Ormond Sacker wrote:

@Willow. Could you please explain what you think, or rather what you think that Sherlock think a country is? Since you keep saying he is a patriot and that he loves his country you obivously know.

 
Actually, I suspect that Sherlock probably has fairly straightforward views on what a country is; he would regard postmodern analysis of cultural identity as being even more useless than knowing that the earth goes round the sun. You are trying to shoehorn your beliefs into his brain when he spends much of his time dumping stuff he deems useless out of his brain; it's both easy and rational to define a country in terms of its physical borders, and the people who hale from within those borders, and Sherlock is a rational person.

For example, I am indisputably English and I was born in the Egyptian desert, where only the Bedouin and the military pitch their tents, or place their buildings; ACD would have had no difficulty slotting me into my place in English society. Of course the RAF did not exist when Sherlock first played the game, but he and the original Dr Watson would have been familiar with women like my mother who believed, until her dying day, that no matter where she was she merely had to speak slowly and clearly and people would understand her; the truly infuriating thing about that was the fact that more often than not she was right.

Sherlock is the quintessential Londoner, and London has always been a multicultural city; now more than ever it includes people from vastly different places and backgrounds. The overwhelming majority of those people have a great deal to lose if parliamentary democracy is destroyed, whether by blowing up their elected representatives or subverting their representatives by blackmail; I am confident that Sherlock agrees with that view. He wasn't just trying to solve puzzles because it amuses him to solve puzzles; he does believe that he is acting in the national interest in preventing those events. The fact that there is also an international benefit in maintaining a democratic form of government here, even with all its imperfections, is undoubtedly icing on the cake.

It is, in my view, irrational to suggest that the plots of two of the three episodes this season just accidentally happened to be about the defence of the realm; the third provides us with our contrasting characters of Sholto and Mary. Sholto's life is threatened because of his actions as an army officer, which John assures us were honourable; Mary's life is threatened because of her actions as an assassin, which she assures us were dishonourable. (There can be no other logical explanation for her statement that John would cease to love her if he knew what she had done.) Sholto is in semi-hiding, Mary has a flimsy new identity; Sholto carries the obvious physical scars of his military service, plus the hidden emotional scars which lead him to believe that his life should come to an end, whereas Mary is convinced that she could and should kill anyone who stands between her and what she wants.

I don't think the juxtaposition of those two characters is an accident either; Moftiss are too good to do things accidentally. Sherlock is able to talk Sholto out of his room and into medical care because he appeals to Sholto's affection and respect for John; he tries to do the same thing to Mary in CAM's office and gets a bullet in his chest. AGRA turns out to be entirely empty of treasure, as it did in the original story, and Sherlock goes into exile from the place and the people he loves most, though, as things turned out, we didn't get the chance to miss him for very long

Interesting point about the significance of the full names.
I was trying to work out if Sherlock was trying to tell John something when he told him his complete name - if the initials spelt out a message.

I guess it's not surprising that Magnussen knows about AGRA... but why in Cyrillic letters? Does this tell us something about Mary's past? If so, what could it be?
Very well spotted, tobe!

Oh, very interesting!  Well spotted!

Warnings....following this up leads to treasure...but also spoiler....it's a bit like walking the plank.

I asked a russian native speaker. I'm aware it's always a problem with translation esp. when several languages are involved, but here is what she said:

... A.G.R.A gave a report/presentation ... (next likely: about the quality)
... illegal preparation ...
... several persons are very sure ...
... if anybody ....

She added that she thinks of A.G.R.A as a company,
and that the report is in her opinion about something really bad or really exciting 

Thanks, tobe, for the new screenshots. They were very helpful! 

Last edited by Harriet (October 11, 2014 2:27 pm)

Bravo! And to me it shows that the creators expect at least part of the audience to be so thorough, elso they would not go to such lengths to hide hints and allusions in the films. 

Ooh.

Her real surname could be Anderson...tee hee!

On the other hand, rightly or wrongly (OK, wrongly) he has rid the world of a dangerous, evil and untouchable blackmailer whom he despised.   Maybe he would still think there is value in that.   I'm reminded of Moftiss saying that they believed Holmes killed Milverton, so saw the character as doing it even without the motivation of protecting Mary.