History Characters / SherlockHolmes

%%* DoingItForTheArt (InUniverse): Holmes' approach to his detective work.

* IcyGrayEyes: Like his brother Sherlock, Mycroft possesses a set of keen grey eyes to go along with his stoic personality.

* AffablyEvil: He politely waits for Holmes to write a farewell note to Watson before the final showdown.

* CardCarryingVillain: Moriarty has no illusions about his villainous nature nor does he try to justify what he does as anything but evil.

* TheDreaded: Those who know Moriarty's true nature, like Sherlock or those who work under him, are ''very'' wary of ever getting on his bad side, knowing full well what he can do to hurt them and those close to them in retaliation.

* NoPronunciationGuide: The Inspector's surname has been pronounced as either "Le'strayed" and "Le'strahd" between the many on-screen adaptations with both being a valid pronunciation. The original French pronunciation of the name would have been close to "Le'strahd". However, according to Jean Conan Doyle, her father pronounced the name as "Le'strayed".

* ''Characters/EnolaHolmes2''

* BerserkButton: Comparing him to a fictional detective.

* TheChessmaster: Holmes becomes this sometime in the middle of each story, except in "A Scandal in Bohemia", when he was beaten at his own game by a woman, Irene Adler.

* DeadpanSnarker: Especially toward the hapless Scotland Yard inspectors whose perception is so inferior to his own.

* DoingItForTheArt (InUniverse): Holmes' approach to his detective work.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Watson.

* EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain: Professor James Moriarty is a professor at Durham, one of the most prestigious universities in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge.

* BrilliantButLazy: Even Holmes admits that Mycroft is better in observation and reasoning than himself, but says that he would not make a good detective since he lacks the energy and ambition to apply these skills as anything more than a hobby for his amusement. Sherlock has mentioned that there have been times he's been stumped with a case that Mycroft was able to crack, but Sherlock still needed to gather the data to let Mycroft make his final deductions.

* SecretKeeper: Holmes trusted him with the knowledge that he was still alive after the confrontation with Professor Moriarty, as he needed to rely on Mycroft to obtain enough money to survive on his own for three years.

* AmbiguousDisorder: He's certainly very eccentric. The obsessiveness, antisocial personality and occasional strange or inappropriate behaviour (often commented upon by other characters) are seen as autistic traits by some readers; while his tendency to alternate between energetic and lethargic or depressed moods might suggest some form of bipolar disorder.
* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Holmes is this trope's Patron Saint: his entire ''thing'' is analysing things closely, often via a SherlockScan, which occured at least once in every single story Doyle wrote and every other story after that. Because this is one of Holmes' chief characteristics, most pastiches and fanfictions also have this trope.

* NiceHat: As a 19th century gentleman, Holmes owns an assortment of these, ranging from a bowler over a top hat to finally the famous deerstalker. While the latter is never mentioned by ''name'' in the books (the illustrator of the ''Strand Magazine'', Sidney Paget was the one to choose it), it is also the only period hat that fits the description in "The Adventure of Silver Blaze," "[an] ear-flapped travelling cap", and in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", a "close-fitting cloth cap". The only time fashion-conscious Holmes is depicted with the deerstalker while being in the ''city'' is in "The Empty House", which is extremely unusual for Paget. And finally, he dons a Homburg hat in "His Last Bow", which hints at the changes in times and fashion.

* SherlockScan: Holmes' trademark. He can tell a lifetime's worth of information about a person by just looking them over for a few moments which, of course, normally leaves everyone else in the room baffled.

* NiceHat: His standard is a black bowler.

* HypocriticalHumor: Joins in on mocking Lestrade's incorrect hypothesises despite himself also being proven wrong.

* {{Flanderization}}: Over time, incarnations of Watson made him obese and rather bumbling, despite the fact that Watson is portrayed in the stories as of around Holmes' build and extremely intellectual (he is a bit slow compared to Holmes, but virtually everyone is as well, and he is consistently depicted leagues ahead of most everyone else in the regular cast). 21st-century adaptations (film and live action TV) have [[TruerToTheText rectified this]].

* {{Flanderization}}: Lestrade is quite subdued when placed alongside Holmes' quick wit, but the Universal films in the 1940s turned him into TheDitz. This was ironically inverted as time went on, since in ''The Hound Of The Baskervilles'' Holmes declares him to be "the very best of the professionals." In "The Cardboard Box", Holmes also praises Lestrade's tenacity, which is what enabled him to come as far as he has at the Yard.

* {{Flanderization}}: She's treated as a FemmeFatale in a DatingCatwoman relationship with Holmes in just about every appearance ''except'' her canonical one, where she loves someone else and her only "crime" is legally possessing a photograph an ex-boyfriend fears she will use to blackmail him (which she never does). Furthermore, while Holmes's admiration of her is genuine, it's clearly established to be purely because she is intellectually his equal, not based on any romantic or sexual desire.

* BigBad: Of the entire entire franchise.

* ArchEnemy: For Holmes, whom spent years trying to take down the professor .... and nearly got killed in the process.

* DitzyGenius: Mycroft's badly thought-out actions put lives at risk in "The Greek Interpreter".

* InvincibleHero: Surprisingly averted in "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "Thor Bridge", while in "Five Orange Pips", Holmes mentions that he has been defeated four times.

* IconicOutfit: Holmes is so closely associated with the specific ensemble of a deerstalker hat, Inverness cape, and Calabash pipe that they've become a shorthand for the GreatDetective trope as a whole. Ironically, only a handful of the illustrations for the original stories actually depict him wearing the hat and cape, and the pipe is believed to have been introduced in the stage plays.

* BadassMustache: He has an impressive mustache, and in addition to being a veteran of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, he's a renowned tiger hunter and an expert sharpshooter. After his boss Moriarty, he is the most dangerous man in London.

* BreakoutCharacter: One of the most famous of Holmes's opponents despite appearing in only a single story.
* ElegantClassicalMusician: Opera singer
* {{Flanderization}}: Treated as a FemmeFatale in a DatingCatwoman relationship with Holmes in just about every appearance ''except'' her canonical one, where she loves someone else and her only "crime" is legally possessing a photograph an ex-boyfriend fears she will use to blackmail him (which she never does). Furthermore, while Holmes's admiration of her is genuine it's clearly established to be purely because she is intellectually his equal, not based on any romantic or sexual desire.

* WorthyOpponent: To Holmes. The only woman to outfox him and get away with it.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Despite being a policeman, Gregson is willing to turn a blind eye to any of Holmes' criminal activity if it means catching a dangerous criminal.

* TheStoic: Exemplified in his final appearance where Watson observes that Gregson maintains his usual "quiet bussinesslike bearing" despite trying to chase after a murderer.

* {{Asexuality}}: Throughout his long career he shows absolutely no interest pursuing any physical or romantic relationships with anyone. Even his admiration for Irene Adler comes purely from her success at outmaneuvering him and not from any physical characteristics.

* BadassLongCoat: When in London, his favoured coat is a [[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Macfarlane Macfarlane]] cape-coat, which happens to be the city counterpart of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverness_cape Inverness cape-coat]], the one he’s depicted with when travelling the countryside. Both coats are explicitly cut to accommodate the moves of a hand-to-hand fighter/swordsman (an Inverness even doesn't have sleeves at all, only the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellegrina pellegrina]]), which suits the singlestick-fighting Holmes quite well.

-->'''Watson''': I don’t think you need alarm yourself, I have usually found that there was method in his madness.

-->''... I had a chat with him on eclipses. How the talk got that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern and a globe, and made it all clear in a minute. He lent me a book; but I don’t mind saying that it was a bit above my head, though I had a good Aberdeen upbringing. He’d have made a grand meenister with his thin face and gray hair and solemn-like way of talking. When he put his hand on my shoulder as we were parting, it was like a father’s blessing before you go out into the cold, cruel world.” ''

[[folder: Colonel Sebastian Moran]]

* MysteriousPast: At least partially fits this trope, given that Watson comments more than once in the stories about how he knows virtually nothing of Holmes's past. All that is eventually revealed is that he's distantly related to a bunch of French painters, he attended university somewhere, he's descended from country squires, and he has an older brother who's even cleverer than he is.

* TheAce: In the eyes of Watson and Scotland Yard, Holmes is incredible. At ''everything.''

** On the flip side Holmes himself has admitted that his brother Mycroft is far better at deduction than him. Fortunately for him, Mycroft isn't a detective; his mishandling of a case almost gets an innocent man killed.

* NoNameGiven: His first name is never given beyond being called "G. Lestrade" once.

* TheBadGuyWins: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. Defeating him seems so hopeless that Holmes hasn't even been hired to stop him -- he was hired to ''negotiate the best possible terms'', and even in that, he fails utterly. Holmes, for perhaps the first time in his career, has to go to highly unethical and outright illegal means to win, and even that only involves stealing back the incriminating letters, not actually trying to bring Milverton down.