I love Sherlock Holmes. I know it's implied he is just a normal human but I find it more entertaining to realize its impossible for someone like that to exist.
It falls apart due to the sheer probability of the events involved. However, the stories are almost always entertaining, despite that.
Summary; Man hired to copy books for a large pay. Lots of things don't add up at all. Turns out, it was a long con to use his shop space (he was gone while copying books) to tunnel into a bank across the street. How Sherlock Holmes found this out is completely improbable. For some reason though, I just love watching all the clues fall together. They're also relatively short stories.
I really like stories like the one you describe too though. I think I just like mystery genre in general and I'm not super picky, haha.
>For some reason though, I just love watching all the clues fall together. They're also relatively short stories.
I think almost all stories work like this due to the nature of how you structure a story:
- Introduction - characters and concepts are introduced
- Middle - anything can happen and usually some important new characters and concepts are added
- Build-up - all the pieces are assembled and are being being put together, tension increases
- Climax - the puzzle is completed and shown to the reader/viewer
- Conclusion - payoff for the characters, they lived happily ever after
Detective novels often try to give the reader the opportunity to put the pieces together before the characters do. Other stories can give you a similar pay off though.
It might seem like I'm criticizing things, but I don't think it's a failure per se. A work can be engaging regardless of whether or not the character is accurately portrayed as intelligent or observant or whatever.
Bones is fine television. Sherlock Holmes is a fine read. I have the collected works in two volumes.
But I do notice a tendency among people to use fiction as evidence of reality. So it's good to remind myself that characters are reflections of the author, not of reality.
It falls apart due to the sheer probability of the events involved. However, the stories are almost always entertaining, despite that.
i.e. This story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red-Headed_League
Summary; Man hired to copy books for a large pay. Lots of things don't add up at all. Turns out, it was a long con to use his shop space (he was gone while copying books) to tunnel into a bank across the street. How Sherlock Holmes found this out is completely improbable. For some reason though, I just love watching all the clues fall together. They're also relatively short stories.
I really like stories like the one you describe too though. I think I just like mystery genre in general and I'm not super picky, haha.