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felidaeng · 3 days ago

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Hi! I found your blog by chance and have found your DGS posts really fun, and I'm glad to see someone else think Sholmes is a good parent! I've been hesitant about voicing the opinion because I've seen a lot of people talk about neglect, and Iris being parentified, and I was wondering if I wasn't seeing something that everyone else was and having a rosy-eyed view of how Sholmes actually is, but it's been nice to see that someone else has also been reading him the way I was! He's certainly flawed as all parents are, but I've always felt that considering Iris turned out pretty well (and doesn't actually have any "warning signs" attributed to her that suggest some conflict she's been hiding, like, say, Trucy does) it must mean that Sholmes had been doing not only the best job he could, but a fairly good one, all things considered.

Sorry if this is sudden and rambly, but I really love your passion for Sholmes, too <3 he's also one of my favourite characters in the game

OMG HI ANON!!! HI HI HI <3

I say this with tons of love to other people because I get it-- with a series like AA there's a ton of parentification, and so having your guards up makes sense-- but I actually vehemently disagree with the idea that Iris has been parentified or that Sholmes has been neglectful. i'm just going to bullet out some of my reasons why (though they're only a fraction since again i'm cooking up a "why sholmes is a good parent" dissertation for later)

re: neglect

In 2-3, when Sholmes lies to you about "having a case" (when he's actually going to the wax museum), Iris calls out the fact that he doesn't actually have a case currently. Iris later tells you that she knew that Sholmes was at the wax museum, but that Sholmes said not to tell you (Iris doesn't seem that thrown by having to keep a secret, considering she doesn't and has zero negative feelings associated with it). This implies that before Ryunosuke wakes up, Sholmes and Iris debrief about where Sholmes is going to be that day

Iris expresses two notable cases of worrying about Sholmes: 1-5 and 2-5. In 1-5, she worries because she woke up and nobody was in Baker St (because everyone was being questioned by the police/in Sholmes' case, hospitalized/in Gina's case, arrested). In this situation, Sholmes had been checking in on Iris's room, where Gina was also staying, to make sure they were okay. Sholmes, when he realizes Gina is missing, waits an hour to make sure she doesn't come home before waking up the only other adult and asking him for advice, rather than alerting Iris. In the 2-5 case, Sholmes and Mikotoba leave abruptly to go on the ship-- I'll admit that this is a rare case where Sholmes doesn't actually inform Iris what's going on, which is a bad parenting move. However, Iris's reaction to this implies that this is abnormal, because she's way more upset about Sholmes being missing then than she ever is when you wake up and find Sholmes out of the house.

Iris invents walkie-talkies that Sholmes and her both use, which implies that when Sholmes is away for a substantial period of time Iris could give him one of the walkie-talkies and they could talk.

I am currently rewatching TGAAC so I'd have to pay closer attention to confirm this, but from what I can see, Iris doesn't wander far away when she's left unattended. 95% of the time Iris is home alone, she's writing a manuscript or cooking. In the other times, she's usually at an herb market (which would most likely be local); she MIGHT go to the pawnbroker's herself I can't remember but either way-- these are locations where people know who Iris is. TGAAC does itself a lot of favors by not canonizing the existence of any pedophiles, but the fact that Iris doesn't show any immediate signs of distrust with adults implies that Sholmes didn't raise her to be paranoid of adults; since Gregson cares about Iris and others are aware of her, it's implied that if she ever wanders, there are people looking out for her, and Sholmes knows where she's going based on morning debriefs.

When Iris steals the autopsy report from Sithe, Sholmes is there with her. This is when Iris is 8, and presumably hasn't started writing yet, meaning less people know who she is (for example, Gregson hasn't developed a protective role over her yet) and thus Sholmes has to take her around. Obviously we can unpack the idea that you shouldn't exactly take a child to an autopsy room, but Sholmes is working with what he's got, which is presumably zero friends and no known family, so. Anyway, when Iris says that she wants to go back to apologize, Sholmes immediately says that he'll go with her.

there's so much more but re: parentification

Iris is never shown to be concerned over their financial situation. While the game STARTS by portraying their dynamic as "flatmates sharing rent", 2-3 explicitly confirms that Sholmes pays the entirety of rent and is responsible for feeding Iris. That being said, Iris is never worried about their financial situation. This is one of those warning signs we see with Trucy, where finances are shown to actually worry her (4-2, where she says she doesn't want to switch schools, her overall role as running the talent agency??? etc). Iris is implied to make a lot of money from writing for Randst magazine, but she isn't actually responsible for covering rent-- Sholmes takes care of it for her-- meaning that this is most likely her disposable income for her hobbies (which I'll talk about next). When Sholmes makes a comment about needing help with rent-- which Iris doesn't seem concerned about at all-- the person Sholmes asks to help with rent is Ryunosuke, a grown adult.

Iris cooking so much can definitely been read considering the misogyny of that era and the fact that women are expected to cook for men at a young age. However, Iris's cooking and making of tea is only seen to be something she enjoys doing. She likes going to the herb market, she delights in making tea-- Sholmes praises her tea-making, too--, and she seems to enjoy making dinner for everyone. I read her making food partly as practical, since Sholmes is bad at cooking, but also an interest of hers that Sholmes funds. Also, for obvious reasons such as her state of health, it's clear that Sholmes cooked for them until she was old enough, because she's not malnourished at all.

Iris acts like a child!!! When her and Ryunosuke go to the Great Exhibition, Ryunosuke constantly stays by her and holds her hand. When Iris thinks she makes a mistake-- when it comes 1-5 or something-- she laments about "being a bad girl" in the same way any 10 year old would. Compared to Trucy, who is LITERALLY responsible for having a job and making the money for herself and Phoenix, Iris does things as hobbies because of her own intrinsic motivation. What I think people very reasonably mistake for parentification is Iris's character being a genius. Which is a really fair critique because child geniuses aren't usually written well? But we don't see Iris having to take responsibility for Sholmes at all, is the point.

Iris doesn't worry nor feel responsible to care for Sholmes when he's having a mood swing. This is getting long so I won't elaborate but whenever Sholmes is upset Iris's response mostly boils down to "not this shit again", and Sholmes's moods seem to clear up when serious things happen, which implies to me that if Sholmes is in a bad mood but Iris needed something, he would snap out of it near immediately.

I want to bookend this by saying (1) i have SO many other examples of both these things and more of Sholmes being a good father, and more importantly (2) Sholmes is NOT a perfect father. However, I think reading him as an imperfect but good father is literally critical to understanding everything about his and Iris's character.

I'll end on two examples as to why I think this analysis is so important: understanding the lengths Sholmes goes to hide Iris's "actual" father is only contextualized in understanding that he's trying to be a good father. He lies by omission-- which obviously hurts her-- but the lie he ends up on? He conveys to Iris that he knows who her father is, that her father is a good man, that her father is a doctor and amazing and all these positive things, which-- while OBVIOUSLY creating a series of issues for Iris internally-- has the overall outcome of motivating Iris to accomplishing things she genuinely delights in doing. Sholmes' lie sets up a positive role model for Iris, which is the best he could do in his circumstances. If you read him as a neglectful father, it takes away the importance of Sholmes' lie somewhat, because you could read it as a throwaway lie he did and not deliberately calculated to try and make Iris's life as good as possible. Remember that the whole reason they're hiding her parent from her in the first place is because they don't want a young girl thinking her father is a serial killer, and that causing her to have psychological issues.

The other point is that reputation is one of the major themes of TGAAC. Sholmes' reputation is immensely important to factor into this, which is a whole separate spiel but the point is: Sholmes does not go around calling himself Iris's father, because he truly raises Iris from a selfless place, it is one of the only acts of selflessness we ever see him do. Sholmes only starts referring to himself in paternal terms in 2-4/2-5, when the situation appears to have changed so you're closer to them both, Mikotoba is there, and it appears like the truth is looming closer. Sholmes does so many things for the sake of gaining something, but we never get a single reason to believe that anything about raising Iris is selfish. Her cooking food helps, but he cooked for her for years before she started to cook herself. She takes up massive blocks of time because they do things like eat food together, or go out and have picnics together (referenced in 1-5 iirc), and he stays up at night making sure that she's asleep and safe in her room. He was 24 years old when he took in Iris. He writes to Mikotoba for advice not only because he understands the situation, but because Mikotoba is the only father figure he actually knows.

This got long and I mean it when I say there's so much more, but I hope this covers the basics of textual evidence that- to me- suggests that Sholmes is as good of a parent as he possibly could be in his situation. As you said, Iris is missing nearly all of the warning signs that would come with parentification, and the narrative slowly unfolds to show you all the calculated ways that Sholmes goes to lengths to take care of her, meanwhile Iris is never that worried or concerned about it-- she says herself that she trusts Sholmes fully.

(P.S. Sorry last thing I KNOW the Burya thing is playing on our minds but considering that it was a case Sholmes was on and everything else we know about their dynamic it only makes logical sense that Sholmes and Iris were on the boat together. That OR they had the walkie-talkies but considering the length of time Iris was definitely in one of the rooms just hanging out I have no doubt about it)

#TRUTH NUKE #like i try not to hold it against anyone if they do think sholmes is irresponsible because at face value tgaac presents their relationship-#being comedic first and foremost (ryuu and susato make the comment that iris is more the parent between them for laughs. for example)#but like. liiiiike. even then it's obvious the two of them care a lot about each other and as the game goes on i feel it's disingenuous to-#to read him as neglectful/a flat-out bad parent.#this man took in an infant on his lonesome at 24 with no support system and a mountain of issues including but not limited to passive-#suicidal ideation and (likely given he's a sherlock holmes) substance abuse and iris still turned out the way she did...?#that's a monumental achievement imo. like that is so hard to imagine esp in the wake of having his only true friend sent away for 10 yrs #he fosters her interests! he constantly encourages her! he tells her everything he can and only keeps secrets from her if he feels he-#absolutely has to- with the promise that he'll explain as soon as he's able to. all things considered he deserves aa parent of the year #accolades. his and iris' dynamic is probably my favorite in the series i'll be real #also agreed on ss burya thing. he stole 2 (two!) steaks in the escapade for it and i think that counts as evidence #though it's possible he left her in his landlady's care? no one talks about her so idk if it's still #(mrs hudson equivalent). either way he's not leaving his 10 yr old charge unattended for 50 days or more #ace attorney #tgaa2 spoilers #dgs spoilers

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