What’s remarkable about John Watson is that when Sherlock first deduced everything about him, he must’ve thought that “Okay, this person just told me my whole life story without being nice about it” and then just accepted it. Like, “okay, he knows everything about me now, no going back. And besides what does it matter? He just knows. I can’t take all that back. It’s just who I am and this person knows and didn’t have any judgements about me. This Sherlock Holmes just knew everything about me. He didn’t mean to humiliate me by telling me about my life. He just told me everything he knew about me. Which is remarkable, by the way.”
What I’m trying to say is, I don’t know how I’d react if put into such a situation but Sherlock just knows things about people. He can’t help it. It’s just that he sees these things about them. Like signals coming into his brain, he can’t stop that. It’s as natural for him as breathing. When Sherlock tells everyone what he’s deduced about them, he doesn’t mean it to be humiliating, (sometimes he does that, if it’s necessary)he just lets people know that he knows. Like, “you’re a pilot and I was able to deduce that from your thumb. You’re having an affair with so and so” etc. He just states them like they are facts. He isn’t judging anyone. It’s just what he does. He deduces for the sake of it. Not to harm anyone.
But people get offended. Would I get offended if a stranger just tells me my whole life story? Well, I’m currently on my bed and I think I won’t be offended. But I don’t know what I’ll do if I was in that situation. What I do know is that it won’t make sense for me to be offended. There are things I do, things about my life that are just facts. I can’t change them. I’ve made decisions that made me the person I am and that’s made up my life, so why should I be mad if someone just tells me all of that?
Like, Anderson and Sally are having an affair and Sherlock points that out and they get offended. Sure Sherlock does that to achieve that effect. But my point is, if you’re doing something, own up to it, like “Okay. I’m having an affair. So what?” But if it’s something worth getting offended over, stop doing it. It’s a simple choice. Sherlock Holmes’ deductions aren’t false: he points out your life and your choices and if you get offended by his details, then that’s your problem, not his. It’s like a doctor telling someone that they have a disease and them getting offended. Pointless, that is.
But John, oh my lovely John. He’s not happy with himself when he meets Sherlock. His image of himself is this: an invalided army doctor who has nothing to do, no purpose, useless in every sense of the word. He’s aware of everything Sherlock points out: he is an army doctor, he got shot, he has a psychosomatic limp, he has an alcoholic, divorced sibling with whom he wants nothing to do with. They are all facts about him. So why should he be offended? This stranger he’s just met and is about to probably live with, knows everything about him. Which, of course, makes one feel vulnerable and such but this person already knows and that can’t be changed, so what? He doesn’t care about all that.
What our Army Doctor does think about is how amazing that was. How incredible it was that someone was able to tell him all about his life. Because he knows it’s not common, it’s extraordinary in every way. He knows no one else can do that. It’s interesting. So let’s concentrate on that because the rest are just facts about his life, no point in dwelling on that.
As self deprecating he is, he is self aware. He knows his weaknesses. He knows he can’t change them. So why should he be angry at someone who just told him all that he already knows about himself? Why not tell this person that what they just did was amazing and extraordinary and he’s never seen anything like it. Because those are facts too. Sherlock Holmes’ deductions and mind are “fantastic” and “brilliant” and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t let Sherlock and the rest of the world know that.
yes!!! even though he’s insecure and not entirely comfortable with himself, john is still confident enough that sherlock’s comments don’t make him feel inferior. he knows he’s exceptionally smart, and doesn’t make him feel bad about it out of envy. i feel like the reason why most people hate sherlock isn’t because of the things he says but because of his near-superpower. take sally and anderson, for example. they clearly can’t be upset about the fact that they’re having an affair-i mean, it’s their choice; and they are adults who should own up to it. of course it would be beyond annoying to have someone tell you that to your face, but that still doesn’t explain why she would hate him so much, and constantly insult him. i mean come on, what grown person on the planet starts and ends every sentence with an insult? it just makes her look childish, because her reaction to sherlock is out of her control and isn’t really the annoyance that one would normally feel in that situation, if a clearly lonely and weird man tells you something insensitive. i’d shrug it off unless it was something truly offensive, in which case i’d tell him once to stop, and otherwise i’d just avoid contact with him. isn’t that what adults (funny that i’m considering myself one) do? that’s because this is not about what he says, but about 1) the fact that he sees through people, which makes everyone uncomfortable (the content, if you will) and 2) his actual ability to know what he knows. that’s envy, plain and simple.
yes!
Yes yes yes. I also feel there’s something very particular about the moment at which Sherlock meets John – in other words, when John is suicidal. He’s trying his best to envision a future for himself (find a flatmate, a basic precaution against the loneliness that leaves him time to stare at the gun he shouldn’t have).
He’s operating on nothing – we can all recognise it. He’s tired of himself, tired of things going wrong, tired of life; but still holding on, still struggling to keep going out of that desperate urge to live – that will to hope that better things might come – that every human has deep down.
You’re so right to say that he has no illusions about himself during ASIP. He’s too tired to pretend, to bristle, to put up walls between him and the all-seeing madman. He’s almost got used to taking himself out of the equation, to thinking of himself as hardly there. Instead, he just sees Sherlock, and how brilliant what he can do is. He doesn’t have that gap that most people – most adults – have between what their actions say about them, and what they believe about themselves.
John’s lack of ego in ASIP is a very subtle and beautiful part of his characterisation, and a good indicator of how close he came to suicide, to loss of himself.
I’d also argue that it’s very faithful to ACD canon. You can tell, in the way Watson writes in STUD, that his affable exterior hides a desperately unhappy, scared man. All the clues are there: “my health irretrievably ruined”; the description of London as a “cesspool” (the place that he chooses for himself, and this is how he describes it!); “leading a comfortless, meaningless existence”. Watson’s life truly reaches a crisis the day he meets Holmes – and the writing makes clear that he clings to his interest in, and intrigue about, the mysterious figure of Holmes, as a way to escape his own pain and attacks of ‘nerves’ (depression/possibly PTSD).
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