inarduisfidelis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
inarduisfidelis) wrote2010-11-06 11:22 pm
inarduisfidelis) wrote2010-11-06 11:22 pm
(no subject)
This is what happens when someone sherlocks with me and tells me "You should write an essay on this". Once a literature student, always a literature student. I don't care if nobody reads it, it sure felt good to get it out of my system. It also proves I can write in an academic style about something I like, which is rather surprising :) And I didn't even mention the queer subtext.
Procrastinating? Moi? Well I never. And also, it's not fic, but at least I'm writing, and writing is always good.
A few notes ahead: This note sprang from re-watching A Study in Pink, the first episode of the BBC One drama Sherlock, first aired in July this year, with a coworker, who at some point told me that I “should write an essay on this”. She also asked me what exactly “my thing for Martin Freeman” was, because she wasn’t sure she understood. Well, here is an attempt at explaining a few things, and at articulating some of the many reasons I am obsessed with this show, particularly Martin Freeman’s character Dr. John H. Watson, late of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
In general, I find John Watson a very rounded and three-dimensional character who has more to him than meets the eye. Sherlock may be able to stun us with brilliant deductions, but John certainly has equal power to surprise us. I guess part of this is down to his appearance and the fact that at first, he looks quite unassuming. Whereas Sherlock dresses to impress, John’s gear is functional, almost utilitarian in its appearance, and he is quite short for a man. This makes it all the more surprising for us to discover what he is capable of. One of my favourite scenes in A Study in Pink is his conversation with Sherlock’s “arch-enemy”, who not only knows his name and address, but also quotes verbatim from his therapist’s notes and knows about the various medical conditions that he brought back from Afghanistan. As anyone would be, John is possibly frightened out of his skull by all this, but he does not let on in the slightest. He remains calm and composed and simply turns his back on the conversation when he thinks he’s had enough. He also turns down the man’s offer of a bribe in exchange for information about Sherlock, which goes to show his great sense of integrity.
Another general observation is that he seems to embody a certain duality within his character. First, we have his twin professions as a soldier and a doctor, which superficially seem to be at cross-purposes: Soldiers kill people while doctors help people and sometimes even save their lives. However, I would think that John probably joined the army because of a wish to help people. Martin Freeman suggested that he thought John had other army doctors in the family, and I think this is very plausible. Also, he never uses a gun unless it’s in self-defence, and from the way he is portrayed in general, I would say that he is first and foremost a doctor, and that the soldier part of him comes second.
There is also a duality in much of the rest of his characterisation, which makes for many surprising moments. When we first meet him, we almost feel sorry for him: he is physically and mentally injured and traumatised, he is unemployed, and except for Mike Stamford, there is no one to help him out – no friends, no family he is close to. As the episode goes on, however, we get to see that in spite of these difficulties, he is a very capable man. As a result, my reaction to him in this episode constantly oscillates between wanting to give him a big hug because he seems lost and miserable and cheering for him because he does something amazing and unexpected.
John’s key character trait of importance in A Study in Pink is his loyalty to and protectiveness of Sherlock. One day after meeting Sherlock for the first time, John gets taken to a crime scene. Sherlock abandons him for no apparent reason, leaving him free to be abducted by Sherlock’s self-proclaimed “arch-enemy”. Then, he is bossed around and taken out for dinner with a car chase for dessert by Sherlock, witnesses a staged (or is it?) drugs bust at 221B, and finally, he ends up saving Sherlock’s life in a classic case of saving Sherlock from himself.
In terms of the Sherlock Holmes canon, none of this is particularly unusual; it is all part of a Watson’s job. But I was struck by how quickly John attaches himself to Sherlock. In the original stories, it takes much longer for the two men to build a close emotional connection. There are a few possible explanations for this (other than considerations involving screen time and narrative pace, let’s stay in-world here), and I think, taken together, they are fairly sufficient as a description of John’s motivation.
The first is that John is very clearly a thrill-seeker, although he may not realise this himself. His reaction to being abducted by Sherlock’s “arch-enemy” while simultaneously receiving texts from Sherlock ordering him to come to Baker Street immediately for something that “could be dangerous” is perfect proof of this. Whereas a lesser mortal would probably have decided to get the hell out at this point, John's reaction is to stop off at home to get his gun and then proceed to 221B, where he interrogates Sherlock about the meaning of what just happened to him. As Sherlock’s “enemy” puts it: “You’re not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it.” I think this is a spot-on observation. Dangerous as it may be, joining Sherlock on his cases is, to John, a chance to apply his skills and to feel useful and needed – something that he has not been able to achieve in “civilian life” thus far.
The second explanation of John’s motivations lies in John’s opinion of Sherlock. At first, John is full of admiration for Sherlock’s cleverness. When he learns about Sherlock’s methods of deduction for the first time in the scene where Sherlock explains how he deduced John’s life story from his appearance and his mobile phone, John finds this “extraordinary, quite extraordinary”. He displays similar reactions at the crime scene, to the point where Sherlock asks him “Do you realise you do that out loud?”
On the other hand, John soon learns that there is a darker side to Sherlock. He seems to have no regard for moral conventions whatsoever – shown rather strikingly with lines such as “Who cares about decent?” or “Serial killers. I love those. There’s always something to look forward to” – and he is not above and beyond taking off and abandoning John in the middle of Brixton to follow a scent, leaving John to be abducted by a strange man who has power over every CCTV camera in London and access to his therapist’s notes. I’m not sure what exactly John’s emotional reaction is to all this. But judging from the fact that after the abduction, he grabs his gun and then shows up at 221B Baker Street as requested, I would venture to say that he feels that someone with such a powerful enemy needs a soldierly sidekick with a gun. It is also worth noting that, at this point, he knows full well that he is putting himself in danger by associating with Sherlock Holmes.
This is important because, even before he gets abducted, Sergeant Donovan warns him to stay away from Sherlock, telling him that Sherlock is not only addicted to solving crimes, but that there is something positively pathological about him. In her opinion, Sherlock could easily “switch sides”: “One day we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there.” To John, who has just witnessed a display of Sherlock’s complete disregard of societal moral standards, this must make rather a lot of sense. Therefore, it seems probable that he would feel obliged to not let Sherlock go over the edge. That he is putting himself in danger to do so only goes to show that he is willing to risk a great deal if he thinks the cause is worth it.
However, he does not do so without expressing his concerns to Sherlock, repeating Sergeant Donovan’s words “you enjoy this, you get off on it.” Sherlock simply retorts with “And I said dangerous – and here you are,” thereby making John aware that he, too, enjoys the thrill of putting himself in danger, and that, in this respect, they are more alike than John realises, or cares to admit.
I was also struck by John’s reaction to DI Lestrade’s “drugs bust” at 221B Baker Street. While Sherlock is getting visibly nervous – you can virtually see him thinking about that secret stash lurking somewhere around the flat and hoping no one finds it – John instantly assumes authority, going so far as telling Lestrade that he “could search this flat all day without finding anything you could call recreational”. He seems genuinely surprised when Sherlock himself tells him to shut up and thereby all but admits that yes, a drugs bust in this flat is likely to turn unpleasant. Later, John seems to realise that he may have taken it a bit far, and admits to Lestrade “You know him better than I do.” This scene seems to suggest that John gives people (or at least Sherlock) rather a lot of benefit of the doubt, which I find quite striking. Let’s not forget that they have known each other for all of two days at this stage, that Sherlock has already got hold of the pink lady’s suitcase by rather dubious means, and that Sergeant Donovan’s words may well still echo in John’s head. But for some reason, he has clearly “decided to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people”. There is not a shadow of a doubt as to his admiration, although he also voices anger and impatience when Sherlock is trying to show off and not communicating, such as in his snappy “Then what is it?” response to Sherlock’s unnecessarily drawn-out explanation of the meaning of the suicide note.
In the final minutes of the episode, John really gets to shine. Having been abandoned by Sherlock once again, he soon figures out that Sherlock is with the killer, and decides to act by tracing the phone and following the two of them up in a cab. The chase culminates with John shooting the killer in the shoulder, thereby saving Sherlock from taking a possibly fatal pill.
Sherlock seems quite taken aback by this, and even goes so far as to ask John if he’s alright – a rare moment of showing concern for another person. It also shows that, at this point, Sherlock has realised just how different John is from all the other people he normally encounters and whom he can only describe in disdainful adjectives such as “dull”, “boring”, and “vacant”. Not only is John continually amazed by Sherlock’s deductions and voices that amazement instead of giving Sherlock the more usual response “Piss off.” He is also willing to put himself in the firing line to save Sherlock. I think this must mean a great deal to Sherlock, and his instant response is the Sherlock version of protectiveness: He stops dead in the middle of delivering a brilliant chain of deductions about the “mystery shooter” to Lestrade and even tries to dismiss his own trail of reasoning when he realises it must have been John.
When we compare this to some of Sherlock’s earlier statements, such as “Who cares about decent? The game is on,” it becomes quite clear that John’s actions are having an emotional effect on Sherlock. For someone who previously had no friends and who has a rather complicated relationship with his family, the fact that someone cares enough about him to go to this kind of length must be, in a positive way, an eye-opener. Sherlock has long since accepted that he isn’t “normal” by anyone’s standards, and that therefore, “normal” people will not have relationships with him. The fact that there is one man willing to be his friend is truly extraordinary. And John, by this time, seems to have acknowledged that he himself is not exactly the definition of “normal” either.
In summary, I think that Dr. John H. Watson, 2010, is a fantastic creation of the people who write him and the man who plays him. In Sherlock Holmes adaptations, it is comparatively easy to get Sherlock Holmes right, but John Watson leaves much more room for interpretation, and as a consequence, there is much more that can go wrong. In my opinion, there is much that went very right with this adaptation, and I am truly glad that this John Watson is more of an equal and a true complement to Sherlock Holmes, and less of the bumbling fool or the old fat guy of previous adaptations. I feel that the creators of the series truly did justice to one of the unsung (or, at least, too-little-sung) heroes of fiction, and I am very grateful for that.
This entry was originally posted at http://morelindo.dreamwidth.org/398837.html. You can comment here or there (OpenID comments are enabled).
Procrastinating? Moi? Well I never. And also, it's not fic, but at least I'm writing, and writing is always good.
A few notes ahead: This note sprang from re-watching A Study in Pink, the first episode of the BBC One drama Sherlock, first aired in July this year, with a coworker, who at some point told me that I “should write an essay on this”. She also asked me what exactly “my thing for Martin Freeman” was, because she wasn’t sure she understood. Well, here is an attempt at explaining a few things, and at articulating some of the many reasons I am obsessed with this show, particularly Martin Freeman’s character Dr. John H. Watson, late of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
In general, I find John Watson a very rounded and three-dimensional character who has more to him than meets the eye. Sherlock may be able to stun us with brilliant deductions, but John certainly has equal power to surprise us. I guess part of this is down to his appearance and the fact that at first, he looks quite unassuming. Whereas Sherlock dresses to impress, John’s gear is functional, almost utilitarian in its appearance, and he is quite short for a man. This makes it all the more surprising for us to discover what he is capable of. One of my favourite scenes in A Study in Pink is his conversation with Sherlock’s “arch-enemy”, who not only knows his name and address, but also quotes verbatim from his therapist’s notes and knows about the various medical conditions that he brought back from Afghanistan. As anyone would be, John is possibly frightened out of his skull by all this, but he does not let on in the slightest. He remains calm and composed and simply turns his back on the conversation when he thinks he’s had enough. He also turns down the man’s offer of a bribe in exchange for information about Sherlock, which goes to show his great sense of integrity.
Another general observation is that he seems to embody a certain duality within his character. First, we have his twin professions as a soldier and a doctor, which superficially seem to be at cross-purposes: Soldiers kill people while doctors help people and sometimes even save their lives. However, I would think that John probably joined the army because of a wish to help people. Martin Freeman suggested that he thought John had other army doctors in the family, and I think this is very plausible. Also, he never uses a gun unless it’s in self-defence, and from the way he is portrayed in general, I would say that he is first and foremost a doctor, and that the soldier part of him comes second.
There is also a duality in much of the rest of his characterisation, which makes for many surprising moments. When we first meet him, we almost feel sorry for him: he is physically and mentally injured and traumatised, he is unemployed, and except for Mike Stamford, there is no one to help him out – no friends, no family he is close to. As the episode goes on, however, we get to see that in spite of these difficulties, he is a very capable man. As a result, my reaction to him in this episode constantly oscillates between wanting to give him a big hug because he seems lost and miserable and cheering for him because he does something amazing and unexpected.
John’s key character trait of importance in A Study in Pink is his loyalty to and protectiveness of Sherlock. One day after meeting Sherlock for the first time, John gets taken to a crime scene. Sherlock abandons him for no apparent reason, leaving him free to be abducted by Sherlock’s self-proclaimed “arch-enemy”. Then, he is bossed around and taken out for dinner with a car chase for dessert by Sherlock, witnesses a staged (or is it?) drugs bust at 221B, and finally, he ends up saving Sherlock’s life in a classic case of saving Sherlock from himself.
In terms of the Sherlock Holmes canon, none of this is particularly unusual; it is all part of a Watson’s job. But I was struck by how quickly John attaches himself to Sherlock. In the original stories, it takes much longer for the two men to build a close emotional connection. There are a few possible explanations for this (other than considerations involving screen time and narrative pace, let’s stay in-world here), and I think, taken together, they are fairly sufficient as a description of John’s motivation.
The first is that John is very clearly a thrill-seeker, although he may not realise this himself. His reaction to being abducted by Sherlock’s “arch-enemy” while simultaneously receiving texts from Sherlock ordering him to come to Baker Street immediately for something that “could be dangerous” is perfect proof of this. Whereas a lesser mortal would probably have decided to get the hell out at this point, John's reaction is to stop off at home to get his gun and then proceed to 221B, where he interrogates Sherlock about the meaning of what just happened to him. As Sherlock’s “enemy” puts it: “You’re not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it.” I think this is a spot-on observation. Dangerous as it may be, joining Sherlock on his cases is, to John, a chance to apply his skills and to feel useful and needed – something that he has not been able to achieve in “civilian life” thus far.
The second explanation of John’s motivations lies in John’s opinion of Sherlock. At first, John is full of admiration for Sherlock’s cleverness. When he learns about Sherlock’s methods of deduction for the first time in the scene where Sherlock explains how he deduced John’s life story from his appearance and his mobile phone, John finds this “extraordinary, quite extraordinary”. He displays similar reactions at the crime scene, to the point where Sherlock asks him “Do you realise you do that out loud?”
On the other hand, John soon learns that there is a darker side to Sherlock. He seems to have no regard for moral conventions whatsoever – shown rather strikingly with lines such as “Who cares about decent?” or “Serial killers. I love those. There’s always something to look forward to” – and he is not above and beyond taking off and abandoning John in the middle of Brixton to follow a scent, leaving John to be abducted by a strange man who has power over every CCTV camera in London and access to his therapist’s notes. I’m not sure what exactly John’s emotional reaction is to all this. But judging from the fact that after the abduction, he grabs his gun and then shows up at 221B Baker Street as requested, I would venture to say that he feels that someone with such a powerful enemy needs a soldierly sidekick with a gun. It is also worth noting that, at this point, he knows full well that he is putting himself in danger by associating with Sherlock Holmes.
This is important because, even before he gets abducted, Sergeant Donovan warns him to stay away from Sherlock, telling him that Sherlock is not only addicted to solving crimes, but that there is something positively pathological about him. In her opinion, Sherlock could easily “switch sides”: “One day we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there.” To John, who has just witnessed a display of Sherlock’s complete disregard of societal moral standards, this must make rather a lot of sense. Therefore, it seems probable that he would feel obliged to not let Sherlock go over the edge. That he is putting himself in danger to do so only goes to show that he is willing to risk a great deal if he thinks the cause is worth it.
However, he does not do so without expressing his concerns to Sherlock, repeating Sergeant Donovan’s words “you enjoy this, you get off on it.” Sherlock simply retorts with “And I said dangerous – and here you are,” thereby making John aware that he, too, enjoys the thrill of putting himself in danger, and that, in this respect, they are more alike than John realises, or cares to admit.
I was also struck by John’s reaction to DI Lestrade’s “drugs bust” at 221B Baker Street. While Sherlock is getting visibly nervous – you can virtually see him thinking about that secret stash lurking somewhere around the flat and hoping no one finds it – John instantly assumes authority, going so far as telling Lestrade that he “could search this flat all day without finding anything you could call recreational”. He seems genuinely surprised when Sherlock himself tells him to shut up and thereby all but admits that yes, a drugs bust in this flat is likely to turn unpleasant. Later, John seems to realise that he may have taken it a bit far, and admits to Lestrade “You know him better than I do.” This scene seems to suggest that John gives people (or at least Sherlock) rather a lot of benefit of the doubt, which I find quite striking. Let’s not forget that they have known each other for all of two days at this stage, that Sherlock has already got hold of the pink lady’s suitcase by rather dubious means, and that Sergeant Donovan’s words may well still echo in John’s head. But for some reason, he has clearly “decided to trust Sherlock Holmes of all people”. There is not a shadow of a doubt as to his admiration, although he also voices anger and impatience when Sherlock is trying to show off and not communicating, such as in his snappy “Then what is it?” response to Sherlock’s unnecessarily drawn-out explanation of the meaning of the suicide note.
In the final minutes of the episode, John really gets to shine. Having been abandoned by Sherlock once again, he soon figures out that Sherlock is with the killer, and decides to act by tracing the phone and following the two of them up in a cab. The chase culminates with John shooting the killer in the shoulder, thereby saving Sherlock from taking a possibly fatal pill.
Sherlock seems quite taken aback by this, and even goes so far as to ask John if he’s alright – a rare moment of showing concern for another person. It also shows that, at this point, Sherlock has realised just how different John is from all the other people he normally encounters and whom he can only describe in disdainful adjectives such as “dull”, “boring”, and “vacant”. Not only is John continually amazed by Sherlock’s deductions and voices that amazement instead of giving Sherlock the more usual response “Piss off.” He is also willing to put himself in the firing line to save Sherlock. I think this must mean a great deal to Sherlock, and his instant response is the Sherlock version of protectiveness: He stops dead in the middle of delivering a brilliant chain of deductions about the “mystery shooter” to Lestrade and even tries to dismiss his own trail of reasoning when he realises it must have been John.
When we compare this to some of Sherlock’s earlier statements, such as “Who cares about decent? The game is on,” it becomes quite clear that John’s actions are having an emotional effect on Sherlock. For someone who previously had no friends and who has a rather complicated relationship with his family, the fact that someone cares enough about him to go to this kind of length must be, in a positive way, an eye-opener. Sherlock has long since accepted that he isn’t “normal” by anyone’s standards, and that therefore, “normal” people will not have relationships with him. The fact that there is one man willing to be his friend is truly extraordinary. And John, by this time, seems to have acknowledged that he himself is not exactly the definition of “normal” either.
In summary, I think that Dr. John H. Watson, 2010, is a fantastic creation of the people who write him and the man who plays him. In Sherlock Holmes adaptations, it is comparatively easy to get Sherlock Holmes right, but John Watson leaves much more room for interpretation, and as a consequence, there is much more that can go wrong. In my opinion, there is much that went very right with this adaptation, and I am truly glad that this John Watson is more of an equal and a true complement to Sherlock Holmes, and less of the bumbling fool or the old fat guy of previous adaptations. I feel that the creators of the series truly did justice to one of the unsung (or, at least, too-little-sung) heroes of fiction, and I am very grateful for that.
This entry was originally posted at http://morelindo.dreamwidth.org/398837.html. You can comment here or there (OpenID comments are enabled).
no subject
But I was struck by how quickly John attaches himself to Sherlock.
Might be simply because the Beeb had only three ninety-minute episodes to make a series. They had to have an explosive start to get people interested in it, and John shooting the cabbie to save Sherlock was a nice finishing touch to it.
no subject
And yes, you hit on the obvious explanation. Which I considered too, but decided to leave out and stay in-world. As stated, there are a few possible explanations for this (other than considerations involving screen time and narrative pace, let’s stay in-world here).
But let's face it, whatever his motives are, we all love BAMF!John :D I do hope they play the military/medical background angle well in the next series, TBB was somewhat of a trainwreck in that respect.