Something I really liked in the story from TAB to TFP is the whole question of what made Sherlock what he is – and indeed, I think it’s the central question in TFP. I’ve read lots of comments on this in people’s meta around here, and wanted to have a go at saying what I liked about the storytelling in this particular regard.
Many have noted the apparent contradiction between Sherlock’s “Nothing made me. I made me” and Mycroft’s saying that everything Sherlock is, ever decision he’s ever made is because of Eurus. I feel like a mistake we make is taking everything the text tells us as a thing we are being told directly by the text, rather than thinking about how reliable what the text is telling us really is, considering the source and the character who says it.
I loved Sherlock’s “I made me” in TAB. It was one of my favourite moments. I loved the idea that in his mind, he was able to take responsibility for himself, and know, somewhere deep inside, that he was the one making the decisions that kept him separate and alone. I feel like, if we can realise that WE choose things, then we have some kind of agency, and power over them, and I like the idea of his having that kind of power over his own narrative. So, when this story of Eurus and young Victor comes along, and Mycroft tells us of that this isn’t true – in fact, Eurus made him? If I’m to take that at face value, it’s disappointing – childhood trauma made Sherlock what he is.
Dull – and done to death, right?
The thing I love, though, is that they are both right, and both wrong, and I really enjoyed thinking about what the constellations are in the spaces between them.
What we all do, every day (and I think being in love with and retelling this story is part of this effort for many of us) is tell ourselves the daily story of what we mean and who we are. In the words of Neurologist Oliver Sacks, we “throw bridges of meaning over abysses of meaninglessness” and create ourselves via narrative – the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. This is what makes us human beings – this continual myth-making – and this narrative of who we are and what we mean is a construct of our minds.
So…Sherlock told himself a story – he made himself. It was a defensive mechanism, and it coincided with his emotional withdrawal, a mechanism he used to protect himself from the pain of love, loss, grief, and importantly, horror. Sherlock made himself, and part of making himself was denying the fact that other people have the power to shape us, and reshape our narrative. He radically claimed agency in defiance of pain. But, it’s not quite true, and what’s more he can’t quite stay away from a world full of horror, can he? As a detective and a junkie, he tries to solve the mystery of horror and pain over and over again while keeping emotional reality at a distance.
Mycroft, meanwhile, sees Sherlock from the outside – sees him as a victim of trauma whose subsequent decision not to feel has kept him safe from further trauma, and he encourages it: “…caring is not an advantage … don’t get involved … Redbeard!” Mycroft sees Sherlock as fragile, prone to self-destruction, and in need of protection – as powerless, and he’s not wrong. Sherlock is compulsive, an addict, and a person in denial of his own heart. Mycroft acts out of love in a paternalistic manner towards not only Sherlock, but the whole family, because that’s the story Mycroft told himself… and the story tells us that this is “limited”, and it is. It’s nice that in the end, Sherlock is able to see that Mycroft did his best, though. That’s real progress.
The fact that both of these things “made” Sherlock isn’t a contradiction, it’s two seemingly contradictory things that are both true from different perspectives; two data points that allow us to see what’s happening when Sherlock remembers Victor and opens his heart to his Eurus, and then chooses the path that will allow him to remake himself, having integrated what he knows into a truer version of events. He DID make himself, and also, she made him. We are not impervious to others, but we do choose which way we go. Sherlock chooses love.
The experiments Eurus runs to try to find out who Sherlock is – what he will do given the choices she gives him all lead to this question of what he will do with her when he knows the truth – and she needs him to know, or she can never come down from her metaphorical plane. She loves him and she needs his love, so she is trying to find out how his love works throughout the episode. Because, Eurus did something terribly damaging, and she needs her brother to know it. She also loves him, and needs him to love her. I love that Sherlock, because of everything that he has been through and felt and experienced is able to have the empathetic response that he has. That he realises that he has a role in healing something in her, as she has healed something in him by finally helping him to see that he is not, never has been, and can never be an island.
And I love, at the end, seeing Sherlock embrace the fact that who we are
is a co-creation – a relationship between the people we love and our
responses to them. We are not islands of independent myth-making.
Sherlock Holmes is not an isolated freakish genius – he is a person of
some experience and the wisdom that came from it – he has a past, he
lived a life.
The final scenes, in which John and Sherlock embrace what they can be together, and rebuild their home and their hearts to include all that they have experienced and become because of love, and they are surrounded by their village of loved ones were really moving to me. In fact, when I watched it again, I didn’t even hate Mary’s voice over – she was an important part of their shared story, she loved them both, and she belongs there. I really like this as the beginning of them BEING WHAT THEY ARE in legend – a brilliant, humane detective and his astute storyteller who is smarter than he looks, and now the myth they are making is their partnership. It’s a story with both horror and love, and the only way it is what it is, is in partnership. I mean… I loved that!
Plus, parentlock. COME ON! It’s like a cherry on top.
Was it ham-handed in some ways, and even stupid? Yes. Yes it was. But, I
loved what it was TRYING to do, and I think that was enough for me to just
go with it in TFP, rather than picking it to pieces. I liked thinking these thoughts, and I like who Sherlock and John are in the end.
Anyway, YMMV, but… that’s
me. I think this is a big part of what I liked about TFP.
So, I agree with your analysis but one of the things that always got me about the line, “you do remember her, in a way. Every choice you ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today: is your memory of Eurus.” is how true this is–of Mycroft.
Mycroft says, “what Uncle Rudi began, I thought it best to continue.” Locking Eurus up wasn’t Mycroft’s choice. If we decide that they took Eurus away when she was five (which I’m basing solely on child Eurus’ apparent age and Mycroft’s comment to the governor that “she’s been capable of [enslaving people] since she was five”), then Mycroft was thirteen. He was a child. Rudi decided to lock Eurus up in Sherrinford with the “uncontainables” and like to Mr and Mrs Holmes about the fate of their daughter. Mycroft simply carried on the lie. Again, he was thirteen and presumably traumatized by knowing that his sister killed his brother’s best friend and his brother no longer remembered her. Presumably he thought it would be best if his parents could also, if not forget that Eurus existed, then move on with their lives thinking she was gone.
But that decision irrevocably changed Mycroft’s relationship with his parents, and with Sherlock. It isolated him from his entire family (ironically, except for Eurus, the only one in on his secret). Mycroft spent Christmas with Eurus and Jim Moriarty and then went home to drink alone while Sherlock celebrated at 221b surrounded by friends.
Uncle Rudi also seems to have set Mycroft on his career path. He seems to have been some kind of shadowy government spook, and put Mycroft on the path to shadowy government spook. Who knows who or what he might have been if he hadn’t spent his entire life protecting this secret.
So yes, Mycroft is the man he is today because of Eurus. And IMO, he’s projecting when he says that about Sherlock. It’s true for him, so he thinks it’s true for his brother. And on some level, it is. Someone on my dash (i think @themissadventurer?) was saying that when Sherlock says “I made me,” in TAB, we hear a dog barking in the background and he says “Redbeard,” immediately after. Of course his childhood trauma influenced him. We are all shaped by our childhood traumas (or at least I know I was). So Eurus having shaped them is the truth.
But the truth, as Oscar Wilde said, and TFP keeps reminding us, is rarely pure, and never simple.
As I am pretty sure all this TFP is the biggest fake in existence I am making a list with all the meta I find on tumblr about this, I want to have hope and so far all of this have given it to me.
Lots of others have mentioned this already. However, because a lot of us are upset over The Final Problem, no one wants to rewatch and write meta. But here are a few things for you all to consider.
1) John got shot at the end of The Lying Detective. He got shot with an actual bullet. We’ve been studying Sherlock’s subtext forever and we all knew John was going to get shot, we knew the Three Garridebs canon moment was coming, yet we ignored it when we saw it because we believed the narrative spoon-fed to us. John did not get hit with a tranquilizer – he actually got shot. He’s in his mind palace. Or, rather, his mind bungalow, as he’s referred to it before.
2) The Six Thatchers told us John knows a LOT about horror films. Probably why 20 of them were mentioned in The Final Problem. John also loves Bond movies, which is why this nightmare scenario is part Saw- part Bond.
3) If Moriarty was Sherlock’s inner demon in TAB, then Eurus is John’s inner demon in TFP. This is why young Eurus is wearing John’s sweater. This is why she’s shown as a mirror for him on multiple occasions. She’s bisexual, she’s kept behind glass (repression) because her family put her there at first but now because she chooses to be there as an adult. She hears Sherlock playing Irene’s theme on the violin and asks if he’s had sex – this is John’s inner demon right here, asking what John’s already asked on the surface. John’s demon can be saved only if Sherlock comes to the bedroom and helps land the plane. “Landing” is follow-through when it comes to “falling in love”. TFP is a direct mirror to TAB – Sherlock knew then that John would always be there when he’s falling, and now John knows Sherlock would be there when he’s landing. It’s a complete mirror, exactly the one we were certain of months ago. Why did we dismiss this when we saw it? Because we lost faith in the story. Like Sir Boast-a-lot. Like The Princess Bride. We’re right on schedule.
4) Everything happening in TFP is a nightmare for John. Sherlock neglecting Vatican Cameos, Sherlock leaving him to drown, Sherlock saying “I love you” to Molly, Sherlock actually loving Irene Adler, A John-sized coffin with “I Love You” written on it closed and smashed by Sherlock, Mary infiltrating their lives again to tell them how their relationship should be. John is so fucking repressed he doesn’t think Sherlock feels the same way about him that he does about Sherlock. He’s mirrored in Molly in real life – how awful for John to think “I love Sherlock, I’ve always loved Sherlock, but he thinks we’re friends, why is he making a fool of me?” – like, The Final Problem might be my new favorite episode because this is masterful.
5) Eurus does exist, but not as a crazy woman on Shutter Island. There was a reason she flirted with John, there’s a reason she’s been hovering around them for ages now. I wrote a meta about it here. It still fits 100%. The only thing I didn’t take into account was BBC Sherlock faking its own death by dropping a ludicrous red herring as a series finale.
You guys thought we couldn’t see anything gayer, anything more repressed than Sherlock’s mind in The Abominable Bride? Oh. Oh, no. Take another watch of The Final Problem and you’ll see what actually happens to a repressed bisexual with a high sex-drive and a crippling love obsession when their mind is allowed to play tricks on him.
So, I can’t find this post again as always, but there was some discussion at some point about Oscar Wilde’s role in this episode.
The short story: I think Wilde is actually very important to this episode and to Sherlock as a whole, not so much for the specific Wilde references as in understanding the evident disconnect between what Mark Gatiss seems to have thought he was doing with queer sexuality in Sherlock and what a lot of Sherlock’s queer fans thought he was doing.
I was so, so pleased when they brought Wilde into it. I have a Devil’s Foot send up among my drafts wherein Sherlock thinks that De Profundis is a fun beach read. I want Holmes and Watson and their universe to talk across to Wilde. For me, even now, even as I’m sitting with my disappointment, Sherlock is still a queer text. Maybe it’s a queer text that failed or one that didn’t come out or never even intended to come out or had no interest in addressing contemporary sexual politics (or even realities, really), but, for me none of those possibilities invalidate its fundamental queerness.
I think you make an excellent point at the end of this, plaidadder –
“And ultimately, that’s the source of a lot of the fan anger: the fact that the show, because it refuses to go beyond Wilde’s methods, seems stuck in the Wilde era. So determined to BE stuck there, in fact, that it sacrifices verisimilitude and even modernity in order to stay there.”
As I’ve seen others note (and, yes, I can never find the damn posts, either), The Final Problem is straight-up nineteenth century, gothic horror. The comparisons to Jane Eyre have been made (along with the comparisons to Saw, but, hey, that’s not the point I’m making right now, so.) and they’re apt. This means… something? for the show’s treatment of queerness, too. I wonder how many possibilities exist.
This whole post will be a bit random because I have so much thoughts about this. I hope you don’t mind.
At the end of TLD, we see how Sherlock finds the “Miss Me?” on the paper. And that’s usually the moment where Sherlock drops all his shit (he did so in HLV with his chips) and RUNS to save John. But we didn’t see that. Weird, huh?
Also, we get a bit of John’s imagination/foreshadowing in TLD:
And in TFP, the girl on the plane (= John) says this:
“The lights” are very common when it comes to near-death experiences. Walking towards light, a tunnel with light at the end and closer coming lights.
Okay, that was that. So, let’s talk about TAB: There are things in TAB they included on purpose to make us think “That’s fucky!” in order to figure it out. An guess what? THE SAME SHIT APPEARS IN TFP.
First of all: Cringeworthy spinning shots.
Also:
Eurus =
Emelia Ricoletti
Both of them look as if they were taken out of a horror movie. AND THEY BOTH SING A FUCKING SONG!
And Remember Me = Do Not Forget Me
Same with the graveyard scene in TAB … THAT SCENE WAS FAKE because the corpse came to life at the end.
An guess what else is fake and has fake graves …
And let’s not forget fat Mycroft:
Aaand back to TFP, where Sherlock says “Greg”:
When you watch the scene, you’ll first be like: “Oh, that’s nice, Sherlock finally got Lestrade’s name right!” But the thing is … THEY TOLD US THAT SHERLOCK NEVER GETS HIS NAME RIGHT JUST TWO EPISODE EARLIER. John had to MOUTH “Greg” to Sherlock so he could say it right:
So why the flying fuck would he suddenly remember his name? Weird AF? Yes, it’s John imagination. Because HE never gets Lestrade’s name wrong, that’s why!
Also, when I first saw the scene where they are at John’s, I had the feeling that Sherlock … looked so out of place? He’s standing in the room and has his coat on.
And then I thought … FUCK, I know this scene, it looks like the scene in “Many Happy Returns”!
This scenes too (first one from TFP, the other from MHR):
These too:
And when Mary (aka John’s imagination) said this:
I knew I heard it before … it’s on John’s fucking blog, he wrote it when he met Sherlock for the first time:
Oh, and I mentioned earlier what people see while having a near-death experience … it’s not just light, on of the things is also FAMILY.
And you know what else is fucky? This quote from “Mary” at the of TFP …
Well, the thing is … SHE CAN’T KNOW THIS QUOTE. We do, and Sherlock and John, but Mary can’t. Well, she could have made it up, BUT (!!!) John said it to Sherlock in TEH:
Mary wasn’t in that scene. Sherlock said something like that at the wedding, but it’s not the same:
Also, in her speech at the end of TFP, we see this shot from ASiP:
Well … nothing weird about that, right? Except for the fact that THIS is the first scene they used in TAB! If you don’t believe me, go and watch it.
And this:
Actually, there is more I could write about, but some things have already been pointed out. That Eurus wore a John-sweater as a kid or that John responded to Sherlock instead of the child on the plane.
So. If there is no fourth episode, then at least we know that the fandom is a million times cleverer than Mofftiss.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
“being mary watson was the only life worth living” the fact that this is an actual line makes me furious
I remember when TAB came out and several people on my dash were less than happy with the message of the episode. Sure, it used a fantastic tale of murder suicide to talk about the beginning of the feminist movement and the lack of value ACD placed of female characters. That sounds good right? The show runners touted it as a feminist episode. Except our main characters remain male.
John is deliberately a period-appropriate sexist.
The main dialogue explaining everything comes from Sherlock and Mycroft. Mycroft states that we must let the women win. Why thank you Mycroft you will allow it? Is that a royal ‘we’ or do you speak for all men? You are too kind. Cue my fucking curtsy. The whole thing smacks of classic British Imperialism’s idea of moral justice. The white men will bring us freedom, culture, and justice. The ending reveal with Sherlock was Mansplaining at it’s finest.
Every great cause has martyrs; every war has suicide missions – and make no mistake, this is war. One half of the human race at war with the other.
The invisible army hovering at our elbow, attending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronized, disregarded, not allowed so much as a vote.
… but an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So, you see, Watson, Mycroft was right. This is a war we must lose.
Thanks Sherlock for letting us know.
For some TJLC fans the only reason this episode was acceptable was as a metaphor for the modern LGBT agenda. It’s okay that Mofftiss were so clueless to womens’ right to star in their own narrative if it was overlooked in their quest to make a statement about modern civil rights. A tiny miss-step in their endless exuberance.
Except if it isn’t a story about LGBT representation then all the times the female character’s were used as tools of the male narrative become unforgivable to people who felt they were fans of the show. The show they thought they were watching isn’t there. It isn’t just about the lack of LGBT representation it’s also about the unforgivable use of female characters. As Moffat explains about Molly in the last episode,
“I can’t see why you’d have to play that out. She forgives him, of course, and our newly grown-up Sherlock is more careful with her feelings in the future. In the end of that scene, she’s a bit wounded by it all, but he’s absolutely devastated. He smashes up the coffin, he’s in pieces, he’s more upset than she is, and that’s a huge step in Sherlock’s development.
“The question is: Did Sherlock survive that scene? She probably had a drink and went and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine.”
In short her feelings aren’t as real, as deep, or as important as Sherlock’s. They never were. Nothing new. Just as Leia once comforted Luke about one dead guy he just met, it seems as far as popular fiction is concerned, we haven’t moved forward since the late 70′s.
If I was to jump on the tinfoil train… I would like to point out that John is absolutely into watching crap telly. Plus, he made Sherlock watch James Bond. And, John absolutely LOVES horror movies.
We know from TLD that John doesn’t sleep, not much, after Mary died. So how does he spend those nights, if not with watching some movies?
TLD ends with John finding out that the Holmes brothers have a mad sibling, who has no problem with straightforwardly pointing a gun into his face just because John looks funny.
And now he’s drugged up by that tranquilliser… and has a nightmare. And what would that nightmare be about? The explanation of how it is possible for the Holmes brothers to have this mad sibling nobody knows about, and who possibly is “locked up in a tower”, as John already had pointed out.
As many of us had already speculated during TAB, the equivalent to Sherlock’s gay fever dream would be John’s heteronormative nightmare. And well… isn’t this what it was? Plus, mix in all the horror movies you can possibly think of, bad cinematography and a weak plot because other than TAB, TFP takes places in John’s mind bungalow and not in Sherlock’s mind palace, you have to lower your standards a bit… After all, John as “no imagination”.
So he borrows from everything he knows. Horror movies. A bit James Bond. And all those quotes that he re-uses, the East Wind, the second DVD of Mary etc. In the dream itself, it very often is John himself who drives the plot (e.g. the deduction about the Govenor being compromised by Eurus’s manipulation), despite it being an utterly bad one.
I know this does in no way explain how John could know about Redbeard / Victor Trevor and Musgrave… but ¯_(ツ)_/¯ when Moftiss can fuck us up with plotholes as big as entire states just because they wanna have some fun…
TAB is Sherlock; TST is Sherlock; TLD is John; TFP is John. The cycle is complete, and it’s time to wake up.
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS??? THIS EPISODE IS PERFECTLY PLAUSIBLE IF IT’S IN JOHN’S MIND BUGALOW.
Like, this episode being John’s nightmare totally makes sense? It’s super Bond-like, and John loves 007. No wonder he would imagine handsome Sherlock like a hot secret agent, magically changing in a few seconds to appear all groomed up with perfect curls again. He imagines everything is flashy and explosive because that’s how he lives his life with Sherlock, that’s the thrill of the adventure he loves. And of course, they escape from impossible scenarios because they literally had this exchange in TEH:
John: Sherlock, you are going to tell me how you did it. How you jumped off that building and survived. Sherlock: You know my methods, John. I’m known to be indestructible.
So he dreams an extreme version of that. Also, the whole episode revolves around trying to figure out Sherlock’s emotional side. Mycroft said “everything in here (in John’s mind) is about [Sherlock]”, is something John himself said in TLD. It’s John realizing he’s much more emotional than he initially thought, concluding that Sherlock has changed, that had once forced himself to put the lid on the Love Coffin but he’s now decided to give in to his desires, that he wants to have romantic love in his life. John imagined Sherlock confessing those three words to his mirror Molly!
OH MY GOD.
John’s mirror wanted Sherlock to say “I love you” first, Molly was a repressed version of himself struggling with those three words but finally telling Sherlock I LOVE YOU! OMG THIS IS JOHN TELLING HIMSELF HE KNOWS WHAT HE AND SHERLOCK “COULD BECOME” AND IT ENDS UP WITH AN IMAGINED MONTAGE OF THEM RAISING ROSIE TOGETHER OH. MY. GOD.
Do you see how this is the only way Saint Mary The Redeemed makes perfect sense because in his mind John still has a wrong version of her! Also, Mycroft’s characterization is perfect! John knows he shows off a façade of careless Ice Man, but pictures him as a coward at times but of course he knows that even when he treats Sherlock like shit he “actually is concerned” and it comes from a place of utter love and sacrifice for his little brother. Mycroft had just passed the torch of Sherlock’s protection to him in TAB, so he knows Mycroft thinks him a better option to take care of Sherlock. And John imagining Mycroft must have some sort or sword or a gun in that freaking umbrella because why the hell else would he always carry it around is utter lol!
Seeing this whole episode being in John’s head makes perfect sense, there’s so much more I could say but I think you get the point. My mind just exploded.
THANKS JACKY!!! YOU’RE THE HERO WE ALL NEEDED. IM 100% SOLD ON THIS THEORY. IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE. MY HOPES ARE SKY-HIGH.
Shakespearean tragedy characterized by the “tragic flaw,” the internal imperfection in the hero that brings him down. His downfall becomes his own doing, and he is no longer, as in classical tragedy, the helpless victim of fate.
Sherlock has a few tragic flaws.
One is as we see him in ASiP. Rude, seemingly uncaring, flippant. As we find out, this is due to Eurus. She killed Sherlock’s childhood friend, Victor Trevor. In turn, because of trauma, he changed the memory of what happened. Victor Trevor became Redbeard the dog and Sherlock at a young age began his spiral inwards.
His wrong judgment, blunder and vision lead him to face his death.
Another flaw is his shortsightedness. His inability to see people for who they are right away (John, Molly). To use people in the wrong way (Molly, Irene, Janine). To misjudge situations that lead to disastrous effects (Mary, CAM, Irene, Smith).
Good Versus Evil
Shakespearean tragedy is an example of the struggle between good and evil. Most of his tragedies deal with this the supremacy of evil and suppression of good.
If we are to take metaphors as they are (and not some random happenstance that Mofftiss came upon), Moriarty burned the heart out of Sherlock. He only wanted to because Eurus wanted to do the same, but couldn’t do it herself, but that’s a moot point. And Eurus and Moriarty are only able to do this because Mycroft allowed him to speak to her for 5 minutes.
Regardless, John does not live with at Baker Street during the end of TFP. Moffat made that clear in a recent article. He comes by with Roise, sure. But really, Sherlock is alone. Greg, Molly and Mrs. Hudson are also moot points in this situation.
The dragons won in the end.
Conflict
External conflict
Every tragic hero in a Shakespearean tragedy is confronted with some external conflicts, which he has to solve by hook or by crook.
Moriarty/Eurus, his feelings for John, saving Mary, Society, TPTB (Mofftiss/the BBC)
Internal Conflict
Internal conflict is the most essential element in a Shakespearean tragedy. Internal conflict is responsible for the fall of a highly genius, intellectual, noble and virtuous personality. Internal conflict is the confusion in the mind of a tragic hero. The tragic hero is always on the horns of dilemma. He cannot make a decision, which brings about his fall.
The fall
Moriarty/Eurus win in the end. Sherlock is not together with John. Mary is dead
Mycroft is reprimanded by Mummy and Daddy Holmes. Eurus remains at Sherrinford. Moriarty and Mary are dead.
Bad reviews of Season 4. Reactions from fans. TPTB are taken off their pedestal.
Catharsis
A Shakespearean tragedy gives catharsis to our emotions. When, we watch a tragedy, we identify ourselves with the characters. We feel as if we are performing the role in the tragedy. Thus any trouble, misery or hardship of a hero compels us to feel pity for him. Similarly, we also express our wrath at the cruel deeds of the villain.
At the end of The Final Problem, we shake our fists at the main villains for the tragedy of Sherlock being alone in the end.
-Eurus
-Moriarty
-Mary
-Mycroft
-TPTB
-Society
(We could say John is also a villain).
We feel sorry for Sherlock for having to be alone. And for his faults to have been caused by someone else.
Our catharsis is realizing the true nature of the show. (Mofftiss are terrible people, everything meant nothing (but it was not a waste), etc.)
TL;DR: BBC Sherlock fits the tenets of a Shakespearean tragedy: A tragic hero, good versus evil, conflict, poetic justice, catharsis. Sherlock’s tragic flaws are no fault of his own, but is a flaw nonetheless. Our catharsis is realizing the true nature of the show in all aspects. X
TL;DR II:Sherlock is alone at the end of TFP and it’s a damned tragedy.
Shakespearean tragedy characterized by the “tragic flaw,” the internal imperfection in the hero that brings him down. His downfall becomes his own doing, and he is no longer, as in classical tragedy, the helpless victim of fate.
Sherlock has a few tragic flaws.
One is as we see him in ASiP. Rude, seemingly uncaring, flippant. As we find out, this is due to Eurus. She killed Sherlock’s childhood friend, Victor Trevor. In turn, because of trauma, he changed the memory of what happened. Victor Trevor became Redbeard the dog and Sherlock at a young age began his spiral inwards.
His wrong judgment, blunder and vision lead him to face his death.
Another flaw is his shortsightedness. His inability to see people for who they are right away (John, Molly). To use people in the wrong way (Molly, Irene, Janine). To misjudge situations that lead to disastrous effects (Mary, CAM, Irene, Smith).
Good Versus Evil
Shakespearean tragedy is an example of the struggle between good and evil. Most of his tragedies deal with this the supremacy of evil and suppression of good.
If we are to take metaphors as they are (and not some random happenstance that Mofftiss came upon), Moriarty burned the heart out of Sherlock. He only wanted to because Eurus wanted to do the same, but couldn’t do it herself, but that’s a moot point. And Eurus and Moriarty are only able to do this because Mycroft allowed him to speak to her for 5 minutes.
Regardless, John does not live with at Baker Street during the end of TFP. Moffat made that clear in a recent article. He comes by with Roise, sure. But really, Sherlock is alone. Greg, Molly and Mrs. Hudson are also moot points in this situation.
The dragons won in the end.
Conflict
External conflict
Every tragic hero in a Shakespearean tragedy is confronted with some external conflicts, which he has to solve by hook or by crook.
Moriarty/Eurus, his feelings for John, saving Mary, Society, TPTB (Mofftiss/the BBC)
Internal Conflict
Internal conflict is the most essential element in a Shakespearean tragedy. Internal conflict is responsible for the fall of a highly genius, intellectual, noble and virtuous personality. Internal conflict is the confusion in the mind of a tragic hero. The tragic hero is always on the horns of dilemma. He cannot make a decision, which brings about his fall.
The fall
Moriarty/Eurus win in the end. Sherlock is not together with John. Mary is dead
Mycroft is reprimanded by Mummy and Daddy Holmes. Eurus remains at Sherrinford. Moriarty and Mary are dead.
Bad reviews of Season 4. Reactions from fans. TPTB are taken off their pedestal.
Catharsis
A Shakespearean tragedy gives catharsis to our emotions. When, we watch a tragedy, we identify ourselves with the characters. We feel as if we are performing the role in the tragedy. Thus any trouble, misery or hardship of a hero compels us to feel pity for him. Similarly, we also express our wrath at the cruel deeds of the villain.
At the end of The Final Problem, we shake our fists at the main villains for the tragedy of Sherlock being alone in the end.
-Eurus
-Moriarty
-Mary
-Mycroft
-TPTB
-Society
(We could say John is also a villain).
We feel sorry for Sherlock for having to be alone. And for his faults to have been caused by someone else.
Our catharsis is realizing the true nature of the show. (Mofftiss are terrible people, everything meant nothing (but it was not a waste), etc.)
TL;DR: BBC Sherlock fits the tenets of a Shakespearean tragedy: A tragic hero, good versus evil, conflict, poetic justice, catharsis. Sherlock’s tragic flaws are no fault of his own, but is a flaw nonetheless. Our catharsis is realizing the true nature of the show in all aspects. X
TL;DR II:Sherlock is alone at the end of TFP and it’s a damned tragedy.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 