BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Hints of the Final Problem in previous episodes?

Liberty · February 18, 2017 1:21 pm

Oh, I wasn't talking about killing them, but about how far their behaviour appears moral/ethical (compared to how moral they actually are). For instance, if corpses are "things", then does it matter what Culverton does with them? I think it does, of course, but just saying ... Elemental's list got me thinking. But I'm getting OT, sorry!

besleybean · February 18, 2017 2:00 pm

Well me too, but I think it's all interesting discussion.
For me still the worst thing Culverton could do was kill people: abusing corpses is sick and distasteful and I could understand why relatives and friends would be upset by it.

Kae Em · February 18, 2017 5:25 pm

Elemental wrote:
My comments on your examples (sorry that I don't quote each separately)

1) whipping a corpse (ASiP) -> I don't see a problem in that. The man is death and it will help solve problems with alive people involved.
2) keeping a severed head in his fridge (TBB) -> Don't see it unethical. Disgusting, yes, but unethical? I don't know. I guess I'm practical about death. In Spain we have a saying: "el muerto al hoyo y el vivo al bollo": the death to the grave, the alive eats the bread.
3) purposely solving a case slowly, not caring at all that there's a victim with a bomb strapped around his body who has to wait in agony hours longer because of the delay (TGG) -> He had the bigger picture in mind. I'm not sure this was unethical either.
4) trying to give his best friend a hallucingogenic drug and scare him half to death to prove he was right (yes, the drug was not in the sugar, but he tried; HOB) -> Yeah, that one is not pretty xD Although I can understand why he did it (he again had the bigger picture in mind). I told you, I'm a sociopath .
5) Forcing a confession out of his best friend by making him believe that he's about to die (TEH) -> Agree. Although I think maybe the last two have more to do with the dinamics between John and Sherlock than with Sherlock's ethics in general.
6) Showing a little boy pictures of a corpse and promising him to show him pictures of beheadings (TSoT) -> I don't find that unethical either. Again, corpses don't suffer anymore, and if the child gets scared, he will learn for the next time.
8) Threatening Mary's ex and almost scaring him to death (TSoT; don't misunderstand me: I love that scene, but Sherlock's behaviour surely can't be considered ethical) -> I'm not sure whether this is a lack of ethics or a lack of social skills. That's what I meant in my previous post with naivety.
7) Shooting CAM in the head (HLV; yes, CAM had it coming, but what Sherlock did can't be considered ethical) -> Yeah, I agree with this one.

Personally I agree with most of your comments, but probably the relatives of the dead people in example 1 & 2 wouldn't. Usually people don't approve of their dead loved ones ending up whipped or their severed heads stored in a fridge. But if they agreed to what happend, ok. I just have a hunch that Sherlock didn't actually care to get a permission of the relatives first. Regarding number 6, Sherlock was clearly aware of the fact that the boy's mother wouldn't aprove of what he was doing, as we can see in scene at the curch (he pretends that the boy did state the name of a village instead of "beheadings"). As far as example 8 is concerned, I had the impression that Sherlock new exactly what he was doing - and enjoying it.

Ok, here my comments on your examples of Mycroft:

1. Lying to his parents for decades about their daughter being still alive. -> Yes, agreed, not ethical. I understand why he did it, he wanted to spare his parents the pain of seeing what Eurus had become. But it was not ethical.
2. Lying to Sherlock about probably the most important event of his childhood, which is apparently the root of all of his intimacy/relationship problems. -> He was a 13 year old boy when Victor died and Eurus was taken away. I think when Sherlock started to "rewrite" his memories, he started to get better and so his parents decided to let him do it. I don't think it was the 13 year old boy Mycroft who decided to lie to Sherlock about what happened. And once Sherlock had rewritten his memories, there was no way of knowing if telling him the truth would actually make things better or worse. So I don't think that keeping the truth from Sherlock was something unethical (and I don't think Mycroft activly lied there, he just didn't tell Sherlock what really happened [and I don't think Sherlock ever asked]).
3. Knowing and probably approving of Baskerville-style stuff. -> Well, as far as I understand it, while they were using animals to do research in Baskerville, they weren't actually trying to breed monster dogs or anything. I don't really approve of animals as guinea pigs for research either, but it happens in many research facilites and it's up to the legislater to decide if it's legal or not. We don't have any prove that they were actually doing something illegal in Baskerville. Top secret stuff, yes, but not necessarily illegal. We don't know if Mycroft approves of what they're doing in Baskerville and we don't know if they were doing something illegal. That research on the hallucinogenic gaz wasn't officially done in Baskerville, it had been done by the CIA in the past (if I remember correctly) and Dr. Frankland went on with the research without anyone else knowing or approving. So I don't really see how knowing that there's an institution like Baskerville and maybe even what they were doing there could be considered unethical based on what we have seen on the show.
4. Lying to Sherlock about Irene being dead. -> Ok, if you consider a lie to spare someone pain unethical, then yes, what Mycroft did there was unethical. I can't really hold that one seriously against him, though. And remember: Mycroft himself wasn't even sure what to do, if he should tell Sherlock the truth or tell him the lie that would spare him pain. Ultimately, it was John who decided that lying was the better choice.
5. Waiting until Sherlock was beaten before he rescued him from the Serbians (he says he couldn't risk being discovered, but it's more or less hinted that it's related to the siblings' rivalry). -> It's only hinted by Sherlock who constantly seems to expect the worst from his brother. From everything we've actually learned about Mycroft I can't believe that he was actually enjoying seeing his brother getting beaten up. But we don't know.
6. Protecting Sherlock after said CAM's murder. I mean, we all wanted that, but it's not exactly ethical. -> Yes, agreed on that one.

Elemental wrote:
My impression is that both characters are so complex that we are all going to see what we want to se, because we are all biased by our own experiences, prior opinions and definitions of what moral is. But I hope this gives a bit more of context for my initial affirmation.

They're indeed wonderfully complex characters. We've seen them both do things that can be considered unethical and I've now come to the conclusion that probably neither of them is more ethical than the other. They're quite even in that regard.

Last edited by Kae Em (February 18, 2017 7:42 pm)

Kae Em · February 18, 2017 5:48 pm

besleybean wrote:
There are great unknowns: for example, because of Mycroft's official work, just how many deaths has he 'been responsible for' and I certainly think the issues are worth discussing: is a government sanctioned death more moral than an unofficial death etc?
But I do think we also have to take note of what we actually see on the screen: we have seen Sherlock 'execute' somebody, we have not seen Mycroft do the same and on the contrary he has stated that he 'will not kill'.
I think he's possibly stretching the truth there, but these are things we are actually shown on screen.
I am of course typing with the assumption that killing somebody is the worst thing you can do.

Indeed, we don't really know any details about Mycroft's work. Probably he has been responsible for people's deaths, but we learn on several occations that he's mainly trying to uncover/prevent terrorist attacks.

No, I don't think government sanctioned death is more moral than unofficial death. But no court will convict someone who was killing in self defence or killing somehone who's threatening someone elses's life. I can imagine Mycrof signing off on a mission to free hostages or something like that and on such a mission the criminals could have gotten killed. But if there's no other way to save the hostages' life, then that's not even illegal, but assisted selfe defence (in German it's called "Notwehrhilfe"; I can't really find the official legal term in English, but it means assisted self defence).

besleybean · February 18, 2017 5:50 pm

Yes self-defence pleas are acceptable.

Vhanja · February 18, 2017 8:19 pm

I came across this on Tumblr, which reminded me of this thread:

http://sherlocks-phantom-lady.tumblr.com/post/157397360952/smoljohnlock-emp-did-you-make-a-list

besleybean · February 18, 2017 8:27 pm

Cool.

kgreen20 · February 19, 2017 3:37 am

besleybean wrote:
Well yes, but my personal ethics would rule out murdering either of them.
Clearly Culverton was the worst case and yet Sherlock didn't opt to execute him...had he learned his lesson after CAM?

Well, in the case of Charles Augustus Magnussen, it seems to me that Sherlock found John and Mary (and himself) backed into a corner. There was no way to save Mary from blackmail and probable imprisonment, except by killing Magnussen. At first, Sherlock was going to try to get from Magnussen the blackmail material that he had on Mary, but when it became clear that all of the info was in Magnussen's head and that killing him was the only way to save Mary and John, then that's what Sherlock opted to do. I don't think that he would have killed Magnussen otherwise. (And don't forget that it's ACD canon that the blackmailer is shot to death.) Sherlock wasn't forced into that same corner when he confronted Culverton Smith later on (although he did come close to being murdered himself). He didn't have to kill Smith in order to save anybody, and so he didn't.

Last edited by kgreen20 (February 19, 2017 3:40 am)

besleybean · February 19, 2017 8:15 am

Oh but he did: it was all to save John.

Liberty · February 19, 2017 8:26 am

Of course, in the original story Sherlock wasn't trying to save John or Mary. And I remember Moftiss saying that they believe he killed Milverton in the original story and that John covered up for him. So it's clear that they think ACD Sherlock would kill without having to save somebody close to him ... but it's not clear if their modern Sherlock would. (I would have found it difficult to believe that he would do it, if it wasn't affecting people close to him).

Elemental · February 19, 2017 5:16 pm

Kae Em wrote:
Personally I agree with most of your comments, but probably the relatives of the dead people in example 1 & 2 wouldn't. Usually people don't approve of their dead loved ones ending up whipped or their severed heads stored in a fridge. But if they agreed to what happend, ok. I just have a hunch that Sherlock didn't actually care to get a permission of the relatives first

Funny that my understanding of this was that if Molly approved, those corpses were not reclaimed. But I can see Molly bending the rules for Sherlock as well. I guess we'll never know.

Kae Em wrote:
Elemental wrote:
My impression is that both characters are so complex that we are all going to see what we want to se, because we are all biased by our own experiences, prior opinions and definitions of what moral is. But I hope this gives a bit more of context for my initial affirmation.
They're indeed wonderfully complex characters. We've seen them both do things that can be considered unethical and I've now come to the conclusion that probably neither of them is more ethical than the other. They're quite even in that regard.

Yeah, I agree. I'm happy I brought this out (even though the thread has gone a bit OT, I'm sorry for that :S) because it has given me a lot to think about and it's been fun

besleybean · February 19, 2017 5:17 pm

It sure has been.

Kae Em · February 19, 2017 7:33 pm

Elemental wrote:
Yeah, I agree. I'm happy I brought this out (even though the thread has gone a bit OT, I'm sorry for that :S) because it has given me a lot to think about and it's been fun

Yes, we went a bit off OT there, but I hope nobody minded (and if anybody did, I'm sorry, too). I really enjoyed this discussion as well

besleybean · February 19, 2017 7:51 pm

Heck, we have to talk about something, in this worrying hiatus!

SusiGo · March 1, 2017 6:07 pm

There is an interesting parallel between TEH and TFP:
In the "I love you" scene Molly is wearing the same pullover she wore in TEH when she went investigating with Sherlock. There she was a sort of John replacement, Sherlock even calling her John.
In TFP the description of her coffin could also apply to John in some points: distant from close relatives, unmarried, acquainted with the process of death but unsentimental about the necessity of disposal.