i got to the crooked man episode of granada yesterday and i’m still amazed i didn’t know the canon significance of the name “david” until now……… biblical king david lusts after (already married) bathsheba, gets her pregnant, and sends her husband to the front lines of battle so that he’ll be more likely to die?? like holy shit, “into battle” indeed
@thewarriorprincesinthefield ok so first, in the story The Crooked Man
- a colonel(? i can’t remember his rank) is found dead in his house, and his wife is passed out near him. a maid overheard her shouting “David! David!” in an argument with him just before he’s found dead
- so it SEEMS at first like she killed her husband…
- BUT it turns out there was a third person in the room: it’s the wife’s long-lost love who has been assumed dead for years. he had been in the same regiment as the now-husband, and the now-husband sent him on a dangerous mission in the secret hope that he’d be killed and he could marry his now-wife.
- so Holmes has solved the case, but Watson is all “but none of these people are named David?? who tf is David??”
- turns out it’s a biblical allusion: Wife was really angry when she found out that the guy she’s been married to for years tried to have the guy she was in love with murdered so he could swoop in and marry her instead – in the bible, King David desires Bathsheba (who is already married to Uriah) and arranges for her husband to be sent to the front lines of battle so that he’ll be killed and David can do what he wants
- (btw King David’s punishment for his horrible shenanigans is God killing the baby he fathered with her)
in terms of BBC, this all makes
- Mary = King David, the murderous interloper
- John = Bathsheba, the one everyone is lusting after
- Sherlock = Uriah, who is sent into battle to die
which is wild because we have Sherlock going “into battle” in TSOT, Mary’s ex David in TSOT, Mary killing Sherlock in various literal/symbolic ways all throughout S3/TAB/S4 (the whole “go to hell, Sherlock Holmes” video message??) and their fake friend Beth in TSOT too??????? Beth/Bathsheba??? i mean that would really solidify the name Beth, (Beth Davenport, Elizabeth Smallwood, etc.) as a john mirror, jeez… how deep does this rabbit hole go…
aaahhh this is brilliant!!