Sherlock Holmes being touch averse with strangers but handsy and affectionate with His People is everything to me
Walking with his hand tucked into Watson's elbow so they can't be jostled apart on the streets of London, giving Mrs Hudson a hug when she's overwhelmed and upset, giving Inspector Lestrade a slap on the shoulder when he finally gets some deduction on his own, pestering Mycroft because they're brothers and that's just what you do to siblings so they don't think you've forgotten about them
Sherlock Holmes is literally a cat is all I'm saying. Run up to him and shove your face at him and he will hiss and swat, naturally, because he doesn't know you and What Is Your Actual Problem ew. Sit quietly, let him do as he pleases, blink slowly, and eventually if he decides you're worthy, he might deign to curl up on your lap and purr a little 🐈⬛
I LOVE mischaracterised remus man. Like in canon lore, that guy does not care or give a fuck about anyone!!! He just does whatever he wants whenever he wants because that’s what intrusive thoughts are like, right? He’s always doing something bizarre and/or crude for the sake of being a burden. BUT THEN FANON REMUS- oh boy he’s the sweetest little hyperactive bunny. Suddenly he is very sincere and loving to whoever he’s shipped with, suddenly he actually cares about roman(?!) and suddenly he’s more human (if yk what i mean? Still very very crude but not as particularly dramatic abt it..)
REBLOG GAME WITH UR TOP 3 SHERLOCK AND CO ADVENTURES!!!
My top are Musgrave Ritual, Wisteria Lodge, and Silverblaze(reasoning and more below)
Mutual tag :D @mothusingtheinternet and anyone else who wants to participate please I really love hearing everyone's opinions!!
Musgrave: its one of the only episodes I've cried to and its mostly because of (duh) the letters but also when Sherlock got called a robot I could not handle that man, too close to home jesus. The Adventure is one of my favorites and its balanced between all 3 members of the pod. Also sherls birthday let's go!!! (Bonus that duckmorganduck drew it cause theyre my fav sherlock and co artist and I showed like everyone I knew it)
Wisteria: I listened to this on a road trip during summer with the window down and I live in MT so road trips here are always really pretty so I have like a core memory with this ep. Also the story and Adventure was so good I kept cornering people to talk about it lol.
Silverblaze: I mean theres a horse murder guys come on. Also if you know me you know how obsessed I am with horses its actually crazy my one goal in life is to have a horse im gonna like the horse episode man. Silverblaze's vibe is also so good i love my boys.
The Retired Colourman has great characterization for both Mariana and Sherlock. Both this and the Dancing Men show Sherlock's relationship with his friends and how much he cares for them. This story has had more of a lasting impact because Mariana brought it up again in The Hounds of the Baskervilles.
The Three Students is one of a type of adventure that I like to call the Sherlock shows off episode (The Beryl Coronet being the other one that I can think of). Sherlock's speech was really fun and it had some heartfelt parts to it when he talked about John and Mariana. There is also what I think is some Moriarty foreshadowing that I noticed on my second watch (Sherlock refers to himself as the spider and weaves his web).
The Three Garridebs is probably the most emotional I have been interacting with a piece of media in long while, and I think that it has a strong story and it continued the narrative momentum that this arc is having.
I think something that trips people up(including me at first) when it comes to giving remus more depth is like. You have this character that's considered the worst of the worst, the bottom of the barrel, nothing more than a problem for everyone else to deal with.
And when trying to flesh out his character, there's this urge to characterize him as being secretly ashamed, or at least upset about that in some way. Cause he has to have SOME negative feelings about it, right? How could he be happy like this?
But he just. Is. He's not unhappy about being the problem, he revels in it. He takes pride in being the worst of the worst. He's legit just. Doing his thing. He knows who he is, and he doesn't give a shit what anyone else thinks. And tbh i think there's still a lot of depth to be found in that! And it's something i wanna see explored more often
giant, unorganized rant ahead, i have so many thoughts about remus sanders
remus fan characterizations are so interesting to me, because idk if we're ever going to have him canonically as complex as any other side (which is... unfortunate, but i digress)
one of my favorite ways of fleshing out his character is making him, in a way, a narrative foil to janus.
like, janus' whole canon thing (at least when first introduced) is repression. putting up walls, pushing thomas to lie to others and himself, using shame (mostly from patton) as a tool to keep thomas safe. janus admits that he is partially responsible for thomas staying closeted as long as he did, and he did so to keep thomas protected. janus' methods are considered immoral, sure, but the purpose of his deception is to shield thomas from unpleasant truths about himself and the world around him.
remus' role in many fan interpretations (and maybe in canon too? idk it's harder to tell) is STAUNCHLY anti-repression. in the first like 10 minutes of us knowing of his existence, he SAYS "repression very bad indeed." denial and shame are what caused the twins to "split" in the first place, to have creativity be simultaneously permitted and forbidden. it's what made him intrusive, which makes his role almost require him to revel in the filth of those forbidden thoughts. he MUST indulge in those thoughts, because otherwise thomas would be so plain, so stunted, so BORING, that he wouldn't be him at all.
(sidetone: i love the concept of remus being the first to truly recognize and accept thomas' queerness. he is the first step to thomas unlearning biases and realizing uncomfortable truths about himself, even if the thoughts make thomas anxious or shameful. okay back to it)
i also think this is why WTIT is so important to remus' depth as a character, because even with the semi comedic tone of the episode, it ends when logan is suddenly confronted with his insecurities, the quiet part said out loud. remus COULD just be doing this to mess with lo, or get him to "go orange" or whatever, but i believe this is remus trying to "help" in his own way. he just wants thomas to be honest with himself, and that means making the sides look at their deepest wounds in the face.
janus tries to resolve conflicts by avoiding them until they are impossible to ignore, and controlling the narrative as much as possible for an intended outcome.
while remus doesn't resolve the conflicts, he stirs shit up and has a neon sign that says "HEY YOU'RE IGNORING SHIT DON'T DO THAT DUMBASS" and say things that shouldn't be said in polite company.
to be what thomas needs him to be, remus HAS to be loud, violent, unwanted, demented, gross, scary. he HAS to be the worst of the worst and enjoy it, if only to show thomas that he can.
I am interested in how old the sides are in relation to each other. I am ordering these based on certainty.
Patton is almost definitely the oldest. While morality is something that develops later, emotions are something that people are born with. In my opinion that means that Thomas was born with Patton.
Janus likely showed up around 2-3 years old because that's when kids begin to learn how to lie.
Creativity probably showed at around 1 year old. I would guess the split happened as a preteen or early teen, but that is mostly based upon my experience with intrusive thoughts.
Virgil probably showed up during the first year of life. Possibly around seven months old.
Logan going off of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, I would say that he either started from birth or around seven years old. Birth because kids start learning about the world around them at birth, and seven years old because that when children enter concrete logical stage, which seems to be when they thinking becomes more logical. Birth has its advantages because of Logan's and Patton's parallels. 7 years old would make Logan the youngest, which could relate to why he is not taken seriously and/or feels like he is not taken seriously.
(Update): Help finding a scene (main episodes or mailbag) where Watson implies that Sherlock is younger than him?
Hi! Pretty much what it says on the tin. After posting my proposed timeline for the pod, I was talking with another fan (@eardefenders) where they've been certain that they remember a scene strongly implying that Sherlock is younger than Watson, and thus he has to be 36 years old or younger.
Since some math work shows some problems with this (to summarize: thanks to some other fixed points/timespans, Sherlock would be very young when he was bullied at school and expelled, based on being there in 1999. See main link here for the full breakdown, with Sherlock and school specific business here), well...
What else was there to do but actually write in to Joel Emery about whether that was the intention? Sherlock going through all that from 8-12 years old at the latest?
In short: He answered very positively about the timeline generally (will post the reply here later if I get the okay to do so, possibly the full email), and he genuinely asked if there were any spots in the pod material where it was stated/implied that Sherlock was younger than Watson.
So, in reply to that, that memory from @eardefenders is the main lead I have. I don't personally remember anything like this, and I don't have access to mailbag material to check everything myself. No one else I've talked to, bonus material access or not, recalls something like this.
I've run a keyword search through the automated transcripts from the spoken parts of the main episodes (via podscripts) using "young" like the scene is supposed to contain, but no relevant returns. Same for similar terms with "oldest", "eldest", "younger", etc. No dice there, and naturally mailbag episodes aren't included to be searched.
Got the same question posted to the subreddit, so any déjà vu from seeing this text before is probably from there.
eardefenders has been relistening to the show to double-check, since there might be something missing from the automated transcripts/wasn't included on official ones due to improvisation, in addition to the automated search not including mailbags...
But I got permission to post here about whether anyone else recalls what they're describing and can narrow down where the scene may be from.
My personal inclination is that (if the gist of the convo is accurate) it's probably a mailbag, since if it was in the main episodes I think we as the general audience would have more people recalling seeming confirmation of the age order for the trio?
eardefenders says rather that they think they remember it being in the cold open for one of the episodes where Watson is just sort of rambling, and Sherlock's there.
So, to the details of that scene that we can't concretely identify at the moment:
Watson was waffling on about something and he mentioned getting certain references because he's a millennial (or something like that).
Then, Sherlock said something in reply and Watson says something to the effect of "Well, I'm not young like you"
Update: Changed description below
Other relevant info: eardefenders said that they haven't actually listened to any episodes past the end of HOUND, and that they haven't heard any mailbags since Mailbag 15 or 16.
So, if this is somewhere in the pod material, it has to be in episodes/mailbags from before those cutoff points.
Since we have publicly available transcripts for the first four mailbags (also via @eardefenders), and I checked those, that leaves Mailbags 5-16, max.
As for the episodes, that's technically everything up to the end of HOUND.
New info
@eardefenders has now remembered/narrowed down/added a few more details, and changed their description of the potential scene considerably. Mariana is now in the conversation, so if this is out there as described, that narrows things down considerably.
Does anyone recall anything like this version now?
As follows, the new information (slightly paraphrased from original communication):
It's from an older episode. Sherlock is mostly joining in on Mariana's teasing of Watson as this is when he was more awkward in their dynamic
It was during one of Watson's rambling cold opens, with Mariana and Sherlock as part of the conversation. Watson says something, and it's now Mariana who's like "huh", prompting Watson to start talking about how he's like a millennial or the oldest. Thus, of course he gets the reference, not them. This response is a single line, nothing too long.
Also described/summarized as: Sherlock and Mariana are teasing Watson for being old, with the tone being "we are younger". Watson makes reference to being the oldest, but doesn't outright say "I'm the oldest"
Still ostensibly not a mailbag thing, as originally claimed. I've been crtl+f'ing all Mariana lines in the earlier episodes (up to Silver Blaze, then tossing in Case of Identity and some others I don't relisten to as often just in case), and nothing matches up to this so far.
It was discussed in the smaller Discord group that the lines might not be in the official transcript as sometimes the audio product doesn't match. However, I find that unlikely in this instance since I've only seen that be the case for single-person wording/phrasing changes or short additions by Watson.
When it comes to multiple characters speaking, I've never seen examples of more substantial interactions not being in the transcript (since the cast records separately, it's not like they can improvise replies back and forth in the moment). From what I've seen, the only time that significant speaking time isn't present in the transcripts is how Watson's intro is (still) missing from the start of HOUND.
(Happy for anyone to point out counterexamples if I'm incorrect on that!)
Even so, the automated podscripts search is based on audio input from spoken lines, and would've picked up "millennial" or "reference" (both of which I search through the hits for).
If it is a mailbag, then having Mariana present does hypothetically narrow things down since she doesn't appear as much there. From here via @itsnobodysproblem, the "Mariana edition" mailbags are #19 and #20,
(Far as I can tell: for the more general ones featuring questions directed at Mariana, that's Mailbag #5 (For her and Watson: Are you partial to karaoke? If so, what songs?), and Mailbag #6 (asking a question in Spanish about Sherlock and John))
This is my final update to the request to crowdsource this question, in lieu of further info I'll be writing back to Emery with all available info at the time (and some other closely related points folks have kindly brought up as being curious about for the future!). Thanks to everyone for reading, thinking through your memory, and just taking this seriously even for a moment! Very much appreciated🧡
This line from the Beryl Coronet part 2 confirms Sherlock and Watson as millennials and Mariana as gen Z, but I feel like using it to confirm Sherlock age relation to John would be misusing evidence. Since the line that John is more senior than sherlock is most likely discussing the company.
I vaguely remember knowing Mariana was gen Z before this, so I am going back through the mailbags to see if I can find it. It is not in Mailbag 1, 19, or 20 (19 and 20 are Mariana's episodes).
We joke a lot about how Elias is allergic to hiring straight and/or neurotypical people but it makes a weird amount of sense. The Institute explicitly goes out of its way to attract traumatized individuals because of how they feed The Eye implicitly.
Our society does not produce un-traumatized neurodivergent people. It does not produce un-traumatized queer people. Even people who are not touched by the entities before being hired, like Martin, are traumatized by virtue of living in our world.
I love the memes but it does make sense that Jonah Magnus, who has spent hundreds of years climbing over those he sees as below him to gain power and sometimes PHYSICALLY using them, would take advantage of marginalized people like this.
sort've- the post you can interact with to make it happen is here :3
Now I understand you might be like "500 reblogs and 700 likes? That's absurd!" And you may be right. But also I will be drawing a comic so I think it's fair. It takes time to draw and I'm hella busy 😭 I've included hints that are related to the character Sherlock will interact with (but with the nature of some of them, he will not kiss all of them)
The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve.
Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.
If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.
Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.
This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!
This makes the website more difficult to use and makes it look bad. It adds extra cluttering to posts. It also means that people will not get notified if someone reblogs a reblog of there post which could cause issues.
Sherlocks conversation with John during the second part of the Gloria Scott has interesting implications between that and the Musgraves Ritual.
SHERLOCK: I’ll crush him. I’ll ruin the image of his father. I’ll- bugger! Stupid case! Stupid!
SHERLOCK: Would it crush you?
If you found out something about your father, that was.. bad?
In both the Gloria Scott and the Musgrave Ritual. Someone (Victor and Sherlock) discover that a major role model (Lionel Trever and Mr. Musgrave) has done something horrible (what happened with the Gloria Scott and the abuse that Reginald went through) which led to the original person being harmed by a victim of what the mentor did (Hunter and Reginald).
How does Sherlock feel at the end of the Musgraves Ritual?
What if he feels like the abuse done to him by Victor was justified? What if that is why is so forgiving at the end of the case? How would that effect him through the rest of this section of the story? This section of the story seems to be doing a lot to shake Sherlocks confidence in himself, and it is interesting to see how that will continue and where it will end up.
There's (Still) Something Up with The Musgrave Ritual: A Theory and Analysis
Riding the high of the fantastic run with The Stockbroker’s Clerk. These last few weeks, I have completely loved the direction that the story has taken, and the finale was executed marvelously. Fantastic adventure all around, great dialogue, character moments, action, wider plot advancement, etc. etc. All of which has really reinvigorated my feelings for the show, along with some older favorite episodes, and has made me reflect again on the lingering oddities with The Musgrave Ritual.
Now that we have a close example of them fully firing on all cylinders, it’s made me reflect again…What was the point of writing this entire bullying subplot, and Reginald the way they did?
Is there anything that could be missing here?
Namely, one thing that I’ve been thinking over for a bit since laying out the reasons for my dissatisfaction with the episode are the details that, at least to me, indicate that Reginald will have to come back in some fashion.
There are three main reasons for this:
Reginald is closely tied to Sherlock’s early life as a former schoolmate.
He’s not just a one-off client, but rather fundamentally tied to Sherlock’s past in the same manner that Victor Trevor is. Any future return to discussing that time of his life (such as with filling in the gaps of the long-awaited family reveal) is now one that he is relevant to, as the architect of a constant barrage of coordinated, gang-like physical harassment that deeply affected Sherlock’s childhood. When his family is finally directly addressed (someone sent him to that school after all, did or didn’t react to what he was going through, was or wasn't told about it, had to be called about runaway attempts)...Those basic details of upbringing, school, parental/sibling relationships, etc., will have to be in connection with what we already know of his early life, and thus Reginald as a significant player.
2. Reginald is the third focal character to be (re)written as involved in finance in a tight string of episodes, and the second where no such connection existed in the original stories.
After Neville St. Clair’s career change in TWIS, I had suspected that they were laying the groundwork for something when they changed the slightly silly canon details to have him instead be jumped and beaten by let's-get-back-to-this-later "very bad men" in finance. Now, we’ve since had that confirmed with the premise of The Stockbroker’s Clerk.
Reginald is the second of these chronologically, leading right up to our canonical Stockbroker’s Clerk, and a surprise link to Moriarty’s operation: Hayley Pycroft. Preceding this focus on the deeply rooted financial manipulations and abuses of The Spider himself…old Reginald’s been changed to an “extremely successful” financier. Could it be unconnected? Maybe, but with the last part of our latest episode, it seems too early to dismiss. They could’ve had him working in any other posh career, after all.
3. Joel Emery himself voices Reginald. There is no outside actor’s schedule, input, or sudden lapse in availability to account for. This is a highly unusual departure from the pattern with his previous roles for the show, but on a practical level, it makes the character eminently easy to bring back.
Additionally, I find it curious that the adventure itself was stretched out over a 4-parter at all. The original story is pretty straightforward, and could easily have been slimmed down. The reveal of the titular Ritual chant was instead substantially delayed until Part 3, because it’s so obviously directions/a treasure map that any earlier reveal would’ve necessitated a faster conclusion.
If there was any need to pad an adventure some in order to give more time in production to a future one (as I think was said to be the case somewhere with The Red Circle), then surely the following relatively contained, slower-paced “one of the ones where Watson admits it’s kinda boring” two-parter with The Beryl Coronet would’ve provided a good bit of cushioning?
Rather, I think it’s the most likely explanation this was drawn out on purpose, for what seems to be to give more room to the entirely show-original character conflicts. That background with Reginald, the details of what he did, Sherlock’s emotional beats, that final loaded conversation, choosing to include or not include certain things, all of that took time and effort and editing input to sort out. Why?
Why was it that significant to set up?
In addition, when it comes to “what they did or didn’t add” I’ve been considering a different perspective on the two main elements that I felt were egregiously unaddressed in a seeming disservice to their “happy ending” to the bullying plotline: Reginald’s present-day “SAVANT ROBOT FREAK” tirade mid-arrest, and the fact that he never apologizes for that or his past treatment of Sherlock.
Neither of those are things you can just have in there by accident. With the podcast medium they’ve set up for themselves, these stories and character building almost entirely relies on the details and strength of the script (and performances and acoustic elements, yes) in a way that simply isn't the case for visual shows.
We have what’s stated in the script, or carried out by the vocal performance in those words. It fundamentally shapes the experience of this audio drama, especially when it comes to the clarity of the clues and mystery setup, alongside communicating engaging character dynamics.
For example, I’ve listened to a fair number of interviews from the cast and crew, and the one containing this description of how Emery works through the adaptations is something I keep coming back to.
What is the typical process of adapting a story for the podcast?
[EMERY]: Read it about 4 times, listen to Stephen Fry narrate it a couple of times. I actually listened to I Hear Of Sherlock Everywhere with Raymond G. Farney and I ended up buying his book A Study In Sherlock and it's really handy as a writer as it works as Watson's casebook. It compiles each adventure into details, evidence, perpetrators, timeframes, locations, dates - everything just brought down to key points. All the while, even from the first reading, I'll be noting down how it would work in modern day, how it would work in audio and how we can add something refreshing as well. Also comedy, our show is a light comedy most of the time so I'm also looking for those moments. We're only a few weeks ahead of the latest uploaded episodes so we'll make sure the cast get the scripts at the earliest window possible. Once it's all edited together we'll talk about pickups, how clear is the mystery, how formed are the new characters for this story, what lines need to be tweaked etc.
So, what was the authorial intent regarding that outburst with Reginald? Why was that kind of language put in there at all? And for a man who’s stated that his writing of Sherlock is an “homage” to his autistic daughter and the research he’s done to understand the topic, with this episode itself bringing focus to an audience he’s said he wants to do right by…that choice to have Reginald do what he does as an adult man and never apologize feels like a loaded one.
To paraphrase a recent video on character design I greatly enjoyed, with the same axiom applied to writing, I feel the law of the matter and the question is this: The characters act the way they do, because someone wrote them to. Why?
The prior working hypothesis that I, and a few others, had with the reason for the outcome of this story was perhaps justifiably cynical. That, thematically, Emery had written some checks that he couldn’t cash: bringing in some horrifying details of bullying that he didn’t fully think through the scarring implications of. Ultimately equating Sherlock’s resentment and moderate passive-aggressiveness to Reginald’s behavior, especially after Sherlock "messed up" by mistakenly getting Reginald sent to jail for (1) day. Reginald’s behavior is blanket justified because his dad was mean and has just died, so complicated feelings all around and we get a “bullies can be hurting humans too” moral.
But, since the latest story has helpfully solidified my faith in the crew behind this…I have to wonder about that hypothesis for the intent here. Is that really the end of it? I’ve shifted to thinking not just about that what they set up doesn’t fit for the resolution and their audience (in my opinion), but also the question of how/if this fits with what they’ve done before. With the tone and morality choices of previous episodes, with fierce, inconvenient victims and sharp points about power dynamics, with what we know of Joel Emery as a writer and showrunner.
The characters act that way, because someone wrote them to. Why?
In light of that, I have been rethinking some things about MUSG that seem weird on a meta and the universal truth of “writers, and generally most people, don’t like to make more work for themselves than necessary” level. Are there any alternate hypotheses we can consider on a Doylist level, contrary to the above?
Because if they were aiming for this from the beginning…there’s plenty of simpler ways to have done it and to avoid the issues above entirely. Don’t have the past behavior be that physically aggressive and coordinated and exploitative. Don’t have present-day Reginald unleash that language at Sherlock. They created a lot of work for themselves by adding that kind of detail.
So, why did they?
There’s a ton of messy, dark, painful elements unresolved with this storyline, despite the apparent ending. Reginald will probably be coming back.
What if that’s the point? What if they’re setting Reginald up, and this whole sense of uncomfortable bandaged-over self-centered resolution with Sherlock, to serve some purpose later? Could those waving red flags to create dislike have been intentionally left unresolved, to cast a shade over any later appearance?
With that in mind, going outside of what I’ve discussed before with the story mechanics, I want to reconsider the above hypothesis and look for that evidence reflecting the mindset of Joel Emery as a writer (and the wider team’s input) for The Musgrave Ritual. What do the things around the episodes, and perhaps what the character do or don’t do compared to easy alternatives, potentially say about the narrative function of this story?
Let’s consider: What happens if we sift through the story through that alternative hypothesis of what they might be setting up for later? That Reginald perhaps isn’t meant to be totally absolved? What happens if we don’t take that “redemption” ending on its face, looking at Reginald and Sherlock’s interactions a bit more closely?
Charge #1 (Downplaying the Abuse): What Does the Script Actually Say?
To start with, I looked through the scripts to piece together not just what the bullying is described as (the facts of the specific acts, as in my glossary post), but also how they’re described.
If the walk-away point is that this was bad-but-regrettably-typical schoolboy behavior that we’re meant to sympathize with Sherlock about but still go “oh, but turns out Reginald’s dad was horrible to him! #hurtpeoplehurtpeople, and he’s nice at the end anyway! So kind of Sherlock to be nice to him at the end, happy ending”, and we assume that’s the perspective of the team here…it seems weird that they then consistently peppered in these descriptions from the characters. That third one from Watson especially, after he’s come around a bit.
“Punished for [peculiarities]”+“Acts of torture ”+”cruel, vindictive little Musgrave Rituals” [Sherlock, Part 1]
“Brutally bullied” [Watson, Part 2], followed by “Oh my god. Sherlock. I’m so sorry that’s awful. Are you ok? Do you wanna talk about it?” [Mariana, Part 2]
“You’ve- it’s-- look I don’t like to overuse the word but it’s trauma at the end of the day isn’t it. That bastard tortured you. In front of your peers. Relentlessly.” [Watson, Part 3]
“Cruel times” [Sherlock, Part 4]
If our working hypothesis is correct, and the intent of the team can be understood as a tragically severe downplaying of what they introduced Sherlock as going through… then why invoke the weight of acknowledging it as trauma? Through Watson, they do seem to accurately pinpoint the significance of this being a social humiliation, of the physical “torture”, and the persistence of the “relentless” behavior.
Yet, it’s that last one that’s particularly interesting to me. In that prison conversation, that single line is Sherlock’s sole acknowledgment of the torment he’s suffered in the middle of Reginald going on about how his father’s abuse was the real root of his behavior towards Sherlock (framing it as hate from intense jealousy and hurt).
Sherlock is silent for all of that. When he does reply…it’s a very neutral, carefully passive statement. It stands out from the other descriptions.
“…They were cruel times, Reginald”
It took me a while to parse what he even meant by this at first, because it’s so vague as to be unclear what the subtext is. Did he mean that the abuse that Reginald went through at the hands of his father would’ve been implicitly condoned in the time period and general context of how they grew up, despite the cruelty? Is it referring to just the general tangle of bad memories at the hands of abusers for both of them?
But no, with Reginald’s reply, I think that the most direct interpretation is that Sherlock is referring to those “acts of torture” and very cautiously broaching the topic of his own suffering in that. A more direct rephrasing may be “…it was still extreme, what you did.”
It’s not direct. Not emotional. He doesn’t say that Reginald was still wrong to do it. He doesn’t get into any of the angry, graphic details that are still wounding him decades later. If it’s a rebuttal at all, it’s only the mildest and most hesitant kind.
He doesn’t say, for example: “You made it hell on earth to walk through the halls of that school, awaiting being snatched or attacked or grabbed at any moment. As a game, you bought and sold the rights to my body. Do you know what the other boys did with the opening you gave them when you declared me their property, with what they gave you the money to do?”
He hears Reginald’s side, and he only stands up for his side of the story and the pain of what he experienced in the softest, most detached way possible.
This is what Reginald says in response:
That “yes” is technically an acknowledgment (though tearful and rushed immediately into the rest of the bitter sentence about how Sherlock has had his “revenge” for it, so that the whole sentence is one big burst. With the line read, it’d be just as correct to write it as “yesandnowyouimagineyou’veexactedsomerevengeagainstmeoverthepasttwenty-fourhours”)
…But the rest of this is, functionally, an emotional dismissal. Reginald saying that he was wronged first. Unless we’re meant to read this in a “you know, Reginald isn’t saying he thinks this NOW, he’s saying that that were his subconscious thoughts at the time” kind of obtuse and abstract kind of way, that final line (as I’ve stated before) makes it seem like he’s still rhetorically blaming Sherlock.
To be direct here: there’s precisely zero indication in the story that Sherlock ever acted cruelly to Reginald himself or acted to enable his abuser. He was not in any actual position of power. Unless there were signs that he ignored (for which, go to my other post), Sherlock just straight up was the victim here. He wasn’t culpable. There’s not even any mention of him trying to fight back, incapacitate the bullies, or get back at them in any way, despite us knowing him as exceedingly strong-willed and a capable combatant in the present. As far as we know, he was just…there, a misfit clinging to a caring teacher, and able to be targeted, with the strength of numbers on Reginald’s side with the other boys involved.
And yet…."It was not your humiliation at my hands. It was mine, at yours. But neither of us had the emotional sharpness to understand it.”
(Yeah, I’m sure that young Sherlock was working real hard on his “emotional sharpness” to comprehend your complex interiority while you were bashing his head down in a toilet, ordering a gang to grab and yank him every which way, and straight-up selling him to be physically assaulted, Reginald. His mistake, you guys can totally be equated here.)
This feels significant to me. His response is still implicitly blaming Sherlock, for what Reginald did and the effects of what Reginald went through. That lack of “emotional sharpness”, and only maybe the hint that Reginald didn’t understand his motivations at the time for punishing a more easily available recipient of his father’s affection.
How hard would it have been while writing the script to have Reginald add in an “And I regret it. Deeply.” to the start of his reply? Instead, he brushes past Sherlock’s hesitant assertion and makes it all about himself. Why was that choice made?
(In the first part of this story, Sherlock points out that part of Reginald’s system of manners is a casual habit of apologizing for things that aren’t his fault. This is evident throughout the story, and he does offer plenty of “forgive me”s and “my sincere apologies” to Sherlock himself…for small things, like the choice of winter hat or aspects of the castle.
But never, not once, for the things that he is responsible for. This isn’t even just about the childhood bullying. With Joel Emery…as a parent, as someone who’s written about the importance of nuanced autistic characters the way he has…how do you write a rich, capable, well-educated adult with all the resources for therapy or self-improvement in the world screaming “FUCKING SAVANT ROBOT FREAK” and “YOU’RE NOT BRILLIANT, YOU’RE BROKEN” at his former victim, surrounded by witnesses…and then he just chats with those people the next day with zero embarrassment or apologies for his behavior afterwards?
Something doesn’t add up here)
Then Sherlock changes the subject. He doesn't push Reginald further. The rest of the conversation is solely about the facts relevant to the case.
Sherlock "Seeing the Gold Underneath": Fawning Behavior?
That silence and hesitation, and Sherlock’s seemingly positive behavior towards Reginald in the end, makes for an interesting pattern, in retrospect, of how Sherlock acts when others address the abhorrence of what he went through.
Sure, Sherlock lashes out at the funeral with a heap of dark language and mutters bitterly under his breath at Reginald, but after that loaded experience (and Watson trying to calm him down a bit since it won’t happen again at the funeral, or brush it off since he’s still irked about apartment stuff, however you see it)…when it comes to people asking how he feels about it, he avoids it and changes the topic.
From MUSG, Part Two:
Meanwhile, from Part Three when he does bring up complicated feelings after Reginald’s arrest (once again: and after being screamed at as a “FUCKING SAVANT ROBOT FREAK” and “YOU’RE NOT BRILLIANT, YOU’RE BROKEN” in public, in front of his friends)…he once again retreats into the facts of the case and the sense that Reginald’s motivations don’t line up for it.
In that scene, he does make a reference to Reginald bullying him as “…his father reminded him constantly of the abilities and properties of my mind- and that is why he bullied me- he was jealous that I got his father’s attention and he didn’t-“. But again, it’s within the context of the case and the current working hypothesis for it (Watson’s) not lining up. It’s refuge in the facts, after a brief dip into emotion.
Meanwhile, outside of the prison conversation, there’s really only three times he references Reginald’s ugly past with him to the man himself (unless we assume that Reginald has excellent hearing to pick up on all of Sherlock’s whispered “serpent/devil/etc.” comments, without ever commenting on it)
Saying that everyone else got along great with Mr. Musgrave, and rather passively-aggressively implying that maybe Reginald’s family problems with him (at this point, vaguely referenced and not clearly abuse) were because Reginald was just awful to be around (MUSG, Part Two)
Replying gravely “yes…I do know” when Reginald references using “stronger language than eff this and eff that” when screaming at someone (MUSG, Part Two)
At the arrest, after Reginald’s screeching “FUCKING SAVANT ROBOT FREAK” outburst, going “And there he is. After all these years.” (MUSG, Part Three)
Then, at the jail, after coming to the conclusion that Reginald is innocent of the murders and that the titular Ritual is the key to the whole thing, he tries to be courteous and empathetic over the phone to Reginald, sits there in silence during the emotional unloading about his family past, and only makes the mildest attempt to bring up his perspective with those “cruel times”. He lets Reginald get away with putting his pain first, and then switches to the facts of the case.
If there wasn’t that “gold underneath” line at the end, then I may not have even assumed that Sherlock has been made by the writers to forgive Reginald at all even with the seeming friendliness of the final scene (he was able to be reasonably polite in some detail at the funeral and pub, after all).
But, as is, and with the setup they’ve given themselves to come back…I’ve been starting to wonder if Sherlock’s behavior here is more of a fawning response. In his philosophy for his business, his empathy will always be with the victims, even in complicated circumstances like in Victoria’s homicidal vengeance quest and eventual suicide in Wisteria Lodge. In Part One of The Stockbroker’s Clerk, he states: “We understand that innocence and guilt exist on a spectrum. If you are being strung along by criminals, bank robbers, if you are doing their bidding against your will-- we will take that into consideration”.
…But how good is he really at asserting his own rights to be respected, once it’s tossed in the mix that his tormenter (and the gang-leader of several other bullies) was victimized himself as well? Back in Gloria Scott, he elucidates how he still feels intense guilt for exposing his childhood principal, at this very college, feeling that he callously ruined the man's life.
To step back into in-universe thinking here: Is it possible that he feels it would be selfish, or in line with being those accusations of being a “robot” and “broken”, to put his own feelings over that of what Reginald went through? Would he feel the right to make that judgement?
To do anything more than a detached “…they were cruel times”, and allow himself to be steamrolled over? To kindly offer the comparison to gold underneath the grime?
“The fawn response is the least recognized of the four primary trauma reactions: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. While the first three are more familiar in both psychology and pop culture, fawning often flies under the radar because it doesn’t look like fear. It looks like being helpful, agreeable, and selfless. But under the surface, it’s a survival strategy wired into the nervous system to avoid conflict, maintain attachment, and stay safe.”
Sure, one could say that it’s a reach to read Reginald as a threat by the end. It’s not like he started screaming ableist insults a second time, credit for that, woo. He’s perfectly nice, human, and socially acceptable in that final scene.
But, also… why wouldn’t he be? He’s been exonerated from prison, gotten to offload decades of emotional pain on a willing ear, and has been received graciously. His erstwhile victim is contrite for the lynx hair mistake and still willing to do the work of explaining the gaps in what Reginald wants to know and solving a family mystery for him. If he hasn’t held a grudge from a (1) night stay in prison with the assurance of relying on the ace lawyer(s) his fabulously wealthy ass can pay for, or the mistaken idea that Sherlock is responsible for the way his father treated him…what has he really lost here? What does he have to be indignant about?
Sherlock isn’t demanding he take responsibility or standing up for himself in any way. Not even for the cruel “SAVANT ROBOT FREAK” outburst the day before. Sherlock is being convenient to him, as are the other two. It’s easy to be nice when no one’s asking anything of you or challenging you in any way. Functionally, Reginald’s gotten what he wanted here. Sherlock is acting as he should.
The other thing that seems odd, and at least potentially significant, is the voice cast for these episodes. Namely, Reginald Musgrave is voiced directly by Joel Emery, and how having a named role for a main character in a four-parter is highly unusual, considering his previous VA work in the series.
To back this up, these are all previous named Joel Emery voice acting roles (prior to Reginald in all parts of The Musgrave Ritual):
(listed on IMbD, and confirmed by me going through the voice casts for all 128 aired episodes. Not included are when he would appear under “Additional Voices”, since those are usually just single lines or crowd scenes.
“Ned”-Silver Blaze (Part Three)
April 22, 2024
“Joe Mason”-Shoscombe Old Place (Part One)
June 24, 2024
“Oliver Sutro”-The Three Gables (Part Two)
December 23, 2024
“Sir Francis Pym”-Wisteria Lodge (Parts Two and Three)
February 17, 2025 and February 24, 2025
“Evan Brackwell”-Charles Augustus Milverton (Part One)
“D.I Kenneth MacPherson”-The Second Stain (Part Two)
December 8, 2025
Out of these, most are fairly bit characters without much speaking time. Family of clients or people of interest (Evan Brackwell, Colonel Emsworth), people who briefly speak to Sherlock or Watson to help with a case (Ned, Oliver Sutro, Sir Francis Pym), fill in a past bit of their lives (Joe Mason for Watson’s mom’s neighbor) and two purposefully kinda douchey and self-centered mild antagonists (Harley Sylvius and D.I Kenneth MacPherson). Not really any common thread there, and there’s a range of actors who also rotate through for other bit roles, so it seems like he’s not under any practical obligation to step up unless there’s no alternatives/he wants to/what have you.
After scanning through those voice casts lists for the whole series and seeing some patterns, it's mildly surprising to me now that they didn't have, if they weren't gonna go with an outside actor, Adam Jarrell do Reginald since he's done more of this sort of thing with named characters for the pod (and there wouldn't be any conflict with his usual role of Mike Stamford/Stammo here. His family members also crop up a bunch of times across episodes.
What’s interesting to me is that, besides the small proportion of episodes he’s had slighter bigger voice roles in, nearly none of these are for more than a single part. The only exception to this is Sir Francis Pym, who briefly was in Part Two of Wisteria Lodge as well since he was piloting the helicopter everyone was in at the end of Part One.
So, voicing a major character like Reginald for a four-parter is a massive departure from the rest of his vocal work for the series. When I was first mulling over my dissatisfied feelings about the conclusion to this story (to put it mildly), I initially wondered if there might be some connection with the main writer voicing the suddenly redeemed and tragic bully. Some self-aggrandizement sort of thing, or more generously, a mismatch in what came across in the writing due to over-empathizing with the character and the tearful performance given.
But now…I’m starting to wonder if there's some future episode that they absolutely need this character as a lynchpin/"we need an established character to be sympathetic at first and then say/do something ableist and awful" for, and they didn’t want to risk an issue with pressing an outside actor (things like how I heard that Lestrade was meant to have a bigger role in HOUND a few months back, but they had to rely on archival recordings after the actress injured her voice and needed the rest).
If you’re the main writer after all, you’re always going to know your own availability and might push through rough conditions where it’d be rude to ask another person to do so.
At this point, it's still all just speculation. But it, at least, weird.
