by Josef Steiff
And having finally confronted the guilty man, Captain Croker, Holmes gives him a trick question, which the forthright Captain answers with a splendid display of chivalrous honor. Holmes decides to let him off because he’s a decent fellow at heart:
“I was only testing you, and you ring true every time. Well, it is a great responsibility that I take upon myself, but I have given Hopkins an excellent hint and if he can’t avail himself of it I can do no more. See here, Captain Croker, we’ll do this in due form of law. You are the prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty, my lord,” said I.
“Vox populi, vox dei. You are acquitted, Captain Croker. So long as the law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. Come back to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us in the judgement which we have pronounced this night!”
This exchange brings out very clearly an invariable feature of Holmes’s transgressions of the law: when Holmes breaks the law, Watson always agrees with him, Conan Doyle always agrees with him, the reader always agrees with him, and no doubt Lestrade, Gregson, Athelney Jones, Hopkins, and the rest would always agree with him, if only they were not bound by their professional code.
Probably Holmes’s most dubious occasion for letting the criminal go free is in “The Adventure of the Three Gables.” Holmes tells the femme fatale Isadora Klein “I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.” Her own story shows that she was desperate, but still reveals her as ruthless and inclined to employ brutal methods.
“Well, well,” says Holmes, after hearing her side of it. “I suppose I shall have to compound a felony as usual.” He lets Klein off, only demanding a check for five thousand pounds, which he will pass on to Mrs. Maberley, the mother of Klein’s latest victim, so that Mrs. Maberley can take the round the world trip she has always yearned for. Here we see Mr. Justice Holmes holding his own court, evidently one guided more by principles of restitution than retribution—or more likely, by the Victorian gentleman’s acute sense of gallantry when confronted by a pretty ankle.
An Eye for an Eye
Very often the criminals have their own sense of justice, which, like Holmes’s, may contradict the law of the land. In A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, and several of the short stories, the criminals defend their actions by reference to a code of justice which is at variance with the law.
At their most sympathetic, the criminal’s motivation is revenge, or personal retribution for past wrongs. John Sholto, the murder victim in The Sign of the Four, had once committed a horribly treacherous act that partly motivates Jonathan Small’s later revenge.
The most dramatic case of justified revenge is the motivation of Jefferson Hope in A Study in Scarlet. Hope remarks to Holmes and Lestrade: “You may consider me to be a murderer, but I hold that I am just as much an officer of justice as you are.”
In deference to his own sense of retributive justice, Jefferson Hope doesn’t simply kill Drebber and Stangerson, but makes them choose one of two pills, one poisoned, the other harmless. And so God, not Hope, decides who dies. “Let the high God judge between us. Choose and eat.”
Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson, the two victims, were actually the perpetrators of murder and oppression in Jefferson Hope’s Mormon past. As Hope states: “I knew of their guilt, . . . and I determined that I should be judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one.”
Holmes must understand this, because he too is often judge, jury, and executioner.
Chapter 10
The Game Has Virtually Stumbled
Tom Dowd
I can’t be Sherlock Holmes. And I’m somewhat annoyed by that.
Well, obviously I can never really be any fictional character in the truest sense, short of a full schizophrenic break (They Might Be Giants, anyone?). The best I can hope for is to settle into a comfortable chair with a good book or television show—or do similarly in a darkened movie theater—and in a figurative or literal sense watch the experiences of a fictional character and be engaged.
But I’m not that character. I’m an observer, not a participant The story, the plot, and the actions of the people on the screen or on the page are all predetermined. Yes, in some circumstances, I can pause, rewind or fast-forward, but that actually changes nothing. The only control I really have is to watch or not to watch, which only affects me, not the narrative I was experiencing before I disgustedly stabbed that red button on my remote. I detach, but somewhere else the story goes on.
But can’t I be the master of disguise, too? Well, no. I can choose my favorite incarnation of Sherlock Holmes and garb myself up in his likeness—classical Paget, cinematic Rathbone, televised Brett, contemporary Cumberbatch, or a multitude of other manifestations—but that’s the best I can do. The costume remains a costume, and the self that I am doesn’t change because of it. In a sympathetic company or environment others may play along, but in the end I am I and not he.
In my imagination, of course, I can be whoever I want.
Interpreting the Facts
When we act as the passive observer of a narrative while reading or viewing we’re (hopefully) carried along. We may attempt to interact sometimes by inappropriately shouting commands (“No, you idiot! Don’t open the door!”), but for the most part we’re strapped into the roller-coaster and along for the ride. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s idea of flow—single-minded immersion that brings about a loss of self-consciousness and a distorted sense of time—is in full control.
When we’re the observer, we identify with the characters in the narrative before us, perhaps even sympathize or go so far as to empathize, but we do not project ourselves onto them right then and there. That comes later, in our after-the-fact minds, when we place ourselves into the role of the character, seeing what they’ve seen, saying what they’ve said, doing what they do, with our own spin. We reproduce our interpretation of the story or events in our imagination and adjust things to our liking.
And when I’m out and about with friends, I can act the part and quote and misquote with dramatic abandon. With a wry smile I can scan once-over my good friend—or if I’m feeling daring—the pretty young thing at the bar—and spin them some yarn about what I can deduce from looking at them . . . more than enough to hang myself with, unless I am very, very good or somehow already in the know (which works best, trust me).
Alternatively, leaning back, I can imagine myself as Sherlock Holmes. The textures and sounds (and heaven help me, the smells . . .) of Victoria’s London roll out before me in my mind. I can place myself there, in Holmes’s shoes, and be the Great Detective as I wish him to be. All of the pieces are mine to control—the plot, the characters, the setting, all respond to my machinations. I notice the pale scuff mark, deduce adultery with the handsome cab driver, and of course I’m right. Of course.
We’re back to immersion again, yes? It is a sensation we’re all familiar with from a good book, or movie, or game. We speak about becoming lost in a good book, and everyone relates. We become lost because the world conjured up on the page or by the image on the screen envelopes us and we settle into it willingly. It surrounds us, and because we believe enough in that world we can imagine peaking around the corner and being satisfied with what we find there.
Lost in Reality
Marie-Laure Ryan looks into the question of narrative and immersion in her book Narrative as Virtual Reality, but flips the usual direction of the analytical lens and looks at prior narrative art (among other things) in the context of virtual reality, primarily in the contexts of immersion and interactivity. This expression of “virtual reality” occurs entirely within the mind and it is the place that a good successful narrative takes us. It’s that place we become lost within. Ryan argues that this has always been the case and that
any type of art has the ability to transport us to a “virtual reality” that is defined by what we can see in the art and what we can imagine as lurking around the corner.
One of the clear successes of the Conan Doyle stories is the ability to conjure up that reality. It’s a simplified evocation of the actual time and place of Victorian London, certainly, but in many ways it lives and breathes. That is what we draw from when we imagine ourselves as Holmes . . . but it’s difficult to sustain (again, short of that full schizophrenic break). We can generate moments of satisfaction as both mental author and character, but it is only fleetingly satisfactory and difficult to maintain for a prolonged time.
A curious part of the problem is that there is no challenge. The pale scuff mark leads to adultery every time because I choose that it does, and therefore I’m right, every time. The game is not afoot; it is in fact quite rigged. For some that may be enough, but . . .
Where can I be Sherlock Holmes with the requisite challenges to overcome?
In a video game, or interactive narrative, of course.
But there’s a catch . . .
Realization Hits
In interactive narrative (which video games are a kind of) the concept of agency refers to, using Janet Murray’s explanation from Hamlet on the Holodeck:
The more realized the immersive environment, the more active we want to be within it. When the things we do bring tangible results, we experience the second characteristic delight of electronic environments—the sense of agency. Agency is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices.
Agency has become a powerful term in discussion of virtual reality and interactive narrative. Regardless of the term employed, this sense of being able to take a meaningful action and observe the result of that action is critical to interactivity. That, coupled with Donald Norman’s concept of “perceived affordance,” or those possible actions the user perceives as achievable within his or her current environment, are the foundations for the interactive part of interactive narrative.
Affordance, however, is perceptual—it is not just all possible uses or actions, but those deemed most likely within the user’s personal context. (There’s that self again.)
Agency and affordance are both tools and goals of the author of a piece of interactive narrative. A significant point of interactive narrative is the sense of participation, that interaction allows the user to create a new narrative by changing the sequence of events (plot) or the emotional, contextual underpinnings (story).
Traditional narrative devices, such as books, film, or television, are examples of linear narrative, where the order of events in the plot or story play out in chronological order, some use of flashbacks notwithstanding. Works of nonlinear narrative, such as the movies Memento or Pulp Fiction, or the TV series Lost, use non-chronological storytelling as their primary structure. Very often, games are referred to as having a nonlinear narrative and although a few may have, most have a story expressed in as linear a manner as any movie or television show. Games, especially story-driven games, often have nonlinear gameplay, which means that the player can travel through the world using any route he chooses and undertake various subplots in nearly any order, though the main story remains nearly linear.
So what does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes and my not being able to be him?
Run, Jump, Shoot, Screw . . . but Don’t Think
Interactive narratives, and especially video games, do a great job at providing agency and affordance for certain acts. I can shoot a gun like a Black Ops sniper, skip across the rooftops of Venice as a highly-trained assassin, take a tight corner at Le Mans as a pro racer, or even hop, skip and bounce my way across the world grabbing gold rings as a blue-haired hedgehog. Games provide mechanisms that allow a new set of affordances and a different sense of agency from that which I have in real life. I am not expected to be able to ride a horse like an Old West outlaw seeking vengeance in real life in order to be just that in Red Dawn Redemption. Nor am I expected to have the smooth moves required to get me some sweet inter-species lovin’, like in Mass Effect.
Video games, however, fall back to the abilities of the player when it comes to reasoning. Many games, especially role-playing games, give characters sets of knowledge skills that come into use during the game, but these are most often simple indicators that determine if the character can or cannot perform a physical, intellectual, or knowledge task. For example, in Fallout 3 the Science skill is used to determine if the player can or cannot fix a broken robot. I don’t need to know how to fix the robot; the game mechanic handles it for me.
Abstract reasoning—deduction—is entirely up to me. And I am, therefore, screwed.
The Art of Deduction
I can’t ever satisfactorily play Sherlock Holmes because my brain doesn’t work like his does, and video games provide no mechanisms to assist me. To date, there have been dozens of various forms of computer game adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, the oldest in 1984. Many of them have been casual hidden object or simple puzzle-solving games, but a number have been story-driven adventure game attempts to portray Sherlock Holmes with a truly interactive structure. While all of these have had nonlinear gameplay, at least to some limited extent, none have had a truly interactive story where the outcome varies based on the player’s actions.
That said, they have all attempted to create the Sherlock Holmes experience with varying degrees of success. They’ve all, however, avoided requiring real deductive reasoning to resolve the story. The puzzle or problem solving in games like Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo, or the more recent Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis is primarily there as an obstruction to physical progress (solve the puzzle to open the secret passage) or plot progression (solve the puzzle to trigger the story-advancing movie segment).
The most recent release, Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper (2009), introduces the concept of a “Deduction Board” where the player can organize clues (objects and observations obtained at a crime scene), literally form links between them and then draw conclusions based on those links. The system does help the player out by allowing him to connect strings of clues, but ultimately he can reach the conclusions by simply finding everything and arranging and rearranging until successful. It’s a step in a better direction, but ultimately there’s no true deductive reasoning in that it helps the player follow the clue trail a little easier, but it does not allow the intuitive leaps that Holmes is best known for. It’s not truly abstract and deductive reasoning, but maybe, though, that’s for the best.
Screenshot from Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper (C) 2009 Frogwares
In many Sherlock Holmes video games while Holmes is the primary character, when it comes time to figure out the clues the burden shifts to Watson—standing in for the player—and Holmes confirms or refutes the conclusions, which he has already reached. Some of the games shift control between the two depending on where matters are in the investigation.
If Not Holmes, then Watson?
Aha! I’m Doctor John Watson.
Well, no, I’m not him either, but in the Conan Doyle stories I am somewhat.
Conan Doyle uses Watson as the source of the first-person narrative perspective in the Holmes tales. We see through Watson’s eyes as he recounts Holmes’s adventures. In addition to the choice being a dramatic literary one, it’s a practical one as well: By putting us in Watson’s head as the narrator Conan Doyle doesn’t have to put us in Holmes’s.
For Conan Doyle as a writer, it must have been hard enough to work up the chain of clues that leads Holmes to his brilliant conclusions, but to put the reader in Holmes’s head while it runs through all of the possible permutations of what lies before him would have been painful for both reader and author alike. Fortunately, he chose Watson and spared us all, and himself, that madness.
The presence of a Watson-like figure is standard in any fiction where anothe
r character is smarter or has more knowledge or expertise than the other characters. Often this is the protagonist (as in the Holmes’s stories) but not always. The smarter character has to have some reason to verbalize his conclusions or intentions, and the presence of the not-quite-as-smart characters provides exactly that. Sometimes the verbalization involves the process prior to reaching a conclusion, or the reverse order where the conclusion is expressed and then by way of explanation the process that achieved it. (Gil Grissom from the CBS Television’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation often has to explain himself in this manner, as does Gregory House in the thinly disguised translation of Holmes to the world of diagnostic medicine in the Fox television series House.)
Occasionally, efforts have been made to put us in the head of the genius; the most recent relevant example comes from the 2010 contemporary update of Sherlock Holmes, the BBC Sherlock TV series. In that series, predominantly in the first episode “A Study in Pink,” floating text is used to show what Holmes notices. The audience sees the clues, but then has to wait for Holmes to pronounce the startling conclusion. It’s an interesting technique that is used to a lesser degree in later episodes in part, I suspect, because it just duplicates information that Holmes himself relates when he explains his conclusions to those around him.
Frame from Sherlock “A Study in Pink” © 2010 2 entertain Video Limited