Eurus

[gerry]

I suspect you're right, JP ... I think a lot of us got more meaning out of the show than was actually put into it! But I also believe Moffat's scripts are meant to produce conflicting and interesting emotions as well, although perhaps the reactions we had were not always the ones he intended. But I really do think ASiB, for example, is meant to stir speculation about the nature of love and sexual attraction and the relevance (or lack thereof) of gender identity, which is why I admire it immensely, even though it's not a "favorite" epi.

 

Given Moffat's interviews I find it hard to believe he intends any of that deep meaning in his scripts nor do I think he's capable of that level of nuance.

[Arcadia]

Mm. I have to disagree with that. Listening to his interviews is what made me like him more. Although reading his interviews usually makes me see red, which is kind of weird. So I guess I only sort of half disagree.

[Arcadia]

I have been studying Autism a bit more recently for work, and whilst learning about spiky development, my thoughts went straight to Eurus.

 

I know that we have discussed ASD in relation to sherlock, but was wondering does anyone have any ideas as to whether Eurus is likely to place somewhere on the spectrum? The spiky development I mention was about how a person might be very developed in one area- say Mathematics, for example, and yet be much less developed emotionally- and that these spikes could exist in an array of areas throughout the persons development. It made me think about how we had spoken about her seeming immature in some ways and then like a mastermind in others.

 

Much like when we talked about Sherlock, people might say she only has certain traits, but was just interested in general as to what people thought- especially anyone with more knowledge of the area. I don't mean to lump in the fact that she's a criminal mastermind with my wondering, or to associate that with ASD- it is more the other aspects of her character that I thought might fit.

 

I don't know anything about autism other than what I've observed. But I find I don't think of Eurus as a criminal mastermind ... at least, not in the sense that she deliberately commits crimes. Instead, I think of her as unable to understand the difference between criminal and non-criminal behavior. And that inability to distinguish is not something I associate with autism, in my admittedly limited experience. So this isn't much of an answer, is it? :p

[Carol the Dabbler]

I may have figured out the main thing that bothers me about Eurus -- I do not find her the least bit relatable. Not that I'd actually care to relate to her!

 

My favorite characters have always been those that I can relate to in some sense. Not that we necessarily have much in common, but at least I have the feeling that they're a "real" person. With Eurus, no way.

[Arcadia]

I agree, she's not relatable. But I'm trying to think if I related to any of the "villains". I don't think so, unless you count Ajay as a villain. Although I also have trouble thinking of Eurus as a villain, since she's also a victim. But she certainly doesn't qualify as a protagonist, so villain it is.

[gerry]

How do you view Eurus as a victim?

[Surelock]

I relate to Moriarty because when I'm bored I like to annoy other people.

 

 

 

I think Moffatiss tried to make Euros relateable at the end of the episode as they brought up how she was lonely and had no one. However by then I think it was too late for some people to establish a connection with her.

[Arcadia]

How do you view Eurus as a victim?

 

Two ways ... a victim of fate, because she didn't make herself mentally ill, she was born that way. And a victim of Uncle Rudy's and Mycroft's decision to lock her away with, apparently, no social interaction at all. They may have been well-intentioned, but that's a pretty harsh punishment for a small child, no matter how eerily astute she is.

 

I relate to Moriarty because when I'm bored I like to annoy other people.

 

I think Moffatiss tried to make Euros relateable at the end of the episode as they brought up how she was lonely and had no one. However by then I think it was too late for some people to establish a connection with her.

Agreed, because it came out of nowhere. Although I suppose they could have been hinting at it when she was Faith, who seemed to be making a connection with Sherlock. But they never went anywhere with that; it's like they forgot she was all those other characters too.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I agree, she's not relatable. But I'm trying to think if I related to any of the "villains". I don't think so, unless you count Ajay as a villain.

I can sorta relate to Moriarty, in the sense that umm, what? He's funny. He gets bored. He has a temper. There's somebody in there. Likewise Jeff the Cabbie, Irene, and Bob Whosis in Hounds.

 

On the other hand, I agree, I do not find Magnussen or Smith at all relatable. They're just cold (as Sherlock noted) and creepy. They don't seem real to me at all -- which probably explains why I don't relate to them. Or Shan either. Or the avenging photographer from Sign of Three.

[T.o.b.y]

Jeff was relatable to me. He was the best villain in that way and had the most interesting motive.

[gerry]

 

How do you view Eurus as a victim?

 

 

Two ways ... a victim of fate, because she didn't make herself mentally ill, she was born that way. And a victim of Uncle Rudy's and Mycroft's decision to lock her away with, apparently, no social interaction at all. They may have been well-intentioned, but that's a pretty harsh punishment for a small child, no matter how eerily astute she is.

I guess I view Eurus as more evil than mentally ill. She's basically a female Moriarty for me (isn't that the reason for the mirror image when they meet in TFP) and I don't think Moriarty is supposed to be mentally ill. 

 

Jeff was relatable to me. He was the best villain in that way and had the most interesting motive.

We usually don't agree but on this we do. Jeff was the only villain on the show that was actually being manipulated into his crimes. Jeff may have not been a killer if Moriarty didn't give his family money. All the other villains had self created sinister motives.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I guess I view Eurus as more evil than mentally ill. She's basically a female Moriarty for me (isn't that the reason for the mirror image when they meet in TFP) and I don't think Moriarty is supposed to be mentally ill.

 

Moriarty apparently saw himself as mentally ill -- from the "Reichenbach" transcript:

 

SHERLOCK: You’re insane.

JIM: You’re just getting that now?

 

As to whether he really was insane, or merely marching to his own drum, who knows?  The definitions of mental illness do keep changing, depending on what's considered "normal" at the time.

 

 

[gerry]

Maybe it's all the L&O episodes I've seen but I view insanity as whether they can distinguish right and wrong or can't distinguish between delusion and reality. I didn't take that exchange literally in the same way I don't think Sherlock is a high functioning sociopath even though he calls himself one. Eurus and Moriarty have no regard for human life, only their games. They may be psychopaths but I don't view that as mentally ill so much as evil or deviant. They did imply at the end of TFP that she had some sort of mental break and won't talk but I still don't know if that is a sign of mental illness.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Eurus and Moriarty have no regard for human life, only their games. They may be psychopaths but I don't view that as mentally ill so much as evil or deviant.

 

If the lack of regard for others is not their choice but rather just the way they are, then they can't help being that way, so I'd call that either mental illness or arrested development.

[Carol the Dabbler]

However, they're both intelligent enough to learn how to act as though they have regard for others, so I certainly wouldn't let them off the hook by means of an insanity plea -- so yeah, I do see your point.

[T.o.b.y]

I would be more inclined to accept an insanity plea from Eurus than from Moriarty. Moriarty seems quite aware that what he does is wrong but he does it anyway. He seems to just enjoy being evil. Eurus on the other hand gives me the impression of not knowing right from wrong or rather of having over-thought the whole concept so throughly that it became meaningless to her. She seems to exist in a world of her own that she isn't even happy in.

 

Sherlock seems to agree - while Moriarty "had to be stopped" he was sad Eurus couldn't be "saved". She did terrible things to him and those here loves, yet he never seemed to get angry at her. I still believe Mycroft and uncle Rudy did the right thing. Eurus may not be fully responsible for her crimes but she is incurable and very dangerous so society had to be protected from her.

[gerry]

Sherlock's different treatment of the two could be because one was family and the other a stranger nemesis rather than because they are different. Eurus certainly enjoyed killing the Garrideb's and the Governor's wife and playing mind games with Sherlock. She also had no remorse for killing Victor Trevor or almost killing John. If that isn't evil, I don't know what is. And if she can assimilate into the world through different personas, she must be able to understand society's laws/behavior. She just chooses to ignore them.

[T.o.b.y]

Eurus didn't give me the impression of enjoying anything much. She said it didn't feel any different to her whether she killed an innocent man or a guilty one but that doesn't automatically mean killing gives her pleasure.

 

I am not sure whether her ability to imitate "ordinary" people really means she understands them on any deeper level. We know that as a child, she couldn't identify pain and couldn't tell whether her brother was laughing or screaming. She gives me no indication of having progressed much in those areas.

 

Her actions are clearly evil but I am not sure whether I would call her so herself. To me, she's more... Disturbed? Empty? Dysfunctional? I can't say I feel terribly sorry for her but I view her more in the way that I do very poisonous animals than malicious people. Does she even understand malice? I don't know. All I know is I am glad she's back at Sherrinford in the end and I hope she stays there.

[Arcadia]

Yes, that's what I thought as well ... Jim did evil because it pleased him to do so. It alleviated his boredom; but he knew right from wrong. Eurus doesn't even seem to understand what pleasure and boredom, and good and evil, are. I gather she feels emotions ... she just doesn't know one from the other.

Does that make one insane and the other not? I don't know, but I don't think either one could have been "saved." It's not Eurus's incarceration I object to, though ... it's her isolation, and the fact that Mycroft was "using" her. Although I could concede that the former was the only solution, and the latter was in some strange way a mercy. But it wasn't presented that way. If keeping her in isolation was the only way to handle her, then why the heroic shots of Sherlock marching in to "play" with her?

[Shadow Dweller]

Someone doesn't have to be able to feel the result of their action to know the difference between laughing and screaming, let alone between right and wrong. All of those simply needs capability to recognize / learn something from experience, both direct and indirect. Rather like children pulling off dragonfly's wings, how they know if the insect actually feel pain or 'hey, it tickles!' ? Different wave length because of the lack of communication that prevented the exchange of information back and forth. Yes, she's capable to learn to fit to the outside world but CHOOSE to ignore the convention therefore she is guilty.

[Arcadia]

Well, according to the script, she couldn't tell the difference between laughing and screaming. Is that believable? I don't know. Would more socialization at an early age have taught her the difference? I assume so, which is why I find it difficult to accept Mycroft's decision to isolate her.

 

Is she guilty because she knows the conventions but refuses to follow them? I doubt if it's that simple, based on a certain person I know who has a personality disorder. Yes, she is capable of acting "normal" when it suits her ends, but I genuinely believe she is not capable of maintaining the fiction, or of understanding why she should. I've known her for a long, long time, and I don't see any sign that she's any more capable than before of "choosing" to be "normal". Quite the reverse, in fact.

 

What I do see is that she increasingly believes that everyone else is the problem, not her. We're too dumb, too conventional, too mundane to possibly understand the glorious heights of insight which she travels. Sound familiar? Sounds like the arguments Sherlock used to excuse his behavior, to me. And because he isn't mentally ill, he can learn humility. But this person I'm referring to can't, imho. And neither, I suspect, can Eurus. At least, I think that's what they were trying to say about her. I don't know how much they know about mental illness either.

[gerry]

Eurus didn't give me the impression of enjoying anything much. She said it didn't feel any different to her whether she killed an innocent man or a guilty one but that doesn't automatically mean killing gives her pleasure.

 

I am not sure whether her ability to imitate "ordinary" people really means she understands them on any deeper level. We know that as a child, she couldn't identify pain and couldn't tell whether her brother was laughing or screaming. She gives me no indication of having progressed much in those areas.

 

She told Sherlock that "this is going to be a good day". It's obviously subjective but I saw some enjoyment in scenes throughout that episode. How could she fake being a therapist or John's flirtation if she couldn't recognize John's emotions? Also how can she tell the security guard she had sex with was breakable if she couldn't recognize the person's emotions after the incident? She told Sherlock she lost count of all the emotions she recognized in the ILY call. As an adult she can definitely recognize more emotions than when she was a child. Because she lacks empathy she obviously doesn't care what emotions she elicits as she's only so focused on her own obsessions/games.

[Shadow Dweller]

There is a major difference between cannot and would not, Arcadia. Sherlock at the beginning is the second, hence the label of manchild because of the deliberate immaturity when he actually can learn how to function as an adult. This series looks like a journey of his from infantile view and relationship with the world to the ACD's version the mature albeit a little quirky Sherlock Holmes.

 

Speaking from experience, empathy is not necessary when it comes to other people's emotions, as long as she recognized it she can factor that into the equation.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... how can she tell the security guard she had sex with was breakable if she couldn't recognize the person's emotions after the incident?

 

Because the guard was broken? Or to quote Eurus, there wasn't much left. I take that rather literally, I'm afraid. :(

[Arcadia]

As do I.

 

Shadow, again, I'm just going by the script, which implies that Eurus cannot. But of course, I don't know if it's true.

 

Gerry, I didn't see "enjoyment" so much as I saw fascination. But I suppose one could derive enjoyment from that as well. But I thought they were trying to show us that she was so thoroughly about "intellect" that she didn't have the ability to empathise. And that's what made Sherlock take a look at his path in life and realize he was better off allowing himself to have empathy.