Wait a second!

obsessivelollipoplalala:

I feel like I had an “aha!” moment. I might just be saying something everyone else has, and forgive me if that’s the case, but hear me out. 

Prior to January 15th, we all thought Sherlock would confess his love to John during The Final Problem. 

However, Sherlock couldn’t have. He still wasn’t ready for romance. How do I know this? The Abominable Bride told us so.

This post by jon-lox pointed out that the line “romantic entanglement” is very specific, and it occurs twice, first in the greenhouse scene from TAB:

John: Why do you need to be alone?

Sherlock: If you are referring to romantic entanglement, as I have often explained before, all emotion is abhorrent to me.

And then in TLD:

Sherlock: As I think I have explained to you many times before, romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for other people–

John: Would complete you as a human being.

Jon-lox’s post concludes that since these two big scenes were interrupted, since this entire conversation was aborted twice, it has to happen again, and on the third time, it will be resolved. I agree. It’s significant that those two scenes had very similar dialogue and neither conversation brought about any real change in Sherlock and John’s relationship. It leaves the audience yearning for something substantial to come out of Sherlock and John’s exchange, or else it feels kind of pointless.

But, I think a lot of us forgot about how the greenhouse scene concluded, and I believe it’s crucial. After going back and forth, Mind Palace John askes, “What made you like this?”

Sherlock responds, “Oh, Watson. Nothing made me…I made me.” Then, a dog barks, and he goes, “Redbeard?” But, the case picks up, and Redbeard isn’t mentioned again for the rest of the episode.

I think it is so important that Redbeard was included in this specific scene. The scene, of course, tells us that, although Sherlock is unable to recognize this on a conscious level, whatever happened with Redbeard is responsible for who he is today, which is later confirmed in TFP. This scene could have been placed anywhere in the episode, but Mofftiss chose to conclude the conversation about Sherlock’s love life in this way. Why?

The greenhouse scene, in its entirety, told us that Sherlock could not open himself up to emotion and romantic entanglement until he confronted the trauma that forced him to emotionally shut down in the first place.

Again, Sherlock could not make this conclusion about himself because the pieces were still missing with Redbeard, which is why the conversation is left hanging again in real time with John. I remember when TLD aired, I thought, “Why did Sherlock deny feeling romance again? What about the scene in TAB?”

Now, I realize that Sherlock actually couldn’t progress on this matter while there were still unanswered questions so deep in his mind that even his drug-induced dream in TAB couldn’t get to the heart of the problem.

Personally, I don’t have strong feelings about whether TFP is real or fake. I’m keeping an open mind to everything. But, whether Sherlock found out about Victor Trevor/Redbeard in real time or in his mind doesn’t matter. What matters is that Sherlock confronted his childhood trauma which made him (at least attempt to) divorce himself from all emotion. He confronted it, and he overcame it.

Where does this leave us? It’s simple: Sherlock’s ready now. When the third version of this conversation occurs, it will not be left hanging anymore. It will resolve.

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I’m pretty new to the meta world and I would really love to get some opinions on this. I’m going to tag a couple blogs which immediately come to mind, and I hope I’m not bothering anyone! Everyone is free to comment on this, though. @inevitably-johnlocked, @tjlc