BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Romance/Relationships/Emotions, Sherlock, Cont. from homophobia thread

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 9:43 am

Ok, this is jumping from the previous homophobia thread. It's moving too far off the question of homophobia, and branching further into question of Holmesian emotions. If you need the background, go check out the thread on "not a couple" and homophobia, but be aware that the whole reason for the move is because it's stopped having much to do with that thread.

Besley Bean says: <<Hang on a bit, can we take a step back here?
The whole pointa of the last series was to cover the 3 big stories, in which Sherlock is confronted with his biggest challenges.
Re: SIB.
I take at face value Mycroft's 'jibe' to Sherlock about being a virgin.
And let's be honest, Sherlock isn't great with personal relationships.
He is confrionted with Irene, naked, a deliberate ploy on her part because she shocks Sherlock and also he finds her difficult to read,
I think he is confused about his feelings towards her until right at the end: the violin, the rain, the look at the phone and the expression...you know the drill.
Just for a moment, Sherlock possibly feels something close to a feeling of love towards a woman.
But I really don't think he felt sexually attracted to her.
She fascinated him, he thought she was clever, a bit like him,but also vulnerable and he felt sorry for her.
But as Steven said, I don't ever think we'd see them married, with a mortgage and sharing a volvo.
We kow Sherlock missed things, so did Mycroft!
But Sherlock never took his mind form the work, despite the distraction of Irene.
I don't ever think Sherlock wanted more than his work,.
By default, he loves Mrs Hudson as a mother figure, values Lestrade as a colleague, realises Molly is a true friend and ultimately finds somebody with whom there is an unspoken love and a very public loyalty. Unconditional acceptance: John.
All other cases like Irene, are merely part of that journey, altho he genuinely liked Irene
Oh amd Tammany I agree with yuor last comment, but it was good discussion!.>>

Ok. First, I honestly don't agree with you regarding Sherlock not being sexually attracted or romantically engaged. Leaving aside Moffat's comments that original (and by extension New) Sherlock always romantically fancied Irene, the evidence in the episode, to my mind, clarifies that Sherlock really is sexually and romantically engaged.

The first dead giveaway is Sherlock's reaction to Irene's line about smart being the new sexy: Sherlock's brain fries to the point where words fail him, and then he goes into hyperdrive. If she did not appeal to him on a pure sexual/romantic level *as well as* an intellectual level, I would not expect him to do the verbal equivalent of a keyboard smash followed by frantic showing off. Showing off some? Yeah. He's Sherlock. But not that hyped up version that's his equivalent of walking a fence to get the girl's attention. It's the same pattern that comes into play when he solves the Bond Air puzzle, and that Mycroft *understands* once the results play out. Sherlock's not indifferent to her sexual allure. He just doesn't know how to handle himself in the face of that allure.

He's as guilty as Mycroft of overestimating his own immunity and his own ability to separate sexual desire and the fascination with an equal mind. Instead he muddles them up just enough to be vulnerable...and to be hurt.

The end with the violin, the rain, etc., for me, is not him finally understanding that he wasn't really attracted to her, it's him understanding that he was--and believing that now he's resolved that to a degree. He's had his One Woman, for better or worse.

I take both Mycroft and Moriarty's evaluation of Sherlock as a virgin as quite accurate... with the additional evidence of his complete failure to follow Irene's question about whether he's ever had a woman. It's something of which he's chosen to remain profoundly ignorant... and that ignorance bites him in the butt in SiB. He doesn't know enough to even guage his own vulnerabilities with any accurancy, and does so badly enough to entirely justify Mycroft's take-down of the entire thing. It's textbook. Sherlock falls for one of the oldest appeals in the book.

Is he also interested in her mind, her kinship with him, her cleverness, and the game being played out between them? Of course. For him smart is sexy--which is part of why he's so thrilled to find a woman who feels likewise. She's attracted to what he considers his one outstanding talent.

That's the thing: she offers him the entire ball of wax--sex, romance, companionship, even competition, and she offers it in the classic formula Mycroft lays out: A damsel in distress. The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption. Then give him a puzzle and watch him dance.

Either Mycroft has utterly misunderstood what happened--which IMO is pushing it, as he knows Sherlock better than anyone AND is supposedly smarter than Sherlock--or he's absolutely nailed it. I go with absolutely nailing it: Sherlock desired her romantically, including a level of sexual attraction, because the pattern Mycroft lays out isn't one of simple fascination. It's one of naive romantic love.

That doesn't rule out the levels of intellectual fascination, or the sense of kinship with an equally brilliant woman, or the obsession with The Work. They can all go on simultaneously, adding layers to Sherlock's complex response to Irene and justifying why she becomes The Woman in his life; the landmark, benchmark, gold standard of her gender. But the point at which he's vulnerable is the point he has refused to face or deal with: romance and desire.

And of course we'd never see them married with a mortgage and a telly and kids squalling over tea. Irene, at the very least, would run screaming from any such outcome, as would Sherlock. But I can see them being wild tigers, never quite sure if they were mates or enemies, scrambling for a lifetime between passion and competition, a sort of criminal/intellectual "Lion in Winter" combo similar to Eleanor of Aquitane and Henry II.

Anyway. That's my take. And anyone who wants to deal in on this, or discuss BOTH Holmes Boys--have fun. I'm here.

(Edited to remove stupid typos and minor brain farts....)

Last edited by TammanyT (December 2, 2013 9:54 am)

besleybean · December 2, 2013 11:13 am

I actually don't see Sherlock's showing off to Irene any different than when he does it with others. As he's at pains to point out to John, that's what he does.
The thrill for him is the chase, getting it right, working out the puzzle( that bit Mycroft defintely got right).
I think what the Holmes men could possibly mix up, is sexual urge and emotional attachment.
I'm not so sure Mycroift is virgin, but he doesn't appear to be emotionally involved with anybody.
Re Irene, I think it's emotion he's taunting Sherlock with, not sexual urges.
Yes, I agree with your analysis of the ' moment of doubt and wondert'.(I always think of the final SIB scene as this).
Infact I agree with most of your analysis and feel that Irene too had conflictedf feelings towards Sherlock. They both met their match, in every sense of the word.
But at the end of the day I'm still not convinced of the level of the attraction of Sherlock to Irene...or else he did just makes amends by sacrificing his own desire for doing the right thing.
I think Mycroft is criticising Sherlock for allowing himself to be distracted...incidentally this annoys me so much, cos super smart Mycroft hadn't worked it out either!
I simply think Irene was the 1st woman who showed interest in Sherlock, that he actually thought worthy of him.
I just can't think Sherlock would allow sexual romps to cloud his brain...oh I suppose they could maybe amuse him between cases.
Irene's tragedy was to choose the wrong side.

Last edited by besleybean (December 2, 2013 11:16 am)

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 11:35 am

We're really going to end up disagreeing on this one. IMO Sherlock shows off at a much higher level for Irene--with far more in the way of secondary indications that it's sexual/romantic attention-getting.

Mycroft's mistake was in overestimating Sherlock's resistance... for which is is honestly apologetic. He didn't mean to throw Sherlock to a bigger wolf than Sherlock could manage on his own. I think summing it up as "allowing himself to be distracted" misses the point of the phrasing. A lonely naive man and a woman clever enough to make him think he's special; textbook-- a damsel in distress, the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption. That's not a discussion of someone who failed to keep his eyes on the prize: it's a discussion of someone who fell prey to attraction and romantic yearnings. That's what those levers *are*.

I don't personally think Mycroft's a virgin. It wouldn't be one of the things he goads Sherlock over if he were as subject to the same criticism. I tend to go with Gatiss' interp that Mycroft is gay, and presumed to have at least been active at one time. Given how profoundly private Mycroft is, it's anyone's guess if he's got a love interest now--but the ring on the right hand would at least suggest the possibility that he once was as would his comment that "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage." The words and delivery both suggest someone whose heart has been broken at least once.

Mycroft's relationships with Sherlock and with John are both emotional, to varying degrees. Beyond that, though, we're flying a bit blind, though we know he does consider himself to have friends (the Queen is implied...), and that he really, really does care about his job.

Regarding Super Smart Mycroft not working it out: Mycroft's up to his ass in alligators already with his formal work, he's keeping guard over his baby brother who's boooored, and he's trying to throw Sherlock enough red meat to keep him entertained. Did he misgauge both Irene's potential danger and Sherlock's vulnerability? Yes. But that's not the same level of error that Sherlock made. Sherlock was in head-on confrontation with Irene and failed to see himself walking straight into the flensing knives. Mycroft's mistake was second-order--an error at one remove. Sherlock's was direct first-order.

Irene's tragedy was believing Moriarty understood the Holmes Boys. He didn't, really. He knew many of their levers, but by no means all of them. (Heh) I still think Sherlock finally solving the password rose up out of a combination of humiliation that he'd been gulled and absolute refusal to be the destruction of Mycroft--as the level of defeat Irene and Sherlock cause between them would have pretty much scuppered Mycroft's career. That's the kind of situation where all a bureaucrat can do is throw himself on his sword.

besleybean · December 2, 2013 11:48 am

You know, at the end of the day, I have to acknowledge 2 things:
1. You are probbaly right, cos the whole point of SIB is to have Sherlock confronted with love and attraction...
2. I just can't deal with this aspect of Sherlock. I find the whole Irene thing too much to cope with . All I know is I never want to see her again!
Mycroft uderestimated Moriarty.

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 12:11 pm

@Swanpride: I'm afraid I'm with Moffat on this one: "All that matters to me is the work" is what both old and new Sherlocks say about themselves, and what John is willing to accept--but it doesn't add up. IMO it's a case of Sherlock/John being unreliable witnesses/narrators. People can passionately hold to beliefs about themselves that are not entirely true. Cumberbatch and Moffat and Doyle all present Sherlock as being, on the one hand, actually afraid that emotional involvement will interfere with Sherlock's ability to think (and Moffat and Cumberbatch have both suggested that SiB only confirmed that belief in Sherlock's mind). But Moffat points out that Sherlock's just plain a dead-unreliable witness where his own emotionality is concerned. His vanities and insecurities combine to create giant blind spots about himself--not all that different from his blind spots when he's gone over the social limits, or missed basic motivational factors in other people.

I agree he's both vain and more hurt by rejections than he's willing to admit. He hungers for approval: Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, John. He loves not being told to "piss off." And I can agree with some of the motives for taking the job with Sebastian.

I don't think being a virgin "bothers him," for the most part. I do think it's an edgy thing between him and Mycroft--one more area Mycroft appears to have navigated that Sherlock hasn't. But Sherlock can convince himself that it's a superiority and a discipline, and that's great until his own innocence proves a weakness.

My own take on Molly is peculiar. I tend to think of that little scene in SiB as Sherlock's most shining, human, vulnerable moment in all the series: the one completely humble apology he gives, the one moment when he cares desperately that he hurt someone. The one moment he verges on bashful. I see Molly and Sherlock as both being uber-geeks, who if they were even a little more socially capable between the two of them might have struggled their way to a geeky romance...maybe not a successful one in the long term, but a real one. She's his "realistic" possible romance. I still love the reaction from John and the rest during the apology: John most of all. John knows absolutely that this is unique and marvelous and utterly outside Sherlock's area of competence. For that one moment Sherlock's able to care about Molly for real. (wry grin) Then La Belle Irene's little drama cuts through the moment and derails all of it.

I'm really curious what they're going to do with Molly in the coming season. They've brought her too far for Sherlock to continue in the "same" relationship with her, but they're too dedicated to this being the John and Sherlock exclusive bond to let her become a serious romance. It will be interesting what they do.

@Besleybean: Yeah. I can hear that. If the whole Irene thing just fries your last nerve, the best thing to do is accept that and move on.

IMO Mycroft and Sherlock in tandem misestimated Moriarty, but that was in large part because Moriarty is bug-house crazy. It's very hard for the sane to completely predict the gonzo.

besleybean · December 2, 2013 12:42 pm

I think Sherlock has recognised Molly as a real and lasting friend, rather than just a colleague and certainly more than the silly little gril he may have once thought she was!
I remain uncomfortable with any suggestion that any woman close to Sherlock can only be seen in a romantic or sexual light. I just don't think he operates that way,
Why can't Irene be seen as a worthy opponent or Molly as a dear friend?
Alrho I do agree with you that no one character has to only ever appeal on one level.

Last edited by besleybean (December 2, 2013 12:42 pm)

besleybean · December 2, 2013 12:46 pm

I hope he won't be hurting her any more!

Marva · December 2, 2013 12:56 pm

My perception of Sherlock's feeling towards Molly is totally different.

In my opinion, he almost doesn't notice her as a "person" most of the time, just somebody who hangs around at the lab, too, brings him coffee etc, but certainly nobody who would draw his attention. That said, he surely realizes that she has a crush on him (just as he deduces everything else around him, not paying too attention much to her, however) and that she is probably a reliable person.

So when he prepares to fake his death he is thinking about who might help, as, for some reasons we don't know yet entirely, he needs help from another person. John, who he usually would have picked, is out of the question.

So, in my opinion, he just scans all people he knows in a most analytical and objective way to figure out who would be the best choice to help him, and that leads him to Molly. I truly don't believe that he has any deeper feelings for her (friendship or whatever) at this point (maybe afterwards, being grateful for her help, etc.). I think he only told her that she has always counted etc. in order to manipulate her. Honestly, it would not make any sense that he has always has seen her as an important (or "counting") person, because all evidence is against this assumption.

I hope I will not get too much hate for my interpretation ;-).

Marva · December 2, 2013 1:04 pm

Swanpride wrote:
I think he meant that she always counted, but he just hadn't been aware of it until this point. I guess when he realized that she could see him was also the moment he reasset everything he knew about her. After all, Sherlock is NOT always right...there is always something.

Sure, this is a possible interpretation, but IMO it is not the most likely one. For me, it just doesn't fit very well to Sherlock's character. And why would he realize that exactly in that very moment when he truly needs her help and it would be most beneficial for his attempts to actually get her help if he says something nice like this? (Still possible, sure, just not very likely, in my opinion.)

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 1:06 pm

@besleybean: I don't think all women must be romance/sexual in relation to Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson isn't, Sally isn't. Molly one evaluates that way becuase Molly from her entrance WANTS to be romance/sexual. Irene similarly, though from different motives. It will be interesting to see how Mary Marstan works with Sherlock. It will also be nice if Molly *has* progressed to becoming a friend rather than a yearning schoolgirl. I'd like that.

I think most of the time Sherlock deals with sexuality by militantly ignoring it. He's really mostly successful at reverting to preadolescent schoolboy. It's a safe place to be.

I look foward to seeing Sherlock grow...and seeing more women intersect with his life. But he's an evasive little squirrel. He dodges fast.

Irene *is* a worthy oponent. Molly can become a good friend. Indeed, both of them work in part because niether is just one thing to Sherlock. If they were not, they'd never survive his kind of social savage behavior. There's got to be more there or he wouldn't endure them and they wouldn't endure him.

@Swanpride; I'd argue on why he apologizes--and why he savages her. IMO he was "showing off" again. Sherlock's one sure-fire party-trick--the only thing he always sees as his talent/power/virtue. Trot out the deductions, and don't even think about the implications or the consequences. Indeed, part of me thinks that there's even a tiny, tiny fraction of showing off for her: See how precisely I observe you? See how I notice you? See how I.... Ooops.

Even if he's not showing off for her, he's showing off for the rest of the group, because that's his fallback. He's stuck in a party in his own home, and he doesn't know how to do small talk or be comfy in crowds, so he falls back on what he knows:show off the skillz.

One loves Sherlock, but he's a social moron sometimes.

I'm not as convinced that he doesn't bully for fun and spite. A lot of what he dumps on John and Lestrade is over the top savage, and he's usually just plain malicious toward Mycroft. I don't see why Molly would be exempt. I do think that he honestly did care that he'd created a situation where the humiliation factor was just through the roof. But it goes beyond that. The apology could just be shame at bullying her. I don't see it that way, myself: IMO he truly strips down to bedrock for her in the apology: dead simple, and completely humbled. The kiss on the cheek, though, carries it into another dimension entirely...and it seems sincere in its own right.

Again, I love watching John's reaction. *John* sees something exceptional happening.

I agree that Irene shares some of Moriarty's fascination. I just don't think it's limited to that. Molly? I am waiting to see how that goes. SiB and TRF changed that relationship, and I want to see more of how before I make a final call on what was there to begin with.

@Marva: I tend to see him as treating a lot of the people in his life as "environmental factors." Molly's easy for him to largely treat that way. Moffat's commented on Lestrade: that people manage to get inside Sherlocks defenses without him being entirely aware of it, and that Lestrade's done so. I think in some ways Molly does, too: she's someone he can ignore, harry, pick on, bully into doing what he wants, and he doesn't fully realize until the moment of crisis that she is indeed someone who counts, just as Lestrade is--but she's the one Moriarty failed to reckon into the accounting, just as Mycroft is.

Last edited by TammanyT (December 2, 2013 1:10 pm)

besleybean · December 2, 2013 1:22 pm

Sorry, I'm in danger of derailing another thread!
But is there a feeling that Moriarty inderestimated Mycroft?
I don't think he even considered him.
Moriarty always wanted a showdown between him and Sherlock.

Last edited by besleybean (December 2, 2013 1:39 pm)

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 1:37 pm

Huh. No, I'm not convinced of that. IMO there's a strong chance that Mycroft was the intended target and Sherlock was the means to the end. Moriarty really *wanted* to become a major player in Europe--Sherlock's useless in that game. He drew attention to himself by screwing up Moriarty's games (SiP, BB). Having done so, he becomes a target in his own right--but intended to die. If he'd died, he'd have stopped interfering with Moriarty's real game: international power. Which is Mycroft's arena, not Sherlock's.

Moriarty only decides to let Sherlock and John live when Irene offers information that makes Sherlock a useful pawn in the game against Mycroft--or at least worth preserving until Moriarty's had more time to work out how he *might* be used.

I tend to take Mycroft's comment that Moriarty's trying to get his attention very, very seriously. I don't actually believe Mycroft ever believed in Moriarty's silly key--but I do believe he recognized Moriarty as a deathly serious threat in terms of international stability,and I think Moriarty was originally targetting Mycroft, not Sherlock. Sherlock was an annoyance. A bug creeping across the monitor. Fun to play with, in a sick way, but not *important.*

IMO something happened around Baskerville to turn Sherlock into Moriarty's obsession...and I think Mycroft and Sherlock both knew what it was. (grimace) Maybe even using the H.O.U.N.D. gas on Moriarty. But something happened, and Mycroft and Sherlock let Moriarty go hoping his obsession with Sherlock would let them LEARN something...lead them to something. And then it went wrong, and then it went wronger.

The thing is, if you take Moriarty seriously as the great international criminal mastermind who's affecting terror cells and controling international crime rings, that's not Sherlock's division. It's Mycroft's bailiwick.

besleybean · December 2, 2013 1:42 pm

Hmm...much food for thought.
But just one point now,how did it go wrong?
Mycroft and Sherlock beat Moriarty, Moriarty was just deranged...

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 1:50 pm

IMO it went wrong because Sherlock ended up having to die not on his own terms. Mycroft and Sherlock had *something* else in mind...both of their reactions through TRF indicate that things swung out of their control, and there's very little to suggest that Sherlock wanted or expected John and his other friends to suffer the way they do. Something got out of hand.

But until &*^%$ Moffat and Gatiss give us the skinny on what was really happening, all I can say is that it does not add up as being a plan that went right--it adds up as a plan that went horribly wrong, but was salvaged by Sherlock's leap.

besleybean · December 2, 2013 2:17 pm

I can see that, but I think Mycroft could have been in on the leap!

TammanyT · December 2, 2013 2:33 pm

I think by the end he was at least in on the possibility of a leap. There was enough time for Sherlock and/or Molly to warn him. I don't think it's what he wanted, though, or originally planned--at least, not as it played out.

The thing is, to *me* it looks like Sherlock was hoping right up to the bitter end that he could find a way out of the leap. He was hoping Moriarty would give him access to the information to at least shut the entire "kill Sherlock's friends" thing down. Moriarty made that impossible, and Sherlock's stuck with the leap...and you can watch him look for another way out, and fail.

Mycroft and Sherlock had other plans. Things went wrong. Multiple things went wrong, The end that happened is not the end Mycroft and Sherlock sought...but once it was a done deal, they appear to have chosen to simply work with it. It's possible that Moriarty dying made Sherlock's death a great tactical advantage than it would have been otherwise: it means Moriarty's surviving team doesn't know to beware of Sherlock. He's become the invisible agent.

But, again, this chunk waits for further reveals from Moffat and Gatiss. I can track the pattern of power shifts through TRF, even when I can't see the particulars, but beyond TRF there is too much hidden to make reliable guesses. We know Sherlock goes with being dead. We know that when he comes back, according to the BBC it's to foil a terrorist attempt on London, which would seem to imply that for the intervening 18 months he's been working within Mycroft's power-circles. Beyond that, we just don't know enough.

Edit Addition: One more thing regarding Mycroft/Moriarty. Moriarty makes his understanding of the dynamics of Mycroft and Sherlock clear in the method he instructs Irene to follow. The long-term target is Mycroft: Irene has to win against Mycroft to get what she wants. The indications are that Moriarty advises Irene to go through Sherlock to accomplish that: Sherlock's Mycroft's weak underbelly. Sherlock's not as well defended in his own right, and Mycroft is willing to do pretty much anything to protect Sherlock, including see his own career go down in flames. Irene stabs him to the heart with her line about letting his masters know Little Brother is his biggest security break.

So even in SiB, Sherlock's the secondary target, of interest only because he's a path to the primary target, Mycroft, and a tool that can be turned against Mycroft. Irene becomes fascinated with Sherlock, but he's not her first concern. Mycroft is. Mycroft is the BAMF you can't cross safely without careful planning and serious consideration of his very few weak spots. All of SiB is a game Moriarty and Irene play against Mycroft, with Sherlock caught in the middle. At no time in SiB is there any sign that Moriarty's all that interested in Sherlock as Sherlock, only in Sherlock as a tool he can use against Mycroft, and that Irene can manipulate more effectively than she can hope to manipulate Mycroft.

Last edited by TammanyT (December 2, 2013 3:04 pm)

besleybean · December 2, 2013 4:28 pm

I honestly had never picked up that this was a vendetta of Sherlock's for Molly's little slip.
I'd always thought there was a kind of understanding between them over John going to Harry!
But yes, Sherlock obviously misread that the parcel and outfit were for him!
He is genuinely sorry for embarrassing Molly so.

LoveIsAViciousMotivator · December 28, 2013 7:27 pm

I'm going to take a crack at this.

All right.

Pertaining to what happened in A Scandal in Belgravia, I do believe that there is an attraction between Irene and Sherlock. They are intrigued with each other yet I don't see them in love with each other. Well, I don't think Sherlock fell in love with her. Irene I do believe got too attached with Sherlock and actually, did. Of course, Irene realizes that Sherlock doesn't feel the same way, but when he saved her life, Irene was just happy that there is room for her inside Sherlock's heart. It may not be love, but he did get attached to her in some way. It's complicated or I just made it complicated. The reason I feel Sherlock wasn't in love with Irene was because of the fact that Sherlock didn't express any kind of physical response. Of course, I can't check his pulse, but he didn't show his pupils dilating when he was near her like she did. The only time I could see his pupils dilating was when he saved her. To me, I deduce that as him enjoying the thrill of the save rather than love. Attachment, yes. Love, no.

That's the way I saw it. After all, the episode was about Sherlock and love, not really him in love. Sherlock just learns from Irene's downfall that love can leave to folly and be very distracting.

This leads me to another thing I love to share on is a "what if". What if Sherlock did fall in love with someone? How would he react? What would he do? From his experience with Irene, he would do his best to distance himself from that person. Sherlock would be Sherlock except intensified. He would not respond well to the idea that someone has penetrated his heart without him knowing it. He would hate the fact that he allowed himself to get this way. He would blame the person and do his best to chase them off. He can't have someone distract him.

But God help the poor sucker if they try to use this person to get to Sherlock or even worse, injure or kill them. Sherlock would be very destructive.towards this person, but sadly, to himself as well. Remember the way he reacted when he thought Irene was dead? Mycroft and John would be on alert for danger night as well as make sure Sherlock doesn't try to get himself kill going after them. Conseqences would be very severe. Mycroft has his reasons for telling Sherlock that caring not an advantage.

Well, that's what I think about Sherlock and love. XD

kete · December 28, 2013 10:44 pm

One of the biggest attractions of this show for me is its ambiguity. So, while I love to read all the speculation, I never want to know for sure. Moreover, for to actually decide yes, Sherlock was in love/no, wasn't in love, we would first have to establish what "in love" means at all. Surely it's a different thing for everyone? I see it as individual as fingerprints.

Marva · December 28, 2013 10:53 pm

kete wrote:
One of the biggest attractions of this show for me is its ambiguity. So, while I love to read all the speculation, I never want to know for sure. Moreover, for to actually decide yes, Sherlock was in love/no, wasn't in love, we would first have to establish what "in love" means at all. Surely it's a different thing for everyone? I see it as individual as fingerprints.

Agreed, both the acting and the writing leave so much room for speculation and interpretation. It is amazing!

Last edited by Marva (December 28, 2013 10:54 pm)