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General Sherlock Discussion » Bond, Sherlock Bond? Does anybody else think... » May 10, 2014 6:06 pm

...that BBC Sherlock went "James Bond," by having Sherlock work at Mycroft's (and therefore, the government's) behest all the time?

The problems with this:

1) There is a lot of good material in canon that they're missing out on, involving Sherlock solving - I don't want to say "ordinary" cases, because he likes cases that are out of the ordinary...but, more "private" or civilian cases. He does get a few national-security-issue-type-cases from Mycroft in canon, but they don't make up the bulk of his career. But they seem to make up most of the BBC series.

2) Central to the character of Holmes is his independence from institutions as well as people. In the series, it seems like he's working for Mycroft and the government.

Character Analysis » Poor Janine » May 5, 2014 10:06 pm

Thinbeard wrote:

I'm wondering if there isn't another reason for the Janine character. A Moriarty family connection? How might she and Mary have come to know each other? Why are we informed about the cottage and the bees? Why are we informed that CAM flicked her eye? What did he have on her? And, by the way, how did Mary get into CAM's office? Sherlock says she left the way she came but that isn't explained? Wouldn't Janine have seen the person who bashed her in the head? Any thoughts?

Or an Adler family connection: she looks and acts like a sort of a "Irene-lite." Maybe CAM threatened to reveal to terrorists where Irene was hiding? Or threatened to make it look like Janine was involved in Irene's gathering of information?

His Last Vow » CAM: Is he actually alive and in cahoots with Sherlock? » May 5, 2014 10:04 pm

lil wrote:

It seemed to me that the hiatus -Sherlocks fake death and undercover takedown of Moriartys web - was a MI6 sanctioned operation.
Mycroft and Sherlock working with SIS approval.
Obviously it went well as MI6 were offering him more jobs...and had recalled him for the Moran threat.

When Sherlock shot Magnusson he went kind of rougue - without gov. approval.

However if Sherlock now back on approved Moriarty / MI6 operations prooves the connection between Magnusson and Moriarty ... wouldn't it be very easy to sweep Magnussons death into the... approved / sanctioned / undercover Moriarty takedown box...and MI6 / Mycroft /Sherlock saying it was part of finishing the Moriarty job.
Thus in the future Sherlock can continue to get the interesting - matter of national security - cases....
Obviously Sherlocks work here will be clasified top secret....

Personally I don't think it's necessary to clear Sherlocks name.
Rather naive imo to think Brit ( or any governments ) intel agents never have to kill people.
Especially as they have gone a bit Bond in HLV.
Licence to kill and all that....

Exactly! I keep wondering why Mycroft is making such a big deal of the terribleness of Sherlock's shooting of CAM...not that much of a stretch beyond what the Holmes boys have been involved in before that. And I think under some current US law a case could almost be made for legitimizing CAM's murder by treating him as an enemy of state. (The U.S. proably wouldn't do this to someone in that position, but he probably fits the criteria if you get technical about it.)

They could also easily have made up something about thinking CAM was going to attack them, since he does assault people, albeit not lethally.

I agree about "going a bit Bond" too...I think the series has become more Bond (spy) than detective, and I'm not sure I like that. 

Funny you should mention Bond...every now and then I re-watch the old Get Smart episodes, and after watching Sherlock I found

General Sherlock Discussion » You know you're obsessed with Sherlock when... » April 21, 2014 11:42 pm

(thought I already posted this but now I don't see it):

When your Christian friends' Easter posts remind you of The Empty House or BBC-TEH!

It's Canon » Johnlock: The Official Debate » April 19, 2014 12:30 am

ancientsgate wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

I did not really follow the whole Amanda thing but I think it is ridiculous to mix up real persons and the characters they play. Quite sad. 

There was a spat of mean!fans shoving Johnlock into Ben and Martin's faces at certian Q&A sessions a few months ago. It got pretty ugly, I guess. Poor guys, they dealt with it very gracefully, from all accounts. Some fans really need to take a chill pill and get over themselves.  Not sure why this is happening in this fandom...  I've been around fandoms since I was like 12, and I've never seen this lack of respect, desire to shock, and pressing an uncomfortable issue where it should never be pressed before. Makes me sad.
 

The author of "Decoding the Subtext," which is one of my favorite blogs about Johnlock in canon, says that when she first wrote it, around 2007 or so, she was "blacklisted by mainstream Sherlockian societies," and Sherlockians "recoiled in horror" from the idea of the two being a couple.(A lot of old-time Baker Street Irregular types are convinced canon-Holmes had an affair with his Irene, many of them claim it was during the Hiatus.)

Now, seven years later, it seems the pro-Johnlockers are, perhaps not in the majority, but just as vocal.
 

Books » No Police Like Holmes » April 19, 2014 12:21 am

Russell wrote:

Huh… sounds interesting! And I wouldn't be surprised if the 'Lives' tagline was meant as a nod to that long-held belief.

Which giving a nod to which? BBC's Reichenbach hadn't happened yet when this book was written, I don't think.

It's Canon » Watson was a woman (a theory by Rex Stout) » April 18, 2014 3:55 am

I don't know if I was being too coy before, but I was saying that if Watson was A woman s/he could be THE woman (who admits she often dresses up as a man, so she could easily assume a male identity on a regular basis to be a detective.)

It's Canon » Johnlock: The Official Debate » April 18, 2014 3:14 am

And the boys seem very comfortable sleeping together on the stairs. And when they touch each other's knees, they "don't mind."  There's actually precedent for that in canon.

Further, we do not see John and Mary's vows, so we are free to imagine that all three of them made vows.

There are quite a few fan fics with, er, three-way...arrangements. More canon and the Guy Ritchie verse, though I can really see Abbington's Mary doing that. I wish they had used that to set CAM up, by making him think he could blackmail them over it.

Speaking of Abbington...do you know she's gotten death threats just for being Mary?
 

It's Canon » Johnlock: The Official Debate » April 18, 2014 3:11 am

SusiGo wrote:

Exactly. You get the impression that actually Sherlock and John are the ones getting married. I had the idea the moment I saw the first pics from the wedding, both of them side by side in their beautiful morning coats. 

That is what I have been talking about  - there is something missing in the relationship between John and Mary. The writers and actors are excellent. If they wanted us to feel real love between those two, they would have managed to convince us. But apparently they did not, at least not all the audience. All the beautiful things that you would expect from a marriage - I am quoting you, Lue - proposal, shocked reaction, confessions, vows is there. We just do not get it from the married couple but from the bridegroom and his … best friend. 
And you know what Mycroft says about coincidence. 

 

There's also the fact that of the three of them, John is the LEAST into planning the wedding...Sherlock gets involved in every aspect, and does treat it like his wedding in many ways. (When he could probably have sabotaged it if he wanted to.)

And then, John says he wants to be up there with, "the two people I love most in the world." He lumps them together, as if he were marrying them both.

His Last Vow » Why didn't someone kill Magnussen before? » April 16, 2014 12:57 am

I had wondered about hiatus' question too...and I have to assume CAM had some plan in place for if something happened to him.

Because he 1) blackmailed people who he knew were willing and able to kill and 2) didn't really keep himself that secure physically. And he physically assaulted people, albeit not lethally. 

But I also wonder why Mycroft and everyone else couldn't have taken him into custody once they got to Appledore.

His Last Vow » Theory about Sherlock and CAM » April 15, 2014 2:05 am

Something's up with the text color...


...but you make a good point: Sherlock's own near-death foreshadows that the same could be possible for CAM. It has been said Mary purposely shot Sherlock so as NOT to kill him (I think that's thin), and I never before thought maybe that's what he did to CAM.

I thought maybe the bullet was something weird...some tranquilizer bullet invented by Billy?

There's another thread about CAM being in cahoots with Sherlock to fake his death (since, after all, Sherlock's known to be good at that.)

Because I think CAM actually appeared to be stupid when it came to his personal, physical security: he made himself accessible to his blackmail victims physically, and some of them were known to be willing and able to kill. That applies to all FOUR of Team Holmes-Watson, actually (they're all willing to kill under some circumstances, albeit differing ones.)

So, maybe CAM had more up his sleeve for protecting himself...

Because, yeah, we can't leave Sherlock as a murderer...did you notice how the end of Season 3 put us right back to the end of Season 2?

After seeing Moriarty "bring Sherlock down" only to discover Sherlock had been playing HIM all along, I have significant confidence that Sherlock had something up his sleeve in dealing with CAM, such that his apparent murder of CAM is not what it seemed.

Books » No Police Like Holmes » April 13, 2014 2:37 am

I just finished reading No Police Like Holmes, about a mystery at a Sherlock Holmes colloquium. Publication date: 2011. 

Many characters are dedicated Sherlockians, as in, members of BSI or scion societies.

At one point, the characters are discussing actors who have played Holmes, and these include Basil Rathbone, Arthur Wontner, Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey Jr., "and somebody named Cumberbatch."

It's kind of wild to realize that the BBC series and the Guy Ritchie movies have been around long enough that other books have been published referring to them. 

But here's what really funny. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think 2011 is earlier than BBC-Reichenbach?

Well, as you may know, one of the "creeds" of Sherlock Holmes societies is that Holmes was a histroical figure, not a fictional character. Exhibit A:

http://members.toast.net/stormypetrels/

So, some of the characters who are members of those kinds of societies wear buttons that say....


Sherlock Holmes Lives!

Character Analysis » Femme Fatale or Not? (Comparing Irene to Christie characters) » April 12, 2014 1:40 am

However, Holmes is amused by the wedding and points out that Irene's being in love with another man solves his client's (the King's) problem. Which doesn't sound like Holmes has any envy for the man who marries Irene.

On the other hand, notice that the KING's reaction is, "She can't possibly be in love with [Norton]," even though this would solve his problem. The King raves over Irene's cleverness several times and even says, "What a queen she would have made!"

I think HE'S still hot for her...I almost want to think HE was the one trying to sabotage her new relationship! (Wouldn't you think that if she made their affair known, she would be more disgraced than the King? Wasn't there a double standard in those days? The King would have us believe it would be bad for his reputation and his princess would dump him, but I'm not sure I trust that. I thought royal women were conditioned to accept their men doing that kind of thing?)

How you interpret Irene may depend on what you think "adventuress" means. In that era it almost surely wasn't a compliment...but to the modern reader it sounds glamorous.

Irene is an actress...which was also enough to give a woman a dubious reputation in that day (though it was a step up from Shakespeare's day because there WERE female actresses...the parts weren't all played by men.)

In the Indian in the Cupboard series, (by Lynn Reid Banks) the modern protagonist (boy living in the 1980s or 1990s) reads the diary of an ancestor who[color=#222222] was a stage performer in the Victorian/Edwardian era. Her father tells her he'd rather see her dead than on the stage; her sister and brother-in-law limit her contact with their daughter; her (out of wedlock) son is ashamed of her, and she gets the reputation among later generations as "wicked." She says that she's basically poor and an outcast her whole life, but that she's proud of that career nonetheless. She is, however, terribly

General Sherlock Discussion » You know you're obsessed with Sherlock when... » April 12, 2014 1:18 am

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

I already posted that my brother and sister-in-law named their dog "Watson." They're not even that obsessed with Sherlock Holmes...the only version they watch is Elementary.

They wanted a "famous sidekick name." Now the dog has made friends with a stray cat. I sad, "You have to name the cat Sherlock." They said they already refer to it as Sherlock.

The cat was initially distrustful of people and wasn't eating properly. It howled to be let into their apartment (maybe it wanted to be with Watson?) so they've adopted it. 

They're calling it Holmes. They've sent pictures where you can see Watson watching Holmes protectively.

Now all we need is for Holmes the cat to hiss at a female dog that gets near Watson...

His Last Vow » CAM: Is he actually alive and in cahoots with Sherlock? » April 12, 2014 12:59 am

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

nakahara wrote:

.
 
 
But he abhors CAM. Completely.
In Sherlock′s eyes, murderers are nothing in comparison to this reprehensible man:
 
I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?
 
He also hates with passion CAM′s tendency to pray on weaknesses of his victims:
 
What would it profit a woman, for example, to get him a few months' imprisonment if her own ruin must immediately follow? His victims dare not hit back.
 
CAM′s blackmail is utter cowardice, unworthy of man.
 
For Sherlock, this is not just about the case anymore. It gets personal between him and CAM:
 
Between ourselves, Watson, it's a sporting duel between this fellow Milverton and me. He had, as you saw, the best of the first exchanges, but my self-respect and my reputation are concerned to fight it to a finish.“
 
And we can′t forget that in HLV, Sherlock′s own brother Mycroft is blacmailed apart from Sherlock′s other clients – Lady Smalwood, his best friend John and Mary.
 
Such is the Sherlock′s distaste for CAM that he, a well-known misogynist, miraculously transforms into a chivalrous knight and is willing to risk everything, his career and his life, for his female client:
 
Surely a gentleman should not lay much stress upon this, when a lady is in most desperate need of his help?
  

Watson says elsewhere that Holmes "disliked and distrusted [women] but was always a chivalrous opponent" and "had a remarkable way in dealing with them." And indeed, I don't think there are too many truly dislikable women in canon.

It is a favorite theory of Johnlockers that Milverton knew something about Holmes' love life, having to do with either Watson or the college

Character Analysis » Sherlock’s Sexuality: An In-Depth Contemplation and Study » April 10, 2014 2:33 am

Lue4028 wrote:

Sherlock's sexuality -his repression of it actually- is why he's my hero. 
He holds "pure, cold reason above all things", and since sexuality conflicts with that, he gets rid of it. He also discards sensations of fatigue or hunger, which I find admirable too, but not as much.
He has a philosophical argument against allowing sexuality to impede rationality. And I think that's so much more awesome than just being asexual, because then it becomes a war of mind over matter, and Sherlock's mind never looses. Sherlock is the only light I see in a sea of sex-craze, the only place where the mind and its humanity is valued above the mundane sexual wirings of the body.
Frankly, things get so boring when people stop behaving and thinking rationaly, and devolve to baser needs and instincts. Sex these days has gotten so casual, poorly justified, and brainless. Life is so much more interesting and meaningful with reasons behind actions and that's what Sherlock stands for to me. Rationalism.
When Adler touches his hand and asks him if he wants to have dinner, what does he do? He takes her pulse! He makes me so proud.

So you're maintaining he wasn't really attracted to Adler?

I thought the whole, "She tries to seduce him - but she has a hidden agenda - but she really falls for him  - but meanwhile he always had a hidden agenda - but he really falls for her" was just such a Harlequinn cliche.

And the idea that the ONE person who causes logical Sherlock to show signs of letting attraction get the better of him is a person who, on the logical level, he has every reason to consider "bad" really bothers me. I don't see Irene's particular...variation...being a turnon for Sherlock, either. Especially when you consider that being captured by criminals and tied up/ hurt "for real" is something he risks every day. I don't think he would want to do it as a game...then again, he didn't seem THAT traumatized by Serbia, so far.

I'd prefer to believe that if Sherlock

TV Programmes » House » April 9, 2014 1:00 am

I never thought diagnosing mysterious illnesses was quite the same as solving crimes. And I guess I don't think it's the same when both members of the pair are in the same profession. I prefer them to have different skill sets.

And House is REALLY snarky and  mean to everyone, and professes not to like people, and Wilson is supposed to be "the nice one" yet knows how to snark back and/or get back with practical jokes. At first I went, "that's not anything like Holmes and Watson," because I was thinking of canon and Granada. But now I think House and Wilson are a lot like BBC's Sherlock and John.

And of course, House and Wilson have been slashed out the wazoo by fans. There is an episode where a neighbor (an attractive woman whom Wilson would like to date) thinks they are a couple, House uses this to try to get her in bed, and Wilson foils House's plan by publicly proposing to House.

And the finale of the series was a slasher's dream - though it didn't make sense in a lot of ways.

His Last Vow » John? Out of character? » April 8, 2014 2:38 am

If you read the TVTropes Sherlock Ho Yay page, the take on the John-lockiness in Season 3 is much more positive...in the sense that they think John and Sherlock are constantly showing how much they love each other, even in HLV, interpreting John as acting much more caring after Sherlock gets shot.

 

Character Analysis » Is the "fair sex" really Watson's department? » April 8, 2014 2:04 am

nakahara wrote:

That′s also how you can tell when John is jealous over Sherlock. He immediately stops flirting and scowls at the woman instead (for example, he does this to Irene Adler) – which definitely isn′t his normal behaviour to women.
 

In canon, Watson actually comments on Irene Adler's feminine appeal, and feels a little ashamed of his mission. But in BBC, John doesn't show much sign of succumbing to Irene himself...he's more concerned about her affect on Sherlock.
 

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