[ SECRET POST #2577 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2577 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald-Crane, from the soap opera Passions]


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03.
[BBC Sherlock]


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04.
[Nobunaga the Fool]


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05.
[Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia from Star Wars]


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06.
[The Quick and the Dead]


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07.
[Nathan Fillion]


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08.
[Warehouse 13]


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09.


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10.


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 030 secrets from Secret Submission Post #368.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

What?

Both of them played significant roles in exactly one story. Irene Adler was never seen again; Mary Morstan married one of the two central characters of the whole canon. I'm not saying Mary's more important, but it's not ridiculous to say she is. It's a perfectly reasonable point to make.

Honestly, I think it's kind of ridiculous to pretend like either of them is an especially important character in the ACD canon, given that both of them appear in exactly one story.

[(Anonymous)]

Er.

Not appear in one story, but play a significant role in one story, since Mary obviously appears in later stories.

[(Anonymous)]

This is not to say that I don't think Mary was important (and frankly I hate this entire "who was more important" argument and want it to just go away), but I don't think being mentioned offhandedly qualifies as appearing in a story.

[(Anonymous)]

...Not really? I mean she (or one of Watson's other wives - even ACD didn't keep track of how many and which one it was) is only mentioned a little? But never in any important way. She is never the center of the story again, never helps with a case. She marries Watson and then becomes a set piece. Half the time the only differences being around makes is that Watson doesn't live with Holmes.

[(Anonymous)]

IA. But saying that she only appears in one story is technically incorrect and I wanted to fix it. That's all really.

[(Anonymous)]

But she might as well NOT appear in any other story. Being a set piece is not really 'appearing'.

[(Anonymous)]

Technically correct is the best kind of correct.

(Just to avoid confusion here, I was replying to my own post to correct a technical error, not correcting another anon. I agree that she might as well not appear in any other story - but she does appear in other stories, albeit in totally insignificant roles, and so it's technically inaccurate to say that she only appears in one story)

[(Anonymous)]

I think the point is that while 'The Woman' is mentioned again, ACD couldn't even bother to keep straight Watson wives or if he had children.

[(Anonymous)]

But that's not because ACD didn't give a fuck about the "Mary" character, it was because he didn't really give a fuck about the whole Holmes franchise anymore.

[(Anonymous)]

You have your dates a little off. By the time ACD truly was actively hating having to write Holmes - Watson was on wife two or three.

[(Anonymous)]

Considering he found Mary easily replaced with any 'wife' I don't think ACD thought much about her once he married her to Watson.

[(Anonymous)]

All the "wives" apart from the one in The BlanchedSoldier (which takes place near Holmes retirement) are intended to be Mary. She's not mentioned by name, but they're clearly meant to be her. Where are you getting your wildly erroneous information? You do realize how transparent it is that all your information is the result of you reading secondhand analyses poking fun at acd's lousy dating of stories, and interpreting them as serious? Please don't try to pass yourself off as a canon fan if you haven't read the books.

[misty_anon]

People assume Watson had more than one wife because it was stated that Mary is an orphan in The Sign of Four but, in a later story, Watson's unnamed wife is off visiting her mother.

Of course, since ACD couldn't remember where Watson's wound was (leg vs. shoulder), it's entirely likely he completely forgot that Mary's mother was supposed to be dead.

[(Anonymous)]

Mary is mentioned several times and appears with dialogue twice more -- in the man with the twisted lip and the boscombe valley mystery.

And no, ACD never mixed up the number of wives or children -- he mixed up the dates in duch a way to accidentally imply Watson had many wives (which people run eith in a purely facetious, tongue-in-cheek way), but he created exactly two separate ones. And he never mentioned Watson having children at all.

[(Anonymous)]

There is a boy child mentioned in one of the stories that is implied to be Watson and Mary's(?) son. ACD couldn't keep track of Watson's injury. I don't think he really kept track of who Watson was married to either.

[(Anonymous)]

No, there isn't.

[(Anonymous)]

No.

It's painfully, embarrassingly obvious you've got all this info secondhand. You know, not reading the books doesn't make you a bad fan. You don't have to pretend.

Also, I'm going to make a wild guess: The child you're referring to is probably from a tongue-in-cheek parody theory postulating that a metaphor Watson used in The Five Orange Pips (the wind howling like a child in the chimney) meant that Watson had an actual child in his chimney. Its making fun of overzealous Game-players.

[(Anonymous)]

No there isn't.

[taversham]

I don't think Mary's importance in ACD canon is quantifiable by just tallying up stories she appeared in, her impact is pretty far reaching if you consider things like would Reichenbach have played out differently if faking his death would have meant Holmes leaving Watson completely alone?

[(Anonymous)]

...Isn't she dead by then?

[taversham]

No. She's alive then, dead by Holmes' return.

[fenm]

Can I just point out that ACD Holmes didn't fake his death the same way as in the BBC version? In ACD canon, when Holmes left his note, he genuinely thought he was going to die.

[taversham]

True enough, though as the relation between ACD and BBC Sherlock is rarely more than one of names and central premise I'm not sure that needs pointing out... ;)

Holmes still hid in the cliffs watching and listening as Watson called out to him and searched for him, and then only made contact with Mycroft. If Watson had no one at all to go home to, I think that would have been too much of a dick move for ACD Holmes (though not for BBC Sherlock, obvs), and the "greetings to Mrs Watson" at the end of his note make me think Watson not being alone part of Holmes' consideration even when he did believe he was going to die - though I appreciate that's just speculation.

[fenm]

Oh, yeah, they're very different people.

And, yeah, Holmes did still hide the fact that he was alive from Watson for three years.

[intrigueing]

That's a really good point! I've heard some people suggest that maybe Holmes didn't realize that Watson would be so grief-stricken by his death, but that was never convincing to me. I don't think Holmes is that obtuse or that poor at judging people's characters, and I don't think he's that ignorant about people's feelings -- he just has a different perspective on how important they are in the big picture *thinks of The Dying Detective*

And even if he was that ignorant before The Final Problem (which I really don't think he was), he would have to be either an idiot or deliberately disrespectful to not realize how strongly Watson felt for him and how devastated Watson would be if Holmes died after Watson followed him halfway across Europe to protect him while refusing to turn back no matter how much Holmes asked him to go home to safety.

So I thought Holmes knowingly being so cruel, rather than unthinkingly being cruel, was always the lesser of two evils, but the idea that he was also consciously hoping Mary would be there for Watson softens it even more.