Staircases: The Subtext in Elevation in BBC Sherlock
Anyone stop to notice all the sweet moments John and Sherlock have shared together at the bottom of the stairs of 221b? Out of breath, laughing together in ASiP. John admitting what he said at Sherlock’s grave. The tension between them in TRF before Sherlock meets the press and goes to the trial. The tender moment they shared sleeping at the bottom of the stairs in TSoT. This isn’t by accident - this is an intentional metaphor placed by the writers to show the different layers of their characters’ emotions: staircases are the way to show the difference between emotions of the mind, the heart, and the groin.
The three different emotions are shown through vertical ascension: The ground level by a staircase is the heart, the levels above are the mind, and the levels below are the groin. Our characters are seen in meaningful situations at the bottom of staircases because they are speaking from their hearts.
*Sherlock hugging Mrs Hudson as soon as she opens the door to the landing of 221b in ASiP.
*John attempting to propose at a table near the base of the stairs
*Mycroft sitting at the bottom of the stairs in HLV waiting for his junkie brother to return home
*John returning to 221b in TEH to say goodbye one final time hears Sherlock’s violin at the bottom of the stairs
*Sherlock is the nicest he’s ever been to Molly when he thanks her in TEH at the bottom of his client’s staircase
*Sherlock kisses Mrs Hudson on the landing in ASiP
*Sherlock in his MP in HLV descends a staircase and finds Moriarty chained up
Just as the bottom of a staircase is significant, so is the top. 221b’s living room and kitchen in particular are the most important locations. These places are the mind, an “elevated level” of thinking. There are multiple skulls and severed heads in 221b to drive home the metaphor.
*John often finds Sherlock deep in thought upon arriving
* IV Drugs for Sherlock are always administered on the 2nd level of a structure, showing how their use is intended to affect the mind (Irene’s syringe, morphine in the hospital, drugs in 221b, the upper floor of the drug house in HLV)
*Sherlock opens his eyes on the operating table once he climbs his MP staircase (note that his heartbeat starts once he revives himself at the bottom of it)
So we’ve covered the ground level and above-ground levels, but what about literally taking the stairs underground? The most significant moment is when Sherlock leads John down several flights of stairs and into an unused train tunnel in TEH. This is his groin. He takes John somewhere that is fully-functional but never used. There’s no cell service, no sunshine. They go deeper down the stairs to find a train ready to blow. Sherlock tells John not to touch it or else it’ll explode and send phallic Big Ben blasting to pieces. Luckily Sherlock “turns it off” in time. This writing is hardly subtle.
While the three layers are important to understand on a basic level, it’s also important to watch the characters move from one level to the next - this tells us exactly what we need to know about their motivations.
*Sherlock descends a staircase in his MP in TSoT while deducing the importance of women in the Mayfly Man case. He starts in 221b (his mind) and goes down the stairs telling most women “not you” (his heart). There is where he’ll later tell John “You. It’s always you. John Watson you keep me right.”
*Sherlock descends the staircase in TAB after he sees Sir Eustace dead with Moriarty’s tag on the dagger. His mind has just seen something he knows can’t be real and he shakily descends to his heart, only to run into John. There he’s angry at John for abandoning his post and instead meeting him in his heart, where he shouldn’t be.
*In THoB Sherlock (and everyone else, really) descends into the hollow only to see a viscous monster peering at them from above. The monster starts to descend and it is promptly destroyed. Sherlock sees Moriarty there, too. He can’t trust the terrors of his mind and their possible infiltration of his heart.
With all this information at hand, what can we deduce about Mary and how the writers choose to show her climbing stairs? Her introduction to the viewers is her on a staircase, descending to meet John. What was her purpose up there? They could’ve shown her approaching from any angle but they chose the stairs. How did she get into Magnussen’s office when the personal lift is the only way up? What does it mean when every time Mary is showing ascending a staircase she’s RUNNING? In TEH, TSoT, and HLV she is running up the stairs, never walking.
Could it be she is never comfortable on the ground floor, her heart a facade just like the rest of her? Could it be she’s waiting for the opportune moment to abandon that facade for who she really is?
