EDIT: I’ve developed my theories further here, please take a look :)
Okay, so I’ve been researching Sharklock over the last few hours and I seem to have turned up some features of interest.
Firstly, googling ‘Mark Gatiss sharks’ brought up a Sherlock panel from a while back (x) featuring Mark Gatiss and Andrew Scott, in which Gatiss says that “Moriarty is the dark side of Sherlock, he’s like a shark I think, just silently moving, constantly moving…” which could, as @isitandwonder suggested, be an allusion to The Valley of Fear in which Moriarty is also likened to a shark – “picture yourself the pilot fish with the shark…”
Next, I searched The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for ‘shark’ and found that it is used as a running metaphor in The Mazarin Stone. Reading it, I found a plethora of interesting tidbits, and was startled by how well the story seems to fit with our Setlock findings and season 4 conjectures.
The Mazarin Stone
Billy is in MAZA, and we know that Billy from the ACD canon has found himself merged with Wiggins to become BBC Sherlock’s Bill Wiggins. And Tom Brooke has been confirmed to be returning in season 4…
It is said in MAZA that Billy has “helped to fill up the gap of loneliness and isolation which surrounded the saturnine figure of the great detective”. Well this certainly seems to fit the situation Sherlock has found himself in now that John has left Baker Street with Mary, does it not? As well as being a somewhat unusually emotive description of Holmes…?
Now couple this with Holmes’ comment from later in the story: “we all have neglected opportunities to deplore”. Tarmac scene, do we think?
*Tearfully* my precious son… ;_;
Billy says that he is “frightened for [Holmes’] health” and that “he gets paler and thinner, and he eats nothing” – a state which sounds all too similar to the images of Sherlock we’ve been seeing from Setlock.
Now, back to Sharklock.
6) Sharks like to dress as different kinds of shark.
In MAZA, Holmes has been disguising himself as all sorts of characters in order to get close to/follow master criminal Count Sylvius (whom I’ll get to in a minute). “Yesterday he was out as a workman looking for a job. Today he was an old woman.” Sounds a bit like 6), right?
Count Sylvius
The “master criminal” behind the stealing of the Mazarin Stone and would-be murderer of Holmes, Sylvius is the one to whom the shark metaphor is applied. Holmes says “I’ve cast my net and I have my fish” – the fish being the criminals. Watson asks if Sylvius is one of his ‘fish’, to which Holmes replies “he’s a shark. He bites.” Multiple times in the rest of the story, Sylvius is referred to simply as the ‘shark’. His henchman, Sam Merton, is “not a shark. He is a big silly bull-headed gudgeon” – making the shark seem cunning, sinister and malevolent, where the gudgeon, although physically strong/dangerous, is essentially stupid, and just following orders.
Also, Count Sylvius is “half-Italian” – and they drive on the right in Italy.
2) Sharks drive on the right.
A quick search for ‘Sylvius’ brought up 17th century German physician and scientist (chemist, physiologist and anatomist) Franciscus Sylvius. Now for the exciting part: ‘Sylvius’ is a Latinisation of ‘de le Boë’, translated as ‘of the woods’. (x)
9) Sharks are made of wood.
There’s also the old saying, “can’t see the wood for the trees”, meaning “to be unable to understand a situation clearly because you are too involved in it” (x) – and that could allude to all manner of things!
