watsonshoneybee:

watsonshoneybee:

so the detail of the gold tooth comes from the stock-broker’s clerk, wherein the villain is pretending to be his own brother, but is identified (by the client, no less, and before he comes to holmes! not by holmes) as himself by virtue of having this tooth. that’s a story where the villain makes up this huge intricate convoluted plot to get a bystander (the clerk) out of the way so that he can finish his nefarious plot. 

a) “it’s never twins” strikes again

b) this is the same plot, basically, as the red-headed league and as the three garridebs. 

where else do we see this plot being significant? trf. a huge intricate convoluted plot (sherlock’s death) to get a bystander (john) out of (harm’s) way. 

now 3G’s significance is obvious. REDH is a bit less obvious but it is still important in terms of the mirroring between all the characters, and it was also acd’s second favorite of his own stories. 

the POINT though is that s4 put this “convoluted plot to get a bystander out of the way” idea right into the mouth of acd’s study in scarlet. it plays right into the exact same thing as the FINA bit where moffat points out that “watson starts by telling you he’s telling you a porker, and then he tells you a porker,” that is to say, that watson lies about the facts of that case (that being that Milverton’s mysterious death was brought about either holmes or watson themselves). a few weeks ago i saw this exact same situation in the greek interpreter, and its parallel to the end of asib (that it ends by implying that sophy kratides murdered her captors and escaped, but it’s written such that you have to ask whether that really did happen or if holmes or watson themselves were rewriting her a happier ending than the one she got, v. the lie john tells sherlock abt irene being alive/sherlock knowing the truth).

this is significant because bbc sherlock repeatedly highlights the idea of john watson’s canon stories having been the product and result of an unreliable narrator. because we hear the stories about holmes in canon through watson’s lens, we don’t actually know the truth of the canon. we can only know the truth as watson gives it to us. although his stories are written so as to downplay his own role, he is, in fact, the main character. 

the point of this WHOLE THING is that s4 is an intricate, convoluted plot intended to get a bystander out of the way, and you have to ask yourself, who is the bystander, who is the plotter, and what is meant by getting out of the way? as in the canon stories, the plotter is watson: watson has always been the source of the unreliable narration, has always been the one providing a different story, a half-truth or even an untruth, in terms of the holmes and watson stories. the bystander is imo sherlock himself – that he is the one watson is protecting (a la trf) or alternatively, that he is the one who knows something that would stand in the way of watson’s story (the truth, a la the stock-broker’s clerk – the clerk knows the “two brothers” are the same one man). 

in s4, imo, we’re in sherlock’s shoes insofar as sherlock is the bystander looking at a plot he can’t understand the point or purpose of, because the plot is john’s, not his. i think this is where the confusion comes in about from who’s perspective you’re viewing s4 from – because in either perspective, you aren’t looking at the whole truth. you either have the truth as john gives it to you, or the truth as sherlock knows, and both of those things are not the whole truth as it really is. imo, it doesn’t really matter who’s pov it is, bc either way, it’s john’s story, john’s plot, and so both pov’s are inherently flawed and unreliable at best. that makes us the bystander, upon whom the plot is being played. all we see in s4 is the plot – there is no denouement. that’s part of what makes s4 so unsatisfying. right after s4, one of my biggest criticisms of it was that it resolved nothing for either of the characters, that they were effectively situated exactly where they were in relation to one another as they were post-hlv. and now i see that was the point, because we’re only halfway through. we still need to wait for the denouement, and only after the denouement can we see what the point of the story truly is (which imo is going to be that they’re in LOVE) 

oh i should add that traditionally, bbc sherlock places the series’ “denouement” (which is a term i’m using very loosely here to mean explanation of how they get out of whatever mess) in the first episode of the next series. the explanation of s1, of how john and sherlock live to fight moriarty, is in asib. the explanation of s2, of how sherlock survives to come back, is in teh. but the mess of s3, that being, sherlock’ self-sacrifice for john and mary’s benefit, fails to address mary’s recently role as would-be murderer and gets explained in a scene where mark as creator says “this is a lie. doctored footage.” 

which means we’re still waiting for the truth, which will probably be in the first episode of the next series.