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January 12, 2017 2:23 pm  #1


How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

[maybe spolier]

When they first appear in the series, Watson is surprised that they seem 'normal' in spite of their sons being weird and genious. In the chistmas scene it turns out that mother is a matemathician who even wrote books, and her husband consider her a genious, too. So intelligence is explained in some way, but what's about personality?

Father seems to be a kind and simple man, weak but caring, though little bit scatterbrained, while mother is the dominant one: confident, determind, bit of critical, but still normal.

How it happened that these man had three children who are contatntly exclude all their human emotions - most of the time ignoring others' feeings, too - one becoming a sociopath (Eurus) and the other two considering themselves sociopaths, too (despite having some sort of strange attachment some time). Is it really Eurus who determined who Sherlock became (as in the trailer Mycroft said), can a sister [genetically abberant] determine so much his brothers personality?

Or: What's wrong with the Holmes parents to produce three genious psychopath (or psychopath-like) children? How did they manage that?

 

January 12, 2017 2:48 pm  #2


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

Adoption?


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I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 

January 12, 2017 2:57 pm  #3


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

A touch of Aspergers?


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"The posh boy loves the dominatrix." Context matters.
 

January 12, 2017 3:33 pm  #4


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

ewige wrote:

A touch of Aspergers?

Yeah, Sherlock shows signs of that... But I think their ability to lie and manipulate people rule this out.

nakahara wrote:

Adoption?

Seems a possible explanation... :D
 

     Thread Starter
 

February 20, 2017 8:41 pm  #5


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

I find this question particularly intriguing. Taking into consideration the (little) material there is to base a theory on, here are my thoughts on that subject: 

Mummy Holmes  - as we learn in HLV - is a genious herself. And while her husband doesn't seem to be a genious, I guess we can savely assme that he's not stupid either. So them having three genious children is not that unlikely to begin with. Mummy seems to have strong genes, after all. 

In the short family video we saw at the beginning of TFP Sherlock and Mycroft didn't seem sociopath-like at all. Sherlock seemed to be a happy, affectionate child playing around on the beach, at some point playfully hugging his elder brother. Mycroft on the other hand seemed a bit of a loner, but not sociopath-like either. He seemed to enjoy the attention he got from his brother, as we can see in the video and by the little smile on grown-up Mycroft's face when he watched the video. I can imagine that Mycroft being seven years older than Sherlock, being the nerdy and slightly overweight "know it all" kid in school, had a very hard time making friends (kids can be very cruel to kids that are different) and thus mostly kept to himself, learning early on what it means to be lonely. But being a bit of a loner didn't make him a sociopath back then.

I think Eurus, on the other hand, actually was a psychopath. But she's the only one of the three. I think that Sherlock and Mycroft were deeply scarred by what happend with Victor and everything that followed his disappearing and Eurus burning down their house. Sherlock must have been desparate, after all he was just a six year old boy who had just lost his best friend. And I can imagine that Mycroft, seening his little brother suffer so much over the loss of his best friend, actually convinced himself that he was much better off having no friend at all.

We don't know how quickly Sherlock started to rewrite his memories after Eurus was taken away, and we also don't know why his parents let him do so, but maybe partly forgetting the horrible things that had happened to him was the only thing that made him better. Maybe he even was sick for some time, forgot most of the events and just remembered "Redbeard". And to spare him pain, his parents (and Mycroft) told him that Redbeard had been their dog. I guess we'll never know the details. But I guess from then on Sherlock subconsciously started to distance himself from others more and more ("alone is what protects me"), following his brother's example of avoiding pain by keeping away from anything he might regret losing. 

And from then on, I can also imagine Mycroft being quite a bit of a mother hen (M: "I'll be mother" - S: "And there's our whole childhood in a nutshell" ASiB), constantly making sure Sherlock would focus on his rational side, constantly challenging him and pushing him to do the best he can, but without getting emotionally attached. 

So to sum this - far too long - post up: I don't think it was the Holmes partent's upbringing that made Sherlock and Mycroft into the want-to-be sociopaths they claim to be (but clearly aren't). I think if it hadn't been for Eurus and the events mentioned in TFP, Sherlock would probably still be a very warm and charming person, maybe even a bit of a womanzier. Mycroft on the other hand would probably still be a bit of a loner, but more open to the notion of friendship and maybe even love. 

 

February 21, 2017 12:44 am  #6


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

No, I don't think your post is "far too long". For me, it is a very convincing explanation.

 

February 21, 2017 3:22 am  #7


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

I agree.
 

 

February 21, 2017 6:30 am  #8


Re: How could the Holmes parents raise three children like them?

Well it's the great question of 'what ifs'. isn't it?
Point is, what happened ...did.
Our characters are as they are, because of what happened.
But now all of the secrets are out of the way and thy are all back together...as much as they can be, they will be develop their relationships.
Certainly Mycroft and Sherlock have both already developed as people and that can only be a positive thing.


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