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Sorry About Dinner


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Yes I think I saw that, thanks for the explanation! It was just sooo brief though.  :blink:

 

I am not sure why I have a problem with The Woman. Maybe she seems a bit too old for the "baby" Sherlock?  :P

 

ACTUALLY I have another question. Mycroft said "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher but he chose to be a detective. What might that tell you about his heart?" 

What do you think Mycroft was getting at? 

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Mycroft got that a bit wrong.....Sherlock is a scientist.....a philosopher? Perhaps not so much though he didn't do a bad job of it during his "Best Man's Speech". But something happened early on to make Sherlock want to stop bad things from happening to people....like Carl Powers. He knew something wasn't right about it...and he felt strongly enough about it...even as a preteen...to go to the police and try to get them to look into it deeper.

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I think Mycroft knows his brother does care & has the ability to fall in love. Which is probably why he worries about him..."Con-stant-ly". Because even Sherlock said from his mouth that Sentiment is always on the loosing side.

 

Oh Sherlock. He's more sentimental than he is aware of. But Mycroft is aware... He's The master of deduction apparently.

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"The brain of a scientist or philospher" ... yeah, I see it. Both require a pretty high level of intelligence and the ability to look beneath the surface of things.

 

But Mycroft himself said he didn't know what he was trying to get at, so I sure don't. :)

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I always wondered what he told John he was up to when he took that quick trip overseas?

 

Maybe John didn't even know Sherlock had been gone.  After all, he sometimes doesn't speak for days on end.  Maybe John just thought he'd been hiding out in his bedroom for a couple of days.

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Yeah. I did wonder how in the World did John not notice Sherlock missing. But when Sherlock wants alone time, he will make it happen. I didn't consider that there would be several situations where John wouldn't be worried if he'd go missing for a few days & vise versa.

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Sherlock could probably tell John that he had to go to the Middle East to uncover a new terrorist organisation, and John would just stare at him dumbfoundedly, shrug his shoulders, and continue reading his paper! (Can you tell that I just pictured that scene in my head?? :-) )

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Getting back to topic, I think Sherlock's feelings for Irene were more than he let himself believe, and the "sorry about dinner" comment was thrown at her because he was just slightly hurt, arrogant as ever ('cause that's just how he is), and wanting to see her squirm. It did not mean he didn't care about her; quite the opposite, I believe. It's kind of sweet, but also kind of off-putting to me. Irene is off-putting to me. Sherlock, well, it's just lovely to see him demonstrate that level of humanity while still being uniquely 'him'. Never mind The Woman; I just love the episode because of Sherlock. And John. John is wonderful with all his checking up on Sherlock, trying to get him to talk about his feelings.

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Yeah, I love John's therapeutic mode!  Fortunately they haven't gone overboard with it, because that would spoil it for me, but it's a nice reminder that he's a doctor (though not actually a psychiatrist, of course).

 

 

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Kind of like John with Mary :)

Now, who wrote those two episodes again..? Oh, right. Moffat!

 

Come to think of it, perhaps the personal experience was part of the reason for Sherlock's 'relationship counseling' in HLV. Just a thought.

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You know what's deep. I just realized that if she hadn't said she had help from Moriarty, perhaps Sherlock would have thought she was quite brilliant. But when she said that, she opened herself up to be easily read by Sherlock.

 

Because now all of her texts to him & the flirting, made it obvious that her feelings for him were real. Then he cracked the code to her heart. I still get chills every time I am Sherlocked. Mercy! :blink:

 

I hope they have another moment like that happen in series 4.

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  • 8 years later...

Too late to the debate? This is the one episode that shows Sherlock to be significantly less aware of his own feelings than he may believe - decoding the MoD email in under a minute and finding within seconds the code to Irene's phone, which has eluded him for days. The power of desire and jealousy respectively? Combined with an incredibly competitive spirit - isn't that why Mycroft is his arch nemesis? I think Mycroft captures it when he says Sherlock used to want to be a pirate. Sherlock probably finds more excitement, competition and as a result attraction? in Irene than in most encounters in his life.

So in response to her move to belittle him, he hands over the code to her phone. Chess. Then adds 'Sorry about dinner'. Mate.

But eventually he cools down? Sees that her last words to him were the only sincere ones - and btw why did he need to take her pulse? Why did he care to know what she felt? And whatever he feels for her - fascination, competitive spirit, attraction, God forbid - love? - preserving her is important enough. For a little hop somewhere south of Karachi...

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Welcome to the forum, Tiger! :wave:  And no, of course you're not too late, au contraire, we're happy that you jumped right in. :thumbsup:

Back on topic, yeah, highly emotionally charged, that relationship - but I think pride is also an important part of that mix. For both, actually. :lol:

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Yay, somebody new to discuss things with -- welcome to Sherlock Forum, Tiger!  :welcome:

3 hours ago, Tigeronherbike said:

Too late to the debate?

I once posted something on an old thread (on another forum), thinking that even though the original poster might no longer care, there were presumably other people currently wondering the same thing.  Then a moderator came on, chewed me out for daring to post on a neglected thread, then locked the thread so I couldn't even defend myself.  WE'RE NOT LIKE THAT HERE!!!  A forum is not a chat room -- every forum conversation takes place over time, and if the amount of time occasionally happens to be years, so what?

3 hours ago, Tigeronherbike said:

... decoding the MoD email in under a minute and finding within seconds the code to Irene's phone, which has eluded him for days. The power of desire and jealousy respectively?

I agree that those emotions seem to have triggered his activity -- but are you saying they triggered it directly, or that the emotions gave him an incentive (to impress Irene / get even) which then triggered the activity?

 

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6 hours ago, Tigeronherbike said:

Too late to the debate? This is the one episode that shows Sherlock to be significantly less aware of his own feelings than he may believe - decoding the MoD email in under a minute and finding within seconds the code to Irene's phone, which has eluded him for days. The power of desire and jealousy respectively? Combined with an incredibly competitive spirit - isn't that why Mycroft is his arch nemesis? I think Mycroft captures it when he says Sherlock used to want to be a pirate. Sherlock probably finds more excitement, competition and as a result attraction? in Irene than in most encounters in his life.

So in response to her move to belittle him, he hands over the code to her phone. Chess. Then adds 'Sorry about dinner'. Mate.

But eventually he cools down? Sees that her last words to him were the only sincere ones - and btw why did he need to take her pulse? Why did he care to know what she felt? And whatever he feels for her - fascination, competitive spirit, attraction, God forbid - love? - preserving her is important enough. For a little hop somewhere south of Karachi...

Welcome, Tiger! 

A Scandal in Belgravia is possibly my favorite episode of the series.  Some stiff competition from The Reichenbach Fall, but the character of The Woman has always fascinated me.  They may have only had a brief encounter, but Irene Adler stood above all others in the Great Detective's memory, not just of her sex but of anyone, save friend Watson, as the only person who bested him with her wits.  Twice.  This gets respect from Sherlock because it never happens.  She was a worthy adversary that humbled him a bit, and whether or not he was attracted to her in a physical sense like ordinary men, he was definitely attracted to her other qualities--resourcefulness, honor, great artistic skill, cleverness and the bravery to take on hostile forces in a man's world.  Conan Doyle's Adler, unlike the modern day one is an honorable lady.  Modern-day Irene is more in the line of a sociopath, I think.  Sherlock has surprised her by breaking through her defenses and making her experience emotions like an ordinary woman.  They are well-matched.  I think the best descriptor for this relationship is 'friendly antagonists'.  They are matching wits almost for fun--it's a game, and neither means the other harm.  Sherlock has to rescue Irene because she decorates his mind palace and saves him from being Bored.  It's not the suburban white picket fence and 2 kids kind of love but it is the kind of regard of which these two singular minds are capable.

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51 minutes ago, Hikari said:

Modern-day Irene is more in the line of a sociopath, I think. 

Minimally!  Consider that she was very "conveniently" able to find a corpse that matched her physical characteristics (other than her face) well enough to fool the Great Observer.  My best (and only) guess is that she had encountered such a woman at some point in the past and had somehow kept her available ever since, just in case she ever needed to be "dead" -- at which point the nameless, faceless woman was sacrificed for Irene's convenience.  Sounds more like a psychopath to me.  In any case, as you say, not at all the honorable lady that ACD's Irene was.

 

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1 hour ago, besleybean said:

Moriarty is pretty persuasive, tho.

You're referring to his little comments such as "I'll make you into shoes"?  Sounded like she was already in pretty deep with him by then, though, and regardless of whose idea that connection had originally been, there must have been a point where she made the yes/no choice to throw in with him.

 

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On 11/22/2022 at 10:40 AM, Tigeronherbike said:

Too late to the debate?

@Tigeronherbike  I'm pretty sure that a comment worth making is still worth making (with the exception of anything starting with "Hey, look out for the .... !!!!).  People are still commenting on Shakespeare's works, aren't they?  Or if you'd like a more recent example, the original Star Trek?

Just ran across this on a totally different forum:

Quote

I didn't pay attention to the date on this, so my apologies on the resurrection of what I'm sure is an old post,

The prior posts in that thread were dated in April 2013, and the apologetic post wasn't made till September 2013 -- five whole months later!  Ironically, it was that "late" post that contained the information I was looking for.

 

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On 11/22/2022 at 5:57 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Minimally!  Consider that she was very "conveniently" able to find a corpse that matched her physical characteristics (other than her face) well enough to fool the Great Observer.  My best (and only) guess is that she had encountered such a woman at some point in the past and had somehow kept her available ever since, just in case she ever needed to be "dead" -- at which point the nameless, faceless woman was sacrificed for Irene's convenience.  Sounds more like a psychopath to me.  In any case, as you say, not at all the honorable lady that ACD's Irene was.

 

At first I thought you were disagreeing that Lara Pulver's Irene Adler was psychologically aberrant, but I see that you actually want to ramp her up from my diagnosis.  I'm not well-versed enough in the distinctions between sociopathy and psychopathy, though I would consider the level of antisocial behaviors to be on a spectrum.  In my opinion, Adler is a sociopath in a mutually advantageous arrangement with a psychopath--Moriarty.  Irene is his handmaiden, very definitely his subordinate.  She works for him.  She gets him juicy information on the powerful men she sees to be used for his own nefarious purposes and in return she gets the protection which he can offer her from her powerful enemies.  Her phone is her protection, for what's on it, but I'd wager Moriarty has duplicates of all that information.  He protects her as long as she is a useful tool to him.  Once she stops being useful or compromises his own operation . . she gets turned into shoes . . or allowed to be captured and beheaded by the Taliban who whoever.  She was in that spot at the end of the episode because Moriarty had withdrawn his protection.  At Christmas, when the dead doppelganger turned up in the morgue, Adler was still useful to M, still supplying information, and principally, still in communication with Sherlock Holmes.  Irene had infiltrated herself with Sherlock . . on her boss's order.  He lets her pretend that she's got autonomy but the fact that she's working with him shows that she's not a free agent.  So when she needed to 'disappear', a convenient body that looked just like her was provided for the purpose.  Don't we think it's more likely that Jim provided that body?  I do.  He made all the arrangements and got her out of London because she was still a useful asset.  Frankly, this Adler isn't that smart to be an international criminal mastermind.  She picked a pretty simple code for her phone in the end.  Her feelings for Sherlock where her undoing in the end.  If she were a true psychopath, she wouldn't have any feelings.  She could fake some, but her pulse wouldn't have risen.

The way it was explained to me is: Sociopaths are made, through early trauma but psychopaths are born that way.  Their brains and limbic systems do not function like normal people's.  They have no conscience, which is also shared by sociopaths, but they also do not experience any physical reactions to stress.  They have no fear.   Sociopaths can still experience being upset, they can be afraid or panic if things are not going according to their plans.  They are slightly more human.  Adler is a bad girl but she's a rank amateur when you stack her against psychos like Moriarty or CAM.  She can dominate weak and needy men for money and thrills but she is the dominated one in the relationship with Moriarty.  Hence that's why Sherlock saved her from being decapitated in Karachi.  She'll get in with bad types again, so a smarter tactical move would have been to let her get executed.  But Sherl likes her, despite the risk to himself.  Which proves that he's not a psychopath, either.  Moriarty blew out his own brains just to screw with Sherlock.  We really didn't see that coming, but real psychos aren't attached to anything, even their own continued existences.

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