The Psyche Behind The Character

[Arcadia]

Sometimes Sherlock is quite a good judge of human nature. Wish we had a way of knowing when he's on target and when he's not!

[jesskayding]

Okay... Biblical reference...

 

I see Sherlock's & John's relationship similar to pre-king David & Johnathan, Saul's son... There's a scripture that said the love they had for one another was more than that of the love between a man & a woman.

 

There is no one who will love John more than Sherlock & no one who will love Sherlock more than John.

 

They are just that close. & dare I say it.. Pretty much love @ 1st sight.

[T.o.b.y]

I just came across this old Peanuts strip and it reminded me so much of Sherlock in series 1:

 

[jesskayding]

That's funny. Kind of like season 2 as well in HOB.

[T.o.b.y]

Isn't it fascinating how Sherlock's personality, or what we see as his personality, seems to be almost entirely self-made? The cute curly-haired chubby-cheeked boy we see in flasbacks must at some point have decided "I want to be a sociopath genius logic machine, independent of other people. I don't want to need friends or sex or anything except excitement for my brain. I don't want to deal with my emotions. And I'm not getting a regular job, either, I'll just invent one that suits me." And bam - he just goes and becomes that person. Wow. Must have been some puberty. I don't envy Mummy and Daddy...

 

I do wonder who Sherlock really is. Or was, or could have been, whichever way you want to put it.

 

He is similar to Mary, in a way. He might have kept his name, but he's very deliberately created a persona for himself, and until series 3, he kept his background and family history and so on under wraps. We still don't know where he lived or what he did before he moved to 221b.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

There is the Montague Street of canon....but no. Except for the very small glimpses Mofftiss have given us....we do know next to nothing. 

[Boton]

 

*Sigh*... how I do love that whole mind palace sequence. A killing from the perspective of the victim - while that might not be a completely original idea, it was certainly brilliantly executed and finally, finally, we got a good glimpse inside Sherlock's funny old head.

 

Speaking of which, Sherlock has an interesting attitude towards (his own) death. He doesn't strike me as suicidal, but on the other hand, he doesn't seem to go to any great lengths to avoid dying, either. Self-preservation doesn't appear to be his first priority [....]He doesn't start to really fight for his life until he remembers that it would be a bad time to die because John is in danger.

 

This.  I have watched that mind palace sequence so many times.  Gorgeous work.

 

I think the self-preservation part is very evident, but he's fighting a battle he nearly loses, and one that grows increasingly focused on himself until a burst of herculean will allows him to let a focus on others motivate him.  I notice these points:

• Once Mary has shot him, his consciousness is still on the "surface," so to speak.  The alarm starts blaring in the background, which is a release of adrenaline.  His body is moving into fight-or-flight mode, and his mind prepares to go with it.  
• As the panic grows, his perspective grows increasingly internal, as symbolized by the run down the spiral staircase.
• He navigates the fall, and there's a second burst of adrenaline (alarm blare) that he has to mentally squelch.  He does so with the image of Redbeard, which is located firmly in the memory portion of his mind palace/brain, but not in the "limbic system" or instinctive/reflexive parts of his brain.  That's reserved for.....
• Moriarty, who for me symbolizes not some deep psychological problem, but just the body's instinctive life/death/pain response center.  It's Moriarty in a padded cell, and indeed, this part of everyone is a little psychotic.  This is the part of one's brain that goes into gear when people lift fallen automobiles off children and other seemingly impossible feats of personal strength.  It's a little nuts down here when it needs to be.
• He's got to find a way to use his mind to control the pain.  He looks horrified when he "realizes" that he has no choice about experiencing pain; all he can do is accept it.  And this pain is enough to kill him.
• His mental image of himself is writhing in pain, which means that the real him is consumed with the pain he's feeling.  Ultimately, the only way to escape the gut-tearing agony he is experiencing is to let himself die, and now the choice is not life or death but agony or release.
• But he's so strong mentally that he can use the last milliseconds of consciousness, when the pain is leaving him along with the life force, to actually think through the implications of his "actions."  His death will leave his best friend married to a murderer, while Sherlock takes the knowledge to the grave.  He can't do this to bring himself release at the expense of bringing his best friend pain and danger.
• So, in the most bad-ass example of self-preservation and yet selflessness ever portrayed on film, he freaking climbs out of his own limbic system and lets his analytical brain pull his physical body back into life.  Talk about the triumph of intellect over base instincts.  

Anyway, that's the way I experience that scene, and why I love it so.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

 

• Once Mary has shot him, his consciousness is still on the "surface," so to speak.  The alarm starts blaring in the background, which is a release of adrenaline.  His body is moving into fight-or-flight mode, and his mind prepares to go with it.  
• As the panic grows, his perspective grows increasingly internal, as symbolized by the run down the spiral staircase.
• He navigates the fall, and there's a second burst of adrenaline (alarm blare) that he has to mentally squelch.  He does so with the image of Redbeard, which is located firmly in the memory portion of his mind palace/brain, but not in the "limbic system" or instinctive/reflexive parts of his brain.  That's reserved for.....
• Moriarty, who for me symbolizes not some deep psychological problem, but just the body's instinctive life/death/pain response center.  It's Moriarty in a padded cell, and indeed, this part of everyone is a little psychotic.  This is the part of one's brain that goes into gear when people lift fallen automobiles off children and other seemingly impossible feats of personal strength.  It's a little nuts down here when it needs to be.
• He's got to find a way to use his mind to control the pain.  He looks horrified when he "realizes" that he has no choice about experiencing pain; all he can do is accept it.  And this pain is enough to kill him.
• His mental image of himself is writhing in pain, which means that the real him is consumed with the pain he's feeling.  Ultimately, the only way to escape the gut-tearing agony he is experiencing is to let himself die, and now the choice is not life or death but agony or release.
• But he's so strong mentally that he can use the last milliseconds of consciousness, when the pain is leaving him along with the life force, to actually think through the implications of his "actions."  His death will leave his best friend married to a murderer, while Sherlock takes the knowledge to the grave.  He can't do this to bring himself release at the expense of bringing his best friend pain and danger.
• So, in the most bad-ass example of self-preservation and yet selflessness ever portrayed on film, he freaking climbs out of his own limbic system and lets his analytical brain pull his physical body back into life.  Talk about the triumph of intellect over base instincts.  

Anyway, that's the way I experience that scene, and why I love it so.

 

 

  That sums it up pretty well. Well put, Boton. Well put. 

[jesskayding]

Isn't it fascinating how Sherlock's personality, or what we see as his personality, seems to be almost entirely self-made? The cute curly-haired chubby-cheeked boy we see in flasbacks must at some point have decided "I want to be a sociopath genius logic machine, independent of other people. I don't want to need friends or sex or anything except excitement for my brain. I don't want to deal with my emotions. And I'm not getting a regular job, either, I'll just invent one that suits me." And bam - he just goes and becomes that person. Wow. Must have been some puberty. I don't envy Mummy and Daddy...

 

I do wonder who Sherlock really is. Or was, or could have been, whichever way you want to put it.

 

He is similar to Mary, in a way. He might have kept his name, but he's very deliberately created a persona for himself, and until series 3, he kept his background and family history and so on under wraps. We still don't know where he lived or what he did before he moved to 221b.

 

We do know that he initially wanted to be a pirate.

[Carol the Dabbler]

<snip>

• ... the image of Redbeard ... is located firmly in the memory portion of his mind palace/brain, but not in the "limbic system" or instinctive/reflexive parts of his brain.  That's reserved for.....
• Moriarty, who for me symbolizes not some deep psychological problem, but just the body's instinctive life/death/pain response center.  It's Moriarty in a padded cell, and indeed, this part of everyone is a little psychotic.  This is the part of one's brain that goes into gear when people lift fallen automobiles off children and other seemingly impossible feats of personal strength.  It's a little nuts down here when it needs to be.

<snip>

• ... He can't do this to bring himself release at the expense of bringing his best friend pain and danger.
• So, in the most bad-ass example of self-preservation and yet selflessness ever portrayed on film, he freaking climbs out of his own limbic system and lets his analytical brain pull his physical body back into life.  Talk about the triumph of intellect over base instincts.  

 

Thanks, Boton! Despite the whole theme of Moriarty being Sherlock's evil alter ego, I didn't care for the idea that Sherlock keeps him in his memory palace -- even though he's chained up. I like your limbic-system analysis much better! (I kinda doubt that Moffat meant it that way, but I can nevertheless choose to see it that way.)

 

[Arcadia]

This.  I have watched that mind palace sequence so many times.  Gorgeous work.

 

I think the self-preservation part is very evident, but he's fighting a battle he nearly loses, and one that grows increasingly focused on himself until a burst of herculean will allows him to let a focus on others motivate him.  I notice these points:

• Once Mary has shot him, his consciousness is still on the "surface," so to speak.  The alarm starts blaring in the background, which is a release of adrenaline.  His body is moving into fight-or-flight mode, and his mind prepares to go with it.  
• As the panic grows, his perspective grows increasingly internal, as symbolized by the run down the spiral staircase.
• He navigates the fall, and there's a second burst of adrenaline (alarm blare) that he has to mentally squelch.  He does so with the image of Redbeard, which is located firmly in the memory portion of his mind palace/brain, but not in the "limbic system" or instinctive/reflexive parts of his brain.  That's reserved for.....
• Moriarty, who for me symbolizes not some deep psychological problem, but just the body's instinctive life/death/pain response center.  It's Moriarty in a padded cell, and indeed, this part of everyone is a little psychotic.  This is the part of one's brain that goes into gear when people lift fallen automobiles off children and other seemingly impossible feats of personal strength.  It's a little nuts down here when it needs to be.
• He's got to find a way to use his mind to control the pain.  He looks horrified when he "realizes" that he has no choice about experiencing pain; all he can do is accept it.  And this pain is enough to kill him.
• His mental image of himself is writhing in pain, which means that the real him is consumed with the pain he's feeling.  Ultimately, the only way to escape the gut-tearing agony he is experiencing is to let himself die, and now the choice is not life or death but agony or release.
• But he's so strong mentally that he can use the last milliseconds of consciousness, when the pain is leaving him along with the life force, to actually think through the implications of his "actions."  His death will leave his best friend married to a murderer, while Sherlock takes the knowledge to the grave.  He can't do this to bring himself release at the expense of bringing his best friend pain and danger.
• So, in the most bad-ass example of self-preservation and yet selflessness ever portrayed on film, he freaking climbs out of his own limbic system and lets his analytical brain pull his physical body back into life.  Talk about the triumph of intellect over base instincts.  

Anyway, that's the way I experience that scene, and why I love it so.

 

That ... was amazing.

Talk about the triumph of intellect over base instincts.

!!!

[jesskayding]

Love that response Arcadia ( I could hear John Watson's voice in my head )

[T.o.b.y]

It is so much fun and so interesting to go over bits of the episode commentary for series 3, which I don't have to watch thanks to this lovely transcriber: http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/75489.html, to whom I am eternally grateful (I hate watching audio commentary, because it spoils the show for me, but I love learning the writers' and producer's thoughts).

 

This little comment, for example, about Sherlock I found both amusing, and, well, reassuring somehow:

 

Mark: “So this is Tower 42; and here is Sherlock’s terrible piece of ‘human error’. So at this point, anybody who thought he’d got a bit soft ...”
Steven: “... is about to learn that all he’s learned about human behaviour is how to manipulate it! ‘I can really simulate all those emotions you can do’!”

 

 

So my beloved sociopath isn't dead after all, is he. He's just become a lot more dangerous...

 

This notion of the character I also love:
 

[sherlock] just doesn’t get that he’s being vile – you sort of don’t hate him. There’s no smugness in it – he’s just, ‘I don’t understand why you’re objecting.’

 

 

 

Sherlock is not evil. He's just - not quite of this word, somehow. He doesn't understand that it's bad and wrong to treat his friends the way he does, not until it's too late, anyway. Which is funny, and kind of tragic and sad at the same time.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh -- that bit about Tower 42 is from the "Last Vow" commentary, isn't it?  So apparently CAM has bought out the Shad Sanderson bank since "Blind Banker."

 

[T.o.b.y]

Come to think of it, I really like how Sherlock's mind works. For example:

 

Irrelevant information according to Sherlock:

• How the solar system works
• First name of the man at Scotland Yard who will commandeer helicopters for him just because he read the word "please" in a text message and who still has not taken legal measures concerning Sherlock's known drug use or violent assaults on people who pissed him off
• Gender of the current monarch

Relevant information according to Sherlock:

• Gay underwear trends
• Obscure middle name of flatmate
• How to fold serviettes into the shape of the Sydney Opera House or a swan
• Perfumes
• Difference between purple and lilac

 

I'm with you, Sherlock. Great priorities.

[Boton]

Come to think of it, I really like how Sherlock's mind works. For example:

 

Irrelevant information according to Sherlock:

• How the solar system works
• First name of the man at Scotland Yard who will commandeer helicopters for him just because he read the word "please" in a text message and who still has not taken legal measures concerning Sherlock's known drug use or violent assaults on people who pissed him off
• Gender of the current monarch

Relevant information according to Sherlock:

• Gay underwear trends
• Obscure middle name of flatmate
• How to fold serviettes into the shape of the Sydney Opera House or a swan
• Perfumes
• Difference between purple and lilac

 

I'm with you, Sherlock. Great priorities.

 

I love how Sherlock's mind works!  The closer something is to Sherlock himself or to The Work, the more important it is. And it makes sense to me, just like his clothing vs. his flat.  He is said in ACD canon to have a "quiet primness of dress," but he can't be bothered to clean up his flat, just like our Sherlock -- if it's how he presents himself, it's important, but as things get farther away from him, they become less critical.

 

For example, the gender of the current monarch is irrelevant.  There is no instance I can think of where that piece of knowledge would help him solve a case, and, if it would, it's easily accessed somewhere else, so he doesn't really need to waste brain cells with it.  The stuff on the lower list, however, all help him better understand a suspect, a victim, or, increasingly, a friend.  They are all things that get closer to the heart of Sherlock, so they are important.  (I think Lestrade's name is a bit of an outlier in this theory, although I would contend that as long as he can remember "Lestrade," he can call him by name -- whatever Lestrade prefers is irrelevant.)

 

In the interest of over-identifying with Sherlock, this kind of thing reminds me of me.  I write for a living, and The Work is pretty important.  But I've never been interested in spelling.  I can always look that up, or at least run spell check.  Spelling is irrelevant, really.  But, I know and am deeply interested in a wide array of Latin and Greek words that serve as the roots of English, because that knowledge allows me to understand the deep foundations of a word and choose the right one.  So, I've occasionally been teaching a class only to discover that I can tell you all about the derivation of a word like "demographics," but I can't always spell it on the first try.  

[T.o.b.y]

In the interest of over-identifying with Sherlock, this kind of thing reminds me of me.

 

For some reason, it is not difficult at all to identify with Sherlock, even though he is such an extraordinary individual. He's living proof (well, not exactly living, but proof nontheless) that the general theory of how you should give your main protagonist a rather bland personality so that as many members of the audience can project themselves onto him as possible, is false.

 

I have read in several places that Sherlock embodies many boyish fantasies. Well, I'm not a boy (or a man), but I sure feel this fond envy when I see what he can get away with. While I cannot so much as raise my voice at work without being labelled an evil arrogant bitch and having to apologize profusely for the rest of the day, Sherlock goes around insulting people left and right and behaving like a total asshole with complete impunity. Some people even love him (quite a lot, actually).

 

The reason is, of course, that Sherlock is just so damn good at what he does that neither the police nor his clients can afford to send him home. And that's another fantasy I can totally identify with. Wouldn't I like to be half as competent at what I do as he is!

 

Then there's his rage when people he loves get hurt. Can I ever empathize with that. But where I am left standing around helpless and fuming, Sherlock can and will take action. He's fictional, so he can go beat people up and shoot them, which I certainly do not wish I could do in real life, but it's kind of satisfying to see "balance to the universe" restored in his little make-believe world.

[Arcadia]

That's interesting, I find him completely identifiable too, but not for those reasons. I think for me, it's more that he's a misfit. I always want to adopt the misfits.

 

I've never heard that thing about making the protagonist bland, that doesn't make much sense to me at all. Maybe it depends on the kind of fiction? I've had to read "realistic" fiction, seems like the main characters in those are pretty bland. Note that I don't say that I "chose" to read them ......

[T.o.b.y]

It just occurred to me (for no good reason), that Sherlock's big weakness is how he seems to completely ignore that emotions have a purpose. Ironically, I think he'd have even more self-control (including emotional control!) if he took all those odd "feelings" seriously instead of just trying to suppress them. He's so endearingly bewildered by all the inner turmoil he goes through in A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville.

 

Look at what happened with Irene. If Sherlock had taken the time to admit to himself "I am attracted to this woman, I want to impress her", then maybe it would have dawned on him how he was being manipulated. But nope. He understood her chemistry perfectly well, but what would have really given him a clue to what she was up to would have been his own.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Once again, you've raised a very good point.

 

Admittedly, it took me several decades to realize that I couldn't get rid of an emotion by denying that I had it, so maybe we shouldn't be too hard on Sherlock.  Wonder what he'd think of my favorite method of dealing with an unwelcome emotion:  "Well, of course you feel that way!  What sort of horrible person wouldn't feel that way?"  Oddly enough, that works wonders.

 

[sittything]

This sort of reminds me of the Moriarty mind palace scene from HLV:

 

SHERLOCK: You. You never felt pain, did you? Why did you never feel pain?
MORIARTY: You always feel it, Sherlock.  But you don’t have to fear it!  Pain. Heartbreak. Loss.  Death.  It’s all good.  It’s all good.

 

This scene never fails to give me major feels, because at the center of it is the idea that Sherlock has, probably from Mycroft, that feeling things is bad.  That it's something to be feared b/c it's a disadvantage, a weakness, it leads to human error.  Now clearly this is not Moriarty Moriarty, so it's not like Moriarty is giving him some nugget of truth or wisdom, so somewhere inside that funny old head of his he knows this deep down.... but will he ever grasp it?   What will Series 4 Sherlock look like? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

This sort of reminds me of the Moriarty mind palace scene from HLV:

 

SHERLOCK: You. You never felt pain, did you? Why did you never feel pain?

MORIARTY: You always feel it, Sherlock. But you don’t have to fear it! Pain. Heartbreak. Loss. Death. It’s all good. It’s all good.

 

This scene never fails to give me major feels, because at the center of it is the idea that Sherlock has, probably from Mycroft, that feeling things is bad. That it's something to be feared b/c it's a disadvantage, a weakness, it leads to human error. Now clearly this is not Moriarty Moriarty, so it's not like Moriarty is giving him some nugget of truth or wisdom, so somewhere inside that funny old head of his he knows this deep down.... but will he ever grasp it? What will Series 4 Sherlock look like?

That gets me more excited for series 4 and further philosophical & psychological discussion on the character names Sherlock.

[Shadow Dweller]

 

For example, the gender of the current monarch is irrelevant.  

 

Do you means the 'King of England' remark? Somehow I took it as Sherlock mocking his brother, 'the true ruler of England'.  :lol:

[Carol the Dabbler]

That is a very generous interpretation, I think!

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

 

This sort of reminds me of the Moriarty mind palace scene from HLV:

 

SHERLOCK: You. You never felt pain, did you? Why did you never feel pain?

MORIARTY: You always feel it, Sherlock. But you don’t have to fear it! Pain. Heartbreak. Loss. Death. It’s all good. It’s all good.

 

This scene never fails to give me major feels, because at the center of it is the idea that Sherlock has, probably from Mycroft, that feeling things is bad. That it's something to be feared b/c it's a disadvantage, a weakness, it leads to human error. Now clearly this is not Moriarty Moriarty, so it's not like Moriarty is giving him some nugget of truth or wisdom, so somewhere inside that funny old head of his he knows this deep down.... but will he ever grasp it? What will Series 4 Sherlock look like?

That gets me more excited for series 4 and further philosophical & psychological discussion on the character names Sherlock.

 

So this just adds to the discrepancies with Sherlock's mind -- emotions are bad, but emotions are what powers him to throw people out windows repeatedly, run into a bloody bonfire, and fight his way back to life.