RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

Ormond Sacker wrote:

I read an essay a while back called "Socialising the Psychopath". It was written at a time where we only had season 1, but basically the writer demonstrated the clear psychopathic features that John displayed already then, or rather features of ASPD as it called today. He's not a full blooded one, but he has sides of his character that are similar.

(As an aside, the writer did the same with the Jude Law's Watson.)

I would LOVE to read this article!!!
 

Whether we call it "psychopathy" or not, I think it's a little bit of a problem for any Sherlock Holmes adaptation if John Watson is too similar to Sherlock, particularly in what his flaws are. 

What Sherlock discusses in his best man speech SHOULD be the function of John Watson: a fairly-normal person (albeit willing to be a part of Holmes' work, and usually finding it exciting), who can be something of a role model for Holmes, look after him, and protect Holmes from himself, while also showing Holmes that pure friendship, love (meaning in a platonic sense), and loyalty do exist.

But I don't see THIS John Watson as accomplishing that (and moreover, I don't see much change in Sherlock that relates to John - the biggest change I see is that he's nicer to Molly.)

Think about all the issues John shares with Sherlock: has few friends, or they hate him; he lashes out in anger (some people here say he deals with emotions by repressing them - do those last two contradict each other?); he seems addicted to excitement and danger and not particularly to care about the actual people either; he's certainly willing to kill. After all, a war zone was his "normal" for a long time.

I was surprised Sherlock called him "a romantic" actually.

 

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

Ormond Sacker wrote:

I read an essay a while back called "Socialising the Psychopath". It was written at a time where we only had season 1, but basically the writer demonstrated the clear psychopathic features that John displayed already then, or rather features of ASPD as it called today. He's not a full blooded one, but he has sides of his character that are similar.

(As an aside, the writer did the same with the Jude Law's Watson.)

I would LOVE to read this article!!!
 

Whether we call it "psychopathy" or not, I think it's a little bit of a problem for any Sherlock Holmes adaptation if John Watson is too similar to Sherlock, particularly in what his flaws are. 

What Sherlock discusses in his best man speech SHOULD be the function of John Watson: a fairly-normal person (albeit willing to be a part of Holmes' work, and usually finding it exciting), who can be something of a role model for Holmes, look after him, and protect Holmes from himself, while also showing Holmes that pure friendship, love (meaning in a platonic sense), and loyalty do exist.

But I don't see THIS John Watson as accomplishing that (and moreover, I don't see much change in Sherlock that relates to John - the biggest change I see is that he's nicer to Molly.)

Think about all the issues John shares with Sherlock: has few friends, or they hate him; he lashes out in anger (some people here say he deals with emotions by repressing them - do those last two contradict each other?); he seems addicted to excitement and danger and not particularly to care about the actual people either; he's certainly willing to kill. After all, a war zone was his "normal" for a long time.

I was surprised Sherlock called him "a romantic" actually.

 

I've just finished watching HLV and this struck me too.  On top of that, Sherlock also seems to have more human, caring motivations than John (protecting people actually seems to be quite a strong motivator for Sherlock, although he might not admit that).  Whereas we seem to be told over and over that John is motivated by excitement and danger.  It actually seems to be Sherlock who's the humanising influence sometimes. 

I've been puzzling since the beginning about Sherlock insisting he's a high-functioning sociopath, especially with him saying "Do your research" (when the smallest bit of research would show that he wouldn't have any such diagnosis).  I wondered why he didn't choose something like antisocial personality disorder, if he wanted people to believe him? Is he just trying to be dramatic?  Or giving people a clue that he's not telling the truth?

I think they throw around these terms a bit too carelessly. Personally i wasn't that disturbed by it but i do know people who haven been rubbed up the wrong way by that and think it highly disturbing. Having the impression that people who are different and not too sociable (as Sherlock is) must get tagged with a medical illness term. I do understand that sentiment.

Sherlockismyfix wrote:

We have been given indications that Sherlock had a damaging childhood.

I do think his childhood was damaging, but not abusive What I get from the series three relevations is that Sherlock was badly indulged and spoiled by this mother as a child (Mrs. Hudson pretty much says as much in TSOT when she brings the morning tea). She gave up her career to raise her children and they probably became the centre of her universe (HLV), explaining Sherlock's narcisism. He got used to being catered to and his bad behaviour wasn't punished. So it was a bit of a shock when he got to uni and discovered that he wasn't the centre of the universe and was bullied (TBB).

Mrs. Holmes doesn't expect respect from her boys and that definitely doesn't encourage them to respect others. Lovely as she is, she does have a lot to answer to.

Mary

La Jolie wrote:

Liberty wrote:

I've been puzzling since the beginning about Sherlock insisting he's a high-functioning sociopath, especially with him saying "Do your research" (when the smallest bit of research would show that he wouldn't have any such diagnosis).  I wondered why he didn't choose something like antisocial personality disorder, if he wanted people to believe him? Is he just trying to be dramatic?  Or giving people a clue that he's not telling the truth?

Here's my take on the "high functioning sociopath" issue:

As all fans interested in serious character analysis know by now, there is no such thing as a psychiatric diagnosis called "high functioning sociopath". It has been made up entirely by the writers, and I think it was a wise decision to make something up rather than saddle Sherlock with some existing condition.

Imagine he'd canonically have Asperger's, or Dissocial/Antisocial Personality Disorder (DPD/ASDP), or any other condition from the psychiatrist's diagnosis manual. Putting such an existing psychiatric label on Sherlock would either completely kill the creativity of the show, because it would greatly limit what the character could or could not do (as well as making him boringly predictable), or it would invite huge amounts of criticism both by mental health professionals and real patients for portraying the condition incorrectly/inconsistently/too negatively/too positively/too whatever. Moftiss would really have written themselves into a very tight corner that way and I'm glad they didn't do it.

Then again, another reason why Sherlock has to (claim to) have a condition that does not exist is that Sherlock always has to be unique (both from his own POV and from the audience's). Just like he has to be the "only consulting detective in the world", he also has to have a psychiatric condition that no other human being on earth shares with him. He wouldn't be Sherlock otherwise, and he also would be a lot less fun otherwise.

Now as for why he (or the writers) chose this phantom condition of "high functioning sociopath" and nothing else, the "high functioning" is self-explanatory (as well as correct, as well as cool instead of just sad like most other diagnoses in the textbook), and the "sociopath" was, I think, chosen rather for the connotations of the word than for its actual academic definition.

The way psychiatrists used to use the term "sociopath" (they don't use it any longer) was as a sub-category of DPD/ASPD, meaning the category of patients that had Dissocial Personality Disorder because of "bad" social influences (as opposed to inherent, genetic reasons). Meaning a "sociopath" had been "made mentally ill by society" (e. g., dysfunctional family background, bullying, abuse etc.). It was never used to describe a person that just had problems behaving appropriately in a social situation. The "socio" bit of the term referred to the pathogenesis of the condition (i. e. the cause), NOT to its effects. But this, the latter, is what everybody of course assumes when they hear Sherlock call himself a sociopath, and it probably is what Sherlock/the writers want us to assume, too - that the "socio" bit refers to "being bad at observing social niceties". Which is, of course, exactly what Sherlock is like. (Whether he just can't be bothered or whether he really can't help it is of course still open to debate; I tend towards the former.)

I challenge everyone on this board to tell me truly whether even a single person among you all took the "sociopath" term to refer to the cause of the condition and NOT to the effects. Mental health care professionals excluded.

So I believe that sticking the label "sociopath" on Sherlock was either a misunderstanding on the part of the writers (meaning they, too, thought it referred to the effects and not the cause), or they were deliberately mis-using the term because they assumed it would be understood in a way that suited Sherlock better than the true definition would. (Because, of course, Sherlock does not remotely have DPD/ASDP). Which makes the writers either guilty of sloppy research, which would be disappointng, or guilty of intent to mislead the audience, which would be a severe disservice to our understanding of real mental health problems and patients who suffer from them.

I'm not happy with either explanation but I can't think of a third, and as we all know, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, and so on.


Glad to hear you've seen all the episodes now, Liberty. Looking forward to more good discussions!

This is such a wonderful comment, LaJolie; it really needed to be said. 

Honestly, my suspcion as to whether the writers knew what the terminology actually meant or not, or whether they intentionally mislead the audience (in the name of drama and entertainment)-- I hate to say it, but I suspect they just didn't care about possible implications; they cared about using the label as a dramatic tool, for effect. (Much like Sherlock, himself. )

Did you guys have a look at these two interviews of Moffat where he commets on Sherlock's apparant Sociopathy? Here is an excerpt from Vulture:

...As Moffat puts it, that’s merely Sherlock “bullshitting.” “He always is. He doesn’t think that at all. He doesn’t think any of those things, but he wants to think that he does, just as he wants to think he’s a high-functioning sociopath,” says Moffat. “He’s not a sociopath, nor is he high-functioning. He’d really like to be a sociopath. But he’s so fucking not. The wonderful drama of Sherlock Holmes is that he’s aspiring to this extraordinary standard. He is at root an absolutely ordinary man with a very, very big brain. He’s repressed his emotions, his passions, his desires, in order to make his brain work better — in itself, a very emotional decision, and it does suggest that he must be very emotional if he thinks emotions get in the way. I just think Sherlock Holmes must be bursting!”...

And here's another interview:

..."It’s funny how people are always wanting to prove me wrong on this one. They say: 'But he's not a high-functioning sociopath." I never said he was! Sherlock Holmes tells people he is. Why would you listen to him? Nobody can define themselves. That’s what he’d like people to think he is. And that’s it—and I think he probably longs to be one. I think he loiters around prisons for the criminally insane, envying them their emotional detachment. He knows emotion is a problem to him. A man who has decided to suppress all his emotions in order to be better at what he does clearly has an awful lot of emotion. That’s a very simple deduction. It clearly is a problem for him. So, in itself, that is an emotional decision."...

EDIT: typos

Last edited by tykobrian (August 18, 2014 2:33 am)

Yes, I've read them, and I thought it was generally accepted that it's something he says rather than something he is.   The questions for me are why he tells people something that they will know isn't true.  Along with "do your research" (just in case there was any doubt that he wanted them to find out he was lying.  Anderson would do his research). 

The quotes claim that he aspires to be a sociopath and that's why he claims he is.   I really don't buy that, and actually I think from the other comments about his emotions that La Jolie is right - they just got the definition wrong.  But Sherlock wouldn't.  All this time I've been trying to work out the Sherlocky reasons why he would tell people that, and now it turns out that it's just a writing mistake. I'm disappointed.  But I have to say, there are a few details that are wrong in the series, wonderful as it is.  I think this one grates more because it's Sherlock making the mistake. 

Last edited by Liberty (August 18, 2014 5:53 am)

Well actually now if we think about Sherlock's actions in the series so far keeping Moffat's above commets in mind, quite a lot of things make sence. Sherlock continuously says he's a soicopath as a way of managing others’ expectations and freeing himself from having to change his behavior. Worse than that, though, by series three we see in his best man speech that Sherlock may actually believe he’s as terrible as people seem to think. We've got evidence after evidence throughout the series that Sherlock far from a socippath/psychopath. In fact in ways he is better than the average caring people because he has decided to stay detached because in this way he'll be more focused on helping people in trouble. Another quote from Moffat:

"The frightening thing about Sherlock Holmes is that he has all the impulses that other human beings have; he just suppresses them in order to be a better detective, and it’s in those moments that he doesn’t successfully suppress it that he gets into trouble. He believes that emotion gets in the way of his brilliant brain. On the evidence of the show so far—and in the original stories—he’s completely right. When he gets emotional, he gets blinded."

Here's a nice summary from my favourite Sherlock blogger: 

"Sherlock’s philosophy tends to be this: save lives, unless someone is a murderer or over-the-top slimy like Magnussen (whose actions directly contribute to deaths, like Lord Smallwood’s suicide), in which case they can suffer and rot; it’s reprehensible to protect or work with bad people; it’s a tragedy when innocent lives are lost. It doesn’t bother Sherlock to come across people who are already dead: it’s too late and pointless to deal with sentiment, so focusing on the case is how he “helps” them, by bringing the perpetrator to justice. But Sherlock feels responsible when he fails to save someone’s life, and it effects him heavily. When the old woman gets blown up in The Great Game despite Sherlock solving the puzzle, Sherlock says he obviously lost that round and is still in a bad mood about it the next day: the puzzle wasn’t more important to him than the person he didn’t even know."

But sadly all this is lost to a lot of the audiance and most certainly John. From the get go John and the audience is bombarded with people's remarks (including Sherlock) on sherlock's sociopathy and some apparent first hand evidence. Just look at John's first impression of Sherlock as he writes in his blog: (It's the entry from where Sherlock remarks about his ignorance about the workings of the solar system in TGG)  

… He didn't care about the dead woman or any of the other victims. I suspect if he came back and found me and our landlady lying here with our throats cut, he'd just see it as an intellectual exercise. 'Fantastic' he'd exclaim, rubbing his hands together. 'But the door was locked so how did they kill each other?' The policewoman, she called him a psychopath. That seems harsh and it was hardly a professional diagnosis but I look back at what I wrote about him when I first met him. I called him the madman…

… He just didn't care about being polite or anything like that. I was starting to understand why he didn't seem to have many 'colleagues'. …

… Of course, Sherlock being completely and utterly mad, got into the taxi so he could talk to him. Again, he wasn't interested in the 'rules'. He wasn't interested in how the driver had done all this. I don't think he was particularly interested in stopping him and it didn't even cross his mind to let the police know that the man they were looking for was outside. All Sherlock Holmes was interested in was discovering why the killer had done it. He wanted to be alone with the killer so he could question him. That was more important than anything else - despite the obvious threat to his own life. …

… By the time we got there, I could see that Sherlock was going to take one of the pills. It wasn't because he had to but because it was a game of wits. He wasn't going to let this other arrogant, pompous psychopath win …

And in fact time and time again John misinterprets Sherlock's motives and keeps thinkig he's a psychopath.

A very good example is The Great Game where John totally misses the point even though Sherlock especially explains his motivation: 

(St. Barts)

JOHN: Try and remember there’s a woman here who might die.
SHERLOCK: What for? This hospital’s full of people dying, Doctor. Why don’t you go and cry by their bedside and see what good it does them?
.
.
.
(Sherlock telling Molly that Jim is Gay)

SHERLOCK: ...and I’d say you’d better break it off now and save yourself the pain.
(Molly leaves, hurt)
JOHN: Charming! Well done!
SHERLOCK: Just saving her time. Isn’t that kinder?
JOHN: “Kinder”? No, no, Sherlock. That wasn’t kind!
.
.
.
(Sherlock asking John to deduce things with him from the found shoe)

SHERLOCK: Go on.
JOHN: I’m not gonna stand here so you can humiliate me while I try and disseminate-
SHERLOCK: An outside eye, a second opinion. It’s very useful to me.
JOHN: Yeah, right(!)
SHERLOCK: Really.
.
.
.
(After Sherlock explains the way Konnie Prince was murdered)

JOHN: Hey, Sherlock. How long?
SHERLOCK: What?
JOHN: How long have you known?
SHERLOCK: Well, this one was quite simple, actually, and like I said, the bomber repeated himself. That was a mistake.
JOHN: No, but Sher… The hostage… the old woman. She’s been there all this time!!
SHERLOCK: I knew I could save her. I also knew that the bomber had given us twelve hours. I solved the case quickly; that gave me time to get on with other things. Don’t you see? We’re one up on him!

(after they failed to save the old lady)

JOHN: There are lives at stake, Sherlock – actual human lives… Just - just so I know, do you care about that at all?
SHERLOCK: Will caring about them help save them?
JOHN: Nope.
SHERLOCK: Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake.

And the most prominent is the Van Buren supernova deduction scene. When the countdown starts John and Lestrade, the so-called caring people are busy being shocked and pained while Sherlock immediately focuses on solving the puzzle. Thanks to his focus and detachment the kid was saved.

-----------------------
And as a Johnlocker I'd like to add that John's idea that Shrelock is a psychopath is the main reason he thinks Sherlock will nerver love him romantically. In fact, recently he's become so delusional that he's outright ommitting the obvious evidence that Sherlock is NOT a psycho. Like how he says Sherlock is a psychopath like Mary and says who'd Sherlock bother protecting despite Sherlock unabiguously stating in his best man speech that He loves John the most in the world and in fact Sherlock faked his own death mainly to protect his friends. And in fact the writers have set up the events in a way that John is still confused with Sherlock's motivation while the audiance isn't. Like the big misunderstanding in their reunion in TEH. and how John doesn't know that Sherlock actually never had sex with Janine and was also scammed by her in return. And personally I think John thinks Sherlock killed CAM for Mary because in his mind he's this sick psycho who is attracted to people who hurt him and screw him over just like with Irene. Sherlock remarking his sociopathy and asking John to tell Mary that she's safe now doesn't help matters. But I think Sherlock said those to help john think less of him so that he would be less hurting when Sherlock is ineveitably incarcerated. Like I said, there is a huge misunderstading going on between our leads. And the way the writers had kept us guessing is something remarkable. It's like if one does not look closer they will overlook the things that's actually happening. I'ts really impressive!

Last edited by tykobrian (August 18, 2014 6:53 am)

@Liberty,  I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Just because John is a normal doctor -and not even a psychologist- he’s supposed to look past all the overwhelming evidence of Sherlock’s apparent sociopathy throughout the series? Phychopathy/ sociopathy is not something that can be standardized and easily diagnosed. And it’s not like even psychologists are always on mark. For example think about how John’s therapist couldn’t figure out that John is actually missing the violence of the war.
 
But anyways, I digress. When I say that John thinks Sherlock’s a psychopath he’s actually focusing on these traits which come to think of it are rather psychopathic:
 
Superficial charm: A lot of times John has remarked that Sherlock is charming when he wants to be.
Grandiose sense of self-worth and arrogance: Check!
Need for stimulation/ proneness to boredom: Check 
Disregard for social norms and rules: Check! 
Adept ability to lie and manipulate: A lot of times Sherlock has manipulated people in front of John for his cases. Most prominent is Janine’s seduction where he wrongly believes all the awful things in the papers. 
Lack of empathy for others: Well I’ve explained that in my previous post.

So form the get go John gets the overwhelming evidence which to tell the truth even matches the psychopathy diagnosis checklist thingy. Yes John does get some hints that something might be off but frankly the evidence that convinced the audience that Sherlock is nothing like a sociopath happened away from John’s eyes and knowledge. And like I argued before John had been pining for Sherlock from the start but time and time again he sees that Sherlock appears to have no feelings. And now that John is trying to move on (TEH) with Mary he can’t think of Sherlock like that anymore. But still he can’t resist him. It is evidenced by how he went to see Sherlock the very next day he crashed his proposal to Mary and appeared make fun of his two long years of pain. On the other hand, we see him staying away from Mary for months for her shooting Sherlock. And notice how he’s horrified to learn of Mary’s past because he’s apparently fallen for one psycho for another. And yes like you said he knows he's attracted to dangerous people and he wanted to avoid it, and again that's why he's devastated because Sherlock tells him he chose Mary because he unconciouly picked her for her psychopathic traits.
 
Anyways, long story short – there is evidence from the beginning that Sherlock is a sociopath to begin with and since John wants to stop being in love with someone who he thinks will never ever return his feelings and thus latches into the very first “evidence” of his psychopathy and overlooks the seemingly obvious to help lessen his heartache and get over him.
 
Forget John, I myself was convinced Sherlock had psychopathic traits until I watched season 1 and 2 a few times, especially TRF. And unlike John, I had the chance to watch episodes over and over again and discuss and analyze the show with others. Now I’m convinced it’s a deliberate set up from the writers as an obstacle between our leads.

Last edited by tykobrian (August 18, 2014 8:10 am)

@Liberty Well the series is hardly over so I see this huge misunderstanding between the leads as an obstacle that will gradually clear. And since both of those two have problems dealing with emotions unless they absolutely have to, it’s inevitable that misunderstandings will take a long time to resolve and only when both of them is willing. And like you said John doesn't want to see the good traits of Sherlock anymore because like I said he thinks he has to in order to preserve his sanity and keep his mind focused on his relationship with Mary. For a brief period he considers sherlock's good side but at the very next indication of the contrary he jumps back to the Sherlock-is-a-psycho camp. From his many blog posts we see that although Sherlock was probably the only one he really clicked with and had a good life, his apparant psychopathic behavior pains and alarms him and many times he said it’s unhealthy for him and in the TEH blog entry he even says that Sherlock is like a drug to him which he really should stay away from but he just can’t. But we’ve seen some progress in Series 3. Sherlock unambiguously told John in front of 101 people that he loves him the most in the world. Now John needs some strong demonstrative proof or counter evidence to let go of his long held misconception of Sherlock’s mental state.
 
And about the diagnosis you mentioned, well say at one point John gets alarmed with everybody's warning and Sherlock's alarming behavior and secretly tries to do some research if he's actually a psycho so he won’t be murdered in his sleep or something. Maybe at first he'd Googled characteristics of psychopath or characteristics of high functioning sociopath. Then like myself he'd compare Sherlock's traits to the sociopathy/psychopathy checklist, which unfortunately apparently completely matches with it. And speaking of the exact term ‘high functioning sociopath’ I’ve always seen John use the term psychopath to describe Sherlock in the show and the blog. To John his traits matches with psychopaths so what else there is to do. Maybe John thinks Sherlock calls himself a sociopath because he can’t deny the psychopathic traits he apparently obviously possesses but tries to lessen the effect lest people get alarmed and take actions to institutionalize him or something. Anyways, the thing is John always labeled him a psychopath when taking about his alarming traits.
 
And in case of the audience maybe the showrunners deliberately used an obscure term so that viewers see something is amiss when doing their research. God knows they were pretty determined to insert all the psychopathic traits in Sherlock at the beginning so they needed another way to create suspicion. It’s good that you found something was odd pretty quickly because in my case I was further confused as I had read that people had diagnosed the canon Sherlock as a sociopath. So in my case the research actually misguided me as I thought the showrunners were merely following the canon. And I think that’s something of a trademark in Sherlock. Nothing is what it seems and to get the entire truth one must check if the things being said or shown is actually completely supported by evidence within the show, as Moffat says so in this interviews. It’s like one have to deduce like Sherlock to reach the truth. BBC Sherlock is his own person and I should’ve tried to look for clues to his actual mental state from the show itself.

Last edited by tykobrian (August 18, 2014 2:49 pm)