"Mor" is often an inference to "Morte" in made up names, it seems, which is a further inference to bad people.  Voldemort, Mordrid, Morgana,

There is a fascinating essay by Michael Walsh, included in the Sherlock Holmes in America anthology, about how everyone in canon with "Mor" in their name (representing a particularly ethnicity, Irish, I think), in canon, is evil: Moriarty and Moran, of course, but he also includes....

MORSTAN: and he makes the following statements:

Mary Morstan is"the good side of Colonel Moran"

When Watson marries Mary, Holmes' world is shattered.

Mary is Holmes' most deadly enemy, against whom he is most powerless

Mary's death brings Holmes back to life. He's not saying Mary is meant to be an evil or unsympathetic character, just that she is Holmes' enemy. (Again, this is from canon - Watson has been married in canon for about two years before Holmes disappears, and Mary passes away during the Hiatus.)

Walsh never uses a word like "homoerotic," but what can he be saying, besides, that the worst thing an enemy can do to Sherlock Holmes is to deprive him of Watson?

The use of the word "shattered" echos the Decoding the Subtext blog on Holmes' reaction when Mary agrees to marry Watson: his heart is broken. It's like Walsh knows Holmes is in love with Watson - without knowing he knows that!

This is really fascinating. Thanks for pointing this out. So one could say that Moffat only carries this view to extremes by making Mary a "villain" who very nearly kills Sherlock?

I think the homoerotic slant has more to do with the leanings of the writers than anything else.

Pretty sure in Victorian times, fraternal love was held to a higher calling that it is today, particularly with female companionship much more tightly nailed down than by today's standards.  How that played out in day to day life, I can't say, but it's pretty easy to see that a gay writer would latch onto this and put their own slant on it, even if it's for comedic affect.

I've not read the original Holmes canon, so I don't know how it's played out in print.  If Holmes is as awkward and isolated in the original stories as he's made out to be in this rehashing, it's not too hard to see that he might be quite upset at losing his anchor to society, without there being any homoerotic intent.

The homosexual jokes in the new series worked precisely once.  Now it is way overdone.

Did they have to wear those HATS though?

Not that there's anything funny about Mary shooting Sherlock, but if you think about it,  it's almost a pun on what Johnlockers would say, or what the Walsh essay said: 

Mrs. Watson shatters Sherlock Holmes' heart. / almost kills Holmes (insert other metaphor for emotional pain.)

(I once heard one of my English professors explain dreams as puns - he gave the example of a dream where somebody you over gossiping about you literally bites you in the back. Or like when you feel overwhelmed by work or something, and you dream that you're being pulled under water or a pile of something.)

Walshes essay is fascinating....how he connects Mary with Moran...calling her 'the good side of Col. Moran ' and saying Holmes is powerless against her...and the Irish thing.....!.
Don't believe in coincidence and the American chronicles book was quite popular with SH fans.

Last edited by lil (January 24, 2015 5:01 pm)