In BB, we see that Sherlock is not blind to his attractions, like Sebastian, but he is mute. Like Ariel from little Mermaid he has given up his voice in order to be close to the guy he likes.
He sends what he thinks are obvious hints to John and John does not understand them.
*
Lends him his bank card.
“Take my card”.
* Introduces him as, ‘friend’, after only one case together. This is the same guy that will say he has no friends in HoB.
“This is my friend, John Watson”.
*
Revisits an earlier conversation where John was worried. Since John doesn’t understand that he interrupted him asking for money to take a job for him to make him money, he brings up the conversation that was cut short. Though he must know what, ‘those letters’, were as they looked like this: "Overdue" in big red letters.
“What about this morning?”
“Those letters you were looking at”. ‘Bills’.
“He was being threatened”. ’…and not by the gas company’.
So, John is stressed about the bills. Sherlock has brought this up. Now, the, ‘what were those letters’, bit is an excuse to ask John about his problems. He obviously knows what the problem is but he’s giving John a chance to talk about what’s on his mind.
Also at Van Coon’s Sherlock feels out John’s ability to read between the lines:
“Those symbols at the bank, the graffiti”
“Why were they put there?”
‘Some sort of code?’
“Obviously”.
“Why were they painted?”
“If you wanted to communicate, why not use email?”
‘Maybe he wasn’t answering’.
“Oh, good, you follow”.
‘mmm, no’.
(The theme here is when there’s no way to communicate, you use code. This refers to Sherlock the man and the show, as well).
“what kind of message would everyone try to avoid?” (in the text, a death threat, in the subtext, a message that someone is interested in you. Fear of falling in love. Because death = falling in love, on this show).
*undertands neither text nor subtext, here*
Sherlock switches to conversation about the bills.
*
Sherlock trusts him to do his own leg of the investigation:
*
Tells him to go on a date with him instead of Sarah:
*
Saves him from Shan. Comforts Sarah:
*
We see that he has no voice throughout the show but it’s made into a neat visual, here. This is a line he paints there: his silence is self-imposed.This clue is for us from the showrunners:
*
Finally, he uses the cypher paint used to express how he feels now that John is around:
*
By the beginning of GG, he’s had enough of throwing out clues and feeling like his feelings aren’t reciprocated: hence, the shooting.
*
*
*
P.S. Sherlock is especially silent with Sebastian in this bathroom scene. He lets John do most of the talking and when he tells him off, Sherlock lets him have the last word. Very telling: a man who doesn’t know Lestrade’s first name after untold years of friendship, calls this man, ‘Seb’, here. And one who, according to John, always has the last word, lets this man have it. Sherlock is only unable to speak when it comes to telling someone that he has romantic feelings for them.
what a treat to revisit your back catalog and find this gem!
Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the johnlock conspiracy is true. Let’s assume Mark & Steven have been planning it from the beginning, and want it to be the biggest gay relationship reveal to date.
I know the common theory is that both Ben and Martin have known since casting, and that their “acting choices” throughout the show reflect that they have been given this information. In this meta I’m going to offer an alternative possibility.
If tjlc is true, Mofftiss has good reason not tell Martin Freeman about it. Even if Johnlock is endgame, at this point, Martin might still not know.
During the s4 CC Panel in 2016, the producers discussed withholding information from their actors in order to keep from revealing too much of the twist too soon. In this case, it was in regard to the Mary twist in HLV. Amanda Abbington was not informed that Mary would be revealed to be an assassin until the last possible moment. They kept key information about Mary’s character from Amanda for as long as they could in order to influence her performance.
Sue Vertue said [to Amanda]:
“It’s quite good though that you didn’t know number three.”
Amanda says:
“Absolutely. I would have played it differently had I known that that was the outcome in episode three. I would’ve played her with more of an edge and more…knowing. But the beauty of [me] not knowing was that you thought, oh, she’s a real mild-mannered, very sweet, charming character, and actually she was ruthless.”
Mark Gatiss says:
“…And eventually I said to him [unnamed actor], ‘pretend you know nothing.’ It is actually easier when you’re trying to disguise yourself, rather than playing the result… It’s better not to know, because then you don’t present anything, and then we don’t give anything away to the audience. There are no tells.”
Cumberbatch has to know something, given the fact that they’ve been having him play a lovesick puppy:
They clearly want to communicate Sherlock’s feelings to the audience. They want those ‘tells’. They’re clues for us. Maybe Ben doesn’t know whether or not Sherlock’s feelings are bound to be requited, but he’s clearly been told that Sherlock has some sort of romantic feelings for John. Sherlock pining over his lost love was the focal point for s3. In fact, Mofftiss might have even told him that Sherlock’s feelings wouldn’t be requited, that they will remain as unspoken subtext, same as Sherlock’s sexuality. That way, Ben expresses a specific sort of emotion that translates to, ‘what if, woulda coulda shoulda, but it’s for the best and I’ll suffer in silence long beyond my dying day’. You know, typical, self-sacrificing, pining Sherlock.
The London Underground in The Empty Hearse: Part 1 – Basics of the Underground
I love the tube almost as much as I love Sherlock Holmes, and so the London Underground plot line in TEH is super interesting for me – especially because it’s full of tube-based plot holes and inaccuracies! I’m really excited to combine these two fields of interest in some analytical posts. This series may help non-Londoners if you’re writing fic about the tube, or you may just find it interesting as there’s lots of cool trivia about the tube and London in it, and if that’s not for you, there’s also a lot of pretty screenshots of John and Sherlock coming up. Something for everyone!
I’m going to go through chronologically in a series of posts, pointing out things that people not familiar with the tube system may have missed, some insight into how they filmed these scenes, and a few bits of meta and headcanons we can get from this information, as well as laugh at a couple of silly plot mistakes. Feel free to message me if there’s anything specific you want to know, I love talking about this topic. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform; this hype train is ready to leave!
This first section pre-games may writing on TEH with some basics of the tube system. If you’re familiar with the tube system, you probably don’t need to read this, but feel free to anyway, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, live your dreams, but here’s you’re warning that this section isn’t really focussed on Sherlock.
Lines
The tube network has 11 official lines, but this is hotly debated amongst the TFL (Transport for London) fandom. Yes, there is such a thing. It’s mostly middle aged men. I’m very out of place there. Without going into deep fandom politics, there are other parts of the transport network which are on the tube map which aren’t underground lines, like the Docklands Light Railway (self-driving overground suburban trains), the London Overground (like the underground, but…overground) and the Croydon tram network. Don’t get bogged down with those, they aren’t as fun because they aren’t old and in tunnels.
The actual tube lines all have a line name and colour for identification. Here’s some info and stereotypes about each line:
Bakerloo line – Brown – Harrow and Wealdstone to Elephant and Castle
If your grandpa was a tube line, he’d be the bakerloo. Slow, clunky and old, with lots of war stories. He’s trying his best, but it’s not surprising that he sometimes takes the afternoon off.
Central line – Red – Epping to Ealing Broadway/West Ruislip
In the summer, this line is as hot as satan’s crotch, and just as unpleasant. In winter it can be a pleasant refuge from the cold.
Circle line – Yellow – It’s a circle… almost. More like a spiral since it was extended to Hammersmith.
Tourist line. You can’t get on a circle line train without seeing a London guidebook or someone holding a tube map upside down and looking confused.
District line – Green – Where doesn’t this line go? Upminster to Wimbledon/Richmond/Ealing Broadway/Kensington (Olympia)
Take the district line to go the same places as the circle line but avoid the tourists.
Hammersmith & City line – Pink – Hammersmith to Barking
No one even takes this line, idk. They probably got on it by accident.
Jubilee line – Grey – Stanmore to Stratford
BUSINESS MEN AT BANKS AT CANARY WHARF IN SUITS DOING THEIR SERIOUS BUSINESS COMMUTING TO WORK WHERE THEY DO BUSINESS
Metropolitan line – Purple – Aldgate to Amersham/Chesham/Watford/Uxbridge
This line goes all the way to zone 9, where the fuck. It’s more like a commuter train, not really used to get around London itself.
Northern line – Black – Morden to Edgware/Mill Hill East/High Barnet
Just a line. It’s chill.
Piccadilly line – Dark Blue – Cockfosters (ha) to Uxbridge/Heathrow Terminal 5
If you aren’t a true Londoner you take the tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden, costing you like £3 for a 5 minute walk. This line is famously unreliable, there was a famous incident a couple of years back where leaves on the track broke all the trains.
Victoria line – Light Blue – Walthamstow Central to Brixton
Fast speedy zoom zoom line!
Waterloo & City line – Turquoise – Waterloo to Bank
This line just shuttles between these two stations. What even is the point.
General Information
Zones are how prices are decided, zone one is central London, the higher the zone number the further into the suburbs.
Station layouts are generally made up of a surface building, a ticket-barrier, and escalators or lifts down to platform level, where there are corridors leading to different platforms and trains.
Fares are paid through contactless card, Oyster card (pre-payment cards, you load them up with money at stations) or occasionally paper tickets, although (contrary to where you might see either use in TBB) most Londoners would use Oyster or contactless.
Trains are different for each line; generally the lines use all the same trains.
The tube network has more overground track than underground; in central London the tube runs underground, but in the outskirts the lines tend to emerge into the open.
Trains usually run every 2-3 minutes, from about 4am to 1am. Some lines run 24 hours on weekends, the Night Tube. Message me if you want more info on that because it’s complicated and unless you need to know about it for an actual reason, it’s not interesting.
Rush hour/busiest times are approximately 7:30-9:00am and 5:00-6:30pm.
The key etiquette rule of the tube: never make eye contact and never speak to people if it can be avoided at any cost.
Next time: John takes the tube to Baker Street. Can we work out where abouts in London John lives with Mary?
Tag stash: tagging a few people who have shown interest in this topic in the past, message me if you want in/out. There’s about 5 more posts on this to come, because I didn’t want it to be one ridiculously long thing…
I figured it was time to make a handy reference guide to the metas I’ve written in this fandom. I’ll keep this updated and post the link in my blog description.
Sherlock and Paradise Lost – part i, part ii, part iii A collage of verse and images illustrating the parallels between the texts.
The Missing Reichenbach Solution Will we ever find out what “really” happened? First in a series of
three metas approaching S3 from a deconstructionist perspective.
Deerstalkers and Doppelgangers Will the real Sherlock Holmes please stand up? Second in a series of
three metas approaching S3 from a deconstructionist perspective.
The Reconstruction of Sherlock Holmes Sherlock critiques performativity. Third in a series of three metas approaching S3 from a deconstructionist perspective.
Molly Hooper and The Science of Attraction Molly
Hooper is conducting a series of scientific experiments on Sherlock
Holmes. I imagine what her lab notebook might look like.
Feminism and Film Studies A response to a very interesting ask about how to read 70s feminism in a
contemporary context. Only tangentially Sherlockian, though.
I was going through my Torchwood tag because I thought it might be salutary to remind those coping with the disappointment of “The Final Problem” that the BBC has in fact already Gone There. Torchwood was basically Russell T. Davies’s Doctor Who fanfic and there were queer sexual encounters galore on it, including a canon m/m relationship between the protagonist and his second in command. It struggled from the get-go; there were only two ‘regular’ seasons, followed by a miniseries (”Children of Earth”) and a fourth season produced for Starz with a completely different setting and almost completely different cast. Now, there are a lot of reasons why Torchwood might have struggled that have nothing at all to do with the sex, the main one being that the first season was very uneven and included several episodes which were really, REALLY bad. But I digress.
My point was, I found this: “Me and my male showrunners.” It is an in-depth consideration of the question: why, at my advanced age and with my many adult responsibilities, am I still getting so pissed off, all the time, at the men who run my shows?
The bottom line is: it comes down to self-indulgence. What really makes me angry is when the showrunners start treating the show as purely a vehicle for their own fantasies, without taking into consideration not only standards and taste, but the labor of everyone who puts the show together. Sherlock is what it is in large part because of the extraordinary cast and the equally extraordinary production team. When you are surrounded by this much talent, you ought to feel yourself duty bound to give them material that is worthy of it. And I submit that in “The Final Problem” that is definitely not what happened.
I was listening to a playlist of classical music when a certain piece caught my attention: Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. It immediately reminded me of Mary’s perfume, so i thought….why not? there’s always subtext and hidden messages in this show, let’s do some digging and see what we find out. Well, i’m pleased to say that after a brief research i was able to come up with some pretty interesting stuff.
Actually, this song was inspired by a poem named (guess what) ‘Clair de Lune’ written by Paul Verlaine. Originally in french, here is the english translation (not made by me):
“The poem Claire de Lune by Paul Verlaine consists of three stanzas where the poet takes the readers through a journey where he gets in touch his soul, with the hopes of finding himself. Translated to English, the name of the poem means ‘Moonlight’. The poet does an intense soul searching under the moonlight where he has created another superficial universe for himself where he associates his soul to a picturesque landscape. He invites all kinds of distractions to feed his soulin the form of masquerades, singing and dancing. The poet talks about his imaginative distractions, especially in lines 2-4, where he mentions ‘playing the lute’ and being ‘sad beneath their fanciful costume’.
In the second stanza the poet dedicates the whole to ease his soul with the sound of melody. The lines ‘singing together in a minor key’, and ‘their song melts into the lunar beam’ reflecthis soul connecting his imaginations under the moonlight with his aching for melody.”
The way i see it, this is totally John after Sherlock’s “death”. As we know, John was completely devastated. Understandable, since before meeting him, he was a loner with no purpose and, most likely, with suicidal tendencies, who didn’t have any kind of happiness. Sherlock gave him life again, and with that gone, John seemed to think he was back at stake zero.
Therefore, it is safe to assume that Mary was a safe scape, a “distraction to feed his soul” after his world had been torned apart. They explicitly acknowledge in the show that Mary was the best thing that could’ve happened to him in that time. Either you like her or not, it’s undeniable that she was vital for John’s sanity. He “created another superficial universe for himself” where he could get some joy despite the pain. Yes, of course he was in pain. Two years later and he still thought that it was only right to go to his dead friend gravestone to let him be the first to know of his engagement. And then and only then did he find the courage to go to their old flatand “move on”.
He was, after all, “sad beneath the fanciful costume”, because we all know that his soul was broken, so he tried to connect with his own self under the moonlight (Mary) while he was aching for melody (Sherlock).
~Please feel free to add and tell me your thoughts~
I’ve been obsessed with this All is Vanity meta since the start of my blog, and I’m excited cause you found something that pertains to it!
”Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,-”
All is Vanity as a painting from The Abominable Bride episode (replacing Sherlock’s skull painting) seems like a direct connection to the poem:
All is Vanity is a reference to Ecclesiastes 1:2 “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.“
It also has a connection to William Shakespeare’s sonnet 59.
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil’d,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe’r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
Modern translation:
“If it’s true that there’s nothing new and everything that now exists existed in the past,
then we are really fooling ourselves when we struggle to write something new, winding up, after much exhausting, painful labor, with a tired imitation of an imitation!
If only I could look back into the records, even as far as five hundred years ago, and find a description of you in some old book,
written when people were just beginning to put their thoughts in writing, so I could see what the old world would say about your amazingly beautiful body.
Then I could see whether we’ve gotten better at writing or worse, or whether things have stayed the same as the world revolves.
Oh, I’m sure the witty writers of the past have devoted praise and admiration to worse subjects than you.“
(William’s sonnets are noted throughout the show. Perhaps as precursors to story similarities. Irene texts Sherlock 57 times, John misses Mary’s 59 emergency calls, Sherlock claims that he could have followed Mary to Serbia using 58 different tactics and calculations.)
Ecclesiastes 1:2-9:
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens[c] to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
William Sherlock Scott Holmes mutters in reference to William Shakespeare “The wheel turns, nothing is ever new.”
Mycroft’s/Sherlock’s warning of the east wind also (i’m not sure how loosely or directly) references numerous biblical passages regarding a terrible wind and rush of enemies coming from different directions, including the east. (The references including Ecclesiastes 1:6).
John’s depression and loss/renewal of purpose as op stated reminds me of sonnet 57, but more especially 58!
Sonnet 57:
“Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.”
Sonnet 58 (pt. 2 of 57):
“That God forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O, let me suffer (being at your beck),
Th’ imprison’d absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
This sonnet (historically known Shakespeare writing about a man) in the context of Sherlock, could be seen as John/Sherlock having one-sided views of their relationship. Unaware of their impacts on each other and need for each other.
Your finding of Claire de la lune explains so much in so many ways. It makes use and sense of Sherlock’s consistent noticing of the perfume, other than sniffing out Mary’s intentions.
It seems like it’s almost Sherlock understanding he and John’s situation (relationship-wise), but never being able to properly place the meaning or a face to what he’s noticing.
Your soul is a moonlit landscape fair,
Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
Of being sad in their fantastic trim.
The while they celebrate in minor strain
Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,-
And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise,
The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone
The fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.
“He’s writing sad music. Doesn’t eat, barely talks – only to correct the television. I’d say he was heartbroken but he’s Sherlock. He does all that anyway..” – John
Polished basins of white stone remind me of the Thatcher case.
And the poem’s mention of fountains remind me of @fandeadgloves ‘s lovely meta. Mofftiss is out here putting together all these lil hints!
The laundry list of problems with Sherlock’s last two seasons is long and convoluted, but one person seems to crop up on it frequently: Mary.
Unfortunately, Mary’s character seems to be the wrench that first threw the show out of alignment in S3. It’s not that Mary Morstan shouldn’t have been introduced, or that Amanda’s performance wasn’t well done. It’s that Mary was inserted into the show and then manipulated in a way that broke the logic of the plot, not to mention the dynamic of the two leads. More than that, the writers used her repeatedly to bait-and-switch the audience, without ever following up on the ideas they planted.
For some reason this meta I wrote after S4 is going around again, and when I re-read it, I was reminded of a recent conversation that gave me some perspective on the Sherlock fandom experience. (@bendingsignpost, I hope you don’t mind if I paraphrase you here.)
When I was in full Sherlock-obsessed mode, I took Sherlock very seriously, because the show seemed to be a serious show. It sent out all the signals of a real-deal drama. The problem was, it turned out to be a farce – ultimately, it made no sense, especially from a character development perspective. I wrote dozens of metas like the one above, trying to work out how this could have happened.
When you are deeply invested in something, as I was, and then realize it wasn’t what you thought it was, you feel betrayed. Angry. Taken advantage of. And you feel like maybe you shouldn’t get so invested in something again.
But Ben and I were chatting recently, and he pointed out the value of finding a fandom that isn’t so serious. A fandom that recognizes that its canon is flawed from the outset. And you know, that sounds pretty damn fun.
Sherlock fandom has taught me this: question the source material.
As lovely as you made my “wisdom” sound, I think I should state for the record that I said something like “a fandom that recognizes the canon is a dumpster fire, and is rescuing the bits we liked from the flames.”
Yes. This. ^^^^^
The precise quote is even better. ❤
@marsdaydream, I can’t thank you with for all the meta and fic you have written… And the venting, which was therapeutic to me and for the writing of my meta article (which I link here in case it helps others like it did me–also I’m a writer who craves feedback): https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/1465 😀
This meta is a result of 3 months of research & writing, and made possible through ongoing discussions on the canon, sheer stubbornness, and the love that I have had since early childhood of British History, and Greek Mythology. Turns out, my love is all that I needed.
A look into correlations between The Doctor Who series and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche was a philosopher. He dealt in morality, (The Spectre of Lanyon Moor) and one of his concepts involved a metaphorical abyss, that stared back at you. (PROSE: Uranus)
(The Spectre of Lanyon Moor was the first Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story to feature Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and the first ‘official’ meeting of the Sixth Doctor and the Brigadier with the actors playing their characters. Uranus was the seventh short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: The Solar System. It was written by Craig Hinton. It featured the Seventh Doctor and Mel)
Evelyn Smythe thought that Aleister Crowley was, at the very best, a cut-price Nietzsche. (The Spectre of Lanyon Moor)
Prentis Duke hated the grey void of hyperspace, as if you looked too hard into it, “it became Nietzche’s abyss, grinning back at you.” (PROSE: Uranus)
In The Dying Days, the Eighth Doctor paraphrases Nietszche’s Beyond Good and Evil: “I’ve gazed into the abyss already, Xznaal, and the abyss gazed into me. It fled from what it saw. Monsters who fight with me should take care.”
This is, of course, an inversion of the original quote:
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Tardis.Wikia
An Introduction to the book More Doctor Who and Philosophy:
“I vaguely remember hearing about Doctor Who when I was growing up in Italy in the 70s, but I never actually watched it. When the BBC restarted the series in 2005 I decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about. I’ve been hooked ever since; and I occasionally use Doctor Who episodes in my introductory classes in philosophy because it’s a natural (ie, intelligent and entertaining) entry point for discussions about personal identity (qua regeneration), the metaphysics of time travel, and, of course, ethics, ethics, ethics. I was therefore delighted to see this recent addition to the ‘Popular Culture and Philosophy’ series. There is much to enjoy in this collection. Besides the obvious topics mentioned above, we are also treated to Doctor-informed discussions of aesthetics (why, exactly, are the Daleks beautiful?), human nature (‘Human beings, you’re amazing. Apart from that, you’re completely mad!’), the relevance of monadology to the Whoniverse, and even a discussion of the Jesus-like (shouldn’t it really be the Socrates-like?) character of the Doctor.
Perhaps my favorite part of the book is Episode 3: It’s a different morality. Get used to it, or go home!”Philosophy Now
From More Doctor Who and Philosophy:
From Doctor Who and Philosophy: Bigger On The Inside
“Deleuze’s Nietzsche, described in incredible detail in his second-published book, Nietzsche and Philosophy, is most faithful to the German’s original intent, and also lets one build a deeper understanding of the Doctor himself in his highest nobility, as he refuses to be dragged into despair, he who can stare into the abyss at the end of everything and overflow with laughter and celebration.”
Steven Moffat may have been influenced by Nietzsche in The Battle of Zaruthstra. “One of the themes of Eternal Recurrence…the idea of history repeating itself. Yet Steven Moffat presents the most alarming vision of all history happening at the same time at the end of the series!” Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who 2011: The Critical Fan’s Guide to Matt Smith’s Second Series.
There is a also a paper titled Nietzsche and Doctor Who-the serial form and the three teachings of Zarathustra by David Dreamer, exploring the correlation on the series and the 3 teachings presented in Thus Spake. It is available at film-philosophy.com.
“I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!” ~N~
Sherlock Fandom Archive 