Watson Deserves More Appreciation - Tumblr Posts

Dr. Watson is just as important of a character as Sherlock Holmes. You cannot get rid of or replace him. He is the narrator. The stories are about Holmes, but it's through WATSON that we have them in the first place. He's not "just" the sidekick. He is the main character.

To me, Watson has always, and should always, have a little bit of dramatic poet in him. <3

"sherlock holmes is the dramatic one"

doctor john watson:

I know we all like to laugh at Watson for taking such pains to conceal dates and people and events but being obviously obvious about his love for Holmes but like. hear me out. what if he’s not. what if it’s on purpose

Ok, so. Watson is an intelligent man. He is not stupid. He would not read his drafts and not notice the obvious romanticism. I think a lot of evidence supports the idea that he’s doing it on purpose. I mean, he even defends himself when Holmes accuses him of romanticising the stories by saying that the romance was there and he’s just reporting it the way it was. The interesting question is just, why? Why not be more careful?

Here’s what I think: uhm. so. multiple things.

1. Imagine writing stories about the person you love above anything else in the world. The person who seems to you so incredible and unbelievable and wonderful that you’re in awe they even exist and even more that they have chosen you. How do you write about them without that bleeding through. Holmes isn’t just a person that appears in the stories, the stories are completely about him and his personality. Of course Watson notices that the way he sees Holmes is evident in the loving descriptions. But what, really, can he do? Change or omit parts of Holmes’ personality? Make up a Holmes character for his stories? Invent a Holmes who he is not in love with and who does not inspire the same feelings of awe and admiration? He might as well just write a different story. The whole point of these stories is that they’re about Holmes. Or alternatively, could he somehow describe every one of Holmes’ personality traits rationally and without emotion? No, he couldn’t. “Fascinating” and “wonderful” are just traits that describe Holmes to him. He never says that he loves Holmes. We can only infer it from those descriptions. How is he supposed to describe Holmes if he can’t use them?

2. In extension of that: Watson’s perspective is essential to the stories. He is the only one who understands Holmes. He is the only one who can tell us about the kindness and compassion and the silliness and the deep care for humans and the devotion to justice because he’s the only one who gets to see everything. Taking any other perspective would probably result in a much worse portrayal. Knowing that Holmes is by every standard very neurodivergent and queer and generally just absolutely not “normal”, that portrayal probably wouldn’t be kind and it would miss all of those key features of his character that Watson understands. So Watson can not take another perspective that isn’t his own, not just because he’s too in love but because it would just not work.

3. Perhaps most importantly: Here’s what is actually my main point. What if… Imagine this. You’re a normal Victorian person. You have the normal views of the time. You read the Sherlock Holmes stories. You read them because the cases are interesting and Holmes is a curious personality but, unconsciously, you also absorb everything else that’s in the stories. The deep bond between these two men. The love. The fact that they would do anything for each other. The way that Holmes is someone who is so strange and abnormal by your standards but who is still deeply loved and who deeply loves and who is kind and funny and a good person. And maybe you don’t realise it but in some way, it influences you nonetheless. Perhaps the next time you meet a person who acts “weird” or “abnormal”, they remind you of Holmes and you have to smile. Maybe the next time people mention the unspeakable sin of love between two men, something doesn’t sit quite right with you. Maybe, just maybe, you begin to think.

I think Watson knows this. I think this is why he writes. Of course he also wants to tell everyone how amazing his husband is, but mostly, he really wants to live in a world where he is actually able to tell everyone that that’s his husband. And this is his part. Maybe only 5% of readers really begin to change their minds about what is “abnormal” and what is acceptable. Maybe it’s only a dozen people. Maybe it’s one person. It all matters. Change doesn’t come suddenly. Change comes when many people change their minds. And here is something he can do. Of course it’s obvious. Not obvious enough to be censored, that would defeat the purpose, but obvious enough to make his point. Of course it’s dangerous. It’s a balancing act but it’s worth it. Even if just one person changes their mind, it’s worth it.

I think people forget Watson’s purpose in the stories isn’t only to ask questions so that the case is revealed to the audience naturally. Watson’s purpose is also to ask questions in a way that reveals the case to Holmes. He’s not integral to Holmes’s work just to stroke his ego with the stories. He has weaved his way into Holmes’s mind so thoroughly that Holmes is at his best when Watson is able to lead the march.

Happy Birthday to one of my biggest comfort characters :)

Happy birthday to our favourite Boswell, Dr. John Watson, who was born on the 7th of August, 1852! 🎉 He would now be 172.

THIS!! YES!! Bloody hell, I thought I was the only one internally screaming this from the rooftops.

Seeing fanart of a character being drawn as skinny when they're not supposed to be SKINNY is the most enraging thing ever, especially when said character was only skinny because of a bad period of their life and yes I am talking about my guy Watson who did not suffer during the war and come back to be REHABILLITATED and become HEALTHY by gaining weight he SHOULD NOT have lost just to be drawn looking extra skinny when, in fact, beefcake Watson is the best and healthiest and happiest version of Watson. Holmes and Mrs Hudson would have been going out of their way to make sure that this poor traumatised doctor was being fed, please don't dismiss their good work.

Since Watson is canonically an unreliable narrator, anything could have plausibly happened behind the closed doors of 221B. He doesn't tell us readers everything. Any sort of twist could have happened during a case that he couldn't write for the public... Like all those times he kissed Sherlock Holmes.

To everyone who actually draws John Watson fat, thank you, thank you, thank you. It is so important to me that John is shown as athletic, strong, short and large. He scales a wall Sherlock needs a boost for easily, he's able to outrun Sherlock and catch up with a thief during a bonus mini episode on a mailbag, he's able to carry Sherlock on his shoulders easily, and he's not the stereotypical Y shape people associate with being strong and healthy. It's something that quietly means something to me and when I see people draw him skinny it hurts a bit. He's an average looking, greying, shirt, round, thirty four year old man and he's a protagonist and that means so much to me.

@contact-guy Here you go, one order of Watson being allowed to swear coming right up!

Does Watson ever swear in canon? I know Holmes says “what the deuce” and other things but does my #1 man ever go off?

trying to oppose holmes and watson as 'unfeeling' and 'human' respectively does not work because that theory operates on the assumption that watson is the normal one when he is, in fact, the romantic one, which is not a state of normality but instead one of heightened, performative emotion and an attachment to narrative- he is ridiculous actually, they're both freaks <3