Detective Holmes is an enemy and an NPC in BLACKSOULS 2 you can encounter. He’s usually a friendly NPC, but he’s also a sinister man, who enjoys killing prostitutes under the alias Jack the Ripper.
He’s most likely based on a certain depiction of Sherlock Holmes, and the real-life serial killer Jack the Ripper.
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Appearances | BS2
Holmes makes various different appearances throughout the game. Sometimes he’s friendly and sometimes he isn’t, it all depends on the situation your cycle is in.
Lutwidge Town
The first time you’ll most likely encounter Detective Holmes is right when you enter Lutwidge Town from the Rabbit Hole area, and when Red Hood comes out of the mirror.
You can only talk to Holmes if your SEN is high, but you’ll still see him regardless of the amount of your SEN, as he’ll still warn you to run away from Red Hood. However, if your SEN is too low, you won’t be able to talk to him and everything he says will seem like gibberish.
If you get through the door and escape Red Hood, you will see Holmes next to it and when you go talk to him, he’ll give you a few Blood Vials so you can heal yourself. He’ll also warn you of the white fog, as it’s the Cheshire Cat’s “warning sign”.
He doesn’t know who’s Alice, but he’ll navigate you to the Charles Tavern because there might be someone who knows more about her.
There’s a possibility that he’ll also ask you if you ever heard of Jack the Ripper, apparently, he’s a dangerous man that he wants to catch since he’s a detective after all.
If you try killing him at that spot, he will just vanish.
Fighting Jack the Ripper
When you enter Upper Lutwidge Town after going through the Park of Fog area, you will encounter Detective Holmes again at a certain part of the area. You have to go all the way up the north of the town until you reach the fog.
After entering the fog, you can talk to a Prostitute but then Detective Holmes will instantly appear and kill her. He will apologize because he can’t let you leave now that you have seen him killing someone.
And then, you will get into a fight with Jack the Ripper.
He really doesn’t like prostitutes, and you will learn that from the dialogue with him. He mentions an astonishing number of 80000 prostitutes, and how the Mental Ward and the Slaughterhouse aren’t enough – he will exterminate them all instead.
When you fight him, you will notice that he’s a difficult opponent, although he’s sensitive to soul magic, so if you’re not strong enough, use magic to take him down. There’s also a second phase in his fight where he gets really aggressive and strong.
Killing him will give you the Soul of Jack.
Edith’s Ring
If you have Edith’s Ring equipped and initiate a fight with Sherlock, or to be more specific, Jack the Ripper, he will notice the ring and comment how he now definitely can’t let you live.
He will recognize how the ring is “hers”, and by the end of the fight, he will also mention directly the surname Liddell but will be unable to finish his sentence.
Dr. Jekyll
In the DLC3 part of the game, you can meet Dr. Jekyll, who’s one of the doctors who used to treat Detective Holmes. While Jekyll was still working at the Mental Ward in Lutwidge Town, he decided to use his last patient, i.e. Holmes, as a test subject because he felt a significant amount of Envy towards him.
Dr. Jekyll describes how Holmes was hairy, and how he had a second personality “with a warped sense of justice”, that had a fixation on killing prostitutes because he believed that would save the country.
He managed to create a transcendent drug after the experimentation turned out to be successful.
This entire dialogue with Dr. Jekyll is one of the very few insights into Holmes’s backstory.
Lovecraft Cinema
While you’re on a date with Prickett in Queensland, you can go with her to watch movies at the Lovecraft Cinema. These movies show certain moments of certain characters’ backstories and are important for the lore of the game.
One of the movies is titled “Isolation Room’s Neighbor”, and is about the relationship between Edith Liddell and Holmes.
This movie starts with Holmes describing how he’s imprisoned, describing the narrow “oppressive birdcage” that forces him to remember the “white prison” of his past.
Holmes can’t remember why’s he even there and how long has he been locked up, although he’s aware that he’s in a Mental Ward. He says how nothing is wrong with him, while the nurses are insane, describing them as “annoying whores”, and then saying how he will “tear their flesh to pieces and throw it into the trash”.
He will get quite angry and continue to think bad things about prostitutes, which will eventually get him to let out a “howl of rage” while smashing his hands into the floor again and again. Holmes can’t control his emotions in this situation but then suddenly, his “neighbor” decides to soothe him.
Holmes says her name is “Edith Liddell”, and describes her as “a disgustingly cowardly girl with no individuality”, saying how it took him months to find out her name from her.
He knows Edith isn’t a whore, and he also knows that she’s been here for a long time and that she never saw the outside world.
Edith’s voice will calm Holmes down. He will calm himself down to not hurt Edith, even deciding to apologize to her. Edith is glad to hear he’s better, and he can sense the “relief in Edith’s trembling voice”. So he decided to calm her down as well.
They often talk a lot as there isn’t much to do in solitary confinement. They talk about the outside world, her sisters, her favorite ring, and the more he knows about her the more he wants to protect her.
Holmes admits that he doesn’t hate all women, but just the whores. So unless he slaughters him all, he can’t let Edith see the outside world she dreams of. He tells her how he will take her outside one day, even though it may take a lot of time, and she replies with how she will wait no matter how long it takes.
The scene ends with “the sobbing promise of my isolation room’s neighbor reaches me”.
Personality
Detective Holmes is a rational man who’s very serious, but he also has his secret other side, where he takes the identity of Jack the Ripper and goes around killing prostitutes. Even though he may seem like a bad person, he’s compassionate and caring, but the more evil part of his personality is just the consequence of living in Wonderland.
Design
Holmes takes the form of an anthropomorphic wolf or a dog. He has light blue hair and very nice clothing that’s quite stylish for an animal-like being.
There aren’t many other wolf-like humanoid characters like him in the game, so it’s fair to say he has a quite unique design. He’s quite stylish, and handsome.
