I'm not sure how I feel about it.  On the one hand, I think it's a stretch that Sherlock would be so deeply and drastically affected by the loss of a childhood pet (so many people have had similar bereavements as children that it's almost a part of growing up).   On the other hand, I can possibly buy that the writers are describing a character who is hyper-sensitive, hyper-emotional and so needs and has learned to repress some feelings because he's so deeply affected. (And the way it was set up as a bit of a mystery always reminds me of "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane, so it makes sense that Redbeard would be something simple from Sherlock's childhood rather than some unusual, traumatic incident).

I do think they've left it open to present another story, and another meaning for Redbeard, though. 

Last edited by Liberty (March 11, 2016 6:04 pm)

Interesting point. There is also this well-known legend: 

Barbarossa is not dead but has been enchanted and is sleeping deep in Kyffhäuser Mountain. His red beard keeps growing and growing around the table made of marble. Every 100 years he sends a boy outside to see if the ravens are still circling the mountain. He can only leave the mountain when they are gone. But they are still there and so he will to wait another 100 years. 

OT but I really like the idea that Mark has a red beard, too. 

I think that Redbeard was an actual dog given to him by Sherrinford Holmes before he was murdered.  I also think that  Sherrinford was an older version of Mycroft. Much more intelligent than Sherlock and much more worried/emotional than Mycroft. Sherlock was always the least intelligent and the most emotional of the three. The most human and the most plain. The mother and the dead brother had the same levels of intelligence/sentimentality. She tried to cover up her work with the MI6 and to balance her life as a mother/wife/spy like Mary! Sherrinford gave the dog to Sherlock to train him as a pirate of ideas, as an investigator, as a sniffer of clues. Sherrinford was more a father figure than their own biological father to Sherlock because they shared the quirky deduction ability. Sherrinford was already in deep with the MI6 fighting his own Moriarty (perhaps Professor Moriarty). Sherlock was like baby Watson - a pawn, a weak link that could be exploited and used to destroy the real target (Sherrinford).  Mycroft has alway been the smart one because he has never allowed "the chemical on the losing side" to get between him and the intellectual goal.