How come holmes needs a rommie? doesn't Holmes strike you as the guy who can make a fortune by buying and seeling currencies and so on, without hardly any work at all?
Buying and selling currencies? Holmes wasn't a financial genius, he was the world's greatest detective. Later in his career he had enough wealthy clients to make him fairly rich, but in the beginning, before the cases really started coming in, he must've been a bit strapped for cash.
Here's another mystery: What happened to Watson's bull pup?
Well, there's been quite a bit of specualtion that 'bull pup' is slang for a type of gun. Some have also thought that it is a term for a quick temper. On the other hand, it could really be a dog and Watson had to get rid of it 'cuz it didn't get along with that old terrier.
In the BBC radio version of Study, Watson gives the bull pup to Stamford after the pup and Holmes don't get along.
Does anyone here think Holmes and Watson were gay?
There has been lots of speculation in the past as regards to their real sexual orientation. Perhaps it's the fate of male duos -- Bert and Ernie, Batman and Robin, Beavis and Butthead, etc. -- but I was wondering if there was any textual indication regarding this theory. I mean, Watson was a real skirt-chaser, but Doyle was rather silent on Holmes.
I know of no textual indication. And there is something distinctly heterosexual about Holmes' misogony, if that makes any sense. As for Watson, if he were gay, why did he leave Baker Street to take up with a woman?
There's actually a whole mailing list on Onelist devoted to stories which depict Holmes and Watson in a slightly... closer relationship than Doyle depicted.
There's not any textual support, but in Holmes' case there's not a terrific amount of textual support for heterosexuality either.
I like to interpret their relationship as subtextually homosexual, with no actual action taken on either side. (I have a hard time picturing them without their evening wear and pocket watches.)
And if they were gay they were likely to be blackmailed or imprisoned if anyone found out. That could explain Watson's marriage -- many homosexuals married to divert suspicion and avoid scandal.
That wouldn't explain why Watson married a second time (and possibly even a third). Being a widower would have been eminently respectable.
Watson himself mentioned several times that Holmes had a cold nature, and didn't want to waste his precious time and intellect on the "softer" emotions. About the only time Watson ever saw Holmes display any deep emotion was when Watson got shot in the adventure of the Three Garridebs.
I've brought this up before on the "Is Garak Gay?" nitboard--why is it so difficult for people to believe that two men can have a close friendship without sex getting in the way?
Aren't you forgetting Holmes infatuation with "the" woman, Irene Adler? In "A Scandal in Bohemia", Holmes actually allowed his feelings to affect his treatment of Miss Adler.
I suspect the reason no other woman is mentioned in the stories is because Holmes found no one that measured up to Irene.
Conversely, I've read some non-Doyle stories that postulate a romance between Holmes and his housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, but I don't know if I believe that.
D.K. -- Personally, I'm a defender of the One Mrs. Watson. Watson's sloppy dates and continuity are enough to explain why he refers to her after she's dead.
Mike -- I have never seen Holmes' infatuation with Irene as something sexual. Even if it is, it's still homosexual subtext, since she wears pants and embodies a rather 'male' role in the piece. (Nobody yell at me, I'm speaking about how it should be interperted considering the time it was written.)
As for why two fictional men can't just be friends... you know, I'm beginning to think you're right, D.K. Blame Freud, he set the groundwork for modern literary analysis, including homosexual subtext between two textually heterosexual (or in Holmes' case, apparently asexual) men.
This is not bad in itself, but sometimes young, eager slash fans (you know, the ones you just want to slap) run with the idea, with no concept of what makes subtext powerful; some of them slash anything that moves, no matter how unlikely. This spoils the uniqueness of canonical subtext, watering down the effect on the reader and wearing them out until they run away from legitimate subtext, screaming to the hills.
In the 'Is Garak Gay?' thread I argued for the Yes side because I genuinely believe it could be true. In this case, since I see the issue as a purely subtextual thing, not something that Holmes and Watson were aware of, and not something Doyle intended... I'll just say that it must have some foundation in people's subconsious minds, or the Holmsian academics wouldn't get so freaked out over it.
It's not something I would ever seriously argue, any more than I would seriously argue that Holmes was Jack the Ripper. But it's fun to play with these things, just like it's fun to invent six or eight wives for Watson and turn him into a bigamist. :0)
In the Adventure of the Dying Detective Holmes shouts "Quick man, if you love me!" at Watson. Am I the only one who finds that a bit iffy?
It was not unusual for a man to use that sort of language with another in that era, and mean nothing 'iffy' by it.
That doesn't mean the Holmes/Watson people don't enjoy reading scenes like that one quite a bit! :0) Mentioning the possibility when you're conversing with a fairly large group of serious enthusiasts is also entertaining, if you don't mind being called a heretic.
The problem with reading subtext into things like this is that ten out of nine times you turn out to be wrong.Another being that two people can read two entirely different meanings into the same
thing and the result being an argument over WHICH
is the correct subtext..if any.
However on this subject I believe that anyone who subspects any relationship between Holmes and Watson OTHER than what is presented in the stories is reaching a bit too far.
Conan Doyle meant the stories to be nothing more than what they were originally percieved to be by his first readers-good old fashioned adventure stories set in and around London.There is in this case no subtext.
Amazing. I hop into a group about one of my favorite story characters, bring up the general discussion area, only to find it dominated by musings on whether Holmes and Watson are gay. Why does someone always bring this sort of thing up the minute two same-sex people start saying more than "hello" to each other in the hall? Says more about American social undercurrents than anything in 19th century England, I think.
Holmes’ Christmas Quest:
https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/holmes-christmas-quest/s-G5Aul
Produced for Big Finish’s Sherlock Holmes range this little story has Holmes (Nick Briggs) recalling his encounter with Santa Claus or does he.
A very good fun little tale.
Free download of Sherlock Holmes: The Prophet In The Rain from Big Finish with the code bakerstreet221b:
www.bigfinish.com/offers/v/prophetintherain
The T-Bag and the Pearls of Wisdom episode Elementary, My Dear What-Not is a parody of Sherlock Holmes with T-Bag (Georgina Hale) in the guise of Shirley Holmes and T Shirt (John Hasler) in the guise of Dr Whatsit.
This came after T-Bag watched a movie of Hound of the Baskervilles.
This presents a female Holmes and a male Whatsit (Watson) and this would be an inversion of the Elementary TV series where it has a male Holmes and a female Watson.