Okay, I guess, for some, spoilers ahead. Again.
But you may know this already. After a number of adventures with his friend Dr. John Watson fought directly with his most formidable foe, Professor Moriarty. Both went over the Reichenbach Falls. This battle, depicted in "The Final Problem", meant the end of Sherlock Holmes.
Except! Years later, Holmes reentered Watson's life, alive and well, with an explanation of how he'd survived and what he'd been doing in the time since. See "The Empty House." It may have been the first retcon. While there were mythical figures with contradictory stories, it was almost unheard of for a single author to publicly change his depiction of what had happened.*
Arthur Conan Doyle hoped for an august literary career and he intended for Sherlock Holmes to be but a small part of it. That's why he attempted to kill his own creation to begin with. Obviously, he couldn't quite pull it off. Holmes was just too big. Although some speculate that he kept some ambiguity from the outset so that he'd still have his options open. It's a plausible idea.
*At the start of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck says that Twain "stretched some things" in Tom Sawyer, but as far as I can recall nothing in the later book specifically contradicts anything in the earlier one.
2 comments:
Retcon, as a new word for me, appears to be of fairly recent vintage. Mythology definitely has some accounts of gods and goddesses switching roles and narratives but since by definition they're allegories it's acceptible there are differing versions.
I don't know if you're familiar with the website Black Gate but the author published an Arthur Conan Doyle interview originally published in 1881 in which he describes the beginnig of Sherlock Holmes as well as his death at Reichenbach Falls and his reasons for killing the series. He did write other novels during and between the Holmes years, some of which he considered to be far superior, but nobody remembers them now. Since neither Holmes nor Moriarty's bodies were found it would appear the ambiguity was meant to allow a return - even if that wasn't Doyle's intention at the time.
https://www.blackgate.com/2024/04/15/the-public-life-of-sherlock-holmes-a-gaudy-death-doyle-on-holmes/
I remember reading that Ian Fleming killed James Bond at the end of From Russia With Love (by the vile Rosa Klebb) because he was bored with the character. He must have changed his mind since Bond reappeared immediately thereafter in Dr. No.
Maybe it had something to do with whitewashing the fence.
"Retcon" is a fairly new word, yes. It seems to have arisen in fandom circles in the 1980s. The fuller term, "retroactive continuity", has been traced to E. Frank Tupper's 1973 book The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. Pretty heady stuff. Gods and goddesses can be depicted in greatly varying stories, but there probably has been some contention over certain myths.
I think Black Gate may have once had a line in posting syndicated comic strips, unless I'm thinking of another site. Whether Doyle had much regard for the Holmes stories his firsthand account of creating the character is fascinating. His method of writing a serial in a way that it could be read as individual stories was very influential. He may have been unprepared for Holmes's success, which could have something to do with his dissatisfaction.
James Bond quickly became a sensation, and even more so when the movies with Sean Connery started. I can see Ian Fleming getting frustrated with what to do with the character next. Tom Wolfe had a great take on the character:
he appeal of Bond has been explained as the appeal of the lone man who can solve enormously complicated, even world problems through his own bravery and initiative. But Bond is not a lone man at all, of course. He is not the Lone Ranger. He is much easier to identify than that. He is a salaried functionary in a bureaucracy. He is a sport, but a believable one; not a millionaire, but a bureaucrat on expense account. He is not even a high-level bureaucrat. He is an operative. This point is carefully and repeatedly made by having his superiors dress him down for violations of standard operating procedure. Bond, like the Lone Ranger, solves problems with guns and fists. When it is over, however, the Lone Ranger leaves a silver bullet. Bond, like the rest of us, fills out a report in triplicate.
The fence painting chapter is so beautiful you don't want to mess with it.
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