Mycroft as Sherlock’s head (pt 1)
Edit: I used arianedevere’s wonderful wonderful transcript as well as screencaps from kissthemgoodbye.
There’ve been a lot of people talking about how fat!Mycroft in the mind palace is representative of fears that either he or Sherlock will die soon. Some people have pointed out the scribbling of “vernet” in Mycroft’s notebook, which they take to be indicative that one or both brothers are suffering from Vernet Syndrome.
I don’t think that’s it at all.
Mycroft usually doesn’t represent himself, or at least solely himself, in Sherlock’s mind palace.
Here (TSoT), he’s pictured with wings, in the position of a judge in a courtroom, placing him in a place of authority. In a Freudian framework he takes on the role of the super-ego, an authority figure that embodies societal expectations and mores. He’s also the seat of Sherlock’s logic and the marshal that commands him to keep the room’s attention in TSoT.
In the mind palace, he is Sherlock’s head. John is Sherlock’s heart, Sherlock himself is the mediator between the two.
So when we see Mycroft in a state of deterioration and sluggishness in TAB, it shows us not that Sherlock is concerned for Mycroft’s health, but rather that of his own mind, or at least the logical part of it.
“To anyone who wishes to study mankind, this is the spot,” Mycroft remarks. Far from the physical positions of authority he possessed in TSoT and HLV, Mycroft is making excuses about the position in which he now finds himself, trying to make it sound more advantageous than it is.
It is, however, static, unmoving. “Handy, really,” replies Sherlock, “as your ever-expanding backside is permanently glued to it.” Mycroft’s perceived inability to move represents Sherlock’s fear of the deterioration of his own mind. He sees the world from one vantage point, and for him this has become a cause of insecurity; the logical part of his own mind is in a state of gluttony and degeneration, stuffing itself on the one form of stimulation that it can find: drugs. Mycroft’s remark about the convenient place to study mankind is a ploy; it is the drug use justifying itself, to itself, as well as to Sherlock’s concerned emotional side and his indifferent mediator.
Sherlock, (the mediator), is not so much bothered as critical, implying sarcastically that the spot is not in fact ideal, and that Mycroft is defending his own decadence. Inside the mind palace, although perhaps not outside of it, Sherlock recognizes his own drug use from a fairly objective platform, acknowledging that it is deleterious but choosing rather to quantify the damage than actually rebuke his indulgence.
John (the heart), tries a different tack. “You look well, sir,” he says. Sherlock’s allegorical heart, his more emotional side, is prone to forgiveness and feigned ignorance. (Later: ”I’m happy to play the fool for you. I will run along behind you like some halfwit, making you look clever, if that’s what you need, but dear God above, you will hold yourself to a higher standard.”) John would rather turn a blind eye to Sherlock’s drug consumption than face it head on, and together both he, the heart, and Sherlock, the mediator, will allow Mycroft, the head, to careen towards disaster.
But when prompted, John retracts. “Now you mention it,” he says, “this level of consumption is incredibly injurious to your health. Your heart…” It is in fact, damaging to Sherlock’s heart, to John himself, to see Sherlock this way. There is a triple meaning: the drug use will harm Sherlock’s health and his physical heart, leading to possible premature death; the harm it does to Sherlock will hurt real!John, Sherlock’s mirror and his “heart”; and it will harm MP!John, who represents Sherlock’s emotional heart.
Moreover, the damage Sherlock is doing himself is fourfold. He is causing the deterioration of his own mind, which he purports to value above all things, he is harming himself physically, he is emotionally damaging himself, and he is alienating John and therefore doing further injury to his own metaphorical heart.
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