Why the dog keeps barking during the ‘Bruce-Partington case’ – A memory stick meta
First fresh meta in a long time (ie, not from the dark swirling vortex of my draft folder), so I apologise for any typos and lack of eloquence.
A few days ago, @ebaeschnbliah discovered three mysterious dog barking sound bites in TGG, and I promised to write up my theory about them. (You can read about @ebaeschnbliah‘s discovery here: x). Meanwhile @ebaeschnbliah proved to be quicker than I ever could and wrote a post of her own about this (x). So, please don’t be disappointed if the following text, at least in part, repeats some of her points. I promise only some of our observations will overlap and, more importantly, our conclusions will be different.
Okay, settle in, fill your tea cups, grab your reading glasses and let me tell you a story…
The Bruce-Partington case foreshadows s5 like nothing else!
And here’s why…
Remember that we’ve all pretty much collectively agreed that the 5 pips in TGG foreshadow the five seasons of BBC ‘Sherlock’? Many people had written metas about this over the years. (You can read my take on this theory here: x).
This is why we have to examine the fifth pip, the Bruce-Partington case, more closely than anything else if we want to make solid predictions about s5.
The Bruce-Partington case is what it has all been about.
The Bruce-Partington case=s5!
Ergo, the Bruce-Partington case should contain everything we need to know about s5: What will eventually happen. How Sherlock and John will get together. What actually happened to Sherlock in his past to impede his sexual/romantic growth into a happy, openly gay man. All of this should be coded in the Bruce-Partington case.
As it happens the Bruce-Partington case is one of the most complex ones on the show: This case isn’t just subtextually coded. It is double-coded. I would even argue that there’s some evidence that it is triple-coded!
How so?
Well, first of all, let me give you my two main premises, so as to make this easier to understand:
1. Premise number one: Dogs = homosexuality
2. Premise number two: memory sticks = Sherlock’s “lost” memory (about his traumatic past and subsequently repressed gay identity)
Aaaaand finally, in s4, it is recovered…
(There’s more under the cut…)
Ah @sagestreet, and you didn’t even want to write this meta! Fortunately then you did it because as usual you dug deeper, you’re a bit the archaeologist of this fandom, all excavations and pieces of art ;-P All always super interesting. The memory stick thing is always very sensible when read this way. And as I already mentioned it is interesting that these memory sticks are never actually read by anyone. The first is drowned by Moriarty, the second is burned. But perhaps we can find differences between them. The first contains secret plans (if I can, I will focus on the contents of these plans, are missile plans … among all the available weapons, if the gun already seems to have a phallic connotation, I do not even want to dwell on what looks like a missile ) which as you say brilliantly can refer to Sherlock’s homosexual memory. I must say that I am not entirely convinced of the motivations of Moriarty. Always read as homophobia, correctly in my opinion, contains in itself however the pure and simple suffix homo. It is homophobia as long as it is not accepted. It is homophobia as long as it is not free (i want to be free, i want to be …. god). He takes the memory of Sherlock, who already knows, because it is that who created him, and throws it away just because he already owns it. He makes it go back where it was, drowned deep, like it happened at Carl Powers … now here I’m shooting blind, so of pure instinct. If I think better about it, maybe it does not hold water. But Carl Powers was drowned because he laughed at Moriarty. Because he laughed about the homosexual side of Sherlock. And Moriarty / Sherlock drowned him, which is similar to holding in a well, which makes a lot of thinking about the removal. And it is since then that Moriarty has become bad, from homosexual to homophobia. And now he threatens to blow up, burn John, but Sherlock is not ready, his memory is buried, the bomb is taken from John and Sherlock’s sexuality, Irene, draws attention to herself. It is something that must be resolved first. A before and after. The same scene re-reads as prediction tells, as you and @ebaeschnbliah said, a story with a different outcome. The second stick has a different content, contains AGRA that I had already thought (X)could be a representation of Sherlock. A more recent memory, a memory that refers to John, to the love that Sherlock feels for him and to the things what he has done for him. In fact, someone reads that key, Sherlock does it, it is John who refuses to do it, who does not want to see all that is evident. He throws it into the fire, but it stubbornly reappears. The attempt to deny, the memory stick, is hidden in the bust of the Tacher, an irreproachable and homophobic facade, but this ends up shattering. At that point it is likely that John has read it, it is never said, but it is he who suggests to us a locator, so it is likely that he has deepened his knowledge. And the further heteronormative facade that tries to take possession of information, to hide the evidence, is hunted down. I apologize for all this digression, maybe a little shaky on the memory stick. As far as your Bruce-Partington case analysis is concerned, it’s so beautiful! On the second level, the reading of Mycrof as a thief of Sherlock’s homosexual identity, in order to protect him, caring is not an advantage, alone protects me …. it’s clear (the mirror Mycroft / Joe through the outfit is rather cheeky). I would read Mycroft as the rational part of Sherlock who does everything to protect himself, but also to see him as Author is very interesting. And above all, what I love in your meta is how, despite the subtext is laid bare, you can also keep the focus on potential literal development. There are so many possible levels of reading that I continue to think that it is also possible one in which John and Sherlock replace Joe and Westie. You can see it here too, these three screencaps are in sequence.
The first and third are mirrored, in the middle we have the double mirror, John, the military bag at his feet, the bicycle chain, and Mycroft.
The atmosphere, very similar to the stag nigth (we never see Lucy) and the alcoholic inebriation.
But while in this case the murder happens, let’s say that finally they end up in bed, in the stag night they are interrupted by a nurse ….
But of course with the third one you’ve made sparks. The trio Mummy, Dad and Rudy is perfect. And also the fact that once he’s killed (fucked) Westie is put on a train is interesting.
A train that had taken a certain direction but then because of an exchange causes the body to fall … the father had decided to choose Rudy but then something made him change his mind and this led to a bad end? ( here death = death).
As always you can stimulate the small gray cells … even if in my comment I fear mine have more than anything else danced samba ….
Thank you, @raggedyblue. I’m glad you liked it.
I love your observation with the train. It makes so much sense:
A guy’s life is supposed to go one way (one endless track disappearing in the metaphorical distance, ie, future), but then there’s a point and he’s suddenly, unexpectedly thrown off course. That makes all the sense in the world.
Incidentally, this could also mean that trains might play an important part in s5. Real trains that stand for metaphorical trains, obviously. Since the Bruce-Partington case foreshadows s5, this seems more than just a bit likely.
When it comes to Moriarty…yeah, you’re right!
@ebaeschnbliah has been telling me, for months, that he represents more than just homophobia. I’ve just been too stubborn to understand what she was telling me.:)
But she (and you) are right. Moriarty wants the explosion to happen, wants to blow them both up, ie, Moriarty is Love, too. Explosive love. He’s also referred to as the crack in the lens, the speck in the ointment or whatever in TAB. This happens after they have already established that this is the definition of love in the same episode. Yes, I think @ebaeschnbliah and you are both right: Moriarty is Love.
But he is Love and something else too. Moriarty is Homophobia and Love at the same time.
That’s seems to be THE one problem Sherlock has: the two concepts have become the same thing to him, they have melded into one. Internalised homophobia and Love are represented by the same inner persona, which is massively, massively unhealthy, of course.
If we come back to the reading that Moriarty is something like Sherlock’s Freudian ‘Id’ (with Mycroft being Sherlock’s ‘Super-Ego’), a reading people have proposed ages ago, then it all becomes very clear: The Freudian ‘Id’ is the inner space where all drives and desires reside, without the slightest bit of moral connotation. I.e. Sherlock can’t distinguish between healthy drives and destructive drives. They are the same to him.
To Sherlock, Love=gay sex=suicide are the same thing.
Sherlock’s great task over the course of these five seasons is to differentiate these things. Homophobia has to be defeated, yes, and Love has to be embraced, but first he has to understand where one begins and the other one ends. That seems to be his problem.
And I maintain that to separate these two into different concepts he has to examine what happened to his dad. (Which is my favourite theory right now.:))
Psychoanalytic reading is always very interesting and I think the show draws fully from it. However, in the allegorical carnival they created I think Sherlock’s ID is clearly played by Eurus (X). And of course, Moriarty has a close relationship with this part of Sherlock’s psyche. The iD is the place where things were removed (X), and Sherlock removed his being gay when he decided that caring was not an advantage, that love is a crack on the lens. He removed Moriarty in the bottom of a padded cell. But when John appears in his life ID (Eurus) and Moriarty started to work together. To be free, revive the past to dissolve the knots.
Exactly @raggedyblue It’s all about choices and consequences and what might happen if one alters the ‘one fixed point in a changing world’. When the friend becomes the lover …. and the passions grenade finally explodes ….
Sex is action - it can be locked in by force and supressed … and Sherlock tries to be very thorough when he secures Mr.Sex in the padded cell with chain and collar, like a dangerous hound.
Love is emotion - it is impossible to lock in such an indomitable and powerful force of nature … and Sherlock fears it from the beginning, that “love is a much more vicious motivator”, equipped with velvet paws and deadly claws. :)))
MMHMM!