DR. WATSON: ACTION HERO? by Leigh Perry
Dr. John H. Watson, Dr. Sherlock Holmes’s partner in crime-solving, is usually portrayed as an older gentleman in tweeds and a bowler—not exactly the archetypal action hero. That’s how I pictured him myself until recent movie and TV adaptations made me change my view. It’s not that he’s been reimagined—the fact is, I’ve realized that Watson has always been a man of action.
As a mystery writer, I’ve long been aware that I owe a debt to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his influence on the genre. While I am in awe of his creation of the Great Detective, I’ve always considered his finest contribution to be Dr. Watson, the everyman who offers insight into the mental processes of a genius. Of course, the C. Auguste Dupin stories by Edgar Allan Poe had a similar structure—genius and sidekick—but Poe’s nameless narrator was a cipher, showing none of the charm of Watson, who humanizes Holmes both for the consulting detective’s clients and for the reader.
From the writer’s side, I admire the character of Watson as the best method for sharing needed exposition that I’ve ever come across. It works like this:
It’s so elegantly simple that it’s—dare I say it—elementary. You get the best of both worlds. Doyle mystifies the reader at first, then explains the solution in a dynamic way, with dialog instead of a paragraph of static explanation.
The technique is so perfect that countless other mystery writers have followed suit. In Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey books, Wimsey had Inspector Parker, his man-servant Bunter, or his wife Harriet to play the role of Watson. Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe had Archie Goodwin. Agatha Christie gave us Poirot and Hastings. Nancy Drew had two cohorts: Bess and George. S.S. Van Dine used himself as the Watson in the Philo Vance series. More recently, Martha Grimes gave Richard Jury an able assistant in Melrose Plant, and Laurie King presented Holmes himself with a new Watson via his wife, Mary Russell.
Though having a Watson around is ideal for explaining a detective’s brilliant deductions, it works just as well for different kinds of exposition. Dana Cameron’s Emma Fielding series features an archeologist protagonist who explains her work to her non-archeologist husband. S.J. Rozan has alternating sleuths in her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series, and they take turns explaining their worlds to one another. Honestly, it’s such a robust modus operandi that I could give examples all day long, and I’m far from the first mystery author to pay homage to Watson’s role as, well, a Watson.
What I only recently came to realize is another role Watson plays—that of action hero. I blame my mental block on two things. One was the difference in writing styles between the time Doyle’s Sherlockian canon was created and now, but the bigger cause was the visual I had in my head of Nigel Bruce’s portrayal of Watson. Even though I knew from the canon that Watson wasn’t a foolish duffer, I still kept picturing him that way. Even the wonderful Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series, in which both David Burke and Edward Hardwicke played Watson, couldn’t shake that stout fellow out of my head. It took the 2009 movie Sherlock Holmes, with Jude Law as Watson, to get my attention. First off, there was the fact that Law was a much younger, buffer Watson than I’d ever seen before. He was still reliable and loyal, and by the terminology of the time, a stout fellow, but this Watson was hot!
Then there’s the film’s plot, which wasn’t the usual polite Victorian investigation. There were explosions and fight scenes and all kinds of special effects. The violence didn’t throw me—it was a big-budget feature, after all, so I expected them to take some liberties—but Watson’s gambling habit took me aback. I’d never pictured the good doctor with a handful of cards and a glass of brandy, cutting loose.
A bit later, in August of 2010, I discovered Sherlock, the BBC adaptation from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I instantly fell in love with this updated version of the Holmes stories, and as much as I adore what Benedict Cumberbatch does with Holmes, I love how Martin Freeman plays Watson even more.
I was particularly struck by a section in the first episode, “A Study in Pink.” John has just moved into Baker Street, but before he can even unpack, Sherlock is called away on a case. A moment later, Sherlock returns and the scene goes like this:
Holmes: You’re a doctor. In fact, you’re an Army doctor.
Watson: Yes.
Holmes: Any good?
Watson: Very good.
Holmes: Seen a lot of injuries, then. Violent deaths.
Watson: Well, yes.
Holmes: Bit of trouble too, I bet?
Watson: Of course. Yes. Enough for a lifetime, far too much.
Holmes: Want to see some more?
Watson: Oh, God yes.
From that moment on, the two men work together. Now this Watson is still the perfect exposition delivery system and he gives Holmes plenty of opportunities to explain his brilliance, but for the first time, I started seeing Watson as an adrenalin junkie.
There’s another section near the end of the episode, and if you haven’t seen this, stop reading now because it’s a huge spoiler.
Holmes is playing a mental game with a serial killer, and in doing so, puts himself at serious risk. Watson shoots and kills the murderer, but at a distance, and the police don’t know who fired the shot. Even Holmes isn’t sure at first, but in talking to Lestrade, he describes what kind of person the shooter had to be:
Holmes: The bullet they just dug out of the wall’s from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance, from that kind of a weapon, that’s a crack shot we’re looking for. But not just a marksman, a fighter. His hands couldn’t have shaken at all, so clearly he’s accustomed to violence. He didn’t fire until I was in immediate danger, though, so strong moral principle. You’re looking for a man probably with a history of military service and nerves of steel…
That’s when he stops, because he realizes he’s just described John Watson to a T. And this version of Watson is eager to chase criminals, undaunted by danger, willing to kill. Now Sherlock can and does do some of this himself. He’s brave, he’s a crack shot, he fights. But Watson is the soldier, and the fact that he’s just shot a man doesn’t faze him in the least. Later on in the episode, after Holmes lets Watson know that he’s realized he was the sniper, they have this exchange.
Holmes: Are you all right?
Watson: Yes, of course I’m all right.
Holmes: Well, you have just killed a man.
Watson: Yes, I…That’s true, isn’t it? But he wasn’t a very nice man.
Obviously both the movie Sherlock Holmes and the TV show Sherlock are adaptations, not Doyle’s work, but seeing Watson in this new light inspired me to go back to the Sherlockian canon, and I soon realized that both the Jude Law and the Martin Freeman versions of Watson derive from the canonical descriptions. Obviously I’d been missing things—you might say that I’d seen, but I had not observed. It was time for me to start thinking about Watson in a different way.
Take Jude Law’s gambling habit, which I wrote off as Hollywood hyperbole. From Watson’s first appearance in A Study in Scarlet, mention is made of his gambling, and in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” it’s said that Holmes kept Watson’s checkbook locked in a drawer to help control his gambling.
Then there’s Martin Freeman’s post-traumatic stress symptoms. Right up front in A Study in Scarlet, it’s said that Watson was at Maiwand, which was a dreadful battle during July of 1880. The British forces were outnumbered ten to one, twenty-five hundred to twenty-five thousand. Watson survived the battle, despite a bullet that grazed an artery. While in the hospital for treatment, he came down with enteric fever (which we now call typhoid), and then recovered from that. So obviously, he’s tough, but at the beginning of the story, he’s still getting over his illness, so we don’t see the real Watson until later on, when he’s started to interest himself in Holmes’ work. The plot in “A Study in Pink” mirrors this extremely well.
Then I started to see clues of Watson’s addiction to action that didn’t make it to the big or small screen. Again in A Study in Scarlet, Inspector Gregson writes Holmes for help. Holmes isn’t even sure he’ll go. In fact he says, “I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather—that is, when the fit is on me, for I can be spry enough at times.” It is Watson who encourages him to go, reminding him that he’s been waiting for such a chance and pointing out that Gregson is begging for his help. Holmes is convinced, but he wants Watson to come along.
“Get your hat,” he said.
“You wish me to come?”
“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we were both in a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.
I don’t think it’s too big a stretch to say that Holmes could tell that Watson wanted to go along, or that Holmes might not have gone at all without his friend’s nudge. It was Watson’s craving for action combined with Holmes’s realization that he needed somebody in that role that made them partners.
Later on in the book, we’re first introduced to Watson’s famous revolver. They are awaiting a murderer’s appearance when Holmes asks:
“Have you any arms?”
“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”
“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man, and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for anything.”
Though still quite early in their relationship, Holmes trusts Watson—not just as a doctor or a mental foil, but because he’s ready for anything. Once I started looking for them, I found plenty of other examples of Watson’s willingness to jump into any situation, but my favorite is from “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.” Holmes and Watson are looking for a young woman who is missing and in danger, and are retracing her footsteps down a country road when this happens.
At the same instant an empty dog-cart, the horse cantering, the reins trailing, appeared round the curve of the road and rattled swiftly towards us. “Block the road! Stop the horse!”
It is Holmes speaking, and it is Watson who instantly does as asked. It’s not even shown! The next words in the story are after Watson stops the horse and Holmes says, “That’s right.” No mention is made of the fact that Watson is willing and able to stop a runaway horse. Holmes takes it for granted.
So clearly Watson doesn’t shy away from danger, and craves excitement in his life. Though he’s supposed to be making his living as a doctor, he abandons his medical practice every chance he gets.
He also writes about the adventures he shares with Holmes, and you might think that writing is not an action-hero kind of activity, but research shows that most professional writers have strong needs to influence people in the world. (The results are given in more detail in the book Motivate Your Writing! by Stephen P. Kelner, Jr., Ph.D.)
So to me at least, the evidence is clear: John H. Watson is a bona fide action hero.
This aspect of Watson has also shown up in other mysteries, whether or not the authors realize it. A few years back, it was noticed that a lot of mysteries and thrillers included characters who came to be known as kick-ass sidekicks. Sometimes they’re called psycho sidekicks, but that’s more because of the irresistible alliteration than their actually being psychotic.
Kick-ass sidekicks provide that dangerous edge a detective sometimes needs, often doing what the detective can’t or won’t. The best known modern example, and the one that most authors would cite as their inspiration, is Hawk in Robert Parker’s Spenser series. Other such sidekicks are Robert Crais’s Joe Pike, Harlan Coben’s Win, Janet Evanovich’s Lula and Ranger, and Mouse in Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins books. For an actual psycho, there’s Bubba in Dennis Lehane’s Patrick and Angie series. All of these sidekicks are men or women of action, and seem to live for danger.
So the next time you’re reading Doyle’s stories or one of the terrific Holmes pastiches, or watching any of the adaptations, show Watson some of the respect he’s earned. There’s been a lot of debate over the years about what the “H” in John H. Watson stands for. Given the way I’m thinking about the man now, instead of Henry or Hamish, I’d like to humbly propose that H. ought to stand for hellraiser.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leigh Perry is Toni L.P. Kelner in disguise, or maybe vice versa. As Leigh, she writes the Family Skeleton mysteries. As Toni, she’s the co-editor of New York Times best-selling anthologies with Charlaine Harris. She’s also the author of the “Where Are They Now?” mysteries and the Laura Fleming series (all available as e-books and audiobooks), and an Agatha Award winner for short fiction. Leigh/Toni lives north of Boston with her husband, their two daughters, and two guinea pigs.