A special commission for Ariana, to celebrate the publication of her excellent “The Lion’s Mane” essay in The Watsonian! Lines from the Coules script of the same name, which, in case you forgot, is my favourite Holmes thing ever.
“I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows? ”
– The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”
–The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
I think putting these two quotes together should be self-explanatory enough.
Sherlock Holmes believed killing for love was justifiable, and he set free criminals who committed murder for love, twice. He admitted that he would have done the same–he almost did, and he never regretted or doubted it.
But does that not sound self-contradictory? Remember what he said in The Sign of the Four:
“But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”
Here is the point: Sherlock Holmes was a man with emotions and feelings, although not abundant, no doubt he had emotions and he knew this fact. He did not want emotions affect his judgment and reasoning, exactly because he had emotions, otherwise who would have bothered to avoid some adversary they are immune to?
Another key point is that Holmes never viewed emotions as something evil or bad in nature, or needed to be eliminated. He did not want to getting emotional because of his personal value: reason and truth above all. But he never judged others based on this personal value so that he deemed someone to be evil or worth punishing because they value love more than reason and rationality. On the contrary, he deeply respected their values and believed their course of action was just and understandable. He had empathy to these people who were willing to risk their life and honor for love, and he was willing to commit felony for these people.
Would he say “these people who killed for love did not make a sound judgement”? Maybe. But their judgement being biased or not was irrelevant. Holmes approved their course of action even thought it did not matches his personal value.
Now the real fun part is, if Evans had killed Watson, and Holmes, as he promised, had killed Evans, would he have deemed his judgment biased and reasoning compromised by emotions?
Of course he could have said “it is natural for a gentleman to revenge his best friend at all cost; it’s just loyalty and friendship”. It is a reasonable and acceptable answer.
But knowing all what he experienced and the words he said, he couldn’t persuade us, or even himself, that it is the true answer.
We all know what would shatter the most iron-hearted detective into pieces inside, and what would drive the ever composed and unfazed Sherlock Holmes into total insanity and bloodthirst.
maybe it’s just my personal headcanon, but one thing i absolutely love about holmes/watson is that they don’t have the kind of relationship that wastes honey and sugar. they’re not always happy simply because they love each other, because they both understand well that love sometimes isn’t enough. they argue. sometimes they have the kind of major argument where they raise their voices and end up walking away from each other because they need time and space to think, and they’re not the kind of couple that can’t stand for a second to be apart, neither one apologizes immediately afterwards. instead, they take the time (in solitude) to try to understand the other to then offer apologies that are not of the “i’m apologizing because i made you feel bad and that made me feel bad/i don’t like that you’re mad at me” but a “i apologize because i didn’t understand at the time what made you feel bad, and now i do.”
