wherever we go, we'll never be lost.
ughhh, i just have a lot of feelings about elementary okay. and a lot of feelings about sherlock holmes. and maybe also about feminism, though i'll try to keep that on the d/l.
(polite spoiler cut in 3, 2, 1...)
Since former "friends" on Facebook like to tell me that all critique is unbalanced and all negativity is inherently malicious (even though that's complete horseshit, oh my god, come on, how to you function without knowing this but whatever), let's start with how Elementary was the little show that damn well could and I was really tempted to just mainline the entirety of s1 this weekend. Holy moley, I love approximately 96% of everything about it. Pretty much, I want to roll around in this show and never emerge.
But that being said.
Irene Adler, you guys. My problem with her is the same as it always is: why the fuck does everyone feel the need to pluck her out of the morass of Holmes canon and etch their own mark on her? It boggles my mind. She was not some great heroine, tragic or otherwise. She was not the great love of Holmes's life. She was not a consistent foil for him. She was not a criminal mastermind. What she was is an arguably minor character in one short story out of the lot of what? Fifty-six? Fifty-eight? You guys. Fifty-some short stories, four novellas, and she was not even the client. Violet Hunter was more of a heroine than Irene Adler, but no one ever bothers to remember that Watson explicity stated in the narrative that he thought she was an excellent romantic prospect for Holmes, and was disappointed later on when Holmes failed to pursue her beyond the case.
Irene Adler, on the other hand, was a modern (Victorian) woman whose only real crime was trolling the king of Bohemia who, let's be honest, deserved every bit of it. The only reason she merits mention is because she outsmarted Holmes, and the only reason for that is because Sherlock Holmes was an incorrigible misogynist who likes to talk about how he generally doesn't think much of, or even about, women despite continuously being proved wrong about their supposed idiocy (just for example, the aforementioned Violet Hunter in The Copper Beeches, Mary Watson née Morstan in The Sign of the Four which people conveniently like to forget, and Effie Munroe in The Yellow Face).
Whatever else you can say about Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes stories never lacked for interesting, sympathetic women. Irene Adler was only one of them, and I think this is the problem I have with continuously making her a criminal mastermind or the poster child for female intelligence; the actual point is that she was ordinary. She was undoubtedly clever and, as far as her fictional biography goes, interesting enough, but she was an ordinary woman. Holmes underestimated her on account of her gender, and she used that to her advantage because she could. Tweaking her to make her an international art thief or, in this case, motherfucking Moriarty, sort of invalidates that in my opinion. Granada got it right, but then, they got most things right.
Incidentally, this is also my problem with a lot of versions of Sherlock Holmes. People like to make him into a sort of unbeatable, magical, mind-reading, superman when that's never who he was at all (let's ignore the retconning of The Empty House because Doyle had painted himself into a pretty spectacular corner there).
Speaking of, that's also also the problem I have with Moriarty in general. I heard someone talking about how, as good as Sherlock was, it lacked the really long, drawn-out battle between Holmes and Moriarty. And I'm just sitting there thinking to myself "what really long, drawn-out battle?" because, uh, Moriarty actually only appeared in about three stories? He was mentioned in a few more, but he was in no way responsible for every bit of crime in London between 1880 and 1914. Putting aside that he was dead for the entirety of the last two collections of stories, the majority of Holmes's cases up to that point had nothing to do with him.
But those two points are probably more nitpicky than anything. I definitely understand that there's being a purist and then there's being an asshole, and the line between the two is sketchy on the best of days.
My point about Irene still stands though. I'm not budging on that one.
All that having been said, I really did genuinely love the first season of Elementary, up to and including the finale. I can't wait to see what they do next season. And, conflicted feelings aside, I kind of do ship this incarnation of Sherlock and Irene. It's been a crazy ride, okay! If there is any really good London-two-years-ago fic happening, point me in its direction. I'm sure it'll be a morally grey good time!
seriously okay, this was just all my feelings.
(polite spoiler cut in 3, 2, 1...)
Since former "friends" on Facebook like to tell me that all critique is unbalanced and all negativity is inherently malicious (even though that's complete horseshit, oh my god, come on, how to you function without knowing this but whatever), let's start with how Elementary was the little show that damn well could and I was really tempted to just mainline the entirety of s1 this weekend. Holy moley, I love approximately 96% of everything about it. Pretty much, I want to roll around in this show and never emerge.
But that being said.
Irene Adler, you guys. My problem with her is the same as it always is: why the fuck does everyone feel the need to pluck her out of the morass of Holmes canon and etch their own mark on her? It boggles my mind. She was not some great heroine, tragic or otherwise. She was not the great love of Holmes's life. She was not a consistent foil for him. She was not a criminal mastermind. What she was is an arguably minor character in one short story out of the lot of what? Fifty-six? Fifty-eight? You guys. Fifty-some short stories, four novellas, and she was not even the client. Violet Hunter was more of a heroine than Irene Adler, but no one ever bothers to remember that Watson explicity stated in the narrative that he thought she was an excellent romantic prospect for Holmes, and was disappointed later on when Holmes failed to pursue her beyond the case.
Irene Adler, on the other hand, was a modern (Victorian) woman whose only real crime was trolling the king of Bohemia who, let's be honest, deserved every bit of it. The only reason she merits mention is because she outsmarted Holmes, and the only reason for that is because Sherlock Holmes was an incorrigible misogynist who likes to talk about how he generally doesn't think much of, or even about, women despite continuously being proved wrong about their supposed idiocy (just for example, the aforementioned Violet Hunter in The Copper Beeches, Mary Watson née Morstan in The Sign of the Four which people conveniently like to forget, and Effie Munroe in The Yellow Face).
Whatever else you can say about Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes stories never lacked for interesting, sympathetic women. Irene Adler was only one of them, and I think this is the problem I have with continuously making her a criminal mastermind or the poster child for female intelligence; the actual point is that she was ordinary. She was undoubtedly clever and, as far as her fictional biography goes, interesting enough, but she was an ordinary woman. Holmes underestimated her on account of her gender, and she used that to her advantage because she could. Tweaking her to make her an international art thief or, in this case, motherfucking Moriarty, sort of invalidates that in my opinion. Granada got it right, but then, they got most things right.
Incidentally, this is also my problem with a lot of versions of Sherlock Holmes. People like to make him into a sort of unbeatable, magical, mind-reading, superman when that's never who he was at all (let's ignore the retconning of The Empty House because Doyle had painted himself into a pretty spectacular corner there).
Speaking of, that's also also the problem I have with Moriarty in general. I heard someone talking about how, as good as Sherlock was, it lacked the really long, drawn-out battle between Holmes and Moriarty. And I'm just sitting there thinking to myself "what really long, drawn-out battle?" because, uh, Moriarty actually only appeared in about three stories? He was mentioned in a few more, but he was in no way responsible for every bit of crime in London between 1880 and 1914. Putting aside that he was dead for the entirety of the last two collections of stories, the majority of Holmes's cases up to that point had nothing to do with him.
But those two points are probably more nitpicky than anything. I definitely understand that there's being a purist and then there's being an asshole, and the line between the two is sketchy on the best of days.
My point about Irene still stands though. I'm not budging on that one.
All that having been said, I really did genuinely love the first season of Elementary, up to and including the finale. I can't wait to see what they do next season. And, conflicted feelings aside, I kind of do ship this incarnation of Sherlock and Irene. It's been a crazy ride, okay! If there is any really good London-two-years-ago fic happening, point me in its direction. I'm sure it'll be a morally grey good time!
seriously okay, this was just all my feelings.
