When I bake or cook in general (or even make drinks like horchata or ☆special coffee☆) I like to look up only the basic ingredients and then make up the rest as I go to give me some agency in life.
Do I end up with shitty french toast and wasting lots of eggs? Yes. Does my aunt own egg laying hens? Also yes. Not even inflation can stop me from making the worlds ugliest pie.
In the end it usually turns out okay and I think that's because I understand the gist of 'How Not to Burn Things' and 'Don't Mix Cinnamon in Your Goolash'.
Absolutely full respect and compassion to everyone who felt triggered by what John did to Sherlock in TLD. I can understand why you’re upset and why you are wondering if John is still a good guy or if he crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.
Below the cut, I’m going to take a look at it from a literary, story-telling perspective, so if that’s going to be too spoilery, too triggering, or too infuriating for you, might want to skip this one.
I’m approaching this strictly as story. Story is there to help us make sense of the real world, to serve as an emotional release, to inspire, to warn, to help us explore ideas, etc.
But it is not supposed to be the same as real life. Story is better structured, more purposeful, and more deliberate than real life. It’s also more heightened and larger-than-life.
So none of the below is meant to be taken as justification of real-life violence. This is story.
I can’t tell you for sure why Moffat chose to have John beat up on Sherlock. And I’m not going to say it was necessarily the right choice—it's art. Declaring an artistic choice to be right or wrong is very subjective and I’m not asking anyone to like the choice he made.
But I do have some guesses based on literary devices and structure of why he went that direction, so I thought I’d share those with you—and then you can feel about it as you wish.
First, story structure:
I’ve discussed story structure in relation to Sherlock before, on my website, and I don’t think I’ve ever transferred those meta to Tumblr yet.
But basically, there is a set structure to telling a story that most filmmakers (and Sherlock episodes are approached as films) use because it works the best for the audience. And because Sherlock episodes contain an ongoing story arc, we can also apply that same structure to the show as a whole, with S4 (instead of S5) bringing this story arc to a close.
You can read my meta on that here (I assumed a 5-series arc instead of 4), but the relevant part for TLD is that we’re well past the half-way point, which was the vow Sherlock made at the wedding.
That greater commitment he made must be tested, and immediately after, he was plunged into more complications and higher stakes.
At some point in all this testing and higher tension, the hero breaks or seems to have completely failed. This is called the Dark Moment, or Major Setback, or other similar term.
The dark moment or major setback began with John rejecting Sherlock. I believe it culminated in John beating the crap out of Sherlock, and then saying goodbye at the hospital.
The dark moment is, as it says on the tin, the bleakest, lowest point in the story. And the deeper you make that abyss, the more rewarding the story will be when the hero finally succeeds.
One of my favorite writing teachers has the mantra “How can you make this matter MORE?” So many writers tend to pull back, to go easy on their characters. That lowers the tension of the story, it makes the story less impactful. A good story—no matter if it is a quiet, slice-of-life story or a high-octane adventure story—pushes its characters to the breaking point.
What is the one thing this character would never do, think, or say? Put them into a position where they must do, say, or think exactly that. —Another common advice from the same writing teacher.
Basically, the Dark Moment should be as dark as you can possibly go within the plausibility of your story. There’s a 10 Commandments of Storytelling list from the author of The Princess Bride going around, and one of the commandments is pretty much exactly this.
Because this is ultimately a relationship story between John and Sherlock (and it is—whether or not that relationship becomes romantic or not, the structure is exactly the same), at the Major Setback, they had to “break up.” I warned about this in my meta and here on Tumblr.
And it had to be John walking away. Utterly rejecting Sherlock. That’s how a romance structure works. It’s not meant to be realistic, necessarily. It’s meant to show how the hero and the love interest transcend all odds to find their way back to each other.
Low stakes in a story are boring. We always say we just want them to be happy. And I think that fluffy, happy fic serves a lovely and good purpose. But an actual TV show that lacks the necessary tension and emotional lows and only gives the emotional highs gets boring.
It’s cliche, but you do need the bad to appreciate the good—in a story.
I believe Moffat chose to have John beat up Sherlock because it reaches a lower and darker dramatic point than merely having him reject Sherlock or stop talking to him. He rejected and stopped talking to Mary—his “break up” with Sherlock needed to be bigger and worse and more heartbreaking than that because he and Sherlock are the primary relationship in the show.
Did that HAVE to include violence? Mmm…perhaps not. But other options would have been yelling horrible things at him. Refusing to see him. …I’m not sure what else.
John refusing to see Sherlock kind of prevents the story moving forward. There needed to be a confrontation. Something utterly rock bottom. That way, the reconciliation would be more powerful.
Yelling horrible things at Sherlock would not be as visually interesting as having him “yell with his fists.” Moffat is a screenwriter—a visual storyteller. Given the choice, he’s probably going to pick visuals when he can.
So, they hit rock bottom, but ultimately, John’s better self prevails and there is a beautiful, poignant reconciliation.
You are not likely to see the beating addressed in any meaningful way in the show because immediately after the Dark Moment comes the Final Push—the all-out last-ditch effort for survival and to, in this case, beat the bad guy.
Working out John’s physical aggression and anger problems is low tension. It doesn’t add to the high stakes and action that is coming in TFP. They are going to have to fight, together, to beat the bad guy in order to earn their happy ending together.
And I do firmly believe it will be together. Whether that’s romantic together or platonic together, I don’t know. But the story is about the two of them, always, so obviously the story will end with the two of them happy and together.
But it’s unlikely that the show is going to have them address the beating in any real-life way because it doesn’t fit into this part of the story arc. We got a sense of John’s regret in his interrogation with Lestrade and in his discussion with Sherlock at the end of the episode. I’m pretty sure that’s all we’re going to get.
What About John’s Character? Was this OOC?
Not at all. The Dr. Watson of ACD is quite a bit different than the John Watson of BBC Sherlock. Our John has always had a simmering anger about him. He’s always been physical—in good ways and bad. He’s always been a man of action, and not so good with spoken words.
If he was to reach his breaking point, of course it was going to be physical and violent. Again, I’m not saying this is good. It’s not. But he’s never been a saint.
Larger Than Life:
Another aspect of storytelling is that you need your characters to have a heightened reality, a larger-than-life quality. Ultra realistic, mundane characters are boring.
But you also need some sense of emotional authenticity in order to make these larger-than-life characters relatable to the audience.
This plays out in the way you choose to have your characters express their emotions. It’s not that you try to replicate real life, exactly. In a story, you try to grapple honestly with the experience of being human, but you do it in a way that magnifies it, draws attention to it, and creates an emotional response in the viewer.
In John’s case, the point was to explore the ripping, violent, overwhelming emotions that come with experiencing a tragic loss, especially one that left loose ends and lingering guilt. The beating was a visceral, visual representation of those emotions. Yes, Moffat could have used words, facial expressions, tone, and Martin Freeman would have done a great job with it.
But a violent confrontation, as awful as it is, represented those deep, wordless emotions far more effectively than dialogue or other non-verbals would have.
It’s not meant to be taken as real life. The emotions, yes, absolutely authentic and real. But the violence—it was a way for the audience to visualize those emotions.
I don’t think they will handle the aftermath of it “realistically” in the show, and I don’t think we are meant to view it “realistically” either.
I’m sure that’s going to be a controversial idea. And there’s definitely a conversation to be had about how toxic masculinity denies a man any emotional expression other than anger.
But I really don’t think Moffat chose the beating because he’s a violent person or enjoys violence or feels like that’s the only way for a man to express himself.
I think it was an artistic choice based on the John Watson they created for this show and based on what would fit the narrative structure and be the best way to visually portray John’s emotions. Whether it was the best artistic choice is a fair debate--I’m not honestly sure I would have made the same creative choice in my writing. I don’t know what I would alternately have done, either.
What I did love, that balanced out all that ugliness, was when John, in the end, managed to express his emotions and grieve in a way that allowed Sherlock to comfort him. That was healing, that was beautiful. And it sent a clear message that violence wasn’t cathartic, it didn’t make anything better.
What made it better, was love and gentleness, forgiveness.
Here’s a double dose of quotable thoughts, this time on double standards, and that touchy subject of how to rear our children. When toy manufacturers still market to “the pink aisle” and “the blue aisle,” what’s a parent to do?
What creative choices must we make, to empower our children to grow up in ways that help them blossom into their full potential–whatever…
