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I'd wanted to write a post called 'Sherlock and Saga, my two favourite sociopaths', but apparently Sherlock doesn't qualify:
Stop calling Sherlock a sociopath
I wanted to write it because two detective series I'm enjoying enormously right now are Sherlock (a la Cumberpatch and Freeman) and The Bridge, the latter being a Swedish/Danish detective procedural on BBC4.
(I don't think the current incarnation of Holmes is particularly faithful to the stories, but I'm enjoying the wit, the interactions, and the interpretations of the stories in a modern setting. Jeremy Brett will forever be my 19th c Sherlock - accept no substitutes.)
In both shows, one of the leads is brilliant but socially impaired. According to the article examining Sherlock's character, he's not psychopathic in that he does feel emotion, but has chosen to be ruthlessly logical - more like Spock, who in theory has emotions but doesn't let them rule.
Saga Noren, though, clearly has trouble even parsing emotions, never mind grasping that they might influence people and their choices. She's nearly pathologically honest: where others make comforting noises to a distressed teen, she is bluntly honest, and is taken aback when he hugs her to say thank you.
She does read a lot, learning from psychology books some patterns of behaviour, but she does make the most peculiar choices when interacting with others, and doesn't 'get' sarcasm at all. It's the play between her and her foil partner, Martin, who seems overwhelmed with emotion, that makes the whodunnit so watchable for me.
So my clever title doesn't work. But I'm finding them both delightful
Stop calling Sherlock a sociopath
I wanted to write it because two detective series I'm enjoying enormously right now are Sherlock (a la Cumberpatch and Freeman) and The Bridge, the latter being a Swedish/Danish detective procedural on BBC4.
(I don't think the current incarnation of Holmes is particularly faithful to the stories, but I'm enjoying the wit, the interactions, and the interpretations of the stories in a modern setting. Jeremy Brett will forever be my 19th c Sherlock - accept no substitutes.)
In both shows, one of the leads is brilliant but socially impaired. According to the article examining Sherlock's character, he's not psychopathic in that he does feel emotion, but has chosen to be ruthlessly logical - more like Spock, who in theory has emotions but doesn't let them rule.
Saga Noren, though, clearly has trouble even parsing emotions, never mind grasping that they might influence people and their choices. She's nearly pathologically honest: where others make comforting noises to a distressed teen, she is bluntly honest, and is taken aback when he hugs her to say thank you.
She does read a lot, learning from psychology books some patterns of behaviour, but she does make the most peculiar choices when interacting with others, and doesn't 'get' sarcasm at all. It's the play between her and her foil partner, Martin, who seems overwhelmed with emotion, that makes the whodunnit so watchable for me.
So my clever title doesn't work. But I'm finding them both delightful
