Talk:Sherlock Holmes

Genius

So seeing as he came up with alot of crime scene techniques isnt he a bit of a genius? Or did he research new techniques before writing the book?

Personal Hygiene

The section on personal hygiene runs

Holmes is described in The Hound of the Baskervilles as having a "cat-like" love of personal cleanliness. This in no way appears to hinder his intensely practical pursuit of his profession, however; This appears in contrast with statements that, in the first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, his hands are discoloured with acid stains and Holmes uses drops of his own blood to conduct experiments in chemistry and forensics.

This is entirely daft. Someone can easily be compulsively clean and have acid stained hands - with some acids there is not a lot you could do about it if you wanted to get coloration off. What has using ones own blood to do with cleanliness? We would need much stronger cited examples to show a contradiction in personal habits. Spanglej (talk) 16:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Mary Sue

An IP editor has added a link to Mary Sue in the "See also" section three times, but I really can't see the relevance. Two editors (including myself) have removed it, but it has been re-inserted each time. As the "See also" section is supposed to be for links to articles that are of direct and important relevance, I think it is inappropriate, and I invite the IP editor to explain why I'm wrong - and other people to offer their opinions. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a misunderstanding of the term "Mary Sue". Sherlock Holmes definitely is not a "Mary Sue", and even he was I agree that it would not be relevant enough to include in the "See also" section. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

If the relevance is that Holmes is considered a "Mary Sue", then that would have to be made clear in a significant way in either this article or the Mary Sue article, and supported by reliable references. If the link is made based on the opinion of an individual editor, that would make it original research, which cannot be included in Wikipedia. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Even if there were some relevance, the article in question specifically has: "the term itself is used exclusively for females". Removed the link again. --Old Moonraker (talk) 19:35, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

'The Game' and Doctor Watson

I removed this passage from the Doctor Watson article: Mary seems somewhat less sure of her husband, however, absent-mindedly calling him "James" in the short story "The Man with the Twisted Lip". This may be a simple typographical error on Dr. Watson's part, though some have speculated that it is a wifely reference to Watson's unknown middle name, which could have been "Hamish" (Scottish for "James").

But I'm really not sure whether it should go. We're supposed to cite reliable sources, and this kind of thing is as close to a reliable source as we're going to get on a matter of such detail.

However, we're supposed to write articles from a real-world perspective, not a fictional-world one. This is a serious problem with Sherlock Holmes, because most of what's been written about it is silly play-acting as if SH was a real person, otherwise known as The Game.

Are there any real books about Sherlock Holmes as a piece of literature?

I'm strongly inclined to remove all Game-oriented material, but I'd like to know what others think. BillMasen (talk) 16:31, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Updated with newest movie? No..but why? (Also, Holmes & Watson in a Fred Saberhagen book)

I see no one has added anything about the new Sherlock Holmes movie staring Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law, even though the last edit was September of 2010.  :-) Also, I'd like to mention something maybe some didn't know...a use of the character in a book by a very popular author, Fred Saberhagen. He wrote "The Holmes-Dracula File" and the detective was in the book quite a lot. I'm a Dracula fan, not a Holmes fan, so I have no idea if the depiction is any good, but a couple friends of mine say it's quite good; very within character. And it makes HUGE reference to this "Giant Rat of Sumatra" and a 'vampire' (obvious from the title, I know). I know nothing about Wiki editing (procedure or etiquette) so I'll leave that to you more experienced chaps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.161.70.142 (talk) 08:29, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The Guy Ritchie Movie is already mentioned here, but the Saberhagen book might be worth looking into though as I understand it (haven't read the book), this book is part of Saberhagen's Dracula novels and Holmes has just a minor role in it. --Six words (talk) 08:40, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Move over all adaptations

I suggest we take all the adaptations over to Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. At the moment it is split and the section on the Holmes page has become a sprawl. It seems very easy for adaptations sections to become an unmaintained, unreferenced trivia list that takes up more page space than prose content. Best wishes Spanglej (talk)

...So when I move over all adaptations and derivative works to the adaptations article nobody will offer an opinion. Span (talk) 00:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Derived Works

If someone wouldn't mind researching this, I read a short story by Stephen King regarding Holmes, in the collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes. 58.166.125.16 (talk) 10:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)