Thank you for bumping this one, Raven. 

Very interesting article and I only disagree with one quote:

"Perhaps you might be influenced by recent adaptations that have gone so far as to call Holmes a 'sociopath'."

But anyone who has watched Sherlock knows that he indeed shows empathy. I was at once reminded of this scene in TRF which is a very good example of how he "feels himself into the other person":

SHERLOCK: The boy sleeps there every night, gazing at the only light source outside in the corridor. He’d recognise every shape, every outline, the silhouette of everyone who came to the door. 
LESTRADE: Okay, so ... 
SHERLOCK: So someone approaches the door who he doesn’t recognise, an intruder. Maybe he can even see the outline of a weapon. 
(Leaving the other three inside the room, he goes outside the door and pulls it almost closed, then raises his hand and points his fingers as if they’re a gun, showing the others how it would be seen through the frosted glass. He pushes the door open and comes back into the room.) 
SHERLOCK: What would he do in the precious few seconds before they came into the room? How would he use them if not to cry out? 
(He walks around the bed, looking at the boy’s possessions.) 
SHERLOCK: This little boy; this particular little boy ... (he looks at the bedside table and points towards it) ... who reads all of those spy books. What would he do? 
 (source: arianedevere.livejournal.com)


 

I think this ties in nicely with another discussion here at the forum regarding the question why Sherlock and Mycroft can't feel love. Which I don't agree with.

The article ties in tremendously well with the characters of Sherlock and Mycroft as they developed in S1 and S2.
Both are capable of great empathy, but they have learned not to let their judgement get clouded by Irene's mistake, sentiment.

Could that be an explanation for why S3 feels so vastly different from S1 and S2. For here we see a Sherlock whose sentiment derails him, and so, to me at least, he no longer feels like Sherlock. Same holds true for Mycroft, BTW.
 

He becomes more like us so-called normal people with our funny little brains. I don't know whether that's necessarily becoming more mature. Indeed, Mycroft observes at the end of ASiP John could be the making or the breaking of his brother. I lean towards the 'breaking' right now. In all his sneering isolation Sherlock didn't strike me as unhappy when we first met him. Now, on the other hand...

dioscureantwins wrote:

In all his sneering isolation Sherlock didn't strike me as unhappy when we first met him. Now, on the other hand...

Yes, his desperate effort to be liked by other people and their resulting disdain made him falter and weakened him. In Sherlock´s case, the maxim "Hell - that´s other people" sounds especially true.

Sherlock´s deductive skills on the other hand, were hardly negatively influenced by his empathy (he really does not work better as a "machine"). I think he was emphatic also during time in S1 and S2, when he still wore a mask of indifference. Still, at that time he held his empathy in secret and so this fact was not disused by other people against him.
 

Vhanja wrote:

I think Sherlock is happier with John or without. What makes him unhappy in S3 is the prospect of having to live without John again.

Then why does he not welcome John back in HLV after having proven to John that Mary shot him?
 

When he forces John and Mary to have it out in 221B (shortly before succumbing to his wounds again).

dioscureantwins wrote:

I'm afraid I thought S3 Sherlock considerably slower than the man we met in S1 and S2. When they discover the stabbed Bainbridge in the shower he's far less alert and active than earlier. And is empathy necessarily the same as sentiment? Irene is good at what she does because she knows what other people like (empathy). She falters when she gives in to what she likes (sentiment). In S3 Sherlock makes the same mistake. Why he would choose to do so really is beyond me.

Of course that he is slower, but rather than blaming it entirely on sentiment, I think this was caused by combination of various things: torture in Serbia, Sherlock´s return into enormously changed situation in London, John´s adverse reaction to him, the shock of John´s marriage, chaotical situations that Sherlock encountered in TEH... it was too much and Sherlock couldn´t cope with it at once and adjust with it, which caused him being distracted and overwhelmed.

Because if sentiment is the only thing doing this to him, he is really better off in his "machine" form (and thus an anthithesis of the article which started this thread).
 

SusiGo wrote:

IMO Sherlock has to learn how to unite mind and emotions and we accompany him on his journey. The Sherlock of series 3 is just one stage in which he is driven by emotion rather than by his mind whereas in series 1 and 2 it was the other way round. I am sure we will see him learning how to be emotional and use his brainpower without one obscuring or suppressing the other. 
 

I agree with this, it's how I view it as well. S1 and S2 - S1 in particular - shows us Sherlock at his coldest. He works superbly as a deductive machine, but with very little empathy and sentiment. And thus he's alone. (Or more correct: lonely).

In S3, he lets sentiment cloud his judgement. Like a pendulum he goes from one extreme to another. I am hoping that future series will show us how he manages to balance it out better.

I reckon the balance would come towards the end, whatever season that might be.