Anyone else been Sherlocked (BBC Sherlocked)

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I've been Sherlocked. So sexy and beautiful and cool!

Some posters last year were offended by the portrayal of BBCs Sherlock, as they thought some might see him an Aspie but clouded by Sherlock actually defining himself as a soci0path. He's a complex fictional character. The writers never say he is an Aspie, but some people worried last year about it linking Aspies and sociopaths.

Is he a combination of AS + Sociopath? Could that look like BBCs Sherlock? I kept thinking how come I like him? I don't like people who lack compassion (well he cares for Mrs Hudson but is stone cold brutal when he throws the CIA man out the window). I don't get why I like him. He is portrayed as a massive enigmatic hero, but if he is a sociopath?

I haven't forgotten that he is a fictional character, but how would ASD plus sociopath traits combine and shape each other? Sorry the subject had been discussed ad infinitum, but I still just wondered if Sherlock is that combination.
Whatever he is dead sexy. I'm usually really really turned off by any violence in films/TV. I laughed as the CIA agent hit the bins and when Watson punched Holmes.

I AM ____ LOCKED

I've been waiting about three months for the new episode and devoted the entirety of yesterday to Sherlock-related things. I do not think there is a word for how much I love the show.

I think that Sherlock is just a really f***ing intelligent sociopath, and the combination makes him able to apply logic to the idea of emotion, resulting in his apathy, but that's my opinion. There isn't really any evidence for him having AS, but then again, there isn't much evidence against it either.

"I always hear 'punch me in the face' when you're speaking, but it's usually subtext." John Watson, I love you.

Yep. I've got the first season on DVD, and earlier today I watched the first episode of the new season and reviewed it. So silly that they make people in America wait until May for it to be broadcast. I was able to find it pretty easily online.

Anyway, I've seen roughly 50 Sherlock Holmes movies and God knows how many episodes of the various TV shows, and of all the many portrayals I've seen, Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes is the most Aspie. His, Jeremy Brett's and Robert Downey's are the only ones who I think would get a diagnosis. Many people on these forums have claimed that the Holmes of the books is an Aspie, but having read them more times than you would believe, I can't agree. He has a few traits but would never get a diagnosis.

Cumberbatch's Holmes describes himself as a sociopath in one episode, but as Moriarty correctly points out, Holmes does in fact have a heart. He seems to be making a conscious decision not to care about the emotions of others, which disqualifies him as a true sociopath, and in the new episode, he gets quite visibly upset when Mrs. Hudson is mistreated.

Conclusion: Aspie probably, sociopath no.

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Television, Film, and Video]

Obsessive, wrapped-up in his own thoughts when in the company of others, logical not emotional, these are Aspie traits. I've not read the books so I don't know about the violent side of the character depicted here. I have violent thoughts when v. depressed, but have never acted on them. (Asperger‘s leading to depression/ anger). But as for empathy, I think it's something that can be mimicked from NT's, plus I don't think Aspies completetly lack empathy, those kind of emotions are buried under many layers, perhaps as a self-defence mechanism against bullying, not fitting in (without knowing why) and general mistrust of people.
I have trouble concentrating on films, etc…but I thought BC was excellent in the role, many Aspie traits, where-as the Downey Jnr version plays on the eccentricity thing for laughs.
It’s a ficticious character of course, but it does tempt the question: Did the author lend some of his own personality to the character? They say ‘write what you know’ after all.

The Downey films don't play everything for laughs. Holmes experiences sensory overload (and calls it a "curse") and his miserable social skills strain his relationship with Watson and get him off on the wrong foot with Watson's wife.



There was a lot of Arthur Conan Doyle in Sherlock Holmes, but there were just as many differences as similarities. Holmes was fiercely logical and had nothing but contempt for belief in the supernatural, while Doyle was a firm believer in the spiritual world. Holmes also criticized other fictional detectives like C. Auguste Dupin, while Doyle in fact had nothing but respect for Edgar Allan Poe's detective. Even if the Holmes of the book was an Aspie – and, as I've already said, I don't think he is – Doyle certainly wasn't. Based on everything I've read about him, he was quite a likable and social man.

Jory, I bow to your knowledge on Sherlock/ Conan Doyle. But I had been struck by the Aspie nature of the Holmes' character, it's more from the perspective of pre-diagnosis Aspergers, and those who may have either had it, or perhaps in this case, witnessed it in others. Maybe the character was a mixture of Conan Doyle and someone he knew?

That's pretty close to the truth. He got the character's deductive skills from his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell, who could diagnose his patients before they even spoke a word to him. Patients would walk into his office and he would tell them where they had recently been, how many siblings they had, etc. Doyle took this and mixed it with elements of his own personality, and made up the rest.

I don't deny that the Holmes of the books has some Aspie traits, because he certainly does. I just don't think he would ever get a diagnosis if he visited a psychologist today, because on the list of the most common Aspie traits, there are just as many that don't apply to him as those that do. Brett, Downey, and Cumberbatch, on the other hand, are more obviously Aspie.

One of these days i'll seek the books out.
Get a taste of the original Holmes.

Please do. They're great. But obviously I'm biased. You can read them all online, but if you want to buy actual books, you can find paperbacks of the original 60 stories pretty cheap. Just go to Amazon and search for Complete Sherlock Holmes.

He seemed more based on Gene Wilder´s taken on Willy Wonka than Sherlock Holmes. The stereotyped "slightly crazy genius". If it weren´t for all the gunfire and explosions I would have fallen asleep.
Which brings up another thought - wasn´t A Game of Shadows pretty much like Lethal Weapon set in the late 19th century? And why turn Sherlock Holmes into an action hero, is it not enough he´s got smarts? If I remeber the books correctly he never carried a gun himself, instead he always asked Watson to bring his when needed.

This might not be the right place to post this but has anyone read/seen Death Note? It also has a character who´s a detective that has many AS traits, although it´s got very little in common with Sherlock Holmes.
It started as a manga, was adapted to an anime and finally adapted into a live-action movie. So you can pick your own choice of medium.

Funny, I recently described the Downey films to someone by saying that they combine Doyle's Holmes with Batman and Lethal Weapon.



Holmes did, in fact, often carry a gun himself. To give just a couple of examples, he shot to death one of his enemies in The Sign of Four and he greeted the antagonist of The Dancing Men by putting a gun against his head. He's also an expert boxer, martial artist, and stick fighter in the books. The Downey films certainly amplify and increase the action, but it does have a basis in Doyle's stories. A lot of the action in the books takes place "off-screen," so to speak, but it's not very interesting to have Holmes in a film simply mention to Watson that he just used his boxing skills to kick someone's ass, so the movies take the off-screen action and put it on-screen.

I don't really understand the complaints about the Downey films throwing more action into the mix. It's no more disrespectful to the source material than the Basil Rathbone films turning Holmes into a spy working against the Nazis, or Young Sherlock Holmes for turning him into Indiana Jones. I can tell you from watching over 50 Holmes films that adapting the stories exactly as they're written without adding at least a little action usually results in quite a dull show. What seems exciting on the page can be boring as sin on the screen. As long as they keep the brilliant deductions, I'm not likely to complain.

Last edited by Jory on 03 Jan 2012, 4:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Asperger's and sociopathy are more linked than many people on here are comfortable admitting. I can go into more detail on this if anyone is interested, but a lot of the traits are common between the two conditions, they just come out in different ways.

As for the show itself, it's utterly excellent. Amazing piece of television.

I can only speak for myself, but nine times out of ten, whenever I come across to someone as uncaring, it's a result of either my obliviousness to their emotions or my inability to express sympathy, rather than simply not feeling it. As for Cumberbatch's Holmes, I still say he's not a sociopath. He's concerned whenever Watson or Mrs. Hudson are put in harm's way, he's genuinely contrite when he realizes that he's upset someone, and in the latest episode, he's concerned enough with Irene's well-being that he goes through the trouble to save her life and he seems disturbed by Mycroft's cold demeanor. Not exactly sociopathic behavior.

Indeed, I thought this as well. But they do say he's a high-functioning sociopath, which I assume allows wiggle room for some sort of emotion for people close to him.

Another thing to remember is that, as a TV show which must appeal to viewers, it has to have an emotional element to it. Fiction must appeal to its audience on some sort of emotional level to keep them interested. So Moffat and Gatiss had to break some of the technical rules about the condition to make it a good show.