Creating Lies out of Truth

I watch Sherlock Holmes the TV show so it’s interesting reading the text against my knowledge of the show. Sherlock Holmes dies in glory taking down his arch-rival and intellectual match, Moriarty. Doyle intended for the death of Holmes and the end of literary collection when he wrote the story. Doyle, however writes Sherlock Holmes back to life in his subsequent work. Looking at this through the lens of truth and lies, it can be seen as both. The fact that Sherlock Holmes is dead is both truth and lie.

It bothered me when I realized that Doyle meant to end the series in “The Final Problem”. It almost voided everything subsequent he wrote about Holmes. The purpose of these stories, and the TV show is entertainment, not truth, so why do Doyle’s intentions while writing one of the stories decrease my enjoyment of the show after the stories complementary episode? Believing that Doyle intended to revive Sherlock while he wrote his death gives me a sense of shock and satisfaction of being surprised and deceived. Doyle, however, didn’t deceive us. He also thought that this was Sherlock’s true death but then later decided to change the fact, leaving the readers with no hidden clues or inferences of his live existence. In other words, Doyle cheated. He told a true, conclusive story but then decided he did not, in fact, want to end his series. He, in turn, created an elaborate plan to revive Sherlock, and his career, discarding his readers’ trust on the way.