Spoilers about the sign of four.
I’m surprised at the extent of the dehumanisation and racism in the sign of four although I don’t know why it surprises me.
The framing the colonisation of India as something they had a right to, framing the people who lived there as “savage”. And the treatment of Tonga, who just, jeez. The fact that Holmes just shot him and no one bothered to find out if he was still alive and look to find him in the river. He was treated as subhuman the whole time and I honestly can’t recall if he got to speak a word in the whole narrative.
It’s how unfortunately many indigenous people are portrayed in media, not allowed to speak for themselves and just the background for some white persons story.
Idk it’s just sad that in this story the narrative never stepped in to say that this racism was wrong. We got a few moments that spoke to feminism, recognition of the horror of the murders, and then our main character Sherlock Holmes and narrator Watson never questioned the horrid racism we saw and in fact added to it. I was reading a very different story then one Conan Doyle intended to write, one about the horrors of colonialism, racism and dehumanisation of black and indigenous people. It disturbed me more then the actual murders frankly.
And I’m not surprised to find such vicious racism in a book set in the what, 1890s? I’m just somewhat surprised that someone could put this all down in black and white and still somehow believe that they’re in the right.
