BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Sherlock and love

Liberty · July 18, 2014 6:55 am

(... and by love, I probably mean sexual, romantic love)

According to the books (and the TV series) Sherlock isn't so much asexual, as avoiding feeling that way about anybody. He says love is a "dangerous disadvantage". He seems to tell himself that love (and sex?) is beneath him. In the book, he believes that it would cast doubt on his clarity of thinking.

But, how does he get that idea in the first place and why does he stick to it so firmly (with only Irene causing any disruption)? I don't really understand that. It's clear from the books that he thinks it would interfere with his brilliant mind ... but is there any evidence that it would? In the scene where Sherlock decrypts the message for Irene, he actually seems to be functioning better than normal, if anything. It's commented that he was much faster with this particular deduction, because he wanted to impress her. The dangerous disadvantage was that he did it without thinking through the consequences or her motives ... and I suppose that helps confirm that feeling that way isn't a good thing. But in terms of cognitive functioning, it actually seems to enhance his mind.

I think that there's a hint of something in the past - why would he be so anti-love without some personal proof that it really was a disadvantage to him? Has he felt something in the past which has caused misjudgments? Or observed it in other people? Only speaking of love "with a gibe and a sneer" suggests some bitterness to me (rather than just an objective decision that it might be disadvantageous for him, so best avoided).

saturnR · July 18, 2014 7:40 am

Both Holmeses feel that way about not just love but all emotions. This is evident in the fact that Sherlock doesn't particularly hate anyone either. He gets annoyed with people, he thinks they're boring but when push comes to shove he doesn't voice any hatred of them in the same way that he never professes love to them. There's two ways of understanding strong emotions such as love & hate: 1. Magical & defining as a human trait; 2. Chemical processes in the mind that's no different to any other process & is not unique to only humans. I believe that Sherlock follows 2.

tonnaree · July 18, 2014 12:09 pm

saturnR wrote:
Both Holmeses feel that way about not just love but all emotions. This is evident in the fact that Sherlock doesn't particularly hate anyone either. He gets annoyed with people, he thinks they're boring but when push comes to shove he doesn't voice any hatred of them in the same way that he never professes love to them. There's two ways of understanding strong emotions such as love & hate: 1. Magical & defining as a human trait; 2. Chemical processes in the mind that's no different to any other process & is not unique to only humans. I believe that Sherlock follows 2.

Which is interesting because their parents seem very warm and loving.

Schmiezi · July 18, 2014 1:30 pm

tonnaree wrote:
saturnR wrote:
Both Holmeses feel that way about not just love but all emotions. This is evident in the fact that Sherlock doesn't particularly hate anyone either. He gets annoyed with people, he thinks they're boring but when push comes to shove he doesn't voice any hatred of them in the same way that he never professes love to them. There's two ways of understanding strong emotions such as love & hate: 1. Magical & defining as a human trait; 2. Chemical processes in the mind that's no different to any other process & is not unique to only humans. I believe that Sherlock follows 2.
Which is interesting because their parents seem very warm and loving.

Absolutely. I have always imagined their parents to be very posh and cold, an idea that is shared in many many fanfics. Now that they are shown as caring and loving, my head canon needs to be re-arranged.
The question of how their sons could turn out to be so much ... well, the way they are, is a very interesting one.

A lovely light · July 18, 2014 2:04 pm

tonnaree wrote:
saturnR wrote:
Both Holmeses feel that way about not just love but all emotions. This is evident in the fact that Sherlock doesn't particularly hate anyone either. He gets annoyed with people, he thinks they're boring but when push comes to shove he doesn't voice any hatred of them in the same way that he never professes love to them. There's two ways of understanding strong emotions such as love & hate: 1. Magical & defining as a human trait; 2. Chemical processes in the mind that's no different to any other process & is not unique to only humans. I believe that Sherlock follows 2.
Which is interesting because their parents seem very warm and loving.

Perhaps just becuase that he received love enough as a kid from his family and their support, he is not longing to have some more to compensate.

Actually i can understand Sherlock a lot. Love do take you away from your concentration, all emotions do, but love and sadness the most. It is nowhere said that he didn't experienced before, maybe it was just a catastrophe and he doesn't want to go through that again.

It could be very difficult to accept a person who is so intelectual oriented (do you think he would go to cinema with his dates? Picknick? He will be so bored, he is so bored at the Christmas party that he ruins for everybody in the room). He isn't a very social persons, likes to be quiet, hates to be interrupted when he thinks, doesn't like to do the chores at home.He is very acid and doesn't think when he opens his mouth that it can be hurtfull. Well, how many persons would like to be in a relationship with him and woudn't run for their life after a while? And how many relationship would work smoothly to don't interfere and bother his work?

I think he was rejected sometimes in the past and decided is better for him to be cold and not hurt anymore... We don't have too many infos about his past, isn't it?

Liberty · July 18, 2014 5:44 pm

Oh, that's interesting. I haven't watched Season 3 yet, and have yet to see the parents. So we're not imagining any childhood trauma that would create this aversion?

Good point about him despising all emotions - I was re-reading that part in A Scandal in Bohemia recently, and yes, although love is singled out for the sake of the story, it's clear that he avoids any extremes.

A Lovely Light, I agree that it's hard to see him in a conventional relationship, but I think I could see him in an unconvential relationship. Maybe a relationship which involves some of the things he likes: excitement, danger, mind games, intellectual stimulation. Maybe with somebody very like himself in some ways. (Or possibly somebody who compliments him - he does seem to like being looked after a little, but that would be a different sort of relationship). I wondered too about something happening in the past ... but I don't see any indication of that at present. (And I think he's detached enough to know that one failed relationship wouldn't mean love itself is a failing.)

As I said, we see his feelings for Irene actually enhancing his performance. And other times when he feels emotion aren't necessarily a problem. He seems to be very affected by Mrs Hudson being harmed, but it doesn't make him any less effective. (Maybe it makes him more sadistic toward the CIA guy, but he doesn't seem to feel that's a failing in himself). He feels fear in HoB, and seems absolutely furious with himself for experiencing it and seeing something that isn't there (hey - two emotions - fear and fury!), but in the end it's his own fear that leads him to the answer. He might well have missed it, if he had been incapable of feeling that emotion. It doesn't even really seem to interfere with concentration (he's still doing his fast-paced deductions).

So on his own experience and evidence (that we see), emotion is not a disadvantage, and can occasionally be an advantage.

Maybe he's just judging from what he sees on his cases and in life in general (lots of cases of love/emotion bringing destruction). But you think he would also see how emotions can be beneficial?

Last edited by Liberty (August 28, 2014 6:08 pm)

besleybean · July 18, 2014 6:18 pm

If the death of Redbeard was the only real emotion he had previously felt...maybe he thinks it's childish?

A lovely light · July 18, 2014 7:51 pm

Or he tryes to be like Mycroft? He admires how smart is Mycroft, perhaps as a kid he wanted to be just like him... I find the discussion about gold fish very interesting not only about what Mycroft says but also what Sherlock says.

Liberty, i totally see him only in a unconventional relationship. But there are less people for such kind of relationship to meet and choose from....

I have actually liked the chemistry between Irene and Sherlock. But i don't see that his abilities were improved, he failed to see how Irene manipulates him for example.

Liberty · July 18, 2014 8:40 pm

Oh, I suppose trying to emulate Mycroft and thinking that emotion is childish could go together! I suppose Mycroft is one of the very few people who are on Sherlock's intellectual level, and is a big brother, so almost bound to be a role model. Thank you . I had to look up Redbeard as I haven't got to series 3 yet (still prolonging the agony ... or enjoying the anticipation!). Bless him. You know, I was thinking a while ago, that Sherlock sometimes seems to be immature in his development - there are aspects of him that seem very young.

What I meant by his abilities being improved was that he seems stimulated by Irene and is performing well. His attraction to her causes an error of judgment (deciphering the code for her), but enhances his intellectual ability (he deciphers it in a few seconds instead of "the full minute" - he, Mycroft and Irene all comment on his speed, which is driven by emotion - a need to impress).

What's funny is that Irene doesn't completely lose through love either - she said that all she wanted was protection and though she loses the phone's protection (and a lot of money, possibly!) she gains Sherlock's protection. In fact, Irene could still have been in love or lust and not chosen Sherlock's name for the code - I love that aspect of it, but it wasn't a given ... I suppose the idea is that in Sherlock's eyes it causes her to make an error of judgment that was out of character for a highly intelligent, calculating woman. It's not a problem with intellectual capacity or deductive powers, but with judgment, decision making and control. Maybe he just has to feel in control?

diva · July 18, 2014 9:34 pm

A lovely light wrote:
Well, how many persons would like to be in a relationship with him and woudn't run for their life after a while?

Well, I can think of at least one person who meets all the requirements... even if that person isn't aware of it (yet).

besleybean · July 18, 2014 9:36 pm

I do think Molly would accept him,,,but it would depend how and if the realtionship developed.
Irene would try to change him..
Well, we all know about Janine!

Ylse · July 19, 2014 12:31 am

Schmiezi wrote:
Absolutely. I have always imagined their parents to be very posh and cold, an idea that is shared in many many fanfics. Now that they are shown as caring and loving, my head canon needs to be re-arranged.
The question of how their sons could turn out to be so much ... well, the way they are, is a very interesting one.

I for one can't go along with the idea that these two nice and ordinary old persons are their real parents. It's very rare for caring and warm parents to have apparently insensitive or asocial children. There is a lot of mimetism in education.
Besides, there is again that conversation about goldfishes, when we learn as well that the brothers spent most of their childhood isolated. Why would this average couple have done that to their children ? By the way, that explains a lot about Mycroft as the "iceman". Because if they waited long enough for Sherlock to be able to remember it before they made him meet other children, and long enough for Mycroft to be able to make comparisons between his intelligence and his brother's before that, it means that Sherlock was at least 4 or 5, and thus that Mycrof was 14 or 15 (it's the age difference between the who actors, and it fits with how they look). So Mycroft spent all this time alone, and apparently he couldn't really bond with his parents. Which for me should mean that either they were not with him at the time, either they were not the two people we have seen as such.
As for Sherlock, he seems to have been raised by Mycroft, more than by anyone else. See the lines "I'll be mother / And there's an entire childhood in a nutshell". Mycroft was even the one who told him tales (disturbing ones) and not his mother. So it explains a lot about Sherlock's problems too. To live isolated and to be raised by someone like Mycroft wouldn't be ideal for a balanced personality.
Where is the true mother ? The one the brothers think that important not to upset, and not the one Sherlock pushes unceremoniously out of his flat when John arrives ? Maybe we'll learn more about their strange family situation later in the series.

saturnR · July 19, 2014 12:46 am

I think we can all agree that Ben's parents are lovely

I don't think it's a sstrange thing to have very loving parents & unemotional children. I am a good example. I am not unemotional but I am a minimalist in terms of expressing emotion to others. I am also not particularly observant so I sometimes catch on people's emotional state more slowly than others. My parents were very loving (& obsessive) when I was a child so I should have grown up to be a drama queen but I'm not. I prefer not to be overly emotional. It also doesn't mean that I don't feel emotions; merely that I suck @ expressing them.

Ylse · July 19, 2014 4:19 am

saturnR wrote:
I think we can all agree that Ben's parents are lovely

I don't think it's a sstrange thing to have very loving parents & unemotional children. I am a good example. I am not unemotional but I am a minimalist in terms of expressing emotion to others. I am also not particularly observant so I sometimes catch on people's emotional state more slowly than others. My parents were very loving (& obsessive) when I was a child so I should have grown up to be a drama queen but I'm not. I prefer not to be overly emotional. It also doesn't mean that I don't feel emotions; merely that I suck @ expressing them.

Of course (and fortunately) one is not supposed to be their parents' clone. To have loving parents doesn't mean necessarily to become very emotional or especially good at understanding people. But would you say that you don't care or realize that the others have feelings ? Being somehow slow at expressing or understanding feelings is not considering all human kind as goldfishes, or telling people rude and hurtful things all the time. Can anyone become like that without any mental illness, if they have been loved in their childhood, with reasonably tactful and caring behaviour in front of them ? I don't think so. Most people share at least one of two characteristics or habits with their folks. In the case of the Holmes brothers and their supposed parents, they just seem not to have anything in common. The couple doesn't even have strong enough features to imagine a reaction against them. On the contrary, Mycroft and Sherlock explain quite well each other. As if they had lived together on a desert island.

Lue4028 · July 19, 2014 6:28 am

I assumed it was Mycroft's influence that caused Sherlock to be so cold and detached. I can imagine what it must have been like to grow up with a sibling like Mycroft. Having an older brother figure like that, the expectations, derision, criticism... There is this element of cruelty - no better word for it- to their relationship.
When Sherlock asks "What am I supposed to say to that?" to Mycroft after he acidentally tells him he loves him, I kind of understood. Love was not a thing. Love was so not a thing it was embarassing to even talk about it. And living with the charade of not having feelings for the entirety of your impressionable childhood... I'm amazed Sherlock still has feelings.
That and genius tends to be a very lonely and isolating thing. If you're not like everyone else then it's very hard to relate to people and build relationships.
Redbeard. Dogs are easy to be honest with, they don't judge you, they don't have to have any interests in common with you to love you. Redbeard may have been Sherlock's only friend..
I thought it was funny that people assumed Sherlock was asexual. Because every male TV character these days acts on sexual impulses and Sherlock didn't, the genius conclusion is he must not have sexual impulses. Granted, he is pretty unusual.. but the expectation that everyone jumps on sexual opportunites is.. rather ignorant.
When a doctor preforms surgery, he or she shouldn't be emotionally involved with the patient. This helps the doctor make unpressured, unbaised, purely rational decisions. Once emotion enters into the fray, logic can be compromised. It seems Sherlock doesn't like that.

Last edited by Lue4028 (July 19, 2014 6:40 am)

besleybean · July 19, 2014 7:39 am

And rightly so.

Germansherlockfan · July 19, 2014 11:34 am

I think this complexity of different character traits and contrariness is it what makes Sherlock fascinating and interesting.
I also was very surprised about his parents, that they were so "normal", lovely and caring, although HLV made at least clear whom the brothers got their extremely high intelligence from.
And with his parents he also had a good role model for a life long romantic relationship, but it´s obviously not something he is looking for for himself. Although he somewhat admitted being lonely and isolated before meeting John and forming a friendship with him. So at least he was searching for a person to connect with, to interact with on a comfortable, trusting and accepting level, even if it was not in a romantic way. Or maybe it was in a romantic, passionate way? I´m still undecided. We clearly were shown in TSoT that Sherlock is capable of emotions, of feeling and giving love, so shouldn´t he also be looking for a person to connect with in an intimate, physical way? Is he somehow surpressing, denying this desire or is he simply not having it? And if it´s the latter, is it a conscious decision to not be distracted from his science? So many questions and so many directions the writers can go into, so far I think there are hints and clues for every possibility, I really hope they will do this series until Sherlock and John are old and grey and all the questions are answered in the end.

besleybean · July 19, 2014 1:40 pm

I think they're all hoping to.

Schmiezi · July 19, 2014 1:41 pm

Germansherlockfan wrote:
So many questions and so many directions the writers can go into, so far I think there are hints and clues for every possibility, I really hope they will do this series until Sherlock and John are old and grey and all the questions are answered in the end.

So say we all!

besleybean · July 19, 2014 1:51 pm

As long as Sherlock doesn't end up in Sussex with Janine.