Sherlock (Hsu)

Introduction
Traditional literature involves an author, his creation the text, and the reader. New remediated forms of literature have a much more fluid relationship between these three. In some cases the reader can modify the text and communicate with the author, in other cases the reader interacts with the text in ways traditional literature could never. These new forms of literature take shape as electronic literature and many people have already noticed “our society’s massive shift towards electronic media for entertainment and information" . The population of our country seems to have taken two polar opposite stances on the subject of electronic literature. One side feels that “the decline in reading correlates with the increased participation in a variety of electronic media". The other argues that “electronic literature need not put literary reading at risk; in fact once we begin taking screens as well as pages seriously as venues for literature and written expression…[we] may well find that rates of literacy are again on the rise" . This clash of old and new media is something that takes place every time new forms of media appear and is a problem we need to overcome each time.

Throughout the course of this class we have learned about the remediation of text and how it changes the ages, from speech to text, then to print, and now literature comes in all different forms such as video games, movies, and all sorts of texts on the internet. However in reality, this class teaches about technology, how it changes the way we live and how we should handle it properly. For example, when Frankenstein created his monster he created a new form of technology but he neglected to handle the technology correctly and it destroyed the life he knew. Also in Anda’s Game, Anda spends too much time in her MMORPG game and lets her health, in reality, deteriorate to the point of disease. Another example would be the novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep.

The main character learns to accept technology for what it is and to appreciate the differences between artificial and natural. These readings all deal with the difficulty of using and accepting new creations. This is the true lesson of the class, to accept the new forms of literature for what they are. The BBC series Sherlock is a perfect example of everything we have learned in class. Sherlock, in itself, is a remediation of the old Sherlock Holmes

novels. The show portrays a modern day Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Lestrade, and other important characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels solving modern day crimes with modern techniques and technology. Followers of television series usually call themselves a fandom, the fandom of Sherlock call themselves the Sherlockians. The Sherlockians obsess over every detail they can find within the show such as the characters emotions towards each other, theories about the next season, and they even combine Sherlock with their other favorite shows, my favorite being Wholockians (a mix of Sherlock and Doctor who). The Sherlockians have even created their own short video game for their show. The largest source of information for this fandom, per my research, has been the blog site called Tumblr. Being a Sherlockian and a Whovian myself, and having a Tumblr account showed me just how large this source of information is. Fans from all over the globe can share their theories, videos, and just regular pictures of the actors. From there, their followers can reblog the information spreading it far across the fandom information highway.

Remediation
There are countless remediations for Sherlock. The fanfiction alone contains a staggering amount of authors writing their own endings or side storys about Sherlock and John Watson. Most of these fan fictions are full of sexual tension (usually between Sherlock and John) and mystery. One of my favorites that I have found involves Sherlock being turned into a zombie. I have also found quite a fantastic short video game created by a couple of fans. The story for this game was written by one of the fans but the characters are based off of the Sherlock series. Fans have also re-created the theme music of Sherlock, there are many versions of this remediation but my favorite is the fan who played the whole theme song by hitting and ringing wine glasses, quite amazing.



As mentioned earlier, the sherlock fandom likes to mesh their with their other fandoms creating fandoms such as Wholockians. The video is a fan created trailer, for what many fans of Sherlock and Doctor Who wish to be created, Wholock. This imaginary series or movie is where the Doctor who travels across time and space in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) stumbles upon dimesion where Sherlock exists. The two of them would fend off alien invasions and defeat the most dangerous man



in London. The picture to the right is a gif of Sherlock falling and the Doctor saving him with the TARDIS (click to see).

Knowledge communities
Tumblr is the greatest source of information for any Sherlockian looking to learn more about the series. There are several blog sites devoted to exploring theories about the season finale of season two, reichenbach fall. *SPOILER ALERT* In the episode, Sherlock is shown jumping off of a building and dying on the pavement a few stories below. However, at the end of the episode, it is shown that Sherlock is still alive. The fandom is buzzing with theories about how he could hav survived the fall. Many of the theories are collected between two blogs, Sherlockian Theories and The Final Problem. The gif from above is also a theory about how Sherlock survives the fall. Besides racking their minds to figure out how Sherlock survived the fall, fans all over the internet have be struggling to figure out how the third season will begin. Season two ended with Sherlock discraced my Jim Moriarty and presumably season three will have Sherlock regain his former glory. But how? thats the subject of debate, a tumblr user by the name of abouttherealawesomestuff came up with this theory which was only done by paying very close attention to the small details of the episode. There are also a couple of extreme theories that involve things like portal guns and giant bees.

Authoral Intentions
Steven Moffat, the writer for Sherlock and some Doctor Who episodes, is what the internet would call a troll.

Moffat is famous for creating exeedingly complicated plots that no one can follow with twists that surprise the entire fandom. In a recent article, Moffat proclaimed that "there is a clue everybody's missed". The entire Sherlockian fandom exploded with excitement because there was solid proof that Moffat read the online theories created by the fans. To the fans, it seems that Moffat's goal is to lead the fandom on wild goose chases in trying to anticipate and guess what is to come in the next episodes. The fandom is quite frequently frustrated with the antics of Moffat so that pictures and gifs such as the one below show up quite often wheverver fans cannot deduce the inner workings of his mind.



Links and Resources
Tumblr

zombie

video game

wine glasses

Sherlockian Theories

The Final Problem

theory

article