In Defense of John Watson and the Importance of the Besotted Narrator
Every couple of years, the world as a collective likes to ruminate and come up with a new adaptation of the stories of Sherlock Holmes, every single new one promising to be either "The Ultimate Adaptation" or "Holmes for the New Era", there is no in-between. And it is understandable, this amazement and awe we hold for the beloved mysteries, they are classics for a reason.
And despite that, time and again I see creators of tv shows, pastiches, and movies, neglect the most important aspect in every single Sherlock Holmes' story: the immovable presence of John Watson. Some even going as far as turning Watson into a villain, a caricature of himself, or even erasing him completely from the narrative. "After all, the important one is Holmes, isn't he? He is the genius, and Watson is there just his biographer."
That is the capital omission to me when it comes to any of the adaptations, because it ignores the vital part that Watson plays in Holmes' life. Watson is the companion, he is the bridge between the "normal" world and the genius that is Holmes' deductive brain. He is, for a lack of a better descriptor, the translator between what jumps in judgement and reasoning Holmes' brilliant mind comes up with, and the layman's language.
There is a reason why we as readers come up with the idea that Holmes is smart beyond his quirks and his drug addiction, beyond his ignorance of anything and everything that in his opinion doesn't help him solve the cases that distract him from the boredom of normal life... and that reason is that John Watson is the person narrating the whole thing. We are not introduced to Holmes through an omnipresent, anonymous narrator which is the case with other books. We are thrown in the middle of a mystery from the start the same way that Watson is unexpectedly thrown in 221b.
What we think of Holmes, what we feel for him, it is all because Watson wishes us to experience. The stories themselves carry with them one of the best storytelling devices graciously blended into the narrative, which is the fact that Watson is an incredibly good writer, so much that the public gazes into the spotlight where Holmes is and in most cases ignores that the one shining it down is Watson himself.
Creators who like to ignore Watson and his function in the narrative tend to see Holmes as their own self-insert: a super smart man whose genius cannot compare with the mediocre world population and who can barely tolerate their stupidity, basically a gift to men from god and who has to be worshipped for it... When the reality is that every single thing we perceive from Holmes is because of how Watson sees him.
Watson is our unreliable narrator, his descriptions and impressions of Holmes are the ones that are weaved into the story; even goes as far as giving us a glimpse of Holmes' opinion about it through the way the consultant detective sometimes accuses Watson of adding too many embellishments to his narrations. If we see Holmes as an incredible genius, as someone whose intelligence is above the rest of the world, it is because Watson says so. With every passing story, we come across different characters that every once in a while whose first impression of Holmes has been influenced by what they themselves read in Watson's stories... All in all, the in-universe characters falling under the same influence we, as readers, are.
John Watson's love for Holmes is one of the main plot points in the story, we see its evolution the same way as one normally goes through different stages of falling in love. We see Watson's first infatuation, his interest in what makes Holmes what he is, first in a superficial way and later on with every new story. We see them have misunderstandings, which most of the time end up in a deeper appreciation of Holmes as a person.
All culminating in the incredible rendition of The Final Problem, which could easily be seen, without little effort, as Holmes' planning his own death. By what means we are never completely sure, to be honest, since we can only see it through Watson's deep grief. It is true that Arthur Conan Doyle's plans were to end Holmes' adventures with the short story, but even with the author's motivations being the main recourse behind its inception, there is no doubt when reading the story that the focus of the narrative is Holmes' spending his last moments with Watson.
The subsequent creation of The Empty House and further adventures after that, diluted partially the importance of the whole ordeal, but gave us a different insight of Holmes and Watson's relationship. Through that lens, we as readers witness the evolution of it, the toll that Holmes' fake death had in both his biographer and his own author, adding depth through the strain put by the facade.
E. W. Hornung made one of my favorite homages to Holmes and Watson through his stories of The Gentleman Thief, and put a greater emphasis on the strained relationship between the two characters after the fake death. He gave his besotted narrator another source of turmoil: the fact that while Raffles (our stand-in Holmes) was away living life and even having a romantic interest, Bunny (his Watson) ends up falling in disgrace after being sent to jail.
A.J. Raffles' stories lean on the importance of the unreliable, uselessly enamored narrator, to the point that Hornung didn't shy away from having Bunny refer to Raffles as handsome and attractive in many different instances. He understood how there is no Holmes without a Watson to appreciate him, how their dynamic is the fuel behind the success of the whole series.
And ultimately, that it is impossible to have a good story without a good storyteller.
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