Jump to content

Recommended Posts

8 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Ah, I see your point now.  I've always assumed the only reason Eurus said she liked John's eyes was to get him interested in "E" (the woman she was pretending to be on the bus).  But maybe she mentioned his eyes (rather than his smile or whatever) because she really does like them.  That's certainly possible.

I'm not so sure than John actually prefers "dangerous" people, though.  He's used to working and living with them from his days in the military, of course, so he's more comfortable with them than most people would be.  But I've never had the impression that he actually prefers them.  It's my feeling that it simply makes no difference to him -- but that does mean he would be less repelled by her than most people would, at least.

Not everyone agrees with me, of course!   :D

Eurus said she liked John's eyes after she reveal herself to him, I don't think John prefers "dangerous" people too but dunno why unconsciously he's usually ended up with them 😂😂😂😂 maybe it's his fate 😂😂😂😂

Actually I'm just love to see Sherlock's reaction everytime John put someone else over him 😝😝😝

Just rewatched Sherlock from season 1 and when John said he have a date, Sherlock just assumed he's the date 😂😂😂😂 and also when the photographer took the wedding picture of just bride and groom, Sherlock just stayed there until John object him "Sherlock" 😝😝😝😝😝😝

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Ai_Pin said:

... I don't think John prefers "dangerous" people too but dunno why unconsciously he's usually ended up with them 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 maybe it's his fate ....

That's a good question.  Non-dangerous people would have less trouble finding friends, I assume, so maybe most of them already have enough friends.  "Dangerous" people  may say they don't need friends, but I suppose most of them would actually like to have a few friends (despite what they say), but it's harder for them to find friends because most people think they're weird or scary or something.  But John doesn't mind, and he's new in town, so he hardly knows anybody.  So he ends up with a bunch of "dangerous" friends.

He also has some non-dangerous friends, like Mike Stamford -- but we hardly ever see him with Mike.  I suspect that's because Mike has lots of friends.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

That's a good question.  Non-dangerous people would have less trouble finding friends, I assume, so maybe most of them already have enough friends.  "Dangerous" people  may say they don't need friends, but I suppose most of them would actually like to have a few friends (despite what they say), but it's harder for them to find friends because most people think they're weird or scary or something.  But John doesn't mind, and he's new in town, so he hardly knows anybody.  So he ends up with a bunch of "dangerous" friends.

He also has some non-dangerous friends, like Mike Stamford -- but we hardly ever see him with Mike.  I suspect that's because Mike has lots of friends.

I think BBC Sherlock seriously dialed down on John Watson's intrinsic optimism and warm/outgoing nature with people.   Their version of Watson is quite an angry, maladjusted and isolated little dude who does not seem to enjoy his calling as a medical man very much.  ACD's Watson did, of course, respond to the excitement and danger of being a close associate of Sherlock Holmes, and he thrived on their dangerous adventures together.  But the notion that John is so intrinsically damaged himself that he is only attracted to dangerous and damaged individuals is Mofftiss's invention.   Mofftiss's rebuilding of Mary from a quintessentially nurturing and proper Victorian wife into a callous ninja assassin was particularly inventive.  There's the line where John, devastated by the reveal of his wife's true identity asks Sherlock, "But why is *she* like that?  (ie, 'dangeous').  Sherlock's reply:  "She's like that because *you chose her*"

This statement does not hold up the evidence of the two preceding episodes since we met Mary.  John was completely blindsided by her lethal past and skill set because he'd had  no evidence of it in all the months, or years he had known her.  Amanda Abbington herself was just as blindsided by Mary's true colors as John was . . and why?  Because, the writers hadn't put anything like that *in*.  Okay, so she knows what a skip code is and has a good memory for details like hotel room numbers.  Many people do.  I knew what a skip code is and I never trained with the CIA. I just like to read espionage thrillers.  My feeling is, between the introduction of Mary in Ep. 1 and her 'reveal' in Ep. 3, the decision was made to change horses completely on her character.  

John Watson has Sherlock Holmes for all the danger, excitement and unpredictability he craves.    Which is precisely why he would not have to seek it out in a potential wife, not even subliminally.  Mary is supposed to represent the well-ordered hearth and home Hobbity side of Watson, while his escapades with SH illustrate his swashbuckling ex-soldier side.  Moftiss's version of a Watson who continually gravitates to dangerous, imbalanced people for his primary relationships makes JW on some level, unbalanced . .which I think strays far from the original intent. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As you said, John didn't choose Mary because she was "dangerous."  She was then passing for "normal,"  and he chose that.  He was likewise smitten with Dr. Sarah Sawyer, apparently a very wholesome woman.  So even though the Moftisses claim that he's "attracted to danger," their own story lines don't bear them out.  We do see John become a darker character from His Last Vow onwards -- but considering what he's going through, how many people would retain a positive outlook?

I don't necessarily think the writers changed their minds, though.  Their concept of "fooling" the audience bears a very close resemblance to my concept of lying.  Sure, they throw a few feeble "clues" around, but that only shows that they're planning all along to pull the rug out from under us later on.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyhow, I love most this version of Sherlock and John, their chemistry, how they complete each other and the bond between them was much much better than the movie one

Especially the John Watson part, in the movie, John was more like a compliment only for Sherlock but Martin's version of John in BBC have his own strength and we can see how much Sherlock need his John in BBC version, not so much in movie version

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree.  To my eye, Jude Law looks more like Sidney Paget's illustrations of Watson; Nigel Bruce, David Burke, and Edward Hardwicke look more like Conan Doyle's description of him (in "Milverton"); and Martin Freeman (along with Burke and Hardwicke) resembles him most in behavior (part of that credit goes to the writers and directors, of course, but they can't convey the character to the audience unless the actor is capable).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to keep bashing the TJLC movement, but I just saw a thing (here) that summed it up nicely: someone did an analysis of the wedding scene, claiming that Sherlock was filmed constantly blocking our view of Mary, which meant that the filmmakers were saying that the wedding was between Sherlock and John.

So someone else went in and cherry-picked all the scenes where Sherlock was blocking John … ergo, the wedding was between Sherlock and Mary! Except this person's conclusion was … it doesn't mean anything, it's just what happens when you film someone walking around. And that's how I view most of the TJLC theories … they present only the evidence that supports their conclusion, and ignore or deny anything that doesn't. But that's people for you, I guess.

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup, that's people.  We generally mean to be impartial, but even scientists can sometimes see what they want to see, because they're people too.

Added:  The debunker initially seems to ignore the last part of the original poster's statement:  "Mary is, ‘always partly or entirely excluded’, in any shot that also includes Sherlock."   Many of their early examples are two-shots of just John and Mary, i.e., not including Sherlock.  But their own explicit cherry-picking at the end makes up for that.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

Gatiss has said that though he's a homosexual himself John and Sherlock aren't but some people don't want to believe this. Tea? It's a British custom invented by a lady who was hungry between the 12 pm meal and the 18 meal. Dinner was had at 12 and tea at 5, supper was at 7. Then some time between Jane Austen's era and the 1840's lunch was eaten at 2 pm by middle and upper classes. It's unclear if Queen Victoria's lady in waiting invented tea but it certainly was a lady of noble birth. The idea that it was Queen Victoria's lady in waiting makes a good myth I suppose. Sure, Russians also drink tea as do the French, but the way the British do it is so unique. Now tea in Polish is herbata, from the French herbes, not from Russian. The Russian word for tea is from Chinese (or maybe I should say Mandarin). Poland is always in the middle of one thing or other. A digression.

I have nothing against LGBTQ+ people, but I think that confusing Conan Doyle with Oscar Wilde just because they lived in the same decades is missing the point. The Sign of Four was published in 1890 and Oscar Wilde was relased in 1895. Yes, there's " my dear Watson" and Holmes's reaction to Watson being really badly injured in one story, but that's our modern thinking. Few of us can really ask a Cambride or Harvard historian to tell us about the relationship between men in that period.

Moffat and Gatiss have said in mumerous interviews that allusions to homosexuality are to be treated humorously, but some people can't accept this. In BBC Sherlock Holmes does have sexual intercourse with Irene Adler and Gatiss has said that himself, but that doesn't mean they're in love, sorry. Many internet users seem to think Watson is lying in the story when he says Holmes wasn't in love with her. Holmes says he hates emotions.
In the last stories as Holmes is over 50 there are hints that he observes women more carefully. However, he always seems to admire they're attention to detail. he tells Watson that Miss Morstan would've been a good detective herself! He is a feminst supporter sort of as is Watson to some extent.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find it kinda curious that to some, there's just one, definite interpretation of any given work of art. Admittedly, I'm an IT gal myself, but from my time at uni I got the distinct impression that there are whole faculties devoted to literary interpretation. If only someone had told them that it's all in vain. ;)

  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

3 hours ago, Kat said:

Gatiss has said that though he's a homosexual himself John and Sherlock aren't but some people don't want to believe this.

 

I can kinda see why people sometimes disagree with the author of a piece as to its meaning.  For example, Robert Frost supposedly said that his poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" [here] was about some guy stopping on his way home to watch the snow falling in the woods.  Whereas if you put that answer on a quiz in literature class, the teacher would flunk you for sure.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which is exactly what I hated about literature class despite my love of literature and crushed any passion I once had for teaching the subject.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Artemis said:

Which is exactly what I hated about literature class despite my love of literature and crushed any passion I once had for teaching the subject.

For an alternative reason to beware of English teachers, have you read "Here Lies Miss Groby," James Thurber's gently humorous piece about his high-school English teacher?

The full text is available online [here], starting about halfway down the page.

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I loved most of my English classes and English teachers. I don't feel like any of that stuff interfered with my reading enjoyment. Of course, it didn't hurt that I was good at it. :D 

What did do me in, however, was some of the books themselves; in particular Main Street, the most joyless, boring excuse for a novel ever written. Imho. Spoiled me for "fine literature" for ever after. I'd happily take quizzes and parse sentences all day if it meant I never had to read another word of "those" kinds of books. 😛 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I loved most of my English classes and English teachers. I don't feel like any of that stuff interfered with my reading enjoyment. Of course, it didn't hurt that I was good at it. :D 

You didn't have some of my teachers!   :P

2 hours ago, Arcadia said:

What did do me in, however, was some of the books themselves; in particular Main Street, the most joyless, boring excuse for a novel ever written. Imho. Spoiled me for "fine literature" for ever after. I'd happily take quizzes and parse sentences all day if it meant I never had to read another word of "those" kinds of books. 😛 

I'm with you there.  I also have a very low tolerance for epic.  My brother used to spend his summers (!) reading things like War and Peace.  Having enjoyed some of Asimov's other stories, I once started to read his magnum opus (the name of which escapes me at the moment), and did OK with the first chapter, getting acquainted with the characters -- and then the second chapter started with a completely new and different generation of characters, and I said phooey on it.  If I can't relate to the characters, forget it!  (And I was very fond of R. Daneel Olivaw, so they don't even need to be biological beings.)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I'm with you there.  I also have a very low tolerance for epic.  My brother used to spend his summers (!) reading things like War and Peace.  Having enjoyed some of Asimov's other stories, I once started to read his magnum opus (the name of which escapes me at the moment), and did OK with the first chapter, getting acquainted with the characters -- and then the second chapter started with a completely new and different generation of characters, and I said phooey on it.  If I can't relate to the characters, forget it!  (And I was very fond of R. Daneel Olivaw, so they don't even need to be biological beings.)

Was it Foundation, by any chance? I think I took a look at it, and decided to pass. I'd read something else by Asimov (The Gods Themselves, I believe) and found his prose rather dry. My tastes ran more to Heinlein and Bradbury, altho Heinlein's "adult" novels eventually drove me away; too weird for my still-forming tastes! I should probably go back and try one again, just to see if I have the same reaction.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/20/2021 at 7:40 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

 I can kinda see why people sometimes disagree with the author of a piece as to its meaning.  For example, Robert Frost supposedly said that his poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" [here] was about some guy stopping on his way home to watch the snow falling in the woods.  Whereas if you put that answer on a quiz in literature class, the teacher would flunk you for sure.

To get back ... sort of ... to the topic... :smile:

I think I've told this story before, but I once painted a scene of the local train station, and included a pedestrian that happened to be walking by as I was painting ... mostly because I felt that, being a city scene, a human should appear somewhere in it. :smile: Here it is:

JfdEmnh.jpg?1

Sometime later I met the person who bought it, who began telling me what "deep meaning" it had. Something about the figure representing my father and the bird having some significance or other. My response was similar to Frost's; it's a picture of a guy walking past a train depot. But he was convinced there was something more to it.

Which is fine if he wants to read something into it for his own enjoyment. But if he'd published a blog about it and insisted I meant to say such-and-such, I would've been a bit put out. It's the fruit of my labor, I think I get to say what I did or didn't mean.

So I have a lot of sympathy for Moftiss when people insist they were writing a gay romance, or whatever. If you want to see it that way, fine. But when the creators say what they meant, it's pretty rude, imo, to keep insisting your interpretation is the "correct" one. I've seen plenty of Johnlockers -- and others -- do just that. I may even have done it myself for all I can remember. :whistle: Still doesn't make it okay, though.

I do think ambiguity was built into the scripts from the start ... but I take Moftiss's word for it that it was all in fun, they weren't seriously suggesting much of anything. Although if that's true, it's amazing that the character of Sherlock seems to have resonated so deeply with so many of us. Although now that I think on it, I've always attributed that more to Ben's performance than the writing. *sigh* I miss Sherlock........

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That pic is gorgeous. :wub:

As for the deeper meaning in artistic works, though, we'll have to agree to disagree (once more :D ). To say that an artist always is fully aware of anything and everything they put into their work would be attributing a bit too much to their self-awareness, imo. I can't offer such a beautiful example as yours, and I never published much of anything let alone had it reviewed, but I remember one evening at the community college's writing class I took. We had been given the task of writing about an everyday object, and to use second person for the piece (our teacher always had such little challenges). I wrote something (paraphrasing, it's been like 30 years) about blue jeans and how much I loved them, how getting to wear those instead of the skirts of my little-girl time was such a game changer, how much I could do in them now, climbing, riding, sitting without crossing my legs demurely, list goes on, in the style of "when you wore them, you felt that the world was your oyster". When time was up, we read our pieces out loud, and when it was my turn, several of my fellow students stated how this was, behind all that praising blue jeans, a piece about individual freedom and self-expression. I of course protested and told them, no, I really just wanted to say how much I loved blue jeans (I still do, in fact). But on the way home it occurred to me that actually, they had sorta been right about it. :lol: When you're in the flow of creativity, you sometimes end up saying more about yourself than you ever intended or even are aware.

To come back on topic, my favourite example when it comes to Moftiss is still this:

PzpPWlY.png

These are all female chars of Mr. Moffat's creation, and mind you I found that little collection even *before* Mary Morstan, who in canon is rather unlike her Sherlock incarnation, was turned into yet another black clad femme fatale. Now it's of course perfectly possible that Mr. Moffat is of the honest opinion that it was intricate to the plot that all these roles are of this archetype, and that any potential penchant of his has nothing at all to do with that artistic decision. It just doesn't seem all that objectively likely to me. ;)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Was it Foundation, by any chance? I think I took a look at it, and decided to pass. I'd read something else by Asimov (The Gods Themselves, I believe) and found his prose rather dry. My tastes ran more to Heinlein and Bradbury, altho Heinlein's "adult" novels eventually drove me away; too weird for my still-forming tastes!

I think you're right, it was Foundation -- a trilogy I think, or at least very long.

I like many of Asimov's other stories.  "Nightfall" is a classic (though the idea might have been handled even better by someone else).  And I enjoyed the stories with what's-his-name the human and R. Daneel the android, largely *because* Asimov's rather stilted style was so appropriate to their rather Victorian tone ("Jehosephat, Daneel!"), kind of like the dialog in True Grit.  As for Heinlein, you might want to shy away from I Will Fear No Evil, which was written while his brain function was impaired by a partly-blocked carotid artery (which was subsequently fixed).

I love your painting!  I do see Caya's point -- we are, after all, rather complex creatures, so we're probably not capable of fully understanding ourselves -- but on the other hand, that doesn't mean we don't know what our intentions were, even if the piece ended up with some layers prompted by our subconscious.  And it most certainly does not mean that someone else's interpretation must necessarily be what we intended, or even what our subconscious intended.

9 hours ago, Arcadia said:

So I have a lot of sympathy for Moftiss when people insist they were writing a gay romance, or whatever. If you want to see it that way, fine. But when the creators say what they meant, it's pretty rude, imo, to keep insisting your interpretation is the "correct" one.

I agree, but I also agree with the Johnlockers who say that Moftiss carried the joke a little too far -- or even a lot too far -- thus raising their hopes and expectations.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Who's Online   0 Members, 0 Anonymous, 42 Guests (See full list)

    • There are no registered users currently online
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of UseWe have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.Privacy PolicyGuidelines.