It's pretty common in the stories that both the client and the bad guy are both motivated by greed and arrogance, at least in the case of the male clients. Holmes seems to generally believe that you can't cheat an honest man.

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I'm kind of shocked that people don't know that Poe invented the modern mystery. And horror/SF, for that matter. People, give props to Poe!

Dupin also has a roommate who is the narrator -- and I think that isn't to provide a more sympathetic face so much as because the mechanics of the mystery demand it. If the genius detective narrates, you have a very boring story (as Doyle eventually demonstrated). The narrator is there to be confused, to provide misdirection, to demand explanations, and to be properly awed by the result. Watson tends to be a doofus in movie/tv adaptations because in those media, you don't need a narrator. So he's transformed into comic relief to give him something to do.

Oh, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs is one of the last published stories -- 1924. The mystery itself is almost identical to the Red-Headed League, actually.

Imagine the difference between that audience, who most likely felt most sympathy for the guy who was fleeced by the League, and the modern audience, who actually likes (or enjoys watching) Hannibal Lechter, and doesn't feel one way or the other about many of his victims.

I'm skeptical that there is that great a difference. People weren't fascinated by Jack the Ripper simply because they felt sympathy for the whores he butchered.

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I'm skeptical that there is that great a difference. People weren't fascinated by Jack the Ripper simply because they felt sympathy for the whores he butchered.

Well, no, but that was real, that was actually happening. I think the reality of it was part of the fascination there, as well as the butchery.

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Yeah, but fictional or real, people are always interested in a nice dose of id. I just don't think that identifying with villains is unique to the modern era. It helps to be charming, of course; "Richard III" is what comes to my mind.

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Watson tends to be a doofus in movie/tv adaptations because in those media, you don't need a narrator

Which always annoys me. The man had enough brains to be a doctor, after all, and he was no coward. He just has the bad luck to be an average guy paired up with a genius.

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Just out of curiousity, where is that factoid from?

The presentation I had to do in my 19th Century Literature class last year.

I would bet that the Dupin stories are up on the web somewhere. And I keep meaning to read Bleak House, but it requires a fairly substantial investment.

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I'm fond of Bleak House, to my surprise. Usually my memories of Victorian books are negative (meaning, of course, that I should re-read them now that I'm [more or less] an adult).

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It's pretty common in the stories that both the client and the bad guy are both motivated by greed and arrogance, at least in the case of the male clients. Holmes seems to generally believe that you can't cheat an honest man.

You got me thinking about the two clients from "Scandal" and "League". Both the King and Mr. Wilson (the red-head) are coming to Holmes with unclean hands. The King, for having committed some type of indiscretion with Irene and then rejecting her because of her "station" or lack thereof, and Wilson for paying his assistant half-wages, and then accepting nearly 32 pounds for doing nothing more than copying an encyclopedia.

I think Doyle is very deliberate in the endings of both stories. The King ends up with nothing but Irene's "word", now having to rely on the integrity of the very individual whose worth he treated so cavalierly, both with his initial rejection and her subsequent mistreatments (searches, break-ins, etc.) Wilson pretty much gets sidelined by the bigger case: stopping the bank robbery. The bank president becomes the grateful client, and Wilson, who is petty enough to hire someone at half-wages and take money for relatively nothing, ends up worse off than where he started: the golden-egg laying goose is dead, and he presumably will have to pay his next assistant real wages.

To both clients, Holmes can't help but make fun of them. He chides Wilson as being "fortunate" to have an assistant below market price. He tells the King that Irene is very much on "a different level" then he is. He may seem callous, but so far Holmes has a fairly accurate moral compass. (He's still House to me, as House always mutters judgmental comments at his patients that usually go over their heads. Some of the funniest moments.)

Can't wait to meet the clients in the next 3 stories.

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I've always wondered just what was depicted in that picture the King is so desperate to get his hands on. Irene sitting on his knee? Or just the two of them undeniably together in one place?

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I think it's the combination of the photograph and the (porny?) letters, on his stationary with his seal, that he wrote her. The photograph of the two of them substantiates the authenticity of the letters.

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