Eurus Holmes

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Posted by Kittyhawk
September 30, 2017 11:01 am
#1

I can't believe she doesn't have her own thread yet! I admit I would have much preferred her not to be written at all, but as it happened she grew on me and I find her the most fascinating character of the fourth season.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that everything we know about her childhood is only what Mycroft told us: He tells us that she was an "era-defining genius" (seriously? A 5-year-old child? In my book she could at best have been a clever child with the potential to become a genius - genius is 10 % talent and 90 % hard work, in my opinion.) It's Mycroft who tells us that she made Redbeard disappear and presumably drown (btw. why does Mycroft see Redbeard as an Irish Setter in his memories?), it's Mycroft who tells us about her drawing the pictures about Sherlock's death. And frankly, if Mycroft told me 7x8=56 I'd check with a pocket calculator (I'm mathematically challenged...)

Besides, the childhood story doesn't add up for me: If Euros was presumed to have killed Victor - why was she left unsupervised to burn the house down?

Or, going farther back: Why did Sherlock and Victor so completely refuse to let Euros play with them? Mycroft claims that already at the age of five Euros was able to "enslave" people - that should surely enable her to get included in the games? Especially as in my experience, 1 year of age difference is nothing - Sherlock and Euros should have been much closer than Mycroft and Sherlock. Different genders don't really matter either (unless the parents are stuck in the 19th century and reinforcing gender-specific stereotypes, which I'd think surprising from a book-writing mathematician-mum at the end of the 1970s (which were all about feminism and not enforcing gender specific roles  - or was that only in Germany and not in England?)) - so even without Euros's special abilities Sherlock, Euros and Victor should have played together (there were real female pirates, after all!)

But let's assume for a minute that Mycroft is telling the truth and Euros did kill Victor and burn Musgrave Hall. "The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 years old. This means that children under 10 can’t be arrested or charged with a crime. There are other punishments that can be given to children under 10 who break the law." (https://www.gov.uk/age-of-criminal-responsibility). If you follow the link you'll see that locking the child up in a secure facility is not one of the options. Encarcerating Euros was completely illegal - not to mention outrageously cruel!

(And now I'm sorry, it's past lunch time in France and I need to start cooking...)

Last edited by Kittyhawk (October 17, 2017 9:44 am)

 
Posted by Liberty
September 30, 2017 12:59 pm
#2

I agree that gender would have been unlikely to be a factor in Euros not being invited to the game.  I think it was just a case of a child wanting to play with a friend rather than a sibling.  And the fact that Sherlock is probably the most "human" of the three, and felt that human connection with another ordinary child.    Possibly Euros could have influenced him but didn't want to.  She's able to influence him when she's "Faith" and he likes her so much when she's using her powers in that way.  But she wants him to save the "real" Euros, which he does in the end.  I just wonder if there was something similar even in childhood. 

I don't think Euros was ever arrested or charged - she was put in a home because of burning the house down (I imagined a psychiatric facility/specialist chidren's home), then moved to Sherrinford by Uncle Rudi not long after.

 
Posted by besleybean
October 1, 2017 8:04 am
#3

Yes thank you Kittyhawk, this amazing character deserves her own thread.


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Posted by Kittyhawk
October 1, 2017 10:40 am
#4

Liberty wrote:

...... I think it was just a case of a child wanting to play with a friend rather than a sibling. 

But playing Pirates is in no way limited to two kids! Actually, I'd say ideally there's at least four: Captain and first mate of the pirate ship, and captain and first officer of the opposing navy (or merchant vessel). So there'd even be a place for Mycroft, if he had wanted to join.


Liberty wrote:

... I don't think Euros was ever arrested or charged - she was put in a home because of burning the house down (I imagined a psychiatric facility/specialist chidren's home), then moved to Sherrinford by Uncle Rudi not long after.

I agree that she couldn't have been formally arrested and charged (see link above) - if anything, the parents would have been held responsible for Victor's death and and the fire.

And that is exactly the problem! Euros was locked up her whole life without a trial!  Without proof of her crime (for which she was not legally responsible), without a defense attorney, without ever being heard, simply because the relatives thought the world would be safer if she was locked away! How can that be in any way okay?

Mycroft does not even hint at a psychiatric evaluation/diagnosis after Euros had been taken away under Uncle Rudi's responsibility, and we know that he expressly forbid any examination at Sherrinford. In other words, Euros was locked up because Uncle Rudi and Mycroft wanted it.

As far as I know people can't simply decide that they want to be rid of a relative and have him or her locked up - having somebody sectioned seems rather complicated (http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/beingsectionedengland.aspx) and ends with the person being in a mental hospital, getting treatment. But Euros is not in a hospital, as the Governor informs John... And she didn't get treatment either.

So all I can see is unlawful imprisonment for about 30 years (which is continuing, btw.) I really wonder how Euros was able to grow up to be such a functioning person: She's able to move around London without attracting undue attention to herself, she fools Sherlock for a whole night and John for several therapy sessions (I think they must have continued for a few weeks after John beat up Sherlock as Sherlock is perfectly healthy when he confronts Mycroft at the beginning of TFP, which presumably happened very soon after Euros shot John) ...

 
Posted by Liberty
October 1, 2017 2:22 pm
#5

It's not so much the number of children, but the relationship.  I have a younger sibling, very close in age, and didn't always want him tagging along when I wanted to play with my friend(s). 

I don't think Sherrinford is part of the health care/child care/criminal justice system at all. It's something outwith.  Apparently Uncle Rudi was able to pull some important strings.  Before Sherrinford, I believe there are secure/semi-secure psychiatric facilities for children who are a risk to themselves and others.  I imagine the usual patients are teenagers rather than six year olds, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of the story!    Yes, of course she shouldn't have been imprisoned (and even if the first facility was not so draconian, she was very young when she went to Sherrinford).   As it turns out, she had the ability to leave when she wanted to anyway, but chose not to (until TFP).  Oddly enough, there's an element of voluntarily choosing to stay there.  I suppose it became her home. 

It does raise some questions about how much Euros was created by putting in that situation at such a young age.  Sherlock was obviously naturally more "human" from the start, but Euros didn't really get a chance to become "human". 

I probably wouldn't try to calculate timing from how quickly Sherlock's injuries heal.  I think in this world, injuries adapt to the plot.

 
Posted by Kittyhawk
October 3, 2017 10:37 am
#6

Liberty wrote:

...I probably wouldn't try to calculate timing from how quickly Sherlock's injuries heal.  I think in this world, injuries adapt to the plot.

Are you saying that there's no point in analyzing the show because it's all BS anyway? I'm not saying you are wrong, but then what do we discuss? And then I'd have to shut down the PC and go clean the fridge...

Liberty wrote:

...I have a younger sibling, very close in age, and didn't always want him tagging along when I wanted to play with my friend(s)...

But "not always" is not the same as "never", is it? Euros sounds as if nobody had ever played with her. There's four years between my sister and me, which is too much IMHO, but we still played together some, for the simple reason that the sibling is still there when the friends have gone home!

Liberty wrote:

...Yes, of course she shouldn't have been imprisoned (and even if the first facility was not so draconian, she was very young when she went to Sherrinford).   As it turns out, she had the ability to leave when she wanted to anyway. ...

I'm glad we agree that Euros shouldn't have been imprisoned in the first place (I see unknown Uncle Rudi is a pretty despicable person - and Mycroft as not much better, sorry to all his fans). However, I'm not so sure about her being able to leave whenever she wanted in the first two decades. From what the Governor says, Moriarty's visit "woke her up" (though she must have been awake enough beforehand to ask for him - another thing that doesn't quite add up), so I imagine her rather withdrawn and "shut down" beforehand (like somebody here mentioned about their relative in a mental hospital).

Liberty wrote:

...It does raise some questions about how much Euros was created by putting in that situation at such a young age.  ...

 

As a don't think that a 5-year old child is anything like a fully developed person, I'd say most of it. In my experience, the vast majority (all?) children, are little monsters, but happily most of them grow out of it. Mainly because of positive outside influences, I suppose. Which Euros doesn't seem to have had after the age of 5, in other words, she never had a chance.

But I wonder how she managed to destroy the nurse she had sex with so thoroughly that is was impossible to see their gender... (I know, praying mantis bite the male's head off after copulation, but humans don't have the jaws for it...)

 
Posted by besleybean
October 3, 2017 10:48 am
#7

The correct term is actually 'sex'.
'Gender' is just a social construct.
If BBC Sherlock fails at all for me, it's in gender stereotyping.
But anyway, all that aside...I assume it was meant that she destroyed the genitals...a nurse, so maybe with a scalpel or something- I don't know and not something I really wanted to focus on.

Last edited by besleybean (October 3, 2017 10:48 am)


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Posted by SusiGo
October 3, 2017 11:01 am
#8

I only now discovered this thread. Lots of interesting thoughts and I am happy about every new discussion. It has been quiet in here. 

My personal take on Eurus is that she is a part of Sherlock himself. She does not exist in the "real" world of the show, she is a construct of his head because I find it very hard - even in the Sherlock universe - to believe her to be a real character. You can find some of my reasons for this theory in here in case you are interested:

http://gosherlocked.tumblr.com/post/157857363611/eurus-is-sherlock
http://gosherlocked.tumblr.com/post/156987150356/the-room-of-eurus-holmes
http://gosherlocked.tumblr.com/post/157104575431/sherlock-the-impossible-rooms



 


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 
Posted by besleybean
October 3, 2017 11:03 am
#9

I disagree with you on this on, I very definitely think Eurus is real, or for me it would be a different show.
I don't see the point in her, if she's not real.
I also don't see why the team wouldn't have talked about this...they talk about everything else. What's to hide?


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Posted by SusiGo
October 3, 2017 11:11 am
#10

You are free to disagree with me anytime. But then you should also try to answer the questions I brought up in my posts. 

As for not talking about it - they did not talk how the fall was done during the S2 hiatus. Or about the background of the Miss Me video after S3. 


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 
Posted by Kittyhawk
October 3, 2017 11:53 am
#11

SusiGo wrote:

You are free to disagree with me anytime. But then you should also try to answer the questions I brought up in my posts. 
....

I also don't see Euros as existing only in Sherlock's head (for the simple reason that I don't think Mrs. Hudson, much as I love her, should be the only interesting female character on the show), though I do agree that we can't trust anything we see (so for fanfic and discussion purposes, absolutely anything goes). As for your questions - I'd love to try to answer them, but I don't see any. What I do see is a long list of statements regarding similarities between Sherlock and Euros - which in my opinion can either be explained by them being siblings or by lazy storytelling. And of course I don't even agree with all the statements...

Good point about Euros's room not looking like that of a child genius, though. Another thing that simply doesn't add up in the story of her childhood. Except if it went something like this: Euros was clever and curious, and desperately wanted to have a microscope, and books, and a chemistry set, and... and her parents refused to let her have these things because they thought she was too young for them and should play "like a normal child" for the time being. (I would have liked to read - and my parents would have liked for me to read and stop asking questions - but they figured that I would be bored to death if I went to school already knowing the things I was supposed to learn there and refrained from teaching me. That was in the old days, when you let children grow up instead of "having them professionally assessed" to put them into neat little boxes as early as possible... Worked, too, I sailed through primary school without any problem - or ever learning to study, which did cause problems later.) Now, if maybe Sherlock had those things that Euros wanted (he was a year older, after all, and a boy - maybe the Holmes parents were not perfectly immune to gender stereotyping after all (thanks for the correction, besleybeans!)), and if he would refuse to lend them to her (being another selfish little monster) - that would actually explain Euros's resentment pretty well! Not to the point of killing Victor (btw, SusiGo, if Euros doesn't exist - who killed Victor?) - but the drawings  I'd consider pretty normal in that scenario.

In any case, the room is not proof that Euros lives only in Sherlock's head, because he could just as easily have dreamt up a "proper child genius room", whatever that would look like (hey, maybe all the stuff we'd like to see is just behind the camera ;) ).
 

 
Posted by besleybean
October 3, 2017 1:45 pm
#12

I also think that as Redbeard dog was shown to be Sherlock's head canon, it would be odd to solve the connudrum by using another head canon.
And that's about all I'm allowed to say on the subject on here, though I have vented some of my frustration on social media!


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Posted by Liberty
October 3, 2017 5:09 pm
#13

I kind of like the Sherlock = Eurus theory.  But I don't think it adds to the story, and it raises a lot more questions than it answers!  (Especially when it comes to interaction with her alter egos). 

@Kittyhawk, of course I'm not saying we can't discuss those things, and as a side note, thank you for getting some more discussion going!  It's just that I do think we are looking at a fictional world, and I think that injuries heal according to their role in the plot!  In other words, the rate of healing isn't a "clue" that we're meant to pick up on, in this case.  You could be right about Eurus' abilities being dormant until recently.  

There's also the fact of her influencing the governor, which may have been recent too, and must have been necessary for her to be able to come and go.  It's still interesting to me that when she finally does leave, she comes back. 

It seems that Eurus wasn't very nice to Sherlock when they "played" together and that may also have made him keen to run off and play with a friend instead. 

I don't see anything wrong about Eurus' bedroom.  It is a bedroom after all.  I wouldn't expect her to have a violin, chemistry set, etc. in there.   I know parents are different in how much they divide up the child's and adult's things, but I imagine that in a house full of geniuses that they would tend towards allowing the children access to "adult" books, maps, etc. 

 

 
Posted by besleybean
October 3, 2017 5:13 pm
#14

I'm sure the Holmes children had a playroom.


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Posted by Kittyhawk
October 4, 2017 10:05 am
#15

Regarding the Euros = Sherlock theory, the biggest problem I have is what that would say about Sherlock! I mean, I can just about forgive Euros for being crazy by now for all the above-mentioned reasons - but if Sherlock imagined that little "is that vibrato or is your hand shaking?" scene, I'd consider him seriously sick. Not to mention that he would also have to have imagined John's therapy sessions - and why would he?

So unless one wants to prolong tenderly_wicked's Unforgettable (https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132535/chapters/2316723) for another season, I don't see why or how Euros Holmes could or should exist only in Sherlock's mind. As Liberty said, it doesn't add anything to the story or solve anything.

 
Posted by besleybean
October 4, 2017 12:29 pm
#16

For me it does quite the opposite: if there is no Eurus, the story makes no sense to me whatsoever.


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Posted by SusiGo
October 4, 2017 9:32 pm
#17

For me it is quite the other way around - for me Eurus does not make sense. For me, the real tension and suspense was always between Sherlock and Mycroft. This is where I thought the mystery would be - or in the relationship with the parents. Why do we suddenly need a non-Canon sister for the story to make sense? I must admit, they lost me there. It also destroys the Moriarty magic if he was a sort of tool, this is at least how I feel about it. For me, the Sherlock-Mycroft and Sherlock-Jim dichotomies were full of promise and I really do not understand why they needed a larger than life, cleverer than anyone else sister in the story. 


 


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 
Posted by kgreen20
October 5, 2017 3:20 am
#18

Kittyhawk wrote:

As a don't think that a 5-year old child is anything like a fully developed person, I'd say most of it. In my experience, the vast majority (all?) children, are little monsters, but happily most of them grow out of it. Mainly because of positive outside influences, I suppose. Which Euros doesn't seem to have had after the age of 5, in other words, she never had a chance.

Most children don't commit murder.  Eurus did.  As a child, she was already capable of murder, and she committed it.

As for whether Eurus really exists--all I can say is that unless Moffat and Gatiss plan to commit a "Dallas" (those of you who remember the "Dallas" TV series will know what I'm talking about) and make the entire 4th season just a dream, we can safely assume that Eurus is very real, indeed.

 

Last edited by kgreen20 (October 5, 2017 3:25 am)

 
Posted by Kittyhawk
October 5, 2017 6:54 am
#19

SusiGo wrote:

.... Why do we suddenly need a non-Canon sister for the story to make sense? I must admit, they lost me there. ....

 

That's what happens when  canon writers try to top the more outrageous fanfics (I've seen - not read, I thought the idea too crazy - one where Sherlock has a murderous sister long before season 4 aired). Season 4 does not make any sense at all to me - I can only enjoy it scene by scene, without thinking about the overall plot. And there's some really great scenes with Euros!

That's why I love the character - a great actress, some great moments. No, she does not make any sense from a storytelling point of view (you remember I started this thread "I admit I would have much preferred her not to be written at all,"). But now she exists, and denying her existence makes even less sense to me than accepting it.

Unless, as kgreen20 suggests, you want to go "Dallas" (didn't watch the show, but the uproar was so great that I'd have to have been deaf and blind to not learn about it)... Btw. kgreen20, of course you are right, most children do not kill people (unless of course they are child soldiers). But I wouldn't bet my life on the fact that they don't want to - it's just that normally they don't have the means to act on their impulses (recently I saw a maybe 4-year old try to beat up his mother - ineffectually, of course, but he looked like he meant it).

I'm not saying that Euros Holmes was a "normal" child (what's that supposed to mean, anyway? And why would the sister of Mycroft and Sherlock be "normal"?) But I do think that she wouldn't have been beyond redemption before being illegally locked away. Not to mention that the whole killing story doesn't make any sense anyway.... (Whereas I object on principle to the "it's all a nightmare"-scenario , I'd be willing to go with "it's all a lie cooked up by Mycroft".)

 
Posted by besleybean
October 5, 2017 7:15 am
#20

Honestly, what is wrong with the story we were given?
It was an excellent series 4, from the masters.
Sherlock personally suffers loss at the hands of his psychotic little sister, which makes him the way he is.
He is reunited her and heals her.
I love it.


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