BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Johnlock: The Official Debate

gently69 · April 22, 2014 12:20 pm

SusiGo wrote:
@Mattlocked: I do not have to see a sex scene. I would be happy with a small but unmistakable gesture making it clear that they belong to each other and will stay together and not leave each other again. All other things can be left to my imagination.

That is exactly my opinoin, Susi.

SolarSystem · April 22, 2014 12:33 pm

gently69 wrote:
SusiGo wrote:
@Mattlocked: I do not have to see a sex scene. I would be happy with a small but unmistakable gesture making it clear that they belong to each other and will stay together and not leave each other again. All other things can be left to my imagination.
That is exactly my opinoin, Susi.

So you're a Johnlocker now, gently! Because that's what Johnlock is about to lots of people.

gently69 · April 22, 2014 12:41 pm

Caught, Solar.
Though I am not that used to the "stuff for the imagination part" already. LOL

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 12:45 pm

Mattlocked wrote:
I really love Johnlock in fanfics but I kept wondering if I'd want it to happen in the show. Including getting physical, I mean. And I was wondering why I'm tending to: No, I don't. Why not?

Just in this moment it struck my mind: It is not because I don't want to actually see it. Well, yes, probably just because of that.
I think what I'm enjoying mostly is exactly the relationship they have right now. Deep and true love, very, very near to physical action.... but they just don't do it.
All those little .... let's call them....hints, all those looks, the tension you can almost feel from time to time. This is what makes it special and exciting to me.

Letting it finally happen would spoil the fun.

I have an idea that you're very much in the majority in this opinion. Most of the fans that I've heard speak of it delight in the UST (unresolved sexual tension). After all, the S/J dynamic is about half what goes on in the show-- the casework, police collaboration, and trotting around London, etc, is the other half.

I don't know that moving into their having a sexual-romantic relationship would spoil the fun, since I think we'd move into a different type of fun, but I don't think we have to worry about that, since IMO TPTB are not brave enough to even attempt it anyway.

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 12:49 pm

SusiGo wrote:
@Mattlocked: I do not have to see a sex scene. I would be happy with a small but unmistakable gesture making it clear that they belong to each other and will stay together and not leave each other again. All other things can be left to my imagination.

I just wish they'd stop being so damned awkward around each other. The airport scene in ep 3.3 made me cringe, the way John couldn't even look Sherlock in the face. Good lord! I'm not sure what I really wanted to see, but it wasn't that stiff, stupid scene they were given to do. And including a line about Sherlock being a girl's name, really? REALLY? Um, Sherlock was going away, supposedly never to return, and that's what the writers gave them to say and do? I am still frustrated by that scene.

SusiGo · April 22, 2014 12:51 pm

Exactly. And beautifully said, tonnaree.

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:09 pm

SolarSystem wrote:
besleybean wrote:
Johnlockers seem to imply that the bromance isn't enough.
Where do Johnlockers (and you mean all Johnlockers here...? Wow...) imply that?

I live in a cave, pretty much, and have always admitted it, so needless to say, I hardly have my ear to the ground about what "all Johnlockers" are saying. But my common sense tells me that a) we are legion and b) we are wicked diverse in our opinions, attitudes, wants, needs and hopes when it comes to the guys. IMO again, wouldn't it be impossible to say what "all" of any group thinks?

And what exactly is bromance, anyway?

I can't define it, but I know it when I see it, lol. And S/J have one.

I almost can't believe that once again we're comparing deep friendship to a sexual relationship in a way that says "one of those things is superior to the other", we've been over that again and again and again. That's not what Johnlock is about, at least not to me. I am not saying that a deep friendship can't be enough and is only worth something when sex comes into play as well. But why does sex have to ruin everything? I'll never understand why to some people sex seems to be the worst thing that can happen to a friendship.

There is an element of this fandom that considers itself "above all that", who are intrigued with an asexual Sherlock, a life of enforced sexual abstinence, and yes, who do think that life as a non-religious monk is far superior than getting wet and nasty with someone you care about. I don't get that, but.... I do defend their right to think so and to say they think so. I don't think most people have any objection to a having a sex life (at least from what I can see, here in the back of the cave where I live), but.... each to his own, eh?

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:11 pm

SolarSystem wrote:
SusiGo wrote:
Good question. What is bromance? Sorry, but for me it is something that does not really exist. Something artificial applying to a very small specialised group of people. Coined by a skateboard magazine in the 1990s. Well.
Since I do have a vivid imagination, I guess I know what it's supposed to mean.
But I am happy to repeat myself by saying that I totally agree with Jude Law here... why do we need a new word for something we already do have a word for? The word is 'romance' and it fits just beautifully with the boys.

And there's the meaning of it, right there. A non-sexual friendship, bordering on romance, involving two men. I would ask, while we're at it, what is romance? I mean, seriously.

SusiGo · April 22, 2014 1:11 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
There is an element of this fandom that considers itself "above all that", who are intrigued with an asexual Sherlock, a life of enforced sexual abstinence, and yes, who do think that life as a non-religious monk is far superior than getting wet and nasty with someone you care about. I don't get that, but.... I do defend their right to think so and to say they think so. I don't think most people have any objection to a having a sex life (at least from what I can see, here in the back of the cave where I live), but.... each to his own, eh?

Amen to that.

Last edited by SusiGo (April 22, 2014 1:12 pm)

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:15 pm

Mattlocked wrote:
I see what you mean, Susi. But still.... "Happy End" all the time is boring, so I prefer it like it is now. Ambiguous and exciting. (At least at the moment. Ask me again after S4 )

Just because there's sex between two people, regardless of gender(s) involved, why would that be happy? And why would it be an ending of any kind? As I said earlier, I don't trust the Sherlock writers (mostly because they're all men, sorry to say) to handle Johnlock right anyway, so it'd be best if they just plain don't go there, now or ever. You know, in my opinion. If you're going to mangle our precious Johnlock, please, don't even put your hands on them.

SusiGo · April 22, 2014 1:17 pm

Why should they not manage to get it right? They got the friendship right, the hints, the UST, so why not this? All I am asking for is a kiss, for heaven's sake.

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:17 pm

gently69 wrote:
Hmm ... in my opinion bromance ist the light version of romance.

I think technically it's not necessarily light, since bromances can be very intense (look at Sherlock and John, just as a for instance). I think bromance is mostly a non-sexual romance between two men. And by sexual, I mean any physical contact beyond hand-shaking, hugs with claps on the back or a poke in the nose.

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:24 pm

SusiGo wrote:
I still find it difficult to see. Love without sex? Something like that?

Sort of. I think all friends love each other on some level or other, whether or not they tell each other that. I love my girlfriends, my female friends at church, my female family members (like my two daughter-in-laws' moms) very much. But.... none of that is a female bromance or even close to it. None of us would ever imagine us as romantically interested in one another. But I can certainly imagine women of another generation than mine (way younger!),especially women who are unmarried and available, having female bromances with friends, relationships that could tip over into something sexual, given the right circumstances. Why not?

I still think Sherlock knows it; he knows, on some level, that he's interested. John, not so much, but they're writing John to be very sexually and relationship-ly obtuse. For a savvy man, he's pretty damned un-savvy about his choices of dating partners, his choice of wife, etc. To say the least. But I see Sherlock's eyes, the way he stands back with his nose in the air and.... observes. And he knows. The writers haven't had him acknowledge it to anyone else yet, but he knows about him and John. Look at that wedding reception, what Sherlock said and did throughout, and how at the end, when he saw that no one gave a damn if he was there or not any longer, he threw on his coat and strode off into the night like some kind of bat, putting distance between himself and the....situation.... with John and Mary and the baby. He knows.

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:30 pm

tonnaree wrote:
it [sex] is best when shared between two people who already have a deep emotional/intellectual connection. When friends turn into lovers it is as much spiritual as physical.

Mmm. Well, maybe that's what the good Lord intended, but.... recreational sex is pretty marvelous, too. lol I don't know that it needs a spiritual connection between two like-minded consensual people to make it pretty wonderful. We don't, after all, live in Victorian times anymore, plus nowadays most people wouldn't know they had a "spirit" if it reached out and slapped 'em upside the head. Naturally it's important for it to be adults-only and consensual, of course. OTOH, maybe I've read too much romance fiction. I dunno. I do agree that a spiritual connection, along with the emotional and physical, makes it mighty fine!

ancientsgate · April 22, 2014 1:36 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Why should they not manage to get it right? They got the friendship right, the hints, the UST, so why not this? All I am asking for is a kiss, for heaven's sake.

I don't know why they wouldn't manage to get it right, I just feel down in my gut that they wouldn't. I wish they'd get a female writer on staff, honest to god. I don't trust men to get romance right, I just don't. I do trust them to get sex right, but not the subtleness of a romance.

A kiss? They can't even write John looking at Sherlock when Sherlock is going off to die, for cryin' out loud. So.... I don't have a whole lot of hope, I guess. We'll see.

SusiGo · April 22, 2014 2:03 pm

I would like to throw in another little thing - what about a man sticking a photo of his best friend to the ideal body of the Vitruvian man? I really cannot remember my husband doing that.

SolarSystem · April 22, 2014 2:03 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
SusiGo wrote:
Why should they not manage to get it right? They got the friendship right, the hints, the UST, so why not this? All I am asking for is a kiss, for heaven's sake.
I don't know why they wouldn't manage to get it right, I just feel down in my gut that they wouldn't. I wish they'd get a female writer on staff, honest to god. I don't trust men to get romance right, I just don't. I do trust them to get sex right, but not the subtleness of a romance.

Hm, that's a bit too generalized for my taste. I think in the history of film making there are lots of examples where male writers and directors got romance right.
Talking about Moffat and Gatiss specifically might be a different matter. But maybe they didn't really want John to look straight at Sherlock in that final scene in HLV...? I don't have proof, but I think that if they had wanted it to play out differently between the two in that scene, they would have been able to write it that way.

gently69 · April 22, 2014 2:04 pm

SusiGo wrote:
I would like to throw in another little thing - what about a man sticking a photo of his best friend to the ideal body of the Vitruvian man? I really cannot remember my husband doing that.

Where was it? Can't remember seeing it.

Last edited by gently69 (April 22, 2014 2:05 pm)

SusiGo · April 22, 2014 2:05 pm

When Sherlock consults Molly about their possible intake of alcohol. He has a thick file on John and on the first page is Leonardo's Vitruvian man with John's pic stuck to his face.

gently69 · April 22, 2014 2:08 pm

Ah ... yes ... really strange coincidence ...