Molly Hooper

[sittything]

 

I want to believe... for Molly's sake.  It can, might happen...

You really think they'd make a good match, though? I think he'd rip her psyche to pieces, personally. Believe me, I've seen someone torn down by a guy like that, and it's ugly, ugly, ugly. The guy's not evil, it's just the way he is, and she can't handle him. He can even be lovable, sometimes. He'd be okay with someone who's ego is even more overweening than his, I think. (And no, slapping him is not the solution, as much as I itch to sometimes!)

 

At any rate, Molly would have to get a lot tougher and grow an awfully thick shell to survive someone like Sherlock, imo. And Sherlock would have to learn to shut the f--- up. It can happen, I suppose. But then they wouldn't be the Molly and Sherlock we love anymore, would they?

 

 

I dunno about a good match, but I don't think he'd rip her to pieces.  That's my gut reaction after series 3.  I'm going to ponder this for a bit and see if I can formulate a good explanation for you as to why. 

 

 

[Arcadia]

Because he's growing up, perhaps?

[sfmpco]

I started write a hugely long treatise to this and as fate would have it, I hit the wrong button and advanced to the next page and lost everything.    So I shall try again. Hopefully the same resplendent thoughts will return to me. 

 

No matter how much Sherlock develops, cracks and becomes more understanding of human nature, he will never be a cuddly teddy bear (yes this belongs in the Molly thread - bear with me).  So anyone who is looking for him to be the protective, loving, romantic that can have a "normal/healthy" relationship is sort of missing the mark.  Because he can't.  That doesn't mean that in his own way he can't develop the ability to have a relationship with a woman - aka Molly Hooper - that is more than a deep friendship but not romantic.  It doesn't mean he's incapable of dipping his toes into the waters of something more, but he'll never swim in the deep end of that pool like John does.  But he can learn to swim in a shallower end - and I don't mean behaving in a shallow way.

 

John and Sherlock "confess" their mutual and platonic love towards each other in TSOT.  First John when asking Sherlock to be his best man:

"I want to be up there [at the altar] with the two people that I love and care about most in the world.  Mary Morstan and you." Those  words put Sherlock's brain into TILT mode.

 

Sherlock responds haltingly, "So in fact you-you mean...I'm your...best...friend?"

 

Sherlock had said in HOB that he only had one friend - John.  He actually had more, but he counted John as a true friend on a different level than he counted Mrs. Hudson, Molly or Lestrade.

 

Sherlock says during the best man speech, "Today you sit between the woman you have made your wife and the man you have saved - in short, the two people who love you most in all the world."

 

So he IS  capable of love and loving.  However, I suspect most of his life he has been treated like the "FREAK" that Sally Donovan calls him in ASIP.  He is different and has always been different.  Even his own brother ridicules him and puts him down.  He says in ASIP that relationships aren't his area... and he was applying that to women as well as men.  That's because he didn't really have any and didn't know how to.  Too much hurt from the past, from his entire life.  He's just too different.  People couldn't relate to him and he couldn't relate to them, and he was likely bullied for it.  So he built his own walls, his own safety mechanisms to protect himself.  Having an external shell that exuded the ideology of "I don't waste emotions on caring" was a facade, and it's a facade he can't quite maintain because essentially it's a lie.  He does care, that's the problem, and it's a problem because he hasn't developed the skills and social habits to allow that part of himself out without making him all the more awkward.

 

He is completely aware of his awkwardness.  "The point I'm trying to make is that I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all-around obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet.  I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy.  So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend."

 

He probably doesn't expect a lot of things from people.  He knows his brain is extraordinary but the rest of him is mostly ordinary, and he's got to have a deep well of anger and even some bitterness towards those who have taunted him his entire life for being different.  In many ways, he has shut down when John meets him in ASIP.  They are both shut down for different reasons, of course.  John unconditionally accepted who he was almost from the get-go and wasn't bothered by him.  John's warmth has been slowly melting some of Sherlock's rougher edges.  As Lestrade said in ASIP, "Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and one day, if we're very lucky, he'll be a good one."  John's warmth and constancy has been slowly turning him into a good man.  A good man has potential  for more than just greatness.

 

Make no mistake, Sherlock is equally a very dangerous man, and that dangerous side of him can erupt with great violence when someone he loves is in danger.  To me, Magnussen was the bully of all bullies in his life, and he drew a (mental) line in the sand, crossed over it, and shot him.

 

(I'm getting to Molly, I promise)

 

I know people don't want to see him in a romantic relationship.  To be honest, he's not capable of it, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.  And a public display of affection towards a woman?  Never will happen.  Any private relationship he would ever have would be one of the biggest secrets in Britain.  He would have to be extremely cautious who he even developed a deeper relationship with.  It's not going to be someone outside of his circle.  His trust is not easily earned.

 

Now, where does Molly fit into all of this?  Like John, she brings warmth and constancy in his life.  She rounds off his rough edges, and some of the most genuine and tender moments in the series where you see a glimpse of the good man that can be, are with her.  Yes, sometimes he's a git with her, but she knows who he is.  She has known him for longer than John, and she starts fighting back at the roughness in TGG.  He apologizes to her in ASIB, and by TRF, she reads him and unnerves him.  When she says she's going to get a bag of crisps and asks if he wants any, she immediately rejects his "Well, maybe..." with "I know you don't."  She projects back to him what he has always projected to her - that he doesn't need anything from her or anyone for that matter.  There's a look on his face of understanding that he's just been a bit not good.  No one had to correct him that time.  He was learning to self-correct because in a way, she has already made the assumed needed correction for him. He had made just a glimmer of reaching out with his "well, maybe..."  But he does need her, and he goes to her for the help as his confidant in a very elaborate and emotionally charged plan.  She loves him and will help him, even if it means saying good bye for two years.

 

We don't really know what happened to Sherlock during those two years.  Did he communicate with Molly?  Or Mycroft?  Did Molly think she might never hear from him again and so moved on with her life?  Did he tell her to stop waiting and pining for him?  We don't know.

What we do know is that in TEH he is incredibly tender with her at the stairwell, genuinely wishing her well with her engagement, although I sense a bit of "Damn, it's too late for me now." in his countenance.  But he clearly deeply cares for her.  I'm not saying romantically.  That's not something he knows how to do.  He does, however, know that deep caring, and that is the beginning of love and being in love.

 

I do think there will be more between them in S4 although not necessarily much in the Christmas Special.  The special is going to be a separate entity, I suspect.

 

I do think that whatever new developments there are between them that something very emotionally painful and hurtful will happen.  I think there's going to be a deeper closeness, and he's going to muck it up and really hurt her.  And that's going to cause them both to grow, him more than her.  Perhaps he will finally find the filter on things "a bit not good," but at what price to one of his dearest friends?  He is going to muck it up with the one who mattered the most, and she will be devastated.  And we're not going to like him a lot at that moment.

[T.o.b.y]

I do think that whatever new developments there are between them that something very emotionally painful and hurtful will happen.  I think there's going to be a deeper closeness, and he's going to muck it up and really hurt her.  And that's going to cause them both to grow, him more than her.  Perhaps he will finally find the filter on things "a bit not good," but at what price to one of his dearest friends?  He is going to muck it up with the one who mattered the most, and she will be devastated.  And we're not going to like him a lot at that moment.

 

Oh, I hope not. You really think so? But... that would be horrible. I don't want to see Molly hurt, and I certainly don't want to see Sherlock hurt her. Please, no. If this is what they have in mind, I need to stock up on Kleenex for the next series. Or switch to terry-cloth right away.

 

I mostly agree with the rest of your post. So sorry your first effort got lost (that happens to me as well), but the second is well worth reading...

 

[Boton]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, yes, a three-way wrestling match between a Consulting Detective, a Detective Inspector, and the British government.

 

 

I would pay money to watch that.  

[sittything]

 

I'm typing this with my "We All Do Silly Things" nail polish on.  

 

I think my problem with assuming that Sherlock would destroy Molly or rip her to pieces implies an assumption that Molly is inherently weak, and I don't think she's weak at all.  I think one reason Molly tends to be categorized as weak is because she's a bit mousy, especially in earlier episodes, and very girly;  And I feel like people tend to overlook that there's (IMO) a very steady, constant strength to her.  I also think Molly is very bright, and while she may be willing to overlook some of Sherlock's less desirable qualities because she's more than a bit enamored with him, I think deep down she really knows the type of man he is.  For one, this is a man who has routinely treated her a bit not good over the years, not entirely intentionally, but he's certainly done that.  He's criticized/commenting on her appearance routinely (which I find funny because who else does he do this to?), been horribly blunt (your boyfriend is gay), and stupidly outed her crush on him while commenting on her appearance some more (SiB).  Despite all of this stuff, which would have flattened my sad ego like a pancake, Molly still stands strong.  She even checks him.  Now, this isn't to say that I think he can't hurt her.  People we love the most, and that are the closest, are most often the people who have the ability to hurt us the most.  But devastate Molly?  Crush her spirit?  Destroy her?  Nah.  I think Molly is too resilient for that.

[T.o.b.y]

 

I'm typing this with my "We All Do Silly Things" nail polish on.  

 

I think my problem with assuming that Sherlock would destroy Molly or rip her to pieces implies an assumption that Molly is inherently weak, and I don't think she's weak at all.  I think one reason Molly tends to be categorized as weak is because she's a bit mousy, especially in earlier episodes, and very girly;  And I feel like people tend to overlook that there's (IMO) a very steady, constant strength to her.  I also think Molly is very bright, and while she may be willing to overlook some of Sherlock's less desirable qualities because she's more than a bit enamored with him, I think deep down she really knows the type of man he is.  For one, this is a man who has routinely treated her a bit not good over the years, not entirely intentionally, but he's certainly done that.  He's criticized/commenting on her appearance routinely (which I find funny because who else does he do this to?), been horribly blunt (your boyfriend is gay), and stupidly outed her crush on him while commenting on her appearance some more (SiB).  Despite all of this stuff, which would have flattened my sad ego like a pancake, Molly still stands strong.  She even checks him.  Now, this isn't to say that I think he can't hurt her.  People we love the most, and that are the closest, are most often the people who have the ability to hurt us the most.  But devastate Molly?  Crush her spirit?  Destroy her?  Nah.  I think Molly is too resilient for that.

 

My counter-argument to that is: Look at what Sherlock did to John. John is strong, no? I'd say he has a very resilient nature. He endured "war and hardship", as Sherlock himself pointed out, and is still going strong But look at John after The Fall and at the beginning of The Empty Hearse. Imagine he had not met Mary, if you like, I don't really want to...

 

Sherlock and John weren't a couple, of course (well, not in the usual sense, anyway), but I don't think there's any doubt that Sherlock loves him in some way. Yet that didn't keep him from making that phone call, from letting John get right up close to his seemingly dead body or from letting him grieve for two years and sending him back to his therapist.

 

If Sherlock were Molly's boyfriend, no amount of love for her would keep him from doing something similarly horrible (or worse) to her, if he thought the situation called for it. He's not sadistic. He doesn't actively set out to harm people. But he has no clue sometimes to what you can and cannot do to a person, at least not until it's too late. And if she allowed herself to become his girl-friend, she'd get way too close to him and make herself way too vulnerable towards him. She has to keep a certain distance to protect herself. Everybody does. That's why John is better off living in a nice house with Mary, or thought he was better off until he realized that Mary could well be called Sherlock II. No wonder he was devastated when that came out.

 

I see Sherlock the way I look at wild animals. Take tigers, for example. I love tigers. But I'd never try to cuddle with one, no matter how soft its fur looks. The best way to love tigers is to admire them from afar and give money to organizations that protect their habitat and try to stop people from shooting them. One of the worst ways of loving them is trying to keep one as a pet.

 

[sittything]

 

 

I'm typing this with my "We All Do Silly Things" nail polish on.  

 

I think my problem with assuming that Sherlock would destroy Molly or rip her to pieces implies an assumption that Molly is inherently weak, and I don't think she's weak at all.  I think one reason Molly tends to be categorized as weak is because she's a bit mousy, especially in earlier episodes, and very girly;  And I feel like people tend to overlook that there's (IMO) a very steady, constant strength to her.  I also think Molly is very bright, and while she may be willing to overlook some of Sherlock's less desirable qualities because she's more than a bit enamored with him, I think deep down she really knows the type of man he is.  For one, this is a man who has routinely treated her a bit not good over the years, not entirely intentionally, but he's certainly done that.  He's criticized/commenting on her appearance routinely (which I find funny because who else does he do this to?), been horribly blunt (your boyfriend is gay), and stupidly outed her crush on him while commenting on her appearance some more (SiB).  Despite all of this stuff, which would have flattened my sad ego like a pancake, Molly still stands strong.  She even checks him.  Now, this isn't to say that I think he can't hurt her.  People we love the most, and that are the closest, are most often the people who have the ability to hurt us the most.  But devastate Molly?  Crush her spirit?  Destroy her?  Nah.  I think Molly is too resilient for that.

 

My counter-argument to that is: Look at what Sherlock did to John. John is strong, no? I'd say he has a very resilient nature. He endured "war and hardship", as Sherlock himself pointed out, and is still going strong But look at John after The Fall and at the beginning of The Empty Hearse. Imagine he had not met Mary, if you like, I don't really want to...

 

Sherlock and John weren't a couple, of course (well, not in the usual sense, anyway), but I don't think there's any doubt that Sherlock loves him in some way. Yet that didn't keep him from making that phone call, from letting John get right up close to his seemingly dead body or from letting him grieve for two years and sending him back to his therapist.

 

If Sherlock were Molly's boyfriend, no amount of love for her would keep him from doing something similarly horrible (or worse) to her, if he thought the situation called for it. He's not sadistic. He doesn't actively set out to harm people. But he has no clue sometimes to what you can and cannot do to a person, at least not until it's too late. And if she allowed herself to become his girl-friend, she'd get way too close to him and make herself way too vulnerable towards him. She has to keep a certain distance to protect herself. Everybody does. That's why John is better off living in a nice house with Mary, or thought he was better off until he realized that Mary could well be called Sherlock II. No wonder he was devastated when that came out.

 

I see Sherlock the way I look at wild animals. Take tigers, for example. I love tigers. But I'd never try to cuddle with one, no matter how soft its fur looks. The best way to love tigers is to admire them from afar and give money to organizations that protect their habitat and try to stop people from shooting them. One of the worst ways of loving them is trying to keep one as a pet.

 

 

 

I think what I was trying to get at, rather unsuccessfully, was a response to Arcadia's comments about Molly needing to toughen up and Sherlock ripping her psyche to shreds.  I think there are a lot of really valid arguments against a Molly-Sherlock anything, but I really, really dislike the argument that it's because Molly isn't strong enough, or tough enough, or she's a doormat.  These things are never said of Janine and Irene.  And I get why some people feel Molly is all of those things, especially after earlier episodes where poor Molly is used mostly for laughs, but I really do feel that Molly can "handle" Sherlock as well as anyone. If anything, I feel like she handles him better than many of the people in his life.  

[sfmpco]

She can definitely handle him better than most of the others.  But if Sherlock had ever done to her what he did to Janine, I think she would be quite devastated--especially knowing how she's felt in the past and likely still does feel.  Janine took revenge in the papers because Janine had the contacts to be able to do that.  I don't see Molly as the revenge type, but I can see her pulling out of his life and telling him to find another hospital lab to use.  I think she would miss seeing him, though, and I think he would work really, really hard, to repair the damage.  Let's hope he never uses her like that.

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

"For the sake of law and order I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly."

[sittything]

 

:(

 

[T.o.b.y]

I think what I was trying to get at, rather unsuccessfully, was a response to Arcadia's comments about Molly needing to toughen up and Sherlock ripping her psyche to shreds.  I think there are a lot of really valid arguments against a Molly-Sherlock anything, but I really, really dislike the argument that it's because Molly isn't strong enough, or tough enough, or she's a doormat.  These things are never said of Janine and Irene.  And I get why some people feel Molly is all of those things, especially after earlier episodes where poor Molly is used mostly for laughs, but I really do feel that Molly can "handle" Sherlock as well as anyone. If anything, I feel like she handles him better than many of the people in his life.  

 

Yes, she does. And you are right, she's not a weak person by my standards, either.

 

My only reason for thinking Sherlock would hurt Molly more than Janine or Irene Adler is that her feelings for him seem to be more serious. She really loves him, as opposed to simply being attracted to him. And love does make you terribly vulnerable, even though it has some strengthening effect as well. No wonder the Holmes boys avoid it like the plague. 

 

[sittything]

I really have become such a Molly/Loo Brealey junkie.  Like I am most excited to see setlock stuff on Molly, and am looking forward to seeing her again in the show and the show IS NOT EVEN ABOUT HER!  I have issues.

 

Anyone wanna join my Molly fan club?  I can make membership cards.  ;)

[sfmpco]

"For the sake of law and order I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship, Molly."

 

Not realizing when he said that that hers was the relationship he would end up needing the most.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I started write a hugely long treatise to this and as fate would have it, I hit the wrong button and advanced to the next page and lost everything.    So I shall try again. Hopefully the same resplendent thoughts will return to me.

I hate it when that happens! 

 

But sometimes the Auto-Save comes to your rescue (other times, not).  Let the edit box sit for a minute or so and see if you get a message in its lower-left margin, something about viewing saved material.  If you do, click and it'll offer you the option of restoring it.

 

It doesn't always do that, though, and I don't understand what the crucial circumstances are.

 

[sfmpco]

 

I started write a hugely long treatise to this and as fate would have it, I hit the wrong button and advanced to the next page and lost everything.    So I shall try again. Hopefully the same resplendent thoughts will return to me.

I hate it when that happens! 

 

But sometimes the Auto-Save comes to your rescue (other times, not).  Let the edit box sit for a minute or so and see if you get a message in its lower-left margin, something about viewing saved material.  If you do, click and it'll offer you the option of restoring it.

 

It doesn't always do that, though, and I don't understand what the crucial circumstances are.

 

 

I doesn't matter.  I seem to have recounted much of it, although after I posted it I realized that I'd left out a critical point regarding Sherlock, but I will post that somewhere else.

[sfmpco]

 

:(

 

There are some other versions of this picture (which I don't have in which she is framed in a heart that is made betwen the crook in his elbow, the microscope, and Sherlock's chin.  I am certain this was not accidental.  

[Arcadia]

Hey, I don't think Molly's weak either! If she were, she would have given up on Sherlock long ago. But I do think she's vulnerable, and Sherlock's a bull in a china shop. If she doesn't learn how to stand up to him, he will put her down ... he can't help it. That's what he is. She'll keep getting up again, because she is strong; but she'll keep getting cut right back down.

 

Unless ... they both change, which was my original point. She can learn to guard her heart. He can learn to temper his words. But if they do that, they won't be "our" Molly and Sherlock anymore. Is that what we really want? I've already seen where a lot of fans "regret" that Sherlock isn't the same person he was in season 1.

 

For myself, I'd like to see Molly learn to sass the bejeebers out of him, and I'd like to see them make each other laugh. I don't mind if they change (as long as it's growth; I hate when characters suddenly turn to the dark side!!) -- but I'm also aware that a lot of people want them to stay the same. Not that we have anything to say about it either way!! Moftiss will do what Moftiss will do, and amazingly, even to me, I'm okay with that!

[sittything]

 

 

:(

There are some other versions of this picture (which I don't have in which she is framed in a heart that is made betwen the crook in his elbow, the microscope, and Sherlock's chin. I am certain this was not accidental.

What do you think their intent was in that? The hidden meaning?

[Arcadia]

 

 

:(

 

There are some other versions of this picture (which I don't have in which she is framed in a heart that is made betwen the crook in his elbow, the microscope, and Sherlock's chin.  I am certain this was not accidental.  

 

 

Here you go: http://www.sherlockforum.com/forum/topic/1935-favourite-sherlock-pictures-etc/?p=30551

[Arcadia]

 

 

 

:(

There are some other versions of this picture (which I don't have in which she is framed in a heart that is made betwen the crook in his elbow, the microscope, and Sherlock's chin. I am certain this was not accidental.

What do you think their intent was in that? The hidden meaning?

 

I never took it as a hidden meaning, exactly. It's just visually reinforcing that he is her heart's desire.

[T.o.b.y]

Hey, I don't think Molly's weak either! If she were, she would have given up on Sherlock long ago. But I do think she's vulnerable, and Sherlock's a bull in a china shop. If she doesn't learn how to stand up to him, he will put her down ... he can't help it. That's what he is. She'll keep getting up again, because she is strong; but she'll keep getting cut right back down.

 

Unless ... they both change, which was my original point. She can learn to guard her heart. He can learn to temper his words. But if they do that, they won't be "our" Molly and Sherlock anymore. Is that what we really want?

 

It's certainly not what I want. Sure, a little character development is great. It would be boring and unbelievable if everybody stayed exactly the same over the course of years. But I wouldn't like anything to fundamentally change. The series was perfect in my eyes when it started. They can only make it worse. I'm already nervous about the special and series 4...

 

[Arcadia]

As sfmpco once said, "My work here is done." :D

[Carol the Dabbler]

The series was perfect in my eyes when it started. They can only make it worse. I'm already nervous about the special and series 4...

I'm still nervous about Series 3.

 

[sfmpco]

 

The series was perfect in my eyes when it started. They can only make it worse. I'm already nervous about the special and series 4...

I'm still nervous about Series 3.

 

 

At least you're not still worried about S1 or S2!