BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Does Sherlock's Love for John Make him a Better Man?

**Posted by Schmiezi** September 7, 2014 6:05 pm

A lovely light wrote:
besleybean wrote:
But he sacrificed his happiness for John's peace of mind and safety.
I am not so sure that John is at peace that someone, and especially Sherlock, killed that he would be safe. He looks as well very uneasy and confused on the Tarmac.

I think that Cam death haunts both of them and both of them have to deal with it.

Angsty-YAY for S4!

**Posted by besleybean** September 7, 2014 6:09 pm

I dion't think anybody regrets CAM's death for a moment.
Sherlock knows he will lose John,
John and Mycroft know Sherlock will lose his freedom.

Last edited by besleybean (September 7, 2014 6:09 pm)

**Posted by Snootiegirl99** September 7, 2014 8:10 pm

He kills Magnussen to protect John and Mary but also all the other people in the world who M bullies. Remember how much he hated the woman reporter in TRF? He doesn't like people who exploit others for their own gain.

Kind of like what Moriarty does too. And kind of what Sherlock does to Janine (although he does it not for himself but for Lady Smallwood et al.).

**Posted by Zatoichi** September 7, 2014 8:26 pm

Snootiegirl99 wrote:
He kills Magnussen to protect John and Mary but also all the other people in the world who M bullies. Remember how much he hated the woman reporter in TRF? He doesn't like people who exploit others for their own gain.

YES, and also to save his brother, who would have been doomed had his little brother been accused of selling state secrets he obviously wasn´t able to keep safe. And to keep himself from being accused of being a traitor.. for someone with Sherlock´s concept of moral it´s much nobler to rid the world of an evil than retreating, letting it win, going to prison for something you´d never do and watching it get stronger and stronger, destroying everything you hold dear. He was never afraid of using violence when he thought it necessary, and this was clearly one of those instances. I really don´t see he does it all just for John´s peace of mind..

**Posted by besleybean** September 7, 2014 8:29 pm

Oh I disagree.and this is certainly the only way I can live with what he did.
He had never murdered before, in cold blood, in public, knowing that was the end to his role in the game and losing John.

**Posted by Zatoichi** September 7, 2014 8:32 pm

Well yes, it was the ultimate sacrifice, but I can live better with what he did if it wasn´t only one person´s peace of mind but at least four lives and the whole free world that were at stake. Kind of makes it more justified in my eyes..

**Posted by Liberty** September 7, 2014 8:53 pm

I agree that he doesn't do it just to make John happy. I think it's an extension of what he did with Moriarty, for similar reasons, and so not as out of character as it initially appears.

It did bother me, because although Magnusson is so clearly evil, he's mostly just printing the truth about people, or threatening to. And I still don't believe that he only preys on people who are different - I think he preys on anyone if it suits his purposes, and sometimes for no purpose other than fun. But there's more to it than that - from what he says about Mary, he'll go that step further to arrange to have people killed at a distance, and also he's getting closer and closer to controlling the government. He's beyond the law in a similar way to Moriarty.

**Posted by Snootiegirl99** September 7, 2014 10:43 pm

Liberty wrote:
I agree that he doesn't do it just to make John happy. I think it's an extension of what he did with Moriarty, for similar reasons, and so not as out of character as it initially appears.

It did bother me, because although Magnusson is so clearly evil, he's mostly just printing the truth about people, or threatening to. And I still don't believe that he only preys on people who are different - I think he preys on anyone if it suits his purposes, and sometimes for no purpose other than fun. But there's more to it than that - from what he says about Mary, he'll go that step further to arrange to have people killed at a distance, and also he's getting closer and closer to controlling the government. He's beyond the law in a similar way to Moriarty.

He is very similar to Moriarty. Just a different approach to 'crime'.

**Posted by silverblaze** September 8, 2014 4:08 pm

I'm not so sure about Magnussen printing the truth. Didn't he also says somewhere that he doesn't care about the truth? And even true stories can be spun in a way that would suit him and damage the subject. He's a bully and does what bullies do best. Gosh, I love him as a villain.

**Posted by besleybean** September 8, 2014 4:44 pm

I think you loved him...past tense!
No he didn't print the truth, he printed stories..

**Posted by Snootiegirl99** September 8, 2014 4:53 pm

Truth is subjective. That's what Magnussen (and truly, anyone he is based on in real life) counts on. Is it true that something happened, or is it true that some other news outlet reported it? Is it true that someone said something? Possibly, but that doesn't make *what they said true.*

Fact is not truth. Journalists should print fact. But the line has been so blurred between journalism and editorial/blogging. I don't know that it will ever become disentangled. And that's criminal in itself.

As Obi-Wan says, you're going to find that a great many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

**Posted by besleybean** September 8, 2014 5:02 pm

Actually no.
The truth will out.

**Posted by Snootiegirl99** September 8, 2014 5:29 pm

besleybean wrote:
Actually no.
The truth will out.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Fact is fact whether human beings exist or not. Truth not so much.

**Posted by Liberty** September 8, 2014 5:35 pm

I think the truth (or fact, Snootiegirl, better word) gives Magnusson more power, though. In the exchange with Lady Smallwood, it looks as if her husband really did write those letters, and that gives Magnusson extra power in manipulating her. Of course, he could threaten to print something non-factual, but I think he has more leverage by threatening something factual, something that can't be disproved. That's why his knowledge is so important.

**Posted by Snootiegirl99** September 8, 2014 5:47 pm

Liberty wrote:
I think the truth (or fact, Snootiegirl, better word) gives Magnusson more power, though. In the exchange with Lady Smallwood, it looks as if her husband really did write those letters, and that gives Magnusson extra power in manipulating her. Of course, he could threaten to print something non-factual, but I think he has more leverage by threatening something factual, something that can't be disproved. That's why his knowledge is so important.

That reminds me of my thought at the end of HLV.

If Magnussen destroys all the documents he purports to have, then he has no proof of any facts whatsoever. Just because he claims something, doesn't make it true. It also doesn't make it fact. It makes it something he said/printed.

There's a very good reason why lawyers jump all over hearsay and speculation in trials. They want fact, not truth. Even if the oath uses 'truth and nothing but the truth'.

**Posted by Liberty** September 9, 2014 6:56 am

I've kind of said this in the other thread, but it might be more relevant here. Silverblaze, you made me think more about Sherlock trying to save John in the mind palace scene. I'd thought that Sherlock arranged the meeting with Mary to save John - that it was ALL about saving John, with Sherlock going through extreme pain and risking cardiac arrest to do so. You've made me realise that in his mind palace, Sherlock wants to save John in Magnusson's office. Mary has a gun and is likely to shoot anybody who walks into the room, and John could walk in any minute. That's why Sherlock comes back. He doesn't know that he is in hospital and that Mary has left the room and John is fine. He's unconscious by the time John gets there.

This was quite a big revelation for me, because it puts the confrontation with Mary in a different context - Sherlock is trying to save himself. There is no urgency about saving John any more, because John is alive and Mary has no reason to kill him.

Of course, Sherlock is still very selfless and noble at the end of HLV (and at other points), but I'm almost relieved to realise that this scene is (a) not all about saving John at the expense of Sherlock and (b) not selfless.

**Posted by SolarSystem** September 9, 2014 7:48 am

Going back to the initial question for just a moment: Sherlock's love for John (and John's love for Sherlock for that matter) certainly makes him a different man, I'm not sure about 'better' though. It certainly makes him a more accessible person, at least sometimes, and a person that seems to be more aware of other people's feelings. It's beautiful to see him change in such a way, although I have to say that I love the Sherlock we see in S1 and S2 just as much.
And apart from their love for each other I also think that being away for two years has changed him. Whatever happened to him, I'm sure those two years haven't been easy for him. If you think about it, it's quite heartbreaking when he tells John in TEH that he was close to giving him a call more than once. In my headcanon Sherlock didn't just want to call John in order to let him know that he is still alive, but also because he needed to hear John's voice...

**Posted by Zatoichi** September 9, 2014 11:47 am

Snootiegirl99 wrote:
besleybean wrote:
Actually no.
The truth will out.
Maybe. Maybe not.

Fact is fact whether human beings exist or not. Truth not so much.

I agree with Snootiegirl, as soon as enough people were made to build a certain opinion about something the truth doesn´t matter so much anymore. As soon as enough people feel indignant or enraged it doesn´t matter any more that if you look at it rationally in the light of the day it was something completely different. (No one of the readers of certain newspapers is interested in doing so anyway). He just has to frame a "fact" in a certain way, add keywords that spike public contempt and keep the tone accusing to work his magic - Lord Smalwoods case is a nice example. Use the word "underage", "guilty" and "intimate relationship" and watch them freak out. Manipulating public opinion like that happens every day..

Of course it helps if there is actually something to be found, but almost everyone has something that can be used against him/her if framed in a certain way.

@Liberty: Great thoughts, I´ll have to watch HLV again with this in mind!

@SolarSystem: That´s a beautiful headcanon, I can really see this. He´s bound to miss him very much.. *sob*

**Posted by silverblaze** September 9, 2014 2:30 pm

Liberty, I didn't even think about that it had to be in Magnussen's office. It's possible, I thought there were also some shots of him regaining consciousnessi nthe ambulance but well, the point is that his information is very limited and at that point he doesn't know much other than that Mary shot him.

The balance between truth, spin and facts is a fascinating one. I think if you take a really long term look, truth will often come out. There's an interesting book called 'Merchants of doubt' that talks about how cigarette companies delayed the scientific consensus about the health implications of smoking, to become accepted by the public for about 50 years. That's quite a lot of premature deaths but eventually the truth won. Of course we don't know of the instances where the lies won, so our sample is really biased.

But back on topic. I do think Sherlock's love for John makes him a better man because he was so isolated. I think only love and care for others and respecting their boundaries will teach you moral values. For some reason, Sherlock was really good at avoiding those interactions, in my head canon because he'd been hurt (I mean, isn't that how we all work?), and now he regained that.

**Posted by kornmuhme** July 17, 2015 7:04 pm

Would like to revive this thread.
I've just finished watching this episode (in English) and I'm still full of feelings :-), also cencerning this question: Is Sherlock a better person now? To be honest, I'd like to avoid the expressions "good" and "bad" - they don't really go with human beings in my opinion (might have sth. to do with me being a theologist). But what I would totally sign is that Sherlock has become more "complete" in a certain kind of way. He has grown (esp. emotionally), he has got more mature and that makes him be able to somehow understand other people a bit better.
I really appreciate the changes and developments Sherlock has gone through!