I have known a good many *extremely* intelligent people over the years. If they have a distinguishing quality, it's that they're *thinking* a lot -- more than they're talking, even if they seem to talk constantly.
This means they often seem distracted or "out of it". And then when they "tune in" again, what they say doesn't always seem to connect with the last step in the conversation -- because they've already gone past those steps in their brains.
BBC!Sherlock is pretty good at showing that quality. What they don't show is how for v.v. smart people coming up with the "right answer" is also a matter of trial-and-error (we call that "science"), it's just that they run most of the trials in their brains and very quickly.
Sherlock Holmes (whichever version) has a *social* intelligence, or at least an intelligence about human behavior and motivation. This means that he ought to spend a great deal of time observing human beings, coming up with theories about them and discarding them as new observations come along. ACD!Sherlock does two kinds of observation: reading newspapers, especially the "agony columns", and dressing up (as one sort of not-so-upper-class person or another) and immersing himself in various social contexts. Neither modern Sherlock is a master of disguise, which is a kind of odd choice: why *not* show your actor acting?
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This means they often seem distracted or "out of it". And then when they "tune in" again, what they say doesn't always seem to connect with the last step in the conversation -- because they've already gone past those steps in their brains.
BBC!Sherlock is pretty good at showing that quality. What they don't show is how for v.v. smart people coming up with the "right answer" is also a matter of trial-and-error (we call that "science"), it's just that they run most of the trials in their brains and very quickly.
Sherlock Holmes (whichever version) has a *social* intelligence, or at least an intelligence about human behavior and motivation. This means that he ought to spend a great deal of time observing human beings, coming up with theories about them and discarding them as new observations come along. ACD!Sherlock does two kinds of observation: reading newspapers, especially the "agony columns", and dressing up (as one sort of not-so-upper-class person or another) and immersing himself in various social contexts. Neither modern Sherlock is a master of disguise, which is a kind of odd choice: why *not* show your actor acting?