SarahTheCoat

@sarahthecoat @therealsaintscully @possiblyimbiassed @ebaeschnbliah @raggedyblue @helloliriels @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest

@thewatsonbeekeepers as I’m not that familiar with TWoO I had to read up on the plot and interpretations of the story. First of all I read that “In the trio’s moaning and blubbing as they prepare to sneak into the witch’s castle, you can see a foreshadowing of Westley, Inigo and Fezzik invading Humperdinck’s castle in The Princess Bride.” (x), so I’m gonna tag @lillysliterature as they are pretty familiar with TPB.

One of the most common interpretations of the movie seems to be a political one, saying that TWoO is criticizing political authority in the 1930s:

“The message is that people will march behind any authority figure who makes a splash, however undeserving they may be” (x)

Furthermore it says:

“Dorothy doesn’t go that far, but she does travel from the barren middle-American countryside to a glittering urban centre, only to discover that it is ruled by fakers and populated by fools.” (x)

Another article says that:

“While The Wizard of Oz closes with a message of personal empowerment and realizing how much power we have in ourselves if we would access it, it also includes a disturbing nativist lesson of not straying too far from your own back yard.” (x)

So the reason why Dorothy returns to her seemingly dull home in Kansas might have been a political message claiming that the industrialized world of the big cities might be fake one and staying at home, in the countryside would be the better choice.

As interesting as those interpretations are, your point @thewatsonbeekeepers was, of course, a different one. As the second article says the message of TWoO seems to be one of personal empowerment. That the things you’re searching for (e.g. the Tin Woodman wanting a heart) might already be in your possession. I totally agree that this is a message we could apply to Sherlock himself, who used to live under the impression that he didn’t have a heart (TGG) and that he needed John to keep him right (TSoT) when all this time his emotions were just locked away and forgotten (Eurus in TFP). Furthermore a criticism of authority can be found as well on Sherlock when we look at one of the final scenes of TFP: Mummy Holmes confronting Mycroft with his decision to lock away Eurus and lying about her death. That Mycroft is supposed to be read as an authority figure is obvious by his position in the government and the comparison of him and the Queen (ASiB). Mycroft is most likely a metaphor for Sherlock’s logical mind, but he is also representing the government, which used to ciminalize homosexuality in the UK. Whereas I’m not saying that Mycroft is supposed to be read as a stand-in for those values, I do believe that he is acting as a stand-in for the author who had to hide Sherlock’s sexuality because of the government (and society). So a criticism of authority on BBC Sherlock seems likely.

About the dog: What happens to Dorothy’s dog Toto at the end of the movie? Does it still have to die?

Whereas the dog-parallel is somewhat interesting, I find it way more interesting to compare Dorothy’s dream/fairytale-world to BBC Sherlock:

In TWoO is turns out that the fairtytale-like dreamworld of Dorothy is not as glittering as it seems to be. The Wizard turns out to be no magician after all and Dorothy’s company also can’t be read as simplified roles as they seem to be in the beginning. As you put it @thewatsonbeekeepers: “The idea that you can go beyond the role assigned to you and still find the love you’re not allowed to have”. The role assigned to you seems to be a very important statement concerning BBC Sherlock.

The way I understand the show Mofftiss are trying to criticize oversimplified portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and ACD canon. On top of that they are trying to uncover mechanisms used in ACD canon that created distance between the character Sherlock Holmes and the readers. One of those mechanisms is the narrator Dr. Watson for example, another one is the usage of subtext within the cases. Where it seems like the cases are just about fighting criminals in a way, the stories turn out to be far more complex than that. Seemingly bad people turn out to be good, stories that doesn’t seem to revolve around Holmes and Watson can very well interpreted as stories about them after all if you pay attention etc. etc. So when a story seems to be a fairytale about good vs. evil, hero vs. villain, that fairytale might actually be far away from the truth. Dorothy seems to realize in TWoO that the simplified and assigned roles inside of her fairytale-world are not realistic and that characters are more complex than that. This is a message Sherlock learns at the end of TFP as well:

JOHN: “Well, you gave her what she [Eurus] was looking for. Context”

SHERLOCK: “Is that good?”

JOHN: “It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s..It is what it is.”

Only fairytales (or simplified stories) have basic assigned roles such as good and evil:

I’m not saying that Mofftiss are criticizing ACD canon for being simplified, I’m saying that ACD had to write canon the way it was written, cryptic, distanced and full of subtext and that both following adaptions and the perception of the readers/audience turned the stories of Sherlock Holmes into stories about hero vs. villain, cold-hearted detective and good-hearted sidekick etc.

So if Child!Eurus is supposed to be read as an allusion to Dorothy from TWoO, I would interpret it as, yet again, a critique of fairytales the audience doesn’t properly reflect. I keep saying this but whenever we see a TV screen, a TV distortion, the usage of media etc. on BBC Sherlock we should pay attention to what’s being said and who is saying it. It might turn out that the media are only conveying a cover-story that Mofftiss want us to uncover :).

Very interesting thoughts, @thewatsonbeekeepers and @lukessense - thanks for tagging me! :) I’m not that familiar with the actual plotline of TWoO either, but the fact that Toto the dog was to be put down seems rather telling to me. Does anyone know why he was to be put down?

@possiblyimbiassed I think Toto bit Dorothy‘s aunt and as it seems the dog doesn’t get put down after Dorothy‘s return. I definitely see the resemblance in the dog-storyline and know where you’re going with your thoughts @thewatsonbeekeepers. This is merely a stream of consciousness but for me Redbeard is a stand-in for Sherlock Holmes‘ homosexual attraction in ACD canon that could never be out in the open. We got botht the story about Victor Trevor and, of course, Watson, but both relationships were only hinted at. Sherlock Holmes was never allowed to show actual open emotions towards both men. They were hinted at, partially very obviously, but the doyle estate for example always denied this. Eurus threw Redbeard/Victor into the well of emotions because she wasn‘t acknowledged by Sherlock and Victor, Victor even wore an eye patch so he couldn’t see properly. But Eurus wasn’t locked away because she threw Victor in the well of emotions, but because she set fire to the house and targeted Sherlock. The danger of reciprocal love killed Victor and locked Eurus away. And the reason Victor and John are interchangeable here is because Sherlock Holmes‘ love for Watson in ACD canon was never openly acknowledged either. Without the dog (Victor Trevor‘s dog from ACD canon) Victor and Sherlock would’ve never been in contact, so BBC Sherlock is portraying via metaphors how the eradication of the dog is both an eradication of the storyline of Victor Trevor and Sherlock Holmes‘ homosexuality. There is also the connection between Redbeard and the hound of course. Sherlock’s homosexuality was hidden because of institutionalized homophobia which turned the childhood dog (homosexuality in ACD canon) into the hound. We learned in THoB that it was the fog that turned the dog into the hound, the hound never existed. Same goes for the man who is directly connected to the hound: Moriarty. When Sherlock is saving Eurus from her flight alone above everybody else he is automatically saving John Watson. This time it seems like Sherlock is finally ready to openly acknowledge his feelings and desires and leave this narrative of good vs. bad. @thewatsonbeekeepers you could definitely interpret Toto the dog‘s survival as the (hopefully coming) survival of John Watson outside of EMP. I‘m not interpreting BBC Sherlock the way you do but I understand your reasoning. Redbeard as a stand-in for Sherlock’s acknowledged homosexuality (homosexuality without fear) connected to a person from ACD canon (Victor or Watson or young Sherlock=canon Sherlock himself) and the way you interpret it @thewatsonbeekeepers, John Watson outside of EMP.

For me Sherlock is growing out of this narrative of subtext so maybe Redbeard is supposed to be connected to the past (ACD canon) but not the future? The dog turned out to be a boy from the past anyway, that‘s why I‘m suggesting this.

Thanks for clarification @lukessense! My pet theory regarding the dog is that Redbeard was actually Victor’s dog that Sherlock loved very much, and that he was put down (by Victor’s parents) because at one point he bit Sherlock by mistake, just like in canon’s The Gloria Scott. I’m glad Toto wasn’t put down after all in Wizard of Oz, though, because that makes for a new story with a better solution between John and Sherlock. :)

@lukessense @possiblyimbiassed

@possiblyimbiassed yes there are definitely several interpretations of Redbeard possible :).

I just find it interesting, that dogs are connected to John several times on the show, same goes for the hound and Moriarty. And Redbeard seems to represent several people at the same time. The skull which represents Billy, John, skull painting (= ACD, ACD canon); the well that connects Carl Powers and Charlie Welsborough and then Victor Trevor of course, who wore an eye-patch as a child and therefore couldn’t see properly. Redbeard seems to be a stand-in for either characters from ACD canon or people on the show that represent Sherlock as a child/youth (=Sherlock in ACD canon). For me all those characters are summarized under the metaphor of Redbeard and the child Victor Trevor who was partly blind (=he couldn’t properly see because the real meaning was hidden behind the subtext). The dogs name is RED BEARD after all. As soon as the metaphor was lifted off though, the eye-patch gone, Victor died in the well of emotions. But this time, Sherlock is a grown-up (grown out of the subtext of ACD canon), he’s able to save John from the well, not only by saving Eurus from her lonely journey on the plane, but by getting emotional context (= the childhood-trauma = the “trauma of the canon” = the need for subtext in canon). We see a direct confrontation of John with the skull:

And therefore a direct confrontation of John Watson (who is not the John Watson but a mirror for Sherlock, Sherlock’s idea of a romantic love-interest shaped by the “trauma of the canon” in a way) with the subtext of ACD canon.

For me everything that revolves around Sherlock’s childhood is a metaphor for ACD canon. Not just Eurus and Victor for example, but Sherlock’s family as well. I don’t read them as his actual family. But I do find it possible that we learn more about the modern-day Sherlock’s childhood/youth in S5 as we do have the Thatcher-connection and both Carl Powers and Charlie Welsborough as characters that were confronted with modern-day homophobia. And maybe Sherlock really did know a Victor Trevor who owned a dog, why not :). I just think that this particular dog named Redbeard is a metaphor that Sherlock grew out of. Mofftiss make a point of stripping the layers of ACD canon with their renarration of the original cases.

@thewatsonbeekeepers

thewatsonbeekeepers

I love all this - especially the point about Mofftiss trying to deal with the one-dimensional nature of canon, because I think you’re right, @lukessense - ACD canon is normally fantastic, although limited by what had to be - but I think as well as the queerness problem, they’re also trying to deal with the archetypal Holmes and Watson which have been passed down through film and tv who have become increasingly detached from Sherlock Holmes in canon, which is why in S1 we get the incredibly hyperbolic closed off detective, who is completely changed by even s3, let alone TAB and S4. So there’s definitely a legacy being dealt with here that sits nicely with scarecrow/tin man.

Just re Toto - he’s to be put down for biting Miss Gulch (who is the witch in Dorothy’s dream), but the weird thing about the film is that when Dorothy wakes up everyone has seemingly forgotten that Toto is supposed to be put down and the film sort of expects the audience to? Like it is never mentioned again. (To be fair, we only get about 90 seconds of film when Dorothy wakes up.) So weirdly ambiguous there, even though you’re definitely supposed to think everything is better. But yeah - even though I don’t adore the coming home message, it’s very clearly metaphorically aligned with the scarecrow, tin man and lion finding what is inside of them, and in that sense works nicely as an external manifestation of that I suppose.

Also - this sounds so silly but I had genuinely never thought of “beard” as hidden inside Redbeard before, but of course that’s what the word is doing!!

@thewatsonbeekeepers what’s also interesting is the color RED in Redbeard, compared to Sherlock=YELLOWbeard. @ebaeschnbliah wrote about colors here and the possibility that red could represent the (logical) mind whereas yellow could represent love. On top of that do I connect the color red to “villainous” facades on the show, fire and blood which all tie neatly with the red=logical mind-connection (because a logical mind afraid of emotions and love might create facades to protect. They turn out to be ambiguous though). Furthermore do I want to point out that they changed Victor’s dog from being a bull terrier in ACD canon to being an IRISH RED Setter. I find that interesting to say the least :). Oh and a Setter is a hunting dog as far as I know…reminds me of the deerstalker.

@possiblyimbiassed

#good omens #art #ineffable husbands #yellow

meta from 2021 that i was glad to find and re read today. revisited @thewatsonbeekeepers #tjlc tag and read the discussions in the notes. there's more!

sarahthecoat reblogged

kaiannanthi

du9on9

Yeeeeeelllllllloooooooowwwwwwwww

sarahthecoat reblogged

And this will be MY scarf :)

Warping the loom :)

Shuttles loaded :)

This merino is so soft that even doubling the warp still doesn't make it show as much as similar size of cotton/acrylic would. I have to tap the weft very carefully to preserve warp visibility.

Undid single weft weaving, folded it double and tried again. Looks better now.

Over the midpoint.

Nearly there :)

Using the smallest shuttles now - one serves as a pickup stick, since the heddles aren't moving at this stage :)

End result

On the back of my sofa.

Both folds

Up close

The warp colours are visible, just subtly.

wow, beautiful! also you are fast!

#weaving #scarf #pink #yellow #blue #purple #ombre #yarn #handweaving #art

sarahthecoat reblogged

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

________________________________________________________________

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 …

Keep reading

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.

sarahthecoat reblogged

Of magpies and swallows by @fandeadgloves

BIRDS … BIRDS … BIRDS

________________________________________________________________

A serial killer and singing birds is a somewhat strange connection.

This is the scene in TLD where Culverton Smith calls John Watson to tell him about their forthcoming meeting, which Sherlock has arranged two week prior. The make-up artist who treats Smith, wears that bird-adorned shirt which fills half of the screen next to the serial killer.

Thinking of murder, a more fitting choice of birds would be ravens or vultures, one would assume. Magpies too, I guess. Especially because of their close connection to master criminal Jim Moriarty. But singing birds? That’s indeed a bit unusual.

It’s hard to tell the species of the birds. Some could be tits. Others look more like finches. The only thing one can safely say is, that neither the birds nor their surroundings look in any way exotic but rather out of a temperate climate zone. They could be very well British birds.

Since the start of the series, birds of different types seem to play a role in Sherlock BBC. They appear on wallpapers (Mrs. Hudson’s finches, the exotic birds in Irene’s bathroom and in John’s and Mary’s bedroom), they are painted on walls, used as wax seal and as motives for wedding cards (magpies and swallows), they are chiseled on gravestones, portraied on paintings, there are mythological birds (phoenixes at the Landmark), birds with dual meaning (Brit.birds of TEH), even the famous crows of Tower Hill make an appearance … and so on.

Therefore I assume it’s not just coincidence that a flock of singing birds appears together with serial killer Culverton Smith (in a pink shirt) on the same screen in such a prominent way.

Singing birds like finches can be seen only in one other episode of Sherlock BBC. In ASIP, on the wallpaper of Mrs. Hudson’s hallway. Interestingly this ‘pink’ episode is the one that is also closely connected to TLD.

Here are other interesting posts I found about birds:

The wallpapers of Sherlock BBC by @redbuttonhole

The wallpapers of Sherlock BBC Masterpost by @stepfordgeek

Painting with peacock and other birds at Mycroft’s place by @phoenix-rises-1623 and A painted breadcrumb by @thepineapplering

Gravestones and Landmark Restaurant (the phoenixes)

September, 2018

@gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed @raggedyblue @sherlockshadow @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet

@gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @sherlockshadow @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet

Nice one, @ebaeschnbliah, and thanks for the collection of links on the bird topic! As I’m a complete ’bird nerd’, I could hardly resist this meta. :)) I agree, there are lots of birds in this show, even if we seldom see them ’live’. One of the exceptions is in TLD, where there’s a very short instant of singing greenfinches passing by. That glimpse comes at night, when Sherlock is explaining to Faith!Eurus his deductions about her kitchen window; suddenly the rising sun shines through the window as if by magic, and the singing birds fly past. Another exception in TLD are the rock pigeons surrounding Sherlock and Faith!Eurus at the park bench close to the Thames.

Apart from the sound of the pigeons, I think I can also here some green finches and maybe a (European) robin singing as well. Which seems apt, since it’s supposed to be dawn in that scene. It’s funny, because I seem to recall that in the one episode of Doctor Who where Culverton Smith’s actor Toby Jones was playing the Dream Lord (’Amy’s Choice’, 5:7 - not actually written by Moffat, but he still seems to be behind the plot idea) - in that very episode, there’s a (Eurasian) wren singing rather intensively for quite a long time. ;)

As far as I can discern, the bird species on that shirt are a chaffinch, a redpoll, a great tit, a goldfinch and something that might possibly be a whinchat or maybe some kind of warbler. All of them sing, yes. And they are definitely common British (and North European) species. The birds on Mrs Hudson’s wall paper don’t seem British, though, rather like some more exotic species. It might still be a song bird, though.

By now I see TLD as a repetition of Pilot/ASiP, albeit with somewhat other, exaggerated, parameters, so the substitution of a singing bird with a whole flock of them also fits. It’s difficult to say what this assortment of singing birds might symbolize, though. The first thing that comes to mind is vanity; Culverton looks very full of himself, being powdered by a makeup artist. But being very much aware of his looks fits better as a mirror of Sherlock than of John, I believe, and I’ve been thinking of Culverton more as a ’anti-John’ or ’Dark!John’ than a Sherlock (if you look closely at Culverton’s pink shirt in that scene, you’ll see that it’s actually checkered :) ). Plus I believe TLD is most of all Sherlock’s study of John.

In any case, there’s a lot more birds in TLD than in ASiP. So maybe the song bird metaphor has to do with dawn, as in something is dawning upon Sherlock? Maybe this is some kind of awakening that begins in this episode?

However, very much unlike ASiP, I think in TLD John is totally stripped of the traits that usually makes up his character; he’s neither acting like a doctor, nor like a soldier. He refuses to examine Sherlock (leaving that to Molly) and Culverton accuses him of not being a real doctor. And Sherlock agrees when John doesn’t seem to notice that Sherlock is in crisis with kidney failure: “What kind of a doctor are you?” John doesn’t blog any more in TLD, and he’s totally unimpressed by Sherlock’s intellectual powers (he’s rather annoyed by them, as it seems). He doesn’t care any more that Sherlock is on drugs; he even assaults his friend when he’s high! John Watson is turned into a very dark caricature of himself until the end of the episode - it actually hurts to see him. And I think the extreme of that caricature is Culverton Smith.

The Problem with a Mary as Birdy Edward by @xistentialangst

Thank you for this wonderful comment @possiblyimbiassed I’m a big bird lover myself but surely not the expert you are. Now we can add pigeons and - again - finches to the list of birds. This is lovely. And you are completely right, the finches on Mrs. Hudson’s wallpaper don’t look European. The wallpater is titled ‘Finches’, so they probably are meant to be some. I wonder if they are pure artificial or based on some species of real finches. Their family is rather big and members can be found all over the world. Just think about the famous finches of Galapagos. Each island has its own type. You probably know by now what special subspecies is flying circles in my mind now … the Vampire Ground Finch. This bird feeds sometimes by drinking the blood of other birds.

Source of pic and more about that bird: Animal Wiki

Of course, those Vamire Ground Finches are not the ones on Mrs. Hs wallpaper. I just couldn’t resist that nice and feathery ‘vampire connection’. :)))) Oh, what if the finches on Mrs. Hs wallpaper aren’t British but exotic ones because she once did …. exotic dancing? :)

Scanning all the transcirpts for the episodes (thanks to @callie-ariane ) I found even more ‘birds’:

Sherlock and Irene mention in ASIB that the hiker was looking at birds when the boomerang hit him.
When the ghost bride in TAB escapes from the Carmichael Manor House, because Watson left his place next to the broken window, Holmes uses the words: ‘Empty, thanks to you! Our bird is flown.’
And in TST - after the exile-plane is back - it is Mycroft who reads aloud entries from Sherlock’s phone: “Back on terra firma.” and “Free as a bird.”

Most interesting though - and a bit crazy - is the visual appearance of a person in a bird costume next to Culverton Smith in one of the flashbacks regarding his charity work (while the TD12 is administered to the persons round the table).

What is it that connects Smith to birds? Doe’s it represent his wish to confess …. to ‘sing like a bird’ as @zillsonfire suggests? It could be. It was my first thought as well. Or is it something more? Because birds are connected to other characters as well.

Also …. Birdy Edwards comes to mind, from ACDs novel Valley of Fear.

A former detective who goes undercover, leaves the US, marries when he comes to England (5 years prior) and fakes his death when he notices that he has been recognized. Moriarty, two wedding rings and secret tatoos are incluced. In the end Birdy Edwards ‘vanishes’ from a ship in the middle of the Atlantic on his way to South Africa.

Here are some links to Birdy Edward I found on my site:

Down in the Valley by @finalproblem and more connections regarding dates and time here

Comments on rings at setlock

Why Mary is Colonel Moran by @tetragon4

@gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow @sagestreet

Wow @ebaeschnbliah - I had totally missed that crazy bird costume at Culverton’s side! :)) And Birdy Edwards must be bound to appear in some form at some point, mustn’t he? (Thanks for the links!)

And please don’t get me started on Darwin’s finches and their varying beak sizes and shapes, because I might never get out of it and will bore people to death about them. I’ve actually seen some of them, although not the Vampire Ground Finch, which only exists on the two remotest islands of the Galapagos, where very few people are allowed. In your picture it seems to be sucking from the wound of a Nazca Booby, a beautiful seabird also native to the Galapagos. You’re right that it’s a vampire connection, reminiscent of ACD’s The Sussex Vampire, where a mother was trying to suck the venom out of the wounds of her baby.

As for the hiker, the supposed ‘accomplished sportsman recently returned from foreign travel’; I have my doubts about him. He must be a complete disaster at his own sport, if he’s standing there just watching his own boomerang, as if it were a bird, but being passive enough to simply get hit by it on its way back, albeit after a second of distraction. I mean, what ‘accomplished’ boomerang thrower would do that? Look at this guy for example; he wouldn’t just stand still, waiting for the boomerang to return to the exact same spot, would he? There are other examples of how this works: X, X, X. A bird watcher (like me), on the other hand, would focus on a specific bird, and could totally be hit by another flying object while doing it. Like yesterday, when I spotted this rare bird (Long-billed dowitcher):

I’m sure anything could have hit me in the mean time, and I wouldn’t notice :)).

Awwwww …. @possiblyimbiassed Now I have to confess I envy you for this undoubtedly breathtaking experience. The Galapagos Archipelago is one of the most fascinating areas on this earth. A real treasure! And thanks for the lovely dowitcher. :)))))

The merit for the discovery of the ‘bird’ next to Smith, goes compleetely to @callie-ariane Without her invaluable scripts, where this strange bird costume is mentioned, I would have never seen it. It’s another one of those ‘just a fraction of a second’ appearances on this show. Arwel’s words come to mind: ‘If you see it on screen, it has meaning’ The overall impression of this shot is rather …. yellowish, I would say. The beak ot the bird, the yellow-green shrubs, Smith cutting a yellow ribbon. I mean, yellow IS a sort of signal-colour on this show.

Angelo’s Restaurant (PILOT even more than ASIP) is coloured very ‘yellow’
The yellow cyphers and the Yellow Dragon Circus in TBB
The ‘ yellow face’ in the MHR box and the Norbury connection of TST
The ‘yellow’ wedding in TSOT including blue birds

Lots of yellow. One can propably - and sybolically - also count the flames, the explosions and the sun?

Oh, and the hiker with his boomerang. Thanks for the interesting vids. They make absolutely clear, that the ‘incident’ at the beginning of ASIB is very questionable. Anyone who throws a boomerang would watch the thing coming back. Getting sidetracked by a loud explosive sound, looking away, being hit … is completely understandable. What doesn’t fit in though, is the bird watching. And it is mentioned two times. Sherlock makes a guess (really? Mr. ‘I never guess’?) and Irene corrects him later:

SHERLOCK: And the hiker’s taking a moment, looking at the sky. Watching the birds? Any moment now, something’s gonna happen. What?

IRENE: … and the hiker, he’s staring at the sky. Now, you said he could be watching birds but he wasn’t, was he? He was watching another kind of flying thing. The car backfires and the hiker turns to look …

Sure, it could also be sarcasm on Sherlock’s part because Irene isn’t as fast thinking as he is in thie case. Yet … together with all the other ‘birds’ in this show, I wonder ….

The boomerang however, I’m quite sure this is a metaphorical thing. I wrote about the ‘boomerang effect’ in this post. That effect is also refered to as: something backfires …. when an intended solution makes a problem worse. That the car of the client backfires is mentioned six times by three characters, displayed in three separate scenes. That’s a lot. And of course, boomerangs are closely connected to Australia …. a country far EAST of England. :))))

@gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @sherlockshadow @loveismyrevolution

#sherlock meta #birds birds birds #tld #singing birds #culverton smith #yellow #boomerang #backfire #bird watching #asib

hhmmm, yes, the boomerang is a kind of "backfire", isn't it.

sarahthecoat reblogged

lifes-a-dick

Drippy yellow paint; a meta.

(Sherlock series 4 is the paint that hides something from view)

Yikes, this just inspired some thoughts.

In The Blind Banker Sherlock seeks out the GRAFFITI ARTIST, Raz, to learn about painting. Much later we get this S4 promo pic smiley above that’s very obviously meant to be graffiti style, the lines clearly made by a can of spray paint, in the same yellow paint of the original smiley. The original smiley itself was painted between TBB and TGG in series one.

That yellow drippy paint parallel above tells us that something has been sprayed over and vandalized in S4, hiding something from view.

Even the promo pic of John and Sherlock in their chairs in a flooded 221b is very painting-like, as others have pointed out, making the graffiti over it very much like the “blinded” banker portrait in TBB. So who actually is responsible for vandalizing series 4? Who painted over the painting? Graffitied the portrait? Destroyed a priceless work of art?

We see John as the one doing the vandalizing in TFP.

And we get this wall-view shot below, where as if to hide something from our view John even sprays two dots to cover our (the audience’s) eyes, just as the paint covers (blinds) the eyes of the man in the portrait in TBB.

Now BEFORE you get too excited about interpreting John’s little artwork there as telling us that S4 is John’s “cover story”….

Back in TBB we see that John was framed as the graffiti artist and got the blame for it. But he didn’t do it.

He was caught holding the can, with no way to prove it wasn’t him. And an ASBO.

A painting is a story - I mean, that’s a fairly straightforward metaphor that doesn’t need much explanation. To hammer this home, Sherlock even says “author” in the Raz graffiti scene when we’d expect him to say “artist”, implying that on the meta level both of these ideas are being compared:

SHERLOCK: You heard me perfectly. I’m not saying it again. JOHN: You need advice? SHERLOCK: On painting, yes. I need to talk to an expert.

And then….

SHERLOCK (to Raz): Know the author? RAZ: Recognise the paint. It’s like Michigan; hardcore propellant. I’d say zinc.

John is our storyteller and the narrator of most of Doyle’s stories. So of course when S4 went wrong, John gets the blame for it. And we even saw graffiti artist John in action painting away on the wall in TFP.

But TBB tells us that John didn’t do it. He was framed.

Without proof though, or witnesses, he gets slapped with an ASBO. So as far as the official record goes, now he really DID do it. But that’s not what happened at all.

The mess that was S4 wasn’t his fault, but he was caught with the pen (=spray can) still in his hand. John was always our storyteller, but someone else took over in S4. “John Watson is no longer updating this blog”

So TBB tells us that John never graffitied the wall, yet… here in S4 we see it happen with our own eyes.

Which tells us that S4 is one giant LIE. We can no longer trust what we’ve been shown.

And the reason we see it this way in TFP, is because in TBB, John couldn’t prove that he didn’t do it.

John looked guilty with the spray can (read: pen) in his hand, and as we were shown neither Sherlock nor Raz had any intention of helping him get out of the situation. Sherlock ignores John when he arrives back at 221b fuming about his court date, and next time he sees Raz he once again is ignored and shut down by both of them.

JOHN: Tuesday morning, all you’ve gotta do is turn up and say the bag was yours. SHERLOCK: Forget about your court date.

Poor John. He had no witnesses come forward to back him up, so even though we never hear about his court date again we can pretty much bet that he got that ASBO.

John, our usual storyteller, is of course getting the blame for the heteronormative ending, even though the clues tell us that he had put down the pen before S4 began. So who is the real culprit? Well Raz is given a look that suggests he’s a Sherlock mirror - black coat, collar up:

If Sherlock is the painter, then perhaps he’s also the author. TBB also just happens to feature the infamous “pen toss”, but have another look at it and consider what’s really going on here:

A pen. John is passing Sherlock the pen. The tool of a narrator. Perhaps a hint that in this adaptation we’ll gradually see Sherlock take over as storyteller, gradually….or suddenly.

[If this isn’t a bit too deep then maybe you’ll like this. If you remember my discussion of “Look to your left; it’s a political statement” in this meta, you might remember the significance of the way Left (wing) versus Right (wing) are used in the dialogue and cinematography and direction to tell us that this adaptation is going in a brand new direction (ie. to the “Left”). Now have a look at the pen toss again. This might be too subtle for some because obviously left versus right is subjective depending on perspective and angle and…. Yet. It’s fairly clear in this particular example. The pen is thrown from the right side of the screen, to the left as we symbolically change storytellers.]

Sherlock taking over the storyteller/narrator role from John explains EMP, the idea that what we’ve been watching since HLV (or since elsewhere depending on who you ask or how dark of a mood they’re in) is inside Sherlock’s mind and therefore not quite real, but it doesn’t explain why Sherlock would sabotage his own love story. That’s a whole other thing, and I’m sleepy now. Thoughts and comments are welcome! @monikakrasnorada @sagestreet @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @shylockgnomes @raggedyblue @tendergingergirl @possiblyimbiassed @the-7-percent-solution @holmesianscholar @sarahthecoat @darlingtonsubstitution @devoursjohnlock @loveismyrevolution

This is a very interesting meta @tjlcisthenewsexy And TBB really seems to be the key-code to unravel the whole story. So much is hinted at in this episode that reappears later in fullblown scenes and stories. The mask (facade), spray paint (tan), the stage, the fall, the mirroring, the stolen items, the locked room murders/mysteries, the underground networks, the dragon, past history, changing codes, the yellow face ….

As for ‘Sherlock sabotaging his own love story’ … Sherlock is described to be 'his own worst enemy’. This sounds a lot like the perfect basis for a massive inner conflict. At times anyone does irrational or foolish things … because we are unsure, afraid or we are going by false assumtions. Why not Sherlock Holmes too? After all, he isn’t very skilled when it comes to matters of the heart, nor very apt in handling his own emotions. Under these circumstances it seems very likely that mistakes may occur.

#tbb #yellow #paint=pen #spray paint #yellow face #the author of the story #painting=story #john was framed #mirroring in sherlock #raz=sherlock #pass the pen #artist=author #pen denotes author #john's blog #right to left #cinematography #emp #personal integration

YES, @tjlcisthenewsexy this is brilliant! I wondered about that pen toss in TBB, especially since the discussions about who holds a pen in s4. And the spray-paint as a pen is made clear by the wall of code john finds... which was written by... someone else... and concealed from sherlock. Not sure what that means... maybe just that over the years, different people have been writing versions of the story, with different intentions.

The painting of the "blind" banker also reminds me a little of the photo of ACD that we are familiar with, the one that's on martin's fridge, in that pic of him in an apron that's been going around recently. Not sure whether we are supposed to make that connection, it's a fairly conventional kind of portrait. (IE, "people sit in chairs" doesn't count as a tv trope)

sarahthecoat reblogged

@gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow @sagestreet@sarahthecoat @darlingtonsubstitution @kateis-cakeis @221bloodnun @mrskolesouniverse

SPINNING THE PLATES

__________________________________________________

Some musings on the short cases at the beginning of TST

Had no idea how interesting and amusing it would be to take a closer look at them. Each one is a little treasure on its own.

Dusty Death _______________________________________

I won’t name the client out of respect but she came to us because of her late husband. His body was recovered from the sea near Falmouth …

FEMALE CLIENT: He drowned, Mr Holmes. That’s what we thought but when they opened up his lungs … sand.

SHERLOCK: Superficial.

Drowned? What immediately comes to mind when I hear that word is … Carl Powers, Redbeard, Victor, John. But also Sherlock himself. Ajay pushes him under water in TST. Jim wants ‘to go over the fall’ together with Sherlock. There is the maths professor who got pushed over a waterfall in TAB. ‘Deep Waters …. all your life, Sherlock’ …. indeed. (On drowning and suffocating)

The question though is …. what does Sherlock mean by 'superficial’? The water or the sand? Maybe both? Did that man die for some other reason?

The other cases are under the cut …..

Keep reading

monikakrasnorada

As usual, this is an amazing meta, @ebaeschnbliah. I hadn’t really taken time to ponder all of these cases, so wow! The Yellow ~~Canary~~ Dragon connection is amazing!

Also, reading this, I went back and watched the scenes in real time and I’m amazed by this:

Each case as it’s being written up show’s Sherlock typing away on his phone. I know we know he’s been Tweeting, but the way they show this, makes it truly seem as if he is writing up the cases- except for the one we can see is fake. Which, is sooo interesting in light of the question over just why no one knows it’s John’s blog anymore.

#tst #spinning plates #yellow #tplosh #tbb #yellow dragon circus #tab #limbless body #asib #tattoo #teh #tld #amnesia #sherlock"s phone #phone=heart #john's blog

sarahthecoat reblogged

asherlockstudy

lillypotter

one color per episode → Yellow (1x2)

#TBB #yellow #color

i wonder if he said anything sweet like he liked John. maybe thats why John felt he felt he should tell him he liked him.

thats why the wine later in the episode.

OH MY GOD?!?!?!

IT MAKES SO MUCH FUCKING SENSE

I AM HAVING SOME KIND OF FEELINGS

I JUST

OH MY FUCKING GOD O________O

BUT ALSO TT_______TT BECAUSE THAT MEANS JOHN GOT HIS HOPES UP THAT WERE THEN BRUTALLY DASHED WHEN HE FOUND IRENE IN SHERLOCK’S BED

BUT THEN!!!!

THAT EXPLAINS WHY JOHN WAS SO FUCKING JEALOUS AND OFFERING A BABY NAME AND SLAMMING HIS MUG DOWN?

OH. MY. GOD.

Imagine thats what happened though. Imagine Sherlock said something to John while he was drugged that made John confident that his feelings were reciprocated.

So he gets the wine and plans for what? A romantic evening where he makes another attempt like at Angelos. But then finds Irene in sherlock’s bed.

Imagine John’s inner monolgue: “I can’t believe he feels the same way. I hope this wine is good enough. I can’t wait to tell him I feel the same!”

And then he walks in, finds her. Imagine the fucking heartbreak. But that heart break turns into pure bitter jealousy when she;s flirting with Sherlock and kissing him and proposing sex.

So he goes passive aggressive. I hope you guys name your kid after my middle name, which I hate. And then I’m going to slam my cup down because can you two just fucking stop? Fuck you guys.

OMFG

My friend making it worse:

“It explains why John treats Irene so coldly the rest of the episode, why him and Mycroft have to have a special meeting over sherlock’s heart and why he was so taken aback when Sherlock didn’t care to hear what happened to her”

I just thought of what I desperately want for the love confession. I want a small montage of scenes they filmed throughout each series. If they were all from Lestrade’s phone that would be brilliant. To see John struggling to get Sherlock up the stairs of 221B, Sherlock all loopy and he says something like, “You always take care of me. You care so much. Why do you care?…I care, too. I care about you”.

Ahhhhhh. There better be a fucking montage

Give us the montage.

devoursjohnlock

Oh god, I think I have literally read this fic. I mean… who doesn’t want this scene? It must have happened.

love-in-mind-palace

I am having exactly 57 kinds of feeling and i hate the whole universe also this is not okay TT_____TT

inevitably-johnlocked

AAAANNNNNNDDDDDD why he gave up dating completely AAAANNNNNNNDDDDD why he was so SO hurt in THoB about the friend comment.

worriesconstantly

why is everything like this

the-7-percent-solution

Holy shit.

I love all of this. You know why? John is TWEAKING HIS EAR. That’s not a random action, that’s a signal. John HEARD something while Sherlock “wasn’t making sense”. He was LISTENING, and he couldn’t believe his ears.

Then Irene, miscommunication, assumptions, John shuts down, just like everyone is saying.

At the end of TFP, putting 221b back together: Sherlock has THREE HORNS in his hands (two on the Bison, one on a magnifying glass). Sherlock gestures toward John, do you want to do the honors? …. And John carefully places the head phones back on the Bison. Shutting out the possibility, still.

Sherlock just looks down at his horns… But John looks right at Sherlock when he closes down those headphones. Like… “This is what we want, right? Easier to ignore everything. Tell me this is what we want.”

oh bonus…. Yellow. It’s Hamish here, John’s quietly closeted queer self.

#ASIB #yellow #color meta

OH yeah the yellow plaid shirt, and the way the walls are lit to look bright yellow!

Source: tomhazeldine

sarahthecoat reblogged

gosherlocked

The Room of Eurus Holmes

I happened upon this rather by chance and then it struck me as highly interesting. Here we see Eurus’s room in the very moment she sets fire to Musgrave Hall, i.e. this happens shortly before she is removed to an institution, right?

According to what we are told this is the room of a 5- or 6-year-old “era-defining genius, beyond Newton”. A girl who taught her older brother to play the violin. Who was “aware of truths beyond the normal scope”. Whose “abilities were professionally assessed more than once”.

So what would we expect to find? Books, for sure. Maps. Scientific equipment. Maybe an early personal computer. A violin, for heaven’s sake!

If she had been professionally assessed more than once as Mycroft says, the experts would surely have told her parents how to promote her skills and support her thirst for knowledge. And there would have been evidence in her room because this is the moment before she leaves.

But what we see is a very ordinary room: a blackboard, a doll’s house, stuffed animals, a bedspread with stars on it, plastic boxes with toys - nothing in this room does speak of the extraordinary abilities of Eurus, it does not reflect what we are told about her in any way. What we see is a lonely little girl drawing violent pictures of her older brother, playing with matches.

So, again, we have the choice between sloppy set design and EMP? Eurus = Sherlock? Would love to hear your thoughts.

@ebaeschnbliah @isitandwonder @monikakrasnorada @tjlcisthenewsexy @longsnowsmoon

Oh, this is very interesting @gosherlocked I never noticed this. But now that I look at it …. you are completely right. This is very odd. And in a way it reminds me of Mummy Holmes - the ordinary genius. Another contradiction then. We are told one thing but shown something quite different. Fascinating!

Oh, and I’m ruling out sloppy set design as well as sloppy writing. :))))

gosherlocked

@ebaeschnbliah: Exactly! And should an ex-mathematician, a genius who “gave it all up for children”, not do her best to support her daughter?

loveismyrevolution

You are absolutely right about the weirdness of Eurus’ room @gosherlocked!! Never realised that before!!

And I’m totally on the train of “no sloppy set design” @ebaeschnbliah!! Did you see the wallpaper?!?!? A while ago there came a post along about the “nice” late 70th wallpaper in this set!! I already answered then about the cleverness of choice with this yellow one in Eurus’ room:

interessting issue the wallpapers and I find this one quite telling!

Above all it’s yellow!! First of all we have Moriarty’s happy faces - quite yellow I would say!! And then there is this meaning of yellow apart from the happy one

It’s the color of happiness, and optimism, of enlightenment and creativity, sunshine and spring.
Lurking in the background is the dark side of yellow: cowardice, betrayal, egoism, and madness. Furthermore, yellow is the color of caution and physical illness (jaundice, malaria, and pestilence). Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the sources of yellow pigments are toxic metals - cadmium, lead, and chrome - and urine.

And then there are the flowers… besides of that it is a quite common pattern for the time and that flowers always suite a girls room, this is one thing I found on yellow flowers:

Scientific studies indicate writing on yellow tablets increases memory retention. This ties the meaning of flower color in yellow to intelligence and reason. Give yellow flowers to your friend in graduate school to help with his/her studies.

I’ve got no meaning to the sort of flowers, because you can’t make anything of it imo because it’s just an illustration! But so far my analysis of Eurus’ yellow flower wallpaper!! Don’t know if this was intentional, but if so…Arwel, well done!!!

This all can’t be coincidence imo. So I go for it, that the lack of fitiing interiour for Eurus isn’t coincidence either! But what they wanted to suggest with it??? Maybe trying to be “normal” in the end? Even as their “attempt” to get friends for Sherlock and Mycroft?? Maybe The Holmes parents weren’t cherishing the gifts of their children but trying to suppress them to make them as “normal” as possible? That could be an explanation for all of them being so “freaky” as result of revolting against the parents….( just rambling thoughts). Maybe the Holmsens parents didn’t care as much as they pretend to, everyone only concerned to “upset Mummy”! Maybe Mummy isn’t only a genius but also very narcistic! Giving up all you are then for the kids would be quite difficult for her, she would take her narcism out on her kids! That actually happens quite often in those cases and it has desasterious effects on the kids!

Young children of narcissists learn early in life that everything they do is a reflection on the parent to the point that the child must fit into the personality and behavioral mold intended for them. These children bear tremendous anxiety from a young age as they must continually push aside their own personality in order to please the parent and provide the mirror image the parent so desperately needs. If these children fail to comply with the narcissist’s wishes or try to set their own goals for their life – God, forbid – the children will be overtly punished, frozen out or avoided for a period of time – hours, days or even weeks depending on the perceived transgression in the eyes of the narcissistic parent.

With young children, the narcissistic parent is experienced as unpredictable and confusing. After all, narcissists are awfully difficult to understand for adults, so just imagine how confusing the capricious narcissist is in the eyes of a young child! Because young kids can’t make accurate sense of the narcissist’s interpersonal tricks and stunts, these children internalize intense shame (‘I keep failing my Mom’) which leads to anger that the child turns on himself (‘I’m so stupid,’ ‘Something’s wrong with me’). The overall quality and strength of the bond between the narcissistic parent and young child is poor and weak. Deep down, the child doesn’t feel consistently loved, as the child is taught the metaphoric Narcissistic Parenting Program: You’re only as good as I say you are, and you’ll be loved only if you’re fully compliant with my wishes. Simply put, it’s truly heartbreaking for the child – though the narcissistic parent is sinfully oblivious

source X

Sounds quite familiar for our Sherlock, doesn’t it?? pushing aside his personality, anxiety, feeling unloved, thinking something is wrong with him, need the affirmation of others , …. and so on!!!

And look what these childs are growing to be as adults later on:

Because the narcissistic parent-child bond was so distorted and corrupt, the offspring as adults tend to gravitate toward drama-laden, roller-coaster relationships – especially with romantic partners. Because they didn’t grow up with the belief that they were intrinsically okay and good, it makes perfect sense that these individuals would gravitate toward stormy romantic partners later. These adults would feel like a fish out of water in a relationship with someone who loved them consistently, and the experience would be so unfamiliar that it would cause major anxiety.

“drama queen”?? “addicted to a certain life style”?? “so in fact … I’m your… best…friend” ?? And the last thing that makes it more and more obvious to me is this one:

It’s not until the adult children of a narcissist get (a lot of) psychotherapy or have a life-changing experience that pulls them away them from the disturbed parent that these adult children can truly begin to heal – and then create better, more normal relationships that offer the give-and-take reciprocation most of us have and value in our relationships.

Here we have a sum up of all of S4, isn’t it?? Isn’t that what Sherlock learned?? give-and-take-relationship??

Sorry this got rather long and that I drifted away of the toppic, but actually this all fits quite well in the wierdness of Eurus’ room! Because probably the Holmes’ parents didn’t let their children test to support them, but to have a ‘diagnosis’ to treat them properly… to make them ‘normal’ …

gosherlocked

Thank you for these interesting additions, @loveismyrevolution. Much of this really seems like a spot-on characterisation of Sherlock.

#TFP #yellow #color meta #sherlock's childhood

wow. I still don't think euros is a real person, but even as an aspect of sherlock, this makes sense. I wonder if the yellow in the room is meant to tie back to the wedding reception venue in TSOT, or the use of yellow lighting that was so prominent in ASIP and TBB.

sarahthecoat reblogged

Colors.

Sorry, don’t mind me, I’m just having fun.

Green = Gay. Natural, sexy, innocent, honest. Gay. Red = LOVE. Blue = Deception, lies, fraud, falsehood. Orange = Truth. Purple = Sherlock. Yellow = Hamish (aka queer John hidden in the closet). Black and White and Gray = The world, everyone, everything else.

I’m mostly loving this because the Watson wedding colors = Sherlock + Hamish.

Ah. More things I like, particularly about yellow.

In ASiP, was it just Angelo’s? Or London chase in general… I think there was a lot of yellow and purple lighting. There are technical lighting color terms, I think… If I have time I’ll look it up. Anyway, the game is on: Sherlock and Hamish, purple and yellow.

Yellow spray paint in TBB. Dead Man. John has decided to bury Hamish. Communicating via encrypted messages. Hiding a tree in the forest. Sherlock grabs John, intense. “Concentrate! Remember!” (remember Hamish). Straight!John says dude- I don’t need to get emotionally involved, I just took a picture. (Ooh, Yellow Dragon Circus- breathtaking, dangerous, magical. BIG SPEAR).

Yellow face in TGG. Sherlock *knows* John has stuffed Hamish in the cupboard, dammit. Hamish is gone, what a chicken shit, I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I was intrigued and now I’m BORED. Blam, blam, BLAM!

I’m also really happy (this is my own thing) to finally make a connection to The Mentalist’s serial killer Red John. Patrick (the hero) was obsessed with Red John, who painted a red smiley face on the wall when he killed. Brrr. NOW we have a connection (well, I do, anyway). John thinks Hamish is evil, dangerous, a serial murderer. Hamish’s color is yellow. Oh geez… In the last scene of TFP, we even have John painting Hamish’s yellow face on the wall again. DEFINITELY not a happy ending for Hamish, nor for John. The murder spree continues.

I don’t remember yellow in S2. THoB was more toward orange (science, research, anything’s possible. Truth isn’t always *nice*).

TSoT, wedding yellow- screeching yellow. Hamish expressing his outrage, making everyone ugly. Molly in yellow… Either showing her support for Hamish, or suggesting to Sherlock that she could *be* his Hamish… Maybe a little bit of both.

Sherlock is lilac at the wedding. Soft.

But now…. Rats. TAB was green and red, lots of gay love. Maybe not needing much yellow because it was a Victorian fantasy- no need to be stuck in a closet. (Ironic).

S4 promo pics. Oh hahaha yellow face in the mirror, in flooded 221b! Hamish won’t be denied, he’s sneaking back into the picture. Chickens, demons. John regards his Hamish-self as sooo evil.

I’m not willing to watch S4 again yet. Was the Culverton hospital interior yellow? That wouldn’t surprise me- John’s hating on himself pretty badly, he blames his Hamish-self as a serial killer. He knows he’s slowly murdering Sherlock Holmes- but he doesn’t think there’s any way out of his self-made trap.

One of these days I’ll re-watch properly, and see if these color patterns hold true throughout!