Calli, the showrunners have said that they consider all previous incarnations are part of their source material (c.f.--Mycroft), so you're not off-base there.
Wow. That's a lot of incarnations. Heck, Gaiman just wrote a Holmesian short story a couple of months ago and, as Amy mentioned, they're even putting out new novels. Still, more power to the showrunners.
I wonder--can anyone else think of a Victorian literary work that's been worked, reworked, and expanded upon the way Doyle's Holmes stories have? Maybe
Dracula,
but that had a folktale base going in that Holmes doesn't. (Maybe I should take this question to Natter.)
Dracula definitely. Whatever folktale elements were minor compared to Stoker refining the core mythos.
Tarzan is a little later, but comparable.
Gatiss basically imprinted on The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (the one with Christopher Lee as Mycroft) as a young fellow.
Frankenstein is pre-Victorian, but it's been worked and reworked in a similar way.
Plus, hell, you can be kind and still scheme. These are not mutually exclusive, Watson's lens aside.
Yes, and anyone who thinks otherwise is more than a bit naive.
Tarzan? Comparable? When's the last time someone explicitly touched the franchise in a mass market way?
When's the last time someone explicitly touched the franchise in a mass market way?
I don't know. Disney? But it's had many many iterations and was almost constantly in play in movies/tv/comic strips/comic books for 80 years.
Holmes finds her clever and amusing, and admires that she defeated him (arguably with a head start, mind). No doubt there. Not seeing how this goes against my reading, which I've said has the truth somewhere in the grey zone of he said, she said.
Because you said that her dealing with terrorist in 21st century Sherlock gives the same emotional impact as the original story. I'd say not really the equivalent. By the end of the story in Doyle I don't think we have anything like the feeling we have for a demi-terrorist.
I would add that keeping taking the photo over jewels and referring to her ever afterword as 'The Woman' and dialing back on the misogyny shows a degree of respect that goes beyond amusement and admiration.
Sherlock and Dracula make for an interesting pairing. (I mean in a non-slashy way, this time, oddly enough.) One's all cold intellect, puzzle solving, working toward justice. The other's hot blood, desire, with animalistic overtones (changing into bats, growing fangs, etc.). Yet they both came from about the same time period, from the same country, and are continually being reworked for public consumption. And a lot of people are fans of both. (And, as mentioned above, there's even a Christopher Lee crossover connection.) Id and super ego?
