Sherlock Character Studies

Back in January of 2012, shortly after the airing of Series 2, I wrote a series of short character studies on an assortment of characters from Sherlock.

In the case of many of these, my opinion has shifted, refined, and changed in a variety ways. In the case of some, I still bear the same opinion, but well...the show became what it became.

In either case, rather than crosspost these posts yet again, I'm going to collect them here with their original post dates, the Tumblr link, and the Wordpress link, in case anyone wants to read them, though again, they're not great, and one in particular is like....I would reword like 99% of what I was trying to say.

Anyway, here they are:

• Irene Adler [originally posted 3 January 2012]; Tumblr link; Wordpress link
• John Watson [originally posted 4 January 2012]; Tumblr link; Wordpress link
• Molly Hooper [originally posted 6 January 2012]; Tumblr link; Wordpress link
• Mycroft Holmes [originally posted 13 January 2012]; Tumblr link; Wordpress link

There had been ones in the works for Sherlock Holmes, Jim Moriarty, Greg Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, but they ended up not happening in part due to some rather...alarming things going on in my life. Also an honours thesis I needed to revise and cast. C'est la vie.

On the Sexuality of Peter Guillam

[Originally posted to Tumblr on 2 October 2012, then cross-posted to Wordpress on 12 November 2012]

Warning!: This response contains some spoilers for Peter Guillam’s character in both the film and novel versions of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

 

Anonymous asked:

Hello Monte! I was curious as to what you thought of the portrayal as Guillam as a homosexual in the TTSS movie. It is a pretty significant departure from the book, and I was curious for your thoughts. Why do you think it was portrayed thus in the movie? Was it effective? Which portrayal, homosexual or heterosexual, do you think works best for Guillam’s character? Thanks!
 

While it is, generally speaking, a pretty significant departure from the book, and I confess to having been initially sceptical for a number of reasons, the vast majority of my feelings towards this aspect of Peter Guillam’s portrayal in the film are entirely positive for a number of reasons.

As I mentioned before, I was initially sceptical about the switch in Peter’s perceived sexual orientation. This was for several reasons, the biggest of which being that I wanted to know if there would be a point to it - was there a reason, or was it going to be a throw-away trait? Another was that honestly, I felt that it would be a better call to play the character as bisexual, both because I felt it was more logical in regards to the character as well as because honestly there’s a massive lack of well-done bisexual characters in film (that said, we do have Bill, and he is absolutely lovely).

Read the Rest Here!

 

What’s in a Name? Worknames in John Le Carré’s Karla Trilogy

 [Originally posted to Tumblr on 2 November 2012, then cross-posted to Wordpress on 11 November 2012]

Warning!: This article contains major plot spoilers for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and mild spoilers for The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People. If you wish to remain unspoiled, then I advise that you skip this article.

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John Le Carré’s work is known, perhaps more than anything, for the way in which details are used to tell the story contained within the novel - no detail is wasted, and nearly everything, no matter how obscure, goes towards the end of giving the reader insight into the story, or the characters who reside within it. One such detail is the use of what is known within the Circus as the workname. Within Le Carré’s work, and specifically in this instance, within the Karla Trilogy (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley’s People), the Circus tradition of the workname provides a double function, both in the sense that the workname conveys information about the agent who bears it and in the sense that there is a very deliberate order and reasoning to which worknames the reader learns and when they learn them.

In order to understand Le Carré’s use of worknames as a device within his novels, it is essential that the reader understand the operational function of the workname. While it is easy to conflate an agent’s workname with an alias, what evidence can be pulled from the novels suggests that they are similar but not at all synonymous. Unlike an alias, which may be used in any number of ways (and any given agent may have a large number of them), the workname has a small number of prescribed uses. The first of these, as seen in all three novels, is for the sake of record-keeping. The Circus keeps an extensive database of worknames associated agents both in-action and retired (Smiley’s People 62), and when an agent is mentioned in files, reports, and other such documents, they are commonly referred to by their workname (Tinker, Tailor 78, 90). In addition, an agent will generally - in the field at least, use their workname with other agents, particularly if there is a fear of wire-tapping or other forms of surveillance (The Honourable Schoolboy 518). However, with more casual informants, the agent will generally use an alias rather than their workname, which is more closely guarded.

Read the Rest Here!

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust the Actor

[Originally posted to Tumblr on 2 March 2013, and then crossposted to Wordpress the same day] 

I feel like the first thing I should do when writing this little editorial is to apologise to the majority of you who have mentioned being eager to read it, as it’s going to be less analytical than a personal reflection on the nature of the relationship between an actor and the character they play, and what that means in relation to writing.

Read the Rest Here!

How colourful costuming in ‘Les Misérables’ brings the Barricade Boys to life

 [Originally written for the site Stage Door Dish, and posted on 20 March 2013; later cross-posted via link to Wordpress 21 August 2013 and eventually completely reposted on Wordpress in November 2018]

Both on stage and in film, there are three fundamental things which can either establish a character as memorable for the audience or leave them in obscurity. The first two of these are writing and acting, which often end up going hand in hand, but the third, costuming, is arguably just as important. It is costuming, in combination with acting and writing, which in the recent film adaptation of The Hobbit, created thirteen distinct characters from what could have been a shapeless mass of dwarves. In this same way, the costume designers for Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Les Misérables were able to create distinct looks for each of the barricade boys, and as a result, even new fans can distinguish them from one another and develop ideas about them based on how their personalities are expressed in things as subtle as the colour schemes of their clothing. How did they do this? Let’s take a look!

Read the Rest Here!

On Feuilly and Combeferre at the Barricade

[Tiny meta originally posted on Tumblr 8 May 2013, but that I wanted to preserve] 

So the other day, there was a quote going around, but because it was Feuilly appreciation day, it didn’t feel right to use the quote to talk about Combeferre, so I’ve waited until now to do it. It’s not much, just some thoughts I was having at the time.

“Does anybody understand these men,” exclaimed Feuilly bitterly, (and he cited the names, well-known names, famous even, some of the old army) “who promised to join us, and took an oath to help us, and who were bound to it in honor, and who are our generals, and who abandon us!”

And Combeferre simply answered with a grave smile, “There are people who observe the rules of honor as we observe the stars, from far off.”

-Les Miserables, “The Heroes.”

 

On the one hand, Feuilly’s bitter disappointment in this quote is absolutely heartbreaking because he believed in the men whose names he rattles off - he believed that they’d help and it’s utterly foreign to him, the notion that they would do something as utterly dishonourable as to abandon them in their time of need.

On the other, it’s Combeferre’s response that kills me. Because everything about Combeferre’s response - the “grave smile,” the simplicity of his answer, the way that he answers a very complex question with a response that doesn’t begin to cover the same ground - it all points to one thing.

Combeferre knew.

Combeferre has his share of idealism, true, but he is also practical and understands people better than Enjolras does, and so Combeferre knew that those men, even as they vowed to aid them, had no intention of following through when the time came. While Enjolras fully believed that they would not be fighting alone, Combeferre knew that the odds were that they might be, but he hoped that they wouldn’t, and it was his hope for humanity, for the fact that they might not fight alone, that kept him there.

So while Feuilly is disappointed and betrayed, Combeferre is merely grave and unsurprised, because he knew all along that they would be alone, and something about that sort of breaks my heart a bit.

A Strategic 1-2 Punch: Thoughts on Kaiju Biology and the Otachi-Leatherback Double Event

 [Originally posted to Tumblr on 7 August 2013, then cross-posted to Wordpress the same day]

[Note: The following meta is the product of me thinking entirely too much about watching Pacific Rim and Kaiju biology. Most of this is speculation on my part, and may be disproved by information that I don’t currently have access to, so if you know something that I don’t know then by all means, do tell shoot me a message or something of that nature. Anyway, here goes nothing.]

The easiest way for me to start this is by examining briefly what we do know about Kaiju biology. We know, for instance, via Newt’s initial drift with the damaged Kaiju brain, that Kaijus – at least the ones that leave the Breach – share a collective consciousness, a sort of hivemind. Through the same drift, we also know that the Kaijus that leave the Breach are all clones, sharing the same genetic material despite displaying wildly different shapes and adaptations.

Lastly, we also know that Kaijus have two brains, the latter of the two being the secondary brain, the location of which Newt indicates by referencing the popular myth of the “dinosaur’s second brain” (it is pretty safe to assume that Newt knows that the dinosaurs did not have an actual second brain, but given the continued popularity of the myth today, it makes a good reference point to explain the location of a piece of Kaiju biology to a layperson).

Now what’s really cool to me, is the implications of some of these facts when paired with other things that we see in the film.

Read the Rest Here!

Uneasy Animals: The Wolf as Criminal in ‘Les Misérables’

 [Originally posted to Tumblr on 3 September 2013, and cross-posted to Wordpress on the same day.]

“All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel. …Think about it. There’s escaping from the wolves, fighting the wolves, capturing the wolves, taming the wolves. Being thrown to the wolves, or throwing others to the wolves so the wolves will eat them instead of you. Running with the wolf pack. Turning into a wolf. Best of all, turning into the head wolf. No other decent stories exist.”

–Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin.

 

The wolf, like any number of animals frequently used as symbols, is one that can be imbued with a number of meanings, many of them contradictory. It is perhaps this versatility that makes wolves and wolf imagery so popular in literature, film, and music, indicating both aloneness and pack mentality, sexuality and transformation, responsibility and wilderness, and any number of other things. As a result, it is no surprise that Victor Hugo not only makes use of at least one possible interpretation of wolf imagery throughout Les Misérables, but uses that interpretation in a number of different ways and in association with a broad range of characters.

The most consistent use of wolf imagery in Les Misérables is in relation to criminal activity, with references to “furtive goings and comings, silent entrances and exits of nocturnal men, and the wolf-like tread of crime” (5.3.8). Most often Hugo’s use of wolf imagery extends to the notion of criminality in regards to several of the characters found in the novel, from Bamatabois’ wolf-like gait as he creeps up on Fantine (1.5.12) to Montparnasse’s demeanour upon being caught by Valjean, which is described as being “the humiliated and furious attitude of the wolf who has been caught by a sheep” (4.4.2). This imagery extends from these minor characters to a sizeable number of major players in the novel, who all exist in various shades of grey morally but who are all, in some way, linked together through imagery and contact with one another.


Read the Rest Here!

Work in Progress

Right, so I think that's it for the cross-posting.

Sorry things were a complete mess for a while but I think we're ready to get off the ground now!