Sherlock uses John's fear of being alone against him when he threatens him to send him away to Baskerville on his own. Just to manipulate John to pass him the cigarettes.

 

From a psychological point of view one might say that you hate things in another person that you don't like in yourself either.

Well, for me the truly distressing similarity runs between CAM and Mycroft, Sherlock - CAM affinities don't go beyond superficial ones.

miriel68 wrote:

Well, for me the truly distressing similarity runs between CAM and Mycroft, Sherlock - CAM affinities don't go beyond superficial ones.

I agree.

Concerning Sherlock villains, it is heavily implied in the story that Sherlock is a bit similar to Moriarty and that he feels an uneasy fascination with Moriarty as a result. In the depths of his Mind Palace Sherlock has Moriarty′s image, bound and chained, locked in a padded room, as a reminder of his own criminal tendencies that are kept in check by his strong will. As an audience, we are constantly aware of something disturbing that bounds those two geniuses together.

No such thing exist between Sherlock and CAM. Few similarities aside, there is no affinity between them – when on screen, they are like two polar opposites and nothing really connects them.
 

 

And don't forget Irene. I don't know how much sexual attraction Sherlock was feeling but he certainly didn't show the revulsion toward her that he did toward CAM (there was some suggestion he had to fight hard to not let her seduce him), yet she had a rather similar M.O. to CAM - and rather similar motivation, in that she was all about power.

Also, I didn't think CAM's shooting was actually much of a stretch beyond other things Sherlock, John, and Mycroft have done (or had ordered), and yet it was treated as some big crossing of a line.

Last edited by SherlocklivesinOH (April 6, 2014 1:35 am)

I've been thinking about this lately.

When Sherlock, in HLV, expresses his hatred for Magnussen (in his Christmas conversation with Mycroft outside their parents' house), he says he hates him "because he attacks people that are different and preys on their secrets". And the way he says it and the way we all love him anyway, of course we feel that that's a knight in shining armour speaking up in defence of all the defenceless and innocent.

But then isn't that exactly what Sherlock does himself, or used to do?

The similarity really doesn't stop at "both manipulate people for their own ends". I really feel that while Magnussen's ends are always despicable (gaining power and political influence, making money from his papers) and include a great deal of perverse voyeurism on his own part, too, Sherlock's ends are not always so much purer.

It's part of the attraction of Sherlock as a character that he believes to a shocking extent that the ends justify the means. Like drugging John in THOB to test the effect of the drug; like drugging his entire family (and pregnant Mary!) to get away from the Holmes' house in HLV.

Usually the ends are noble, so we readily forgive him. But they aren't always. Sometimes he just does it because he's lazy or because he wants to look smart. And it's particularly the really below-the-belt comments, the really insufferable intrusions into people's privacy, that tend to have no noble end in view at all.

Couldn't he have got into the Lauriston Gardens house in ASIP without publicly humiliating both Anderson and Sally with his way-below-the-belt comments about their affair?

Couldn't he just have shut up about Molly dressing up for the Christmas party in ASIB?

Couldn't he have got into the engagement restaurant in TEH without intruding on the waiter's pregnant wife's privacy by commenting on the state of her labour?

None of this was justified in terms of helping solve a crime or save a life.

And I find it slightly disturbing how much fun he thinks it is. Is that so much better than Magnussen taking disgusting pleasure in knowing people's most intimate secrets? If this isn't prying on people and preying on their secrets for your own satisfaction, what is?


So when Sherlock expresses his disgust at that sort of thing in HLV, is he aware of the fact that he does it himself at times? Or has he consciously decided to stop doing that sort of thing, and instead starts to actively fight his former tendency when he sees it in other people? (As converts often do...) Or is it a big inconsistency in his character?

 

Last edited by La Jolie (August 30, 2014 11:37 am)

Be wrote:

Sherlock uses John's fear of being alone against him when he threatens him to send him away to Baskerville on his own. Just to manipulate John to pass him the cigarettes.

 

John has a fear of being alone??? Since when?