CumberHolmes were actually introduced. 

WOW. I love all of this!!! And wasn’t there a weird moment in the TEH commentary where Mark kind of hushed Ben but it seemed like he was about to talk about how Sherlock’s father had an affair or something? (……did I dream that? I honestly can’t remember…)

Oh I’m a dumbass - @blueink3 already said that. Stupid phone app, I always miss stuff. :P

I haven’t read the book in quite a while (although it’s now clear to me that I have to re-read it, ASAP), but I certainly thought of it immediately when the Viennese Alienist was referenced in TAB.  A few other allusions/connections between the book and BBC Sherlock that come to mind:

– In TSPS, Watson discovers that Holmes’ drug use has escalated dangerously following Watson’s wedding, a time period during which he and Holmes have fallen out of touch (a la HLV)

– In TSPS, Mycroft is gravely upset and concerned about his brother’s condition.   Behind Sherlock’s back, and against his will, Mycroft and Watson ally with each other to try and help him (ASiB, HLV, TAB, and I’m sure more that I’m forgetting)

–In TSPS, Holmes notes that Freud employs the same methods of deduction as Holmes, but applies them to understanding the mind, rather than to solving crime.  He further says that Freud’s work is more important than his own, and discusses the necessity of understanding what he calls “the human predicament.”  This, to me, is the entire thrust of TAB – Sherlock’s need to solve the most important case of all, “a very old case,” by going deep “into [him]self.”

Reblogging this because I’ve been thinking (read: obsessing) about ways in which The Seven Percent Solution has been referenced by, or used as inspiration for, BBC Sherlock.  I really love the idea of Sherlock’s repressed memory of discovering his mother’s infidelity in TSPS being something that Moftiss contemplated as part of BBC Sherlock’s backstory.  And I came across this NY Times article discussing TSPS as a precursor to the current crop of re-imagined Sherlock Holmes stories.  What caught my eye in particular is this quote from Nicholas Meyer (about the movie of his book, for which he wrote the screenplay):

“The Seven-Per-Cent Solution’ is not a Sherlock Holmes movie.  It’s a movie about Sherlock Holmes. That’s different.”

And I can just hear Moftiss’s echo:  “Not a detective story.  A story about a detective.”

This whole thing just screams THOB so I can definitely see them bringing it back in a big way 

there's also some hallucinatory imagery in TSPS, and loads of subtext. Thanks to bbcsh fandom, i can at least tell when it's pouring off the screen now, even if i can't always parse it right away!

Sherlock, Star Trek, and the Three Streams of Consciousness

(((This is Part 4 of my 18 part meta series (x) analyzing EMP Theory and evidence supporting it in TFP)))

While the vast majority of shows on TV today have no problem dropping pop culture references, Sherlock tends to stay above the fray in this regard unless it serves a purpose. It does not directly refer to current events, controversies, celebrities, music, TV shows, movies, or trends. In effect, it gives us the feel of it being modern without tying us to an actual time.

Modern, but timeless.

Which leads me to Star Trek. BBC Sherlock already had a track record of throwing out Star Trek references (John calling Sherlock “Spock” in HOB after a very specific quote, which I’ll get into later), so when Moriarty yelled “RED ALERT” over Sherrinford’s intercom system in TFP and the Governor referenced an “ear worm”, I knew there was a deeper Star Trek connection at play. It was only after I formed the roots of my theory and did a mass rewatch that I realized that the big thing I was looking for to pull it all together was this shot:

I had the proverbial Light Bulb Moment. The reason why Sherlock, John, and Mycroft’s characterizations were so odd in series four, and reached peak weirdness in TFP: they underwent a COMPLETE DYNAMIC SHIFT

They were all put in a position they were not used to nor thrived in. This realization and the overarching theory that series four, TAB, and half of HLV take place entirely in Sherlock’s mind led me to two well known Star Trek episodes:

I was also led to the original crew movies, specifically Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country because of the specificity of the Star Trek references we have been given. That’s when my Light Bulb Moment turned into a Holy Shit Moment because this guy right here:

Might be the smoking gun to understanding EMP Theory. This life ruiner might be the Holy Grail I’ve been searching for since I started this hell journey. He could single-handedly collapse this house of cards. I’m not even exaggerating; this guy could be it.

Below the cut is:

Keep reading

i just finished reading this, how did i not see it before now, this is brilliant! Thank you so much, wow!

The dynamic i always noticed in star trek is the "thinking, feeling, willing" pattern that got discussud a lot back when i was a waldorf school parent. (CF the wizard of oz), and it is one of the story templates i often try on for size. Thank you for laying out the parallels so clearly, especially how and why TFP feels so "off". In waldorf parlance, willing comes first, then feeling, then thinking, and IIRC, kirk (will) takes on Bones first, then Spock.

I love how you say everything went wrong after TRF, because that is how i have felt since s3 aired. It just looks prettier than s4, but it's just as riddled with nonsense. And as we know by now, nonsense in sherlock means it's subtext time!

Gem not being able to communicate with words reminded me of the line in TAB, where holmes says lestrade has been expressing his need for a drink by every means possible except actual speech. :)

Bones jockeying for position in the empath test by drugging kirk and spock reminds me of the "drugs=chemistry of love" correspondence that is emerging.

I remember that black set in the empath, it looked so much like a theatrical set, rather than a tv show set. @jenna221b and @toxicsemicolon there's another for you, on s4 as epic theatre/theatre of the absurd.

@asherlockstudy i thought of you in the parts about sherlock, moriarty and euros, and thank you again for helping me get over my moriarty squick enough to appreciate his role in the story structure/mind stage.