Design of the Character's in the project: 7 Jefferson Hope

Section 1. The Design process:

I started the process by realizing that i needed a killer for my project to work. I could have done the lazy thing and just make them a borderline faceless, personality less prop for the story but i thought that it would be much more fun to actually adapt a new character.

I settled on Jefferson Hope or Jeff Hope because he was my favorite character from the BBC Sherlock series. I re-watched the episode he appears in and was even more convinced that i have found my killer.

Now of course he also appears in the first Sherlock Holmes novel "A Study in Scarlet" which the BBC episode "A Study in Pink" was adapting. In the original version Jefferson is said to be from America and to have traveled to England and disguised himself as a cab-driver in order to exact his revenge for the kidnapping and murder of his fiance Lucy Ferrier. While in the BBC version he is a native Englishman.

After i visualized the american frontiersman and the british cab-driver i thought how i could mash those two in a way that also got across what i wanted with the character.

Jefferson is described as a vary intelligent person in both versions with the BBC version even calling himself "A proper genius". But he also needed to feel working class as he is not remotely rich in either version. So i based the main design philosophy on another character who is extremely intelligent but intentionally doesn't stick out of the crowd, Lieutenant Columbo from the TV series of the same name was as close to what i wanted as it could get.

Columbo is dressed in common (even filthy) clothes, is extremely short for a man and visibly older. So i approach Jefferson similarly. It even fit because Phil Davis the actor who portrayed Jefferson in the BBC version is 168cm and at the time of writing this post he is 69 years old.

Jefferson is also one of those characters who i visualized so much that i got a design i was happy with on the first try so here he is.

The first things you can notice about him are the scarf, the bags under his eyes and the boots. I added the bags under his eyes as a visual indicator of his declining health as Jefferson has a terminal heart condition in both versions i am taking from. The scarf and boots are to illustrate that he is form america instead of england for the people who pick up on that sort of thing.

The inverness cape is there because that is what cab drivers traditionally wore during the 1880s.

And the hat is there because i liked it on his BBC version, and it can be worn by working class man so it wouldn't be unlikely for a coachman to wear it.

Section 2. Previous characterization:

As i said there are two versions of this character that i know of. The original novel version and the BBC series version. Both of them differ in a few areas but all of these contributed to my version. The novel version is an american frontiersman and miner whose fiance was kidnapped and murdered, so he came to England and took the role of a cab driver in order to take his vengeance on those he deems responsible while a terminal heart condition can kill him at any moment.

In the BBC version he is a cab driver who is implied to have been born in England, went trough a divorce but still vary much cares about his children, he also has a deadly heart condition. He is approached by Jim Moriarty who offers to put money into a bank account for his kids for every murder Jeff commits. This is part of Moriarty's test for Sherlock Holmes.

They both use a similar method to kill people. Which is to pick up who they want to kill with their cab, take them to an isolated location where the person would have no business being, and force them to choose either a harmless pill or a poisoned pill. This is Jefferson's way of making it so that he himself doesn't kill and that all the police see is a corpse that took a poison pill in a location where they shouldn't have been.

Section 3. My version:

In my version Jefferson was an american frontiersman and a fur trapper who despite his genius level intellect lived a relatively unremarkable life with a wife and children until the untimely death of his wife due to the actions of a group of english nobils who were traveling in the area, and the discovery of his heart condition.

After which he vowed revenge and not just fully for himself but for people that in the future and past who have or might suffer a similar loss due to the actions of these nobils. When he traveled to England he met and was intercepted by James Moriarty who offered him a deal. For every death he would arrange for money to be sent to his children in america in order for them to have at least something when their father is gone. And in exchange Jefferson needs to create a mystery that the police can't solve on their own and need to result to help from Sherlock Holmes.

Jefferson than takes a job as a coachman in order to get close but not too close to the nobils he wants to kill. He can perfectly mimic a british accent as he has extremely high linguistic intelligence and is descended from English settlers. He starts implementing his plan when the events of the story begin.

I like Jefferson for a variety of reasons. Like how in the show he was perfectly equipped to exploit Sherlock's apophenia by telling Holmes that if he called the cops on him Jeff won't run and he will confess to everything, but Sherlock would never know he did it. He also offers a different kind of look at the geniuses of Sherlock Holmes's world. He isn't rich, educated, or in an otherwise position of power. He was a simple man who never the less was extremely clever and if pushed to the brink by life could do horrible things.

Jefferson is also an interesting character on his own. As he is someone who was pretty much cheated by life and is now trying to come out of this game with as much as he can and to leave his enemies with as little as he can. Which i think is a sentiment that most of us can at least understand.

There is also the fact that i really like how he can transition from a normal even friendly old man to downright creepy. I loved it when he said "I didn't kill them Mr Holmes...I talked to them, and than they killed themselves."

These have been the elements that i wanted to capture with his design and what i will try to achieve with his role in my project.