CHANGING  OF  THE  GUARD

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A metaphorical reading of Sherlock BBC, The Sign of Three (and beyond)

The beginning of Sherlock BBC, The Sign of Three, really leaves no doubt what the theme of its story is about. When the eye of the camera zooms slowly in on Speedy’s and the famous black door with the number 221 in Baker Street, it seems to take it’s path right through a literal wood of pointy, black spears. Fences built of iron spears that guard the place..

It starts with a row of spears in the forground. When those get blurry, even more spears from midfield move into focus. Finally the camera reveals spears also in the background. That makes tree levels of spears, one might say.

Three levels of spears stand like guardians in front of 221b Baker Street. Could those three levels symbolize the three stabbing victims of The Sign of Three? After all, each one of the three characters is depicted as guard, as protector … and each one of them gets stabbed. 

TBC below the cut …

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wow, love this! So many motifs, themes, colors, etc. get carried through the whole series, the more we trace the more coherent the picture becomes.

Sherlock is often metafictional in nature: in series three particularly, the writers frequently draw the audience’s attention to the fact that the programme is constructed. One of the ways through which they accomplish this is through utilising word selection and dialogue framing so as to draw attention to the particular implications of specific linguistic choices.

This plays a significant role in The Sign of Three, particularly in the exploration of relationships, and is exemplified by the framing of the introduction of Major James Sholto:

The resolution of the client’s dilemma is a simple one: even if the audience hadn’t heard of identical triplets before, it remains the most obvious explanation of three people who are identical other than mole patterns. The case doesn’t serve to showcase Sherlock’s deductive abilities and makes no impact on the criminal investigation aspect of the narrative. So what was it doing there? Possibly it was there to insinuate a connection between the case and the relationship between the other people present in the discussion either physically or by mention. It is between John twice reading out “my husband is three people” that Major Sholto is introduced – a character who is discussed with language carrying romantic implications. This is first exemplified during the following dialogue:

The framing of this dialogue creates a double entendre – Mary’s statement that it’s her wedding day serves explicitly as a reason for her to smile, but the implicit implication of it following her reminder that neither she nor Sherlock were ‘the first’ is that there is something romantic in the nature of John’s relationships with Sholto and Sherlock as well as her.

The second is during the flashback to John and Sherlock’s conversation on the bench while investigating the case of what will later be referred to as the ‘Invisible Man’:

‘Why don’t you see him anymore’ and the term ‘ex’ are, of course, culturally associated with romantic relationships. It’s also particularly significant that John emphasises the semantic differences between ‘previous’ and ‘ex’, since the language of sexuality affects him more than any other character in the programme. He never claims to be straight, only “not gay” – a defensive technique which I and many other bisexual people can attest to having used – and only on two occasions when he has been pressured into discussing personal matters with someone he dislikes and then when it has been insinuated that he couldn’t possibly marry a woman. His other denials of involvement with Sherlock refer to their relationship status – he is “not his date” or they are “not a couple”, but those are temporary claims that in no way discount the possibility of attraction to or future involvement with Sherlock or with men generally. That John plays the most prominent role in exploring the minute differences in language in this episode will therefore be of interest to anyone who reads him as queer and closeted.

Even John notes Sherlock’s unusual level of interest in ‘another human being’ (and ‘chatting’, Sherlock? really?) - remember that at this point in the narrative, when the flashback scene actually took place, Sherlock was not aware that Sholto was the intended victim of the ‘Invisible Man’. The parallel that Sherlock draws between himself and Sholto (implying that he is John’s current commanding officer) is also notable, given that he is evidently jealous of him and discusses him romantic terms.

Then there’s the dialogue between Sherlock and Sholto through the hotel room door:

John parallels Sherlock and Mary several times throughout series three – ‘she has completely turned my life around; changed everything. But, for the record, over the last few years there are two people who have done that,’ ‘You should have got married’ and ‘I want to be up there with the two people that I love and care about most in the world. … Mary Morstan… and… you’ – and here we again see Sherlock explicitly paralleled with Sholto, too.

This triplicity, the triplicity of ‘The Sign of Three’ as a title and the “my husband is three people” case could perhaps coexist coincidentally, but ‘the universe’ (and the media industry) ‘is rarely so lazy’.

-

This is derived from my meta on romantic conventions in Sherlock, which can be read here.

Good one!

the adventure of secon stain

I have always loved the Canon and Holmes, since I was child and I thought I knew the stories quite well. But the more time passes, the more I realize how faulty my conviction was considering how many references in BBC Sherlock I continue to lose. And I am more and more amazed at how they have taken such a monumental work, even in terms of size, they have taken it apart bit by bit, to reassemble it in a way that is deceptive and perfectly consistent at the same time. After commenting on this meta, which basically talks about  two stains, I took up “the adventure of the second stain”. It is one of those stories rich in subtext and in which, if you are in this game, you can notice a remarkable game of mirrors.

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oh, very interesting, i don't think i caught that level of mirroring when i read this one with @astudyincanon book club!

Isaac, Shezza, Billy ….. a sign of three?

Sherlock BBC, His Last Vow

Good catch, @ebaeschnbliah. Another instance of ‘My husband is three people’, aka splitting characters into three mirrors.

What I’m wondering about, though, is how we can break this scene down into its different functional components: Moffat usually doesn’t just throw around several mirrors for one character without giving each mirror a very specific, very narrow function (like in the hiker-and-the-backfiring-car scene in ASiB where the two John!mirrors aren’t just there for funsies, but essentially represent a split of John’s character into a body!mirror and a heart!mirror, as @loudest-subtext-in-tv pointed out.)

Moffat always does that: Several mirrors for one person mean that each mirror has a very narrowly defined function.

And then, these, in turn, tie in seamlessly with the larger narrative, ie, when Moffat splits characters into several mirrors, this always has a deeper meaning for what the episode as a whole is all about, and each of these mirror!functions always comes together into one clear subtextual meaning.

I know this has to be the case here, too. But so far, I’m really struggling to see it. 

The first few minutes of HLV alone introduce several Sherlock!mirrors right off the bat, so they should each have a different function (Kate Whitney is a Sherlock!mirror, Isaac is one, Billy Wiggins is one too…and that’s not even counting John, who’s an obvious Sherlock!mirror at the start of the episode and possibly Mary, who usually is a Sherlock!mirror, too). Somehow these first couple of minutes mean something else than what we can uncover with just a textual reading.

I know it will probably all come together seamlessly, with each mirror having a function and all of them together telling us something about what’s going on subtextually.  But I just can’t seem to be able to put my finger on it.

I will have to think about this some more. Hm…

Agree, @sagestreet  This is a very important scene and I think all the characters represent parts of Sherlock himself. As mentioned on another thread of this post, it’s also the original canon story ‘The man with the twisted lip’ which seems to be very interesting. Some more musings about this scene:

Just like in TWIS, Kate and Isa Whitney appear only at the beginning of the story. The case Holmes investigates after Isa Whitney has been sent home, is quite another one as well.

It’s about a man (happily married, affectionate father of two children, living in a large villa outside London, popular with all who know him). This man ….

Holmes assumes the man to be dead, probably murdered …. until the wife of the missing man shows him a note she received days after her husbands presumed death. The note changes the case ….

Like with 'Yellow Face’ - TWIS is a case with no victim, no murder and no crime ….. VICTIM & MURDERER ARE ACTUALLY THE SAME PERSON !

What a lovely dialogue from THOB. :)))))  But ack to the beginning of HLV. There is a car (body) driven by John and Mary beside him (facade and heart=the man with the mask) and on the backseat thee are three addicts …. three times Sherlock.

And what’s also very interesting …. the car with the five characters in it drives to Molly …. another Sherlock-heart-mirror. This makes three addicts (Shezza, Isaac, Billy), three hearts (Kate, Molly, John) and one facade (Mary). A nice compilation, isn’t it?  :)))))

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow @shylockgnomes

Love this discussion! :) Since I’ve already commented with ‘My husband is three people’ twice in this thread, I won’t say it again (oopsie! There seems to be something comfortable about the number three… ;) ) So yes; I believe @sagestreet is spot on that Mofftiss tend to split characters into more than one mirror. And brilliant observation about the ‘Cluedo conundrum’, @ebaeschnbliah!  I somehow get the impression that Sherlock is his own ‘murderer’… ;)

Since you and @tendergingergirl already pointed it out so eloquently earlier, by now I feel convinced this sequence is deliberately referring to the ACD canon story TWIS. And I believe this is indeed Sherlock’s method of processing problems in his head; he sets up a Mind Theatre with different ‘actors’ (all representing himself or John), but impersonating different problems or aspects/POVs/metaphors. Then he lets them play out to see what the result will be. Running scenarios.

I love the idea that Sherlock might be looking back at his own personal development and relation to drugs. The Shezza-Billy-Isaac scenario seems to investigate the reason why he got into this habit in the first place. And - according to your ‘three-hearts’ metaphor @ebaeschnbliah, the conclusion is that it has to do with Sentiment, isn’t it? ;)

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @raggedyblue @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow @shylockgnomes

reblogging from up-thread because this time i twigged on something about the name Kate. I get the double mirroring going on everywhere, but if kate whitney is a john mirror, as kate in ASIB is also (each in relation to a sherlock mirror, isaac and irene) then what about john wanting to call his daughter katherine, vs "mary" insisting on her own name for the baby? That puts me in mind of @sagestreet 's "baby switch" meta, john & "mary" vying for control of the future.

ACK, forgot to tag anyone. @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @possiblyimbiassed @raggedyblue @tendergingergirl apologies if i left anyone out.

Sherlock is often metafictional in nature: in series three particularly, the writers frequently draw the audience’s attention to the fact that the programme is constructed. One of the ways through which they accomplish this is through utilising word selection and dialogue framing so as to draw attention to the particular implications of specific linguistic choices.

This plays a significant role in The Sign of Three, particularly in the exploration of relationships, and is exemplified by the framing of the introduction of Major James Sholto:

The resolution of the client’s dilemma is a simple one: even if the audience hadn’t heard of identical triplets before, it remains the most obvious explanation of three people who are identical other than mole patterns. The case doesn’t serve to showcase Sherlock’s deductive abilities and makes no impact on the criminal investigation aspect of the narrative. So what was it doing there? Possibly it was there to insinuate a connection between the case and the relationship between the other people present in the discussion either physically or by mention. It is between John twice reading out “my husband is three people” that Major Sholto is introduced – a character who is discussed with language carrying romantic implications. This is first exemplified during the following dialogue:

The framing of this dialogue creates a double entendre – Mary’s statement that it’s her wedding day serves explicitly as a reason for her to smile, but the implicit implication of it following her reminder that neither she nor Sherlock were ‘the first’ is that there is something romantic in the nature of John’s relationships with Sholto and Sherlock as well as her.

The second is during the flashback to John and Sherlock’s conversation on the bench while investigating the case of what will later be referred to as the ‘Invisible Man’:

‘Why don’t you see him anymore’ and the term ‘ex’ are, of course, culturally associated with romantic relationships. It’s also particularly significant that John emphasises the semantic differences between ‘previous’ and ‘ex’, since the language of sexuality affects him more than any other character in the programme. He never claims to be straight, only “not gay” – a defensive technique which I and many other bisexual people can attest to having used – and only on two occasions when he has been pressured into discussing personal matters with someone he dislikes and then when it has been insinuated that he couldn’t possibly marry a woman. His other denials of involvement with Sherlock refer to their relationship status – he is “not his date” or they are “not a couple”, but those are temporary claims that in no way discount the possibility of attraction to or future involvement with Sherlock or with men generally. That John plays the most prominent role in exploring the minute differences in language in this episode will therefore be of interest to anyone who reads him as queer and closeted.

Even John notes Sherlock’s unusual level of interest in ‘another human being’ (and ‘chatting’, Sherlock? really?) - remember that at this point in the narrative, when the flashback scene actually took place, Sherlock was not aware that Sholto was the intended victim of the ‘Invisible Man’. The parallel that Sherlock draws between himself and Sholto (implying that he is John’s current commanding officer) is also notable, given that he is evidently jealous of him and discusses him romantic terms.

Then there’s the dialogue between Sherlock and Sholto through the hotel room door:

John parallels Sherlock and Mary several times throughout series three – ‘she has completely turned my life around; changed everything. But, for the record, over the last few years there are two people who have done that,’ ‘You should have got married’ and ‘I want to be up there with the two people that I love and care about most in the world. … Mary Morstan… and… you’ – and here we again see Sherlock explicitly paralleled with Sholto, too.

This triplicity, the triplicity of ‘The Sign of Three’ as a title and the “my husband is three people” case could perhaps coexist coincidentally, but ‘the universe’ (and the media industry) ‘is rarely so lazy’.

-

This is derived from my meta on romantic conventions in Sherlock, which can be read here.

They told us Eurus, Redbeard, and Sherlock were all the same person in TAB

Do you remember the part where Sherlock drags his friends to Ricoletti’s grave and we think it’s real, but it’s actually mind palace?

The grave stone says “Emelia Ricoletti, Beloved Sister”

Sherlock jumps in and starts panting like a dog. He shovels dirt with his hands, digging like a hound with paws.

Sherlock is all three people.

“My husband is three people”

The Final Problem makes sense only in subtext. Whether you think it’s John’s MP or Sherlock’s MP, that’s still up for debate. I’m officially siding with Sherlock’s because there are flashbacks to the waterfall scene from TAB in TFP, which means both of those episodes must have been experienced by the same character, and I don’t think it was John for both.

Sherlock DID have a friend named Victor Trevor, but his death happened much later in Sherlock’s life. Because of that Sherlock took to hard drugs as a young adult, not as a child. There are two separate deaths he combined together to create TFP.

Redbeard was an imaginary friend. Sherlock didn’t have friends, we know this. He wanted to be a pirate – Mycroft remembers and misses that carefree child.

So what changed Sherlock’s mind? Why did the cold, logical, calculating machine take over and get rid of Sherlock’s imaginary friend?

Mycroft. He kept calling Sherlock “a stupid little boy”, saying “you always were so stupid”. Sherlock even says Mycroft thought he was an idiot. Sherlock stopped being “stupid” and tried to emulate his big brother – the only person in his life that would tolerate him. He tried solving the Carl Powers case and boom! Sherlock Holmes the little detective was born. This is why Mycroft brought up Redbeard at the wedding – “Hey, don’t get involved, remember when you had to resort to imaginary friends like a pathetic little child?” makes a lot more sense than “Hey, don’t get involved, remember your dead friend Victor who disappeared because our secret sister killed him?”.

Eurus represents the crushing logic that destroys everything Sherlock loves.

Because it’s happened before. Twice we’ve seen Sherlock’s mind explain how Victor died, we just didn’t know it.

Weiterlesen

Yes, I agree. Very interesting thoughts  @the-7-percent-solution   S4 only makes sense when watched through the lens of symbolism, subtext and metaphor. Viewed in that way it is beautiful and brilliant and so very heartbreaking as well. Little Victor looks so much like a ‘little John' - too much to be a real person. I suspect this character to serve as a symbol for friendship, love and empathy in this part of the play on Sherlock’s ‘Mind-Stage’. And he looks like a young John Watson because the real John Watson is the person Sherlock connects with friendship, love and empathy.  As you said - Victor incorporates all the things Sherlock’s rational mind - logic and reason (Eurus) -  killed in the past and buried deep down in a metaphorical well. Trying to drown them while he himself floats high up in the clouds above everyone else. Alone and lost. Locked in with his worst enemy - himself (the dark part of himself - Jim?)  Not knowing how to make contact to the ground again without destroing himself.

And all the connections with the original Gloria Scott Story  -  Mr. Hudson’s convition, Mrs. Hudson and America, one deduction too many, Sherlock’s inability to keep his mouth shut when his rational mind (Eurus) is playing it’s favourite game, the consequences thereof, isolation and drug use - all of this would tie in nicely with the ‘lost years’ @gosherlocked mentioned in her 'Biography of Sherlock’. This period of 16years between 1989-2005 we know so little about. There are some interesting lose ends to pick up in this corner of the story. Now that Sherlock’s plane has landed without being smashed to pieces and 221b Baker Street being restored …. Sherlock’s and John's future still looks very thrilling and dangerous  but also exceedingly hopeful to me.

@loveismyrevolution @isitandwonder @monikakrasnorada @tjlcisthenewsexy

Ah, yes @ebaeschnbliah I remember you explaining all of this to me. Yep, to me, ‘everything is MP and Sherlock runs scenarios to come to terms with his past’ is the only way I can tolerate S4. And I really like the connections you make here @the-7-percent-solution!

And doesn’t point Musgrave in the same direction? Because that was not canonically the Holmes manor, but the house of the only other person from Holmes’s past ever mentioned in canon: Reginald Musgrave.

Holmes describes him in The Musgrave Ritual:

“Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as myself, and I had some slight acquaintance with him. He was not generally popular among the undergraduates, though it always seemed to me that what was set down as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme natural diffidence. In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners.”

Sounds much like Sherlock himself…

Anyway, the mention of both Victor Trevor and Musgrave in TFP points in the direction of someone from Sherlock’s past at the centre of what happened and changed him so fundamentally. Sherlock has to work through these things to become whole again.

And therefore, the Musgrave ritual can be some kind of metaphor. Because, in the original story, every son of the Musgrave family had to learn the text of the ritual; but over the centuries, its meaning had been lost. They were just words, but to discover their message it needed someone logical, first Brunton, after him a Sherlock Holmes. Is this a metaphor, meaning that Sherlock knows what happened (he knows the text) but has to decipher its hidden meaning, and what to do about it? That he has to acknowledge what made him the way he is, allow his past to re-surface? (And is this speakin gto us viewers as well, that there might be something to decipher?)

And as this all ties in with friends from his past…

In the ACD story, the butler Brunton is found dead in the hiding place of the treasure. The treasure is gone but will later be discovered in a lake (water). It’s never revealed if Brunton was killed by his former lover, the maid Rachel, or if it was an accident. Is this what happened in Sherlock’s past as well? A friend died, and he’s not sure if he killed him or if it was an accident (drugs come to mind)?

Anyway, Brunton died alone (like we were told Victor did in TFP), it’s about a treasure (who is found but first not recognised as one, a bit like a reference to the empty AGRA treasure?), and even a woman called Rachel features (like in ASiP, going back to the beginning of Sherlock). And all the logic of the treasure hunt , deciphering the ritual (by Brunton), was toppled by the jealousy (emotions) of his former lover. Again, Sherlock might think how dangerous love can be. Employing all these references might suggest that at the bottom of what changed Sherlock might also be a devastating love affair?

Does this make any sense?

Of course this makes sense! A lot of sense! I love all this connections to canon you just pointed out @isitandwonder  And regarding the riddle-song - isn’t it strange that little Victor supposedly ended drowned in a well when in the song not a dropplet of water is mentioned? Just a lot of digging in the field and under an old beech tree? Oh, Sherlock might be back at 221b but I don’t think this means he is back from his Mind-Palace journey yet.

rb for discussion.

Isaac, Shezza, Billy ….. a sign of three?

Sherlock BBC, His Last Vow

Good catch, @ebaeschnbliah. Another instance of ‘My husband is three people’, aka splitting characters into three mirrors.

What I’m wondering about, though, is how we can break this scene down into its different functional components: Moffat usually doesn’t just throw around several mirrors for one character without giving each mirror a very specific, very narrow function (like in the hiker-and-the-backfiring-car scene in ASiB where the two John!mirrors aren’t just there for funsies, but essentially represent a split of John’s character into a body!mirror and a heart!mirror, as @loudest-subtext-in-tv pointed out.)

Moffat always does that: Several mirrors for one person mean that each mirror has a very narrowly defined function.

And then, these, in turn, tie in seamlessly with the larger narrative, ie, when Moffat splits characters into several mirrors, this always has a deeper meaning for what the episode as a whole is all about, and each of these mirror!functions always comes together into one clear subtextual meaning.

I know this has to be the case here, too. But so far, I’m really struggling to see it. 

The first few minutes of HLV alone introduce several Sherlock!mirrors right off the bat, so they should each have a different function (Kate Whitney is a Sherlock!mirror, Isaac is one, Billy Wiggins is one too…and that’s not even counting John, who’s an obvious Sherlock!mirror at the start of the episode and possibly Mary, who usually is a Sherlock!mirror, too). Somehow these first couple of minutes mean something else than what we can uncover with just a textual reading.

I know it will probably all come together seamlessly, with each mirror having a function and all of them together telling us something about what’s going on subtextually.  But I just can’t seem to be able to put my finger on it.

I will have to think about this some more. Hm…

Agree, @sagestreet  This is a very important scene and I think all the characters represent parts of Sherlock himself. As mentioned on another thread of this post, it’s also the original canon story ‘The man with the twisted lip’ which seems to be very interesting. Some more musings about this scene:

Just like in TWIS, Kate and Isa Whitney appear only at the beginning of the story. The case Holmes investigates after Isa Whitney has been sent home, is quite another one as well.

It’s about a man (happily married, affectionate father of two children, living in a large villa outside London, popular with all who know him). This man ….

Holmes assumes the man to be dead, probably murdered …. until the wife of the missing man shows him a note she received days after her husbands presumed death. The note changes the case ….

Like with ‘Yellow Face’ - TWIS is a case with no victim, no murder and no crime ….. VICTIM & MURDERER ARE ACTUALLY THE SAME PERSON !

What a lovely dialogue from THOB. :)))))  But ack to the beginning of HLV. There is a car (body) driven by John and Mary beside him (facade and heart=the man with the mask) and on the backseat thee are three addicts …. three times Sherlock.

And what’s also very interesting …. the car with the five characters in it drives to Molly …. another Sherlock-heart-mirror. This makes three addicts (Shezza, Isaac, Billy), three hearts (Kate, Molly, John) and one facade (Mary). A nice compilation, isn’t it?  :)))))

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow @shylockgnomes

I still think that the fact that they made Kate Whitney a mother in the place of a wife has some meaning (which I can not see of course), unless it’s just a link to the drug / love problems with Sherlock’s childhood. How you build your ideals of beauty during childhood, probably adapting them on your mother’s face, so you build your affective models … I do not know. Regarding the original story, it is really exhilarating to see how this game of mirrors was already so used by Doyle … well, here it would be describing Mary … seriously! ???

“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you” That was always the way. Folk who werw in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @sarahthecoat@possiblyimbiassed @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow @shylockgnomes

isaac whitney being a son in this version, reminds me of the biblical story, where isaac’s father was willing to sacrifice him just to prove a point. I always found that story rather off putting, personally. “I’m so devout that i’m willing to kill someone else to prove it”. Yeah, nowadays we call that extremism, or exploitation, or abuse. (YMMV, there are other stories that are more appealing.) So this does suggest something to do with sherlock’s childhood trauma. And that it is about isaac whitney being messed up on drugs=chemistry of love, suggests something to do with sherlock’s romantic life. Someone threw sherlock under the bus as a child/teen?

That quote from TWIS, about how people in need come to my wife for comfort: that’s actually a description of sherlock holmes. MANY clients come to him because their trouble doesn’t seem to be something the police can, or will, help them with.

Yes, @sarahthecoat  I agree wholeheartedly with your view of that 'sacrifice story’.  And it is indeed interesting that the original character of Mrs.Whitney has been changed from wife to mother and Mr.Whitney from husband to son. What might have been the reason for that decision, I wonder.

But it’s not just the relationship status of the Whitney’s that has been changed. In TWIS Mr.Whitney’s firstname is Isa … not Isaac.

’Isa’ … is of Arabic origin and means 'Jesus’.

’Isaac’ … is of Hebrew origin and means 'he will laugh, he will rejoice’ (because Abraham laughed when God told him that his aged wife Sarah would become pregnant with a son)

But there is more to tell. The story of Isaac is actually a horrible and brutal family drama. Another off putting story, you might say. Abraham and Sarah were already too old to get children. So Sarah thought it best that her husband should have childrem - and an heir - with another woman.

As one can imagine, this couldn’t go well. Even while still pregnant Hagar tried to run away but an angel of God told her to go back. So Hagar went back to Abraham and Sarah and gave birth to a son. According to the Bible this happened fourteen years prior to the birth of Isaac. Of course the circumstances weren’t improving once 90 years old Sarah gave birth to a son as well.

A lovely woman indeed, this Sarah. Though distressed by the matter, Abraham fulfilled the wish of his wife and after reassured by God himself that he would take care of mother and son, he sent Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert with 'some food and a skin of water’. Both almost died but then again an angel appeared and rescued them because … 'God will make Ishmael into a great nation. And Ishmael lived in the desert and became an archer. Later his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.’

If the mention of 'murderous jealousy’ in TAB, in connection with some other bits and pieces of dialogue throughout the story, reminds one strongly of Cain and Abel ('Don’t be smart, Sherlock. I’m the smart one.’ … 'Daddy loves me the best’) … the story of Isaac and his half-brother Ishmael is yet another example of a terrible family history. Two sons from two different wifes and only one is accepted by the father. The other one gets cast out together with his mother. If that isn’t the perfect basis for a downright shakespearean tragedy ……

@gosherlocked @sagestreet @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @tendergingergirl @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow

yeah, off putting indeed! I like my name, but im glad im not named after that sarah. :D

And another suggestion that sherlock and mycroft could be half or step brothers, through the mirroring.

Isaac, Shezza, Billy ….. a sign of three?

Sherlock BBC, His Last Vow

Good catch, @ebaeschnbliah. Another instance of ‘My husband is three people’, aka splitting characters into three mirrors.

What I’m wondering about, though, is how we can break this scene down into its different functional components: Moffat usually doesn’t just throw around several mirrors for one character without giving each mirror a very specific, very narrow function (like in the hiker-and-the-backfiring-car scene in ASiB where the two John!mirrors aren’t just there for funsies, but essentially represent a split of John’s character into a body!mirror and a heart!mirror, as @loudest-subtext-in-tv pointed out.)

Moffat always does that: Several mirrors for one person mean that each mirror has a very narrowly defined function.

And then, these, in turn, tie in seamlessly with the larger narrative, ie, when Moffat splits characters into several mirrors, this always has a deeper meaning for what the episode as a whole is all about, and each of these mirror!functions always comes together into one clear subtextual meaning.

I know this has to be the case here, too. But so far, I’m really struggling to see it. 

The first few minutes of HLV alone introduce several Sherlock!mirrors right off the bat, so they should each have a different function (Kate Whitney is a Sherlock!mirror, Isaac is one, Billy Wiggins is one too…and that’s not even counting John, who’s an obvious Sherlock!mirror at the start of the episode and possibly Mary, who usually is a Sherlock!mirror, too). Somehow these first couple of minutes mean something else than what we can uncover with just a textual reading.

I know it will probably all come together seamlessly, with each mirror having a function and all of them together telling us something about what’s going on subtextually.  But I just can’t seem to be able to put my finger on it.

I will have to think about this some more. Hm…

Agree, @sagestreet  This is a very important scene and I think all the characters represent parts of Sherlock himself. As mentioned on another thread of this post, it’s also the original canon story ‘The man with the twisted lip’ which seems to be very interesting. Some more musings about this scene:

Just like in TWIS, Kate and Isa Whitney appear only at the beginning of the story. The case Holmes investigates after Isa Whitney has been sent home, is quite another one as well.

It’s about a man (happily married, affectionate father of two children, living in a large villa outside London, popular with all who know him). This man ….

Holmes assumes the man to be dead, probably murdered …. until the wife of the missing man shows him a note she received days after her husbands presumed death. The note changes the case ….

Like with 'Yellow Face’ - TWIS is a case with no victim, no murder and no crime ….. VICTIM & MURDERER ARE ACTUALLY THE SAME PERSON !

What a lovely dialogue from THOB. :)))))  But ack to the beginning of HLV. There is a car (body) driven by John and Mary beside him (facade and heart=the man with the mask) and on the backseat thee are three addicts …. three times Sherlock.

And what’s also very interesting …. the car with the five characters in it drives to Molly …. another Sherlock-heart-mirror. This makes three addicts (Shezza, Isaac, Billy), three hearts (Kate, Molly, John) and one facade (Mary). A nice compilation, isn’t it?  :)))))

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow @shylockgnomes

I still think that the fact that they made Kate Whitney a mother in the place of a wife has some meaning (which I can not see of course), unless it’s just a link to the drug / love problems with Sherlock’s childhood. How you build your ideals of beauty during childhood, probably adapting them on your mother’s face, so you build your affective models … I do not know. Regarding the original story, it is really exhilarating to see how this game of mirrors was already so used by Doyle … well, here it would be describing Mary … seriously! ???

“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you” That was always the way. Folk who werw in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house.

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @sarahthecoat@possiblyimbiassed @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow @shylockgnomes

isaac whitney being a son in this version, reminds me of the biblical story, where isaac's father was willing to sacrifice him just to prove a point. I always found that story rather off putting, personally. "I'm so devout that i'm willing to kill someone else to prove it". Yeah, nowadays we call that extremism, or exploitation, or abuse. (YMMV, there are other stories that are more appealing.) So this does suggest something to do with sherlock's childhood trauma. And that it is about isaac whitney being messed up on drugs=chemistry of love, suggests something to do with sherlock's romantic life. Someone threw sherlock under the bus as a child/teen?

That quote from TWIS, about how people in need come to my wife for comfort: that's actually a description of sherlock holmes. MANY clients come to him because their trouble doesn't seem to be something the police can, or will, help them with.

Isaac, Shezza, Billy ….. a sign of three?

Sherlock BBC, His Last Vow

hmmmmm.

The meaning of the ‘Three Garridebs’ scene (‘Sherlock’)

So, @shiplocks-of-love asked me sometime before Christmas to write something about the ‘Three Garridebs’ scene in TFP, and I’ve been typing ever since…basically.:) See the finished result of this blood-sweat-and-tears exercise below.

Ever since the ‘Three Garridebs’ scene in TFP aired, I’ve been puzzling over its meaning.

To be sure, cleverer people than I worked out pretty quickly after the episode had aired that the scene is a literal ‘cliffhanger’ and that it also literally dangles the ‘Garrideb’ scenario (from Doyle’s canon story 3GAR) in front of our eyes. Someone even worked out that there’s a ‘Chekhov’s gun’ (x) element in it.

All of these are brilliant discoveries.

But what I haven’t really seen that often yet is a comprehensive reading of the victim and the three dangling men themselves – a comprehensive interpretation of the case Eurus presents Sherlock with, I mean.

In other words…What does the whole case (the victim Evans, the three dangling men, their description, their outward appearance, etc.) mean?

Who represents who in this scenario? 

Why were the descriptions of these three men so very specific down to the tiniest details (the fake tan, for example)?

And why was the scene flipped (when compared to ACD’s canon story 3GAR), with Evans as the victim and Garrideb as the killer?

What could this whole case possibly mean?

(More about this under the cut…)

Continua a leggere

I was thinking back to your post @sagestreet and one of the first things that came to my mind when I read it: my husband is three people. John brought this case to Sherlock’s attention while they were planning his marriage, and he dismissed the thing as annoyed as he does with easy deductions, at the limits of the involuntary. Too bad that the result of the deduction was that they were twins and Sherlock harassed us by saying that are NEVER twins. Then? But if you fall in love with a real person, this person will have (at least) three different personalities. Let’s say that Sherlock categorizes people by dividing them into three different aspects (let’s say that he divides into three the things to analyze them, let’s say he’s neither the first nor the last to do it), John, a real pesron has three aspects, and that’s how been analyzed in the three Garridebs moment. But if you’re talking about a façade, how many aspects will you ever have? A facade is a flat thing that sticks on it. Always identical to itself because it is not authentic. Three identical twins, against three different brothers.

@ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @possiblyimbiassed

Interesting addition, @raggedyblue ! Yes, the Garridebs were never presented as identical triplets, were they? All the contrary, Sherlock did his best to tease out the differences between them, because they represent a real person. But by doing it, he also detected what was not real, thus could be discarded, like the artificial sun tan. ;)

@ebaeschnbliah @sagestreet @gosherlocked

Ooh, yes, absolutely agree with @possiblyimbiassed: This is an interesting addition, @raggedyblue.

I never could make much sense of the “My husband is three people” statement in s3.

But, as always with BBC Sherlock, most explanations are actually not as complicated as we tend to think. Mofftiss straight up told us that they’ve been splitting Sherlock into three (major) mirrors all along.

John says, “My husband…” (=John’s husband is Sherlock, obviously). 

And then Mofftiss pretty much told us to look out for a split into three mirrors:

And as we all know, throughout the show, Sherlock is divided into:

Sherlock (Sherlock’s core/essence), Mycroft (Sherlock’s brain) and John (Sherlock’s heart). That makes three.

And in the ‘Three Garridebs’ scene in TFP, Sherlock does the same to John: He divides him into Alex (John’s core/essence), Nathan (John’s ‘shortsighted’ brain) and Howard (John’s heart/emotional problems), and tries to determine which of the three mirrors metaphorically ‘murdered’ him (Evans=Sherlock).

I always thought the whole “My husband is three people” thing would turn out to be something insanely complex and complicated when really…IT ISN’T.:)

It’s the overarching mirroring structure that we’ve all picked up on all along. Thank you for clarifying that for me once and for all, @raggedyblue.

(In my defence, Sherlock thought it would be something outlandish and complicated, too: Identical triplets. When in reality…Well, it’s kinda banal. We’re all three people, in some sense. And those three people are, as @possiblyimbiassed has pointed out above, never identical. They are pretty different inner personalities that we have and sometimes these three personalities have different objectives that contradict one another. But pretty much any psychiatrist could tell us that.:))

yes! Sherlock always wants it to be complicated, even when it isn't.

John’s  Betrayal -- the Lovestruck Spy

I can’t properly articulate this into a meta at the moment, but I need to scream this into the void anyway.

This theory is  based on the the following premises:

Now let’s look at John:

John, like Mary, has a very peculiar skillset:

And we know next to nothing about his past or his family

Everything we know about it, we know through Sherlock’s deductions.

John seems to have a sister, Harry, but we never see her (and I suspect that we never will, because her and Clara are a Johnlock couple with an unhappy ending, and I believe Mofftiss are gunning for a Johnlock happy ending). 

We have no evidence Sherlock ever met her either – John goes to visit her alone in ASIB. So maybe Harry is another one of John’s names/identities? Maybe John is transgender? Maybe Harry si John’s actual middle name? (“Harry- is short for Harriet”/”Sherlock is actually a girl’s name” would be a nice parallel of aborted confessions).

There’s also this mysterious trip to Dublin that is mentioned in ASIB but never explained. (okay, he does say it’s for a conference, but isn’t it a little convenient? Could it be that he went back to his real identity for a while?)

We don’t actually know what the relationship between John and Mycroft is

We can’t rely on the scenes in which they are alone together (because these are just Sherlock’s speculations, and Sherlock is fallible).

(And anything after TEH is pretty unreliable, too, because it’s all in Sherlock’s head.)

If I had to guess, though, I’d say John accepted Mycroft’s offer to spy on Sherlock for money, and then lied to Sherlock about it, so Mycroft is unofficially John’s boss. That would explain the jabs Mycroft makes at John in TGG and ASIB

In TGG: 

In ASIB:

Photographic evidence: This is John’s smile after Mycroft’s “”””joke””””

To me that looks closer to John’s rage smile in trf

than the actual smiles he had a few minutes earlier with Sherlock:

Or maybe John was “working for Mycroft” all along? There has been speculation that Mycroft engineered John and Sherlock’s 1st meeting, after all.

So what could it all mean? Obvious: John is a spy

I think that John is a secret agent that befriended Sherlock to get closer to Mycroft/Moriarty and possibly kill him, and fell for Sherlock along the way. (according to Mary’s backstory in HLV)

No, seriously, check Mary’s backstory in HLV (transcript courtsy of Ariane DeVere):

Which becomes, with a few substitutions:

I don’t know if John intended to kill Mycroft literally, or if he wanted to keep an eye on him (keep your enemies closer and all that jazz), but I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend to fall for Sherlock along the way (and yet he did, there’s so much evidence for it it’s basically the whole show). That would explain Magnussen mentioning the “wet jobs” in Mary’s resume.

Looking back on the Watsons’ Domestic

Keeping in mind that this is all EMP, if you assume that:

then you understand that the Watson’s domestic is really about Sherlock freaking out because he fell for a secret agent when he thought he’d left this kind of life behind him 5 years ago (according to Soo Lin Yao’s backstory in TBB), and John lied to him for months . Plus, isn’t it weird how Mycroft is back into Sherlock’s life on the same day he and John meet? And you know what they say about coincidences on this show.

That’s why The Watson’s Domestic scene is so dramatic, even though the wedding episode barely featured John and Mary’s relationship. It’s not about Mary betraying John’s trust, it’s about John betraying Sherlock’s.

Incidentally, that also means that in HLV, Sherlock made a deal with Magnussen/Mycroft to protect John from his past as a secret agent.

(On a lighter note, Mary-as-John and John-as-Sherlock also reinforces that “Sherlock Watson” will probably be a thing in the future, what with it being the Watsons domestic and all that)

“It’s never twins” vs “My husband is 3 people”

Another interesting consequence of John Watson being an undercover agent is that it would finally solve the question of whether twins are involved in the story in any way, shape or form: they aren’t. Not literally, at least.

If John is an undercover agent, that means he has at least 2 identities: a real one, and a fake one. That’s how Sherlock’s husband can be 3 people, with no twins ever being involved. Paradox solved!

Interestingly, “my husband is 3 people”, when applied to Secret Agent!John, would suggest that he is actually a double agent. Maybe he’s spying on Mycroft/Moriarty by pretending to spy on Sherlock for them? Who is John really working for, then? Queen and Country? Someone else? Mary’s backstory points to John not being from England, after all. 

Man, John Watson has layers, Sherlock was right about that in TSOT:

Even Sherlock’s subconscious picked up on the fact that John Watson is more than one person.

So what does that mean for TJLC/a Johnlock happy ending?

I only have vague ideas on the subject, but an important element of S4 is Mary’s “redemption” = death.

Subtextually, that could mean that John will give up his mission or blow his cover for Sherlock (which would be the death of his undercover identity, in a way)

And s4′s ending was really hopeful, with Sherlock and 2 John Watsons (symbolising John’s real and fake identities) raising Rosie together, with John’s 3rd identity, Mary, as the narrator, like the specter at the feast that she is.

So that would seem to mean that Sherlock forgave John in the end, and is totally ready to try and build a future with him. 

Though I admit I haven’t had the heart to watch s4 again yet. It’s still too soon.

John Watson and TPTB

One last interesting thing, though: I remember reading an article in which Mofftiss said they wanted to give John Watson a more central role in their story than in other adaptation. Making John Watson a spy would certainly align with that goal, and have it be a big reveal would be an unexpected rugpull (another one).

There are a lot of other little details that support this theory, but as I said, I currently can’t articulate all of it into a proper meta right now.

So what do you think? Do you think I’m onto something here?

Tags under the cut (I hope it’s okay with you guys)

Keep reading

very interesting theory! it would be a huge rug pull for the audience, and it would have that "should have seen" the clues effect too with those seeds planted right in front of us in ASIP and ASIB.

ANOTHER  SIGN  OF  THREE?

________________________________________________________________

THE MOST HATED CHARACTERS IN THE STORY  (several other people hating one character)  -  BASED SOLELY ON THE DIALOGE

THE BLIND BANKER - SHERLOCK

SEBASTIAN: He could look at you and tell you your whole life story. JOHN: Yes, I’ve seen him do it. SEBASTIAN: Put the wind up everybody. We hated him.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS - JOHN

SHERLOCK: How can John be having a birthday dinner? All his friends hate him. You only have to look at their faces. I wrote an essay on suppressed hatred in close proximity based entirely on his friends.

THE SIGN OF THREE - MARY

MARY: John’s cousin. Top table? SHERLOCK: Hmm. Hates you. Can’t even bear to think about you. MARY: Seriously?

MARY: Who else hates me?  (Instantly Sherlock hands her a piece of paper. There’s a long list of names on it.)

________________________________________________________________

Immediately after the ‘who else hates me’ dialoge in TSOT John tries to draw Sherlock’s attention to this unique case:

MY HUSBAND IS THREE PEOPLE

JOHN (chuckling at something on his screen): “My husband is three people.”

JOHN: “My husband is three people.” It’s interesting. Says he has three distinct patterns of moles on his skin. SHERLOCK: Identical triplets – one in half a million births.

________________________________________________________________

And as so often with this story the word 'mole’ has, of course,  several meanings - it’s not just about spots on skin or little animals or spies.

MOLE - DEFINITIONS (X)

________________________________________________________________

 A lot has been written about the fact than Sherlock and John wear a completely similar wedding outfit. Maybe 'identical triplets’ getting married?  (Not biological ones, of course. But who knows whom Sherlock might have 'casted’ for the different roles on this 'Mind-Stage’?)

And then there is this 'cheating story’ between John and 'E’ in TST and TLD. It reminds me a lot of Sherlock and Jim in TGG and TRF. A phone number handed over on a card and secret calls at nighttime. But nothing else happened. And of course, the dialoge at the end of TLD … between John and Mary … Sherlock silently watching … it gives me an odd feeling every time. (X)

Always … when I watch this scene I have the strange impression of looking at three different versions of Sherlock. One representing the past, one the present and one the future.

Too insane? Maybe. Only time will tell. Until then - I leave you to your own deductions.

Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @isitandwonder @monikakrasnorada @shadow3214 @sagestreet @devoursjohnlock @sarahthecoat @darlingtonsubstitution @tjlcisthenewsexy

interesting! i remember reading a lot of meta after s3, about how chock full of sets of three the show was. It got to where, anything there was two of, you knew to keep an eye out for a third. This is a good catch! and of course in s4, we were warned not to stop at 3...