Canon Discussion Post: The Five Orange Pips

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

It's canon discussion time, everybody! What were your impressions of The Five Orange Pips? As always, I've written up a few of my own random thoughts and comments, which are behind the jump. Add your own in the comments!

Note: There is no Granada version of FIVE for us to watch this week, unfortunately.


- You may have noticed the explicit reference to the Sign of the Four, but we haven't read the Sign of the Four yet, and we're reading in order. How is that chronologically possible? We're using Baring-Gould's chronology, which makes a few certain assumptions in order to work. One of them depends upon the fact that the stories that mention SIGN out of order (SCAN, REDH, IDEN, and FIVE) were all published when Watson was married to Mary Morstan. The theory goes that Watson inserted anachronistic references to SIGN to refer the reader's mind to Mary when he referenced his "wife" and so to avoid a constant reminder that he had been married previously to another woman.

- Elias Openshaw drowns in a scummy pool of only two feet of water, and the official jury verdict is suicide. Does that seem likely? As the Sherlockian Benjamin Clark in Baring-Gould's Annotated puts it, "Who, drunk or sober, would ever attempt to end his life by lying face down in a two-feet-deep puddle?"

- "the charming climate of Florida" - I take it Sherlock Holmes has never been to Florida.

- "That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death --!" - Reading in chronological order makes FIVE even more of a gut punch. This is Holmes' first client that dies on his watch, and it deeply affects him. "That hurts my pride," he says, but it certainly seems as if it hurt more than that when he dedicates himself to a personal mission of vengeance against his client's murderers.

- The ending here is very dissatisfying. I wanted to see the Captain get Holmes' pips. I wanted to watch the detective avenge his lost client. We are deprived of all of that, as is the detective. I wonder how he reacted to it. If it is frustrating for a reader, it must have been excruciating for Sherlock Holmes.

Comments

[hisietari.livejournal.com]

We are deprived of all of that, as is the detective.

Either it didn't happen, or - and this makes me a bit giddy - Watson wouldn't write about it in order to keep the dark forces behind the thing in the dark, pretend they were in no danger at all from an international inquiry etc. etc. We frankly don't know where Holmes travelled in all those years, and in how many dark and large, even global businesses he's had his fingers. That's at least how I'd interpret this ending.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Oh, I LOVE this idea. That Watson is covering for Holmes, who really did enact his revenge on John Openshaw's murderers. Oooh, that is fantastic -- and a spectacular story idea!

[hisietari.livejournal.com]

It'd be great if someone felt inclined to write it down. ;)

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I'm totally stealing this idea for my 60. I was really, really stuck, so I'm both sorry and I thank you very much! :-)

[hisietari.livejournal.com]

Don't be sorry, I'm thrilled and very happy to be of service! =D

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Oh good! The idea deserves more than a mere 60, but I'm pleased to have extended it at least a bit. :-)

[debriswoman]

I quite like the idea that not every tale has a neat resolution, it does hint that there may have been more going on than Watson was repared to disclose. I was also struck by the symmetry of the equinoctial gales mentioned at the start and end of the tale, their client battling through them at the start, and the villains battling the gales at the end. Very hard on the remaining Openshaws, though...

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I'm distressingly behind but making an honest effort to catch up tonight. :-) I was also very struck by the bookend gales in this tale. I'm trying to spin that out into my 60 somehow right now. I'm not sure why I'm stuck on this one. It's not all this story's fault as I just moved and that's been working against me as well. Still, this one is a tough sucker.

Sunday, 28 October 2012

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User thisprettywren referenced to your post from Sunday, 28 October 2012 (http://holmesian-news.livejournal.com/245271.html) saying: [...] at (BBC) Canon Discussion Post: The Five Orange Pips [...]

[azriona.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I was really thrown out of the story not because of anything within it, but because of its placement in the chronology. It wasn't just the mention of Four, either - Watson actually says outright that this story takes place in September 1887 - but in the story we just read, Man with the Twisted Lip, he says it's 1889.

And then later on, Sherlock says he's been bested by a woman, who we're obviously meant to assume is Irene Adler in Scandal - but in Scandal, Watson sets the story in March 1888, so the events of that story won't take place for another six months.

I like all the theories for why the Baring-Gould chronology has the stories in this particular order (which all boil down to Watson's obfuscation of various facts)....and perhaps the dates are merely an aid to that end. But they're still driving me up the WALL.

(I have issues with the new BBC casebook for the same reason.)

This is probably just me - I'm too inclined to take what Watson's written at face value! (Well, except for reading Johnlock into everything, anyway!)

Mods, please don't take this as me bashing your choice of chronology. You guys are awesome and even in my rantiness I'm having a ball. I apologize if this is someone's favorite and I absolutely do not mean to rain on your parade or force you into defending it! I'm probably the only person out there who places this much emphasis on getting timelines correct and goes this nuts when things are out of order....

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one who has difficulties with this timeline. To me it seems as if Baring-Gould is doing what Holmes would have objected to, namely making the facts fit his theory.

My own pet theory is that there were a number of Dr John Watsons, for which I have written a short fic.

However, as you say, whatever the chronological problems, I am enjoying reading and writing 60 words each work.

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

No, you're not the only one feeling weirded out by the chronological inconsistencies. Every time I catch something odd, it's disconcerting to me too.

This was always going to be a problem though. When we decided upon a chronological track through the canon this time, inconsistencies and contradictions were inevitable -- the canon simply does not work purely chronologically. Many cases don't mention dates at all, and those that do are often contradictory and nonsensical. No matter what system we went with, it was going to be a problem.

I ended up choosing Baring-Gould because it's a long-established chronology that many Sherlock Holmes readers already know about. It happens to also be one of the stranger chronologies, with Watson's three wives and all. But it's well thought-out and the theories are explained fairly clearly in Baring-Gould's book, so it gets the job done for us here.

I hope the contradictions don't bother you too much. They were an unfortunate inevitability.

[azriona.livejournal.com]

They're annoying, but I can get over them. Actually, I ended up writing about them for my 60s this week (I just finished editing them, and will post them in the morning). So I'd say the inconsistencies were just plot bunnies disguised to be extra annoying. :)

I admit I'm a little sad to hear there's a chronology that doesn't work perfectly - apparently I'm more of a stickler for timeline accuracy than ACD. (Not that I'm surprised - and that's more a comment on my own OCD than any insinuation that ACD wasn't paying attention.)