#sherlock s4 traumatized me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inevitably-johnlocked · 2 years

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Hi, dear Steph, i hope you doing well ❤️ it's sensitive topic, so take your time to respond

so, i'm trying my best to deal with bbc sh after 5 years, and I really think that we will have an s5 in the near future, they have given a lot hits about, (BC finally talking about a new season, the free copyright party 2023...)

So, my biggest problem with the s4 is the morgue scene, and i've been reading some s4 fix-its that properly deal with john's behavior. I read some about Sherlock leaving/moving on after what happened (my favorites I must say, cause I can't forgive john) (+ sanjay my beloved)

And I ended up in a category of "dark john", and I'm sure some traumatized me forever

I read this fic, post s3, where j&s has an established relationship post mary, and their relationship starts to change to something abusive (on john's part), this fic is amazing, honest and realistic about abusive relationships, and well the ending is tragic for johnlock, with an happy ending only for sherlock.

Then I saw that the fic was from 2015???? And that left me shocked, cause... john's behavior was always like this? Should we have realized sooner what was going to happen?? And that just made me hate the show even more. And looking back, maybe it was always there, especially after the fall. At least me, I never really gotten my head around the violence scenes, and I took the morgue scene as something OOC from John, but now I don't think it was. It makes me so sad.

I wanted to know if there are any metas and analysis about john's behavior in the show, because WATSON would never do something like that. I hate this show with all my heart at this point, It's ruined me :(

Thanks, all love to you and your amazing work as the Oracle of this fandom ❤️

Hey Lovely!

Thanks! I appreciate you letting me take time to answer this. Not necessarily anything other than "lol it was long and I was lazy" hahaha.

ANYWAY, this is just my perception of the fandom before S4: No, John wasn't overtly portrayed as a "dark" character... I think the darkest the majority thought of him as was as just a man with anger issues he was working on. That said, regardless of fandom, there's ALWAY ALWAYS a "dark" genre of fics where one or the other "protagonists" are characterized as "morally ambiguous to downright evil" people, and that's all it is. Dark Sherlock and John fics were a popular subgenre once upon a time, but I've never personally read any of them because I have a hard time with fics if the characterizations are "off" from my readings of them (literally it's just me), but I have no problem if that's what someone else wants to write about.

As for meta, the closest I can do for you are these meta about who John is as a character, and you can check out my 'who is john watson' blog tag for more (I've put it under the Chrono tag so you can see the earliest posts first).

(sorry that “my posts” is a bit messy... tumblr doesn't allow sub-bullets anymore... bolded are the main posts, and italicized with square brackets are the sub-topics. for my meta, I have a TONNE more meta about John, but I just pulled the relevant character-arc ones I’ve done)

MY POSTS:

WHO IS JOHN WATSON

People and John (TAB)

Why Didn’t John Hug Sherlock in TEH?

Of Scars and Gunshots

John’s Panicking in TGG

Secrets, Half Truths and Trust

Was John Ever a Hostage?

[TBB and TGG were Orchestrated for John]

John Will Cry Buckets and Buckets

Is John / Martin Left Handed?

Things John Never Said

John’s Hand Clench

[Why Does his Hand Start Trembling?]

Why is There so Much Emphasis on “Solve it!”?

John the Dummy

[Who Would Sherlock Bother Protecting?

[What if Mary had Shot John?]

[Mary Surely Can Tell When John is Lying (Mary Underestimates John)?]

[Damsel in Distress]

Why Do People Think John is Well Endowed?

Trash John

[Why is there a double standard, where Sherlock is always forgiven but John is an asshole?]

[Why Trash John]

John’s Middle Name: Sherlock’s New Addiction

They Seemed to Forget He Was A Doctor

Modern TAB!John is Like S4 John

Did John Have an Imaginary Sherlock?

John’s S4 Hair

John’s Family Mentions in Canon?

Do I Think John Quit his job at the hospital in S4 / S5?

Is John Left or Right Handed?

The Post with John vs Irene Through GIFs?

John Grieved for Years Over Sherlock (Sherlock vs Mary)

John’s CV / Resume

When Is John’s Birthday?

SUICIDAL/DEPRESSED JOHN

Suicidal John Masterpost

A Weather Eye (Was John Suicidal When Sherlock was Gone?)

What are John’s Nightmares Actually About?

Did John Have an Imaginary Sherlock?

John’s Suicide Meta Links

The Coffin (John’s TAB Theory)

Open or Closed Casket For Sherlock?

John is a Very Sad Man Compared to Molly

Any Meta On the 3G Moment Being John’s Suicide Attempt?

JOHN’S SELF-ESTEEM

John’s Guilt

John Blames Himself for Sherlock’s Death (TLD Reflection)

John Wanting to See Someone Else?: Faith as a John Mirror

JOHN’S PTSD

TLD Morgue Scene: Is it PTSD?

John in TGG looks like he’s having a panic attack (hostage past)

I don’t like angry John

JOHN’S FORGIVENESS

Punches the Superintendent but Forgives Mary?

Did John Forgive Sherlock?

Did John Forgive Mary?

JOHN’S CHARACTER ARC

John Loves Sherlock in Every Episode!

John Loves Sherlock

John’s Cheating

John’s Past and his Bisexuality

John’s Attracted but In Denial?

John’s Soldier vs. Doctor Dichotomy (TLD)

S4 Is John’s POV Masterpost

Dream John from TAB same as S4 John?

John’s Character in S3

John in S4

Canon Evidence of John Having Problems with People of Authority?

Does John Know He’s In Love With Sherlock?

Fic Writers’ Characterization of John

OTHERS' META:

Trained No To Cry: Challenge of Being A Soldier

Tom vs Sherlock and John vs. Molly: Obvious Mirrors

Doesn’t He Have Friends?

Captain John Watson (TSo3 Scene)

Adorable John Watson: Tricky to Write

John’s Hole

Closeted John: Growing Up in a Homophobic 80’s/90’s

Watson’s Horny Disdain

Crack Shot John Watson Under Pressure

John as a Perpetrator of Domestic Violence?

Writing John Watson

John Watson’s Medical School Life (wellington goose)

is it any wonder John is closeted

John Watson Eating Disorder

John was OOC in S4

That Time Sherlock threatened to replace John with Jim

-----

Sorry this got long, but I hope it helps :)

#steph replies #long post #sherlock meta #who is john watson #john's character arc #meta masterlist #my meta

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enigmasandepiphanies · 2 years

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All of your recent stranger things post have really made me question if I should actually finally watch it even tho my friends have been begging me to for like forever and I dont know how I feel about this 😪

okkiee here's the thing I watched the three previous seasons in the lockdown cause I was on an escapist binge then

BUT YES WATCH IT FOR THE FRUITY FOUR, I like the fantasy world building and all, the emotions each of them has put in, the plot is also really well developed I liked the pacing and the scene cuts in this one

BUT HONESTLY WATCH FOR FRIENDSHIP, WATCH FOR KIDS SAVING THE WORLD AND GROWING UP TRAUMATICALLY BUT WITH THEIR UWU FOUND FAMILY WHICH THEY COLLECTED LIKE POKEMONS, WATCH FOR GREAT GAY CHARACTER ARCS I am sorry for the caps I binged the whole s4 till now and I am so sleep deprived bii

PS: watch for Steve Harrington getting the best character arc in my opinion, from popular cool uncaring rich jock to actually exploring the depths of his empathy compassion to babysitter best male friend of a nerdy middle schooler who makes him quote sherlock holmes to a himbo for the coolest sapphic as they work at an ice cream parlour and a video dvd shop, here for him and robin (previously mentioned sapphic uwu) okkiee sorry you probably didn't expect this chaotic unhinged ass reply hope you stayed till the end bii

#asks #replies #eni answers #anon #dear anon #stranger things

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possiblyimbiassed · 4 years

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“E” as in Eurus, Enola and Estate

In June this year the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd filed a lawsuit against an impending Holmes adaptation movie on Netflix (article from RadioTimes here: X).

Sherlock, Mycroft and Enola, starring Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin and Millie Bobby Brown.

This post about it by @tendergingergirl (X) seems to have gone largely unnoticed, but I think it deserves far more attention. In fact, it got me thinking “What’s all this actually about?” and looking a few things up.

My curiosity about the doings of this Estate began in December last year, before the release of BBC Dracula in January, when an interesting discussion initiated after an excellent meta by @yeah-oh-shit (X), who had made some investigations into previous copyright and public domain issues and lawsuits, which I had never known about before.

And now it turns out that the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd (from here on I’ll call them ‘ACD Estate’) is suing the film makers, along with Nancy Springer, author of a book series based on characters from the Holmes universe called The Enola Holmes Mysteries (2006-2010), for copyright infringement.

But I thought most of ACD’s Sherlock Holmes stories are now in public domain, including the Illustrious Client, the Sussex Vampire and the Three Garridebs, whose copyright under US law expired last year (2019)? Well, yes, but that’s still not all of them, and according to ACD Estate “for those of the stories whose copyright terms have ended, this action is brought within the three-year limitations period for infringement.”

More under the cut.

So, the ACD Estate’s copyright, they claim, still includes the following ten stories collected in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes:

The Creeping Man (1923)

The Illustrious Client (1924)

The Three Garridebs (1924)

The Sussex Vampire (1924)

The Retired Colourman (1926)

The Lion’s Mane (1926)

The Three Gables (1926)

The Blanched Soldier (1926)

Shoscombe Old Place (1927)

The Veiled Lodger (1927)

The whole lawsuit can be downloaded as a PDF file from this news article (X), and it’s quite an interesting read.

Claims about Sherlock Holmes’ emotions

So, since this is not the first lawsuit from the ACD Estate about adaptations, what’s their beef with the film makers this time? As far as I can see from their claims, this is about Sherlock Holmes’ emotions.

This is how the ACD Estate reads Holmes’ character development in the lawsuit: “Conan Doyle made the surprising artistic decision to have his most famous character—known around the world as a brain without a heart—develop into a character with a heart. Holmes became warmer. He became capable of friendship. He could express emotion. He began to respect women. His relationship to Watson changed from that of a master and assistant to one of genuine friendship. Watson became more than just a tool for Holmes to use. He became a partner.”

They even quote the famous passage in The Three Garridebs (3GAR, 1924) where Watson says: “It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask.”

But all this progress, they claim, specifically happened within these ten still (allegedly) copyrighted stories, which Conan Doyle wrote after World War One, where he had the traumatic experience of losing both his son and his brother.

They claim that Holmes’ emotional development is still under their copyright (which I believe in practise means their power to decide whether to allow a film adaptation or not) and apart from the emotions issue, they also provide the following other examples of developments that are (supposedly) unique to these ten still copyrighted stories:

Holmes employs a knowledge of medicine in Watson’s absence

Holmes and Watson use modern technologies in detective work for the first time

Watson marries a second time during his association with Holmes (BLAN)

Holmes changes into someone who has great interest in dogs

Sherlock’s “secret sister”

The Enola Holmes Mysteries got me interested, and now I’ve read the two first of six instalments in total. The series is about Sherlock’s and Mycroft’s younger sister Enola, a clever teenager whom the brothers – in particular Mycroft - want to send away to a boarding school after their mother has disappeared and abandoned her. But Enola hates the idea of being confined to a place where she will be forced to wear a corset and restricted to a certain (‘female’) behaviour at all times. She escapes to London, where she starts a secret private detective career specialising in investigations of missing persons. Enola must keep ahead of her brothers who are determined to capture and force her to conform to Victorian society’s expectations for young women. She skilfully uses different disguises, just like Sherlock, and she meets John Watson pretending to be someone else. With her cleverness she manages to outwit even Sherlock. She is good at drawing and uses her sketches in her work. She manages to communicate with her mother (and eventually also with Sherlock) by using ciphers.

All of this does seem to have certain similarities with how Eurus Holmes is described in S4, doesn’t it?

Eurus is, like Enola, the secret Holmes sister whom we never have heard of before.

In TFP Mycroft claims Eurus’ intellect was superior to both Sherlock’s and his own; she was “incandescent”.

We see little Eurus draw sketches of her family members (not very pleasant sketches when it comes to Sherlock, though).

Mycroft made sure Eurus was sent away to an isolated prison/institution (Sherrinford) at an early age.

Their parents seemed absent and not particularly interested in the whereabouts of their own daughter (they didn’t even know she was alive); they let Mycroft and ‘Uncle Rudy’ take care of things, so one could easily suspect she was abandoned.

Eurus seems to have escaped to London at her own leisure, while Mycroft thought she was incarcerated.

Eurus appears in London under three different disguises: “E” (flirting and texting with John),

“Faith” (walking the streets of London with Sherlock)

and John’s new therapist.

Eurus makes riddles with codes for Sherlock to decipher (“The cipher was the song”).

So, one might wonder if the Eurus plot is – at least to some degree – inspired by Enola Holmes? On the other hand, while Eurus appears cold and calculating, Enola is compassionate and sensitive and makes mistakes because of emotional bias. Enola seems more similar to Eurus’ disguised personas than to the supposedly ‘real’ Eurus - the one who burned the family estate down and killed Victor Trevor.

I still believe that Eurus only exists inside Sherlock’s head in BBC Sherlock, being a part of himself, but that’s for another discussion.

As for the Holmes siblings, it’s also interesting that on the ACD Estate’s website, where they have a collection of ’facts’ about ACD’s characters, they seem to have included BBC Sherlock’s Eurus as a valid sibling of Sherlock and Mycroft (scroll down to “Holmes facts” on this page: X), even though this character is nowhere to be found in canon. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this, but the only reference I can find to ”the East Wind” in ACD’s stories is in His Last Bow (LAST, 1917), where Holmes says that ”There’s an east wind coming, Watson”, and goes on to talk about a cold, bitter wind that is threatening England; most probably a reference to WWI, which was raging at the time of publication. No one with the name Eurus is ever mentioned, though. If Eurus had already been part of canon, why would Mofftiss have claimed her to be the big ”rug-pull” in TFP?

I haven’t read the final part in the Enola Holmes series (X) yet, where allegedly Enola reconciles with her brothers (Sherlock in particular) and they end up respecting her independence and skills. But according to several reviews Sherlock softens up a bit in the end. In the parts I have read, the two adult brothers appear rather conservative, patronising and sexist towards their younger sister – indeed more condescending than I think Holmes view of women actually is described in ACD’s original stories (allegedly – we never see him treat women badly in practice, do we?). At any rate, I haven’t this far been able to find a single specific plot element from the ten (supposedly) still copyrighted stories in Springer’s work.

In their lawsuit, the ACD Estate claims that “The Springer novels make extensive infringing use of Conan Doyle’s transformation of Holmes from cold and critical to warm, respectful, and kind in his relationships. Springer places Enola Holmes at the center of the novels and has Holmes initially treat her coolly, then change to respond to her with warmth and kindness.”

So what they’re doing here is the same thing they’ve done before (and lost): they’re claiming they still own some intrinsic characteristics of Sherlock Holmes, even though most of the stories are already in public domain.

Other lawsuits

A similar lawsuit towards Miramax (X) was made in 2015 for the film Mr Holmes, which had Ian McKellen as protagonist. But it ended in settlement before the defendants had responded to the accusations, which were similar to those regarding Enola Holmes about Holmes’ emotional life, but also had to do with the details of Holmes’ life as a retired man.

So, this is not the first time the copyright owners are interfering with content in Holmes adaptations. To complicate things further there seems to be two different estates claiming copyright for Doyle’s work. In 2010 there was some reporting that another estate had threatened Guy Richie’s Sherlock Holmes movies with disapproval after Robert Downey Junior had discussed Holmes possibly being gay on a TV show (X). According to Digital Spy, Andrea Plunket, who then represented the ‘Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate’, said: "I hope this is just an example of Mr Downey's black sense of humour. It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future. I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books."

It’s very unclear which legal rights Andrea Plunket’s family (Andrea apparently died in 2016) actually has to represent ACD’s work, though. Andrea had been married to one of the copyright owners, and her family’s money had paid for the purchase of those rights, but after her divorce Andrea seems to have lost her part in the copyright, according to @mallamun on tumblr: (X). There’s also a lot of interesting things to read about these copyright issues in an article by Mattias Bodström from 2015: (X). However, there’s still a website from ‘Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate’ claiming ownership of the stories: X, and they have published a detailed account of their version of the matter (X).

The current case

I have no idea what the court will think about these new accusations against Netflix et al, but to me, if this isn’t farfetched, I don’t know what is. I think a good case could be made for most of these ‘unique’ elements listed above being expressed already before the Case Book. For example, in His Last Bow (LAST, 1917) they use a car, in The Dying Detective (DYIN, 1913) Holmes manages to fool Dr Watson that he’s very sick. When Watson declares his intent to marry for the first time already in The Sign of Four (SIGN, 1890), Holmes resorts to drugs. The dogs are all over the place since day one, and Holmes seems to appreciate them very much, not least Toby in SIGN.

And don’t get me started on the contradictions in Watson’s various discussions of whether Holmes has a heart. Holmes’ actions of helping people often contradicts the image of a cold, emotionless person. The Yellow Face (YELL, 1893) ends with Holmes being deeply repentant for being over-confident in his suspicion of a woman for adultery or maybe worse offences, when she was actually only trying to protect her little daughter from society’s racism.

In the Devil’s Foot (DEVI, 1910) there’s the following conversation (my bolding): “Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.” “You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I had never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”

Why on earth would it be a “surprising artistic decision” from ACD to develop Holmes into a little more caring and openly compassionate person as he grew older? Isn’t that the very classical character development of any literary hero’s journey and also a logical personal development for many people in the real world? It’s called ‘learning’ and ‘maturing’, as far as I know. To claim this is infringement of some unique idea is frankly ridiculous.

In short: They make a very literal, textual interpretation of the Holmes character, cherry-picking the parts that suit their interests, they claim there’s a clear story arc with very separate characteristics before and after WWI, and that they own the end of it. Thus, no adaptation with a progressive story arc regarding Holmes’ character would be permitted without their consent. Since apparently BBC Sherlock have ACD’s Estate’s license for their own franchise, this just makes me wonder how much trouble Mofftiss et al had with including things like Sherlock’s and John’s hug in TLD, or his emotional breakdown with the coffin after Eurus’ experiments on him in TFP.

Possible satirical meaning and small hints

Allow me to speculate a bit about the possible implications of BBC Sherlock in relation to the Estate. In a recent excellent meta by @raggedyblue, the ACD Estate as ‘Doyle’s bank’ is discussed, regarding the significance of the banker Sebastian Wilkes in The Blind Banker (X). Many interesting ideas are presented in this meta, I really recommend a read. This topic also initiated an interesting discussion about Doyle himself mirroring John in this post by @devoursjohnlock (X).

In an addition to that meta @shylockgnomes brings up John’s blog post about Tilly Briggs as another possible reference to the Estate (X). I totally agree with this; some time around the release of BBC Dracula this year, and our discussions about legal issues connected to both shows, I stumbled upon this particular ‘aborted’ blog post and came to realise its possible significance. It gave me the idea to change the title of my own blog to “Tilly Briggs Ship with Johnlock on it”, since I suspect that the blog post might be a clue about legal obstacles to a certain relationship. And that title is staying, at least until we know the true story (if ever).

Canon contains some info about Matilda Briggs is in The Sussex Vampire, one of the late ACD stories that should be in public domain by now, since the copyright supposedly expired in December 2019. But, as shown above, the Estate now claims there’s a three-year lapse when they can still sue for infringement. Here’s the quote from SUSS (my bolding): “Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” Sumatra, by the way, was Sherlock’s preferred destination in the TST tale of the merchant who met Death in Samarra. In Sherlock’s version, according to Mycroft, the merchant survived and became a pirate... ;-)

John’s aborted blog post (X) is titled “Tilly Briggs Cruise of Terror”, which just might be yet another little jibe at the Estate. John says that “I had to take this post down for a while as the ship's owners are launching an appeal”. According to Jacob Sowersby (a Sherlock fan on the blog) and Mike Stamford, this was “mind-blowing stuff”:

So I can’t help thinking this sounds like a hint to us about the Estate and a certain ‘ship’ which is still partly in their (legal) power and control. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole show - on the meta level - is partly meant as a satirical commentary on how Holmes’ and Watson’s characters, and therefore also their relationship, have been treated the last 100+ years by their ‘owners’. A treatment where I believe the hetero norm has always ruled, and where Andrea Plunket’s quote above indicates that homophobia regarding Holmes and Watson is still tied to legal obstacles.

Charles Augustus Magnussen also talks about ownership at the beginning of HLV (thanks for the quotes, Ariane DeVere): “Of course it isn’t blackmail. This is... ownership”. And later in the episode: “It’s all about knowledge. Everything is. Knowing is owning”. In fact, quite a bit of emphasis in HLV is put on Magnussen’s ‘ownership’ of characters people: “I’m a businessman, acquiring assets. You happen to be one of them!” Apparently - as this new lawsuit shows - it’s even possible to make money out of Holmes’ emotions.

@catwillowtree also pointed out, in another additional thread to @raggedyblue’s meta, that Eurus’ burning down Musgrave Hall – the family estate - in TFP also seems like a reference to the ACD Estate. I would add to this, saying that the bomb that didn’t go off in TEH and the “patience grenade” that did go off in TFP might have to do with the same issue. What would happen if the ‘bomb’ of Johnlock would go off before the relevant stories are legally in public domain? Most probably another lawsuit from the Estate, which might become very expensive.

Come to think of it, in TGG Greg Lestrade mentions an estate agent, when Sherlock receives a text message and a phone call on the pink phone from Moriarty: “What the hell are we supposed to make of that? An estate agent’s photo and the bloody Greenwich pips!” Well, if the Estate agent is somehow connected to the five pips, that fandom theory of the pips representing five series in the show comes to mind... For every pip in TGG there’s a victim covered in explosives; a huge bomb threatening to go off. (The third bomb did go off in TGG, but in S3 Sherlock found the ‘off-switch’ in time). If the fifth bomb is to explode in S5, I bet it won’t be until the relevant stories are safely in public domain. 2023?

More wild speculation while I’m at it: Maybe Sherlock and Ajay’s smashing of Thatcher busts in TST also ties in metaphorically to the same topic? The Thatcher era was not easy for LGBTQ people. There are several owners in TST whose Thatcher busts need to be smashed in order for Ajay’s lost memory stick to be recovered. AGRA is referred to as Ajay’s and Mary’s “family”. The memory stick contains personal information, ‘who you really are’. Could be read as if the info of who Sherlock Holmes really is can only be released once certain obstacles are overcome...

In another interesting meta from last year by @yeah-oh-shit (X), they mention the secret underground station at Sumatra road in TEH, where Howard Shilcott tells Sherlock and John that “They built the platforms, even the staircases, but it all got tied up in legal disputes, so they never built the station on the surface.” So maybe S5 is basically already written? It would make sense to me if the long hiatus we’re facing right now has a far more logical reason than the excuses Mofftiss have presented in interviews - the risk of legal disputes with the copyright owners.

Tagging some more people who might be interested: @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @thepersianslipper

ETA: I have corrected some details about the copyright owners in this post; thanks @devoursjohnlock for pointing them out!

#The Conan Doyle Estate

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thewatsonbeekeepers · 3 years

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Chapter 12: Three Men in a Boat [TFP 2/3]

[This was completely missing from my tumblr, via every search function and everything! So I’ve reuploaded - thanks anon for letting me know!!]

This section of the meta is going to deal with the events at Sherrinford – I’ve broken TFP up into three sections to try and get the most out of it. This isn’t just a read through like the first part of the meta, it has a specific structure, much like Eurus’s trials for the boys, so it’s really important to take this bit in one chapter. My hypothesis is thus – that each episode of s4 has been a different obstacle to be broken through in Sherlock’s mind, and that each of them is represented by one of the different Sherrinford tasks. It’s essentially an illumination of Sherlock’s progress through his mind – but it’s set up by Eurus, who is Sherlock’s mental barrier, so these are going to represent Sherlock’s darkest fears about each of the obstacles. Ready? Let’s go.

We take up the episode at the pirate hijacking, which is quite BAMF, but also illuminates a couple of things that we should bear in mind going into this episode. The first is that the transition from a blown up Baker Street to Sherlock and John hijacking a boat without a scratch on them is absolutely bizarre and leaves SO many questions – it’s dream-jumping of the most obvious kind. The second is that water has played a long role as a metaphor through the show, particularly in the EMP sequence, and it’s climaxing now – we are in the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind.

Mycroft and John working together in the disguise sequence is metaphorically lovely – in the Oscar Wilde scene of the last part we saw Sherlock’s brain and heart finally coming together, and here for the first time they’re working together to give Sherlock the ability to go and confront Eurus. This is what makes Mycroft’s line so powerful. He says:

Say thank you to Doctor Watson. […] He talked me out of Lady Bracknell – this could have been very different.

Comic throwaway? Maybe. But given what we know about Lady Bracknell from the first part, this also has a more powerful meaning – heart!John finally stopped brain!Mycroft from being an obstructive force in Sherlock’s psyche, and they started working together instead to save him. This could have been very different is far more loaded than it sounds. All this whilst creating an image of Mark Gatiss as a Victorian aunt – wonderful.

When we first meet Eurus proper, her similarity to Sherlock is striking. She plays the violin – this isn’t a Holmes thing, because Mycroft doesn’t – it’s Sherlock’s motif throughout. Her hair is like a feminine Sherlock, her pallor and cheekbones match Cumberbatch. For reference, this is a picture of Sian Brooke and Benedict Cumberbatch together in real life.

I’ve done a section on why I think Eurus is the most repressed part of Sherlock’s psyche, and his traumatic barrier to love and life – I sometimes glibly refer to this as gay trauma, but that’s its essence. The similarity between Brooke and Cumberbatch in this scene is really compelling, looking the same but lit and dressed in opposite colours. Similarity and difference both highlighted. Even nicer, the white of Sherlock’s shirt is the same notable brightness as Eurus’s uniform, but it’s hidden under his jacket – a visual metaphor for her being hidden inside him.

Eurus gives Sherlock a Stradivarius as a gift. This should set alarm bells ringing for anybody who has seen TPLoSH. If you haven’t seen The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, please do so immediately because my God you are missing out, but TLDR – a Russian ballerina offers Holmes a Stradivarius to have sex with her so she can have a brainy child, and he declines because he’s gay. (This is not just my interpretation, this is genuinely what happens, just to be clear.) Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius is a deliberate callback to the film which Mofftiss cite as their biggest inspiration; just like the ballerina tempted Holmes to feign heterosexuality, so does Eurus – and both make clear that it’s not without its rewards, which is unfortunately true for real life as well. This moment in Sherlock’s psyche also recalls the desperate unrequitedness of Holmes’s love for Watson in TPLoSH, a reference to our Sherlock’s deepest fear at the moment – he has realised his importance but not John’s romantic/sexual love for him, as we’ll see. So here, trauma!Eurus isn’t just referencing closetedness, but is actively drawing on a history of character repression with which to torment Sherlock – metafictionality at its finest.

The Stradivarius is specifically associated with closetedness, but violins more generally in the show are used to show expressions of love that can’t be voiced out loud – think of John and Mary’s wedding, or the desperate bowing of ASiB. So Eurus, gay trauma that she is, telling Sherlock that she taught him to play is a moment of distinct pain – she is the reason he can’t speak his love aloud, but instead has to speak in signs.

When Sherlock plays ‘him’, rather than Bach, to Eurus (he has a big Bach thing with Moriarty in s2, take from that what you will because I don’t know!), he’s playing Irene Adler’s theme. As a fandom, we’ve generally agreed on associating Irene’s theme with sexual love, which ties in nicely with Eurus’s question – has Sherlock had sex? It’s unanswered. At the end of ASiB, Irene calls Sherlock the virgin, suggesting that he hasn’t.

My favourite moment in s4 without a doubt is Jim dancing to I Want To Break Free. I know it’s the most boring thing to say, but my two greatest loves are Andrew Scott and Freddie Mercury, so it was like Christmas. Here it is also Christmas, but there are two possible timelines. I hypothesise that this refers to Christmas 2010, but it’s absolutely conceivable that it could be Christmas 2009. If we acknowledge that Sherlock is in a coma in 2014, then five years ago is Christmas 2009; however, given that we’ve jumped to 2015 in dream time, I’m going to make the guess that Jim’s visit to Sherrinford is supposed to take place in 2010. This ties up with the idea that this is when Moriarty first started taking an interest in Sherlock, who had never heard of him before ASiP, particularly as this is all in the EMP.

I firmly believe that Jim represents the fear that John is in danger – I highlight this in the chapter on HLV, where you’ll recall we first encounter Jim in the EMP and he sends Sherlock on his journey through the EMP with the words John Watson is definitely in danger – a pretty big sign. Even without this, though, his biggest threat to Sherlock has always been hurting John, whether in TRF or with the idea of burning the heart out of him with Semtex. It’s not unreasonable then to assume that MP!Jim first getting inside Sherlock’s subconscious to represent this fear happens in 2010, when he first meets John. He slips in and stays there, and he melds with Eurus. We see this in the powerful visual of the two of them dancing in front of the glass as Jim’s image slowly becomes Eurus’s reflection – the fear of John dying embeds itself into the gay trauma that Sherlock has stored up, even without him realising it. This ties in nicely with the choice of I Want to Break Free, which is famous for its use of drag in the music video – Jim melding into Eurus is the dark side of queer genderbending that we hate to see. It’s also a pretty fitting song name for an intensifying of repressed gay trauma, even without the association with queer king Mercury.

[A side note to all of this – there were wonderful TEH metas about trains in tunnels being sexual, which isn’t just a tjlc thing but is a well-established idea in cinema – Moriarty’s consistent train noises here seem like a horrifyingly inverted version of that sexual longing.]

Task 1 – The Six Thatchers

The governor is set up as a mirror for John in this task, which provides some helpful context for the episode as a whole. Heart!John makes this comparison himself, by drawing out the similarity between the situation with the governor’s wife and his with Mary, though in this case the governor does kill himself because of his wife – or so it seems. The suicidal instinct matches with everything we’ve learned about John in s4, but I want to hypothesise, perhaps tenuously, that he’s more connected with Eurus than we might think. We know that Eurus has had control of the governor for quite some time, and one of the things we hear her saying to the governor in the background of the interrogations is that he shouldn’t trust his wife. This is an odd thing to pepper into the background when he’s about to commit suicide for her, and perhaps suggests that he’s more of Eurus’s pawn than he lets on, though I grant this may be spurious.

The idea that he distrusts his wife because of Eurus is important, however, because we’ve already seen John engage with Eurus in various forms, but this seems like an extension of E; Eurus, aka Sherlock’s hidden self, has been making John doubt Mary, even before she shoots Sherlock. John cannot know she’s a spy at this point, so it’s unlikely he’s doubting her goodwill; he’s simply doubting her.

Before we look at how the actual task impacts the governor and how that illustrates what’s really going on in TST, it’s worth pointing out that it is the governor’s engagement with Eurus which prompts the entire shutdown of Sherrinford and forces Sherlock (with brain!Mycroft and heart!John ever at his side, of course) to engage once and for all with Eurus. This points to everything that s4 has been telling us – that Sherlock’s understanding of the relationship between him and John, including his power to save him (we’re going to see the governor play the foil here) is what sends his brain into stay-alive-overdrive. Sherrinford is the peak of this.

Summary of the task, for those who hate TFP: Sherlock is given a gun and told he can pick either John or Mycroft to kill the governor, otherwise the governor’s wife will be killed by Eurus. As I’ve written about in its chapters, TST is about Sherlock trying to get to the bottom of Mary and why she tried to kill him – and, of course, the impact this will have on John. In brief, by displacing the shot onto Mary in his mind, he’s discounting his own importance and instead thinking about what it will mean for John to lose Mary. His greatest fear is that losing Mary will break John, and it isn’t until the end of TLD that he recognises that the return of John’s suicidal ideation isn’t over Mary, but over him. TFP presents the horror version, the version of TST that Sherlock’s trauma wants him to believe but which he has to overcome. In this case, Mycroft and John resolve to keep the governor alive in their passivity, but that passivity – Sherlock’s coma – is not enough to keep the governor from killing himself over Mary. This is the most feared outcome from Mary’s death that Sherlock can think of – his fear of losing John combined with John’s love of Mary, which in TST Sherlock is still taking as read.

Double naming in this show should never be neglected, and in this case we learn shortly before the governor dies that his name is David. Again, the dramatic manner in which we learn this (on the moment of execution) draws our attention to it – we know another David in this show.

Yup – Mary's ex who’s still in love with her from TSoT. So even though Sherlock is experiencing the panic of John killing himself for loss of Mary, his subconscious is still pointing out to him that that’s not what’s happening here. This mirror version of John that he has set up, who is broken by the loss of Mary as Sherlock fears in TST, is actually the other man in Mary’s life – even with Eurus forcing the worst possible scenario onto him, this still can’t quite fit John’s character. And so we move onto the second task.

Task 2 – The Lying Detective

This section of the Sherrinford saga is the three Garridebs, the closest thing that the fandom has ever got to a collective trauma. I do think, however, that it’s fully reclaimable for tjlc and means the same as we always wanted it to; I also think that it’s possibly the most gutting part of Eurus’s metatfictional power play.

If you haven’t read The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, it’s quite short and the most johnlocky of the Holmes canon, so I’d thoroughly recommend. For the purposes of mapping bbc!verse onto acd!verse, however, here’s the incredibly short version. A man called Evans wants to burgle Nathan Garrideb, so he calls himself John Garrideb and writes an advertisement from a man called Alexander Hamilton Garrideb (make of that what you will, hamilstans) declaring that he wants to bequeath his fortune to three Garridebs. “John” gets someone to pretend to be a Howard Garrideb to get Nathan out of the house to meet him – he comes to burgle the house but Holmes and Watson are lying in wait. He shoots Watson, and Holmes thinks Watson is seriously injured and so we have this wonderful section:

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say you are not hurt!”

It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

“It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”

He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife.

“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”

Mofftiss have referenced this moment as being the greatest in the Holmes canon for them, the moment when we see the depth of Holmes’s affection for Watson, and so it seems odd to waste it on such a tiny moment in TFP. Many fans, myself included, were really upset to see Eurus drop all three Garridebs into the sea, the implication being that tjlc would never be real, and it was that moment that caused many (including me) to walk away. I came back, obviously, but I completely understand why you wouldn’t. However, I want to map one Garridebs story onto the other to show how they might match up.

The Garridebs that Eurus presents us with are not the three Garridebs from the story. In the story, there are three physically present Garridebs – Nathan, John and Howard – although admittedly only Nathan is an actual Garrideb. Alexander was completely invented by John and existed only in a newspaper advertisement. Evans, alias John Garrideb, is the criminal in the Garridebs story; Alexander is an invention.

So – what happens if we substitute John for Alex in bbc!verse, as in canon they are the same person? This is interesting, because double-naming means that John becomes the killer. Whilst it’s true that John Garrideb is known as Killer Evans for his murder of a counterfeiter back in America, in canon he is done for attempted murder – of John Watson, of course. Here we have a situation where a John is set up killing John. This is exacerbated by the victim in bbc!verse being called Evans; Roger Prescott, the counterfeiter, would have been a much more canonical nod to the books, so we can assume that the choice of Evans is therefore significant. It should be noted that Evans and John/Alex Garrideb are the same person in acd!canon - so killing Evans is a representation of suicide. But, in case we weren’t there yet, the reason that Evans took the name ‘John’ is acd!canon is very likely to be because Evan is Welsh for John – so whatever way you look at this situation, you have Sherlock deducing John killing John.

This is, of course, exactly what Sherlock deduces at the end of TLD, far too slow, when we see Eurus shoot John in an exact mirror of the shot from TST – I explained in a previous chapter why this means that John is suicidal without Sherlock. However, much like the passivity of Sherlock, John and Mycroft in the first task, here we see that Sherlock’s act of deduction is good, but can’t actually save anyone; Eurus kills off our Garridebs moment as Sherlock is left to watch, and it’s notable that heart!John is the most distressed about this. Remember, in the first task Eurus left Sherlock with an image of a John who was suicidally devoted to Mary, and although the Garridebs moment is one which metafictionally highlights the relationship between Sherlock and John, she’s still presenting him with a Garridebs moment in which he is fundamentally unable to save John. This is a direct result of the Redbeard trauma that Sherlock has experienced – helplessness is key to that, and this is what Eurus has come to represent in his psyche. But – Eurus isn’t real, Eurus is testing Sherlock, trauma trying to bring him down, and Sherlock’s job in TFP is to break through the walls that his consciousness has set up for him.

The power in Sherlock saying I condemn Alex Garrideb is heartbreaking, then, because it is Sherlock recognising that he is the reason that John is going to die. Eurus is there to make him confront that reality, which she explicitly makes him do. We get the split-second moment where he thinks he’s saved Alex, and then he’s plunged into the sea – but remember, this is Eurus taunting Sherlock, presenting him with worst-possible-scenarios. TFP is set up as a game for a reason – it is a series of hypotheses cast in Sherlock’s mind by his trauma that he has to break through one by one. Remember, although she’s ostensibly trying to hurt Sherlock, Eurus’s ‘extra’ murders in the first two tasks are aimed at hurting John, which wouldn’t make sense if he weren’t the mp version of Sherlock’s heart.

Task 3 – The Final Problem

Pretty much straight after this episode aired, people were pointing out that Molly is a clear John mirror and that pretty much all of the deductions Sherlock makes here could be about John. Again, we’re seeing Sherlock’s emotions being resolved in a heterosexual context – the presence of Eurus means that he’s unable to process them in their real, queer form. However, if we take Molly to be a stand-in for John in this scene, it may tell us what TFP is about – and the scenario that Eurus presents will be the worst one, the thing that is causing Sherlock the most pain.

TLD/the previous task have shown us that John is in imminent danger, so the transition to Molly Hooper’s flat being rigged with bombs is not a difficult one; we must assume this to be the suicidal ideation that we’ve just deduced. The time limit suggests that Sherlock is running out of time to save him (fucking right he fell into a coma SIX YEARS AGO). Putting Molly in a bad mood isn’t really necessary for this scene – they make her seem a lot more depressed than she would necessarily need to be, and they emphasise her aloneness and her ability to push people away, which isn’t something we know Molly to do. These traits are all much more important in the context of a suicidal John – they paint a much clearer picture of someone who is depressed and alone than we really need for this scene, where it’s not relevant to the surface plot.

Sherlock and the audience believe he has won this task, but of course he hasn’t - there were never any explosives rigged up in Molly’s flat, and it was a ruse to destroy his relationship with Molly. This is what he fears then – what if he’s wrong? What if coming back to life because he loves John won’t save him – it will destroy him and their relationship? The problem to be wrestled with is how to save John – according to the symmetry of these tasks, that is the final problem. We know that the scenario Eurus has presented isn’t real, but Sherlock doesn’t; he is being held up by his inability to cope with interpersonal relationships, and to get to the bottom of that we’re going to need to understand what he’s been repressing – part 3 of this meta.

There’s a wonderful shot just as Sherlock is destroying Molly’s coffin which zooms up and out through a ceiling window, all the way above Sherrinford, as though to emphasise not how remote Sherrinford is but just how deep inside it Sherlock is. Given what we know about the height metaphor as well as the water metaphor, this shot is a pretty clear way of telling us – this is as deep inside Sherlock’s mind as we go, this is the nub. But Sherlock smashing up the coffin has another powerful connotation – he's refusing death. In terms of metaphor, he’s refusing John’s death – there will be no small coffin, because he will not let it happen – but the visual of him smashing the coffin also suggests that he is rejecting his own death. The two are, of course, inextricably linked. Our boys’ lives are tied together.

Epilogue: The Hunger Games

I can’t watch this without thinking of The Hunger Games, I just can’t! But regardless of how much Sherlock seems like Katniss in this section, let’s press on. I don’t count this as one of the typical tasks, because this isn’t Eurus presenting a ‘haha I tricked you scenario’ - far from it. This is Sherlock’s way into unlocking his repression. The key takeaway from this scene, as we’ll see is that trauma has hurt Sherlock, and it’s going to try pretty hard here to mutilate him – but it can’t kill him.

We get a great line from Sherlock at the beginning of this, where he tells John that the way Eurus is treating him isn’t torture, it’s vivisection. Because it’s an experiment? Perhaps. But the more logical way to phrase this would be that it isn’t vivisection, it’s torture. Torture is much more emotionally charged than vivisection as a phrase – from a writer’s perspective, this phrasing is strange because it seems to negate rather than intensify the pain our characters are undergoing. Why, then, would vivisection be more important than torture? Well, put simply, vivisection is the act of cutting someone open and seeing what’s inside – and that’s what we’re doing. This isn’t just an analogy for experimenting on people, it’s an analogy for going literally inside somebody. In EMP world, then, these words are well chosen.

Sherlock is offered the choice – John or Mycroft? Heart or brain? We might initially think that this is Eurus pressuring Sherlock into death, but that’s not the case at all – we know from the early series that Sherlock has survived before (although very unhappily) with just one of these two dominating the other. It has taken his EMP journey to unite them into a functioning entity, and Eurus is bent on destroying that, mutilating either his emotional capacity or his reasoning, the two parts that make him human. This is a good sign, as well, that trauma has been acting on Sherlock through the first three series, when his psyche was dominated by brain!Mycroft - Eurus is keen to revert to that state, when trauma had control. It is touching, then, that brain!Mycroft is willing to relinquish that control and leave Sherlock with his heart, perhaps because this new unity allows him to recognise how damaged the Sherlock he created was. We should also note that this diminishing of Sherlock’s heart is compared to his Lady Bracknell, which we know to be his repression of all Sherlock’s romantic/sexual impulses – except this time it’s less convincing, because his brain doesn’t believe it anymore. What is also devastating is heart!John’s lack of self-esteem or knowledge, the sense that he isn’t useful to Sherlock, which of course will be proven wrong.

[if anyone has thoughts on the white rectangle on the floor, do let me know. It’s bugging me!]

Mycroft says that he acknowledges there is a heart somewhere inside of him – again, this is emotionally powerful in the context of the brain/heart wrangling that we’ve seen inside the EMP. Just as Sherlock’s psyche has tried to compartmentalise them all this time and they’re finally working together, now there’s an acknowledgement that the compartmentalisation into personae is maybe inaccurate as well – brain!Mycroft’s pretence to be emotionally detached is not in fact correct, as we’ve been suspecting for a long time.

Brain!Mycroft also states that it’s his fault that this has all happened because he let Eurus converse with Jim. If you spend any time thinking about the Eurus + Jim meeting, like many elements of this show it doesn’t make sense. There isn’t a feasible way this could have been planned, recorded etc in five minutes, and although it’s true that Jim could have come back to shoot the videos under the governor’s supervision, it’s not clear why he’s so important. Unless he takes on the metaphorical significance that we’ve assigned him, letting Jim see Eurus seems pretty unimportant – he is only the garnishing on Eurus’s plan. Instead, Mycroft is at fault for letting John be in danger – not only did Sherlock misdeduce Mary (although we can lay the blame for that at the feet of heart!John - see meta on TST), his reasoning was blinded and so he missed John’s suicidal urges and the danger to his life. Brain!Mycroft holds himself responsible – all of these EMP deductions are way late, comprised of things Sherlock should have noticed when his brain wasn’t letting his heart in.

Five minutes. It took her five minutes to do this to all of us.

The lighting is dramatic, so I can’t properly gauge Ben’s expression at this moment, but his eyes look crinkled in confusion, just like they are at the moments when a sense of unreality starts to set in in TAB. Indeed, these aren’t very appropriate words for when you’re about to kill your brother; it’s like he’s being distracted, like there’s something important that he’s missing. Mofftiss are drawing attention to the sheer impossibility of the situation – and Sherlock’s nearly there. His Katniss Everdeen move, threatening to kill himself, is the recognition that his trauma doesn’t have that power – it can hurt him and deform him by twisting his psyche into unbalance, like it has before and like Eurus is trying to here, but it cannot kill him. We can see that Sherlock has risen above the one-sided dominance that he began the entire show with when Eurus shouts at him that he doesn’t know about Redbeard yet – that’s not going to change his mind today, but it’s a direct throwback to the days when it would have, in ASiP with the cabbie. Character development, folks.

The shot of Sherlock falling backwards into the dark water links to two aspects of the EMP. One is the continued metaphor of water to represent sinking into the depths of his mind. The water is so dark it looks oily – it could be argued that this is the oil that is corrupting the waters of his mind as we finally cut to the repressed memories. I quite like this reading, though I have little other oil imagery to link it to in the show. The other notable point is the slow-motion fall backwards – instead of showing Sherlock, John and Mycroft all falling, we cut to Sherlock falling backwards exactly like he did in HLV when he was shot by Mary. This is a really clear visual callback. Even though we’re going deeper, we’re linking back to the original shooting, back in reality, suggesting that this depth is paradoxically going to lead us back to the start. To go back to the oil imagery, don’t forget that oil floats on water – although it looks like we’re sinking, there’s a real sense that these repressed memories are actually pulling us to the surface of Sherlock’s subconscious, quite unlike the deep zoom out we saw when Sherlock was destroying the coffin.

And that’s it for part 2 of the TFP meta! Part 3/3 will deal with such highlights as John not being able to recognise bones and presumably getting his feet pulled off by chains. Good thing this is just a dream. See you then!

#meta #emp theory #tjlc

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shrlxcked-a · 3 years

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people: sherlock isn’t traumatized. there’s nothing wrong with him. the whole trauma thing was unplanned and sudden, bad writing. he was totally fine before S4.

me, an intellectual: Alright so -

#// there's so many signs throughout the entire series that he is suppressing something #// as early as S1 #//but it gets strong in S3 #// the drug relapse #// the Redbeard thing on the phone with Mycroft during the wedding #// come the fuck on how can you see his reaction to hearing the word Redbeard #// and genuinely think nothing is going on there #// Talk to the Hand #╳⦁ ⎯⎯⎯⎯ OOC.#tbd

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elizabethsharmon · 4 years

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People who still hope for more clips, as if that'll somehow redeem this season or make it retroactively better, remind me of the BBC Sherlock fandom, who was so utterly disappointed by s4 that they came up with a conspiracy theory claiming that there was a secret, good 4th episode that would explain the mess that was the finale because "that can't possibly be the end!!" Of course there wasn't, and all we learnt was that Moffat can't write women and that he believes his own myth, sounds familiar?

ANON I’M SCREAMING!!! I KNOW!!! I WAS THERE!!!!!! AND ARE YOU A MIND READER OR SOMETHING BECAUSE I WAS LITERALLY THINKING ABOUT IT TODAY AND I GOT SOME SERIOUS WAR FLASHBACKS!!!!

okay guys, buckle up your seat belts cause anon and I have a story to tell: so basically if you know anything about BBC Sherlock the thing is that we would get three (3) 1,5h long episodes every 2-3 years so it was a pretty big thing and everyone was waiting for it. Flashforward to January 2017 when season 4 was released and it was just... so bad. Like so so bad. Literally nothing made sense. Everything was ooc. The cases were so dumb and dull. The characters got destroyed and killed for nothing. It was absolutely awful. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared us for the final episode that was just the absolutely worst thing ever. So the writers thought they’re doing some pretty great thing that’s Superior and So Clever and in reality it turned out to be some crack fic au. Quite literally cause there were even nightmares and clowns and roleplay and disguising as old sea pirates??? And then suddenly Sherlock had a secret sister that was The Most Clever person ever and her name was basically East Wind but in Greek??? And she was locked up in a glass cage on this island and there wasn’t any access to it and they found themselves there for some reason and I don’t really remember what was the point of this plot but then there were some flashbacks or not really flashbacks and Moriarty was there cause he was brought to her as a Christmas present??? Anyway there was this whole thing that basically Sherlock didn’t remember shit cause his brother brainwashed him so he could forget traumatizing events from his childhood and all the time he was thinking about his dog Redbeard it actually turned out that what he thought was a dog was actually his friend, like you know an actual human being, whom his sister threw into a well and left there to die??? And basically the ending of this episode that was like a 20 second long montage of Watson and Holmes raising a kid together and solving crimes was a better season than those 3 episodes??

But anyway, the finale was SO BAD that absolutely NO ONE wanted to believe that that’s it. Like, the show has great writers! They care about the characters! They care about the fans! And then the whole thing began - people started going through the episodes and finding clues and there were some hints here and there, like a date on the billboard in one of the episodes, and then they thought they got this. This wasn’t the end. There will be another episode and it will turn out that the whole season 4 was actually a dream sequence and we’ll be transported back to the end of s3 (and when you remember that there was actually a special episode between s3 and s4 that was a dream sequence you realize that the show was just bad). So then with all those clues and metas, people checked the BBC tv programme and they got it! On the day that was on the billboard in the show and during the usual Sherlock slot, there was supposed to be a new show and - wait for it - the main character was supposed to be a retired army doctor! So if the metas weren’t convincing enough, that was the cherry on top and this way everyone believed that we will indeed get The Lost Special. So that day everyone tuned in and were anxiously waiting to see it... but then it turned out it’s a completely new show. Like. Just another tv show. And people were like “okay so this is it? that’s not possible right???? maybe it will swtich to Sherlock in the middle of the episode???” and so they watched and the main character was r*ped in the dark alley after 10 minutes??? And it all was just ?????????

And then it hit us. We were just clowns thinking that it was all a game and putting too much faith into the writers. It was on that day that the fandom has realized that the writers don’t care about the characters nor the fans. That they will never understand any of the criticism and they will never acknowledge it. That they will still go on and say how superior their writing is and how the season was amazing and if the viewers don’t understand it, then they’re dumb. It was on that day, January 22, 2017, that the fandom decided that s4 doesn’t exist. And that the show was ruined forever and nothing can fix it now because it’s already too late.

So seeing how people are delusional now... thinking that we might get more clips or some special episode, it just makes me sad cause I’ve been there already, I went through it once and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna put myself in this mess again. And like you said, no extra clips or special episodes can fix it. What’s done is done and the damage is there and it’s too late now. And to everyone else - listen to me and the nonnie, old Sherlockian veterans, when we tell you this: the writers don’t care. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about the characters. They don’t care about the show. They only care about the fame and the praise. There won’t be any special episode. It’s better to expect the worst than end up disappointed like we did when it turned out that The Lost Special wasn’t about the special, additional episode. It was about us. We were special. And they lost us.

#skamfr #anon #answered #maggie talks #i still have those metas somewhere on my blog.#i used the story as a case study in my thesis to show how easily the writers can piss off a fandom.#how easy it is to lose fans that loved the show and cared about it so much when bad writing destroys everything.#looks the history repeats itself huh

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kairoscelrosis · 5 years

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The Final Problem...

I love the fact that in S4 E3: The Final Problem, Sherlock solves the Musgrave Ritual because of the emotional push he gets when he gets to know that Eurus actually killed his childhood best friend, and was on the verge of doing it again. It was the same unworthy thing, which according to Mycroft did not matter, which just interfered with the thinking capability of the person. But it was this emotion that drove him to solve the hardest riddle of his life, and enabled him to be liberated of his childhood traumatic experience. It was this experience, which in Lestrade’s eyes, made Sherlock not just a great man, but a good one too.

But, the irony is that it was emotion itself which drove Eurus to not having any empathy at all. It made her a psychopath. She wanted love and attention from her brother, the person she loved the most. She gave him a song as a cipher, asking him to rescue her, but he didn’t. That is what turned her on the path of destruction, and getting rid of all emotions she had. Because they reminded her of Sherlock’s “betrayal”. That is why, after the death of Redbeard, when Sherlock did not come to Eurus, but was mourning his best friend’s death, that Eurus actually started drawing the ‘Sherlock should die’ drawings.

Also, in the starting of the episode, when the girl (who is actually shown to be Eurus in her own metaphorical dream) picks up the phone call, the voice that speaks is of Moriarty. This is because when she got to know about the little interactions Jim had had with her beloved Sherlock, that she felt that she could create a connection with him too. His being a master criminal did not matter, the thing that mattered to her was Sherlock. This leads me to explaining a head cannon I had. It says that in the five minutes’ worth of unsupervised conversation, both Eurus and Jim actually discussed Sherlock (we all know that they both were obsessed with Sherlock).

They both being geniuses in their own right, and with the help of the extensive network Moriarty had established, he could have deciphered the patterns in which Sherlock reacted with respect to certain situations. Jim also had sensitive information about Sherlock’s childhood, and even knew the truth about Redbeard. Moriarty, though obsessed with Sherlock himself, knew Sherlock was in love with John, and even told Eurus about this. This verifies two more head cannons - Eurus dressing up like a blonde with a walking stick to lure and showing herself as having PTSD and being suicidal to confuse Sherlock, and that when the coffin is shown in the said episode, it may as well have been for John.

Sherlock himself said, “If you have all the information in the world, you can next predict what’s going to happen next.” Thus, Moriarty could predict what Sherlock was going to do. SEVERAL YEARS IN ADVANCE. He had analysed Sherlock so closely that he knew the possible alternatives that Sherlock would take.

That is why, when Sherlock got to know that Jim and Eurus had had five minutes’ worth if unsupervised conversation, that Sherlock almost accused Mycroft, saying, “Five minutes. Five minutes unsupervised. That’s all it took her to do all this to us.”

Mycroft, the brother who once said that he would be deeply hurt by Sherlock’s loss, still played an astonishing and major role in the events of the Final Problem. It was him who gave Moriarty sensitive information about Sherlock’s troubled childhood. It was him, despite his better judgment, who allowed the conversation between the two mad and obsessed geniuses . Finally, he may have made the biggest mistake of all - not teaching Sherlock how to feel. Had Sherlock been ridden of all emotions, then John Watson and would not have been saved. Worse still, Sherlock would not have jumped from Bart’s rooftop, he would not have dislodged Moriarty’s network, he would not have spent two years underground for John Watson. In fact, we Sherlockians would not have been here.

Thus, it was the power of emotions which was underestimated by Mycroft that made the era defining genius a psychopath, and an emotional little drama queen into not just a great, but a good man.

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

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Weird q..but i really dont understand why most fans hate season 4, especially the last episode. Why? I think it gave us a deeper look on both sherlock and mycroft! I felt it tells a lot about mycroft how he had to step in and take control of things ever since he was a kid himself. Also he is not a robot or a killer. Also redbeard thing. It was an appropriate deep psychological trauma (cause most shows usually disappoint in that area). I am not trying to impose my opinion. Just want to understand

Hey Nonny!

It’s all good, and I totally respect your opinion and how you enjoyed S4! It’s totally okay! I know that there are quite a few who got a lot of of S4, and who genuinely enjoyed it.

Sadly, I am not one of those people, and I’ll try to be as diplomatic a possible in my response, but PLEASE know that I don’t think you’re “terrible” or “stupid” for liking S4 because I DO get passionate sometimes in my responses, and I’m just merely speaking as someone who studied the series very closely for quite a long time before S4 aired, and as someone who knows Day-One-ers (ie., people who watched Sherlock on its day one airdate) who also are a large majority of the people who did not like S4. This is just me simply stating why I didn’t like it, but it’s different for everyone.

Stating what I DO like: The acting and cinematography of the first two episodes were brilliant for what they had to work with, and I’ve never faulted any of the actors for the flaws of S4. And for TFP, they did the best with what they had to work with.

That’s… pretty much all I really liked about S4.

Now, here’s my problems with S4:

Nothing made a LICK of sense to the narrative that they were telling in Seasons prior.

This series was always based a bit in reality, and suddenly everything became comic-book rules: X-Men villains, shitty “redemption” arc, destroying favourite characters just for drama, ludicrous physics, explosions that only destroyed one small room in an apt where in previous episodes one explosion destroyed an entire block, etc.

Sherlock was OOC.

Mary was being built up to be a fantastic villain? Ah, nope, here’s the lacklustre twist where tee hee Mary’s just an assassin with a heart of gold that still emotionally abuses Sherlock and John and just won’t fucking stay dead.

And speaking of this, the DVD’s make NO LOGICAL SENSE unless she was planning to kill herself

AND she tries to make her death equatable to Sherlock’s??

Everyone was RIDICULOUSLY out of character in TFP, I’m so sorry: Mycroft is a bumbling coward for the most part, Sherlock disregards John when he gives the Vatican Cameos warning, the Holmes Parents are assholes because Mycroft COULDN’T SOLVE A PROBLEM WHEN HE WAS 12?? ARE YOU SERIOUS???? And that creepy Moriarty / Eurus thing, and LITERALLY they’re implying that EVERYTHING HAPPENED BECAUSE EURUS DIDN’T GET A HUG. Like, I’m so sorry, but that’s lazy writing.

And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of the entire character of Eurus. She LITERALLY had X-Men powers, and like… just nothing made sense. Her involvement in the entirety of S4 MADE NO SENSE. Why go back to prison if you can get out?? WHAT IS THE POINT?? AND I repeat: She did all this because she didn’t get a hug. Yes. I’m oversimplifying, but at the base level, that’s what it was, because she wanted Sherlock’s attention. Welcome to the club, kid, stand in line, everyone on the SHOW wants his attention.

The ENTIRE plot of the first 2 seasons got wiped out all because it wasn’t Moriarty who was interested in Sherlock, but Eurus?? What… What about Carl Powers?? Like…. the ENTIRETY of season one and TGG makes no sense now, because of that one 5 minute scene where Eurus “enlists” Moriarty. I… ugh.

The SUDDEN tonal switch from kind-of Sherlock to James Bond, for some fucking reason.

And on that note, how terribly lazy and cheap TFP looks in comparison to the other two episodes. The whole episode looks like it was filmed in a small house with 4 identical rooms.

EVERYTHING that was etablished in 2 episodes prior were COMPLETELY forgotten when Mary was “shot”.

The complete character assassination of one loyal blogger John H Watson in favour of Mary for some fucked up reason, even though AT HIS OWN WEDDING HE COULDN’T STAND BEING AROUND MARY. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for one damned second that John would EVER forgive Mary for murdering his best friend after seeing what it did to him. That’s not love from her, and that’s NOT John’s character EVER in the ENTIRETY of the series.

And speaking of character assassinations, Molly’s character being devolved to S1E1 Molly, where instead of giving her agency like they were doing with her the ENTIRE series, so much so that Sherlock picked up on her dominance enough to give her a big role in his mind palace in HLV and TAB, only to make her a sad little self-insert Mary Sue pining for the main character, and in turn made Sherlock a TERRIBLE human being for MAKING HER say what she did. It’s gross.

AND speaking of Molly’s character, they’ve been setting up Mollstrade since as early as ASiB, but I guess that plot line got shafted. Look I LOVE Hopkins, and I am ANGRY they didn’t give her more than 3 fucking lines in the entirety of ONE episode after HEAVILY promoting her actress and character, but they essentially reduced her to a piece of ass for Lestrade to chase. AND THAT’S NOT HIS CHARACTER EITHER. EW GROSS.

The constant plot holes being gaped wide open, and the Chekov’s gun moments where they bring up shit but do nothing with it!!

TD-12? Nope, just a lame reference to a story we like.

John got shot at the end of TLD with a VERY REAL FUCKING GUN? Nope, it was a dart gun.

John not suddenly knowing how to be a doctor.

The TGG one I mentioned up above.

What was in the letter? And who was Anyone??

Moriarty essentially being erased as anything other than a hired thug and had no part whatsoever in Sherlock’s history.

Eurus… Just all of her character is asinine.

Everyone in T6T suddenly not knowing John’s the blogger, which is in direct contradiction to literally the entire series.

The AGRA plotline was ridiculous, in the end.

Baby? What baby? It was only there when convenient.

They dropped whatever plotline they were going to do for Mycroft: He was being set up as either dying, or the villain.

Redbeard. I’m sorry, I disagree with you on that. Mofftiss is trying to tell me that a little boy fell down a well and went missing, and that WASN’T the first place searchers / the police wouldn’t have looked? Sorry, no. And then. AND THEN his parents just… go along with this thing where Sherlock shuts down and they DON’T get him therapy? Yes, I agree the mind is a funny thing, and we can be traumatised into forgetting or dissociating from traumatic events. I GET IT. But… like I don’t believe the Holmes are so heartless as to just never grieve or have memories around about their supposedly dead daughter. It’s another OCC thing for me.

John’s cheating.

Disappearing and reappearing characters, like this scene, and the entirety of the aquarium scene.

Mary and John being terrible parents

OH GOD THIS FUCKING SCENE. That bomb SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED THE ENTIRE BUILDING.

What… who was this girl on the plane? What? Like I know WHO, but if she’s supposed to be Eurus talking to Sherlock, why don’t we see Eurus… talking to Sherlock? I … Ugh.

NORBURY.

The glass SUPER SECRET GOVERNMENT ROOM THAT NO ONE SHOULD SEE INTO in T6T.

Sloppy camera work that some believe was intentional, but if it wasn’t, jesus c’mon.

The RIDICULOUS amount of 4th Wall Breaking. Like… even the actors didn’t give a shit.

Essentially, everything on this list here and in this blog tag here.

And everything mentioned on these three posts:

T6T: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

TLD: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

TFP: 10 Revealing Things That Haunt You Late at Night

There’s SO much more I can go into, but please go through my “something’s fucky” tag in that last link.

Notice how probably 90% of that has NOTHING to do with “johnlock not becoming canon” because the Johnlockers get MONSTROUS accusations as to THAT being why we didn’t like S4, even though it was, like critically panned by the GENERAL AUDIENCE who have NO investment in the series other than “I liked it in the past”.

Two of my fave YouTubers have interesting (not perfect, but still good) takes coming at the series as casual viewers:

‘The Day Sherlock Died’ by The Closer Look

‘Sherlock is Garbage, and Here’s Why’ by hbomberguy

So it’s NOT just Johnlockers. I’ve talked to Sher1011ies at 221B con who didn’t like S4 either, because most of them realized how shitty Molly was treated in the last episode. So yeah, a big middle finger to those who think I dislike S4 because of “no Johnlock”. No, I disliked it because I need my stories to make logical narrative sense. I disliked it because I love John and they ruined his character all for the sake of drama and because Moffat has a “hurting Ben” kink. I disliked it because Mary should NOT have been “redeemed” because she was an abuser. I disliked it because Moriarty was turned into a cartoon villain, even though he was already overused in the series. I disliked it because the core of the show – the FRIENDSHIP of Sherlock and John, and their solving mysteries together – did not exist at all. I disliked it because John got sidelined. I disliked it because TFP was a ridiculous episode that, if you replace ANY of the characters, it wouldn’t make a difference, because it didn’t feel like an episode of Sherlock. I disliked it because everyone was OOC.

Anyway. Sorry. One too many accusations my way over the past 1100+ days LOL.

As for your assessment of TFP, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you. There was no growth and actually it implies something far more sinister: That the Holmes are and were terrible parents that gave no shits about their daughter, their traumatized son, and expected their eldest to essentially be a parent. It implies that Mycroft, at 12 years old, orchestrated the ENTIRE Sherrinford thing… Look I can suspend my disbelief, but there’s limits, and this is one of them. A LITERAL CHILD. Perhaps Uncle Rudy had a hand in it somehow, but then why not shit on Uncle Rudy? Why is Mycroft blamed for it all?

Look, I don’t doubt Sherlock had a traumatic experience regarding “Redbeard”. But then why play into the fact that he was a dog? Why bring another character into the series just to have a gotcha moment? Because Mofftiss wanted a “Shyamalan twist”, that’s why. They threw EVERYTHING away for a twist ending either because they GENUINELY thought it was good, or they got tired of doing Sherlock. ALL of TFP is LITERALLY a really bad plot twist because reasons. TFP makes no sense to the ENTIRE narrative structure of the previous 12 episodes. It erased EVERYTHING from the previous episodes, and coated it with a gross closing by a character no one wanted in the series, and then tried to convince us that it’s a new beginning – “a journey they had to go through” – but it SOLVED NOTHING.

Anyway. I have big feels about S4, and the only way I can enjoy it is to watch it subtextually, but even then, I cannot sit through TFP without cringing.

That said, Lovelies, please do not attack Nonny for enjoying S4! I know you guys won’t, but Nonny came out with an olive branch and they just want to understand why the fandom is passionate about S4′s… whatever it was. We can have a civil discussion about it, and point out – without attacking – why S4 is universally panned. It’s okay to like things no one else does, and Nonny was respectful to me in this ask!

So with that, feel free, lovelies, to express why YOU didn’t enjoy the series, or why you did! I’m interested in both “sides” / pov’s whatever :)

#steph replies #long post #sherlock s4 #s4 shitposting #mofftiss #something's fucky #the mary problem #my thoughts #my meta #shitposting steph #sorry gang if you like the season #it's easier for me to enjoy it if i tinhat

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ao3feed-johnlock · 4 years

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read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2Dmz0Iq

by TheSkullontheMantlepiece

They waited until John could say it without raising his voice.

“She doesn’t scare me because she didn’t abuse me.”

“She killed your therapist and put you down a hole.”

“And now I have a nice new therapist that helps me talk about that. Who do you talk to about what she did to you?” John asked.

Sherlock scoffed. “It’s not a competition.”

“And yet somehow you’re always last place.”

After The Final Problem: Rosie and John are back in Baker Street, Sherlock and John are Togetherw, Eurus Holmes is alive, Victor Trevor is dead, and Sherlock must try to survive the flood.

Words: 11698, Chapters: 1/?, Language: Esperanto

Fandoms: Sherlock (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: M/M

Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Mrs. Hudson (Sherlock Holmes), Greg Lestrade, Sally Donovan, Molly Hooper, Victor Trevor, Eurus Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, The Yard (Sherlock Holmes)

Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson

Additional Tags: Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Therapy, Fix-It, s4, Holmes Siblings, Poor Victor, Kidlock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Childhood Trauma, Mental Health Issues, This is a happy story I swear, Overcoming Trauma, Anxiety, john and sherlock have a very healthy relationship, Crime Scenes, Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Drug Addiction, in the end love conquers all

August 01, 2020 at 10:08PM

#AO3 works tagged 'Sherlock Holmes/John Watson'#ao3feed #fanfic #johnlock #sherlock/john <a rel="au

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lapuslazulli · 4 years

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Chapters: 7/20 Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Mary Morstan/John Watson, Greg Lestrade & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Greg Lestrade Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Greg Lestrade Additional Tags: Slow Build, Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Feelings, Abominable Bride fix-it, Season 3 fix-it, PTSD, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Episode: The Abominable Bride, After the Fall, BAMF John, BAMF John Watson, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Eventual Johnlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, John is a Bit Not Good, Sherlock is Even Worse, John Loves Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, Post HLV, Post-Reichenbach, Post Reichenbach, Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Sickfic, Illness, Medical Realism, Medical Conditions, Multiple trauma, Multiple injuries, medical grit, Not Season/Series 04 Compliant, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 04 Fix-it, so to speak, this is a translation of a fic ended in 2016!, Confesiones, Drogas, sentimientos, Dolor, Heridas, Problemas de Salud Mental, ataques de pánico, Secretos, Trastorno de estrés postraumático, Episodio: La Novia Abominable, Después de "La Caída", Sherlock y sus problemas de drogas, Episodio: t03e03 "Su Última Promesa", Futuro Johnlock, Aunque "eventual" también se puede traducir como "final" o "eventual", Sherlock está herido, John está afligido, Aunque "grieving" también se puede traducir como "de luto", De hecho es más frecuente "de luto", No diré nada más sobre "grieving" XD, John no está muy bien, Sherlock está peor, John ama a Sherlock, Sherlock ama a John, Sherlock es un desastre, enfermedad, Padecimientos, Realismo médico, Condiciones médicas, No incluye la temporada 04, Sí se me ocurrió traducir las etiquetas, No sé si fue buena idea XD, Por algún motivo el fandom de Sherlock ama las etiquetas, y me incluyo XD, Traducción, Don't copy to another site Summary:

Tras escapar de ser enviado a esa misión virtualmente suicida por matar a Magnussen, las cosas no están todo lo bien que debería ser, ya que es evidente que Sherlock ha regresado por completo a su vieja adicción a las drogas, aunque, a ojos de John, las cosas han estado lo suficientemente bien como para que no se justifique una recaída de tal magnitud, pues el detective se había mantenido limpio aún en tiempos mucho más difíciles. O eso es lo que John se esfuerza por creer.

Sin embargo, un accidente obliga a John a encarar la realidad, una que le demuestra que las cosas han ido mal con el detective desde mucho antes. El ex-soldado y los demás, sólo han visto la punta del iceberg; debajo están las consecuencias directas de su trabajo desmantelando la red criminal de Moriarty, y lo que encontró el día de su regreso al mundo de los vivos, cuando volvió a ver a John esa noche en The Landmark. Y todo lo que ha ocurrido después.

Traducción de un original de J_Baillier.

Advertencia: Descripciones detalladas y realistas de procedimientos médicos. Descripciones gráficas de un síndrome de abstinencia. Posterior a "La Novia Abominable", pero sin nada de S4.

#Fanfic #AO3 Link

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leleonora2000 · 5 years

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Sherlock’s dream

As you can see in my profile I’m pretty convinced that season 4 and TAB are Sherlock’s mind palace/dream after overdosing on the plane (Tarmac scene).

Who’s familiar with TJLC theories knows that Sherlock is full of symbols and subtext, so I’ve dove a little research and found out some stuff that can actually explain the whole season 4-thing. But only if we think about season 4 as EMP.

I decided to start with some proof that we are in Sherlock’s mind and that we are going deeper every time. (I already wrote a post about this, go check it out).

Well, yes. (Eurus about Redbeard)

He’s literally sinking into something here.

Also the majority of elements in S4 don’t make any sense if not seen though a symbolic pov. So I started searching for recurrent symbols in dreams and look what I found.

SINKING INTO THE WATER

Water symbolizes your feelings in your dreams and stepping into water shows that you are entering into pretty emotional events (the sequence after this one is literally the memory of him running with Readbeard before the ‘big reveal’).These circumstances are strongly affecting you emotionally. Sinking down into the water suggests that you are drowning yourself in your feelings.

PEOPLE ALWAYS GIVE UP AFTER THREE

The number three is a symbolic substitute for the entire male genital (in dreams). And what if he ment ‘three’ series? Look at the fandom right now, from the moment series 4 came out so many people gave up on Johnlock, we lost faith afther season 3.

PHALLIC IMAGERY

Sexual imagery is really important in this case because the Unconcious part of our mind is where much of the mind’s work gets done; it's the repository of automatic skills, the source of stored and often repressed memories of traumatic experiences, sexual urges, intuitions, fantasy and dreams, and an engine of information processing.

The penis alone is represented by long and upright objects such as sticks, umbrellas, poles, trees, or the Washington Monument. It can also be symbolized by objects that can penetrate the body and cause injury – think of knives, daggers, lances, swords, and firearms (especially revolvers). (Rebekah explained this better than I did).

The extraordinary characteristic of an erection in which the penis raises itself against the force of gravity results in symbolic representation by balloons, airplanes, missiles, and rockets.

To dream that an airplane is hijacked signifies disturbing feelings and past emotions in your subconscious mind. (Plane in TFP?)

WOMEN

To see a woman in your dream represents nurturance, passivity, caring nature, and love. It refers to your own female aspects or your mother. Alternatively, a woman indicates temptation and guilt. Sometimes, the woman herself may be distorted or a parent. Carl Jung believed to dream of a woman was connected to our animal instincts. if you are a man and you dream of a woman it can indicate your pleasure-need in life if it was sexual in nature. I said this 100 times: Euros/Eros is the rapresentation of Sherlock’s feelings and urges, literally everything she does is correlated to love/sexuality: when she disguises as Faith (female version of John) or as a tall dark-curly-haired woman with sexy blue eyes and smile to attract John on the bus, when she says she had sex with a nurse (male or female, we don’t know) , the fact that she litelally controls people’s minds and decisions and when she asks if Sherlock had sex (when he plays Irene’s theme).

ISLAND

An island in dreams symbolize an area of your unconsciousness hidden away from the world. It is a part of yourself that is cut off from the outside. We already know that Sherlock tries to divorces himself from feelings/love, so what if he literally locked them in a high-surveillance prison? This would explain also the fact that Eurus escapes several times, because when he met John he just started losing control over them.

THERAPIST

Many times in your life you keep hidden secret fears or desires. That is where the therapist comes in and helps you. The therapist is there to help you understand you own motivations for the actions that you take. Dreaming about the therapist is a way for your mind to let you know that you need to get something out. His feelings for John maybe?

In this scene Ella says something veeeery interesting, about a ‘current dream’ Sherlock has, could it be the one we are experiencing now?

FISH TANK

To dream of a fish tank symbolizes emotions of the dreamer which has not yet been out to the open. There are desires and feelings that are repressed...

There’s a lot of that in TST.

PRISON

Jail (Eurus fortress) suggests that your feelings may be trapped by a limited mind and body.

WELL

Deep wells in dreams symbolize the depth of your emotions. If this is the right interpretation I’m not surprised that we see John and Victor literally drowning in a well/Sherlock’s emotions. I don’t know what happened with Victor, maybe Sherlock had some feelings for him but this ended up killing him or else and he’s afraid it’ll happen with John too.

These were the most important ones, if I find other symbols I’m gonna write a part two. Stay tuned. :D

[Also English is not my first language so if there are any grammar mistakes don’t hate me]

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