Episode 3.3, "His Last Vow"

[Slithytove]

Up to a point, I think all writers write for themselves. Whatever you are writing, even if it is to someone else's formula, is filtered through your own consciousness and written in your own voice.

 

Up to a point.

 

Because any work that isn't self-published is appraised by someone - an agent, an editor, a publisher or whatever, and they've got to like it before it gets any further. So far, so obvious. Now consider Moftiss and the BBC. On the one hand, you've got the imagination and originality of the writers, creating according to their vision. On the other hand, you've got the BBC with their eye on a massive audience, both at home and overseas, plus they foot the bill. So they have got a say as well. They've got to be convinced that the audience is going to like what you come up with. So no-one has complete autonomy.

 

I want the creators of Sherlock, and anything else, to be free to write what they want and I am sure that - up to a point - they are. Realistically, you also have to acknowledge that they, like everyone else in the media, are creating a product to sell, and it has to satisfy its target audience.

 

I doubt that the work is written in direct response to the fandom. If it was, given the huge amount of Johnlock out there, John would never have left 221b and would probably be married to Sherlock by now. But TEH clearly contained affectionate nods towards the fans and I would be surprised if Moftiss was unaware of the schism that Mary's character seems to have caused. (Though I do wonder whether they expected it, or if they thought we would all automatically follow John and Sherlock's lead.). I'm hoping they'll go back to the story in S4, what I don't want is Mr & Mrs Fluffy-Watson and their old pal Sherlock, solving crimes and being great mates and never addressing the issue that one of them nearly killed the other. I think that would be an insult to our intelligence, and I hope that the people involved feel the same way.

[T.o.b.y]

I doubt that the work is written in direct response to the fandom. If it was, given the huge amount of Johnlock out there, John would never have left 221b and would probably be married to Sherlock by now.

 

I kind of doubt that. I mean, would all those people who make them a "proper" couple in their fan fics and / or day dreams really like it if the show did the same? It'd leave them nothing to do...

 

Considering how ridiculous and inappropriate the writers profess they think the idea is, they've been playing with it quite a lot, though. I think this isn't so much a nod to the "Sherlock" fans of today as to the decade-old reader responses to the original stories, however.

[Slithytove]

No, you misunderstand me, I think. I am saying that there were nods towards the fans in TEH - the substitution of Jim's body, which I have seen in more than one fanfic, and the almost-kiss between Sherlock and Jim - but they are not that strongly influenced by the fantasies which the fans have created. I gave the Johnlock fan works as an example, as it is probably the biggest impetus behind the fan fiction and artworks.

[T.o.b.y]

Oh yes, The Empty Hearse made a lot of fun of the "Sherlock" fandom, in quite a fond way, though. And you are right, it is highly unlikely that they came up with the same theories as the fans by coincidence. The universe is rarely so lazy... Somebody must have browsed through more than just one website.

[sherlockandjohn]

...if it means Moriarty has to be alive, Irene has to come back, Mary and John live happily ever after and are the perfect couple of the neighborhood, Mycroft is behind everything and Sherlock finds a girl-friend, then I'll just have to grit my teeth.

 

 

Stop, please, or you'll make me cry. The only thing missing on that list is Mary taking up arms and running around London with John and Sherlock.

 

Although, I'm torn when it comes to the 'Moriarty being alive' thing.

[Pawse]

William Sherlock Scott Holmes..? (I don't remember Arthur Conan Doyle coming up with that name, sweet as it is).

 

Moriarty?!

 

Why does John forgive Mary so easily? Is it because she's pregnant?

[Carol the Dabbler]

William Sherlock Scott Holmes..? (I don't remember Arthur Conan Doyle coming up with that name, sweet as it is).

 

Moriarty?!

 

Why does John forgive Mary so easily? Is it because she's pregnant?

 

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes" is a fan thing -- a fairly old fan thing, I believe, certainly not original with Sherlock.

 

I'm not sure that John has forgiven Mary, exactly -- he merely decides (after several months of not speaking to her at all) to try working things out.  He says he's still "very pissed" though.

 

[T.o.b.y]

 

Why does John forgive Mary so easily? Is it because she's pregnant?

 

I don't think it's supposed to have been "easily" - it took months and he's still "pissed off".

 

I have a theory on that, but it is rather uncharitable and once again, I don't think it's what the author intended. I think that John simply cannot afford to break up with Mary because he needs her. Emotionally, I mean. He met her at a critical time and she "completely turned his life around". John doesn't seem to have many close friends and he has learned that Sherlock, although a good friend in his own peculiar way, is not to be relied on. Then, he's been looking for a woman for quite some time and couldn't hold on to his former girl friends, so Mary is a long cherished dream come true and certainly irreplaceable. It seems to me as if he didn't so much forgive her as decide he couldn't be without her. The fact that she is pregnant with his child is certainly an added incentive, but I think he'd have probably sought a reconciliation if she weren't, too.

 

What makes this even more interesting (and promising for future drama) is that it seems John was, among other things, so pleased with Mary because he thought she wasn't "like that", i.e. a heartless lying manipulative unpredictable bastard like Sherlock, who was likely to use you as a guinea pig or suicide witness whenever the fancy struck him and who could be off and gone without warning any day. But then it turns out that she is "like that" in her own particular way and now John has two "psychopaths" on his hands - and, if the baby takes after her mom, he'll soon have three. Add to the mix that he is not entirely sane himself and you have a cast that really pleases me...

 

[Pawse]

Thank you both Carol and T.o.b.y for your explanations - very helpful. I understand now. I thought there was something a bit strange about the name. However, it seems such a sweet name.

[sherlockandjohn]

 

I think that John simply cannot afford to break up with Mary because he needs her. Emotionally, I mean. He met her at a critical time and she "completely turned his life around". John doesn't seem to have many close friends and he has learned that Sherlock, although a good friend in his own peculiar way, is not to be relied on. Then, he's been looking for a woman for quite some time and couldn't hold on to his former girl friends, so Mary is a long cherished dream come true and certainly irreplaceable. 

 

 

I agree.

 

It's kind of strange that John seems to trust Sherlock as much as he does, actually. I'm guessing he'll continue to trust Mary as well.

 

 

... a heartless lying manipulative unpredictable bastard like Sherlock...

 

[Slithytove]

The "very pissed off" remark was one of the things which annoyed me about the Xmas scene.

 

"Very pissed off" is how you feel when your neighbour borrows your lawn mower and doesn't return it. It is how you feel when your friend says she'll be there at 8 but doesn't show up till 9. "Very pissed off" is how I'll be if S4 goes back to fluffy Mrs & Mrs Watson and their pal Sherlock....

 

"Very pissed off" isn't the way anyone in their right mind would describe the experience of being deceived about someone's identity, marrying her under false pretences and then finding out she had shot their best friend. It seemed ridiculous to me as soon as John said it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

That's why I put it in quotes -- I take it as a sort of euphemism.  After all, if one is merely "pissed off" at someone, one doesn't generally refuse to speak to them for months on end.

 

[Slithytove]

I felt that it struck a false note - I just didn't feel that anyone, in that situation, would use that phrase. Seemed silly, to me.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Or it's just John making an understatement. He did say he had picked his words very carefully. Mary probably picked up that he is way more then just a little "pissed off",

[T.o.b.y]

I think it's just a typically "John-like" way of putting things. Magnussen urinates in the Baker St fireplace and he says "there was a moment that kind of stuck in the mind". He's a master of understatement and irony. I love John... in series 3 as much as before. The only part that bothered me was the magnanimous "I forgive you and ignore your past because I am so noble" act, but I can live with it if I just write it off as a glossing over of "I need you back on any terms and my testosterone bids me to do it this way".

[T.o.b.y]

John's reaction to the news of Moriarty's return is very understated as well, isn't it. He probably has more reason to fear Moriarty than anybody, yet unlike Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly and Mycroft, he does not seem a bit shocked by the news that he is apparently alive and on all TV screens of the country. John simply cannot be measured by normal standards of displayed emotion. Or he has some reason not to get too upset at the news... Who knows. We shall she, I hope...

[Carol the Dabbler]

Speaking of Mrs. Hudson's reaction -- same for Moriarty as for Sherlock! -- it doesn't seem consistent with the rest of her character.  She's generally shown as a pretty tough cookie, despite her motherly demeanor.  Although she was whimpering when the CIA guys were threatening her, that turned out to have been mostly an act.  So why the screams?

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I don't mean this to be snarky by any stretch....but her first such reaction was to seeing a supposedly dead Sherlock walk through the door.....could it be this is her "normal" reaction on seeing a person she believes to be dead?

[T.o.b.y]

Actually, everyone's reaction to Moriarty seems a little odd to me. Two years ago, nobody but his followers and Sherlock Holmes even knew he existed. Now all of a sudden the mere appearance of his face (which used to be completely unknown to all) on a TV screen is enough to make the nation go into crisis mode and pardon an exiled murderer because he is needed to take care of the problem? And why are people who don't know him well afraid of him? All the public knows, as far as I can see, is that he broke into the Bank of England, the Tower of London and the prison. Wow, but why would the average British citizen think of him as any kind of a personal threat?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

There is the fact that his face was plastered all over the papers after the trial. Then after Sherlock's fake suicide, there were news reports on the telly. Then just before Sherlock makes his reveal there are the reports that after two years of intense investigation Sherlock was discovered to be innocent of all charges of fraud and that Richard Brook was actually a man named Moriarty and maybe his picture was once again in the news and that he was dead?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Did we ever hear a public announcement that Moriarty was dead?  Did Mrs. Hudson have reason to believe that he was dead?  I can understand her being startled when Sherlock walks in the door unannounced two years after he "died" -- but Moriarty?  I kinda wonder if Moftiss just liked the way she screamed in "Hearse."  Hopefully we won't be treated to a tight shot of her tonsils in every-other episode from now on!

 

 

[T.o.b.y]

Good point, Carol. So far, we only know that John knows (or thinks he knows) that Moriarty "blew his brains out" and that he told Mary so. We never learned what the "official" version of events was. I do assume though that Mycroft and other members of the British government and secret services thought he was dead, because otherwise their reactions make little sense, do they?

[Carol the Dabbler]

True -- they seem to consider him to be "history" in some sense -- either dead or maybe escaped to another country.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Have to pay more attention to that press thing and all the background pictures going on....I know it shows kind of a double exposure of Donovan and Anderson.....all this going on while Lestrade and Anderson are having their coffee.

 

  If no one knew about Moriarty except John, Sherlock, Mycroft and his people, why plaster his face all over London and the media with the message, "Did you miss me?"  Especially if Sherlock was supposed be on his way out of the country forever?

 

  Just a thought.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe we're not "supposed" to think about it too much -- just look frightened and scuttle!