The Town Of Deadly Mormon Ninja In Sherlock Holmes
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
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There's a huge tangent about a town of highly stealthy killer Mormons in A Study In Scarlet, the very first Sherlock Holmes book by Arthur Conan Doyle.
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I heard his intro as “the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his psychic, John Watson...” and I now have a new head canon.
Theres probably an adaptation like that out there somewhere....
You mean that psychic John Watson is the real solver of crimes, but to maintain his anonymity he calculatingly drip feeds information to Sherlock, a bombastic actor, who is happy to take the spotlight? Because that's my cannon now.
@@lrhill84 oddly I did read a story that featured watson and holmes chars as a throway gag. they were never mentioned by name But the Doctor was actualy his psychiatrist hoping that buy humoring "the great detective" he could help him work out his issues and bring him back to sanity
And now I'am reminded of the final scene in Split Second. The main character's sidekick is giving a bombastic closing narration wich he calls himself a psychic... until the protagonist is like "shut the f*** up"
@@lrhill84 That's almost the plot of the film Without a Clue starring Michael Caine as Holmes and Ben Kingsley as Watson
letterboxd.com/film/without-a-clue/
Me a few years ago reading a study in scarlet: wtf why is no one talking about this mormon tangent?!
Me now as soon as you started talking about it: yes! Finally, someone is talking about it!
I think my brain just deleted it completly
It only occurred to me very recently that I could be the one to talk about it XD
Yea same, I was confused as hell when i read it aswell
Same
You can finally rest
Honestly I can’t believe he didn’t mention that Doyle did not want to be a mystery writer. He wanted to write historical fiction. I’ve always assumed that was why this, and a few of the other stories, had those weird tangents.
So can you like explain then why he actually did write mystery fiction , is it like what he thought would sell , or just something by accident like JR Tolkien with LOTR , I'm really interested in knowing?
@@WeAreTheDraiken It was because the Sherlock Holmes stories made money. Doyle tried to retire the character by killing him off, but the public outcry was so big and his history books sold so poorly that he was forced to resurrect Holmes.
I remember how Holmes once profiled readers of different newspapers. Then he proceeded to roast people on both ends of political spectrum
It didn't work. People still loved reading his works
@@angelikaskoroszyn8495 Wow thats just so amazing , Its like Doyle wasn't aware of how good of a writer he was himself.
@@WeAreTheDraiken He felt mystery stories weren't literature, but novels set in the past were more 'worthy'.
The first time I read “A Study in Scarlet,” the jump to Utah forty years prior was so sudden and went on unexplained for so long that I was convinced that I had a misprinted copy and somehow another book had mistakenly been bound in the middle of my Sherlock Holmes novel.
Same, I thought my ebook was extremely poorly copied or something
Lol, I thought the same thing
I was listening on ebook and thought that I had accidentally clicked into another book.
Didn't help that I didn't remember the name from the beginning of the story either so I was completely lost
The first time I read it, I already knew various adaptations of it and frankly, I didn't care enough to read that part. I basically just jumped over it until the book went back to the actual story. Maybe that is the reason nobody talks about it.Because it is so easy to skip that part of the book.
The first version of the book I read was intended for kids. It had a page with a sentence that essentially said "Doyle went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with the story, so we cut it." Imagine my surprise when I read the unabridged version. WTF barely covers it.
That sounds like a Monty Python skit.
"The author started rambling so let's skip ahead a bit."
@@ROBOTPETER101 Which is basically Goldman's ruse in The Princess Bride.
I want to read the kids version now.
I was indoctrinated into Sherlock Holmes so young, the Mormon ninjas never even struck me as weird. I just read it and went "oh of course, Mormon ninjas. That makes perfect sense."
Same 😂😂 Granted, I was a teenager, but I was also super sheltered and didn't even really know what Mormons were, and I also somehow came away from that story *not* being convinced that all Mormons were violent totalitarian psychopaths.
Wow~🥰
I was about 11 when I ploughed through the collected Sherlock Holmes stories. I wasn't exactly a discerning reader, either :)
yeah, i think i was a tween
I knew the history of the old west so i knew about the mormon raiding bands. Yes they were real, and when they got kicked out for doing their raiding jobs too well they went south and built a fort in an old spanish town called las vegas.
Then in the 1950s most of them died fighting the mafia for control of vegas. Thats right they upgraded from mormon ninjas to mormon warlords carving out competing fiefdoms in the west.
Things I remember about A Study in Scarlet: Watson keeps complaining about how weird his new blood-analyzing, violin-murdering roommate is. He makes a list of all the things Holmes knows an abnormally lot about vs all the things he knows abnormally little about. He throws the list into the fire and gives up on sanity. They are now best friends.
Things I don't remember about A Study in Scarlet: All of this! Any of this!
Don't forget Holmes blushing at Watson's compliment
I never got that far xD
and I'm kinda glad, thats not the kind of story I'm looking for in a Sherlock Holmes novel.
Actually Holmes is portrayed as being quite good at playing the violin. But yes, the thing with the list is freaking hilarious, especially since in the radio drama Holmes FINDS THE LIST (which apparently wafted to the side of the fire and didn't burn properly), spends some time laughing at it, then takes pity on Watson and tells him what he does for a living. Quoth radio!Holmes, "I found your list as intriguing as you evidently find me."
@@dragongirl7978 Yeah but he'd play random notes repetively to calm himself down, driving Watson crazy. Or maybe he didn't. I clearly cannot trust my memory of this story.
@@emmae2520 Oh he would saw away just playing random notes to think. However, he also was a wonderful violinist when he applied himself to actually making music.
Me: My writing is stupid. No one would ever read this.
Dominic: describes this plot.
Me: I guess I have hope.
Well, the Twilight series, and the Christian Gray series got published...
@@bugeyedmonster2 a piece I once wrote was (accurately) described as “reading like a cheese grater”, and the episodes on Twilight and 50shades gave me hope.
Practice practice practice. Also, if you can do online writing classes, maybe try some?
There are some writers who admit to having written fan fiction when they first started writing. Lois McMaster Bujold started out writing Star Trek fan fiction.
Robert Jones, Jr used to write Wonder Woman fan fiction.
Just practice writing. Maybe post to Ao3? Reviews might be helpful. Or would any of your friends be willing to honestly critique your writing?
Best wishes. Good luck.
Never ever doubt. I'm sure your writing is great. But even if it werent, the hardest thing is getting people's eyes on it, not if anyone will like.
I saw a Barack Obama and Joe Biden murder mystery novel series in Barnes and Noble. Somebody got their wattpad US Politics fic published. There's an audience for EVERYTHING
“Jefferson Hope” is the most aggressively American name I’ve heard in a while
A culturally reciprocal example would be an American writer naming a British character something like "Rupert Edmund Giles".
It kinda prefigures Bill Clinton.
Gunshot McGee?
Good thing it's a British name 😂😂😂 fuck bro just say your racist 😂😂😂😂
I’ll say this about the Mormon section in Study in Scarlet: as weird and out of nowhere as it was, the whole countdown sequence filled me with a real sense of dread. The fact that not only did John and Lucy have to watch as this number ticked down to their demise, but that fact that no matter what John did, he was completely unable to stop a group of murderous intruders from breaking into their house *every night.* Truly terrifying.
Compared with reality though, it's outright HILARIOUS!
Yeah, that's really the most annoying part of that book. You want to hate and wonder what the hell it has to do with Holmes and Watson but it is legit well written and if this was a standalone story, I think people would've talked about this as one of Doyle's most underrated stories.
I live in Utah and though I am not Mormon, I can confirm that they are all deadly ninjas that will take over the world if they're not stopped. They took up the martial arts after a study in Scarlet actually and seek revenge over their portrayal.
😂😂😂
Also in Utah...and then they all got fat and lazy on all the funeral potatoes, green jello, and diet coke and so now just scam each other with MLM schemes.
As a fellow Utahn can confirm.
Easy to forget this was written when the Mormon Wars would still be fresh in peoples memories about the mormons
Probably that was the reason why nobody was brave enough to mention their story in one of the movies.
When he said “and his side-kick, John Watson” I heard “psychic John Watson” and I feel like that would have made a very different story.
In the bloopers, that's actually what the subtitles say. XD
I heard the same thing it could be a fun premise
Based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s beliefs, that different story could have been entirely possible.
i mean , there is a book series called elemental masters where some of the books revolve around two psychic women and their supernatural adventures with Sherlock Holmes where Watson is a water mage. The funny thing is Sherlock totally believes in psychic powers but thinks that Watson is just messing with him about magic. And also they fight an expy of Cthulhu at one point, it's a fun series.
Psych meets Sherlock Holmes xD
I just like how Doyle hated Holmes because the fandom and kept trying to end the series, but literally couldn't.
He literally did. He wrote Holmes' death and somehow had to write himself out a corner after public outcry
Just goes to show you that toxic fandoms were always a thing.
@@mad0813 from what I've read, Doyle only wrote "Sherlock Holmes" stories to pay the bills. Whenever the money was finally flowing, Doyle started to write other things including stuff on the occult and spiritualism. He wanted to be known for those works and considered writing Sherlock Holmes a nuisance later in his life.
I might be wrong but I read somewhere that his mom's friend or someone asked for him to sign a book and he became really pissed off when he was asked to sign it as Sherlock Holmes 🤣🤣
@@HRJafael I think my reply was deleted but look up his Story The Parasite is definitely a read.
Reminds me of the fact that the original Dracula novel has a literal Cowboy from Texas
technically (sorry for necroposting) it had a dude who ACTED like an old west cowboy but was really just the kid of a ranchowner who liked playing it up.
we still have people like that.
The fact you described Watson and Sherlock's first meeting as their "meet cute"...
Seriously, read it lol. There's not really any other way to describe it. 😂
Sure is the vibe
Steven Moffat certainly decided to play it like that in the Cumberbatch series, that's for sure. :D
I read once that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's real passion was writing historical fiction but that he had no success making money of those stories because people found them to be too boring. Maybe that explains the strange mix of detective story and mormon ninja drama.
Honestly, I wish he had kept writing historical fiction, because the Mormon Ninjas of Utah sound fucking amazing
The one I read, "Micah Clarke," was definitely not boring! As Dominic says, Doyle was an annoyingly good writer and even when he had thematic Serious Business in mind with expounding on religious conflicts in 1680s England, he kept the plot moving. But in "Micah Clarke", at least, he chose a historical period and events that had already had a bunch of 19th-century novels written about them (not necessarily better ones, but I don't think Doyle had anything truly original to add). Whereas Sherlock Holmes was really something new.
With a title like that, how could I not click?
Exactly
Same
He had me at Mormon Ninja
I had to watch it because I'm mormon
And I find it hilarious
Deadly Mormon ninja. That sounds like a south park villain.
Why isn't there a south park villain named Deadly Mormon ninja? Can you create one in the Stick of Truth or Fractured but Whole?
Nah, for the most part, Mormons are a group that they'll never bash, only lightly mock. So they'll never put them into a bad light.
That could be their next musical.
@@GibbyCat that Should be their next musical!
Or mistranslation of Japanese Game port
I like that Doyle would probably also consider himself an "annoyingly good writer" since they just wouldn't let him stop writing Sherlock in peace.
Most writers just turn into hacks and burn out. Thanks to Doyle's creative approach, we have a host of works including but by no means limited to Death Note, and White Company is still in print.
May the Fourth be with you. No exceptions.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Well, this bodybuilding contest I was invited to judge has gone swimmingly. Oh, one of the young men wants to ask something.
Random bodybuilder: WHEN NEXT SHERLOCK THO.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Oh dammit.
Oh my god. "Mormon kombat". The end credits songs have just been amazing lately.
This entire video could have been in Urdu, and that end-credits song still makes it worth the price of admission. *_"Pray"_* . . . lol !!
Finish Him
Man, Naruto got wild after I dropped it
Sasuke - why?!?!?!
Naruto did get pretty wild with the weird rabbit moon goddess reincarnation thing.
* spits out drink and dies laughing *
“So Mister Doyle what’s this story gonna be about?”
“Mormon ninjas.”
“Was that English?”
No, that’s American... keep up (insert publishers name here)
“Independence for the colonies has resulted in many peculiarities.”
But it explains why at first Dominic seemed to say "his Psychic Watson" (it was Sidekick, but I needed a moment to determine that from the COntext :D)
Surprise Twist: Sherlock Holmes is the True Dr. Strange! :D
Doyle had another far-flung backstory tangent in his next Holmes book, The Sign of Four. It involves a one-legged dude bargaining his way out of prison by bribing a couple of soldiers with a stolen Indian treasure, then going on a revenge hunt with his Andamanese friend who kills people with poisoned blow darts.
But at least that's in first person IIRC--narrated by the criminal.
Don't forget the pinkerton detective in the valley of fear.
And don’t worry he was also racist about the Andamanese!
And we thought Sherlock has some weird s**t plots! 😯
I couldn't finish that one. It was a story within a story within another story.
When I was reading Study in Scarlet for the first time, I remember reaching the point where Hope got caught, and wondering why there was still so much book left.
And so it turns out that Doyle was dropping a massive backstory bomb that felt a lot like Doyle had wrote this entire bit completely separately from the Sherlock stories, and then when he realised he didn’t have a backstory for his Holmes villain, Doyle just took his “Mormons vs Hunter” story that he’d written somewhere else and then dropped it in for a backstory.
“Hyper competent totalitarian mormans” was not a phrase I expected to hear today. 😂
Moroni Shrugged
@@brucebaker810 Yup.
@@Arhimith You should see the teachers on Sunday. I swear they disappear before sacrament every time...
Reading the title I thought for sure this was some modern sherlock homes book written by someone who just went all out with a wild concept but to hear this was the real thing just dropped my jaw
Well, Doyle was the first to do it himself 😂
The real thing, and the FIRST thing!
Same. AND I HAVE READ THE ACTUAL BOOK. Seems like my brain deleted that part of the story.
Oh yeah, when I read A Study In Scarlet I couldn't believe how weird it was, I'm glad I can now put it into words with a simple UA-cam title.
"Padme's right out of this world." OMG, I'm dead. XD
So is the character. XD
So're Padme and Lucy...
I loved that line!!!
and every adaptation I keep going "Where are the mormons going to come in?"
Il Neige’s ‘Mormon Kombat” song is amazing. 10/10 stars.
The really weirdest thing is that the idea of a Mormon totalitarian religious state in Utah in the 1840's... is actually not as far from the historical reality than you'd think. There really was a migration of Mormon settlers to Utah seeking religious freedom and even at one point trying to establish their own nation, the theocratic republic of Deseret. And while the idea of "Mormon ninjas" is an exaggeration, there were instances of Mormons clashing with other pioneer bands and even the US Army and wiping the floor with them, on at least one occasion full on massacring an entire wagon train through use of what we'd later term "guerilla tactics". This territorial domination wouldn't be brought fully to heel until 1869 with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the final stretch of which passed through northern Utah and allowed greater access for both non-Mormon settlers and US military troops to protect them and oversee a peace with the Mormons.
sirrliv accurate
If you’ve ever lived in Utah, one could argue it still hasn’t been fully brought to heel...
@@bethanybarden1953 Excuse me while I cross "Utah" off of the list of states that I'm willing to move to.
@@deathsecretary2055 Uh.... have any of you actually read what the leadership of the Church proposed for the state of Deseret?
The Mountain Meadows Massacre was an actual event, though the attack on the Baker-Fencher Party was not approved by the Church leadership. Brigham Young DID send a letter telling the militia to leave the party alone.
In context, this was during the Utah War, aka "Buchanan's Blunder." In an effort to not have slavery tied with polygamy in Republican rhetoric, democrat president (and usually #1 on lists of WORST US presidents, for not halting the secession of the Southern States before the Civil War) Buchanan sent the US Army to impose order.
Utah at the time was "rebellious" only in the sense that Brigham Young was the de facto territorial leader AND Prophet of the Church. In addition, many federal officials felt useless since the members handled most matters internally, and often had the habit of antagonizing the locals by preaching against plural marriage, calling them traitors, etc. Some left, paranoid that they'd be lynched.
Buchanan did everything perfectly... to ensure that his actions would be misinterpreted in Utah. He didn't send any warnings or messages to Utah, organized a large army and marched against a population composed mostly of religious refugees.
The result was most members legitimately thought they were being attacked by the US Government. However, while militias raided US Army wagon trains, no one really got hurt. The only casualties were from a handful of incidents against both sides, the largest was at Mountain Meadows.
Cooler heads however took charge. A cease-fire was called. Buchanan became the failure before Abraham Lincoln (who later gave Brigham Young a degree of independence in exchange for his loyalty, to BOTH side's satisfaction).
@@jeremyo3596 Yeah, but they're not cool with the gays so I'm out.
I remember reading A Study in Scarlet as a child and being very confused by the main characters being basically dropped for chapters about the Mormon town. Anyway, now I read Victor Hugo for fun, so clearly that kind of thing no longer bothers me.
Gotta love all those chapters about the Parisian sewer system 😂
@@Kay-th2cx I ended up liking the asides more than the main story ohno
@@Kay-th2cx And Waterloo!
"Anyway, now I read Victor Hugo for fun,"
You're a mad one, huh? Gotta say I respect that
yes, let's just take a loooong step back to talk about the founding of Paris for about fifty pages, and before we get back to the main story, let's talk about the building of Notre Dame and how architecture was the literacy of an illiterate world, or something like that.
This is the book Brandon Sanderson credits with convincing him to be VERY careful with portraying anyone who isn't exactly like him. aka, how we got the epic and brilliant Jasnah Kholin.
True. But then Vin and Kelsier are some murderous ninja types, HAHA
Wasn't expecting to see a shout-out to my favorite Stormlight character here but I'll take it!
Huh, I did not know that.
I truly must thank you for that little tidbit, kind individual on the internet.
Source?
@@simpsonman956 I believe he said it in his UA-cam Video on how to write people with different worldviews than yourself.
Revisiting this video after reading A Study in Scarlet for myself for the first time, and I didn’t really think the Mormon tangent seemed out of place at all, it gives the backstory of the killer, gives you reason to sympathize with him, it explains why he was so attached to that ring (It was Lucy’s wedding ring; he stole it off of her body the night after she died to prevent her having to be buried with it and despite being a symbol of her forced marriage it’s the only keepsake he has of her) and it explains a comment Watson made earlier about the feeling he got from seeing the dead Drebber’s face, that he had been a depraved sort of man and the world was no worse off from the loss of him
Now could Hope have just explained all this in a few short paragraphs since he was already going to confess ? Most likely, but like Dom said it is a pretty thrilling read and I think the slow buildup and the time it gives you to get attached to John and Lucy makes it all the more effective
yup, i remember it's pretty much.. "ahhh there's our murdere- *meanwhile, in a desert, somehere, a western/horror-thriller mormon biography* ... aand welcome back to our detective story!
This is hilarious. Never heard Arthur Conan Doyle described as "an annoyingly good writer" before. Of course now you realize you have to do some reviews/Lost in Adaptation videos on Holmes, at this point your patrons are going to demand it.
Ex-LDS here, and non-Mormons writing about Mormons, especially at that time, just really crack me up! Loved the ending song, too :)
I love how back in the day Mormons were characatured as dangerous ruffians, whereas now they're a synonym for vanilla and naive.
As an ex-Mormon here’s the secret to defeating the Mormon ninj
Oh no, they got-!
29
@@pintpullinggeek This is the "'Mormon' Mafia." And we are here....
To bring you cookies and mow your lawn.
MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
@@jeremyo3596 you monsters! You extremely polite MONSTERS!!!!!
Mormon mafia... Morphia?
When I read Study, I was like, "Why does every adaptation leave this crazy bit out? This is part of Doyle's crazy brain. We need it!"
The BBC Radio version has it. And does a decent job of it.
I'm guessing they didn't want to piss off actual Mormons? I have no idea what all they were doing in the 1840s, but I'm guessing modern Mormons wouldn't take terribly kindly to being portrayed as violent totalitarian psychopaths, particularly when there's already some prejudice against them.
And yes, the BBC radio version does include it.
@@dragongirl7978 I could say a bit about that time. The members of the Church didn't actually arrive in the Salt Lake Valley until 1847. After that, they began to settle throughout the Great Basin and parts of the Rocky Mountains.
Members of the Church generally reached out to native Americans and tried to cooperate with them, though the decentralized nature of many tribes, attacks by rogues, increasing settlement by members and differences between culture did lead to conflict.
The Church's most controversial practice was plural marriage, which is more complicated and intricate than often reported. Taking a plural wife required the permission of any existing wives as well as the bride's consent, most young people married each other, many women were married to a ploygamist but weren't in active sexual relations... etc.
The local population was overwhelmingly LDS, and though there were non-members who lived there in relative peace (and freedoms such as religion were indeed respected) most affairs were handled not by the local government but by the Church, or a mix of the two.
The fact that members saw little problem with this mixture of church and state. Between this and polygamy many federal officials sent to Utah felt impotent at best, and outnumbered and without friends at worst. Any hint of violence was kept in check by the Church leadership but it was clear that the Church was the true power in Utah.
The 1858 Utah War was the result of President Buchanan's efforts to distract the nation from the issue of slavery and the upcoming Civil War, which started during the lame duck period of his presidency. Officially he just wanted to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor. But he sent the US Army to enforce it, without warning the local population.
The result was that the population, suspicious of the politicians in the US, and still remembering their violent and unlawful ejections from Missouri and Illinois, were legitimately afraid that the US government was determined to wipe them out. The whole state went on a war footing.
The ensuing panic is the context for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where the Baker-Fancher Party was suspected to harbor men who had just recently killed an LDS apostle and that the party was acting as scouts for the US Army.
It is AT MOST unclear whether it was ordered from above. Such hypothesizes are based more on speculation. We do know Brigham Young sent a letter (it didn't arrive in time) telling the local commander to stand down and let the Baker-Fancher Party pass. Some people allege the letter had secret instructions, but again, that's conjecture.
The Utah War was settled when Buchanan (increasingly under fire back east for his rash actions) sent a peace delegation, offering to forgive the saints provided they submit to US law. Brigham Young accepted it, though he objected to the saints being termed the instigators of the war.
A portion of the US Army remained in Utah, which generated some tensions but none that outright resulted in war. The commander, one Patrick Edward Connor (who disliked the Church), encouraged copper mining in what is now Kennecott Open Mine to bring in more non-LDS immigrants, which over time was somewhat successful.
The Church practiced polygamy through the Civil War despite laws against it being passed in Congress. Part of this was due to Abraham Lincoln giving Young tacit permission to do as he pleased so long as he remained loyal.
Utah also was one of the first territories/states to encourage the women's vote, which opponents of plural marriage advocated, thinking it'd end the practice. But the LDS population was for women's suffrage, in part to DEFEND plural marriage. This is why in the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, the provision of DISENFRANCHISING WOMEN VOTERS was included with the disincorporation of the Church.
The matter was resolved when Wilford Woodruff gave a general declaration stating that plural marriages were no longer to be performed. This position was again reiterated during the Smoot Hearings (when apostle Reed Smoot became a senator from Utah, despite opposition. Part of the question was whether the Church was solemnizing plural marriages still or not. Smoot still became a senator, btw). This led to a minor schism as a tiny sub-faction of the Church split away, forming the FLDS sect of Warren Jeffs infamy.
After this, relations between Utah and the rest of the US normalized until eventually they became what they are today.
@@dragongirl7978 cults man, they tend to be good at carving a societal bubble to strike out from
@@Rynewulf While I recognize Mormonism has problems, being murderous psychopaths generally isn't one of them lol. I mean, I'm not Mormon, but if someone tried to portray them like that these days, I'd be pretty offended on their behalf, unless there was like some kind of qualification like... This particular group of Mormons got infected with vampire blood or something. 😂
We need more Dom Sherlock videos. Given we have so many adaptations of “Hound of the Baskervilles” alone, Dom could have a field day 😄
I was just scrolling through the comments, not paying much attention, then the words 'Dom Sherlock' catch my eye- Like, I know it's not what you meant, but holy fuck did it give me the wrong idea what the comment was about for a second
Until recently (within ten years or so) I didn’t even know “The Hound of the Baskervilles” was a Sherlock Holmes novel.
@@Stormkrow280 I only discovered that this year 😂
This kind of reminds me of when I read through the Count of Monte Cristo. It would just suddenly go off on fairly long tangents talking about completely different stories. They did tie back into the narrative eventually, but it really does feel like reading a completely different story until you find the connecting point.
Currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo and can confirm the long tangents. I would be VERY confused if I hadn't already seen a few film adaptations before reading the book. I at least have an idea on how these "hold up a minute" moments will tie back into the main plot
I've found that Monsieur Dumas has a tendency to natter on long, mildly unnecessary but ties back to something eventually we promise tangents in his works. Not complaining too much just something of note. (Though if you thought his tangents were long wait till you see Victor Hugo's work....)
Hugo’s even worse. There is an epic description of the Battle of Waterloo who’s relevance to the story could summed up in one sentence (Thenardier saved the life of Marius’ father while robbing the bodies).
Monte Cristo's tangents are especially weird because they're so recursive. Here's the story of someone the Count met. Now here's the story of someone that person met. Now here's the story of someone that person met. Now here's...
As a Mormon myself, reading Study in Scarlet was an absolute trip. And kind of made the whole "Representation Matters" thing actually click, as I imagined "What if this wasn't a quirky and obscure Holmes novel? What if everyone had read this and it was the only thing about Mormons they ever read?" Also, having been raised in a very insular environment where the Mormons are ALWAYS the wholesome virtuous aw-shucks-ma'am save-the-day types, it was a jolt that maybe I didn't have the full story on my own culture. #privilege
Conan Doyle, I think, just wasn't totally comfortable with Holmes in novel format. This piece is basically two nested short stories rather than a novel. He hit the nail on the head in Hound of the Baskervilles but I think that was the only time.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is pretty short for a novel, which might be while it was his best one. Doyle was much better with short stories (it shows in his horror stories, too), but thought that big historical novel where his thing.
The ideas Doyle expressed were not made from Whole Cloth, as the saying goes. The source material on Mormonism that Doyle relied upon while writing Study in Scarlet was most likely critical at best... Among the likely resources Doyle relied on are Fannie Stenhouse and Ann Eliza Young, Mormon (or ex-Morman) women whose writings did not show polygamy in a good light.
@@dalsta7724 Surely the eyewitness accounts of what Mormonism was like from the inside are actually more worthy than an outside view? Or were those women lying? That seems dangerously like victim blaming.
@@dalsta7724 nothing shows polygamy in a good light. It’s a shitty practice.
@@dalsta7724 And do not forget: Just 30 years before the publishing of "A Study in Scarlet" the Mountain Meadows Massacre had been committed.
Having grown up in Utah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I promise that the segue felt even weirder for me when I first read it in Junior High.
Yeah it was such a weird tangent... And it didn't stop it was so long. But to be fair doyle probably didn't have great information about some random religious group in another country outside of rumor.
"Are we the baddies?" Moment
@@RandomPerson1313 neither did his readers, which is why it worked as a mysterious boogeyman organization. Jules Verne had a similarly unflattering, (if significantly less murderous), portrayal in Around the World in 80 Days, so it definitely seems like the general opinion was unfavorable.
@@Melancholy_Scholar This is precisely it! Mormons were stock villain characters in 19th-century fiction set in the American West.
Was that where you learnt to be a ninja? Or did you have to take extra classes?
When I first read this book, I was so confused by the sudden change in stories, since there was nothing at first that told me this was Jefferson Hope's backstory. It was just a completely random story that started in the middle of the book.
I first read A Study in Scarlet when I couldn't get to sleep one night and I think I woke my boyfriend up with my exclamations of surprise at the random Mormon tangent. But I think Arthur Conan Doyle was originally a historical fiction writer so I guess he didn't want to fully let go of that in his first Sherlock Holmes novel.
I listened to the audio book of this and I was so confused when it suddenly turned into a different story. It made me wonder if there was a glitch and part of another book had accidentally replaced part of the one I was listening to.
Same lol 😂
That’s how I felt when I was first reading it: “Was there an error at the printer’s? Or are they reproducing the whole of the original magazine?”
I was about to make this comment! 😂
I had exactly the same thing! My first thought was "... the hell? Did I accidently put this on shuffle?"
I had a similar experience. I first listened to the story on cassette tapes, switched to the next take and thought I had the wrong story. I think I switched over to a print book to see how the A Study in Scarlet ended, but of course I found the same abrupt change there, too 😋
FINALLY SOMEBODY ELSE MENTIONED IT! Seriously, I was slightly concerned I was seeing things there.
The best part about this whole thing is that the motivation for the murder could have been quite literally anything but Sir ACD's dart board landed on mormon ninjas and he spent a majority of the book connecting the dots.
Thankfully the book I read also had The Hound of the Baskervilles included which was much more cohesive.
He used the same symstem StephenKing use for finding out what to make evil...
@@lindala2602 Yes, but unlike Stephen King, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a good writer.
I read Sherlock Holmes when I was about 14 and just transitioning to adult novels so no, the insane Mormon ninjas didn't strike me as particularly weird. This was also the period when I read stuff like Flowers in the Attic and The Lord of the Flies, so honestly in retrospect pretty much everything I read around that time was a bit weird.
Lord of the Flies is FAR more realistic than those others.
At 00:13 I somehow heard “the adventures of Holmes and his psychic doctor Watson” and in a fraction of a second I envisioned an entirely different literary canon
Same same😂
Doyle did this again in "The Valley of Fear" where a part of the novel tells about an undercover detective in a USA mining town dominated by a totalitarian union (I think?)
At least it was told from the killer's perspective the whole time.
I thought it was a gentleman’s club of some kind.
Yes, but at least that one was vaguely entertaining.
It was a gentleman's club everywhere else except in the murder town.
Nope, a union which started as a fraternity but transformed in to a murderous mafia
I remember reading it almost 10 years ago, and when I did there was an addendum to the book that detailed Doyle's lack of knowledge about the Mormon faith at the time he wrote the novel and his regrets when he learned more about them later on.
Nah he shouldn't have
This is why I tend to think that the longer Sherlock Holmes mysteries tend to be less enjoyable than the shorter ones. The valley of fear pulls a similar tangent where the mystery is wrapped up and the second half of the book is just the backstory of one of the principal characters involved in the mystery.
Okay but the one in Valley of Fear features the best walk-on character in the entire series.
I mean The Valley of Fear's tangent makes it one of my favorite Holmes stories, so...
I would agree... except... BIRDY EDWARDS IS AWESOME.
See, that's why Hound of the Baskervilles is my favorite of his longer mysteries because it's one of the few that doesn't go on a weird tangent. All the backstory stuff for the characters involved is unraveled naturally in-story.
@@JenamDrag0n I agree
When it came to the method with which Hope dispatched the two brothers, he even explained it as "God guides the hand of the virtuous and the guilty. One to salvation, the other to damnation." Implying that because they ingested the poisonous capsules, they had been "judged and found wanting" by their own faith. It was his way of perverting their Mormonism. At least, that's how I read it as.
I heard his intro as “the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his psychic, John Watson...”
I can't unhear it now lol
That's not what he said???
Same!
I think most of us did 😂
When I started reading Sherlock Homes my dad warned me about this narrative shift and it still took me off guard
_The Valley of Fear_ is a similar style of story, with the Holmes mystery being a framing device for an extended "Why I done it" by the perpetrator.
But at least that's framed as his confession, though it's not in first person. (I've always thought that Valley would make a great movie, if they Godfathered it up and alternated scenes from the past with scenes in the present.)
The Sign of the Four the second Holmes mystery is the same.
All the full length SH novels follow that format except for the Hound of the Baskervilles.
@@jenniferschillig3768 There is an old cartoon film adaptation of Valley of Fear with Peter O' Toole as Sherlock. It was years ago since I watched it though- I'm not sure how it holds up.
@@becca545 Oh, yes, I know that one. Seeing it on one of the local syndication stations as a kid (they did an "animated classics" slot every Saturday) was what got me into Holmes!
“And this is where the story gets really weird “ It wasn’t before?
Naw, it was just a murder story before. Two American dudes killed in London ... nothing out of the ordinary.
Seconding Cay Reet's comment. London at that time had a high murder rate. Two foreigners ending up dead in London wouldn't have been that weird at that time.
The feeling I felt when Brigham Young himself showed up in this story is indescribable
5:45 Dominic Noble: This is where it starts to get really weird.
Me: It's not weird enough already????????
The first time I read study in scarlet I genuinely believed that I’d gotten a misprint of the book. I thought it was meant to be an omnibus of Doyle’s works but that they’d accidentally left out the final chapter of study in scarlet. I kept reading it though ‘cause Doyle’s writing slaps so hard. Didn’t realize what was actually going on until right before it switched back over to Watson’s POV.
I listened to it on audio and thought did they mess up the files??? What is happening? But no, that's just the book.
THANK YOU! Finally someone talks about this! I’ve been baffled by this weird tangent in the middle of (what was promised to me as) a Sherlock Holmes story for years now!
Okay... wasn't totally paying attention until I misheard "sidekick, Dr Watson" as "psychic Dr Watson!" And, hear me out, that sounds awesome.
Same here.
I think all of us did...
I'm a devout "Mormon" and this sounds hilarious. My dad is a big Sherlock Holmes fan, but he hasn't read A Study in Scarlet and after telling him about this video, I think he's interested.
Yeah the Danites were a real group that acted like a mafia for the prophet, Brigham Young. Very interesting violent history the church seems hesitant to remark on, wouldn't you say?
I was listening to the audiobook on audible whilst on a walk and REPEATEDLY checked I hadn't glitched into a different book I accidentally downloaded. Only the fact that it was still Stephen Fry convinced me it wasn't a glitch.
Which raised MORE questions.
When I read the book I really didn't see the fact that they were Mormons as being too significant. To me, it was more about the isolation of some of the settlements in that part of the country in that time period. When you think about it, it does seem pretty ominous. No matter who they are, if the people running the settlement you live in decided to go homicidal maniac on you, what exactly are you going to do about it? There's no outside authority to put any kind of limit on what they can do, you can't leave, and you're out of reach of anyone from the outside world that could possibly help you.
Back then the Mormons were the fav villain of penny dreadfuls.
Yes and no. Any group could fall to that but by this point the mormons had been literally stealing women from each of the ten or so states they had been run out of. They were, and this is historical fact, dangerous bandits and outlaws for well earned reasons. They killed people that questioned their... lies. I wont call them beliefs because the first gen mormons were very clear about being con men. Most of the states they were driven out of had kill on sight orders for any mormon in their territory because they were dangerous fanatics willing to steal, kill, abduct and rape women and girls, and spoke often of secession or destroying the US.
Fearing mormons was not hysteria it was sound security policy.
In fact those mormon raiders and ninjas? Eventually the "new" mormons kicked them out and they ended up in the desert to the south and built a fort in an old spanish town called las vegas. Their reign of terror over the local area didnt end until the mafia came to vegas in the 1950s. A century of guerrilla war and outright organized crime warrants fear in my eyes.
Put very simply mormons were 19th century american ISIS. Stealing wives, burning other peoples holy sites and endlessly trying to provoke a holy war to bring down their ultimate enemy; the US government. They are terrorists. To this day they are, theyve just become slightly less overt about subverting the will of the US govt and the people that voted to empower that will. Its why a church in utah dumps millions of dollars into ballot initiatives in California and washington. They want to rule america and view it as their birthright to do so. Its jihad in sweater vests.
And yes, to this day they are criminals that still support and enable theft through forced donations and coercion. They are also a bastion of pedophilia and child marriage and will steal children with little hesitation. They claim none of that is true but their outcasts all seem to vehemently disagree and tend to provide evidence.
They are, were and ever shall be a danger to rational society and democracy. I forget to mention they love the idea of a theocratic governing and detest the idea they should be subject to the will of some silly "majority" of citizens.
I think the fact that they’re Mormon is pretty significant given how recent the mountain meadows massacre was at the time the book was published. It was a few years before blood doctrine was disavowed as well.
@@staceyw5348 I know. I'm not talking about the author's intent at the time. What I'm saying is that the historical backstory doesn't even need to be explained in order for the story to work. The setting itself can stand alone as a possible threat.
You have just unlocked a deep, hidden memory. This was such a weird tangent. Thank you for bringing back that weird, weird memory. :D
Man I cant focus on the vid because doms nails are so cute??? I need that color
Oh my gosh! 😓
I'm a part of the church in question and this actually reminds me a bit of another story. I was at girl's camp and we were discussing time when we had been asked questions about our faith. One girl said that she met a few people who thought that if we didn't wear our CTR rings to the temple, we get shot by a sniper on top of the angel Moroni. To be clear, there is not a sniper on the top of the Temples' lightning rod, and I don't know a single person who actually wears their CTR ring to the temple in the first place. Funny story though.
I remember the first time I read the book and thinking that I’d started another story without noticing. It was so out of left field I almost got whiplash.
As an ex-Mormon I think this is fucking hilarious
@Redwood Rebelgirl The least accurate part is how competent they are
@Redwood Rebelgirl Yeah... I'm what I believe is known as a "Nevermo" (not Mormon, never have been), but from the little I know about the history of the Mormon church, I'm inclined to contract "murderous, totalitarian Mormons" down to "Mormons" and leave it at that.
They didn't call the second prophet "Bloody Brigham" for nothing.
As a current Mormon, I agree.
The book is definitely a product of its time. One of the, many, disturbing things about that second half story is that Jefferson Hope does eventually make it back to civilization, several days after Lucy has been forcibly married to another man. I rather expected the next bit to be about how he sneaks into the Ninja Mormon house and rescues her- having been unable to prevent her initial rape, but could still save her from a life of captivity and torment. Instead, he throws up his hands, declares that its too late, and lives several months out in the wild as a savage. Lucy dies a month after the wedding. Jefferson is aware of her death because he shows up at the house and acts crazy for a few minutes before disappearing again.
That bothered me. Was Lucy abandoned because she had been deflowered?
@@kmaher1424 probably
Yeah, I remember reading A Study in Scarlet and getting VERY confused because like “where did Holmes and Watson go????”
ok i enjoyed this episode, but the true icing on the cake was the outro music! I actually CACKLED
Okay, I now want to show up to a con in a ninja costume and wearing my old missionary name tag and see who gets the joke.
I remember when I first read “study in scarlet” and kept thinking a was reading the wrong book when the American stuff started happening
Actually I had the same reaction, was super confused at first.
It certainly is a bit jarring but I did not find it so weird and intrusive as some folks do. It was the first SH novel and was not the last time this tactic would be employed (sign of the 4, valley of fear etc). It felt drawn out but its summary intent was to give the readers the perspective to understand the motives of the killer. I can certainly say that by the end of the Mormon section I was rooting for the killer and wasn't so very bothered by the folks he had killed.
I couldn't get through it and gave up
The Book of Mormon: The Shequel: Electric Boogaloo
I never knew I needed this video until now. I remember finishing reading the Jefferson Hope portion and being brought back to the Sherlock side having completely forgotten that I was reading sherlock holmes to begin with.
Excellent! I remember reading A Study in Scarlet as a kid and thinking "wait, what" when that bit happened. Your summary made a lot of things clearer. In my defence, I was rather young when I read it xD
Slight detail: not sure if you'll see this, but I'd avoid using the word "psychotic" when referring to dangerous murderers in the future. The psychotic community is already extremely demonised and marginalised, and these people are a lot more likely to be victims than predators. They are also rather likely to internalise the idea that they are evil. I recommend the channel "Living Well With Schizophrenia" for more info :)
I'm only mentioning this because I love your content and know that you care about these things. Much love!
I read a Study In Scarlet when I was really young and the only part that I remembered (which stuck with me for years) was the Mormon tangent.
The most incarnated fictional character in history? Really? More than Hercules? Or King Arthur? Or Doctor Who?....dang, way to go Holmes
Id say if we counted "Passion" plays Jesus Christ probably edges him out, but it'd still be pretty darn close
I'm pretty sure that quasi possibly real characters dont count, such as Jesus, Odysseus, or Achilles.
If you believe Chibnall, The Doctor wins.
I think it’s mainly due to how easy it is to put him into a story as a one-off joke
I remember reading this as a child and convinced myself it was a fever dream rather than an actual story I read
I was so baffled by this concept that for a second I was convinced that April Fool's Day is actually February 1st
I read the study in scarlet as a ‘Mormon’ 12 year old, and that section found me uncomfortable, baffled, and laughing absolutely hysterically. If only I had secret ninja powers unlocked by devout-ness.
(And you used our proper name to! Thanks for that :)
OH MY GOSH! This explains so much about one of my favorite adaptations: Warlock Holmes, in which Holmes is an Eldritch magician using magic to solve magic crimes and Watson is making up phorensics-sounding bullshit on the spot to get the police to stop asking questions.
And in the first book, there is indeed a lengthy diversion about a doomed caravan in the American desert and a badass tracker with a John Wick level vendetta who catches up to his targets right before a terminal illness takes him out too.
That section always confuses me so much! It was compelling and humorous, but felt largely irrelevant to the primary story. THIS IS WHY! OH MY GOD!
Dom, Broke: Why is no one talking about this!?
Me, Woke: _Writes Akatske-From-Naruto-Themed Mormon Ninjas into my Wild West-themed RPG campaign_
Dead Lands?
Because they basically are all bad ass ninjas with supernatural powers in Dead Lands. Really enjoyed the one campaign of that I've played.
@@JP2GiannaT Nah, I was a wee lad who didn't really know about or have access to Deadlands at the time. This was a Mutants and Masterminds short which was generated by the statement, "Man, fantasy Western setting could be cool." So this was going to involve Brigham Young trying to bind the Morrigan from Gaelic myth to him in marriage, and some knights from The Order of The Texas Rangers having to whether a siege on a town from the Avenging Angels (the afore-mentioned ninjas).
So, some similarities with Deadlands for sure, but I went more in and Arthurian direction with it.
I was reading a Study in Scarlet on Kindle and got to the Mormon part and thought there was some issue with the file, immediately had to google and see if it was actually the same book lol
It would be hilarious if a copy of Study in Scarlet switched to a different typesetting for when it's the tangent.
"Mormon Kombat" had me LOLing for the longest time :-D
Intimidating voice: *P R A I S E H I M*
I was listening to this audio book whilst working recently, I seriously thought I had moved on to a different book altogether. Thanks for showing I'm not mad.
Really brill the way The Dom can make even Sherlock seem fresh and funny.
Me, a person with a master's degree in creative writing, seeing the question in the thumbnail: ME!!!!!!! I was literally ranting to someone about this yesterday!!!!!!!
Oh my god I felt like I imagined this. Every time I’ve mentioned it people have said they don’t remember it
This is honestly why I love classic Sherlock. I’m currently reading it with friends and it does not disappoint. It’s so kooky sometimes really unpredictable and straight out hilarious at points.
I remember reading this blind in my dad's old massive Sherlock Holmes omnibus and going, wait, what the hell?
I listened to this as an audio book, and had to check the CDs a few times to make sure I had the right number CD and the right book at this point.
Can I just say that I've been loving your nails Dominic!!! They're fabulous 🖤🖤
I can concur when I was reading a study in scarlet I was just like.......what does this have to do with literally anything? Why...why are we here?
Just to suffer
As an Ex-Mormon, I can in fact confirm that we were all secretly Ninjas. The Mormon clan will kill me for revealing this secret, but their secrets must not persist any longer
Edit: ok, not gonna lie, that Mormon Kombat bit was pretty funny. Now I’m just imagining a Mortal Kombat cast consisting of Book of Mormon characters
If they come for you, just show them a pile of Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson novels and hope that gets you off their naughty list.
As a current member, will also confirm
...these comments will shortly dissappear...
@@johnaucamp7106 That might work but they might also remember Stephanie Meyer.
@@wingracer1614 Oof.
@@johnaucamp7106 As a member of the Church and someone who practiced martial arts as a kid...
Fear me! Mwahahaha!!!
I had a very different experience to reading it. I spent the whole Mormon section shouting "What the hell am I reading?" I didn't like or care about any of the people in that side novella, so I had trouble even following it.
at first I thought Dom said "Sherlock and his Psychic Dr. Watson." and that is a spin off I've yet to see.