Personally, I hope that both Mycroft and Sherlock would show more emotions at the death of a brother.

Could the Third Brother be the East Wind brother? Sherlock never said "A story Mycroft used to tell me" which to me would make more sense; John knows Mycroft. And then Sherlock adds "He wasn't a very nice older brother" a weird detail to add considering that John knows how the two siblings are to eachother, and odd to me, considering that Mycroft is rarely ever outright mean to Sherlock. They have a rival certainly, and children do often grow up different than adults, but the detail just doesn't fit to me.

Then add on the fact that Mycroft is a guide of sorts in Sherlock's mind palace. That doesn't seem like the type of role you would give to a brother that tormented you as a child. Rather it seems like the role that you assign the older brother that always told you what to do and was usually right, having the advantage of the wisdom of age. Hence, the rivalry, Sherlock likes to be right and Mycroft is his biggest challenge.

Maybe this other brother (Middle or Eldest, since we know that this brother is older than Sherlock, but not whether he's older than Mycroft) is a brother that they grew up with. (Middle seems more likely to me, old enough to torment Sherlock, but not old enough to be able to touch Mycroft. It would also explain the age difference between the two brothers. We know that their mother left her profession to have children, as they weren't likely accidental it seems unusual to have children that are that many years apart. Stick another child in the middle and it seems much more likely) Maybe he's a really Psychopath, unlike Sherlock, perhaps that's why Sherlock is always so touchy about people calling him a psychopath, even though usually he brushes off what people say about him (though I admit that is reaching, and he probably just wants to be right). 

So Mycroft does something to protect Sherlock. Who knows what he does. Maybe none of their family knew that Sherlock was being tormented and Mycroft finally discovers it. It'd be a great explanation for why he is so emotionally cut off, the death of a dog just doesn't do it for me in the way of explanations, and Sherlock isn't really the type to share his problems with others. Hence the rivalry between Mycroft and Sherlock widens further; he would be unlikely to want or think he needs Mycroft's help. Mycroft, likely being a young agent of the government, uses his connections to remove the problem. Maybe he frames him for a crime, or has him put in a high security mental institution. Or maybe he tries to kill him, and though he believes he's succeeded, actually fails. Whatever he does it's not nice or merciful and it puts his brother out of the picture, imaginably forever.

The guilt Mycroft feels over not seeing it sooner would be a huge push towards his feeling to protect Sherlock, beyond what a normal older brother might. He blames himself for not noticing earlier, and feels guilty about the way that Sherlock turned out. So he becomes like a third parent to Sherlock during the later part of his childhood. Probably why at their Christmas Mycroft points out that they "Never do this." Seems odd for a family to not get together from Christmas, even a family like the Holmes' so it could be that they no longer get together for Christmas since they're older son vindictively punished another of their sons for torturing their third son. I feel like that does put a damper on the holidays. 

This brother is probably relatively equal in intelligence to the other two, but instead of putting his intelligence toward ammassing power, like Mycroft, or to solving crimes, like Sherlock, he puts his intelligence into being cruel. Now he's managed to escape whatever fate Mycroft ended up lining up for him and he's back. And he likely blames Sherlock for his fate. So what better way to torment Sherlock than to make him believe that Moriarty, one of the people that could truly harm is back, while still maintaining secrecy about his indentity, probably to keep Mycroft off his tracks. 

That makes all the references to "the east wind coming" foreshadowing. Sherlock's Elder brother is the East Wind. A pretty ominous considering Sherlock's "The East Wind takes us all in the end" comment

Last edited by bertnerthefrog (December 14, 2015 12:51 pm)

Little Weed wrote:

From this there are many possible scenarios which one can delve into,

Multiple birth where Sherlocks sibling dies.
/stillborn ("Why would she still be upset about that?")
Multiple birth where Sherlock is fine but sibling requires specialist early care hospitalisation and a baby swap (it's rare but this is tv land folks ) then the not actual sibling dies.
An embryo swap where another Holmes embryo is implanted into someone else.

But if any of these were true, why would Mycroft mention "the other one" during the speech with Lady Smallwood? And why would Lady Smallwood be knowledgable about stillbirths and embryo-swaps that took place cca 35 - 40 years ago in a Holmes family? Because in HLV she acts as if she is aware of the "other one´s" fate when Mycroft mentions it....

I'm very curious about the "Anemoi"- hints of this season.

If there were Boreas, the cold and strong North wind, Zephyrus, the gentle West wind, who fell in love with a human- the young Spartan prince Hyacinth and  Eurus, the unstable East or even Southeast wind.....where is the fourth one, Notus, the capricious South wind???

I guess, the fourth brother (or sister) should be revealed as soon as possible! Pretty please.

I'm playing with thoughts to make the South - brother an super agent of Mossad who helped Sherlock to save Mrs. Adler some time ago ("Run!" 👀) !

And generally, he is the great expert of terrorism etc and come back to London on request of British Governement (you know our man there) to fight together against  some evil terror organisation.

DramaQueen wrote:

I'm very curious about the "Anemoi"- hints of this season.

If there were Boreas, the cold and strong North wind, Zephyrus, the gentle West wind, who fell in love with a human- the young Spartan prince Hyacinth and Eurus, the unstable East or even Southeast wind.....where is the fourth one, Notus, the capricious South wind???

I guess, the fourth brother (or sister) should be revealed as soon as possible! Pretty please.

The comparison of the winds to the characters of Sherlock seems very fitting, indeed.
I wouldn´t mind having capricious Notus instead of scary Eurus in the story at all!
 

Well we can wish for all sorts for any future episodes.
But we can't change what happened.
A third Holmes brother has been Sherlockian folklore for some time.
The BBC team merely took that and twisted it to be a third Holmes child, but a sister.
I for one applaud this decision, as it creates a nice gender counterpoise.
I've never heard any notion of a fourth child.
As I have previously indicated, I think any 'new child' would rather lose its impact, following in the shadow of the belly punch of Eurus.
I also don't know if the siblings need another action man, I feel Sherlock fills that role.

Last edited by besleybean (July 12, 2017 10:46 am)

nakahara wrote:

DramaQueen wrote:

I'm playing with thoughts to make the South - brother an super agent of Mossad who helped Sherlock to save Mrs. Adler some time ago ("Run!" 👀) !

And generally, he is the great expert of terrorism etc and come back to London on request of British Governement (you know our man there) to fight together against some evil terror organisation.

Wow, what a nice headcanon!

On the other hand, Mark Gatiss was accussed (a bit rightfully, I think) that he is bringing too much "James Bond" into Sherlock - how would it fare if he intruduced this agent brother into the story, I wonder?
 

 
Thanks, @nakahara!  ❤
Pox on " too much Bond "! 😂
We could have this impulsive, quick-tempered and dark-haired youngest brother, who works at hot and dangerous location of Middle-East under the name....Nathan ( a hint on Notus )!
But his real name is John, yes - that’s the reason, Sherlock loves this name so much ( on Watson ), because it reminds him of his little, sweet and capricious bro.
The Holmes-parents played the part of extraordinary names for their three children and decided to bless the last baby with the common one. 😍

....and he could be played by Colin Morgan! 💃