The way that most of Conan Doyleās Sherlock Holmes storiesā most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880ās, compels me.
Thereās a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Womenās Money.
Yup, thereās a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young womanās complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil.Ā Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again.Ā (This is why I find āSecretly a womanā or āTransā Holmes headcanons much more convincing than āsociopathā Holmes.)
I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says sheās probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going āOKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know youāre okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us toā.
The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.
This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmesā family life.Ā The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.)Ā Thereās definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors.Ā Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime.Ā And yes, so much of it is of the personal type.Ā
dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) donāt go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DONāT HAVE uhā¦.you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which youād think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just beā¦a good person who helps out people the police canāt and wonāt help. There you go. Thatās how to write a relevant modern Holmes.
One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases.Ā In the stories, Holmesā bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them.Ā Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since itās such a gimme.
There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:
Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)
Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devilās Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I donāt know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.
#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )
Letās not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman whoās being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law canāt touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.
So, the most canon-accurate iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the last few decades is actually Benoit Blancā¦.
I think itās also important to note, and complicates our ideas about what the highly patriarchal/misogynistic society of 19th century England looked like, that these stories SOLD
they were POPULAR
the Victorians LIKED reading about women who won out over shitty men in their lives, even when that plotline reaffirmed a womanās power and agency or put an active sexist in his place (ie Irene Adler besting Holmes)
which is fascinating in light of. you know. [gestures broadly at all of Victorian gender dynamics, laws, etc.]
So yes, Benoit Blanc is the best modern Sherlock.























