SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE LIVING FICTIONAL

'THE FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES'

"THE CONSULTING DETECTIVE MYSTERY"

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

I am in fact precisely whom I appear to be - Sherlock Holmes.

FATHER DOWLING:

But Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character!  

You can't be him! You can't be here!

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Yet I am here.

FATHER DOWLING:

How is that impossible?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

You summoned me.

FATHER DOWLING:

I did?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Not perhaps by conscious thought; 

yet you sought my counsel as you have so many times before.  

But this time there was a difference.

FATHER DOWLING:

What difference?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

You must have heard it said that certain... 

fictional characters are so real to their readers that they come alive.

FATHER DOWLING:

Yes.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Your belief in my deductive methods - and me - made me real.  

But yesterday your faith in my methods was shaken.

FATHER DOWLING:

More than that.... Wait a minute! 

Are you saying that if I stop believing in you, you'll cease to exist?

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Precisely.  And that is why I am here: 

to help restore your belief in my methods... and me.

From the wiki for "The Librarians":

Fictionals are a race of magical beings summoned from stories encountered in the second season of the Librarians.

According to Jenkins there are two main types of Fictionals; those that can be summoned by powerful magic and those that come into being of their own accord. The second type are iconic characters whose stories are both well written and well known.

Though rare in the modern day, Jenkins believed there was most likely a small group of Fictionals living in the modern world; their magical existence sustained by the fame and acclaim of their stories. Also, and thankfully, most of them don't cause too much trouble; the Library has also struggled to keep track of them. Flynn commented he had always heard about them but had never actually met one.

Generally, Fictionals do not adapt well to the world outside their stories; Jenkins explained that their minds are only as complex has what their creator wrote meaning they may not be able to understand little if anything outside their stories. Fictionals from older or well written stories tend to have a better time adapting.

Fictionals are bound by their stories, but also empowered by them.

Outside of defeating them in the way their story dictates a Fictional can be destroyed if the specific book they appeared from is destroyed.

This incarnation of Holmes was a fictional, summoned by Father Dowling.  And the priest was the only person who could see him... at first.  But he was fully realized at least as far as Frank Dowling was concerned - to the point that Holmes drove a car with the priest riding shotgun.

This Holmes was summoned out of a specific book - Father Dowling's copy of "The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes".

And it's that book as seen in this episode which helps buttress the claim that in Toobworld, Dr. John H. Watson actually did chronicle the cases which Holmes investigated.

Here's how the title page looked in the episode:

There is no mention of Dr. Watson as the author, true.  But then again, the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle isn't seen either.  Doyle wasn't mentioned at all during the case.  If it weren't for the fact that Fictional Holmes' existence was dictated by the boundaries established in the book, I'd say he made a convincing case for Watson to be the true author:

SHERLOCK HOLMES:

Dr. Watson rarely chose to chronicle my failures.

But I'll settle for there being no Zonk in this episode.  Small victories.....

BCnU!

O'BSERVATIONS:

• This is my annual celebration of Sherlock Holmes, one of the greatest and most recognizable literary characters in all of history, and by extension, his best portrayal in the greater TV Universe - that by Jeremy Brett.  

• And why today?  Because it is generally accepted by Sherlockians that the birthday of Sherlock Holmes was January 6 and he was born in 1854.
    
• This post was written In April of 2017.  Hey, when you only honor the Great Detective one day of the year, those stories tend to pile up......