#sherlock theory

[bestbestofbbcinmyhumblepinnion]

So when someone says Sherlock's parents have a lot to answer for, he responds, "I have a list. Mycroft has a file." And then I'm a later season when Sherlock is coming down off a high, he hands Mycroft a list of what he'd taken. Mycroft pts the list between the pages of a little black book.

It's been forever since I watched it but this has been living rent free in my head for ages

[ogsherlockholmes]

Guess who's accidentally been writing a 40 page plus analysis of the entire Holmes canon with a new chronology based on the premise that Watson was a big fat liar and invented two of the most famous stories purely to see if someone might catch him out and therefore the game was all about how much Watson can get away with although it started out on the fact that he only wanted to hide his and Holmes' relationship then it spiralled and still got a LOT more to write but have no idea what to do with it when it's finished?????

[motorghost]

I have to rant about this part of A Study in Scarlet because... it seems to me that Holmes didn't just discover the hemoglobin test at the moment Stamford and Watson walked in. It seems more like he seized the first opportunity to tell ANYONE. Like he simply couldn't contain his joy and desperately needed to share it with an audience. He actually BOWS after giving Watson a demonstration.

Also... "I found it!" are the first words Watson hears from Holmes. He may as well mean "it" to be Watson. He's found IT: his audience, his best friend, his soul mate. His path in life.

This first interaction sets the pattern for their entire relationship: Holmes performing for the best and most high-value audience one could hope for while Watson gets front row tickets to the greatest show on earth. Five stars.

[bedheaded-league]

When it comes to many great literary same-gender friendships (Holmes and Watson, Frodo and Sam, etc.), a lot of people will respond to any attempt to interpret the relationship as romantic with "God, can't two guys/girls ever just be friends?" And that pisses me off SO much. What I always want to say to them is, "Yes, of course they can. That's one interpretation. But why can't there also be an interpretation where they're in love?"

And what it always comes down to is this: If I told you about two characters who were similar ages, close friends, cherished each other above all others, spent all their time together, got possessive and protective of each other, and exchanged affectionate physical touches, would do literally anything for each other, and then I told you that these characters were a man and a woman, most people would automatically assume that they're in love. In fact, if I tried to then say that their relationship is completely platonic, many people just straight up wouldn't believe me (case in point: how shocked people were that Mako and Raleigh didn't kiss at the end of Pacific Rim). A man and woman who clearly adore each other and are openly affectionate with each other but aren't in love? Surely at least one of them must harbor secret feelings for the other, right?

But if I told you that both characters were men or both were women, then all of a sudden it's obviously a close platonic friendship. To suggest otherwise is to commit the terrible crime of "sexualizing friendship" - to take something pure and wholesome and pervert it into something filthy. But why isn't it sexualizing friendship when we do the same thing to the man and the woman? I mean, obviously it's because of homophobia. Romantic love between men and women is sweet and beautiful, but between two men or two women it's purely sexual. It's fetishized. It's fan service. Inappropriate for kids. But my question goes a bit further than that: if we are sexualizing friendship, what the hell is so wrong with that?

My main point here is that both assumptions - that the man and the woman must be lovers, and that the same-gender friends cannot be - are bad ones to make. The truth that I think many people aren't willing to face is that there isn't actually such a big difference between platonic love and romantic love. Really healthy romantic relationships are, at their core, friendships first. Platonic friendships are not a lesser version of romantic relationships. They're also not a "pure, innocent" version. Adding a sexual component to a relationship doesn't make it dirty. Taking that component away doesn't make it less important. Platonic love can be just as passionate, devoted, and insane as romantic love. Romantic love can be just as mundane, simple, and easy as platonic love. Sometimes people might be friends for many years before becoming romantically involved. Sometimes people are romantically involved first and then split up, but become closer as platonic friends than they ever were as partners.

Love is complicated. Sexuality is complicated. It's not a clear cut dichotomy between romantic/platonic. The dividing lines can be messy and they can change over time. Which is why it drives me nuts when people get so fixated on one interpretation of a relationship and refuse to accept any other versions. This can occasionally happen with queer people too - like when two character express affection for one another and people leave comments saying stuff like, "There's literally no platonic explanation for this." Uh, yeah, actually there is. It's called friendship. idk maybe you should try being vulnerable and affectionate with your friends sometimes.

But ugh, every time someone says "Why can't two male/female characters ever just be friends," I just want to be like, "Why do you think that being friends and being lovers are two mutually exclusive things?" Like idk man, I think maybe that says a lot more about your romantic relationships than you realize!

[cybernaght]

The fandom echo chamber: fanon, microanalysis and conspiracy brain 

As someone who has been in fandom spaces, on and off, for 20 years, I find some fascinating trends popping up in the last decade that I thought to be fandom-specific but clearly aren’t. So, I would like to do a little examination of where those things come from, how they are engaged with, and what it says about the way we consume media. This is a think piece, of sorts, with my brain being the main source. As such, we will spend some time down the memory lane of a fandom-focused millennial.

This is largely brought about by Good Omens. But it’s also not really about Good Omens at all.

Part one. Fanon.

The way we see characters in any story is always skewed by our very selves. This is a neutral statement, and it does not have a value judgement. It’s simply unavoidable. We recognise aspects of them, love aspects of them, and choose aspects of them to highlight based entirely on our own vision of the universe. 

Recognition comes into this. There is a reason so many protagonists of romance novels have a “blank slate” problem. Even when they do not, we love characters who are like us or versions of us that we would like to be. And when we say “we”, I also mean, “me”. 

(I remember very clearly this realisation hit me after a whole season of Doctor Who with writing which I hated utterly when I questioned why I still clung so incredibly hard to Clara Oswald as my favourite companion. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. Oh. Well. That would do it, wouldn’t it?)

Then, there is projection, and, again, this is a neutral statement. Projection exists, and it is completely normal and, dare I say it, valid way of engaging with — well, anything. Is the character queer? Trans? Neurodivergent? Are they in love? Do they like chocolate? Are they a cat person? Well, yes, if this is what the text says, but if the text does not say anything… You tell me. Please, do tell me. Because, in that moment of projection, they are yours. 

And then, there is fandom osmosis, and that is the most fascinating one of them all, the one that is not very easy to note while you are inside the echo chamber. It’s the way we collectively, consciously or not, make decisions on who or what the characters are, what their relationships are, and what happens to them.  

(Back when I was writing egregiously long Guardian recaps on this blog I actually asked if Shen Wei’s power being learning actually was stated anywhere in the canon of the show. Because I had no idea. I have read and reread dozen of fanfics where that is the case, and at some point through enough repetition, it became reality.)

We are all kind of making our own reality here, aren’t we? 

Back when things were happening in a much less centralised manner - in closed livejournal groups, and forums of all shapes and sizes - I don’t remember there being quite as much universally agreed upon fanon. Frankly, I don’t remember much of universally agreed upon anything. But now, everything is in one place: we have this, and we have AO3, and it’s wonderful, it really is so much easier to navigate, but it’s also one gigantic reality-shifting echo chamber, with blogs, reblogs, trends, and rituals. 

Accessibility plays its part, too. If you were, say, in Life on Mars (UK) fandom between seasons, and you wanted to post your speculation fic, you had to have had an account, and then find and gain access to one of the bigger groups (lifein1973 was my poison, but ymmv), and then, if you feel brave you may post it, but also, you may want to do so from your alt account if you wanted to keep yours separate, and then you would have to go through the whole process again. And I’m not saying that fan creations then were somehow inherently better for it than fan creations now (although Life on Mars Hiatus Era is perhaps a bad example - because some of the Speculation Fic there was breathtaking), but there is something to say about the ease of access that made the fandoms go through a big bang of sorts.

(I mean, come on, I can just come here and post this - and I am certain people will read it, and this blog is a pandemic cope baby about Chinese television for goodness sake.)

The canon transformations that happen in the fandom echo chamber truly are fascinating to witness as someone who is more or less a fandom butterfly. I get into something, float around for a bit, then get into something else and move on. I might come back eventually when the need arises, but I don’t sustain a hiatus mind-state. This means that when I float away and return, I find some very intriguing stuff.

Let’s actually look at Good Omens here. Season two aired, and I found it spectacular in its cosy and anguished way; deliberately and intelligently fanfic-y in its plot building; simple but subversive, and so very tender. (I will have to circle back to this eventually, because, truly, I love how deliberately it takes the tropes and shatters them - it’s glorious). And, to me - a person who read the book, watched the first season, hung around AO3 for a few weeks and moved on - absolutely on-point in terms of characterisation. 

So imagine my surprise when the fandom disagreed so vehemently that there are actual multi-tiered theories on how characters were not in possession of their senses. Nothing there, in my mind, ever contradicted any of the stated text, as it stood. This remained a strange little mystery until I did what I always do when I flutter close to an ongoing fandom.

I loaded AO3 and sorted the existing fic by popularity. And there it was, all there: the actual earth-shattering mutual devotion of the angel and the demon; willingness to Fall; openness and long heart-aching confession speeches. There was all of the fanon surrounding Aziraphale and Crowley, which, to me, read as out of character, and to one for whom they became the reality over the last four years, read as truth. 

Again, only neutral statements here. This is not a bad thing, and neither this is a good thing, this is just something that happens, after a while, especially when there are years for the fandom-born ideas to bounce around and stew. I can’t help but think that so much of what we see as real in spaces such as this one is a chimaera of the actual source and all the collective fan additions which had time and space to grow, change, develop, and inspire, reverberating over and over again, until the echoes fill the entirety of the space. 

Eventually, this chimaera becomes a reality. 

Part two. Microanalysis 

Here are my two suppositions on the matter:

1. Some writers really love breadcrumb storytelling. 

Russel T Davies, for instance, on his run of Doctor Who (and, if you are reading it much later - I do mean the original one), loved that technique for his seasonal arcs. What is a Bad Wolf? Who is Harold Saxon? Well, you can watch very very carefully, make a theory, and see it proven right or wrong by the end of the season. 

Naturally, mystery box writers are all about breadcrumb storytelling: your Losts and your Westworlds are all about giving you snippets to get your brain firing, almost challenging you to figure things out just ahead of the reveal. 

2. We, as humans, love breadcrumbs.

And why wouldn’t we? Breadcrumbs are delicious. They are, however, a seasoning, or a coating. They are not the meal. 

Too much metaphor?

Let’s unpack it and start from the beginning.

Pattern recognition colours every aspect of our lives, and it colours the way we view art to a great extent. I think we truly underestimate how much it’s influenced by our lived experiences.

If you are, broadly speaking, living somewhere in Western/North-Western Europe in the 14th century, and you see a painting in which there is a very very large figure surrounded by some smaller figures and holding really tiny figures, you may know absolutely nothing about who those figures are, but you know that the big figure is the Important One, and the small ones are Less Important Ones, and the tiny ones are In Their Care. You know where your reverence would lie, looking at this picture. And, I imagine, as someone living in the 14th century, you may be inspired to a sense of awe looking at this composition, because in the world you live in, this is how art works. 

If you, on the other hand, watch a piece of recorded media and see the eyes of two characters meet as the violins swell, you know what you are being told at that moment. You don’t have to have a film degree to feel a sort of way when you see a green-tinged pallet used, when cross-cuts use juxtaposing images, or notice where your focus is pulled in any given shot. This stuff - this recognition of patterns - has been trained into us by the simple fact that we live in this time, on this planet, and we have been doing so long enough to have engaged recorded media for a period of time. 

As humans, we notice things. Our brains flare up when they see something they recognise, and then we seek to find other similar details and form a bigger picture. This often happens unconsciously, but sometimes it does not. Sometimes we do it on purpose: finding breadcrumbs in stories is a little bit like solving a mystery. It allows us to stretch that brain muscle that puts two and two together. It makes us feel clever. 

So yes, we love breadcrumbs, and, frankly, quite a lot of storytelling takes advantage of this. It’s very useful for foreshadowing, creating thematic coherence, or introducing narrative parallels and complexity. It’s useful for nudging the viewer into one or the other emotional direction, or to cue them into what will happen in the next moment, or what exactly is the one important detail they should pay attention to.

Because this is something media does intentionally, and something we pick up both consciously and not, it is very hard to know when to stop. We don't really ever know when all of the breadcrumbs have been collected. It becomes very easy to get carried away. There is a very specific kind of pleasure in digging into content frame by frame, soundbite by soundbite, chasing that pleasure of finding. 

But it is almost never breadcrumbs all the way down. They are techniques to help us focus on the main event: the story. I truly believe those who make media want it to reach the widest possible audience, and that includes all of us who like to watch every single thing ever created with our Media Analysis Goggles on and those who are just here to enjoy the twists and turns of the story at the pace offered to them. And I think, sometimes in our chase to collect and understand every little clue we forget that media is not made to just cater for us.

One can call it missing a forest for the trees. But I would hate to mix my metaphors, so let’s call it missing a schnitzel for the breadcrumbs. 

Part three. The Conspiracy Brain. 

If you are there with me, in the midst of the excited frenzy, chasing after all those delicious breadcrumbs, then patterns can grow, merge together, and become all-encompassing theories. Let’s call them conspiracy theories, even though this is not what they truly are.

So, why do we believe in conspiracy theories?

One, Because We Have Been Lied To. 

All conspiracies start with distrust.

If you are in fandom spaces - especially if you are in fandom spaces which revolve around a queer fictional couple - especially-especially if you have been in such spaces for a period of time, you have most certainly been lied to at one point or another. 

We don’t even have to talk about Sherlock - and let’s not do that - but do you remember Merlin? Because I remember Merlin. Specifically, I remember the publicity surrounding the first season, with its weaponised usage of “bromance” and assertions that this whole thing is a love story of sorts, and then the daunting realisation that this was all a stunt, deliberately orchestrated to gather viewership. 

And, because we were lied to in such a deliberate manner for such an extensive period of time, I genuinely believe that it forever altered our pattern recognition habits, because what was this if not encouragement to read into things? Now we are trained to read between the lines or see little cries for help where they might not be. Because we were told, over and over again, that we should.

(Yes, I think we are all existing in these spaces coloured by the trauma of queer-bating. I am, however, looking forward to a world where I can unlearn all of that.)

Two, Cognitive Dissonance.

The chain reaction works a bit like this: the world is wrong - it can’t possibly be wrong by coincidence - this must be on purpose - someone is responsible for it.

Being Lied To is a preamble, but cognitive dissonance is where it all originates. In so many cross-fandom theories I have noticed a four-step process:

A) this is not good

B) this author could not have made a mistake 

C) this must be done on purpose

D) here is why 

(Funny thing is, I have been on the receiving end of the small conspiracy spiral, and it is a very interesting experience. Not relevant to this conversation is the fact that a lot of my job revolves around storytelling. What is relevant is that my hobbies also revolve around storytelling. And one of them is DnD. Now, imagine my genuine shock when one of the players I am currently writing a campaign for noticed a small detail that did not make a logical sense within the complexity of the world, and latched on to it as something clearly indicating some kind of a secret subplot. Their thinking process also went a bit like this: this detail is not a good piece of writing — this DM knows how to tell stories well — this is obviously there on purpose. It was not there on purpose. I created a clumsy shorthand. I erred, in that pesky manner humans tend to. And, seeing this entire thought process recited to me directly in the moment, I felt somewhere between flattered and mortified.)

This whole line of thinking, I think, exists on a knife’s edge between veneration and brutal criticism, relentlessly dissecting everything “wrong”, with a reverent “but this is deliberate” attached to it like a vice, because it is preferable to a simple conclusion that the author let you down, in one way or another. 

Three, Intentionality 

I believe that there is no right or wrong way of engaging with stories, regardless of their medium, and assuming no one gets hurt in the process. While in a strictly academic way, there is a “correct” way of reading (and reading into) media, we here are largely not academics but consumers; consumption is subjective.

However, this all changes when intentionality is ascribed. 

The one I find particularly fascinating is the intentionality of “making it bad on purpose” because, as open-minded as I intend to always be, this just does not happen.

It certainly does not happen in long-form media. Even in the bread-crumb mystery box-type long-form media. 

When television programs underdeliver, they also underperform, and then they get cancelled.

If all the elements of Westworld Season 4 that did not sit together in a completely satisfactory way were written deliberately as some sort of deconstruction for the final season to explore, then it failed because that final season will now never come.

(There will likely never be a Secret Fourth Episode.)

And look, I am not here to refute your theories. Creativity is fun, and theorising is fantastic. 

But, perhaps, when the line of thought ventures into the “bad on purpose” territory, it could be recognised for what it is: disappointment and optimism, attempting to coexist in a single space. And I relate to that, I do, and I am sorry that there is even a need for this line of thinking. It’s always so incredibly disappointing that a creator you believed to be devoid of flaws makes something that does not hit in the way you hoped it would. It’s pretty heartbreaking. 

Unfortunately, people make mistakes. We are all fallible that way. 

Four, Wildfire.

Then, when the crumbs are found, a theory is crafted, and intentionality is ascribed, all that needs to happen is for it to catch on. And hey, what better place for it than this massive hollow funnel that we exist in, where thoughts, ideas and interpretations reverberate so much they become inextricable from the source material in collective consciousness. 

Conspiracy theories create alternate realities, very much like we all do here. 

So where are we now?

I am not here to tell you what is right and what is wrong; what is true, and what is not. We are all entitled to engage with anything we wish, in whichever way we wish to do it. This is not it, at all. 

All I am saying is… listen.

Do you hear that echo? 

I do. 

[brilliantorinsane]

What's really funny about the below post regarding Leslie Klinger's "firm belief" that Holmes and Watson's relationship was "free from homoerotic content" is that. While in the course of annotating and collating scholarship about Sign of Four and Valley of Fear he never once alluded to it ever occurring to anyone that Holmes and Watson could have something queer going on. He did, however, report the following theories:

That Mary came to Baker Street with the intent to try and marry Holmes, then shifted to Watson upon discovering him to be a more likely prospect

That in the course of their marriage Mary was jealously convinced she was second in Watson's heart to the true great love of his life ... Helen Stoner from Speckled Band

That Holmes also fell in love with Mary, and was heartbroken that Watson beat him to the proposal

And, my personal favourite: That Watson had an on-again-off-again affair with Irene Adler, culminating in marriage when the both of them left their spouses for one another.

[mouse-of-mischief]

I just had a not-so-fun thought. Since Sherlock & Co. is aware that it's a podcast and occasionally references real word events that are currently happening or have recently happened...Do you think the creators will stop releasing episodes of the podcast for two or three years after the Reichenbach Fall to create a consistent and realistic timeline of Sherlock's faked death and John and Mariana mourning? Or do you think they'll shorten the time of Sherlock's absence to merely a few months of playing dead for the audience if they go down this route? Maybe after Sherlock "dies" we'll just get a few sad episodes of John venting to us about missing Sherlock. Whatever happens, I'm both looking forward to and fearing how they will handle this part of the story!

[fogdraws]

Small wip I'm working on of my favourite old victorian men, based on some photos I saw on Pinterest yesterday.

Big problem tho, I think there's something very wrong with the colours (it always is, with me, hard to pick them) so I thought I'd ask for y'all's help before I render It?

[thatswhyhestays]

Once you've opened your heart, you can't close it again.

[wellofdean]

I got this one hobby horse, and god knows I'm gonna saddle up and ride it: Supernatural was a legitimately good show and it was queer as hell in its very bones.

[221bug]

I am struggling to see how Sherlock and Co would do a final problem situation bc there’s no way John is going to sit down and make a disclaimer like “hey everyone trigger warnings for this episode, Sherlock dies.” And also edit it all together. So either it has to be a John is uploading parts live as they happen, which would break the whole structure of the show, or we just get hints throughout the regular episode and then an announcement and hiatus. Or they just won’t do it at all and continue making silly little case episodes.

At the end of the day Goalhanger is a business and the podcast is less than a year old and doing well so it wouldn’t make sense for them to be away long.

[sher2650]

Staring through the windows of Sherlock Tumblr rn wanting to be everyone's friend

[ogsherlockholmes]

I wholeheartedly recognise that I have been slowly crafting (and, honestly, teasing you guys about) this whole theory which I have very carefully constructed and I was being a bit definitive about it (for myself, I don't expect anyone else to believe my conspiracies), but allow me to drop a whole new bombshell which does not align with my other idea: Moriarty wasn't real.

Moriarty is a tricky character to pin down; aside from sharing the exact same name as his brother (James and James Moriarty), and ACD introducing him and killing him off within the same story, we never actually meet him. The only person who interacts with him is Holmes, Watson only catches a glimpse of him at the Reichenbach. Both times we hear his actual words in The Final Problem and The Valley of Fear are Holmes retelling his own conversations with him. Or, he's randomly being brought up in conversations and called the most dangerous man in London. Then there's the whole thing of ACD introducing him twice in the aforementioned stories; as in, at first it seemed like Holmes only told Watson about him before the Fall, then it seems like Watson knew about him a lot earlier.

I'm not going to full develop this idea (at least, not now), I'm just going to throw it into the void and see what happens.

Either Holmes invented Moriarty (BBCSherlock flashbacks) or Watson did, and both of these have absolutely wild implications and now I can't stop thinking about it.

[onceinawhilemoon]

would like to remind everyone that sherlock was SIX YEARS OLD when he sketched this (dated 1865, the same year siger died)

my boy understood light & shadow and rendering techniques better than most people when he was barely entering the phase of losing baby teeth. then he grows up and he's all like “eeeEwww aRt sUuucKsS”

[drinkingmelonwater]

This is your sign to listen to sherlock and co, guys