User:ATS/Essay:Spock and Sherlock Holmes
The following is a user essay and is not intended for use beyond this space. This essay is a continuation of Talk:Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country#Spock and Sherlock Holmes.
| “ | An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. | ” |
| — Spock, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country | ||
Because I am a longtime fan of Star Trek and Spock, and to a lesser extent Sherlock Holmes, and because I find this subject fascinating (sorry), I chose to spend US$11 and purchase Luke Skywalker Can't Read by Ryan Britt. This book contains the essay, "Baker Streets on Infinite Earths: Sherlock Holmes as the Eternal Sci-Fi Superhero".
Within the Kindle edition on page 82, Britt writes that he spoke "extensively" on the subject with Holmes author and ST6 director/screenwriter Nicholas Meyer, who told Britt that the link between Spock and Holmes was already obvious. "I just sort of made it official."
Britt, however, writes on page 83 that it's "more than just a link":
... Spock is half human on his mother's side, meaning Sherlock Holmes could actually be his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. And when I needled Meyer to tell me who Spock's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother was, he said that it was, "of course, Irene Adler."
AHA!, you say. There's the proof.
Not so fast, counter I.
Though she's mentioned elsewhere, Adler's appearance is limited to "A Scandal in Bohemia", which includes:
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.
Further, in his Sherlock Holmes Handbook, author Christopher Redmond writes:
… the Canon provides little basis for either sentimental or prurient speculation about a Holmes-Adler connection.
In short, while other authors would later posit an affair between Adler (who is married in at least one such work) and Holmes, none exists within canon—though it is worthy of note that just because something is not recorded does not mean it didn't happen.
Meanwhile, back to Britt and Meyer, whose statement about Adler goes well beyond face value. Britt writes that he had to "needle" Meyer for an answer, which means none was forthcoming—specifically with respect to Holmes. If Meyer was asked the question directly, he clearly refused to answer (Britt writes, "could [be an ancestor]"), which makes perfect sense: I've watched numerous interviews with Meyer, and he is very much the type to push you to seek the answers your own damned self. Britt adds:
What's fun about [the notion of relation] is that it posits the original Star Trek in the same fictional universe … which is a kind of variation on what Sherlock Holmes fans have been doing for almost a century—playing the great "game", in which everyone pretends Sherlock Holmes is a real person, and that [Doyle] was just Dr. John Watson's literary agent.
(Indeed, Meyer was in on that joke: the dust jacket for his 1974 novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution includes, "by John H. Watson, M.D., edited by Nicholas Meyer.")
And yet, there's the rub (sorry). Britt then goes on to destroy the 'great game' on page 85:
Sadly, if you take Star Trek: The Next Generation as being part of the same canon … then Sherlock Holmes goes right back to being a fictional character [as impersonated, twice, by Data].
But, and with apologies to Britt, this too falls. While Picard tells Data in "Lonely Among Us" that the work of a consulting detective such as Holmes is likely not interesting "in the world of fact," it would be so "in literature"—defined by Oxford as written works, particularly those of lasting value, and not as "fiction". Riker then notes that they have their own mystery to solve, "without history's greatest consulting detective." In "Elementary, Dear Data", while Geordi LaForge and Data further treat Holmes as if real—positively giddy, for example, over the trinkets Sherlock has collected, and why he has done—the episode then creates a very specific dichotomy by referring to Professor James Moriarty as Doyle's creation, a fictional character. This is acknowledged by Moriarty himself in the episode "Ship in a Bottle".
The 'great game' is afoot!
Britt concludes:
Explaining life as we know it, or might one day live it, is certainly the task of all good science fiction. Similarly, the stories and enduring character of Sherlock Holmes provide a lens through which the human experience can be occasionally deduced or explained.
My conclusion: within Star Trek canon, Amanda Grayson and, therefore, her son Spock are unquestionably descended from Irene Adler—because Meyer said so. But who impregnated her? There are possibilities we cannot rule out—indeed, what eliminates Adler herself as the "ancestor of mine"?—and, as such, we cannot without further evidence deduce what "must be the truth"—and synthesis is not suitable to be stated as fact within an encyclopaedia.
Addendum 1: further complicating any romanticised notion that Spock somehow inherited his emotionless, logical persona from the cool, emotionless Holmes bloodline—as opposed to his Vulcan father—is his constant internal fight to contain his own emotions. Indeed, any suggestion of his mother's inheritance falls to the same point, as demonstrated in "Journey to Babel":
Amanda: "Logic. Logic! I'm sick to death of logic. Do you want to know how I feel about your logic?"
Spock: "Emotional, isn't she?"
Sarek: "She has always been that way."
Spock: "Indeed. Why did you marry her?"
Sarek: "At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do."
With that said, both The Animated Series and Discovery—at least one of which is certainly canon—establish Amanda as a doting mother who would read classic literature to her son. (Okay, Lewis Carroll in particular, but, still …) Can we eliminate Spock's mother as that ancestor? Improbable, to be sure. Impossible? No.
Addendum 2: both Meyer and Britt have been kind enough to read and respond to this essay, and both found it entertaining. Because private emails should stay that way, I shall summarise but a few pertinent points:
- Mr. Meyer did not offer anything substantive with respect to the essay subject; of course, I didn't ask anything substantive in my first contact. I have promised him that I will finish at least one of his Holmes novels before I write him again.
- As to any participation in the 'great game' wrt Star Trek, Meyer considers his uniquely extraterrestrial.
- Mr. Britt seemed to come around to my interpretation of the Holmes/Moriarty dichotomy as presented in ST:TNG, and found that it fit well with Meyer's version of canon: that his 1974 novel presented Moriarty not as a living person, but rather as a 'psychological construct' of Holmes'.
- That said, whether the TNG writers intended this dichotomy as such remains a subject for debate.
My sincere thanks to both men for indulging my little attempt at exploring possibilities. 🖖🏻