Anyone ever run it through Dramatica? Or have any interest in giving it a go?
My main interests, if no one wants to do a full run through, are in looking at who is the MC and why, and which character is Linear and which Holistic and why. Thatās assuming it has a complete form. Iāve assumed it does, but am rewatching to see.
I hypothesize Watson change because they set it up with his ptsd battle backstory flashbacks or however they did it. Isnāt Watson MC in the book series? And I would need some days to re-watch it.
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In the book series Sherlock is definitely the āyouā perspective. Heās observed and almost always has information the audience isnāt privy too.
The show could be a little different, generally speaking. There are probably individual episodes in which Sherlock is the MC, and certainly the show makes attempts to get us into his head and show his though processāI think he calls it his āmind palaceā or something like that.
I think youāre probably right about the first episode, @Prish. As I recall it opens (or nearly so) with Watsonās PTSD flashbacks, and he just sort of encounters Sherlock during the course of his day, and Sherlock is presented as this exotic creature from Watsonās perspective.
I donāt remember enough about the episode to attempt a guess about Watsonās Problem-Solving Style. Iām pretty sure Dramatica doesnāt require MC and IC to be different on this point, though.
Iām up for attempting an analysis. But it will be a few days before I can rewatch the episode.
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Iāve read different views on this point. Thereāve been comments that say itās not necessary and thereāve been articles that seem to suggest the whole point of a story is to decide between problem solving styles, or at least thatās how Iāve taken them. I subscribe to the latter idea.
Prior to having rewatched the episode, I was pretty sure Watson was MC, but thought there might have been some scenes where Sherlock was treated as an MC. Subsequent to having rewatched it, Watson is definitely MC throughout but now Iām wondering if thereās a smaller storyform for Sherlock and the cabbie. Just speculation though.
The main thing I want to discuss in regards to problem solving style, I guess, is what is Sherlockās and why. Iāve seen both suggested of the character, though not in relation to any one specific story. For this one, Iām going to argue that heās a Linear problem solver.
It seems to me that the MC is pressured to change Approach (then does or doesnāt). This, at least, is implied by the Changed MC adopting the ICās viewpoint. This makes sense considering the relationship between Approach and Domain. If PS Style is related to Resolve at all, it seems to be several more steps removed. Instead, it seems to be more related to UA/ CF, Catalyst/ Inhibitor, Benchmarks, and Signposts.
As for Sherlock, I honestly canāt say. I can see arguments for either. Gun to my head, Iād probably say Linear, but it may not necessarily be the seem from one episode to the next. For āPretty in Pinkā Iāll have to watch the episode to refresh my memory and look for instances of Sherlock solving problems that donāt come down to following the clues required by the plot.
For Sherlockās problem solving, I always thought of him as a more holistic problem solver. Hasnāt holistic problem solving also been known as intuitive? Sherlock seems very intuitive. I think sometimes he acts simply on a hunch. I donāt understand the linear/holistic stuff very well though, so Iām likely wrong, or maybe Iām right but Iām using the wrong reasons to justify why heās holistic.
I think what will help with figuring out their problem solving styles is rooting out what the actual problems are in the story, identifying the MC and IC throughlines and whatnot.
As for the rest of the storyformā¦
ELLA
John, youāre a soldier. Itās going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life - writing a blog about everything that happens to you, will honestly help you. Trust me.
Closer on John. He looks bleakly at her - a proud soldier, stoic, but somehow broken and lost.
JOHN
Nothing happens to me.
I think John (the Change MC for this episode) is stuck in some sort of external problematic state. Either he has a fixed attitude ānothing ever happens to meā or heās in a problematic situation āadjusting to civilian lifeā.
JOHN
My therapist thinks itās
psychosomatic.
MIKE
What do you think?
JOHN
I think I got shot.
Iām leaning more towards Situation at the momentā¦
As for the overall storyform, I think Physics makes sense. Multiple people mysteriously commit suicide. And figuring out why they do that is a big part of the conflict in the OS. The characters really struggle with Learning the identity of the culprit/if there is someone behind all this, Thereās also John struggling to catch on to whoās who and whatās going on, such as how M is related to Sherlock. And Sherlock really really wants to know how the murderer is getting away with it.
I can also see Obtaining as a possible concern: catching the culprit. That has a stronger consequence of Becoming.
Also, I have a random hunch (it could totally be something else) that Johnās UA might be Work:
SHERLOCK
The bullet they just dug out the
wall was from a hand gun. A kill
shot over that distance from that
kind of weapon - thatās a crack
shot youāre looking for. But not
just a marksmen, a fighter - his
hand couldnāt have shaken at all,
so clearly heās acclimatised to
violence. He didnāt fire ātil I
was in immediate danger, though.
So, strong moral principles.
Youāre looking for a man probably
with a history of military service
and nerves of steel ā
Anyways, just some other story points:
Action seems like the driver. The story starts with people committing suicide, thatās the driver, and I see it as an action. And I think the story ends when Sherlock squeezes that name out of the cab driver: Moriarty.
Success. Good. They learn, and everyoneās angst is more or less gone.
Optionlock. I could argue it many ways, but, I mean, itās hardly much of a debate from what I can see. I canāt think of any moment that makes me go āHmm, this could be a timelock.ā
I like to remind myself that Doyle created the Sherlock Holmes character after a Scottish doctor he had worked with. So, there would be an element of hunch but only after a fact showing up that needed clarification, kind of hypothesis bread crumbs.
Btw, is science linear or holistic?
The most basic explanation of the differences Iāve found is that Linear problem solving is spatial and Holistic is temporal. LPSers look at the state of things. HPSers look at processes. LPSers tend to look at problems as paths, spaces, structures, and prefer reason. HPSers look at problems as relationships and balance, and prefer emotion.
Sherlock is all about the reasoning. (He calls it deductive reasoning, but what heās using is actually more like abductive reasoning.) While everyone else is looking for connections (or relationships) between suicides, Sherlock comes in and immediately sees the state of things and pulls all his clues from that (the pattern of the mud splash, the way sheās dressed, the state of her ring, all the pink, etc.). The mind palace isnāt shown in this episode, but that seems like a very spatial way of approaching a problem. We do see him trying to chase a cab and he goes to think and then we see images of maps of London, another spatial approach.
When he meets Watson, Sherlock immediately starts talking about flat sharing and Watson says something about having just met and seems to think they should get to know each other more first (a process) to which Sherlock tells him all the things he has already observed about him (a state). Iād have to think a little more for more examples of Watson as Holistic, but he seems to approach things more emotionally (āDamn my leg!ā)
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I can see his problem being something like āadjusting to civilian lifeā but that seems like more of a process to me than a state. And seeing a therapist seems like, by itās very nature, an attempt to change ones self to match the world around them-the definition of a be-er. I donāt know how strongly Iād stick to it, but sounds like Iām leaning toward Psychology at the moment.
Sherlock is the one that goes around chasing after cabs and calling John from across London to come all the way back to the flat to send a text rather than to get up and go ask Mrs. Hudson for her phone. Do-ing, but does he influence others through Physics?
That would put the OS in Universe. Less the act of murdering and more that there is a killer on the loose. Itās the unsolvable nature of the rash of suicides that forces Lestrade to go to Sherlock for help.
I could be convinced otherwise of all that, though. I do like Action, Success, Good, Optionlock.
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Sherlock seems intuitive to an observer, but that doesnāt necessarily mean that he is. He seems to make some incredible leaps of intuition, but every time heās asked, he lists out his entire train of thought used to arrive at his conclusion. In his mind at least these relationships appear causal, which is to say linear.
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Whatās weird is that this seems backwards in some ways. Linear thinkers like cause and effect, an inherently temporal conceptāthe cause must happen before the effect. Meanwhile on the Holistic side, relationships exist in the space between things.
Itās almost like spatial and temporal are referring to what their practitioners take for granted, or perhaps what they assume. The LPS expends his mental energy in the spatial realm because heās assumed that time is fixed, and the causal chains are set in stone. But the HPS sees time as stretchy and fluid and where the problem can be solved, while spaces are fixed.
I think that helps explain why Holistic/ temporal thinkers donāt engage well with Timelocks, even though semantically they seem well paired. Itās not that the HPS doesnāt understand time; they donāt understand how it could be locked.
Pairing Holistic and Timelock in the storyform seems to create a sort of vicious circle between the audience and the story. The Linear thinkers in the audience canāt empathize with the Holistic MC, the Holistic thinkers in the audience canāt buy in to the Timelock, and since the HPS Main Character doesnāt feel properly pressured by the Limitābeing unable to really understand itāthereās a dissonance at the heart of the story that further alienates the audience.
Sorry, I guess thatās a bit off-topic.
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Rewatched āA Study in Pinkā this afternoon. I didnāt get the impression that itās a GAS.
Watson is clearly the intended MC, and Sherlock is the IC, but anything more than that starts to get a little fuzzy, in my opinion.
First, there doesnāt appear to be any Changed character. It feels like Watsonās throughline is meant to be about his PTSD, but itās half-hearted and pretty thin. He has his psychosomatic limb and hand tremor, but heās given them up or grown out of them well before the final act. Ultimately, his shooting of the Cabbie, which resolves the OS, has no apparent connection to the MC Throughline. Are we meant to believe that Watsonās PTSD would have prevented him from pulling the trigger at the beginning? I just donāt see enough of a baseline established for us to say for sure. Maybe if the episode had ended with Watson writing in his blog, weād have an authorās proof of his change.
Interestingly, the final lines of dialogue come from Mycroft and concern how Watson might change Sherlock. This points to a larger GAS potentially spanning the season or multiple seasons (not that this means there isnāt one in this episode).
Iād guess that Watson is a Be-er, or at least that was the intention. The internalization of his problems have manifested in his limp and tremors. He has nightmares and responds by sitting alone in his room and goes to therapy, which I interpret as an attempt to change himself internally. The therapist wants him to blog, a way to externalize his problem, but heās unable to.
The issue is that this is dropped pretty much the moment Watson meets Sherlock. They go to the apartment, the police show up and invite Sherlock to the new crime scene, and Watson leaps at the chance to go participate. If heās a changed MC, the change happens here. Iām not sure we really see the Be-er Watson again.
Sherlock is a Do-er. He prefers to text, and when his phone is acting up, wonāt even change himself enough to make a phone call on a landline, preferring instead to borrow a working phone. Generally, heās brilliant but his working relationship with the police is held back by his poor social skills. Instead of changing himself to fit in better and resolve those issues, Sherlock prefers to pile on more and more brilliant observations until he convinces them.
I agree with @Gregolas about the Domains, with the caveat that if itās not a GAS no Domains can really be assigned. It felt a lot like the Silence of the Lambs in the sense that it opened with several crimes having already been committed, with Sherlock as the brilliant psychopath (er, high-functioning sociopath) the authorities turn to for help.
The difference between Lector and Sherlock is that Sherlockās influence doesnāt come from developing a psychological profile of his targets, but rather by seeing the physical evidence and drawing conclusions. Lector looks to motivations for behavior while Sherlock evaluates what he sees. Lector is in Psychology, and Sherlock is in Physics. Plus, Sherlock even influences Watson through sheer doingārunning through the streets of London all while Watson has left his cane behind.
This puts Watson in Pschology, which makes sense; the limp is a symptom of dysfunctional psychology.
The RS would be in Mind, which I donāt quite see. In this episode there is very little conflict in their relationship beyond the running gag of them being misidentified as a gay couple. Watson is quite taken with Sherlockās brilliance and happily follows him all over London.
As for the Problem-Solving Style, itās really hard to say. Watson is given very few opportunities to solve problems on his own. Thatās not surprising; Sherlock Holmesā whole deal is that heās THE problem solver, and he just sort of sucks up all the air in that area of the story. Overall, Iād say Sherlock is Linear for reasons already outlined in this thread, but Iām not convinced we see enough problem solving outside the necessities of the OS to say definitively. Plus, the firs thing we see Sherlock do is send the text messages to all the press and detectives during the press conference. This strikes me as holistic. Heās trying to change the balance of the relationships at play, so heāll get brought in.
As far as I understand, none of this has any bearing on Watsonās PSS, and I donāt think we have enough to go on to say. He does just shoot the guy at the end, which seems about as linear as something can be, but again thatās in the OS.
Overall this feels to me more like the opening act of a GAS, than a complete story in its own right.
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I agree. When I brought up this suggestion, I was sure it would be a GAS because of what I remembered about the episode and I found interest in determining if Sherlock was linear or holistic in this one. After rewatching it, it felt like they really wanted it to be a GAS but didnāt quite nail it. Like you say, the PTSD stuff was dealt with, but not in the most satisfactory way that was probably available. Watson going after Sherlock and shooting the cabbie somehow sort of felt like Watson switching over from Psychology to Physics, but I couldnāt say what element he was switching from or to. They wanted Sherlock to be alone with the cabbie for a while, and understandably so, but in spending so much time with Sherlock, they rushed over Watson who just needed a moment or two to complete his arc, or maybe he needed a moment or two closer to the front to clarify his problem. I donāt know. With Watson slowly losing his PTSD over the course of the episode I can see what they were going for and I think maybe I mentally filled in the holes in order to remember it as a GAS.
If Watson had had a clearer change, I would have offered that maybe the relationship grew or faded over what they thought of each other. When Sherlock tells Watson that he thinks of him as a fill-in for the skull on the mantle, maybe the relationship is pushed apart. When Watson tells Sherlock that what he does is amazing, the relationship grows a bit. Although itās hard to say. Their relationship grows over the course of the episode, but itās not so easy to say how or why it grows. They start out as strangers and become flat mates. From there, Watson begins trusting Sherlock being more fascinated by him, and Sherlock likes to impress Watson. That seems to be what theyāre friendship revolves around.
Interesting take. I hadnāt considered it that way. I kind of saw it as his attempt to impress everyone with how he did that, but also to tell everyone that he knows more than they do. And now that you mention it, I can definitely see the shift in balance, but the way I saw it, I would have said it was linear. Great insight there.
Ps, what an incredible post! Thanks for taking the time to watch and offer those thoughts!
To speak to why I was interested in Sherlockās PSS, I had seen at least a few suggestions that he might be Holistic in nature. I donāt know if Iām right here, but I suspected it might be because of the way other characters look at a scene and see only the obvious thingsāthey committed suicideāwhile Sherlock was viewing the whole (as in holistic) scene down to the state of the outside of her wedding band compared to the state of the inside of it. From a view of Linear vs Holistic, I can see this (and probably would have agreed with it at one point) because Linear suggests a path of least resistance (it appears they committed suicide so thatās what weāre going with) whereas Holistic, to a linear person, might look like pulling from many or all paths, such as Sherlock finding many paths of evidence that do not suggest suicide.
Only recently, I believe, have I really grasped the difference between LPS and HPS and that itās space vs time, states vs dynamics. From that point of view, pulling from many paths is not dynamic. Itās still very linear. I just wanted to put that idea to the test.
@Etherbeard, what do you make of this? I just watched the last seven or eight minutes again. Sherlock is telling Lestrade how the guy that shot the cabbie āprobably had military service, nerves of steelā. We dont see Watsonās POV of his change, but get told about it through Sherlock. Still a little sloppy, perhaps, but does that do anything for you in regards to seeing Watsonās change? Could that maybe be enough to show, say, a change from inaction (not writing the blog) to protection (shooting the cabbie)?
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Yeah, Sherlock even says, āā¦hands couldnāt have shaken at all.ā I think youāre probably right; this is meant to function as the proof of Watsonās change.
It doesnāt bother me to present the proof this way. Itās quick and efficient, unexpected, and works alongside the whodunnit motif. I do suspect it would work better as a MC observing a changed IC. And I do have a couple of quick quibbles:
They both originate from the Mycroft scene around the midpoint. Mycroft points out that Watson has an intermittent tremor in his left hand that his therapist thinks is brought on by stress. Mycroft elaborates that the therapist ought to be fired because Watson is under stress at that moment and his hand is not shaking. So Watsonās steely nerves in the climax arenāt a revelation to us or to him. Also, he holds the gun in his right hand, and the tremor is specifically stated to be in his left, but that could just be a slight continuity error.
The last third is pretty goofy, structurally. Itās like Sherlock becomes the MC, so weāre not really there with Watson at the critical moment. Iād really like for there to have been either more with the gun at beginning or more with the blog at the end.
As for Inaction to Protection, I donāt think Watson not writing his blog works as Inactionāat least not as I understand it. I think of inaction as requiring a choice; you couldāve done something, but you chose to do nothing, to let things play out, whether because you thought that was the best course or because you didnāt want to act. Watsonās issue with the blog feels more like an inability. He gets out the laptop with the intention to write, but nothing comes. He tells his therapist he has nothing to write about because nothing happens to him.
The first place Iād look for a storyform is the upper left quad. Conceptualizing goes along with Watson trying to find his place in the civilian world, and all the Issues under it look good. Sherlock astounds people by not merely noticing but appreciating the meaning of small details, and the Senses\ Interpretation diagonal looks particularly good.
The elements under Destiny feel pretty good for the OS (though they look so good if assigned to Sherlock, I question the assigned Domains). In that final scene with the Cabbie, youāve got the talk of people being unaware of them (just the back of a head) and the guessing game with the pills. The issues of Fate\Destiny comes in with the Cabbieās impending aneurysm.
I canāt quite get a full set of Problems, Symptoms, etc. to work across OS, MC, and IC, at least not to my satisfaction (sort of ignoring RS for now) But itās close. Closer than I expected, certainly. Like you, I suspect it falls just short.
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The more I think about it the more I like this way of showing an MC has changed. For arguments sake, letās just say the problem/solution is Inaction/Protection. We see the MC change when Watson shoots the cabbie. Sherlock speaking to Lestrade is just sort of confirmation to the audience that Watson was changed at that moment. On first watch, I thought like you that it would have worked better as an MC speaking about an IC, but now I think it works fine. And Iām pretty sure thereās at least a hint of a separate story between Sherlock and the cabbie where Sherlock is MC. If thatās right, then when Sherlock is giving that info itās coming off an act where he was an MC and maybe explains why some of that looks a little sloppy at first.
I agree with that. But again, for the sake of argument, he still hasnāt changed from Inaction to Protection (or insert other elements) until the climax. Also, I take the mentions of how steady he is from Mycroft and Sherlock as further evidence of his Psychology Domain though, in that it shows the psychosomatic nature of his issues.
Already addressed most of the goofy structure above.
While I am convincing myself that maybe Watson possibly had a clearer change than I originally thought, I agree that something with the gun at the front or the blog at the end would have been nice to have the change sort of spoon fed to us, but it should not be absolutely necessary. I donāt remember any scene at the front of Star Wars, for instance, where Luke is using his targeting computer or whatever.
I was definitely looking at the right side. Assuming OS Universe and MC Psychology, Progress or Present seem a better fit to me than Past. At one point I was looking pretty close at Progress, but I think Iād have to go with Present.
That would put Watson in Concieving. Iām not going to lie, Iād have to look at this one a little bit before I could buy fully into it. But Iām not convinced his problems come from finding his place in society conceptually. This is where Iād like more emphasis on his throughline and what his problems are. And Iām not sure if this is what I would have said his problems are or if Iām now trying to fit this story into a particular form, but Iām thinking his problems seem more like he needs to see civilian life in a new way, or he needs to have an idea of how to deal with life after the military. On one hand he says heās seen enough action to last a life time, but on the other he wants to see more and immediately goes with Sherlock when heās invited. He tells his therapist that nothing ever happens, but then things are continuously happening to him. And when they are happening, we are told that his limp and trembling disappear. I donāt like this wording, but it seems like maybe not concieving of civilian life as exciting is causing his psychosomatic limp and trembling and when it is exciting, those things go away.
That would put Sherlock in Learning (or Gathering info). People need Sherlock because they canāt understand whatās going on without him, but itās the way he can tell you everything at a glance (the way he gathers info) that creates conflict and pisses people off or makes them feel awkward or leads to them calling him a freak.
Iāll pass on the RS for now as well.
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I agree lower right is also good.
We really could have the Domains wrong. Iāve got to get my day started, but I wanted to jot down a couple ideas while theyāre fresh.
Staying in upper left but switching OS to Physics, we get:
OS Understanding-- investigation plot, these suicides are related, but how is that possible
MC Memories-- PTSD flashbacks, āImagine youāre about to die. What wouldnāt you say?ā āPlease donāt let me die. I donāt have to imagine.ā
RS Conceptualizing-- āThis could be very nice. Clean it upā¦ā āI thought so, thatās why I went ahead and moved in.ā
IC Past-- maybe a weak point, but you do get the instances of people warning Watson off Sherlock because of their past experiences with him. And Sherlock certainly has a knack for deciphering the objective reality of what has alreary happened.
One last thought: isnāt Sherlock using the nicotine patches a Be-er move? Itās interesting that this episode barely touches on Sherlockās substance abuse, so heās probably at peak Do-er here.
Hmmā¦Iām not really sure.
- Is it about getting the high to deal with the world, or is it about changing the chemicals in his blood (external to mind) to match his mind? Iād have to see the scene again for context.
- I also want to say that Iām not sure if using the patches is part of his influence on others. If itās not, then it probably doesnāt factor in.
- If it does factor in and is be-ing, I suppose one could argue that heād rather do something but has taken to be-ing on nicotine as a secondary option.