fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1701 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1701 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[screamland]

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03.

[Glee]

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04.

[seikimatsu occult gakuin]

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05.

[MLP: FiM]

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06.

[Allstate]

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07.

[Deadman Wonderland/Madoka Magica]

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08.

[DC Comics/ Cirque du Soleil]

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09.

[Mortal Kombat]

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10.

[A:tLA]

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11.

[Bleach]

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12.

[Beauty and the Beast]

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13.

[d.gray-man]

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14.

[Lady Gaga]

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15.

[Assassin's Creed]

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16. [repeat]

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17.

[Uta no Prince-sama]

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18.

[The Matrix/The Cell]

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19.

[Ugly Betty]

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20.

[Spirited]

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21.

[Dynasty Warriors]

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22.

[Doctor Who]

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23.

[FF7]

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24.

[Sherlock (BBC)]

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25.

[Ranma 1/2]

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26.

[American Psycho]

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27.

[Flight of the Conchords/The Simpsons]

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28.

[Ai no Kusabi]

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29.

[Mass Effect 2]

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30.

[Lazytown]

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31.

[kara no kyoukai]

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32.

[That 70s Show]

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33.

[Matt Berry]

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34.

[Saiyuki]

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35.

[SPN]

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36.

[Gargoyles]

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37.

[Spitting Image]

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38.

[Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne]

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39.

[Pride and Prejudice]

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40.

[Vocaloid]

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41.

[Star Wars: the Clone Wars]

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42.

[Big Bang Theory]

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43.

[Vampire Diaries]

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44.

[FMA]

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45.

[Phineas and Ferb, Homestuck]

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46.

[Formula One: Ayrton Senna/Gerhard Berger]

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47.

[Alpha Protocol]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 143 secrets from Secret Submission Post #243.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think we just have different interpretations of "Scandal in Bohemia," and I'm not sure if we're ever going to land on the same page. That's ok!

First of all, yes. I do think blackmailing someone else because you are pissed off is better than blackmailing someone for money. They're both selfish acts, but I still think blackmailing for cash is worse. Personally, I think that the King's new wife has every right to know that her husband had an affair with an actress prior to their marriage, but obviously that's not Adler's reasoning.

Also, I think this might come down to how much was like the King and how much we like Irene Adler. I interpret the fact that Irene Adler is keeping proof of their affair for her own protection as an indication that the King can be a fairly ruthless figure: "'I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future.'"

I also believe that Conan Doyle wants our sympathies more with Irene Adler after this following exchange, although of course as a reader, you're free to feel differently towards the characters:

"'What a woman -- oh, what a woman!'" cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. 'Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?'

"'From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty,' said Holmes coldly. 'I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business to a more successful conclusion.'"

You seem to believe Irene Adler is somehow weak-willed or wishy-washy because she falls in love, or after falling in love has the ability to realize when she's holding a grudge and when she needs to learn how to let go. Again, I just do not share this interpretation of Irene Adler. She is depicted again and again as a character of remarkably strong will, and if Conan Doyle really wanted to show that Irene Adler was under her husband's thumb, he probably wouldn't have had her dressing as a man and tailing Sherlock after their wedding.

Oh, and doesn't her going from "I'm mad enough to blackmail him" to "Never mind, I'm happy with this other guy" so quickly show the same sort of lack of commitment the King showed in dumping her?

I don't believe so? There was some time in between the threat of blackmail and Sherlock Holmes being called in -- enough time for five attempts to recover the art and letters. By the time Sherlock Holmes was on the case, Adler had already, I believe, changed her mind. She was keeping the blackmail materials, however, safe in case she might one day need to safeguard her own protection.

And I also don't believe she's a hypocrite because dumping a woman for another because the former was below your station isn't the same of being filled with wrath for your former lover, and then falling in love again and moving the hell on with your life.

If the King of Bohemia snapped his fingers, and Irene Adler dumped her husband and came running, then that would be hypocrisy.

So, overall, Irene Adler isn't a perfect human being, but I actually disagree with you. I think she is a good role model. She was intelligent, strong-willed, but overall a good person (Holmes' ruse depended on her compassion, after all) who learned from her mistakes and went off to have adventures in the Continent.

And that's my interpretation of Irene Adler.

First of all, yes. I do think blackmailing someone else because you are pissed off is better than blackmailing someone for money. They're both selfish acts, but I still think blackmailing for cash is worse.

Why?

You seem to believe Irene Adler is somehow weak-willed or wishy-washy

No, I said "hypocritical", and I meant "hypocritical".

or after falling in love has the ability to realize when she's holding a grudge and when she needs to learn how to let go.

Or she realized she has as much to lose now as the King? I suppose her hubby might not care about the affair, but...

Why?

Because in the case of blackmailing for money, you get Charles Augustus Milverton, with his books of victims. Adler wasn't going out looking for victims to exploit; she was focused solely on the King of Bohemia because she felt he did her wrong and she was owed some revenge. And she doesn't even go through with it in the end. I don't think she's going to be a chronic blackmailer.

No, I said "hypocritical", and I meant "hypocritical".

I didn't take that from your hypocritical comment; I read weak-willed or wishy-washy from these comments:
a) And she ends the story by getting married, which in that day and age, pretty much meant "will stay home and have babies"
b) She a blackmailer who changes her mind about it as soon as a better man comes along

There is nothing in the story to suggest that Irene Norton NEE Adler is going to stay home and make babies, or change her adventurous life in any way now that she's married. We have no idea when she changes her mind as to the threat, only that it had been enough time for five recovery attempts before Adler and Holmes cross paths, by which time she has a change of heart.

Or she realized she has as much to lose now as the King? I suppose her hubby might not care about the affair, but...

Sherlock Holmes is not an idiot. If that was her true motivation, then that would have been somewhere in the text. Even Adler's victim, the King, says that Adler's word is "inviolate." Furthermore, Adler is certainly not an idiot. If she had too much to lose, she wouldn't have made those threats in the first place. Unless the threats were just to throw the King in a tizzy, in which case she isn't actually a blackmailer "who changed her mind as soon as a better man came along."

You're talking about a serial blackmailer vs. someone with one victim, which are different enough, imo, regardless of motives. I think it's possible for a blackmailer-for-money to also focus on one victim.

As for the "she felt her done her wrong" Wah, wah. That happens to a lot of people. Most of them don't resort to blackmail.

Ok, I retracted the whole, "she was no longer an adventurer" thing, so I'm not sure why you're still mentioning it?

I'm done! Good night!

I completely agree with all of this.

Actually, do we have any proof beyond the king's word that she was attempting to blackmail him?
He was probably just trying to cover his ass before he got married.

I think it's up to interpretation. Irene Adler only writes this in her letter to Sherlock Holmes: "As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged."

So the king may have lied, or Adler could have sent the threat and then changed her mind. Or perhaps she was never going to go through with it in the first place.

I have a feeling that if the king had lied, Holmes would have deduced as much. I also have a feeling that the King of Bohemia had to be a major douchebag, since Adler seems very reasonable otherwise.

Well I don't think Holmes would've told Watson if the king lied. Watson had a hard enough time screwing Adler over as it was.

And if she actually was threatening the king, she fared much better than the other canonical blackmailers. I think part of the brilliance of SCAN is that ACD seems to be on Adler's side the entire time.

Or maybe I'm projecting :)

No, ACD totally was. He constructed Irene Adler as a response to someone who said that Sherlock Holmes was too unfair to women, and ACD wanted to demonstrate that he didn't share all of his hero's views. He didn't just want Irene Adler to be exemplary in intelligence and courage, but to be fairly heroic as well.

OR what I said above could be an urban myth. *Jazzhands*

The Google, it does nothing!

[ SECRET POST #1701 ]

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