What do Baron Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes have in common?

Sang-froid and class

Well, thinking outside the box has to be up there.

Being driven by something. Daring to question, to seek answers that range outside convention, to follow the trail wherever it leads, to test with experimentation, and to put themselves at risk for the sake of uncovering true knowledge. And being a bit obsessive.

Also holding the loyalty of a valued assistant, which counts as no small thing when it comes to character.

I honestly don’t see much that the actors have in common. I’m sorry to say that Rathbone’s interpretation (and the scripts he was given) never really depicted the character of Holmes as he was in the stories (and for that matter, the classic movie treatment of Frankenstein is very different from the book’s, and that of his creation even more so), but I still love him in the role just the same.

They are both stock characters invented in the 19th century :D

Scientific know-how.

Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a stock character. He was an original.

So was Victor Frankenstein, although a bit less so, because the theme of inventive creators whose creations become able to act independently is an ancient one.

@Jeruba You are right. The legend of the 15th century rabbi and the Golem.

@janbb, yes, I was thinking of the Golem, and also of the transgressive pair in the Garden of Eden and their successors, as well as some characters out of Greek and Norse mythology and undoubtedly others that I don’t know.

I imagine any parent can relate to the idea of giving birth to someone who breaks out of the limits they so thoughtfully supplied. It’s hard to think of any novel, play, movie, or folktale that doesn’t involve someone’s testing of boundaries. Often that’s the villain, but just as often, or more so, it’s the hero.

^^ Yup.

@Jeruba I was thinking in the terms of collective consciousness. I know they are original characters, but they are so famous that they have become some kind of stock characters in our collective consciousness. You know someone is a detective or trying to be one just by looking at their Sherlock Holmes hat or coat, even though they don’t say so. Dr. Frankenstein is less to the extend of Sherlock Holmes, but he is regarded as a way to convey the “mad scientist” character.

They are also stock characters judging by the amount of media that contain those characters. Even media that have nothing to do with them have someone with characteristic of the collective consciousness of them and people just accept that as archetypes rather than the actual characters of Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein.

I was thinking they are both hyper-intelligent, and very anti-social. They are both self aggrandizing.