BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Johnlock: The Official Debate

nakahara · February 17, 2016 10:04 pm

besleybean wrote:
Possibly it's just with Sherlock only really ever having one human friend, he doesn't understand that goldfish can have more than one!

Sherlock has only one human friend? Really?
And what status has Lestrade in relation to him? And Mrs. Hudson? And Molly? And Angelo? And some of the people from the streets that help him in TRF? And that guy who gives him extra portions of fish and chips because Sherlock helps him with housechores?
Or are they not human?

Liberty · February 17, 2016 10:30 pm

I think John was probably his first and only "best friend". And the others adore Sherlock, but I think he only really adores John, and didn't like finding out that John had felt (possibly) the same way about somebody else, especially as Sholto seemed to have some characteristics in common with Sherlock (and Sherlock likes to think of himself as unique, I think - certainly unique in John's life, at least).

Last edited by Liberty (February 17, 2016 10:30 pm)

nakahara · February 17, 2016 10:40 pm

I think that others are his friends allright, it´s his relationship with John that´s much deeper....

besleybean · February 18, 2016 6:32 am

Mary being pregnant is the biggest proof of all that John's relationship with her is much deeper than with anybody else in his life.

nakahara · February 18, 2016 7:49 am

besleybean wrote:
Mary being pregnant is the biggest proof of all that John's relationship with her is much deeper than with anybody else in his life.

The baby is Mycroft´s!
(That´s why Mycroft deliberately doesn´t see Mary´s misbehaviour.)

SusiGo · February 18, 2016 7:51 am

Yes, now that you mention it.
And I seem to remember that canonically John Watson's deepest relationship was with Sherlock Holmes.

mrshouse · February 18, 2016 9:33 am

Yes, Susi, rightly so.
I'm astounded. We take a pregnancy as proof for the ultimate romantic love? Of course there are relationships where that is the case, but in this show? I'm sorry to say this and I held back for a long time now, but if the Watsons marriage as how we're shown here, is supposed to be a wonderful romantic love then I'm out.
Furthermore I'm not sure how you guys feel, but personally I prefer a Johnlock discussion without Mary. They are two different topics.

Vhanja · February 18, 2016 9:36 am

I don't see a pregnancy as proof of ultimate romantic love either. It's only a proof of them having had sex.

But the relevance of this for this thread I would say is that it shows that John has a level of intimacy with Mary that he doesn't have with Sherlock. Which, of course, can mean a lot of things, but it's there.

Last edited by Vhanja (February 18, 2016 9:39 am)

mrshouse · February 18, 2016 11:25 am

Yes. Physical intimacy. Personally for me, Johnlock is much more than the physical attraction and love.

besleybean · February 18, 2016 4:35 pm

I wasn't actually referring to love, I was meaning penetrative sex.
I am in no way saying this is a superior relationship, it was a merely a little word play on a comment mentioning the word 'deeper'.
For me, John and Mary are in love and have sex.
John and Sherlock are best friends and do not have sex, nor do they want to.

ukaunz · February 21, 2016 3:31 am

Vhanja wrote:
I'm rewatching the original X-files series now, and am looking for similarities between how the relationship between Mulder and Scully are shown, and Sherlock and John. Was the Mulder/Scully romance out of the blue, or were the clues beforehand?

I'm only in S1, Ep4, but in this episode we have Scully trying to go on a date and "getting a life", in contrast to Mulder who is "obsessed" with his work and nothing else. Mulder calls Scully while she is on her date to talk about the case. By the end of the episode, Scully turns down future dates with the man in question to instead join Mulder on his case.

I found that interesting. Of course, that alone says nothing about anything, but it will be interesting to see if I can recognize more of these as the series progresses.

I'm rewatching them too, and I just got up to S01E12, "Fire". I think this is the first time we see Mulder involved with a woman. There are parallels with ASIB, and the scene in HLV when Sherlock kisses Janine, and you could certainly interpret Scully's reaction as jealousy (or not, it's pretty ambiguous at this point). I'll be interested to hear what you think, Vhanja!

Also there are several very cool and amusing references to Sherlock Holmes throughout the episode

Last edited by ukaunz (February 21, 2016 4:37 am)

besleybean · February 21, 2016 8:26 am

Except it isn't a parallel, as the team deliberately re-shot that scene, because they did not want it to show jealousy.
If enough board members watch TXF, there's almost enough stuff here to make a designated thread on the parallels.

Liberty · February 21, 2016 8:58 am

I did watch some of X-Files for a while when it was first shown (at some unpopular slot in BBC2 IIRC. It's amazing how much it took off!), but I honestly can't remember much about it so my comments are just about what I'm reading here. I think it's difficult to compare if we don't really know what was going on there (Were they showing a romance from the beginning? Was it written in later? Was it a long-term plan of a friendship later developing into a romance?). I do think that if we were supposed to think there was a romance actually happening (i.e. they'd actually fallen for each other in that way) and all they were showing was ambiguous scenes which could possibly be interpreted as jealousy - well, it's not really telling the story. I would say that in that case it may well be planned and hasn't happened yet, or perhaps it hasn't even been planned ... but for the audience to be onboard with a romance story, then they need to show more.

I think Sherlock's the same (they would need to show something more concrete for the general audience to actually see a romance there, and follow the story of it), but different in that they've made it clear from the beginning that they want to show the friendship, that it's the friendship people fall in love with. Of course they could be planning the romance for later, but I don't think that's Johnlock as people see it (Johnlock seems to be about the romance actually happening right from the beginning), and Mark's comments at Mumbai make me think it's unlikely. But if they want the suspense and drama of romance, they've got to tell the audience about it, openly. And they haven't done that yet.

ukaunz · February 21, 2016 9:12 am

I'm watching the very next episode of TXF now, and Mulder has called Scully "Dana" for the first time and stroked her cheek. Still ambiguous to me, but could definitely be a case of friends to lovers, which is a possibility with Johnlock too.

I don't know if the writers of TXF planned a romance from the start, I guess we could look for interviews. When did Mulder and Scully officially become a couple, which series? I think I stopped watching before then.

I agree Mark's comments in Mumbai seem to kill the idea of Johnlock.

Edit: I found a website showing the progression of Scully and Mulder's relationship over the episodes, if anyone is interested. Do we need a new thread?
http://www.angelfire.com/space/xphilescaper_1/shippiness.html

Last edited by ukaunz (February 21, 2016 9:19 am)

Whisky · February 21, 2016 10:38 am

ukaunz wrote:
I agree Mark's comments in Mumbai seem to kill the idea of Johnlock.

I only found that comment now and it really confuses me. It doesn't sound like lying or pretending to me. Mainly I find it too straight forward to be pretence.

besleybean · February 21, 2016 10:39 am

So, nobody want to start up a TXF thread?

mrshouse · February 21, 2016 10:53 am

Whisky wrote:
ukaunz wrote:
I agree Mark's comments in Mumbai seem to kill the idea of Johnlock.
I only found that comment now and it really confuses me. It doesn't sound like lying or pretending to me. Mainly I find it too straight forward to be pretence.

Why does it confuse you then?

ukaunz · February 21, 2016 11:01 am

besleybean wrote:
So, nobody want to start up a TXF thread?

Well, there is a TXF thread, I was thinking more of a thread that compares the relationship of Sherlock and John with that of Mulder and Scully, or maybe just comparing the two shows in general.

Schmiezi · February 21, 2016 11:22 am

mrshouse wrote:
Whisky wrote:
ukaunz wrote:
I agree Mark's comments in Mumbai seem to kill the idea of Johnlock.
I only found that comment now and it really confuses me. It doesn't sound like lying or pretending to me. Mainly I find it too straight forward to be pretence.
Why does it confuse you then?

Sorry, I still haven't got the time to watch the whole interview. What comment are we talking about?

ukaunz · February 21, 2016 11:36 am

Here you go Schmiezi, I found this clip for you of the relevant bit of the interview. It's only 3:36 mins long.
http://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/105838327464/heres-an-outtake-of-mark-gatiss-on-the