No, I think that was all Jim.

It's curious that Sherlock can work it out when it's about somebody else, but he never applies it to himself.  I suppose the amnesia is him still not wanting to go there (despite hearing triggers). 

Yeah I know, this scene is indeed quite strongly a mirror/foreshadowing.I still wonder why Sherlock hasn't got the slightest doubts in his own case. And I don't really see it that the writers have planned this all along for Sherlock. There is some tiny scene missing, a word, a glance, an unusual camera shot that could give you the feeling "oh, hiw curious, there must be something else to this."

I wonder if you directly copy Sherlocks words to his own case: who is it who wanted to prevent it that Sherlock remembered? That he had to be stopped and noone would believe a word he said? Mycroft???
The first thing: probably yes. Remembering would have certainly caused Sherlock pain. To solve his trauma it would have been better to remember, just like Henry Knight. And Mycroft did the wrong thing out of love.
But all the other points like making him unbelievable?

I don't know how much they planned it but I definitely thought of HOB when it was revealed Redbeard was not actually a dog.

I remembered this line by Sherlock in particular.

"Childhood trauma masked by an invented memory. Boring!"

Rache wrote:

Yeah I know, this scene is indeed quite strongly a mirror/foreshadowing.I still wonder why Sherlock hasn't got the slightest doubts in his own case. And I don't really see it that the writers have planned this all along for Sherlock. There is some tiny scene missing, a word, a glance, an unusual camera shot that could give you the feeling "oh, hiw curious, there must be something else to this."

I wonder if you directly copy Sherlocks words to his own case: who is it who wanted to prevent it that Sherlock remembered? That he had to be stopped and noone would believe a word he said? Mycroft???
The first thing: probably yes. Remembering would have certainly caused Sherlock pain. To solve his trauma it would have been better to remember, just like Henry Knight. And Mycroft did the wrong thing out of love.
But all the other points like making him unbelievable?

I don't know a lot about how mirrors work, but I guess it's not necessary for them to be 100% exact. Anyway, maybe they liked the idea of the trauma first and they reused it with Sherlock, and now it looks like cool foreshadowing xDD

About Mycroft wanting to prevent Sherlock to remember: I have the feeling that there is more about that than just concern about the way Sherlock would react. In some way looks like Mycroft wants to preserve the statu quo with his parents, Sherrinford, etc. Sherlock has stronger ethics than Mycroft, and he is also valuable to him just the way he is, and changing that in any way could have unexpected consequences for everyone (and for the government). For me it's more about that than about protecting Sherlock at all costs.

besleybean wrote:

I don't know if Sherlock does have higher morals than Mycroft...

I fully agree with you there, I was quite puzzled by the remark of Sherlock having stronger ethics than Mycroft as well. Sherlock's morals/ethics are quite - what could be the right word - flexible? 
 

Last edited by Kae Em (February 17, 2017 5:32 pm)

Kae Em wrote:

besleybean wrote:

I don't know if Sherlock does have higher morals than Mycroft...

I fully agree with you there, I was quite puzzled by the remark of Sherlock having stronger ethics than Mycroft as well. Sherlock's morals/ethics are quite - what could be the right word - flexible? 
 

I actually paused a bit after I wrote that and thought "really, does he?". But I decided to leave it because that's how I perceive the characters, although it's true that I don't have any concrete proof to back it  up. Maybe I see Sherlock more like a black-and-white, good-vs-evil kind of person, whereas Mycroft looks much more shady to me. Of maybe Sherlock is just more naive and Mycroft has more intelligence and power and ends up making more difficult choices that affect more people (like "do I leave Eurus alone with Moriarty, or do I stop preventing a terrorist attack when I know I could?").

Maybe my comment was also biased because I just rewatched HLV and Sherlock behaves really well in it, fighting CAM, trying to save Johns marriage, etc. 

My position in this is not fixed at all, so thanks for your input.

I do agree that both have "flexible" morals. One having stronger ethics than the other doesn't  mean either of them are moral compasses to anyone.

Elemental wrote:

I actually paused a bit after I wrote that and thought "really, does he?". But I decided to leave it because that's how I perceive the characters, although it's true that I don't have any concrete proof to back it  up. Maybe I see Sherlock more like a black-and-white, good-vs-evil kind of person, whereas Mycroft looks much more shady to me. Of maybe Sherlock is just more naive and Mycroft has more intelligence and power and ends up making more difficult choices that affect more people (like "do I leave Eurus alone with Moriarty, or do I stop preventing a terrorist attack when I know I could?").

Maybe my comment was also biased because I just rewatched HLV and Sherlock behaves really well in it, fighting CAM, trying to save Johns marriage, etc. 

My position in this is not fixed at all, so thanks for your input.

I do agree that both have "flexible" morals. One having stronger ethics than the other doesn't  mean either of them are moral compasses to anyone.

It's very interesting how differently characters can be perceived. But that's what keeps the discussion interesting  I always had the impression that general ethics were a concept that Sherlock probably wasn't even fully aware of. It's not that he's purposely unethical, but he does a lot of stuff that is considered to be unethical by the majority of people. I think quite often this happens just because he doesn't seem to know better and doesn't have any moral compass at all. For example: 

1) whipping a corpse (ASiP)
2) keeping a severed head in his fridge (TBB)
3) purposely solving a case slowly, not caring at all that there's a victim with a bomb strapped around his body who has to wait in agony hours longer because of the delay (TGG)
4) trying to give his best friend a hallucingogenic drug and scare him half to death to prove he was right (yes, the drug was not in the sugar, but he tried; HOB)
5) Forcing a confession out of his best friend by making him believe that he's about to die (TEH)
6) Showing a little boy pictures of a corpse and promising him to show him pictures of beheadings (TSoT)
8) Threatening Mary's ex and almost scaring him to death (TSoT; don't misunderstand me: I love that scene, but Sherlock's behaviour surely can't be considered ethical)
7) Shooting CAM in the head (HLV; yes, CAM had it coming, but what Sherlock did can't be considered ethical)

That's just the most obvious examples, there are also some more subtle moments. 

On the other hand, how often do we see Mycroft do anything really unethical? 

1) Ok, some people might claim the "abduction" of John in ASiP might be unethical. But it's not an actual abduction, it's powerplay: He shows John that he's a powerful man and suggests he gets into the car, which John does. John doesn't seem to feel very intimidated (I think he quite enjoys Anthea's company) or abducted in that scene, he's intrigued about what's going on. But yes, Mycroft is misusing his power a bit there, so I'm going to concede that there's something unethical about it (even if he does it for the right reasons, he could have chosen another way to do what he did)
2) Stealing dead bodies and put them on plane to prevent a terrorist attack (ASiB). Ok, that wasn't just Mycroft, there were many other parties involved in that plan, including the CIA. And there Mycroft was faced with two choices: Either trick the terrorists by making them believe they succeeded or risk another terrorist attack with hundreds of casualties.That's an ethical dilemma he didn't really have an other way out than chosing the one or the other, so I wouldn't hold that against him. 
3) Giving away personal details of Sherlock's life to Moriarty in order to get pieces of important information that could save lives out of Moriarty (TRF). If what Sherlock tells Anderson in TEH is actually true, then this was something that Sherlock and Mycroft had planned from the start, so there's nothing unethical about it because he had Sherlock's consent. 
4) Then comes the one in TFP you mentioned before: The choice of either letting Eurus talk to Moriarty and preventing several terrorist attacks or letting hundreds (I assume) people die. Again an ethical dilemma where he didn't really have a chance to avoid a somewhat unethical decision, so I can't hold that against him. 

Mycroft is generelly faced with quite some difficult ethical dilemmas and he usually choses the option that saves more lives. Not really unethical, in my eyes. So generally, as I perceive it, Mycroft has a  stronger moral compass than Sherlock does, he's just ended up in a position where he probably gets stuck in moral dilemmas on a daily basis. 



 

Last edited by Kae Em (February 17, 2017 9:14 pm)

I do accept what you are saying.
There are great unknowns: for example, because of Mycroft's official work, just how many deaths has he 'been responsible for' and I certainly think the issues are worth discussing: is a government sanctioned death more moral than an unofficial death etc?
But I do think we also have to take note of what we actually see on the screen: we have seen Sherlock 'execute' somebody, we have not seen Mycroft do the same and on the contrary he has stated that he 'will not kill'.
I think he's possibly stretching the truth there, but these are things we are actually shown on screen.
I am of course typing with the assumption that killing somebody is the worst thing you can do.

Last edited by besleybean (February 18, 2017 8:41 am)

Well yes, but my personal ethics would rule out murdering either of them.
Clearly Culverton was the worst case and yet Sherlock didn't opt to execute him...had he learned his lesson after CAM?