BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012.
1 | General Sherlock Discussion » Continuity Errors/Slip Ups/Technical Mistakes » May 10, 2013 8:54 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 149
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This is dredging up a very old one, but I think the ASiP bloodstains one is actually ok. The cabbie has just moved on top of the bloodstain near his head (flinching in pain). You can see it if you line up the floorboards.You can still see the outline of the patch under his arm beneath Sherlock's foot. Can't work out how to post pictures to show this more clearly (don't have anywhere else to host them).
| Character Analysis » Sherlock- Asperger's syndrome and sociopathy » October 21, 2012 5:22 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 259
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Hi Davina,
Temple Grandin is a brilliant woman. I saw a documentary on her life a couple of years ago. Well worth seeing if you get the chance. She has amazing insight into how both animals and people work - I learnt a lot from it.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock- Asperger's syndrome and sociopathy » October 20, 2012 11:39 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 259
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Hi Smoggy_London_Air, thanks so much for what you've written. Reading it made me realise I needed to do some more research what Aspergers really is. Looking at wikipedia (), it seems the professionals aren't all that sure either. It appears there are some people diagnosed as having Aspergers who are significantly affected by it and others who experience less severe symptoms and are able to overcome them. It's so difficult when there appears to be a continuous spectrum from people who everyone would consider normal (read extroverts), through introverts, very focussed introverts (INTs), people with Aspergers, high functioning autistics and those with severe autism. When you're diagnosing based on symptoms it must be so subjective where you place someone... I'd heard before about there being neurological differences between "normal" people and those with Aspergers (talked about in the Mechanism section and also alluded to under Causes). That's what I'm meaning when I used the term "Aspergers": someone with these specific differences in brain structure or function. Of course, most people are diagnosed on the basis of their symptoms rather than from a brain scan. I think this is what's worrying me: some of these characteristics may be symptoms of an underlying neurological condition or they may just be personality traits. When you say "Aspergers" are you meaning people with the given characteristics (regardless of whether there's brain changes behind it)? Your comment: "Aspergers is really just a label that identifies people with these stronger introverted traits." makes me think we might be using slightly different definitions. I'm not great at expressing myself in writing - I hope you can understand what I mean. If we take "Aspergers" to simply mean "more introverted" then I agree with all you are saying.
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| Character Analysis » Sherlock- Asperger's syndrome and sociopathy » October 18, 2012 11:07 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 259
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Hi Susi, thanks for the encouragement.
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Hi Smoggy_London_Air, we might be meaning different things by "obsessive interests". Certainly he gets completely absorbed in whatever his current project/case is, but once it is solved he seems perfectly able to move on to something else (or get bored). For example, he must have put a lot of time and effort into the tobacco ash monograph, but once it was written other things caught his interest (eg Henry Fishguard) - he wasn't still continually obsessing over tobacco (except at times over the lack thereof
). By "obsessive interests", I was meaning a specific interest which completely absorbs the person's life. For instance, I've known a couple of autistic boys/men whose interest is trains - that is the only thing they are interested in and the only thing they can talk about - and it's always been that way. By the way, I definitely don't want to imply that having or not having any of these characteristics proves whether someone has or doesn't have Aspergers/Autism - just using my own experience as an illustration.
I completely agree that people with Aspergers can learn the social skills that don't come naturally to them. So can INTJs. Really, it's the same as saying people with very outgoing personalities who love to talk can learn to stop and listen to other people. It takes work and practice but you do it because you care. Sherlock's only just reaching the stage of realising that he is hurting people and he doesn't want to (based on what was said in the interviews re the Christmas scene).
I guess I'm just trying to suggest that maybe Sherlock doesn't have a syndrome or condition or actually anything "wrong" with him at all... That people like him are just part of the diversity in human nature that is needed to make the world go round. You may not run into us as often as other personality types - we tend to be hiding in universities trying to cure cancer or create new technologies - but we
| Character Analysis » Sherlock- Asperger's syndrome and sociopathy » October 17, 2012 2:01 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 259
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Hi Sherli,
You didn't miss anything. I was throwing this in as a new idea. Sorry about not giving more info - I ran out of time last night.
INTJ is one of the 16 different Myers-Briggs Personality types - basically it's a way of describing different personalities. It was invented as a way of helping people find the right job (and is still often used for this) but it's also very useful in helping to understand yourself and why you are the way you are. It also clarifies why and how other people are different and helps you to realise (as John would say) "it's all fine". Of course, nobody fits exactly into a box. The scheme works by looking at four basic ways of relating to the world and where you sit on the scale from one extreme to the other. Some people come out as clearly one type, others relate well to two or more types, sometimes depending on the situation or their mood. I've used INTx to cover two closely related types: INTJ and INTP.
Here's the wikipedia page for INTJ: The descriptions of the letters are not particularly informative but I think you'll see what I mean about Sherlock as a potential INTJ when you read the Characteristics section. I certainly think Benedict plays him as one.
| Character Analysis » Sherlock- Asperger's syndrome and sociopathy » October 16, 2012 11:30 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 259
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Thanks for this very interesting thread.
I just wanted to throw in another option: "neurotypical" people with INTJ personality types are also often mistaken for having Aspergers/Autism. Many characteristics used to diagnose these "conditions" are shared by INTJs. Particularly getting lost in their own worlds and interests and not needing interaction with others as much as other personality types. For a long time I wondered if I might have Aspergers - always feeling "different", not connecting easily with others, being a nerd - but looking into it I found I'm just a classic INTJ. I do test very high in Aspergers tests (32 on the online one), but I'm missing some of the most important symptoms such as difficulty looking at faces, obsessive interests, noise sensitivity. Sherlock seems to be missing these too. To be honest, to me Sherlock seems pretty normal - far more so than many people I meet.
Interestingly, INTJ girls have a tendency (most unwisely) to fall for INTx boys. I've found this to be very true in myself. All the men I've been attracted to have been INTxs (and as they are so rare, there have been very few...
). As I'm rather very keen on Sherlock but not in the least interested in Benedict Cumberbatch, I'm very inclined to think he's one too.
| The Reichenbach Fall » Why did Moriarty kill himself? » June 11, 2012 11:42 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 104
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kazza474 wrote:John's gone off to check Mrs Hudson.
Sherlock's at St Bart's.
Moriarty's just killed himself.
Supposedly snipers have the 3 friends in their sights.
All these possible escape plans are meant to run through Sherlock's head & he orchestrates them all?
Why would the police believe anything Sherlock told them?
Why would John listen to him after he's already been 'duped' with the Mrs Hudson shooting?
The man has been vilified in the press, people believe he is evil; no-one is going to put in motion any task force on Sherlock's say so.
It's just not practical for Sherlock to try to achieve anything like that.Sorry, now I'm confused.
All Sherlock has to do is ring John and Lestrade to let them know about the threat to them and Mrs Hudson and let them deal with it. Both men are more than capable of it - more so than Sherlock - it's part of their job descriptions, it's what they have been trained for. Isn't that what anyone would do if someone they cared about was threatened? Give them a chance to protect themselves. Wouldn't Moriarty expect even Sherlock to do that? If they choose to ignore it that's their funeral but if they are really your friends, you at least try.
I've probably just fallen in another plot hole - I'm getting good at that.
| The Reichenbach Fall » Why did Moriarty kill himself? » June 11, 2012 8:45 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 104
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kazza474 wrote:
Moriarty said the snipers were in position. Far too risky to try & get anyone to safety when you don't know who is targeting them & where they are.
John was still in the taxi. All he has to do is tell the driver a new address and he would end up somewhere where the sniper wasn't. Even if the taxi driver was in on it, all he had to do is jump out the next time the taxi slowed and lose himself in the crowd. He served in Afghanistan - he would have been trained how to avoid being shot by snipers in urban settings. As the sniper set up outside Barts, we can assume Moriarty expected John to be turning up there - most likely in a taxi. Sherlock knows John has gone to find Mrs Hudson and when he finds she is safe he will come back to Barts. Best assumption both of them could make is that he in transit. Until he arrives at Barts John is a wildcard. Army medical staff would be needed for any hostage extraction in a warzone. John would have been trained in rescuing civilians from enemy combatants. If you're going to send someone in to rescue Mrs Hudson, he would be a good choice. I haven't rewatched, but maybe this is the call Sherlock was hoping to make until he saw John was out of the cab. Moriarty, though, had no way of knowing whether he was about to arrive or had been held up in traffic and was still 10 mins away.
Lestrade was in his office (again this would be where both of them must assume he would be). Presumably several members of his team are in the outer office. Unless the gunman is prepared to be caught and tried for murder of a senior police officer, Lestrade would be pretty safe in their company and away from the external windows. I would expect the police have a system in place to deal with threats to the lives of senior officers. With the warning that can be set in motion too.kazza474 wrote:Moriarty shoot Sherlock at close range? Apart from the fact he 'doesn't get his hand dirty' by pulling the trigger, he would mess up his Westw
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| The Reichenbach Fall » Why did Moriarty kill himself? » June 11, 2012 5:08 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 104
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Interesting, though. Moriarty wants Sherlock dead. He thinks Sherlock has realised how to force the recall code out of him and therefore get out of jumping. Is killing himself really the only way he can win?
He is face-to-face with Sherlock. He has Sherlock's dominant right hand trapped in the handshake, leaving his own dominant left hand free to use the gun. Sherlock doesn't notice when he pulls the gun out of his pocket, only when he jerks back to put it in his mouth. Why not instead continue to raise the gun behind Sherlock's line of sight and shoot Sherlock in the right temple? Then use his handkerchief to wipe his fingerprints of Sherlock's right glove and dust gunpowder onto it. Place the gun in/near Sherlock's right hand and Voila! Sherlock has committed suicide. Fairytale complete. Maybe it's not as "sexy" as having Sherlock actually do it himself but the result is the same.
No way Lestrade would be allowed to investigate (too close + probably confined to desk duties after the fiasco of the day before). Possibly Donovan would be in charge of the investigation, possibly a completely independent officer. Either way they will have been prejudiced by the idea that Sherlock had been playing the police for fools and wouldn't care enough for him to investigate closely.
Killing himself defeats Moriarty's own purpose. The obvious thing for Sherlock to do after Moriarty dies would be to call John: "Where are you? Moriarty has just threatened to shoot you and Mrs Hudson, you need to get her somewhere safe now." John was a soldier, having been warned of the danger he would know how to neutralise the gunman at 221B. Likewise, warn Lestrade and report Moriarty's suicide. Wait until everyone is confirmed safe then just walk back down the stairs. In fact, why didn't Sherlock just do that anyway? Something bigger must be going on.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 9, 2012 11:21 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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Kazza,
I've thought about your idea of the text being sent by Kate and I think this could work. One thing I didn't think of before was the first thing Mycroft would do when looking for Irene would be to send someone around to her house (or wherever he knows she is). When they arrive they find Kate in a state because she hasn't seen or heard from Irene since the morning before - she didn't even take her phone with her - the police wont allow her to file a missing persons report until she's been missing 48 hrs. Kate tells them Irene was scared for her life and had left instructions to send the text to Sherlock if she didn't turn up. This is passed on to Sherlock so he isn't surprised to find an older body. This would also allow the body to have been in the mortuary system for up to 36 hrs so the PM could already have been done. Irene's tame (blackmailed) pathologist could then alter the body after the PM, confident that it's unlikely to be examined closely again.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » Irene's profession » June 8, 2012 9:27 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 33
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In the original story she was an adventuress of "dubious and questionable memory". I always understood this to mean she seduced rich and powerful men for their money and for the thrill of the chase. As our Irene put it "I make my way in the world, I misbehave." When this has been discussed elsewhere, some people have claimed that dominatricies do not actually offer sex as part of their services. If that's the case, the Irene of the book may actually have been more promiscuous than the one in the show!
Going off topic a bit. I just re-read the original and I had forgotten that Sherlock (in disguise) was the witness at Irene's shotgun wedding. It would be great if a couple of series down the track they work this in a side-plot. Irene comes onto the radar and everyone thinks she's up to something. Sherlock investigates, follows her undercover, ends up at the registry office and gets co-opted for the wedding. Irene doesn't appear to notice but as she walks past him on the way out she throws him a wink. Or even gives him her bouquet as a thank-you gift for helping out - and on it there's a card "Thankyou, Mr Holmes". And she's never seen again.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 8, 2012 9:13 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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Hi imane nikko,
Thanks for joining the conversation.
I thought as you do on the difficulty of finding a body double. Other people didn't think it would be that hard, though. I think we'd need to input of a doctor/nurse/pathologist to resolve it.
Hi Davina too,
Both of you are suggesting it could just be a plot hole. You could well be right. I really hope not, though, because it does affect the way I view Sherlock's character and abilities. I guess that's why it's worrying me so much. I want Sherlock to be clever and controlling the situation, rather than being fooled and manipulated himself. To be honest, in both series it seems on the surface that Sherlock has been pawn in the games of both Irene and Moriarty - he doesn't appear to have any plans or initiative of his own. I really, really want him to be better than this. To be a player rather than just a pawn in at least one of the games that have been played. I'm desperately hoping that he has been up to something in the background or has been more aware than has been let on. Maybe he hasn't.
I agree, though, there are definitely places in the story where we do have to suspend our belief (that utter farce of a court case!).
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 10:58 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
You know I sit back sometimes & think ' Scandal doesn't have any secret to be revealed, any mystery to solve, why the heck am I spending so much time on it? '
I don't think it will reveal anything much about the characters; maybe it's more to do with the method of writing or expressing the thoughts of Moftiss and how they come across to us as the viewers?
Now, back to disagreeing on something.........Lol
For me it's about probing how deep they've gone with the characters and the story. And how they've approached the plots. I think we both agree (but others don't) that the surface view that Sherlock was devastated by Irene's death is too simplistic. But how much deeper than this does it get? Sometimes I wish Sherlock was a full-blown series where all these sub-plots could be fleshed out and resolved. But then they wouldn't have been able to make it such beautiful quality.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 10:26 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
Hmm, see I am not convinced that there is too much difference in the aging of a body in the morgue. Once there, I think it is usually chilled quickly for preservation reasons. I'll suss they guys out at a morgue at one of the hospitals I work at. That way I can get the exact answer to the problem; I daresay Google will give a blanket answer that doesn't quite hit the mark.
Morbid conversation lol.True. Maybe we've both been too influenced by Sherlock - getting caught up in the case and forgetting that perhaps it's not in the best of taste to discuss the decomposition rates of corpses in a public forum.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 10:20 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
Ah see? I am old & I hate mobile phones so the thought of having two would never cross my mind, lol.
I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm pretty sure Sherlock could have changed Irene's text alert sound if he'd wanted to - interesting that he didn't - Irene wouldn't have known that he hadn't, though... unless she followed him and sent a text to check.... I'm wondering (and this will really reveal my ignorance) is if he could have blocked her number if he really didn't want to be bothered with her - and would she have known about that? Trying to stand in Irene's position and see how much she knows about what Sherlock thinks (or doesn't think) about her.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 10:12 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
And now that I have separated this little problem into another thread, I am seeing where you are coming from with the time of death thing. Irene sends the text and so Sherlock would assume she was alive and THAT is why you think he'd notice a body that had been dead longer than that. All the times etc were confusing me.
We don't actually know how much time passed between the phone call & them being in the morgue. The party was Xmas eve but was the time they were in the morgue Xmas Eve or Xmas night? Molly mentions people were busying with their Xmas things to do (or something; the page with that dialogue won't load for me at the moment) But this could have been Xmas night.
I know Mycroft is good, but he'd need a little time to investigate if there were a suitable dead body laying around the place.Yes! I think we've finally found the same page.
With the "what day is this?" question, that's one of the things I was looking out for when I reviewed the scene. I'm pretty sure it is still the same night. When Mycroft calls John after the viewing John, Mrs Hudson and Jeanette are all wearing the same clothes as they were at the party. You get a couple of flashes of John's watch and I think it says 12:30 which would make sense if he and Jeanette still had "plans" for the night (and he was supposed to be seeing his sister for Christmas).
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 9:31 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
May I just interject for a moment to say this:
To others reading this, it may have appeared that the 2 of us were just at loggerheads over what this & that means, but I know from my end and I believe Aurora's end, we're nutting out some interesting things here. It's sometimes hard to say exactly what you are thinking; words just don't 'do it' ; in conversation you'd hear my voice raise, or sound inquisitive. If we were face to face, this wouldn't take so long, lol!
We're finding some avenues yet to be explored I think.Hear, hear! That's exactly where I'm coming from too.
(Shock, horror! Kazza and Aurora agreeing on something! )
Seriously, it is tricky to express what you're thinking without having facial expressions and tone of voice to give additional clues about what you mean (and writing was never my forte) - and often you think you've said something or made something clear but when you look back you realise you haven't at all. It is fun and interesting to probe into some of these less explored questions, though, and hopefully gain new insights.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 8:52 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
Yes I am saying that the body wasn't killed necessarily on Xmas eve.
So you believe that presumably Irene was alive right up till the time Sherlock opened the gift?
She may have organised the gift to 'arrive' somehow on his mantelpiece sometime before that. The story could have been that she left it with Kate & a note saying "if I am not back by such & such a time, organise to get this onto Sherlock's mantelpiece."Yes, I had assumed that and that it was what Sherlock thought. Probably from him saying Mycroft was going to find her dead that night. She could have organised Kate to send the text if she went missing, but I would have expected a double-take from Sherlock on seeing the old body. Will have to think through the implications a bit more.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 8:29 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
One thing I am curious about at this point in time. I have a vague recollection of discussing this ages ago but cannot remember now so will ask here again.
Sherlock recieves a text from Irene (the ahhh tone) , reads it, picks up the gift & takes it to his room; opens it & finds her phone.
So what phone did she use to send the text? Wouldn't she need her own phone so that her special tone was heard?
Forgive me if I am confused here, but isn't that wrong?
I'll set up a thread for this problem.I think this is the "two phone" problem. She sent him the "camera phone" (which had all uplink and connection disabled) but would have used her normal phone to send the text. Likewise when Sherlock interprets the email, Sherlock is still holding the camera phone when she uses her normal phone (hidden behind her back) to text the details to Moriarty.
| A Scandal In Belgravia » The misidentification. » June 7, 2012 8:22 am |
- Aurora
- Replies: 74
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kazza474 wrote:
No, you are making it more complicated than it needs to be.
But then of course if you believe he was 'smitten' by her and wanted to seek revenge for some reason I suppose THEN you would ask 'why didn't he investigate deeper?'Ah, I think I've realised one of the points at which we're not connecting. Looking back, I probably haven't explained properly that when I'm thinking about the body saga I'm trying to think from the point of Irene planning this situation. (I've probably lost track of this at times during the discussion too - sorry - again, I blame this cold.) After all, it is her plan. So, it doesn't really matter what you or I think about what's going on in Sherlock's head (and I actually think our views are pretty close), but what Irene thinks. Her views of what Sherlock and everyone else thinks of her are what determines which details she thinks are important and which things she doesn't need to worry about. What parts of the story, if any, need to be able to stand up to scrutiny.
…
So, I suppose the first question really is: what is Irene trying to achieve? She says "I needed to disappear" but Mycroft thinks it was all to string Sherlock along:
MYCROFT: That’s all it takes: one lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special.
SHERLOCK: Hmm. You should screen your defence people more carefully.
MYCROFT: I’m not talking about the MOD man, Sherlock; I’m talking about you.
MYCROFT: The damsel in distress. In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption; then give him a puzzle ... and watch him dance.
(with thanks to Ariane DeVere)
So, which of these was she really trying to achieve? Or was it something else entirely?
And then, Irene's been working pretty hard to attract Sherlock's attention and interest. Does she think she's had any success? Or does his lack of response to her texts convince her he's d
