#mild-lunacy

[may12324]

mild-lunacy replied to your post “thoughts on ezra miller as cardan??”

Just wanted to say Cardan was explicitly described as super pretty in the book. That's one of the first things Jude described as notable about him.

meh, I do what I want

[ivyblossom]

Hi Ivy! I know I already asked one question, but as usual there's more than one on my mind. I was just wondering if you see any narrative explanation for why John and Sherlock spent so little time alone together on-screen in Series 4. Not just in TFP, which is we agree is understandable, but they were constantly together with Mary in TST and estranged for most of TLD. This goes against the patterns established in the entire rest of the show. What's your take on what's going on here?

The answer to this technical question is pretty simple: the only scenes that make it into a story are the ones that contain tension and conflict, something that requires resolution. A story should only contain scenes that move it forward. If there is no tension or conflict between two characters, nothing to resolve or problem to explore, a scene between the two of them alone will not appear in the story. It will be assumed, but not shown. That’s why we don’t see Sherlock and John hiring a scary clown, making a plan to deal with Mary’s ghosts, planting the GPS on Mary’s thumb drive, traveling together to Morocco, etc. 

I think the total amount of time Sherlock and John spend together is, in keeping with the existing pattern, on the increase.

Sherlock and John spend a lot of time together in series 1, but John is still trying to maintain a life of his own outside of his life with Sherlock; he has a job and a girlfriend, and he stalks off on his own sometimes. He occasionally leaves Sherlock to his own devices (bad idea, John).

In series 2, John starts out trying to keep a girlfriend, but fails. In A Scandal in Belgravia, Irene tells him he and Sherlock are a couple, and from that point on John seems to accept the truth of that. For the rest of series 2, right up until Sherlock’s fake death, they are inseparable. There is no girlfriend, no job, and no other priority keeping John from Sherlock. It is slightly uneasy as it’s an unspoken and, we later discover, lopsided commitment made only by John.

They have not been as joined at the hip as that since. Possibly until The Final Problem.

In series 3, John is not living at 221b. They are estranged at the beginning of that series, John and Mary go on honeymoon, and Sherlock is incommunicado for a month during it. I think it’s safe to say that Sherlock and John spend the least amount of time together in this series, so much so that John gets visibly antsy about it.

In series 4, they are starting to join back up again, but in a new way. John’s life is completely different now, and they are trying to find a way to make it all work. I think they do pretty well. John is struggling in his marriage, but his relationship with Sherlock is getting close to where it was in series 2. Mary gets included in the work from time to time, but Sherlock and John are still very much a partnership, which shows through when Mary gets scared and bolts. Sherlock is present when John confronts Mary about her secrets; it’s such a private moment, and yet John is comfortable with Sherlock within earshot.

Their estrangement in series 4 is significant and extreme, I’ll grant you. But it resolves in a way that brings them closer to one another than they’ve ever been: when they are alone together, they are finally honest with each other and understand one another. The end of The Lying Detective is the most intimate scene between them we’ve ever seen. That estrangement is the dissonant chord that resolves into their perfect, mutual union.

I know I’m probably alone in this, but I spent The Final Problem marveling at how very resolved Sherlock and John’s relationship is. From Sherlock’s casual joke about John’s therapy bill to John completely understanding Sherlock’s emotional reaction to the sequence of events at Sherrinford without him uttering a word, to John inviting Sherlock to watch his dead wife’s last words with him, to the looks on their faces in the final montage where they so happy they seems almost out of character, I think their time alone together is between them now. We are no longer an audience for it. As the story concludes, our time observing them comes to an end. That’s the beginning of a new story.

[akimao]

I put my latest works on my online shop, including my watercolor pynch, but not this one, I'm not very satisfied with the final result.

For now I won’t sell the original watercolor I’m so jealous of my traditional works,especially fanart…I’ll sell my pieces of heart when I’m less attached to them :D

[roadswewalk]

Hey, shout-out to @ivyblossom and @mild-lunacy for all of the serious analysis and musings you’ve been posting about Sherlock series 4 recently.  I haven’t had a chance to fully digest those discussions the way I would like (still semi-hiatus), but they’ve been refreshing and thought-provoking to read.  Thanks for engaging honestly and maturely with the text while many of us are just starting to come to terms with it.  You’re slowly luring me back in!  Hope I can fully return in time to join in the fun.

Everyone: go follow them if you’re not already!  No matter your opinion of S4, I promise you’ll get it heathfully challenged at least once, and emerge the better for it.

[culverton]

Hi, can you please tell me the soundtrack name you used for your recent vid, for the bit which starts around 1:58? It's teasingly familiar but definitely not the Series 1 OST, so it's gonna bug me if I can't place it. Thanks. :)

I only used one track for the whole thing. “Who You Really Are” it’s the last one in The Final Problem :)

[ivyblossom]

Hi Ivy! Happy Londoning! I was just curious as to what you think was going through Sherlock's mind during TLD. How do you think he understood John deserting him? Like, why do you think Sherlock never seems to doubt John, or lose faith, as John himself did? What must he have thought of John to assume or calculate that John would seriously hurt him? Why would he think that? And yet, how did he still imagine John could or would return? Was he always actually able to predict John all along, or....

I’m not sure it’s clear that Sherlock was planning for John to seriously hurt him in The Lying Detective; his plan doesn’t require that. Sherlock doesn’t end up in Culverton Smith’s hospital room because of John’s violence. He’s there because he’s drugged himself to within weeks of his own demise.

That said, I don’t think Sherlock is especially surprised that John hit him. John has a well-known tendency towards violence, particularly when coupled with strong emotions he can’t process. When that incident occurs, John is already sideways coping with the sudden death of his wife by blaming Sherlock and pushing him away, so I don’t think it’s a huge deductive leap for Sherlock to suspect that some level of violence against him might ensue. 

When John hits Sherlock in The Lying Detective, it isn’t even the first time John’s deliberately hurt Sherlock: Sherlock incited him to it in A Scandal in Belgravia, and John hit him in anger multiple times at the beginning of The Empty Hearse. Sherlock has every reason to expect a violent reaction from John, but to be honest I don’t think he was factoring it in as part of his over all plan in The Lying Detective. It wasn’t required.

It’s interesting to consider the premise of your question: what do you think Sherlock never doubts? That if he needs John enough, John will definitely be there to save him? 

I’m not sure Sherlock is convinced of that. While John is riddled with self-loathing through The Lying Detective, I think Sherlock is, too. The Norbury reference tells us that Sherlock considers Mary’s death to be his greatest failure and miscalculation. He clearly believes that he deserves to be blamed for it.

It’s not clear to me that Sherlock is so confident that John will run to his side. But he’s prepared to pull out all the stops anyway. The plan isn’t for John to save Sherlock; Sherlock is trying to save John. 

I think Sherlock is very much aware that he might fail in that task, and that if he does, it will probably cost him his life. He is in the middle of this potential suicide mission even while telling Eurus-as-Faith that suicide isn’t an option. Sherlock has decided to save John, or die. His very last plan, his own death recorded via the device in John’s cane, wouldn’t have saved him. It would only have been evidence to solve his last case.

When Culverton Smith is about to kill him, Sherlock says he doesn’t want to die, and he means it. He can only mean it in that moment because he thinks it’s imminent. He isn’t expecting John to break through the door, is he? Does that mean he lost faith in John?

Sherlock’s constructed crisis wasn’t a test of John’s heroism, which is frankly never in question. When Sherlock looks at Culverton Smith and realizes there’s no way out, it’s not John who failed. It’s Sherlock’s rescue mission that failed.

Could Sherlock predict all of John’s actions? He knows John very well, and he can predict many of his choices. But not all of them, as he admits. Sherlock thinks he’s about to die, but John makes a choice Sherlock didn’t count on: he saves Sherlock in spite of everything.

[ivyblossom]

Hi Ivy! Well, here I am, back to the grindstone with the Big Kahuna of Series 4 questions: why do you think Mofftiss chose to have John beat up Sherlock in TLD? They didn't have to go there, right? What was the point of going that far, and then not even showing us the emotional 'pay-off' we assume happened before TFP? Why do this if the point of the show is to portray the devotion between Sherlock and John and their journey to a legendary partnership?

Perhaps we can come at this by considering what narrative function John’s violence serves in the story.

First things first: an important part of John’s characterization is that he cannot express his most intense feelings in words. He doesn’t say the things he needs to say. 

I don’t think you can overestimate just how much John hates himself in The Lying Detective. He has failed in every way that matters to him: he cheated on his wife (as far as he’s concerned), he’s abandoned his daughter. He’s drowning his sorrows in alcohol. He’s hallucinating. John is broken. He says nothing, which means he’s not yet completely broken.

The slow breakdown of John Watson isn’t just about Mary’s death, but that does bring it to a head. It’s also about the still-steaming revelation of Mary’s past and how she lied to him from tip to tail. He placed all of his faith and trust in Sherlock, and he failed to deliver. He feels betrayed, but unable to express that. He must accept things as they are because it’s the right thing to do, but he can’t do it.  He hates himself for failing everyone he knows, and he hates everyone he loves for failing him. He is rudderless. Still: he says nothing. He hasn’t quite hit rock bottom yet.

And then he finally does.

When John breaks completely and hits and kicks Sherlock, he has been dragged into a case after forcefully pushing Sherlock out of his life, repeatedly reminded that he’s a failure even at the one thing he’s valued for (writing about Sherlock), and has to face that fact while waiting outside a loo while Sherlock get high, literally on his way to killing himself again. Then he watches Sherlock apparently falsely accuse a man of being a serial killer and then threaten him with a scalpel. Sherlock is out of control too. It’s John’s job to keep Sherlock in line, isn’t it? But what good is he at that? 

John is angry with Sherlock for letting Mary die, for betraying him, for failing to be the man John believes him to be. John hates himself for failing to live up any even a single one of his own standards. Hurting someone he loves, something he also did to Mary without her knowing it, is, I think, the ultimate expression of how broken he has become. He is there to protect Sherlock, but he does the opposite. It is his final and ultimate low. John is now utterly broken.

He does not apologize for his actions. Or at least, we don’t hear him apologize. He stands at the foot of Sherlock’s hospital bed and bears witness to the evidence of his rage, the damage he caused to someone he loves. How long does he stand there? We don’t know. How does he feel? Does he regret what he’s done? Is he ashamed of himself? He comes to say goodbye, but he can’t face a conscious Sherlock. He still can’t say any of the things that matter. 

He walks out of the room expecting to never see Sherlock again. Mary forces John to admit that he can’t stop thinking about him. And that he hates himself. Is he sorry? I think he’s beyond sorry, but he says nothing.

Until he finally does. 

I think the violence, the balled up emotions that never get expressed, are there to underscore the moment when they finally are. Finally, finally, when Sherlock asks John if he’s okay, he is truthful: no. He is not okay, and he will never be okay.

And then the floodgate is open. John says the things he never said. He asks the questions he always wanted to ask. Having reached the ultimate rock bottom, John is finally cracked entirely open. He is talking, and he is honest. And 221b blows up so that they can rebuild it and start over.

I think John hurts Sherlock in order to explode the part of him that holds him back. It is Sherlock’s guilt made flesh and blood, and it’s the action that pushes John to finally be brave to open his mouth.

[ivyblossom]

This is a bit more open-ended than usual, but there's no one else I could ask. To wit: are there any particular moments in Series 4 that suggest or demonstrate to you that John really loves and/or genuinely cares about Sherlock? I guess secondarily, how do you read Sherlock putting off rescuing John from that well until after he dealt with Eurus In TFP?

Any particular moments? It’s hard to pick, it’s kind of infused through the whole thing, but okay, I’ll do my best.

In The Six Thatchers, John should be deliriously happy. He’s got what he wanted: the normal life with a job, a wife, and a new daughter, but he’s also got Sherlock, who is as committed to maintaining this careful and potentially awkward balance as he is. They still solve crimes together, and Mary and Rosie aren’t an obstruction. In fact, sometimes they join in! John’s devotion to Sherlock is pretty obvious from that alone, but Sherlock’s special place in John’s life is underscored by John asking him to be Rosie’s godfather. 

John should be happy, but he’s not. He’s never managed to get over what Mary did and who she really is. His happy life with wife and baby is a lie. As his trust in Mary continues to decline, his trust in Sherlock never waivers. John and Sherlock confront threats together as a team while Mary lies, drugs Sherlock, and scarpers. Sherlock, weird, rude, and difficult, is John’s stable rock, and Mary does not look good in comparison. 

After Mary dies, John blames Sherlock and cuts him off. I’d suggest that this is more indicative of how much John cares about Sherlock than otherwise. Not only because he thought Sherlock was a superhero who could could genuinely protect Mary and Rosie from everything forever, but because, as we later learn, the reason why John pushes Sherlock away stems primarily from his own self-loathing. John betrayed Mary, and his guilt and despair at not being able to live up to Mary’s, Sherlock’s, and his own expectations leads him to push away the things he loves most, including his daughter and his life with Sherlock. This is underscored by his goodbye scene in the hospital, where he leaves his cane as a silent final message: you saved me, I didn’t deserve it, and here I betray you. 

We’ve had Sherlock’s mind palace for a while, which is a wonderful way to see what’s actually going on in his head. In The Lying Detective, we finally get the equivalent for John: Mary. Hallucinated Mary isn’t a ghost or even a memory, she’s the honest part of John. And she adores Sherlock. She talks about him constantly. She watches him mid-deduction with love and delight. She recognizes that Sherlock knows John, understands him completely, but John disagrees. Sherlock can’t possibly know how worthless John is; like Mary, Sherlock believes he is a good, moral man, and John knows that they’re both wrong. The voice in his head says: Sherlock may be a monster, but he’s my monster.

The most dramatic indicator of how John feels about Sherlock is his confession and breakdown at the end of The Lying Detective. This is the first time John has been completely honest in this entire story. John hides his feelings constantly, he lies about them, even to himself. And in this scene he nearly does it again, he nearly walks away. Had he done so, I believe his relationship with Sherlock would have been essentially over. He would have grown more and more distant and dishonest until their connection was entirely lost. But out of love and faith, he finally, finally makes a different choice. He chooses to be brutally honest and vulnerable. He cries, but does not turn away. He lets Sherlock hold him. No one has or ever will be this close to John.

Sherlock does not put off rescuing John in The Final Problem. From the moment he realizes that John is in danger, all Sherlock does is try to save him. The problem is that the solution is Eurus. We know that he can’t rescue John without her intervention because he was unable to the first time; the puzzle is too complex for him, it will always be too complex for him. The mistake he made all his life was thinking that intelligence was the answer. When he was a boy he didn’t have the resources to do what he does now: he recognizes that it’s sentiment that will save John, not brainpower. He’s got sentiment in his tool belt now, and that’s because of John. John made him feel and taught him to be a loving and feeling person, and that’s what allows him to triumph over his much more brilliant sister in the end.