T.o.b.y

I want the other one to be dead. And stay dead. I really do not need another Holmes genius. Mycroft is quite enough on the sibling front if you ask me. I've been wondering about Mrs Hudson. From the beginning, she is the person Sherlock is most "human" with, most warm and affectionate. He hugs and kisses her the very first time we see them together. Now, I wonder. Sherlock's Mummy seems to be a perfectly nice, warm, motherly kind of person. So why doesn't he have that kind of relationship with her? Why does he need a surrogate in the shape of his landlady?

Because I have nothing better to do at the moment, here are a few pictures from my favorite scenes in the Lord of the Rings films: For the few who have never seen or read Lord of the Rings: This is not what it looks like! I just love how Boromir is mourned, even though he was so far from being a regular "good guy". He was an average human asshole, and a fighter killed in a battle, like thousands before and after him, yet his death is still portrayed as tragic and sad. And I like that. I like the idea that Boromir was a loss, that his life was valuable. I always cry buckets at that scene. (It's basically the only scene where I like Aragorn. I'm not a big fan of his in general, to put it mildly). Oh my god, this scene was so scary. And finally: I admire Galadriel more for being tempted by the ring and resisting it, than people like Faramir for never showing an interest. I like characters who struggle with their dark side. I love Galadriel for having a dark side. On the one hand, she's this embodiment of light and holiness, and on the other, she's got a very sinister potential. That really appeals to me.

No, I never did notice. Funny. I guess I just expect a lot of men in Victorian novels to be widowed or married for the second or third time, because back then, death during childbirth was quite common.

???? Oh dear, how do I explain this. Well. Um. Okay, let me put it this way. What normal kind of person, when hearing of the plan "I want to jump off a tall building and pretend I'm dead. I'm going to do it right in front of my best friend, who will then continue to believe I am dead for an indefinite period of time. Would you be so kind as to fake the necessary paperwork, find a lookalike corpse and push him out of the window at the right time, and keep silent about the whole thing for ever and a day?" would go "okay", and then just go along with it? What normal kind of person would manage to keep their mouth shut for two entire years, while the friend in question is miserable as hell? What kind of person would be in love with Sherlock Holmes, come to think of it? I'm not thinking real world "sociopath" (whatever that would be), but Sherlock world "sociopath", which seems to mean simply a bit eccentric and a bit disconnected from people at large. Molly doesn't seem to be used to talking to people a lot. I think she spends most of her time at work, where she deals with dead people and body parts, none of which seems to faze her at all (wouldn't faze me, either - the dead are peaceful, but I know perfectly well that most people wouldn't want to go near them). We get almost zero information on her private life, but what kind of person spends Christmas first at Baker St and then in the morgue? Don't get me wrong, I love Molly, and I do thinks she's a sweet, good, gentle soul, but there is something decidedly unusual about her. She and Sherlock are a bit alike.

I've never even heard of Galadrial. Oh, Jess, we have to do something about that. Don't worry, I'm not suggesting you read the Lord of the Rings books or watch the 9-plus-hours film version, but do at least have a look at her: Isn't she beautiful? Come on, isn't she? I adored Cate Blancett as an elf. And her voice is lovely, too. Oh dear, now I want to watch Lord of the Rings and cry...

It is rather a mystery where Sherlock's clothes come from. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine him caring for trifles like that. On the other hand, he's clearly a bit vain. I cannot for the life of me imagine him shopping. Maybe his brother buys his clothes? Maybe Mycroft gets Sherlock all the elegant things that he likes himself but that wouldn't look good on him at all?

Oh yes. That attitude is very immature. And it's irrational, and it betrays a complete ignorance of the concept of acting. For the record, I like Sally Donovan. When I saw her at the beginning of The Sign of Three, I was glad. It was like seeing an old friend. I think Sally is very loyal towards Lestrade. And she's worried, and always has been worried, that Sherlock will ruin Lestrade's career and reputation. Of course Sally is far from being a nice person. But I don't think she's a bad person at all. And I kind of respect her for sticking with her basic disapproval of Sherlock, even after he came back from the dead. She didn't do a volte-face like Anderson. Her reasons for disliking Sherlock are still valid, why should she change her mind?

God, what kind of school do you go to? We didn't even have school IDs when I was a teen (do we now, in this country? I'll have to ask someone). One of the school occurrences I remember the most vividly is what I call the "spider day". My school was in a rural area, and in the fall, there were gazillions of spiders on the premises. Big, fat, cross spiders. Their webs were everywhere. Now, I have arachnophobia. It's getting better, but when I was a kid, it was so bad that I usually couldn't even be in the same room as a spider without freaking out. Cross spiders are rather lazy, drowsy, web spiders, so they are easy to catch. And the boys in my class caught them a lot. They put them in girls' hair, and in our bags and pockets and wherever else they thought funny. I had avoided spider contact so far, because I had managed to keep my fear of the creatures a secret, and there were other females who screamed louder and oftener and so provided more fun. But one day, I came in from recess, and there was this huge spider sitting on my book on my desk. I was almost the last person in, so most of my classmates were already seated and everybody was looking at me. That in itself would have been enough to make my hyperventilate, normally. And now there was this monster. Now, I knew that if anybody caught on to how terrified I was of it, I'd have arachnids flung literally in my face for the rest of my adolescence, and I'd be driven to change schools or something. So I took a deep breath. I picked up the book wordlessly, carried it all the way over to the window, thinking "don't move, don't move, don't move", opened the window and flung the damn creature out. I never had to confront another spider. And I am sorry to say, that was the bravest thing I ever did in my life...

Oh, you devil. Well, he's the only interesting one. And he's funny, and has a British accent. There is something that bothers me about Disney films, but I can't quite put my finger on it. All I know is that when it comes to animated movies for kids featuring talking animals, I'd much rather watch a Ghibli production. I'm not much into Japanimation in general, but their films are often very good. Now, I wonder what part of my MB type explains all that...

Theoretically, I would, but I certainly don't want to see that kind of thing on Sherlock. Ugh. Somehow, I'd like a few glimpses of John as a father. I have a feeling that he'd be a very good one. I wouldn't want his family life to take center stage, but I really wouldn't mind a few brief, nice scenes. As for Sherlock, there is one scene in the original stories where Holmes interacts with a baby, in "The Sussex Vampire", and I'd love to see them do a version of it: "Then he smiled, and his eyes came back to the baby. On its chubby neck there was this small puckered mark. Without speaking, Holmes examined it with care. Finally he shook one of the dimpled fists which waved in front of him. “Good-bye, little man. You have made a strange start in life." I love the idea that he shakes the infant's hand and speaks to it as if it were a grown-up. I think that's pretty much exactly what Sherlock would do.

Yup, Bambi's mom was shot. I never cried much over Disney films, actually. When I was little, I thought they were creepy. Now I do see the charm in some of the older ones, and I appreciate the music, but they don't really touch me on any deeper level. As for Mufasa's death, yeah, that was sad, but I don't care for Simba at all (obnoxious brat), so... Actually, in The Lion King, my favorite is Scar.

Funny, I never saw any attraction towards Irene on John's part at all. To me, she always seemed like the one female who turned him off.

That's okay, you don't have to like either of them. This is one of the many good things about fictional people: You can't hurt them, so you can hate them as vehemently or irrationally as you please, and you don't have to worry about doing them an injustice.

Yeah, I've been wondering about that. Why did Molly keep silent all that time, and not even give John a hint? And why is John not angry at her (or Mycroft!) at all? Molly has much more to her than meets the eye at first. I don't think she's weak, either. I also think that while she is, for the most part, genuinely a good person, she's probably not half as angelic as she comes across. There's a touch of the "sociopath" to her as well. I wonder whether there are many people besides Sherlock whom Molly really cares about.

ARRGGG, No, no, no! The one I'm watching is the one with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the 1995, BAFTA, wet-shirt, 6 episodes miniseries one. The good one.

Whaaat? She's one of my favorite actors! I watched that silly "The Devil Wears Prada" thing only for her sake... Oh well, tastes differ, I guess. I can't bear Keira Knightly. Poor thing, she's never done anything bad that I know of, and she's probably also very good at her job, but I just don't like looking at or listening to her. Oh well, she has a large enough fan base and a glittering career, I am very sure she can dispense with my approval... (I've been watching BBC Pride and Prejudice all morning. I'd say it's affecting my vocabulary, but that deed was done long ago by an entire adolescence buried in Victorian novels).

How is she not a better match for Sherlock than Molly? How? Just how? Freaking gorgeous! It's not all about gorgeous, Jess... But yes, she's very beautiful, and Irene Adler is and should be "The Woman" - whatever that means, exactly. I don't think it means regular dating and dinner by candlelight.

Me too, but I strongly suspect it takes a lot less to make me cry than you. And I hate major character deaths. (In general. There are some exceptions). I also really, really hate sad endings. It doesn't all have to be perfect and hearts and flowers at the end of a story, but it has to be some kind of okay. It can be melancholy okay. Just as long as it's okay. That's what I turn to fiction for! If I want unpredictable, senseless, unfair unhappiness, there's real life, which I'm stuck with anyway. I don't read or watch films to be shocked. I'm not a thrill seeker, in reality or in fiction. I'm a pretty sensitive, thin skinned, wired, neurotic person, I really don't need additional cause for excitement, I need to be calmed down. The upside of this is that I am never bored. There's extrovert versus introvert for you!

Well, to begin with, we don't know whether he really did kill himself at all. Series 4 might very well reveal that he is as alive as ever. But if he did kill himself, why? Okay, I'll answer with another question: Why not? What reason does a person like Moriarty have to go on living? That's his big problem, isn't it. The final problem. Staying alive. It's just so boring, isn't it? It's just staying. If Moriarty truly had run out of distractions by the end of series 2, he might very well shoot himself, especially if that means winning the game against Sherlock (and so he thought he had, at least if he really did kill himself). Remember Sherlock at the beginning of the Great Game. Fatally bored. Shooting the wall. Imagine Sherlock lived all on his own and had a gun. No Mrs Hudson to bring tea in the mornings. No John to come home and take the gun away and complain about the holes in the wall and be sulked at and snap back and scold. No Molly at Bart's who would be heartbroken if he never came back to manipulate her into giving him access to corpses and smuggle out body parts. No Lestrade who will surely offer the next case soon. Don't you think in that case, Sherlock himself may be dead by now? I do. Heck, he was nearly dead at the end of A Study in Pink! Sherlock and Moriarty are pretty similar in series 1. But they develop in opposite directions. Sherlock finds more and more reasons to stay alive, and Moriarty just goes on playing his game until it's reached the final act, and then he (thinks he) wins. After winning, there is really nothing left for him to do, so why not kill himself? It makes perfect sense to me...

Thanks for the answer! I really liked the first and second series of Mad Men, but I could have done without Don Draper's backstory, which I consider corny and boring, and by the third series, I think they began ruining the characterizations. My focus when watching anything is always character-based, and I get unbelievably annoyed if I feel that the protagonists are being written out of character, either to serve some otherwise unlikely plot twist, or just because there are too many writers with too many different ideas about them involved in the show. Also, it was my impression that Mad Men got more and more soap-opera like as it went on, and there was less and less about the actual advertizing business, which I had enjoyed very much. (I know I'm contradicting myself here: First I say I focus on people and relationships and psychology, and then I complain when a series does just that. But this is the way my perverse nature works, I guess. I like Sherlock the best when it's about a ripping good case, but I still care much more for Sherlock's personality as it emerges while he works on said case than the mystery itself). So, to make a long story short, I stopped watching Mad Men after series 2. (I am still a bit in love with the women, though. Joanie and Peggy and Betty Draper... they had so much potential. One of my favorite bits was where Joanie visits Roger in the hospital after his heart attack, and he says "I am so glad I got to roam those hillsides". It was very tender in an odd, lewd sort of way.)

I'm funny about the baby. First of all, I'm a bit peeved that they wrote it in at all. I mean, what for? But now that it's there, I am strongly opposed to any harm coming to it. For some reason, I think it's morally wrong to invent a baby only to kill it off. Now they've introduced Miss Watson, they have to keep her, in my opinion. Why on earth should Mary fake a pregnancy, as has been suggested? What purpose would that serve? Besides, she's only just gotten John to talk to her again, why would she be stupid enough to lie to him again about something as big as that?

You characterize the women very well! I'm still voting for "Sherlock remains permanently single". Aside from that, I think it's sex - Irene, love - John, friendship - Molly, buddy - Janine.

I don't see why they would necessarily kill anybody off any time soon. They've got such a great cast, and the show is very character-based, so why ruin that? The only reason to write somebody's death in would be an actor leaving, but even then, you could make the character disappear without him or her having to die. Okay, killing Mary would make a certain amount of sense, if they want to stick to the original story. But as I never tire of pointing out, even in the original, there is no proof that she actually died. And it would be terribly predictable. So I'm far from convinced they'll actually go there.

Oooooh, tell me, what's your opinion on the series "Mad Men", then? Welcome, by the way.

Yes, I'm serious. For me, Janine was, like Sherlock said, "a grasping, opportunistic, publicity-hungry tabloid whore." Definitely not in Sherlock's league. And I personally like her even less than you like Molly. I used to think the same thing, but somehow, Janine has wormed her way into my heart the same way as the other Sherlock characters did, and I can't find it in there to say I dislike her now. Not that I necessarily want to see her appear again, and I definitely do not think she should become Sherlock's girl friend for real. But I don't know, she's got something. Of course she doesn't compare to Molly. Speaking in flowers, Molly is a wild rose while Janine is a peony (and I guess I'd call Irene a lily). Tastes vary, I guess, but for the record, I like the way Molly looks and dresses very much. I don't think Sherlock is attracted to her physically at all, she doesn't seem to be his type. But that doesn't mean she isn't pretty! Jess, what is it with you and Molly, by the way? You really seem to object pretty strongly to her...