Critical responses to Arthur Conan Doyle's story “A Scandal in Bohemia”, a chapter in the Sherlock Holmes series, have been dramatically varied. While some hail it as a work of feminist fiction ahead of its time, others condemn it as one of many examples of Doyle's inability to write a well-rounded female character. Irene Adler, who makes her first and only appearance in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” is the subject of controversy, considered both an emancipated woman and a product of misogyny. The most surprising aspect of Irene's story in retrospect, however, is how full it is of missed opportunities. The text itself seems to dance around the possibility of a strong female presence before concretely undermining its potential. One would expect contemporary adaptations to capture this potential and give Irene the depth and autonomy that she was cheated out of in the original, but unfortunately this was not the case, especially in the BBC television series Sherlock. The same flaws that plagued "A Scandal in Bohemia" are present in the episode "A Scandal in Belgravia," and their new iterations may be even more distressing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In the original text, the same gesture toward progress is one that highlights its failure to be an empowering narrative: Sherlock's constant reference to Irene as “the woman.” Watson explains: “I have rarely heard [Sherlock] mentioned by any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates all his sex” (Doyle). These are among the first lines of the piece, and so Irene's achievements are downplayed as soon as she is introduced; it is at the same time stripped of its individuality and reduced to an exception. Doyle makes it impossible for Irene's strengths to reflect well on all women, as she is presented as a solitary exception. While Doyle may have intended Sherlock's awe of Irene to be indicative of his cunning, it instead reflects more of Sherlock's misogyny. Even though Irene challenges gender assumptions, her entire identity is still equated with her femininity. This prompts a modern reader to wonder: Would Irene still have been able to outwit Sherlock if he hadn't underestimated her intellect from the start? Her dehumanization through the use of the title “the woman” suggests otherwise. Within this contradiction lies what may be the most glaring missed opportunity in Doyle's text, which concerns Sherlock's development as a character. While the use of a female character as a narrative device to alter a male protagonist's beliefs is still problematic, Irene could have served to inform Sherlock's future relationships with women and left a lasting and constructive impression on him. Although Watson notes that Sherlock stops “mocking women's intelligence” (Doyle) after Irene's appearance, it is clear in subsequent installments that his sexist philosophies are still intact. In the story “A Case of Identity,” which closely follows Irene's, Sherlock chooses not to inform a client that she has been defrauded by her own stepfather, citing a sadly misogynistic adage: “There is danger to him who gets the tiger ”. puppy, and danger even for those who snatch a woman's delirium" (Doyle). Irene has not, as Watson suggests, enlightened the detective regarding the intellect of women. Despite this lack of continuity, Irene's exceptionalism could still have resurfaced in the series as a means of creating tension and conflict. Being the only onecharacter who canonically beat Sherlock, could easily have been his final adversary, avoiding the need for the hastily introduced Moriarty. She makes only one appearance in the original text, however, and Sherlock's assumption that her contentment with her new boyfriend would prevent her from engaging in further malice proves correct. Irene is not arrested or killed like many of Sherlock's other antagonists, leaving her available for an additional storyline, but this opportunity is also missed. Adaptation works, both across and within the medium of the original text, can offer fertile spaces for revision for issues such as those of “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Often adaptations are used as a means of recovering a text that is rapidly becoming obsolete, selecting successful elements and omitting those that might drag the text down and prevent it from surviving in evolving media. These types of adaptations offer an opportunity for repair; creative authority can be used to update outdated texts, rewriting moments that may have been influenced by racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or other similar limitations. Since Arthur Conan Doyle's female characters adhere to a consistent pattern of victimhood and fixation on the men around them, it naturally follows that many modern adaptations would seek to shed more light on these characters (or even in the case of the American television show Elementary, explore the possibility of a female main character in place of the previous male character) and access their untapped potential. BBC's Sherlock flirts with this kind of repair, but ultimately disappoints Irene just as Doyle did. In “The Naked Truth: The Postfeminist Lives of Irene Adler,” Antonija Primorac addresses the many failures of Irene's adapted reincarnations. Primorac focuses in particular on a scene from the BBC episode in which Irene appears naked to disarm Sherlock and prevent him from analyzing her. This, like its genre title, is a gesture of empowerment that proves highly counterproductive. Her status as a femme fatale appears to be her identifying strength, and even this trait does not lead her to her ultimate goal in the episode, as Primorac notes: “Adler's 'upgrading' as a dominatrix and sexual woman only gives her the power temporary of the female body as a fetish and a very "Victorian" narrative destiny. As soon as she “exceeds” the limits of her ability to function as a sexualized body, Adler promptly falls/fails, is humiliated and punished.” (103) Her sexualization therefore functions as a form of pseudo-feminism, and this is ultimately not enough, as she must seek Moriarty's assistance. Surprisingly enough, this modern repair does not even allow Irene the triumph she enjoyed in the original text, as Sherlock breaks his code and foils his plan by the end of the episode. This is just one of the many failures of the BBC's adaptation to update and empower Irene. While Watson dismisses any romantic overtones regarding Sherlock and Irene in the original, Irene's attraction to the BBC's Sherlock betrays her and leads to her defeat. Irene is not even given the dignity of disappearance in the episode, as it ends with a scene in which she is – as Primorac says – “reduced to the most oppressed image of the female body in Western media: that of the (Muslim) woman who she wears the hijab, waiting to die or be saved by a male hand” (103). This alteration also results in the omission of one of the most culturally interesting moments of the original, namely the scene in which the disguised Irene wishes goodnight to the unaware Sherlock.. 2017.