It was also a bit public, neither accepting it really was goodbye...
I thought Sherlock may actually be going to tell John about Irene.

Ozma wrote:

shezza wrote:

I think that by HLV John has completely forgiven Sherlock. His composed reaction at the goodbye scene I think is due to three things:

a) he's a married man with a kid on the way. Like y'all are saying, he's moved on. He has other responsabilities now, and he has "a new game" to play (namely fatherhood). It's Sherlock who hasn't moved on (how could he?).

b) He doesn't know Sherlock's in mortal danger. Even if Sherlock outright tells him it's unlikely they'll ever see each other again, that must be small fries in comparison with the grief he felt after he saw his best friend jump to his "death" two years earlier. He's probably thinking that Sherlock will reappear, like he always does.

c) There's his wife and Mycroft looking on.

I think the fact that Mary, and especially Mycroft are there looking at them is one of the main things for John. As we've seen in TEH, in the underground scene, John found it hard but still forced himself to say the words he wanted to say to Sherlock - because they were alone. So much so that he even made him swear not to tell anyone once he found out they were safe.

At the airport they are not alone, and even though probably Mary and Mycroft are unable to hear them, they can still see them and this is a problem for John.

 

In a lot of ways John is even more emotionally stunted than Sherlock. With very few exceptions, his emotional range seems to be humor, irritation and anger. Boy, can he do anger. But those are emotions hetero males are allowed to freely express in our culture without any implication of Teh Gay. Because God knows, John is not even the slightest bit gay. Nope, not a bit, because he'll be sure to tell you, and, oops, here comes that irritation again!
 

Sherli Bakerst wrote:

Well, yeah!    John has lots of friends--well, people he knows and can hang out with...he's "normal," to all outward appearances, anyway.  But Sherlock only has one friend: John.  So the gap in his life caused by Sherlock's absence, while devastating at first, eventually dulled and can be filled in a way by being around other people he gets along with.  But Sherlock doesn't have other people he can hang out with, so he feels the absence of John more deeply.  That's why Sherlock shows emotion in the farewell scene but John doesn't.  Sherlock needs John but John doesn't need Sherlock to be happy.

There is a similar observation regarding their counterparts in canon.This makes Sherlock Holmes' character more poignant.

Last edited by holmes23 (January 15, 2014 2:17 pm)

silverblaze wrote:

Ozma wrote:

I agree. It's fascinating to me how Sherlock seems fairly at ease with expressing emotions through crying - which for male heroes in particular (but also for females) is one of the biggest signs of weakness. He still doesn't appear weak, let's make it clear, but he doesn't seem afraid to show tears, or red eyes.

john, instead, fights it constantly. Like he fights all other 'weak' emotion - ie. the desire to hug Sherlock

Yes, but, to be fair, he believed he was gonna die. 
 

no absolutely. But John also believed he was going to die, and still didn't cry, or at least not as openly as him.

I think this too.

I just assumed CAM had ways of finding  out...ooh, from Richard Brook's article?!

How is it that Sherlock is not one of John's pressure points?

LoveBug54 wrote:

How is it that Sherlock is not one of John's pressure points?

That is exactly my big problem... So sad. I don't like john in HLV. So distanced...

What's so difficult about this? CAM wanted to get to Mycroft. He worked out that Sherlock was his pressure point. In order to blackmail Sherlock he looked for his pressure point and found it with the bonfire scene. John. Then he looked at John, and found his assassin wife. 

Redbeard was there for the creep factor. Imagine how you'd feel if a supervillain knew such a personal and painful childhood memory of yours. Yuck.