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).
I’m sorry but this question has kept me up at night: what exactly is Mrs. Hudson’s position/status relative to Holmes and Watson?? Them paying her rent would imply that she owns the place and is therefore above them/an authority figure and yet she makes their meals, cleans their flat, and runs errands for them? And she calls them “sir” but they don’t call her “ma’am” or “madam”? Is she their servant or their landlady or what is the deal there I’m so confused.
Tagging people who seem like they have expertise in the matter, appreciate any info you can give me! @bakerstreetcrow @inevitably-johnlocked@plaidadder@i-love-the-bee-keeper Thanks 🤓 And if anyone knows of experts I missed please feel free to tag them too!
@etaleah Mrs Hudson clearly owns 221B herself, or she would not be able to let rooms in it. She is one of a relatively well-off group of independent female business-women in London owning a capital asset – the house – but needing income – Holmes and Watson’s rent – which for the suite of rooms they had could have cost anything from 4 to 15 guineas a week, but was likely to be at the lower end of that scale, since Baker Street was not the most fashionable area. For that, they get the rooms, and food: washing, coals and candles would be extra.
How does she come to have the house?
Mrs Hudson may not be married, for starters. Older, respectable women were often called ‘Mrs’ as a courtesy title. She could have inherited the house from a father, or a husband, in which case, as a widow, or an unmarried daughter, her only opportunity to make an income would have been to let rooms, and provide housekeeping, with the help of a servant or two, for her lodgers. In this case, she would have descended the social scale: she would be a lady, who had had to go into commercial business to support herself, as she has no male protector.
It’s unlikely, but she could have bought the house, and gone into business herself: she could, for example have been gifted the money to buy it in someone’s will, perhaps the mistress of a household whose trusted family servant she had been for many years. Perhaps she was a cook: most cooks were referred to as ‘Mrs’, whatever their marital status. In this case, she would have ascended the social scale: having been in service, and therefore working class, she would have been shrewd enough to work her way up to being a property owner in her own right, and therefore middle class.
A third possibility is that she was given the house as a payoff, or parting present from a lover. There is no guarantee Mrs Hudson is respectable: if anything, her tolerance of Holmes and Watson’s Bohemian habits rather argues she’s not: she’s not fussy and horrified enough about their tobacco smoking, crime fighting and harbouring of unsavoury urchins to be a born lady come down in the world, nor as concerned about propriety as she would be if she had clawed her way up to the middle classes, and didn’t want anything dragging her down. For me, her large tolerance argues a Bohemian background herself. So if she is a former prostitute, Madame of a brothel, or rich man’s ex-mistress, turning the profits of ‘immorality’ into a solid business, then she has transcended the social scale.
So why does she call Holmes and Watson ‘Sir’?
Because that would have been the usual form of respectful address from a middle class woman (and whoever she was, she’s middle class now) to Holmes, who despite his Bohemianism is unquestionably a ‘gentleman’ and Watson, who is both an ex-army officer and a doctor. She owns the house, but they outrank her socially. She is in business: trade. Holmes is a ‘consulting detective’, perilously close to being in trade, but only because he’s stepped out of line. (Mycroft is what he should have been!). Watson is an officer, and therefore a gentleman, and a professional.
Also, they effectively provide her livelihood. She owns the asset, but they keep her in it. So they are in an employer/employee relationship, where they enable her to keep the property she owns, in exchange for her providing the property and service for them. They have the advantage technically, since they could move (although they wouldn’t, as it’s comfortable and they have a more than plain, cool business relationship) in which case, if she didn’t find a replacement she might have to sell the house.
I hope that helps!
This is beautiful, and I have nothing to add except that in “Red Circle” we discover that there appears to be some sort of landlady solidarity, and that weird behavior is up to a point sort of the norm for lodgers.
It really is a hard idea to stick to, Nonny, I totally get it.
Here are the things that help me keep the hope alive (settle in, folks, I’m about to go on a tangent):
First, S1 & S2 (and I’d argue at least some of S3) were so well done, crafted with such care by everyone involved. Gatiss and Moffat are such fanboys it is ridiculous, and I don’t think we should forget that we fell in love with this show and these characters in the first place thanks to them.
Second, I personally think it’s par for the course for show runners to keep fans in the dark. I know Mofftiss are sometimes arseholes in how they go about it, but they obviously need to keep the element of surprise (especially if they’re doing something that is truly groundbreaking and never-before-seen-on-tv like they claimed they were ::cough:: Johnlock ::cough::). They can’t tell us what they have planned, and this is not unique to these writers, this show, or the BBC.
Third, I think that the show is following a five-act structure. We’ve witnessed the good times, and now this is the crisis/conflict stage, after this comes resolution/happy ending. Read more about how this is a 5 act show here in @toxicsemicolon‘s most recent meta.
Fourth, there are too many coincidental loose ends that can’t possibly be accidents, like in HLV – Molly tells Sherlock after he is shot: “It’s not like it is in the movies. There’s not a great big spurt of blood and you go flying backwards.” Yet that is literallyexactly what happens to Mary when she is shot in T6T (the very next episode). Why would they do that unless they want to raise red flags for the viewers. It was almost comical how overblown Mary’s bullet wound was, and that was on purpose. So… why?
Same thing with the skull painting. The same painting has been a prominent mainstay of the flat at 221b for 3 seasons/series and suddenly in S4, it glows and changes colors and sometimes is completely black. Why? Mofftiss claims that it’s budget constraints with the original painting’s artist, but in the same exact series they were able to afford to film two helicopter scenes and rent an Aston Martin? I don’t buy it. There’s a reason.
Ever since I discovered meta I’ve been sure that there is something more meaningful coming.
If nothing else, there are too many coincidences to be accidental. Just a few examples (I could go on for days… don’t tempt me)
In TLD, Culverton Smith says (of getting away with murder) “You don’t build a beach if you want to hide a pebble; you just find a beach!” and then in the very next episode, Mycroft tells Sherlock about Eurus while flashing back to a beach covered in pebbles (which they shipped in for that scene) and then holding a pebble, which he drops onto the beach. Read more in @finalproblem‘s amazing meta here.
In TFP, the patience grenade explosion in 221b was powerful enough to blow John and Sherlock out a window (and according to Mark Gatiss, “boop they’re fine” cuz they bounced off the thin awning of Speedy’s cafe, which must also heal burns and scrapes and bruises but whatever), but it didn’t burn paper or half the things in the flat. It DID, however, destroy John’s chair. The chair that they replaced it with? John’s chair from TAB. From Sherlock’s 1800s mind palace. Arwel Wynn Jones has confirmed this.
Here’s a solid list of questions that @snycock came up with for Sherlocked UK that either prove that the whole cast and crew went through some sort of collective insanity for TFP, or there’s something more coming and things don’t make sense for a reason (which is what I think)
“The Lost Special”
“Mirrors” (where one character stands in for another in a scene, like Molly for John, or Culverton for John, etc.)
Imagery of both burning/fire and drowning/water
Check out my tags for more meta, it’s incredible what this fandom discovers. Most of my meta is tagged under #hope for s5 #what fresh fuckery is this #I believe in mofftiss
Ok, I’m starting to get incoherent and my browser just crashed all my tabs so I’ll leave it at that. The meta rabbit hole is deep and wide and curvy and I could probably fill a book filled with just links to other people’s brilliant findings.
I guess the main takeaway I want to leave you with is this:
I don’t think two men who cared so much about this show for so long would chuck it into the toilet for no reason. The same brilliant minds that gave us villains like Moriarty, Culverton Smith, and Magnussen suddenly giving us an improbable two-dimensional psychopath in Eurus makes no sense. TFP itself makes no sense in about 100 different ways. And I don’t think any of that was an accident.
More is coming. When the Garridebs story is finally free of copyright, we’ll get our resolution. I don’t know which theory I believe but there are so many… that Eurus shot John and TFP is his dying hallucination, that Sherlock is still in his mind palace (possibly since HLV, or even earlier), that the whole thing is us seeing events through John’s blog (which was commissioned by the BBC yet often conflicts with canon), alibi theory… who knows. I’m happy to point you toward more meta, but I think the blogs I mentioned above and some of the links should start you on your way. Once the evidence starts to stack up, it’s clear… we don’t have the whole picture yet.
all of that, plus when was it moffat said, “if you aren’t reading the subtext, hell mend you”, was that in the run up to TAB? Or at SDCC the summer before s4? Possibly @skulls-and-tea has the receipt in “creator quotes”. Even as i endured my one time watching s4, i could tell that it was awash in subtext, even if i didn’t know what it meant yet. Sure enough, the stalwarts here are teasing it out. Let go of the surface reading, look under the hood, pull it apart, that’s where the juice is.
Also, the 5 act structure is not only increasingly clear from the overall arc of the show so far, but is hinted at consistently in every set of five anythings in the individual episodes. Look at any set of five*, and compare them to the series. This story is structured up the wazoo, there is not a wasted or a random second anywhere in it, not one “throwaway” line or scene, it’s like a fractal, even small fragments contain the pattern of the whole. the more “sample size” we have, the more consistent that is, even including bizarro mirror world s4. we’re at the “grandpa, why did you read me this” stage of the princess bride. (go watch that if it’s been a while, and also the tjlce video on tpb!) Or Han Solo about to be frozen in carbonite, but just before “i love you; i know”. The dementors are loose and nobody has conjured a patronus yet. But we’ll get there, or it will be their failure, not ours.
*IE, the five suicide/murders in ASIP, the five pips in TGG (a double set, the hostages and the cases), the five tasks in TFP, etc.
There are also a lot of threes, lines or situations that recur three times, etc. Again, consistent to the point where if there are two of something, we can be watching out for the third one. @callie-ariane ’s transcripts are a great resource for “l clueing for looks”.
Thanks for this very comprehensive stack of evidence @88thparallel – compiling all this is a really great work and very useful!
In addition to all this, there are two details in S4 that I would go so far as holding for proof, not just evidence:
These things didn’t ‘just sort of happen’ – that’s impossible. Which means they’re there for a reason. Casual viewers won’t pick up on them, though; their appearance are way too subtle for that. Which means they’re there only for the obsessive fans to discover, the ones who go through this show picture by picture (us 😊).
So, a heart monitor and an MRI scanner. And where do these two clues lead us? They lead us directly to a hospital, the only kind of place in the world where these items exist on a regular basis. Which is one of this show’s many recurring themes. Not a coincidence, then.
So, the question here was: Do these writers really know what they’re doing? Yes – I think they very definitely do. In detail, they absolutely do. And that leaves us with only two remaining options: either they’re the epitome of cynics, who willingly spend millions of pounds and years of their working lives just to mock their own audience – especially the most passionate part of their fans. OR there’s more to be expected, most probably at least a fulfilling of the five act structure (if not more).
And @sarahthecoat, I love the fractal imagery! And since we’ve already had The Sign of Three, I think it must be time for “The Set of Five”. 😉
yep. And of all the medical equipment they could have referenced, they chose a HEART monitor and a BRAIN scan. You can pretty much go through the show episode by episode at this point, and sort characters, props, colors, whatever, into either the brain column or the heart column. Consistent patterns, over and over. The opposite of random. YES s4 was crazy and ugly and hard to watch, but if you take a close look at s3, it’s crazy and painful too, just dressed up prettier. And we’ve been teasing out the subtext for years, so much of what was utter nonsense on first viewing, has fallen into place subtextually. S4 builds on what we learned so far, and takes it that much farther. That much crazier and harder to look at, but still part of the pattern. S3 gave us drinks code, firmed up phone=heart, stairs code, started us looking at vehicle subtext, water & fire, dogs & cats, theatricality, all of which have been vastly developed in s4. Just about any stone you turn over has subtext under it. Every place there’s a line that “doesn’t make sense” on the surface, there’s a thread to pull out more subtext. No wonder it takes years to write these, they are not just formulaic procedurals. its mind boggling.
so this just occurred to me, if phone=heart across the series, is there another object that =brain? We have mycroft=brain in a lot of places, and john or a john mirror=heart. But is there anything that corresponds with phone?
Could the symbol for the brain be the skull painting in 221b? The one that was just fine and dandy and iconic until it was inexplicably* all fucked up and glowing and black and obviously NOT RIGHT and NOT THE SAME?
what is the fucking point of flipping it you pulled it out of the sheath by the handle there’s no goddamn need for that
why even bother having a special spot easiy to reach in your black leather suit for knives if you’re just going to play with them when you take them out
but on the other hand
hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng
(He’s switching grips, largely because someone like Steve ain’t gonna give you an easy target for a straight thrust, especially if he’s got his shield, which makes for a lot of over and underhand stuff. But god yess hnnnnnnnnng.)
Also he LOOKS like he’s pulling it out normally, then flips it around—if you don’t have the advantage of a specific close-up you’d easily miss the little flip and think his blade was pointing toward his thumb. Then when he pulls his arm back across his body you think he’s pointing the knife over to his left, when in reality it is pointing straight at you and he’s about to slam it in your face. The arm movement to pull it out of the sheath that other way is super awkward and telegraphs the fact that your blade’s going to be reversed from the very beginning. But the Winter Soldier is a tricksy bastard. And IIRC, it works—Steve isn’t aware until his arm comes down to strike that he’s about to get hit. Otherwise he’d find a better way to block it.
</fencer>
Now with additional commentary from a fencer. My “hnnnnnnnng” is only exponentially increased.
Tl;dr knife flips are a useful, brutal, excellent tool. When the Winter Soldier is coming after you with a knife you’d better have superhuman reflexes, because he is going to attack you from every possible avenue. If I only hold my blade like a screwdriver, there are a limited number of physical movements I can make, and they are relatively predictable. If I hold it like an icepick, the repetoire changes but is likewise limited. If I can flip it around with absolutely no notice, I’ve effectively doubled how difficult I am to defend against.
Reblogging for commentary, and also because I could watch that gif all day.
All of this, and also, even if he WAS just playing with it, fucking around with a weapon is one of the ways that you get really good with it. With knives specifically, for a guy like Bucky — in both his lives — you’d pretty much have one on you at all times, and a lot of the military life (and probably the assassin life too) involves sitting around being bored as shit waiting for the death and terror to start. You end up playing with your weapons, because they’re there, and that’s one of the primary ways you really learn that weapon inside and out. You might play around, switching your grip, flipping it over and over, learning to catch it by the handle, by the point, learning to throw it, learning the exact weight and the center of its balance and all the other things that make handling it so effortless… it’s all just repetition and asking yourself “I wonder if I can….” and doing it until yes, indeed, you can stab some guy in the face before he can even see you coming.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 