Edit:

Apologies this is so very long, also I have a weird writing style which is rather... direct? So apologies for that in advance. It's a hidden puzzle analysis btw.

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This is a meta analysis based upon what we know about Janine from all the times we've seen her. It does some decent focus on TAB though.

Janine what do we know about her.

She was first introduced as the Maid of Honour at the Watson wedding.
She gets acquainted with Sherlock as the Best Man, they share a secret dance (mainly because Sherlock doesn't want to make himself look a tit even though he's a great dancer. Funny aloof boy.)
They don't go home together.
Fast-forward a month and they appear to be dating.
It turns out he's exploiting the fact she works for Charles Augustus Magnussen.
After he's shot she sells the story of their sordid sex life to the tabloids and with the proceeds buys a cottage on the Sussex Downs with beehives she plans on removing.
Except, it's all a lie they never actually had sex.
They part of reasonable terms but with Janine telling Sherlock they could have been friends and that she knows what kind of man he is.

Now moving to her role in Sherlocks drug fuelled epic Mind Palace hallucination.

She is one of "Emilia Riccoletti's Friends"

She gets a nice little line about Sir Eustace being a brute too.
As well as I think being the bride who tells Sir Eustace he will die tonight but her face is less recognisable in that whiteface than the profile 'Hooper'
And Sherlock gets fluffing his obviously well rehearsed speech about "All the women I-we have wronged."

Whoops? Bit of guilt there 'Sherl'?

So that's her only connection to TAB right nothing to see here...

Well...

No.

Remember this show is written by two guys who really love a puzzle.

Firstly the show is called 'The Abominable Bride' There are some great meta links here to Mary but we'll do those another day.

Janine said yes to Sherlock.

In her mind she was going to be his bride. Got to love a bit of double meaning.

Is that it?

Sorry still no.

There's that damned song.

Lets take a closer look at it.


Golden years ago, in a mill beside the sea,
There dwelt a little maiden, Who plighted her love to me,
The mill-wheel now is silent, the maid's eyes closed be,
And all that now remains of her are the words she said to me.
 
CHORUS
Do not forget me, Oh do not forget me. Think sometime of me still
When the morning breaks, and the throstle awakes, Remember the maid of the mill.
Do not forget me, Oh do not forget me. Remember the maid, the Maid of the Mill.
 
Leaden years have pass'd, and gray haired I look'd around,
The earth has no such maidens now, Such millwheel turn not around,
But when e'er I think of Heaven, and of what the angels be,
I see again that little maid, and hear her words to me. (chorus.) 


It is a song about someone's wife dying. Cheery... well it happens... singing it at a wedding? Morbid, but the Victorians were odd. To be fair so's Sherlock himself. Let's not read too much into the content just yet and instead look at the words used in the show.

"Do not forget me, do not forget me. Remember the maid, the Maid of the Mill."

Let's look at maid first.

maid
noun
1. a female servant.
2. a girl or young unmarried woman.
3. Archaic. a virgin.

Unmarried you say? That fits.

Of the Mill? A little trickier. Let's go back to ACD canon for this one.

Janine is the PA of Charles Augustus Magnussen

Her role in ACD is as the maid (see what happened again?) of Charles Augustus Milverton.

The maid of Milverton? Well... there's a turn up for the books.

Who apparently plighted their love. That's said yes by the way.

Remember this is Sherlock's own mind. Nothing here is random or here by chance drug induced as it may be.

Do not forget me? Well that translates as remember me... if someone is asking you to remember them it's to think kindly of them, recall them, long for... miss?

'Moriarty alert'

Do you miss me?

Then there's that line about angels? Where on earth have we spoken about angels before.

'End Moriarty alert'

Hmmm...

And then there's the small matter of names.

Moffat loves the name game, he plays it so often he's a pro.

I also love the name game, so I was surprised to see that Janine, who had NO surname in the credits when she was a major character in an episode get's one for TAB, for little more than a cameo in a trip. Plus she had a name according to the papers in HLV and it's Hawkins... Like a bird of prey... Great surname for a tabloid hungry publicity whore... who works for the most manipulative man alive. Who was playing with who when she went out with Sherlock again?

It's Donlevy in TAB though. A quick scout around the net pulls up that Donlevy is from an old gaelic royal name which essentially translates and "Chief of the mountain" (Apparently for some old seat of royalty on a hill in County Down)

What now sorry? She gets a new surname and it's about being in charge of something?

Well there are a couple of ways of interpreting it. It's a Scarlet Rollmop and it's because she now has a cottage on the Sussex DOWNS?

Or she's head of some secret international crime syndicate linked with Moriarty... Whose name is to do with being an excellent seaman.... where was that cottage in the song again? And where are the Sussex Downs? By the sea you say...

What do you think though?

Thanks for reading.

Little Weed

Last edited by Little Weed (January 22, 2016 7:39 am)