SusiGo wrote:

My problem is this. I think there is still a lot to discuss but whenever I give it a try, I mostly get answers like "I am satisfied", "The show is over", "Everything has been explained" or "This is just bad storytelling" (from the disappointed). This can be quite discouraging. 

Me too. Maybe those who think there is nothing left to discuss could state it only once per discussion thread so the rest can engage in a discussion anyway. :-)

nakahara wrote:

Schmiezi wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

I just realised that Sherlock and Eurus are the only ones who ever talk about Victor Trevor. Neither Mycroft, nor their parents or John or the police or anyone else. A little boy died and no one thinks it necessary to even mention this. Always provided, of course, that anything of all this is real. Which I do not think it is. I would really like to hear an explanation in case the whole Victor scenario was real. Why is the end so hurried? Why is a dead little boy never mentioned by anyone save Sherlock and Eurus? 

I never realised that. I thought Mycroft was talking about him too, but he only hinted at Redbeard being important.

A very good point. Considering the irreal atmosphere of "The Final Problem" and the emphasis on Redbeard being a dog in S3, I am not all that convinced that Victor ever was real, tbh.
 

Like Mycroft really hinted at a dog in S3?

I think it's difficult to be sure without knowing when the writers planned what.  They've given some hints ... and I suspect they planted some seeds, planning to follow up later, but not necessarily having a concrete plan.   So Redhead may well have been a dog when originally conceived.    But I remember people (myself included) thinking that maybe that wasn't enough to traumatise somebody so much.  Even though I liked the idea of Sherlock being super-sensitive and being more traumatised than other people by the death of a family pet!  

I still get the feeling that during S3, Redbeard may still have been a dog.  Why would Sherlock talk about him being put down?  Nobody would have put a child down, so where did he get that memory from?  He doesn't think of the dog disappearing, or dying, so much as specifically being put down. 

So maybe Redbeard the boy hadn't quite taken hold in the writers' joint imaganation yet.  Please correct me if there is a point which proves this wrong - the longer I get away from watching the episodes, the more I forget! 

I listened to some of the Breaking Bad podcasts recently - brilliant writing, but a lot of it apparently not planned out.   They flung out ideas based on what had gone before and saw what worked.   There may have been a bit of that with Sherlock too. 

Liberty wrote:

I think it's difficult to be sure without knowing when the writers planned what. 

I think that what the writers had decided and when is not the most pressing concern here. I mean we are not playing "Guess their intentions" but we take a text and see what we can make of it.

Edit: Oops, forgot the quote. Sorry.

Last edited by Schmiezi (July 3, 2017 8:20 pm)

In the shooting script to HLV Mycroft doesn't say "the other one". He says "our sister".
 

So they decided to keep us hanging...
Good thing, too. IMHO.

Indeed, but he never mentioned it was a dog.

I love that thought, nakahara. That would be in character for Eurus.

To me Victor fits in with Sherlock losing the one friend he had and then in TFP him trying to save his one friend, with Eurus being the key in both cases.
They make it faitly explicit:  Victor is shown down the well and then John.
I mean apart from giving us subtitles in flashing lights, not sure what else they could do....
It;s almost as though Redbeard was a red herring!

Vhanja wrote:

I assume that Mycroft, and probably Mummy and Daddy Holmes, confirmed the Victor story to Sherlock afterwards.

We can presume that but the fact is, we never see them commenting on it. Sherlock´s mother tears into Mycroft for deceiving them, but nobody ever mentions Victor and his fate anymore, showing how unimportant he is for them - which would be weird if Victor was a boy, but no so much, if he was a dog Redbeard.
When Mycroft describes the history of Eurus to Sherlock earlier, he hears the dog barking and sees Eurus with a dog in his mind. Since this is not Sherlock´s memory, he should see how this really happened, because he was not the one with the altered memory, was he?

According to a transcript from Ariane de Vere:

MYCROFT: You do remember her, in a way. Every choice you ever made; every path you’ve ever taken – the man you are today ... is your memory of Eurus.
(Sherlock slowly turns his head away. Mycroft looks down as if something has caught his attention.
Without transition his feet are now on a pebble beach. He stands, outdoors somewhere, and straightens up as a dog barks nearby.)
MYCROFT: She was different from the beginning.
(Some distance away a young girl, maybe six years old, wearing a blue and white dress and a knitted oatmeal-coloured cardigan and with her hair tied into bunches either side of her head, stands watching an Irish setter trotting through the shallows of the river.)

How could he see Redbeard in his memories if Redbeard was only Sherlock´s hallucination?

And what is the meaning of the later Mycroft´s tale, if Redbeard is not a dog?

ADULT SHERLOCK: He was my dog.
(Young Sherlock runs across the meadow. We see his pirate hat in close detail for the first time: it’s a very deep blue, almost the same colour as the Coat he will wear in the future, and it has dark red bands sewn down it.)
MYCROFT (turning to watch the youngster): Eurus took Redbeard and locked him up somewhere no-one could find him.
YOUNG SHERLOCK (calling out): Redbeard!
MYCROFT: ... and she refused to say where he was.
(Young Sherlock has run into woodland and heads for a wooden bridge across a stream, still calling Redbeard’s name.)
MYCROFT: She’d only repeat that song; her little ritual.
(Young Sherlock leans over the bridge, still calling out.)
YOUNG SHERLOCK: Redbeard!
MYCROFT: We begged and begged her to tell us where he was.
(In 221B’s living room, Sherlock looks away as if he is remembering.
In the woods, young Sherlock trudges back the way he came, still calling out.)
MYCROFT: ... but she said ...
YOUNG EURUS’ VOICE (offscreen, in an intense whisper): The song is the answer.
MYCROFT: But the song made no sense.
(In flashback, young Eurus sits at the kitchen table and sings sarcastically across it to Sherlock.)
EURUS: ♪ ... brother, and under we go. ♪
SHERLOCK (in 221B, turning to Mycroft): What happened to Redbeard?
MYCROFT: We never found him. But she started calling him “Drowned Redbeard,” so we made our assumptions. (To John) Sherlock was traumatised. Natural, I suppose – he was, in the early days, an emotional child; but after that he was different, so changed. Never spoke of it again. In time, he seemed to forget that Eurus had ever even existed.

Notice how Mycroft never speaks about his family contacting the police over the disappearance of Redbeard. If Redbeard was really a boy, it would be unimaginable to not contact the police over his absence, but according to Mycroft´s tale, nobody ever contacted them. Thus it seems, Redbeard was really a dog.
 

Last edited by nakahara (July 4, 2017 3:23 pm)