But is it really all about what individuals 'see'?
When we have been told what something is.
See the thing is, I'm constantly being told by people to stop the fun of 'Johnlock'.
This is wrong on so many levels, but suffice to say I don't...
The issue is(as Ian Hallrd so elpquently pointed out), is that some people actually believe it's true.
Which I agree, on the world scale events is no big thing and doesn't matter anyway.
But I also say again:
1.  It's just a bit of fun in the show.
2.  We are never going to see any real Johnlock in BBC Sherlock.

Anyway, I dispute that people are really seeing this, I tend to think it's projection.
Which again, nobody would have any issue with- enjoy it...but it's no real.
Oh and I know it's all fiction and a TV show.
But it's a TV show written as bromance(not romance), with 2 men who love each other deeply and forever.
That for me is the most precious thing of all and should not be lost in an over romanticised/sexualised world.
So refreshing to haver a TV series that doesn't have the leads romantically involved.
Another point: if fans choose not to 'read around the subject'. as it were.  That is entirley their choice, but they may have to accept that those who have could possibly hold a bit more information.
Final point: I'm not askig anybody to believe anything I say for myself. I am just pointing out what actirs and writers have stated and I both trust them and think they do a brilliant job..
 

Last edited by besleybean (March 26, 2014 7:31 am)

We crossd posted.

besleybean wrote:

Final point: I'm not askig anybody to believe anything I say for myself. I am just pointing out what actirs and writers have stated and I both trust them and think they do a brilliant job..
 

I agree that they do a brilliant job, but I still say: I don't need anyone to tell me or explain to me what I see or what I don't see when I watch a tv show or a movie or a play on stage or any kind of art, for that matter. That's what art is all about, at least in my opinion: it's open to interpretation, everyone can enjoy it in a different way and find different things in it.
I actually think it would be very boring if everything was absolutely straightforward and all we could do would be to agree on everything and say "Yes, yes, that's the way it is".
 

besleybean wrote:

Anyway, I dispute that people are really seeing this, I tend to think it's projection.

Btw, I saw this (really) before I even knew that there's a word for it, before I had anything to do with fandom, fanfic or whatever.

And I will never understand why we always have to put bromance and romance into some kind of contest. Is bromance automatically better than romance? Romance (and yes, also sexuality) can have involved the deepest and most beautiful bromance and friendship. It is possible to have one without the other, but it's also possible to have both at the same time, with the same person.

Susi, I see that we can only agree to agree on that.

Is it allowed to thud in here?

Susi, please feel free to thud anytime you like!

Aytoun, I could say now that BBC Sherlock isn't over yet and there's more to come, but just like you I am sure that they won't go there, for whatever reasons. And part of me says "That's fine", another part of me says "But why the hell not?!".
Then again, what I do indeed see and feel when I watch the show is so much more than I ever would have expected when I started watching it last year. These two guys have an unbeatable chemistry, and I don't care if that's just accidental or not, or if that's just meant to be the chemistry of a deep friendship or not... I see it all, right there.

Zatoichi, you made some very valid points. But let me start with the one that to me is the least convincing: Johnlock is not Canon. Now, I am far from being an expert when it comes to Canon and you may correct me if I'm wrong, but after what they did with Mary in S3 I'm inclined to say that anything goes. As far as I know Mary in Canon is anything but an ex-assassin-Sherlock-killing woman. So they took a character from Canon and turned her into something different. A lot different, if you ask me. I honestly can't see how turning Sherlock and John into a romantic couple would be so very different from that, especially considering the fact that we're almost there already. Well, maybe not 'almost there', but we already made one or two steps into that direction. In comparison, turning Mary into a killer in HLV was probably far more surprising than it would be surprising if they gave us Johnlock in S4 or later on.

Then of course you talk about what the perception would be. I guess that depends a whole lot on how you do it. If you only do it for the sake of a statement, as you mentioned, it wouldn't even convince me and I wouldn't really want to see it. Of course you'd have to find a way to convincingly and logically integrate it into the story, you'd have to go there step by step. They could pull this off if they really wanted to and make it so much more interesting and even inevitable than we've seen it on so many other (boring) tv shows. 
BUT: I'm sure they won't do it - and I'm fine with it. I'm just tired of repeatedly saying (almost apologetically) that I don't need to see it on the show and that I'm fine with reading tons of Johnlock fanfic. Because the truth is: I wouldn't mind seeing it on the show, if brilliantly executed.

SusiGo wrote:

@Zatoichi: I think it would be terribly sad if showing them in a love/sexual relationship would incite hatred, disgust or other negative feelings from fans. I really thought we had moved on. I am not saying that it is going to happen in the show (I mean, who ever knows what they come up with next?) but I would be more than okay with it. 
And as for canon - I suppose you know what ACD himself said when someone asked his permission for an adaptation: "Kill him, marry him, do whatever you like with him." And since the Johnlock idea is not new, it would not be really farfetched. 

I agree with you as well as with the points that Solarsystem makes in her post. BBC Sherlock is often a long way from canon, their take on Irene Alder being another example of moving the goalposts a long long way.  Johnlock could be made believeable on screen built on the foundations they've already laid if they decided to go down that route. I also think that a gay hero could be acceptable to the public (look at Torchwood) and that we have moved on a lot in recent years. For example a gay peck on the cheek kiss in the BBC soap opera Eastenders in the 1980's caused outrage, but a recent full-on gay snog shown before the watershed resulted in two complaints out of an audience of about eight million. The times they are a changing and maybe Sherlock should change with them. I think it could be a very postive portrayal and at the end of the day I'm a hopeless romantic. I don't want to see sexual scenes, but love and romance is a different thing entirely.

In the end I feel rather let down because they haven't done it after all the hints and so-called jokes in the first two series. And don't tell me that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously they knew exactly which fire they were playing with.

 

Last edited by Aytoun (March 26, 2014 3:29 pm)

@Solar: You are right, it wouldn´t directly contradict canon (except for the fact that Watson married a second time after Mary died). And if brillantly executed I wouldn´t mind seeing it, too!  But I confess it would be hard for me to give up my image of Holmes/Sherlock as unattached genius, being a stranger to all these little problems being in a relationship brings about.. I can´t really explain why but for me it´s part of the attraction. 

​Which brings me to the negative reactions I mentioned.. I guess except for some hopeless homophobes they would rather come from the fact that Sherlock has a relationship at all - I had in mind how Twitter exploded when people thought he was in a relationship with Janine when I was writing my post. But maybe it would be different with John..^^

Last edited by Zatoichi (March 26, 2014 3:31 pm)