2012-10-01

On Sherlock Holmes and emotion:

He wants to be a calculating machine but he really isn’t. He really absolutely properly isn’t. He’s a quite a moody difficult emotional man is the truth, even in the original, and it’s really fascinating to read the real Doyle and you realise if he thinks a man has wronged a women he’s dragging a riding crop off the wall to beat him up ’cause he’s so angry. He’s actually not at all cold and aloof, he just wants to be and presents that way, but he isn’t, he isn’t at all. But he would like to be.

http://www.universityobserver.ie/2012/02/22/steven-moffat-the-full-transcript/

I mean, he thinks he can solve everything by being sort of cold and remote. Our Sherlock even entertains the idea that he’s above emotion. He’s actually a terribly emotional man and he’s a desperate show-off. And far from being cold and remote, he’s got a bunch of people who look after him. The support team is enormous. He doesn’t quite realize that far from being the invulnerable ice king, he’s actually perceived by his friends as a wonderful, amazing man, but one you have to look after.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/sherlock-season-2-steven-moffat_n_1472139.html

The first set of comments relate to Holmes in the Canon; the second to BBCSherlock, but I think the line “He’s actually a terribly emotional man and he’s a desperate show-off” really applies to Holmes in the Canon. He is shy yet loves to have his dramatic moments or surprise people with his disguises. He is touched by being appreciated. I’m not going into the long discussion of whether Moffat and Gatiss’s Sherlock delivers this, but Moffat’s statements here are very true to the character in the Canon, and I love that it’s a complete rebuttal of the concept that Holmes is some kind of heartless machine.

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