Holmes Senior vs Holmes Junior

[T.o.b.y]

If it wasn't true that Mycroft gave Moriarty information on Sherlock's past life, then why would they need John to believe it was? And if what Kitty was going to publish was not true and could be proven wrong, then why was her article any threat to Sherlock's reputation?

 

The more we believe Mycroft and Sherlock to have been ahead of Moriarty, the more unnecessary the whole faked death and goodbye-speech and all that appear. And the more unnecessary the whole hoax is, the more cruel it becomes towards those who were fooled. So I have to say, your favored version of events does not really put Mycroft or Sherlock in a better light.

[Sherlock_luvr]

I simply adore the antagonistic relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft. How easily they can set one another off. But beneath all the bluster, Mycroft does love his brother and wants to protect him (well, considering how he tried to bribe John in the very first episode).

 

I love love love Gatiss as Mycroft. Brilliant writer and actor. And I want to see more interaction between the characters.  

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

In talking about the sibling squabbling between Mycroft and Sherlock I found this on the internet. It does have some spoilers for "His Last Vow". So if you haven't seen that yet, you may want to hold off reading for a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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The REAL warring family pair who inspired Mycroft and Sherlock: How Holmes's feud with his scheming sibling is based on the troubled past of the creator's own brother

• Mark Gatiss based relationship between Holmes brothers on himself
• Gatiss writes, produces and plays Mycroft on the BBC success show

By Christopher Stevens

PUBLISHED: 18:36 EST, 16 January 2014 | UPDATED: 02:30 EST, 17 January 2014

The most corrosive love-hate relationship between two brothers since Cain and Abel had nine million TV viewers on the edge.

The rivalry between the Holmes boys reached new intensities last Sunday, as Sherlock drugged his older brother Mycroft to steal a laptop full of government secrets — and was ordered to go on a suicide mission as punishment.

If the dynamic between the siblings took a more central role than ever, then that was no accident. For as Steven Moffat, who co-produces the show, says: ‘Mycroft is a very complex character. Somehow, he’s the key to Sherlock.’

 

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Key player: Mark Gatiss and Benedict Cumberbatch play battling brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, a relationship inspired by Gatiss's own childhood

 

How true — and in more ways than one. For ‘Mycroft’ read ‘Mark Gatiss’, the 47-year-old actor who plays him. Here is the man who is key to understanding the whole Sherlock revival.

For what many casual fans do not realise is that in addition to starring in the series, Gatiss is also its co-creator and chief scriptwriter.

 

To have created, written and starred in the most succesful BBC drama series for years would be a remarkable enough, but that is by no means Gatiss’s only claim to fame. Indeed, last year saw him become one of the most successful actor-writers of his generation.

In addition to Sherlock, he was heavily involved in the 50th anniversary celebrations for Doctor Who. Having written for the show ever since its revival under scriptwriter Russell T. Davies, Gatiss penned An Adventure In Space And Time — a drama about the Doctor’s early days at the BBC — as well as two new episodes of the latest series.

He adapted and directed an M. R. James ghost story, which was a highlight of BBC2’s Christmas Day schedule, as well as writing and presenting a documentary about the author.

Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat came up with the idea of Sherlock while on a train to London after having worked on Doctor Who in Cardiff

 

The hospital, once known as Aycliffe Colony for the Mentally Defective, became Mark’s second home. He and Phillip used the swimming pool there, had their haircuts done by staff, and watched films in the hospital’s cramped cinema.

One of Gatiss’s earliest memories is of seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, surrounded by people whose illness had left deep marks on their faces.

‘I was almost as frightened of the people sitting around me as of the Child Catcher [the film’s villain],’ he recalls. ‘The faces and personalities were true northern Gothic.’

He acknowledges that it also explains his adult obsession with monsters, demons and derelict buildings: ‘It definitely left its mark. I’ve always liked the macabre.

‘I was always drawn to the supernatural, anything odd. I liked “stepping out of the sunshine”.’

To the young Gatiss, his father was a forbidding figure. ‘I realise now that was mainly because he worked so hard. He wasn’t unkind, but he was a presence. When our mum said, “Wait till your father gets home”, it definitely worked.’

But it was his relationship with his brother that left the most lasting scars. The boys detested each other and fought frequently. Though they would stick up for each other in playground scraps, at home, Phillip would punch and bully his little brother.

‘We only stopped hating each other recently,’ Gatiss says. ‘We never had anything in common. He was painfully shy and found his expression in lashing out at people.’

Gatiss, meanwhile, found another escape: the stage. During his first year of drama college, he met Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson. The four began writing and performing a ghoulish sketch show called The League Of Gentlemen.

It developed into a radio sitcom about the inhabitants of a morbidly gruesome village on the remote Yorkshire Moors, a backwater called Royston Vasey. The motto on the village signposts promised ‘You’ll Never Leave’, and the population of serial killers, psychopaths, cannibals and lunatics made sure of that.

After the show won the Perrier comedy award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997, it transferred to BBC2 TV.

All the actors played multiple roles, often in drag. Gatiss’s best characters included Hilary Briss, the butcher who kept cuts of human flesh for special customers; Iris, the cleaner with a disgustingly lurid lovelife; and Val, the obedient housewife whose husband is obsessed with bodily functions.

Such dark humour would hardly make Gatiss the natural choice to pen the revival of a children’s classic. But having been obsessed by Doctor Who as a child, he had supplemented his wages as an actor in the early 90s by writing four Doctor Who novels.

 

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Redbeard: The young Sherlock appearing in flashbacks, bullied by an adult Mycroft, was played by Gatiss's co-creator Steven Moffat's son

 

When the show was revived for TV by producers Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat, Gatiss was the first writer they hired. His first episode featured Simon Callow as Charles Dickens, starting a pattern that has seen Gatiss cast actors that he admired in his youth as stars for his projects.

The credits for his Christmas Day dramatisation of M.R. James’s spine-chilling story The Tractate Middoth read like a geek’s dream dinner party: there was Eleanor Bron, who starred with The Beatles in Help!; former Doctor Who assistant Louise Jameson; Una Stubbs from Til Death Us Do Part, and Roy Barraclough, the former Coronation Street actor who did a famous drag double act called Cissy and Ada with comedian Les Dawson.

Murder and mystery have been a recurring theme: Midsomer Murders, Inspector George Gently, Poirot, Marple, Jekyll… Gatiss has been involved with them all, as writer or actor.

His fascination with Victoriana and Dickensian horror spills over into real life. At the Islington house he shares with his civil partner, actor Ian Hallard, he constructed a mad scientist’s laboratory in the cellar, complete with blood-red walls, yards of glass tubes with coloured liquids bubbling over bunsen burners, and a stuffed cat.

He met Hallard, who is eight years his junior, online. He claims it is the younger man’s pristine spelling and grammar that attracted him. They were married in 2008 at the Middle Temple in the City of London.

Gatiss says he always knew that he was gay, though he had a girlfriend as a teenager, and that he accepted his real sexuality after a single afternoon of self-doubt.

‘I don’t think I was ever “in” with my friends,’ he says.

Coming out to his parents was, however, much harder.

It was only after leaving home that he plucked up the confidence to tell his mother the truth. She begged him to say nothing to his father, and promised she would break the news herself.

A year later, Gatiss realised they had dealt with the problem by denying it to themselves, and he had to go through the ordeal of coming out all over again. That taught him, he says, never to put off difficult emotional decisions.

Gatiss’s open homosexuality has led some to detect a gay frisson between his characterisation of Holmes and Watson. It’s a running joke that Inspector Lestrade and his colleagues regard 221b Baker Street as a gay love nest, and in the latest series landlady Mrs Hudson was incredulous at Watson’s protestations that he was getting engaged … ‘to a woman’.

Purists have balked at such liberties with Conan Doyle’s creation, but they are part and parcel of Gatiss’s creativity. Homosexual undercurrents, vicious sibling rivalry, gothic shadows: these are the ingredients of his adolescence which today underpin his adult success.

His next role — as a banker called Tycho Nestoris in the U.S. drama Game Of Thrones — has helped heal the rivalry with his brother.

After decades of animosity, the two are back in contact and Gatiss says Phillip, now a postman, was ‘so excited’ to hear Mark has a part in the show that he loves.

It is a remarkable rapprochement. But then, as fans of Sherlock will know, even Mycroft has moments when his little brother makes him proud.

 

 

[TeylaHolmes]

I like Sherlock better..Mycroft  confuse me lol I know Sherlock can be rude too but in someway Sherlock ends up doing things for people even though he is to stuck up about it lol.

 

I do love the scene were he stood up for Mrs. Hudson. When Mycroft told her to shut up lol

[Sherlollyforcanon]

I think what I have to love about Mycroft is how mysterious he is. It's fascinating that he and Sherlock are actually very alike, but I'm always intrigued as to how they're both such loners, but Mycroft has all these people working with him and for him obviously, whereas up until John came along Sherlock seemed to think he preferred to be alone... but actually with Molly and Greg  and Mrs Hudson etc. he never really was and he actually had more "friends" than Mycroft!

[T.o.b.y]

as Steven Moffat, who co-produces the show, says: ‘Mycroft is a very complex character. Somehow, he’s the key to Sherlock.’

 

I just came across this article you linked to, Fox, and stumbled over that line. Mycroft is the key to Sherlock, or at least to a lot of Sherlock's eccentric, arrogant, "antisocial" behavior and to his almost compulsive need to show off and prove himself.

 

For what do we know Mycroft taught his little brother?

 

- Caring is not an advantage / Don't get involved

- Don't be smart, I'm the smart one / You're stupid, practically an idiot

 

The more I think about it (and yes, I think about Sherlock way too much, I am infatuated, I know), the more I realize how sad and harmful all that is. Think about it. You have these two little boys. They are both geniuses, and they both don't make friends easily, are probably a bit out of touch with people in general and their emotions. The older is a little more intelligent than the younger, and besides, being older, he's always a bit ahead of him growing up anyway. The younger is, from all we know and have seen of Sherlock in flashbacks, probably cuter, and more warm-hearted, has more passion and imagination and "the heart of a poet". I bet you anything curly-haired little Sherlock was Mummy's darling. Anyway. Sherlock can only loose if he competes with Mycroft intellectually. He's got a few advantages over him, though, by having more potential to love and be loved. He has this dog he cares about, for example. Since Mycroft is the only one who really understands the whole genius thing and can keep up with Sherlock's sharp little brain (his mother is supposed to be extremely bright as well, but according to Sherlock, she "understands very little", so I think for some reason, he didn't feel he could talk to her as a kid the way he could with Mycroft), he has a huge influence over his little brother. And Mycroft goes and teaches little Sherlock that the one thing he is better at than him, namely caring and loving, is a dangerous disadvantage. He uses the death of the dog to drive that point home, and who knows what else, maybe, and it works.

 

So Sherlock is left with nothing but being clever, which seems to count as the only thing that matters anyway in his family. But according to Mycroft, he's not even that, he's stupid. If this were true, he'd be worth nothing at all. So he has to prove again and again that he is brilliant. No wonder when we meet Sherlock in A Study in Pink, we see a socially isolated man who embarrasses the police in a press conference in order to show off his own superiority and is willing to die if it turns out he "didn't get it right".

 

I think Sherlock is perfectly sincere when he asks Molly in that anxious voice in The Reichenbach Fall whether she would still want to help him if he wasn't "who you think I am, who I think I am", i.e. the detective genius Sherlock Holmes. That moment where he realizes that he really needs to know whether anybody will just love him as a person, and Molly essentially says yes, is one of my absolute favorites. For me, that is Molly's big moment, not the slapping in His Last Vow.

 

And by series 3, Sherlock has realized that maybe his brother got it wrong. Maybe Mycroft isn't really the superior being he always seemed, maybe he's just a lonely middle-aged brain wandering around on a fattening body, and maybe it's not such a good idea after all to emulate him. I just love it when Sherlock throws his brother out of his mind palace in The Sign of Three. "Not you!" Right, Sherlock. Now keep him out, will you?

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I loved that scene as well,T.o.b.y and how he turns and points at John saying" You,you have always kept me straight."

 

I also agree that Mycroft is at the root of a lot of Sherlock's insecuritlies and emotional baggage. Thank heaven for people like Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and Dr John H. Watson. They had the heart to love this lonely little boy for all he is worth and he is worth a lot.

[Arcadia]

That's why I love the end of the "hat deduction" scene; Sherlock turns the tables on Mycroft there, but he does it in an almost sweet, non-aggressive way. Like maybe he's starting to see through his brother?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Yeah, I do like the scenes when Sherlock and Mycroft can actually be in the same room and not snipping at each other. Maybe at some point they really will be able to put "their childish feud" behind them.

[Arcadia]

I'm trying to think if there's ever been such a scene.....

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Well...there are times when they get on better then others. The "hat deduction" was fairly calm and cute. Then when John runs in after the Baker Street bombing and Sherlock and Mycroft are calmly just sitting.

[Arcadia]

Sherlock wasn't too calm by the time Mycroft exited, as I recall!

 

The only times I really remember them sort of getting along is when they're smoking together. Wonder what that means?

[Carol the Dabbler]

The older is a little more intelligent than the younger, and besides, being older, he's always a bit ahead of him growing up anyway. The younger is, from all we know and have seen of Sherlock in flashbacks, probably cuter, and more warm-hearted, has more passion and imagination and "the heart of a poet". I bet you anything curly-haired little Sherlock was Mummy's darling. Anyway. Sherlock can only loose if he competes with Mycroft intellectually. <snip>

 

And by series 3, Sherlock has realized that maybe his brother got it wrong. Maybe Mycroft isn't really the superior being he always seemed, maybe he's just a lonely middle-aged brain wandering around on a fattening body, and maybe it's not such a good idea after all to emulate him. I just love it when Sherlock throws his brother out of his mind palace in The Sign of Three. "Not you!" Right, Sherlock. Now keep him out, will you?

 

That was a really good post, T.o.b.y, and I haven't much to add except on a couple of points.  I suspect that Mycroft's original intellectual superiority was primarily (if not wholly) due to his being older, and that only works when you're still kids.  Sherlock's realization that Mycroft is no longer his intellectual superior may well be a factor in his disillusionment.  And I fully agree that Sherlock must have been Mummy's favorite -- which would explain why he acts like such a spoiled brat!  (Though to be fair, he does finally seem to be growing up a bit.)

 

[Shadow Dweller]

 

as Steven Moffat, who co-produces the show, says: ‘Mycroft is a very complex character. Somehow, he’s the key to Sherlock.’

 

- Don't be smart, I'm the smart one / You're stupid, practically an idiot

 

How about, "You don't know what you were getting at / this is beyond your league. Let me take care of it (read: let me do the dirty work, I will keep you safe and sound)". 

 

Sherlock has certain advantage upon Mycroft, he has clearly shown vulnerabilities that attracts people to become a close-knit group around him. Mycroft did not have this, his armour works too well in keeping people at a distance (because many people actually have a desire to be needed, how can they be close to someone who at cursory glance is like impenetrable fortress?).

[Carol the Dabbler]

Sherlock has certain advantage upon Mycroft, he has clearly shown vulnerabilities that attracts people to become a close-knit group around him. Mycroft did not have this, his armour works too well in keeping people at a distance (because many people actually have a desire to be needed, how can they be close to someone who at cursory glance is like impenetrable fortress?).

Very good point. If Mycroft won't admit that he needs anybody, why would anyone even think of trying to help or befriend him? I've been saying for a long time that John is attracted to Sherlock because Sherlock needs him -- but I never thought to apply that reasoning to Mycroft.

[Shadow Dweller]

Very good point. If Mycroft won't admit that he needs anybody, why would anyone even think of trying to help or befriend him? I've been saying for a long time that John is attracted to Sherlock because Sherlock needs him -- but I never thought to apply that reasoning to Mycroft.

Hope we get to see clear boundary between armour and the real Mycroft. Or perhaps it is a mere wishful thinking, that actually it is really how he's and not because of a learned habit that become an integral part of the character like grafted skin. :p

[Carol the Dabbler]

Sorry, double post. How to delete this one? ^^;;

 

Just mouse-over the area to the left of the MultiQuote button, and you'll see a Hide button.  Click it and type your reason (e.g., "Duplicate post") into the box provided.

 

Once a post is hidden, no one except staff will be able to see it, so for all intents and purposes, it's deleted -- except that if you've accidentally hidden the wrong post, a staff member can un-hide it for you.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

Hope we get to see clear boundary between armour and the real Mycroft. Or perhaps it is a mere wishful thinking, that actually it is really how he's and not because of a learned habit that become an integral part of the character like grafted skin.

 

   I would like that as well......but from his actions in "HLV" he is in pretty deep. He would have to start extracating himself from the cloak and dagger operations he seems to love to engage in for us to see more humane Mycroft.

[Shadow Dweller]

 

 

Hope we get to see clear boundary between armour and the real Mycroft. Or perhaps it is a mere wishful thinking, that actually it is really how he's and not because of a learned habit that become an integral part of the character like grafted skin.

I would like that as well......but from his actions in "HLV" he is in pretty deep. He would have to start extracating himself from the cloak and dagger operations he seems to love to engage in for us to see more humane Mycroft.

:| But that's exactly what marked 'Sherlock' as no ordinary detective-adventure series to me.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Sherlock has never been an ordinary detective show at least as I have seen it. But Mycroft has been shown to be willing to throw Sherlock under the bus. He killed Sherlock a murderer after protecting and using a scumbag like Magnussen who was also a murderer. Mycroft pushed Sherlock into very dangerous situations without anykind of forewarning like he did in "ASiB". Mycroft is really going to have to show some kind of logical reasons for his doing this and that he had mechinations in the background to protect Sherlock all the time. That he really did and does care.

[Arcadia]

Sherlock has never been an ordinary detective show at least as I have seen it. But Mycroft has been shown to be willing to throw Sherlock under the bus. He killed Sherlock a murderer after protecting and using a scumbag like Magnussen who was also a murderer. Mycroft pushed Sherlock into very dangerous situations without anykind of forewarning like he did in "ASiB". Mycroft is really going to have to show some kind of logical reasons for his doing this and that he had mechinations in the background to protect Sherlock all the time. That he really did and does care.

I don't know, I think I believe Mycroft when he said he didn't know how Sherlock would be affected by Irene, and I don't think he knew what the CIA guys would do. And he did warn Sherlock off of Magnussen; that was Sherlock's own hubris that got him into trouble there.

 

I get the impression Mycroft thinks Sherlock's detective work is just a silly whim, and a waste of his talents. And to some extent I agree .... with a mind like that, Sherlock could contribute so much more to the world if he set his mind to it. But it's his life, and he deserves to live it the way he wants, and what I really want is for Mycroft to finally figure that out, and butt out.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I may have believed Mycroft about Irene.......but those CIA agents.....nope. He knew who they were. They were at the plane. Mycroft isn't that nieve. And I do believe that Mycroft knew Sherlock enough to know that the more you tell him not to do something the more he going to look into it. I still find that laptop very suspecious. Mycroft would not be "The British Government" by not knowing the devil in the detais.

[Shadow Dweller]

The question is, does Mycroft know about those CIA agents before or after the 'Do not mess with Mrs. Hudson' debacle? 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

It seemed to be common knowledge. Even Mrs Hudson takes Mycroft to task about it before she is roughed up by them. 

 

[Shadow Dweller]

It seemed to be common knowledge. Even Mrs Hudson takes Mycroft to task about it before she is roughed up by them. 

 

Is she? I must watch that episode again.