I get that Moriarty and Irene Adler are fascinating characters given so little canon (both appear in only one story) so it makes sense that remakes always want to throw them together but listen. Listen. Irene Adler beat Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock Holmes beat James Moriarty. Therefore, Irene Adler should be able to beat James Moriarty. So why is she always working for him?
And it may not be important, at all, but I woke up thinking about ASiB, and was wondering-
How did Irene know about Sherlock x-raying her phone when it was only Sherlock and Molly that were present as he did it?
Molly is the common denominator here… thanks for bringing this to my attention Moni!
HMMMMMM!
Molly – still waters run deep – if Jim is ‘the virus’ – and they dated, how are we to know that Molly isn’t corrupted? Especially if she thought he was gay, but then came to the realisation that perhaps he isn’t with the Irene business. (A wrong conclusion – imho – but she is a John mirror). I think the ‘hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned’ trope is grossly overused, but it’s not like the writers are precisely revolutionary in their handling of female characters.
yeah, we have wondered before whether there is still some connection between molly and jim… there are definitely things one could point to as indications, and this is one, which i hadn’t twigged on before this post.
I promise a full meta on The Valley of Fear eventually just as soon as I figure it out, but for the moment, here’s a thing I noticed recently, thanks to an episode of BBC Radio 3′s Arts and Ideas podcast, Unfinished Art and Literature. The episode begins with a brief discussion of Coleridge’s preface to a 1797 collection of his poems, which included “Kubla Khan: A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment”. The poem represents two layers of unreality, because it describes a dream within an opium hallucination. It’s a fragmentbecause Coleridge was interrupted (he tells us in the preface) while writing it. This importantly rude person was a man from Porlock.
The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least
of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid
confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three
hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the
images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the
correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of
effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct
recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly
and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this
moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from
Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his
room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he
still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of
the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered
lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the
surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without
the after restoration of the latter! (preface to Kubla Khan)
“I have to go back. I was nearly there, I nearly had it!” (The Abominable Bride)
For this reason, “the person from Porlock” has come to symbolize the interruption of a creative work. But, of course, the man from Porlock was Coleridge’s own invention. He interrupted himself deliberately, as part of the creative work.
@devoursjohnlock thank you so much for this! The mysterious Porlock, sounding an alarm of murder via ciphers; another case of a bashed-in head and mistaken identity. The intent of drawing a connection to The Adventure of the Dancing Man (Watson) and TBB (Mofftiss)is obvious, and we were presented with the actual dancing man ciphers at the end of TFP – it would seem that Sherlock was begging us to connect the dots between TBB, DANC, TFP and ACD’s The Final Problem.
Two additional stories came to mind for me – Elise Patrick in DANC reminded me a lot of Edward in The Man with the Watches because of the duo-gender in name and appearance; and your “Kubla Khan: A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment” to Joyce-Armstrong Fragment from ACD’s The Horror of the Heights (which read like a companion piece to The Valley of Fear – I’ve discussed it a bit in Stoppage Time). It’s funny you mentioned Greek E… the fifth letter, and in the system of Greek numerals it has the value five, derived from the Phoenician letter He – which is the symbol for helium, yes, the red balloon John. It would seem that, once again, we might be arriving at the same place through very different paths.
But back to Porlock in Sherlock – at first, I thought each code names represents one person in the room, but I no longer believe that’s the case. The characters we came to know in their “meatspace” were definitely playing different roles in series 4. But why? Por, means portrait per Oxford Dictionary [x] – whose portrait, or disguise, “lock” in place that we are supposed to see through?
Who exactly is/was Irene Adler? The answer likely lies within The King of Bohemia. I think…… there’s some truth in Douglas Adams’ 6 Bowie-Watson description, and more to be discovered in the honorary title of THE woman (which I won’t get into for now because this is still 911 territory if you know what I mean, haha).
I wanted to post this, a long time ago, but one of the main fandom friends that I used to talk to about the inter-weaving of Myths and Astrology in BBC Sherlock left ( I miss you @longsnowmoon5!), so I shelved it. Previously, I toyed with the idea of Mycroft as Saturn. That was fun. In A Scandal In Belgravia, Aphrodite Venus, the Empress Tarot, herself, is reincarnated as Irene, who really lived up to the myth, not only coming between Sherlock and John, but also being a strong catalyst for attempting to bring their romantic relationship to the surface. Venus, the planetary body, representative of Love, is known by certain motifs: I will go through them here.
“What are you going to wear?” asks Kate. “My Battle Dress.” answers Irene. “Lucky Boy!” Irene then ask for a lip color in the shade of Blood.
This is awesome @tendergingergirl – Irene Adler is more important to the romantic relationship of Holmes and Watson in ACD canon than I ever realized. She is indeed THE woman, her gender is her disguise and battle dress, or vatican cameo, and she’s the invert of every M characters. I think we’ll see why Sherlock Holmes from being the witness-in-disguise to Irene Adler’s wedding in ACD canon, to being John Watson’s best-man-in-battle-dress in TSoT. Perhaps The 7th Chronical is foreshadowing what’s to come, because:
We’ve been stuck on “the sixth” for a while now – The Six Thatcher, a total of six episodes after TEH (including TAB). “The Big Rat. Rat Number One.” The Giant Rat of Sumatra “a story for which the world is not yet prepared” according to Holmes………
In Twilight, Bella has absolutely no qualities that make her interesting as a character. She’s shown to have very little personality, in the books or onscreen, and is only made “interesting” (a relative term here) via the inclusion of her sparkly, abusive boyfriend. It feeds into the harmful mentality of adolescent girls that you need a significant other in order to find fulfillment, particularly if he’s significantly older and likes to watch you sleep. Yikes.
Examples:
Bella is welcomed to school by a friendly, extroverted girl and given a place to sit amongst her and her friends. Despite this girl’s kindness, Bella shrugs her off as a stereotypical shallow cheerleader, and spends her time staring wistfully at the guy across the cafeteria from them. Once Edward becomes her official boyfriend, she immediately loses interest in her new friends as her life shifts its orbit to revolve completely around him.
How to avoid her:
Female characters are allowed to have lives outside of their significant others. They’re allowed to have friends, quirks, hobbies, and interests. Give them some.
The best fictional relationships are based off of characters who compliment each other, not one character who revolves around the other. Make sure your female character’s life does not centralize around her significant other.
Strong female characters don’t look down on other girls, even if they are outgoing cheerleaders. Being pasty and introverted doesn’t make you a better person, y’all – if it did, I’d be a decorated hero by now.
Give them aspirations besides getting an obsessive, much-older boyfriend. In fact, don’t give them an obsessive, much-older boyfriend at all – if you do want them to have a significant other, give them one who cares about their interests and accepts that they have lives and goals outside of them.
2. The Molly Hooper (i.e. the starry-eyed punching bag)
Who she is:
Like most things about BBC’s Sherlock, Molly was an amazing concept that went progressively downhill. I used to love her quiet tenacity and emotional intelligence, and was sure that with her strong basis as a character, she would overcome her infatuation with the titular Sherlock and find self-fulfillment. Nope!
Examples:
She remained stubbornly infatuated over the course of five years with an ambiguously gay man who, en large, treated her badly, leading to her public humiliation with zero pertinence to the plot or resolution. Moreover, her infatuation with Sherlock quickly usurped almost all of her other characteristics, leading her to an increasingly immature characterization that was difficult to relate to.
How to avoid her:
By all means, please write female characters who are quiet, kind, and unassuming (a female character does not, contrary to popular belief, need to be rambunctious, callous, or violent to be “strong”) but remember than none of these traits need to make the character a pushover. Let them stand their ground.
Similarly, attraction to men (or anyone, for that matter) does not invalidate a female character’s strength. Just be sure she values herself more than their attention.
As I said earlier, don’t be afraid to make characters who are gentle and soft-spoken, but be wary of making them “childlike,” or giving them an infantile, emotionally characterization.
My best advice for writing gentle, soft-spoken, unassuming women would actually to look to male characters in the media fitting this description; since male characters are rarely infantilized as much as women are by popular media, you’ll get a much better idea of what a well-rounded character looks like.
3. The Irene Adler (i.e. the defanged badass)
Who she is:
Yup, another one of the BBC Sherlock women, among whom only Mrs. Hudson seemed to come through with her dignity and characterization intact. In the books, Irene and Sherlock have absolutely zero romantic connotations, only bonded via Sherlock’s irritation and respect with her substantial intelligence. In the show, it’s a different story entirely.
Examples:
Irene is a badass character who’s turned into a teary-eyed Damsel in Distress via her uncontrollable love for the show’s male lead. It doesn’t help matters that she’s a self-proclaimed lesbian who falls in love with a man, which, unless you’re a woman who loves women yourself and writing about a character realizing she’s bi/pansexual, I would recommend against doing under any circumstances. She ends up being defeated and subsequently rescued by Sherlock – a far cry from her defeat of him in the books.
How to avoid her:
If you’re writing a badass female character, allowher to actually be badass, and allow her to actually show it throughout your work as opposed to just hearing other characters say it. And one punch or kick isn’t enough, either: I want to see this chick jump out of planes.
That said, “badass” does not equal emotionally callous. It doesn’t bother me that Moffat showed Irene having feelings for someone else, what bothers me is how he went about it.
When writing a character who’s shown to be attracted to more than one gender, just say she’s bisexual. Pansexual. Whatever, just don’t call her straight/gay depending on the situation she’s in. Jesus.
4. The Becky (i.e. the comedic rapist)
Who she is:
Most people who know me can vouch for my adoration of Supernatural, but it definitely has its problems: it’s not as diverse as it could be, its treatment of women is subpar, and yes, there is some thinly veiled sexual violence: all three of its leading characters have dealt with it at one point of another (Dean is routinely groped by female demons, a virginal Castiel was sexually taken advantage of by a disguised reaper, and the whole concept of sex under demonic possession is iffy to say the least.) It’s rarely ever addressed afterwards, and is commonly used for comedic fodder. Possibly the most quintessential example of this is Becky.
Examples:
Becky abducts Sam, ties him to the bed, and kisses him against his will. She then drugs him, albeit with a love potion, and is implied to have had sex with him under its influence.
How to avoid her:
Male rape isn’t funny, y’all. Media still takes rape against women a lot more seriously than rape against men, particularly female-on-male rape, and I can assure you its not.
Educate yourself on statistics for male sexual assault: approximately thirty-eight percent of sexual violence survivors are male, for example, and approximately one in sixteen male college students has reported to have experienced sexual assault.
Moreover, be aware that forty-six percent of all instances of male rape have a female perpetrator.
In other words, treat themes of sexual assault against men as seriously as you would treat themes of sexual assault against women.
5. The Movie Hermione (i.e. the flawless superhuman)
Who she is:
Okay, in and of herself, Movie Hermione is amazing: she’s beautiful, intelligent, and heroic, as well as possibly the most useful character of the franchise. She only bothers me in context of the fact that she takes away everything I loved most about Book Hermoine, and everything I loved about Book Ron, too.
Examples:
Book Hermione was beautiful, but not conventionally: she had big, poofy curls, big teeth, and didn’t put a lot of effort into maintaining her appearance. Movie Hermione looks effortlessly flawless, all the time. Book Hermione was intelligent, but also loud, abrasive, and unintentionally annoying when talking about her interests (which meant a lot to me, because as a kid on the Asperger’s spectrum, I frequently was/am that way myself – it was nice to see a character struggling with the same traits). She was also allowed to have flaws, such as struggling to keep up with academia, and being terrified of failure.
Movie Hermione also took all of Ron’s redeeming qualities, and everything that made him compliment her as a couple: his street smarts used to compliment her academic intelligence, for example, staying calm while she panicked in the Philosopher’s Stone when they were being overcome with vines. He also stood up for her in the books against Snape, as opposed to the jerkish “he’s right, you know.”
How to avoid her:
Allow your female characters to have flaws, as much so as any well-rounded male character. Just be sure to counterbalance them with a suitable amount of redeeming qualities. This will make your female character well-rounded, dynamic, and easy to get invested in.
There’s no reason for your female characters to always look perfect. Sure, they can be stunningly gorgeous (particularly if their appearance is important to them), but it’s physical imperfections that make characters fun to imagine: Harry’s scar and wild hair, for example. Female characters are no different.
If you’re writing a female character to have an eventual love interest, allow their personalities to compliment one another. Allow the love interest to have qualities that the female character is lacking, so that they can compliment one another and have better chemistry.
Basically, write your female characters as people.
God willing, I will be publishing essays like this approximately every Friday, so be sure to follow my blog and stay tuned for future writing advice and observations!
J: “And if my deduction is right, you’re going to be honest and tell me, ok?”
S: “Ok, though I should mention […]”
J: “Happy birthday.”
S: “Thank you, John. That’s… very kind of you.”
J: “Never knew when your birthday was.”
S: “Now you do.”
Sherlock refrained from pointing out John’s deduction was wrong! A touching “fix” to the original stories. Like in Doyle, though, Sherlock took an excuse to lengthen John’s visit. Mycroft will wish Sherlock “happy birthday” in another episode, and John will call Sherlock a cock.
THE LYING DETECTIVE, LOL
the inspiration for the entire episode was derived from two short lines of dialogue. phenomenal.
Haha.
Ahaha, omg, I love this!
There are two things about this moment I find fascinating. 1) John is lying. He spent two years staring at Sherlock’s gravestone where it clearly has his birthdate on it and 2) this is next level trashcan John. Apparently, he thinks that Irene can only possibly ever text Sherlock on ‘official’ dates- birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s. Heaven forbid he think she would randomly text Sherlock on a Tuesday for no reason. If he allowed himself to think that he will have an aneurysm now everytime Sherlock’s phone chimes.
I hate how right you probably are. DAMNIT
For anyone wondering: the headstone has a date on the bottom. You can see it in a bts photo from Arwel. They chose not to show it in the episodes but it is there. Also this makes a lot of sense!
I’ve included who I consider the six ‘main’ villains above. There’s others you could argue for – Hope, Shan, Norbury, etc – but I think these six are relatively uncontroversial picks. Some of them have multi-episode arcs (Moriarty, Mary, Magnussen, Eurus) while Irene is mentioned several times after her appearance and Smith, while only a single-episode villain like Hope or Shan, seems to loom somewhat larger. Anyway, y’all are welcome to consider other villains. I’m going to look for patterns in these six.
Here’s what I’ve got:
Male villains on BBC Sherlock are the heads of organizations. Female villains on BBC Sherlock are lone wolves.
Magnussen and Smith have business empires. They own physical buildings and have visible entourages. Moriarty’s got a criminal empire. His resources are a bit less visible but we know he’s got half a dozen snipers at the swimming pool, and we meet several members of his network. Moriarty, Magnussen and Smith display their power not just by threatening but by dominating other dangerous and powerful people. They have many people “under their thumb”.
What about our female villains? Irene has a network of clients which she uses to protect herself. Mary used to have a small team of agents she considered her peers, and that team would take on clients together. Eurus has (ugh) an indeterminate number of people brainwashed into obeying her every whim. It’s worth noting here that even though Irene is a dominatrix, she exercises her power not by dominating but by manipulating (”I know what he likes”). Eurus does the same: she convinces people to do her will. Mary, too, exercises power by manipulating, although it’s not clear how much she did so as an active assassin (as opposed to manipulating Sherlock and John in order to maintain her cover).
We can tell that our female villains are qualitatively less powerful than our male villains by the fact the latter can frequently be found threatening the former. Moriarty threatens to turn Irene into shoes, and gives her instructions on how to manipulate Sherlock. Magnussen threatens Mary convincingly enough that she resorts to using force to answer him. And although Eurus is actually (magically!) more powerful than anyone else, in TLD we see her pretending to be a character under grave threat from Smith.
By making their female villains qualitatively less powerful, the writers open the door for another gendered pattern.
Male villains on BBC Sherlock cannot be forgiven for their crimes. Female villains on BBC Sherlock are always forgiven.
Sherlock shoots Magnussen because he can see no other way to end the threat he poses. Culverton Smith is arrested and presumably imprisoned. Moriarty is put on trial, escapes, and kills himself later on the rooftop at Bart’s. All three end up imprisoned or dead.
Now, Mary ends up dead just like Moriarty. But unlike Moriarty, Sherlock’s doing everything he can to protect her, and there’s no discussion of her going on trial for her crimes. And like Culverton Smith, Eurus ends up imprisoned. But Eurus started the show imprisoned, and so it doesn’t actually pose a meaningful barrier to her freedom, or the threat she poses if she decides that a hug from Sherlock hasn’t actually Quieted Her Forever.
On a surface level, Mary and Eurus have the same ends as Moriarty and Smith. But on a character level, it’s entirely different: Mary and Eurus are fundamentally forgiven for the people they’ve killed and the wrongs they’ve done, where Moriarty and Smith aren’t.
Irene, obviously, is forgiven too. Sherlock saves her from execution, but he executes Magnussen himself. Quite a difference.
Male villains on BBC Sherlock do not have personal relationships with Sherlock and John. Female villains on BBC Sherlock do have personal relationships with Sherlock and John.
This one is less universally true. If we say that Irene has a relationship with Sherlock because she’s allegedly in love with him, then we must say the same for Moriarty as well – even moreso, since Moriarty seems even more obsessed.
But the other four villains bear out the pattern well. Mary is John’s wife, Eurus is Sherlock’s sister. Neither Magnussen nor Smith have any relationship to Sherlock or John at all – in fact, Sherlock has to fake a relationship to Magnussen’s secretary to get close to him.
The personalization of female villains on BBC Sherlock can also be seen in how they’re referred to: Moriarty, Magnussen, Smith; Irene, Mary, Eurus.
This ties into the previous two observations. It’s easier to tell a story about forgiveness when the villain in question has a personal relationship with the protagonist. And that personal relationship can be a real source of threat, in the absence of the drama that being ‘the most dangerous, the most despicable human being’ can provide.
*
When I look at these patterns, I see an inability to conceive of women as being powerful or threatening in the ways traditionally reserved for men. I was so excited when for a hot second I thought we were getting a Lady Smallwood villain reveal, because Lady Smallwood has that type of traditionally male power. But instead she remains a nonthreatening bit player, and the villain is Norbury – another lone wolf ushered quickly off the stage.
I actually don’t fault the writers that much for falling into these patterns. A lot of writers do. What bothers me is when they try to pass themselves off as feminist visionaries for having made the ‘Holmes brother’ into a sister or turning Mary Morstan into an assassin. No, sorry, your work is a bog-standard reflection of the sexist culture from which you come – as exemplified by your villains.
I remember when I was reading that story as a kid, Sherlock goes on and on about The Woman, the only one who ever beat him, and you’re thinking, he’s had better villains than this. And then you click: he fancies her, doesn’t he? That’s what it’s about.
In the original stories, Adler wasn’t a plot device, she was the adversary in the mystery that matched wits with Holmes, outsmarted him, and that he respects greatly at the end. While she’s still a character in the story, she doesn’t exist for Holmes, and she comes up with a solution to the dilemma that’s actually superior to his.
But Moriarty existed purely as a device for Arthur Conan Doyle to get rid of Holmes. He had to create a reason for Holmes to be willing to sacrifice himself, so he created Moriarty who was given this big criminal past and was said to be super smart. The story itself really didn’t show him being particularly smart, and most of what sets him up is just told to us. At the end he ends up being tossed off a cliff by Holmes after Holmes has ruined his empire. He’s completely a plot device, his entire raison d’etre in the story is focused around Holmes, and to get ACD from point A to point B which is having Holmes die a hero’s death that hopefully the fans would accept. He wasn’t Lex Luthor, he was Doomsday.
Adler didn’t exist as a plot device, she didn’t revolve around Holmes, and she got what she wanted at the end. Moriarty existed just to facilitate Doyle getting rid of Holmes, everything he does in that story revolves around Holmes, and Holmes gets what HE wants at the end (even without Holmes coming back to life, it had already been established Holmes was prepared to die to get rid of Moriarty).
Yet in almost every adaptation, it’s the opposite. Adler is the plot device, she’s a romantic interest, she’s a hostage, she’s the fake out, she’s the bait, etc… and Moriarty is the active agent who is smarter than Holmes and outwits him (at least until he’s defeated) and that Holmes respects as an equal. Adler tends to exist for Holmes, revolves around Holmes, and Moriarty is the greater character with his own story.
The Moffat quote makes me wonder if many boys (him included) grew up reading A Scandal in Bohemia, rolling their eyes and going “stupid chick, he probably let her go just because he likes her, why else would he think she’s so great?” while reading the much less fleshed out Moriarty who Holmes defeats and going “WOW WHAT A COOL BRILLIANT DUDE! HE’S SO SMART AND AWESOME. WHAT A WORTHY FOE.“ Even though he’s not shown as being so, he’s just said to be so, but he’s a man and he captured the imaginations of boys reading the story, while she’s a woman and they fit her into a slot for women characters (and how women are seen in relation to men in society) and dismissed why she had won such profound respect from Holmes. So when they grew up and wrote the adaptations that now shape how people see these characters, their biases changed the way the characters were represented, and also the way people now see them.
As Sherlock gets up from his bed to check The Woman’s first text message we see a picture of Edgar Allan Poe behind him.
The woman, dressed all in black, wearing Sherlock’s coat, has come in to his room through his window, like a bird. She leaves his coat hanging on his door, like a dark figure silhouetted against its pale paint colour. From his coat will come a repetitive sound: her new text alert. This sound will confound Sherlock and he will ponder on who The Woman is and what she’s trying to say. Is she deeply wise or is she just speaking nonsense?
Sherlock and The Woman mirror each other throughout and here Sherlock mirrors her as The Raven, as well. Sherlock wears all black and looks like a bird when John puts him back in bed. Whatever The Woman says to Sherlock, as The Raven, he says to himself. She reflects back to him his own life, his own troubles.
In The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, a lonely man immerses himself in books and learning, hoping to forget a love lost. One night a bird comes into his room and repeats a single word, ‘Nevermore’. This is an unwelcome visitor, one who reminds him of the sweetness of love and the agony of loss.
Irene Adler’s text alert is repetitive, like The Raven’s answer. Her message is enigmatic, like his. Sherlock, like the main character in the poem is torn between finding it deeply meaningful and dismissing it as gibberish. In the end, The Woman serves to remind him of the love he tries to forget. He is really the one who’s said, ‘Nevermore’, because his, ‘Lenore’, is right there with him, literally coming into his room. In The Raven, a memory of Lenore sweeps over the narrator and he feels as if he can smell his beloved. This cruel trick he blames on The Raven. And like the Raven, the Woman brings John into Sherlock’s bedroom. She has drugged him into unconsciousness, this is what the narrator of The Raven longs for, he longs to forget, to be unconscious. And yet, this incident leads John to take care of Sherlock and to come into his lonely bedroom and remind him of the very person he is trying to forget.
The Woman’s message is, ‘Nevermore’, because that’s how Sherlock feels about his love. He will not risk getting hurt. "Alone protects me". This is one of the ways that Irene Adler challenges him. She reflects him back to himself so he must face his decision to shut down his heart. With her in his life, he can’t just keep pretending he’s not in love. His self-imposed prison is laid bare by her gaze: she, in her mysterious wisdom, like The Raven, sees all.
When the narrator of The Raven first thinks there’s someone at his door, he says, ‘Lenore!’, ‘Lenore!’. When Sherlock wakes up, he says, ‘John!’, ‘John!’. Then he sends John away, like the narrator sends away the memory of Lenore. It is easier to forget than to suffer over something that can never be. Except, eventually hope emerges and the narrator wants to know if he will ever see Lenore again. But, the Raven is hardcore and all he can say is, ‘Nevermore’.
So, he can never have her and he can never forget. This is his lot in life. But Sherlock’s Lenore is not no-more: he’s right there, next door. Sherlock can Scrooge his way out of this bind and now that The Woman has made him think about all this. I think she forces him to see that what he feels is real.
If Sherlock had resigned himself to never have John, this contrast between Lenore and his own beloved one would hope would have a positive effect on him. He can have his heaven with his beloved, because his beloved is there. Now, if only there were a way for him to confirm that John’s into him, too. Maybe The Raven’s got a message for John, too. He better follow him wherever he goes, just in case.
The first time that The Woman appears to John as The Raven is at her own window when she tells him that Sherlock has successfully ascertained her measurements. This is her first, ‘Nevermore’, to him. The soundtrack and her face tell us that this is bad news to John, this is reason to be jealous. She is perched with Sherlock’s dark coat on in the window and jumps out as if she could fly.
Irene’s text alert has an even more Raveny effect on John because he does not read her texts. All he has is that repetitive sound: to count, to wonder about, to obsess over. To John, that moan is literally, ‘Nevermore’, if he sees it as a sign that Sherlock is into The Woman or into women in general. Every time that John thinks Sherlock is receptive to this perceived seduction he hears a door closing. With every text, his jealousy expands and his hope shrinks. When he gets to confront The Raven, at Battersea, she says the opposite of, ‘Nevermore’, to him. She says, ‘You’re Lenore’, and he’s taken aback. And Sherlock is listening and he’s taken aback by John’s reaction because, when pressed, he does not deny it.
In The Raven the main character is just projecting onto his annoying visitor the things that are already on his mind. In reality, ‘Nevermore’, could be a sign of a million different things depending on what one may ask. The message he gets is one of doom because that’s already how he feels. The message that The-Woman-as-The-Raven gives to John and Sherlock is one of love and hope because that’s already how they feel.
Other Raven-like themes in ASiB include: the boomerang (‘another kind of flying thing’), the plane (‘the flight of the dead’) and Sherlock and Irene wearing either black or white almost exclusively. In some traditions white ravens as seen as messengers that later turn black. Sherlock wears a white sheet to Buckingham Palace before changing into an all-black outfit. When we meet Irene she’s coming home in a white dress. Later we will see her in Sherlock’s coat and in a black dress. In a furry coat she looks very raven-like, indeed, next to a very phallic set of lights, reflected in glass. She is two ravens, one who visits Sherlock and one who visits John.
The very last time we see her, she’s dressed entirely in black, head covered. This is as Raveny as she will look in the whole episode. Sherlock is her Raven, too. And while he did say, ‘Nevermore’, to her during the scene where he reveals her keycode, here, he proves himself to be a good bird and saves her, as her friend.
OMG thanks for pointing me to this meta @just-sort-of-happened – I love it so much! Irene Adler as Lenore and the Raven, an embodiment of the unattainable love and forbidden desire. I read the ending of ASiB a bit differently, though, more ominous – whether “the elephant in the room” happened, Sherlock, by joining Irene Alder once again dressed in all black, he decided the better story was to become the Raven himself. Instead of risking it all by being the other narrator with John by his side, he repeated to himself again and again: nevermore 😭 😭 😭 (kinda like Redbeard doesn’t it).
Thinking about series 4 in this context and given Arwel’s tweet during setlock – Billy the skull as the bust of Pallas, a symbol of wisdom but blinded by the “looking glass” the entire time; when Eurus said “play you” it was Irene’s theme – once again, the wheel turns and we are back at the end of ASiB: will Sherlock choose a different path or is it still locked around his feet?
John in the well was interesting too – as Poe seems to think of man “as a paradoxical well, a “reservoir,” not of possibilities but of limitations {x}.” I’m not sure if you’re checking on the @contact twitters, but I nearly fell out of my chair when they started quoting Keat’s Ode to a Nightingale… a different, more positive outcome awaits or creative fans strike again? Either way works for me I suppose!
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