Tag: john

sussexbound:

may-shepard:

northray:

may-shepard:

astudyinsavage:

obsessivelollipoplalala:

astudyinsavage:

I never understand when people deem a scene/etc in this show to be “unrealistic” when the characters don’t behave properly, and they extrapolate that to the scene being either a) bad writing, or b) not real (*pick a theory any theory*). 

Just because one “should” do something in a certain scenario doesn’t mean it’s unrealistic or bad writing or not real when they don’t. The rationale is always that because Sherlock and John ultimately love each other they’d never do anything to hurt the other. And, sorry, that’s just not realistic.

Absolutely. I hope I’m not hijacking here, but an example that immediately comes to mind is the infamous morgue scene. Now, I don’t know if that scene is real, because I like to keep my options open, but if it is, I don’t think it’s bad writing. I’ve argued since January that John losing his shit in that moment wasn’t unrealistic at *all* given the scenario, and just because someone doesn’t like it == trash. Every time I see “but John would never do that!!! Character assassination!!!” I just shake my head.

yes that scene in particular is one that gets talked about this way very often!! After it aired and there was no discussion about real/fake within s4 yet I think I defended it, not as “good” but as “not necessarily out of character.” 

It’s a perfect example of this tendency of some people to demand morality, and when they don’t get it, to call it “bad writing” or use it as a clue that the scene is necessarily fake. I’m inclined to think it is fake* but the idea that “it’s unrealistic for nice John who loves Sherlock to act that way” is not sufficient evidence to prove it’s fake. Maybe John did behave that way. Maybe John felt a lot things because of it, maybe he learned something, maybe he refused to deal with it. We don’t know; what we do know is that we were presented with that scene so the more important question in terms of figuring out this show, is what does that tell us. Like, I don’t wanna try to answer that specifically here, but YEAH that scene is a great example!

*… in a general sense, in that s4 is a fiction that is likely based off certain real (in-universe) events similar to the way that the original ACD stories functioned, so determining it as “real” or “fake” is kind of irrelevant. That’s my take on it atm.

Thanks for this discussion. I ended up writing an entire meta that argues that John’s behaviour in that scene might not have been his choice, but I was just following the intertext–reading tld in connection with Doyle’s The Parasite. I don’t need that scene to be fake, but I do think that if we read it as real, or real-ish, it could (and should) cause some reconsideration of past understandings of John’s character, rather than simply making us wring our hands and proclaim it can’t be.

Maybe John isn’t the steady hand that supports Sherlock. Maybe he’s never been. Maybe he’s only ever been hanging on by a thread. Maybe he’s always hated himself. Maybe he’s never been able to manage his feelings. Maybe he still can’t. All of that is consistent with John as I understand him, and consistent with that awful scene, too.

I don’t like that scene. I don’t like how hard it was for people. I think it is textually undermotivated. But I don’t think it’s completely out of character.

@obsessivelollipoplalala

Weirdly, I actually was just going through my old fics and I found one where I wrote a scene where John beats Sherlock up in Molly’s morgue after Mary dies. (I know, right?) 

When I wrote it, it didn’t feel out of character, but that’s probably because:

1) John was unaware that Sherlock was alive. Plus, he had come to terms with his feelings for Sherlock and learned to love someone else, whom he married; and 

2) John was in shock. Mary is brutally murdered (stabbed not shot, tho) and dies in John’s arms. Sherlock is on his way back to protect Mary and John, having just learned of the threat to them…but he is too late. He sees Mary die and does not heed anyone’s advice that this is hardly the time to announce to John that he is alive. He goes to the morgue and, well, you get the idea.

For me, John’s violent reaction felt realistic in this fic because the relationship between John and Mary had some genuine affection–the proportion of his grief had at least some context. He lashes out in fear and horror and probably because of PTSD, but he is immediately remorseful. And then, yeah, there is a cooling off period where he tries to reconcile himself to Sherlock being alive (and his anger about that), his guilt over Mary’s death…and his guilt that he now knows for sure that while he loved his wife, he will always love Sherlock more.

I just feel like genuine emotion was completely missing from the build-up in T6T, so John’s response in TLD seems petulant and petty and cruel.

But maybe that’s just me.

Wow? Wow. That is really interesting.

When I say I think the morgue scene is undermotivated, this is the kind of emotional punch I feel should have been there, but wasn’t. We’re asked to fill in the gaps, as we were with a bunch of other incidents in s4, which is why it felt flat, and was more than a bit of an affront. Fiction writing 101.

What’s the fic?

For me it is not the beating in the morgue that felt unrealistic, or out of character it was the fact that John was never shown to feel or express any real remorse for it.  Neither was the damage that it did their relationship addressed.  The most that happened was that John told Sherlock that he recognised that Mary’s death wasn’t Sherlock’s fault.  The hug was one sided, and was Sherlock comforting John’s grief which was textually due his having cheated on Mary.  

I have always written John as deeply troubled, emotionally repressed, and with an ever simmering undercurrent of violence. However, in S1 – S3 I think it is pretty clear that John knows that about himself, and is conflicted.  He craves that adrenaline.  He gets some sort of hit from the violence, but he is also terrified of it taking over, of deviating too far from the norm, of becoming some dark version of himself that he fights very hard to keep covered up.

So TLD gave us John succumbing to his worst fears, losing control, and beating Sherlock to a pulp, but then what…?  There was no satisfying follow through for the audience.  Sherlock comforted (even excused) John, but John did nothing in return.  And to me THAT is what is bad writing.  THAT is what is out of character.  Not only was the scene, as @may-shepard says, ‘under-motivated’ (YES!) in the first place, but then the audience was also left to just assume that John and Sherlock somehow sorted it all out prior to TFP.  As a viewer that is horribly unsatisfying.

And then, I think that people who just love ACD canon, Granada Holmes, or really any other adaptation that tries to stick close to canon have every right to cry ‘character assassination’.  ACD’s Watson never would have done such a thing.  And until HLV I don’t think it was really evident just how far these writers were planning to stray from canon.  

Finally, in my opinion, if the only way a vast percentage of your most passionate viewers can make sense of your narrative is to assume a great portion of it is fake, then that alone is probably a good indicator that your writing went astray at some point.  It’s saying that S4 feels so divergent from everything that came before it that it is jarring and confusing to the audience.  They can’t make sense of it, so they have to dismiss it, or explain it away.