140
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
a humanist position (the human mind is a more devious mechanism than
any technology, Victorian or modern).
Despite this piece of misdirection, Magnussen is clearly, and extensively,
set up as the series’ major villain. Indeed, the script for “His Last Vow” works
very hard to make viewers perceive Charles Augustus Magnussen as both
repulsive and a major threat. Before the opening titles, Lady Smallwood
explains the problem: “There isn’t a man or woman in England capable of
stopping that disgusting creature” (which raises the specter of Holmes being
called on to save the nation, as was the rhetoric of the wartime Holmes
films). 26 We see Magnussen at a fictional version of the Leveson Inquiry,
on-screen information, supposedly visible to him, listing his interlocutors’
level of indebtedness, porn preferences, relationship status, and “pressure
point[s].” 27 The first MP who questions him has a disabled daughter, and that
becomes a pressure point, a way of gaining an advantage; Magnussen has no
scruples, goes the implication. He is given slippery, sweaty hands, which he
insists on placing on Lady Smallwood, explaining: “I have a condition […]
the whole world is wet to my touch.” 28 He licks Lady Smallwood’s face, and
comments on how her perfume tastes. He is compared to a shark, floating
around with a flat face and dead eyes. To further aid the preparatory framing
for us, Sherlock tells John, “I’ve dealt with murderers, psychopaths, terrorists,
serial killers; none of them could turn my stomach like Charles Augustus
Magnussen.” 29 Perhaps most clinchingly, Magnussen tells Sherlock and
John that the English are “a nation of herbivores.” 30 He also urinates in the
Baker Street fireplace: an ideological and physical desecration of English
(or British?) ideas of national sovereignty.
Sherlock later elaborates that he hates Magnussen because “he attacks
people who are different and preys on their secrets,” but this seems an
inaccurate description of Magnussen’s modus operandi. 31 Magnussen, by
his own account, is not looking for conformity or to silence the “different”;
he is looking for leverage, and will take whatever he can get. Sherlock’s
statement appears, rather, to have been placed here as a marker of Sherlock’s
own social liberalism and enlightenment. 32 Where the Victorian Sherlock
26 See Field, England’s Secret Weapon, 115.
27 Sherlock, “His Last Vow.”
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Another interpretation of Sherlock’s use of the word “different” here is that it references
the homoerotic subtext in the show, which seems particularly powerful in this episode. For
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
a humanist position (the human mind is a more devious mechanism than
any technology, Victorian or modern).
Despite this piece of misdirection, Magnussen is clearly, and extensively,
set up as the series’ major villain. Indeed, the script for “His Last Vow” works
very hard to make viewers perceive Charles Augustus Magnussen as both
repulsive and a major threat. Before the opening titles, Lady Smallwood
explains the problem: “There isn’t a man or woman in England capable of
stopping that disgusting creature” (which raises the specter of Holmes being
called on to save the nation, as was the rhetoric of the wartime Holmes
films). 26 We see Magnussen at a fictional version of the Leveson Inquiry,
on-screen information, supposedly visible to him, listing his interlocutors’
level of indebtedness, porn preferences, relationship status, and “pressure
point[s].” 27 The first MP who questions him has a disabled daughter, and that
becomes a pressure point, a way of gaining an advantage; Magnussen has no
scruples, goes the implication. He is given slippery, sweaty hands, which he
insists on placing on Lady Smallwood, explaining: “I have a condition […]
the whole world is wet to my touch.” 28 He licks Lady Smallwood’s face, and
comments on how her perfume tastes. He is compared to a shark, floating
around with a flat face and dead eyes. To further aid the preparatory framing
for us, Sherlock tells John, “I’ve dealt with murderers, psychopaths, terrorists,
serial killers; none of them could turn my stomach like Charles Augustus
Magnussen.” 29 Perhaps most clinchingly, Magnussen tells Sherlock and
John that the English are “a nation of herbivores.” 30 He also urinates in the
Baker Street fireplace: an ideological and physical desecration of English
(or British?) ideas of national sovereignty.
Sherlock later elaborates that he hates Magnussen because “he attacks
people who are different and preys on their secrets,” but this seems an
inaccurate description of Magnussen’s modus operandi. 31 Magnussen, by
his own account, is not looking for conformity or to silence the “different”;
he is looking for leverage, and will take whatever he can get. Sherlock’s
statement appears, rather, to have been placed here as a marker of Sherlock’s
own social liberalism and enlightenment. 32 Where the Victorian Sherlock
26 See Field, England’s Secret Weapon, 115.
27 Sherlock, “His Last Vow.”
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Another interpretation of Sherlock’s use of the word “different” here is that it references
the homoerotic subtext in the show, which seems particularly powerful in this episode. For