But hang on, we need to see things as a whole.
I always found canon SIB problematic as I could neither perceive nor accept Holmes having any strong feelings for Irene and the jury was firmly out on that one, for me.
I never wanted BBC Sherlock to cover the story, for the same reasons, but I knew they would- they just wouldn't pass on that chance.
I really didn't want to believe there was anything between Sherlock and Irene and I honestly could've gone with that right up to the end...and even then, I still find some of the Sherlock team's views hard to take. But the point is, they wrote an episode to show Sherlock dealing with love and it was Irene(The Woman) they chose.
But anyhow, regardless of what any of us think about that, Sherlock and Irene aren't together. Though obviously she's in hiding and Sherlock occasionally thinks of her...but only when relevant.

I wasn't saying anybody didn't.
Incidentally, communication is made very difficult if we can't say what we really feel or think.

besleybean wrote:

But of course BBC Sherlock is based on canon and Holmes and Watson do not end up together.

For a possible explanation why they did not "end up together" (at least not in a way that each and everybody can see it, in spite of the subtext), may I quote your own words:

That's because she was Victorian and cast in the role of all Victorian ladies.

ACD and who could still have shown them sharing digs or what?

A love story does not need to have a happy end to be a love story.
Anyway, you gave a very good answer why it didn't happen to be shown as an explicit love story.
Because of the time and culture of those days.

That's too easy since he didn't have the choice to write it explicitly as a love story.
But he put lots of allusions in it that would not have been necessary if he didn't have a love relationship in mind. Like certain key words for those who know the code. Nobody urgently needs Turkish Baths, shared bedrooms plus swelling buds in a detective novel.
And no, this is no request for explanations why they don't have to be Johnlock - the question is rather: Does the story work without these details? Would Sherlock Holmes still be a great detective without his and John Watson's weakness for isolated corners in Turkish Baths ?
And IF so, why are they still there, the buds, the baths, the bedrooms?

Harriet wrote:

That's too easy since he didn't have the choice to write it explicitly as a love story.
But he put lots of allusions in it that would not have been necessary if he didn't have a love relationship in mind. Like certain key words for those who know the code. Nobody urgently needs Turkish Baths, shared bedrooms plus swelling buds in a detective novel.
And no, this is no request for explanations why they don't have to be Johnlock - the question is rather: Does the story work without these details? Would Sherlock Holmes still be a great detective without his and John Watson's weakness for isolated corners in Turkish Baths ?
And IF so, why are they still there, the buds, the baths, the bedrooms?

 
Good points, Harriet

No reason at all:
Except one of them appears straight and the other disinterested.
Gosh, people really think John does't know his own self.

So he marries a woman he doesn't love when he really wants to be with Sherlock?

He marries a woman who seems to promise a secure, normal life as opposed to what he had with Sherlock and what ended in heartbreak and felt betrayal. Which is, I think, quite an understandable reason to marry. And maybe he loves her. There are people who love both women and men. 

The tragedy is of course that being married to Mary is even worse than being betrayed by Sherlock. 

Thank you, tonnaree. 

Last edited by SusiGo (December 20, 2015 5:25 pm)