[ SECRET POST #2598 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2598 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 031 secrets from Secret Submission Post #371.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - 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

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/DXUUvIo.jpg

[rubbertea]

Yeah, it's like the Batman-can't-ever-just-bulldoze-the-Joker problem
I don't see why heroes having a bit of a darker (and sending criminals to jail isn't even a 'dark' thing to do ffs) side is so scary to creators. I mean, people tend to like it, even, so what's the big deal?

[intrigueing]

Uh....I have no idea what you're saying? Holmes sends tons of people to jail. The times he DOESN'T send them to jail are exceptions. If anything, his 'dark' side comes out when he decides "okay, this murderer was justified" like in Devil's Foot or Charles Augustus Milverton.

[rubbertea]

The way the secret's worded made it sound like he freed more people than that.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know. Prisons are scary, scary places even today, rife with physical and sexual violence, drug trafficking and dangerous rivalries. Prisons in Victorian England... well. I don't imagine they were much nicer.

Don't forget this was also a time period where the law enacted much harsher punishments for what we'd consider more minor crimes, like theft where nobody is hurt/killed. You could be hanged for a petty crime, for example. In contrast, getting deported to Australia for stealing was the "light" punishment.

So yeah, sounds rather dark to me.

[intrigueing]

Yeah, in the blue carbuncle Holmes even points out that sending the guy to jail will make him a thug for life, whereas sparing him might allow him to change his ways and make something of himself.

[(Anonymous)]

Deportation was finished 30 years before Holmes was written. I agree with your general point, though.

[darkmanifest]

In Joker's case, I don't think it's so much the creators being afraid, as the Joker being such an inspirational goldmine as the villain who's challenged Batman the most. So there's some paltry excuses provided for why Bats doesn't just off the guy, when we all know that in-universe he would have done it by now if not for fourth-wall necessity.

[intrigueing]

Eh, I would say in Batman, they started as paltry excuses, but the writers managed to turn the paltry excuses into a really facinating character trait.

[kaijinscendre]

This has got to be the most used background picture for Sherlock secrets.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, it is very meme-tastic. And Watson looks smokin' hot ;)

[fenm]

In fairness, it's actually relevant to the secret this time... (-:

[intrigueing]

Well, I gotta disagree. Yeah, that's a real possibility, but there's not much moral courage in not turning in someone who is obviously not guilty if you're not a cop or something. Whereas having faith that this person won't let you down, even if it's quite possible they could, really takes guts and faith in human decency, and taking a big risk, no pussy-footing around with "well, I can totally make sure that they never do anything wrong" is what makes Holmes's decisions in those circumstances so powerful

[badass_tiger]

iawtc. It also has such impact because Holmes often puts people down for not being as clever as him, and it shows that despite that, he still has a belief into goodness of people that is quite touching.

[(Anonymous)]

I disagree but I can't really elucidate why, beyond the fact that I don't think your conditions are really all that accurate in any cases as they're presented in the stories.

But I really strongly disagree.

[(Anonymous)]

Mmmm, I'm not sure if it was to show that Holmes was capable of sentiment, per se. Mercy outside the demands of the law, perhaps. I always thought it showed that he had his own standard of ethics that mostly (but not always!) lined up with Scotland Yard.

Even The Crooked Man?

[silverr]

I can see your point about the Carbuncle thief, but seriously? even Crooked Man? He would have been justified in going all Edmund Dantes (which he didn't do)

LIterary morality=\=real morality

[elephantinegrace]

We know things in books that we don't in real life. We know the characters' motivations, more or less, whereas in real life we have to extrapolate based on the data people give us, a method that's far from infallible. So we know the utter assholery of Milverton, but we don't know whether or not a real-life blackmailer was an asshole outside of being a blackmailer. Plus, there's the whole "Milverton isn't actually real" thing that makes his shooting far easier to justify than the shooting of someone in real life.

Re: LIterary morality=\=real morality

[intrigueing]

I disagree though. I think that making hard and risky choices IRL even if you don't have a reader's nice comfortable safety of 100% sureness IS the mark of real moral integrity. If it was a no brainer, there's nothing difficult about it unless it's a risk to you.

Also, I'm pretty sure that being a blackmailer makes you an asshole regardless of any non-asshole traits you might have.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not firing on all cylinders tonight, so I'm trying to remember how many people he let go. There was the woman who shot Milverton, the trio in Abbey Grange, and the thief who stole the blue carbuncle. After that, I'm having trouble remembering who else?

And of those, the one only I'd maybe agree with the OP is the blue carbuncle thief. I've always thought that was a dodgy decision, Christmas or no. That being said, though, given what Victorian prisons were like, Holmes' rationale that sending him there would only guarantee that he'd be a thug for life probably wasn't far off the mark either.

Abbey Grange and Milverton, though, I think I'm more inclined to agree with Holmes. Mostly because Lord Brackenstall and Milverton's victims just didn't have a lot of other options. The Abbey Grange trio were forced into action to defend themselves from a violently abusive man, and though they did try to pin his murder on someone else, at least they picked some genuine criminals to pin it on, rather than an innocent. And Milverton ... kind of deserved what he got, and considering the fact that Holmes was having serious difficultly figuring out a way to bring him down without socially destroying all his victims in the process, you can see why he and Watson covered for her. Plus, in both those cases, there's no evidence that any of them would have reason to commit any other crimes. They were victims or friends of victims striking back at their abusers/extortionists, not wilful murderers.

Am I forgetting anyone, though? It's been a while.

[swamp_adder]

There was the dude in The Devil's Foot, which I think was a pretty iffy decision on Holmes' part. He DID have other options for taking down his girlfriend's murderer besides murdering him in retaliation -- but apparently Holmes thought the original crime was just so grotesquely awful that taking personal revenge was justified in this case.

[intrigueing]

Yeah, I think the Devil's Foot is the most morally iffy one too, and it seems like it was more Holmes's personal sympathy talking than morality. He explains it by saying "well, in his position I'd do the same" -- which is probably true, since it's a sentiment he bears out in other stories (ie, "if you had killed Watson, you would not have gotten out of this room alive" from The Three Garridebs.)

[(Anonymous)]

In a way, he let Adler go as well - but that was more out of stupidity. Seriously, you make it pretty clear to someone that you know they're guilty for something and then wait a whole night to go get them without maybe thinking they'd run in the meantime? Please.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder if he did it on purpose? It's been a long time since I read "Scandal in Bohemia" but I remember neither Holmes nor Watson sounded happy to work for the Prince, especially since Irene wasn't actually blackmailing him.

[poisonivory]

See, mostly I'm just mad that he never told the woman in "A Case of Identity" that her "fiance" was her stepfather. I always feel so bad for her.