I’ll have to ponder this – Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy

shinka:

season 1:

john has a blog, doesnt know what to write in it, finds his life boring until he meets sherlock. starts writing blog posts about his life with sherlock and the first case they have, a study in pink, john already redacts names from people working on the case, showing us already the difference between what we see in the show and what is presented as an official version of the case

moriarty who already knew about sherlock thanks to his website, gets more infos on sherlock thanks to john’s blog: sherlock already criticizes john’s blog for the way he writes about him (the great game), moriarty uses clues from john’s blog to get sherlock in the game

season 2:

sherlock gets more and more famous thanks to john’s blog: john’s blog become a real part of their jobs and twice in this season someone compliments john on his writing of a particular case: the aluminum crutch, a case about a man killing himself by accident while acting on stage, we also can see already how john distorts reality just by writing about The Woman. we also see more cases that aren’t truly talked about on the show or just referenced, full of subtext and codes. we also get multiple references to what is the truth, who is sherlock who is moriarty, the lie behind reichenbach fall and the destruction of sherlock’s reputation: a big lie wrapped up in truth

season 3:

season 3 starts with the presentation of multiple versions of the same story: the empty hearse gives us three theories about how sherlock survived, what sherlock accepts to tell us about it, we also have mary reading an excerpt of john’s blog that we never have heard before. john’s blog becomes active again, full of longing and again distortions of truth (the stag night???), tsot is about john’s blog and the story of sherlock and john seen through john’s blog and sherlock’s own memories: again we can see the difference between what is written from john’s pov and what sherlock tells us.

the main villain of this season is magnussen, controlling the media, publishing whatever he wants to pursue his own goals. we see how it doesnt matter to him if what he’s published is untrue, just the action of publishing it makes it true for the public.

tab:

john’s blog or should we say watson’s stories are part of the official narrative: sherlock in his drug mind palace is aware that what john’s writing is just an official version of the story, a public persona for sherlock that is not the truth, this episode finally makes a point of telling everyone that john’s blog is not telling the truth: it’s just something sold to the readers/audience

season 4:

finally john’s blog is the show. when before we had the line between reality and fiction, when before we could as the audience tell exactly where was the lie between what john wanted to present as the truth and what he experienced, now we have no idea: the blog has officially announced it wouldn’t be updated anymore (by the BBC) and gave a link to the actual show: the blog tells us that for more content of its nature, we had to watch the show. the promotion for season 4 was all about lie and distortion of the truth, from glitches during the relentless promo videos (an entire month before it premiered): all the videos we got from all the main characters were, in my opinion, a presentation of john’s version of these characters, hence the video glitches for each of them.