Interesting questions.

These are some ideas that popped into my head after reading your quires...

2. Why would Sherlock not understand the "sentiment" about not being able to put down your dog when Redbeard is still one of his sore spots?

My take:  Perhaps Sherlock is burying his feelings about Redbeard being put down (thus eliminating that emotional response, and the recognition of it in others, to virtually make room for all of his more important (in his view) items that have to to with his work.  He did access those feeling in HLV because he was in a life or death situation and remembering his attatchment to Redbeard was done to save his own life.

-Val

1. I think it's a trick - we're led into thinking John has PTSD, but actually he misses the danger.   He's dreaming about something that is missing from his life.   It happens again at the beginning of HLV, except that now becomes Sherlock (who meets that need for him) who he's missing. 

3. I don't know, but as it's a life or death situation, it makes sense for him to look at it through Molly's eyes - she's a pathologist, does post mortems and will have seen lots of what killed people - what made the difference between life and death for them.  John's a GP and it's not really his area.  As it's Sherlock's mind palace, I suppose these people aren't there as themselves, but as aspects of Sherlock, and their opinion is what Sherlock thinks their opinion would be.   It's not clear what John did in the army - he may have had experience of gunshots wounds that would be relevant.  However, it would be no use to Sherlock as it's not in Sherlock's mind!  Whereas Sherlock has worked with Molly and talked to her about her work, so putting himself in the position of "how would Molly see this?" might help him to get the view he needs.  Anderson is used to looking at bodies at crime scenes, and his comments are relevant to that (again, it's Sherlock taking Anderson's view).

3. Some ideas on this: I think the the Mind Palace - or we could call it Sherlock's subconscious because this is obviously different from the MP we uses during cases - here consists of several layers or levels or whatever you want to call it. 
He starts on the upper level which is just beneath the surface - Molly and Anderson represent factual knowledge. Molly also stands for trustworthiness and Anderson is the one person who did not know he faked his death and yet believed in him. Not unimportant IMO - John and Lestrade believed he was not a fake but thought he was dead, Molly and Mycroft knew he was alive but Anderson believed in him to the point of obsession. 
The next deeper level shows us Mycroft. At least since TSoT we know that he acts as a sort inner supervisory body whose influence on Sherlock has been formative throughout his youth. On the same level we find Redbeard. Sherlock has suppressed his grief for a long time and only now returns to the happy memories connected with the dog. And on this level we also find Mary, shooting him wearing her wedding dress. No need to go into that here but if there ever was a Freudian hint, we get it here. 
And on the deepest level, even deeper than repressed childhood memories, we find Moriarty in his padded cell. This has been discussed in detail elsewhere. 

So why not John? Because John is more than a medical or forensic expert, he is more than a compass or supervisory body, he is more than a suppressed memory - he is paradoxically on one level with Moriarty. 
Where Moriarty symbolises Sherlock's deepest fears, John stands for the best in him, for the one thing that can bring him back to life. 
Because Molly and Anderson and Mycroft and Redbeard all fail in saving Sherlock's life. Without connecting to his deepest emotions represented by Moriarty and John he would not have been able to come back. 
 

Vhanja wrote:

John might be an adrenalin junkie, but he is also a very goood man. I honestly don't see that he would have nightmares about the war only to start crying because he misses it. (If that was the case, the dreams wouldn't be nightmares). 

John craves danger, that´s true, but at the same time he is a humane, compassionate person. I think he was quite disturbed by the gruesome, cruel nature of the war and by the atrocities he witnessed as a medical man in such conditions. He can´t really cope with things he saw and althrough he surpressed the feelings of disgust while going through such experience, his supressed emotions resurfaced later, through his nightmares and generally made him feel miserable.
 

Vhanja wrote:

Good analysis, SusiGo, it makes sense to me. 

(I would love to read those other analysis of the MP-scene, btw).

Edit:

This got me thinking more about Redbeard. About five years ago, I had to put down my first dog. It was of course devastating, I was crushed and I still miss her. But if someone where to come up to me and say my dog's name ot me, I wouldn't be upset like Sherlock is. The only reason I can think of why someone would be upset just by the name of their dog who died twenty years ago, is if they have suppressed the grief entirely and not dealt with it at all.

If so, that means Sherlock started suppressing his emotions at a surprisingly early age.

I think we are shown that Sherlock has learned from Mycroft to deal with feelings by suppressing them (Caring is not an advantage). From what we learn in TSoT, I assumed that Sherlock was devastated by his dog's death and Mycroft told him to deal with it by avoiding and suppressing sentiment. Sherlock must have been very sad at the time of which Mycroft reminds him during the telephone call using this as a warning with regard to Sherlock's feelings for John. 
Redbeard is the symbol for feelings that are healing/positive and simultaneously hurtful - which is quite typical for every sort of affection. It makes you feel good but can become very painful when you lose the person/animal you love. 
 

Yes, I agree wth that. I just thought you meant he was distressed by dreaming of the war because he missed the war itself. I don't think John is the kind of person who dreams about the horror of war only to cry because he misses that.

1. Sherlock wasn't really that ' inhuman' in Canon, he was just a bit different. I think they will fairly follow that in BBC Sherlock.
2. I've been expecting no 2 to happen for a while and will be frankly disappointed if it doesn't happen. But that largely depends on:
3. The team are a bit tight lipped about the future of Mary...would they keep her in?  I don't know.

Ok, so another one I just remembered:

1. If Sherlock was undercover in the drug den, if he was so annoyed by John ruining his undercover operation - why on earth did he talk to John at all in there? If he had layed low and not said a word, John would never have noticed him.

besleybean wrote:

No I think Sherlock was annoyed about John whinging about his drug use!

Well, he would have known that John would be angry about his drug use.
 

But he wanted his drug habit to be known about, to attract Magnussen.

Sorry, we cross posted!

Last edited by besleybean (December 28, 2014 10:06 pm)