The Reigate Squires: Recognition, G

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

The Reigate Squires

Author: tweedisgood

Title: Recognition

Rating: G


Colonel Hayter has a gun dog, black as night. It leaps upon pheasants he has brought down, pinning them by one fluttering, once-soaring wing, bringing them limp and lifeless to its master.

In the beast's eyes I see infinite patience and deadly watchfulness: the mirror image of another black dog that follows after my successes until they, too, lie lifeless.

Comments

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

It's been agreed quite a lot that Holmes is pretty much a textbook example of autism, the high level functionality type.

I've seen that thought expressed but tbh I couldn't disagree more with it(disclaimer: I am not on the spectrum myself but live with an adult with a diagnosis (son) and another who might get one at a stretch (spouse) and in my personal and professional life have met scores of people with HFA - for me, Holmes simply doesn't fit the profile in any way). He may dislike conventional society but he shows such consistent skill in communicating when he needs to, and perfectly good (indeed well above average) ability to read people both verbally and non-verbally, that I really can't see where people are coming from on that one.

It feels either as though people can't resist, based on a few scattered impressions, putting a label on what is, after all, a fictional character, or (and forgive me if I am treading on toes here, but I've seen it happen and gain, JMO) longing to share their ASD with someone high-achieving and famous, albeit fictional. The latter of course is not necessary - plenty of real people with ASD have notable achievements - but I can see it would be tempting.

Having a temper (in any case arguably Holmes' temper is no worse than Watson's when roused, and often much less explosive - he can be cutting but almost never explodes) can simply be a question of temperament, of being very bright and impatient with slower mortals. It doesn't have to be about frustration in communication or having any impairment in communication onself and again, I see nothing at all in ACD Holmes that indicates anything more than "come on, it's perfectly obvious, keep up people". You don't have to be autistic to do that, just impatient and ultra clever.

BBC Holmes is, at times, consciously played as HFA (according to BC) and in my view, the more they do that, the further away from canon Holmes he gets. YMMV.