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Kitty Winter

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Character
Name: Kitty Winter
Occupation: unknown
Relationships: Shinwell 'Porky' Johnson (friend), Adelbert Gruner (ex-lover)
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Other:
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Kitty Winter is a character in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who is summoned to give Sherlock Holmes vital information regarding a case. She has also appeared in some adaptations and other fanworks.

Canon

In the story Holmes uses his acquaintance Shinwell Johnson to locate Miss Kitty Winter, requiring her aid in trying to stop young Violet de Merville from marrying Baron Adelbert Gruner, who Holmes asserts has already murdered his first wife. Kitty is Gruner's former mistress and has been ruined by him. She knows of the existence of a book created by Gruner which could be used as evidence against him, which Holmes with Watson's aid manages to retrieve, but Kitty also throws vitriol (sulphuric acid) in Gruner's face as her own act of revenge against him. She is described as a "slim, flame-like young woman with a pale, intense face, youthful, and yet so worn with sin and sorrow that one read the terrible years which had left their leprous mark upon her."

Other texts

Kitty appears in several adaptations, most notably:

Sherlock Holmes (Granada)

She appears in the series' adaptation of The Illustrious Client which follows the canon fairly closely but expands on Kitty's reason for hating Gruner so much and throwing acid in his face, explicitly showing that she has extensive scarring, likely acid-burns, on her body that were previously inflicted on her by Gruner. She is played by Kim Thomson.

Elementary

Probably the first adaptation to make Kitty into a major character. Kitty (short for Kathryn) Winter is a recurring character in the show, becoming Holmes' protégée, aiding him with some of his cases and learning his methods. She was previously kidnapped, raped and tortured, being left with burn marks on her back, by a serial killer named Del Gruner. As Gruner's crimes are being exposed, she exacts her own revenge on him by badly burning his face with a corrosive. She is played by Ophelia Lovibond.

Sherlock & Co.

She appears in the podcast's adaptation of The Illustrious Client and accompanies Watson when he goes to meet Gruner. However she has earlier stolen a mug of acid from Watson and Holmes's flat which she throws in Gruner's face. In this version she is said to have previously been burned by Gruner using a hot poker, resulting in extensive scarring. She is portrayed by Naomi Miller.

Influences

A journalist named Kitty Riley appears in the BBC Sherlock episode The Reichenbach Fall. Although she bears no real resemblance to Kitty Winter other than her first name, it has been speculated sometimes that her name was a nod to Kitty Winter.

Fandom

Kitty Winter has not been used as extensively by fans compared to certain other characters who also only appear once in the canon but she is still a popular minor character and appears in various fanworks, with there being the most content for Elementary although she has appeared in works based on the canon or other adaptations also. Sometimes fans will use a particular actress as a faceclaim for her especially when creating art or graphics for her. She has sometimes been shipped with other characters or sometimes shown as friends with Shinwell 'Porky' Johnson from the original story in fanworks.

Despite her canonically committing such a horrific act as throwing acid in someone's face, the fans' reaction towards her is often sympathetic or even admiring, particularly given what the fandom knows or speculates about Gruner and his own crimes.[1] Sometimes her character is expanded on further to cover her background before she met Gruner or showing her after she encountered him again. Although the canon is not explicit about either what Gruner did to her or what her job now is, it is commonly presumed that she is a sex worker of some kind and that at the very least Gruner 'ruined' her by seducing her and then discarding her, although the fanon ideas about her usually follow along the lines of those adaptations which assert that Gruner did something much worse than simply seducing her and that he mutilated or disfigured Kitty in some way first, provoking her into doing the same to him.

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Canon and Sherlock Holmes (Granada)

Elementary

Meta

  • The Mythology of Moriarty and Moran by tiger_moran (2023). Kitty Winter and Baron Gruner are both discussed in this meta essay (in the context of comparing Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran to other canonical villains), with speculation about Gruner's crimes and why Kitty attacked him (see chapters 9 and 15)

Example Art Gallery

  • illustration of a head shoulders portrait of Kitty

    Kitty Winter by star-spangled-archer (2017), based on the Elementary version of the character

External Links

References

  1. ^ "there are unexplored levels of awe-inspiring feminine rage energy in Kitty Winter and she does not get enough love and appreciation" -tremendously-crazy on tumblr, also archived here
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