and even recognizing that mark and moff are both white cis (though not het) upperclass men, i don’t think at this rate you can argue that they control the current narrative of sherlock holmes. sherlock may have brought holmes back into the modern era in a big way, but the narrative has fundamentally changed. holmes’ sexuality will now be up for debate with every new adaptation. fandom creates, and out of fandom creation comes the new narrative. in a heartbeat, with sherwin and jonathan, is shortlisted for an oscar. miss sherlock will hopefully be bringing women into the fold more than ever before. how many of us are writing, and not only for ao3 but for publishers like improbable press and carnation books, and using those opportunities as stepping stones into bigger, better, brighter projects that will someday steal the spotlight?
we here are the narrative of sherlock holmes, the same way historical holmesian societies have provided the narrative since the 1910s and 20s and 30s and 40s. they were no more than fans the way we are fans, and we are bigger, we are faster, we are more connected, compiling more information and hosting bigger discussions and questioning even the most sacrosanct terms of sherlock holmes’ nature. the narrative will be the one we make it.
something i find interesting about bbc sherlock is how mofftiss have actually changed the narrative so that sherlock is the central POV character rather than john
because acd’s canon is watson’s view on holmes, the audience is pre-programmed to think that we as spectators watching ‘sherlock’ align more closely with john, who is seen initially as an everyman, similarly ‘spectating’ sherlock and recording this as a blog
but within bbc sherlock, sherlock himself is really the main protagonist / POV character. we never get a complete picture of what john is thinking, yet we are consistently shown what’s going on in sherlock’s head.
i find it slightly humorous that john is seen as the ‘storyteller’ of the duo when really sherlock is the one to come up with lines such as “sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side”/”i may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that i am one of them”/”heroes don’t exist, john, and they did i wouldn’t be one of them” etc., in his usual dramatic fashion whereas the writing in john’s blog is … honestly not so good. what sherlock pretty much describes as ‘and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this’:
“So yes, we had a quick look at the flat and chatted to the landlady. Then the police came and asked Sherlock to look at a body so we went along to a crime scene, then we chased through the streets of London after a killer and Sherlock solved the serial suicides/murder thing.”
through TAB taking place within sherlock’s mind palace, sherlock essentially flips the script by having acd’s ‘victorian sherlock’ technically be sherlock’s reimagining of he and john’s adventures on the blog. so ACD’s sherlock holmes stories aren’t actually watson’s view on holmes, but sherlock’s view of john’s view on himself. gee whizz.
if you get really deep into this it means that all the logical inconsistencies and fallacies in ACD’s stories can actually be attributed to the unravelling of sherlock’s mind palace and the inconsistency of memory.
“Steven, GREEN is obviously more of a John colour”
“blue”
“NO GREEN”
“BLUE
“I’m changing it to green”
“No you fucking are not”
like this?
I don’t have words for this.
😂
That’s why I love this fandom 😂❤
The work of our fairy god-monsters of course! LOL
Originally from 2011? I love the fact that I’m just now seeing this, in October 2017, and it has nearly 63k notes! Amazing, fantastic! That’s why I love this fandom! 😀
At the cocktail party our group talked to Steven Moffat and apparently
he is writing a play at the moment! He has no idea if it will ever see
the light of day, but he’d never written a play before so decided to
before him n Mark start properly writing Dracula to hone his writing a
bit and just to give it a go. Sue said she’d read the first half and
said it was good and really enjoyed it, but Steven of course played that
down by saying ‘she’s my wife! Of course she has to say it’s good! !’
The crazy thing is that this would make so much sense in the context of what they did in S4.
I’m trying to imagine how badly Moffat would want to out-subtext Jeremy Paul’s The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, and… it’s a lot.
@devoursjohnlock yeah we were talking about that with @waitedforgarridebs! Imagine Ben channeling Jeremy. And this is a perfect thing for them to do in this moment of the narrative. The possibilities for that plot! And the sheer chance to witness the johnlock dynamic live onstage would be A LOT.
@marcespot Seriously, so many possibilities! If they decided to do this, I bet it would be in the style of Paul’s one-off: deep, deep subtext, a parallel recap of events. It might answer all of our timeline questions. And, as always, 99% of the audience would remain completely unaware of what they just watched.
@marcespot@devoursjohnlock it would be such a logical reason for why the end Montage of TFP was the actual set crew creating a stage from scratch in front of all of us.
S4 wasn’t clever. It was bad. A super-secret sister wasn’t a huge plot twist, people guessed it ages ago.
And listen, I don’t give two fucks about how they’re “the lying liars that lie” and they’re supposedly hiding big plot secrets. If your show doesn’t make sense & is no fun to watch, then all the subtext in the world doesn’t mean shit.
If I’m gunna compare it to a show like Hannibal, clever, full of twists (some over the top) but still so well written & entertaining up until the end. And the whole cast & crew are such a delight to their fans. That’s how you do it.
To blame the fans for your half-assed writting & saying people just wanted to bring it down because it got big is such cry-baby bullshit. Someone get Mark his bottle & blankie.
I was rooting so hard for BBC Sherlock & Mofftiss’ heads got too big & they let a whole fandom down. It’s very telling that fandom & casuals alike hated S4.
So don’t tell me I’m not entitled to my salt. I gave this mess my heart & TPTB can kiss my salty ass for returning my loyalty & fandom with the steaming pile of S4. And YES they do owe us, the fans, decent TV. We’re the ones paying for their crap to keep it on the air.
I bow to your genius and eloquence, @yorkiepug! “To blame the fans for your half-assed writting & saying people just wanted to bring it down because it got big is such cry-baby bullshit. Someone get Mark his bottle & blankie.” This is so perfect! I nominate you for fandom salt leader!
You’re really too kind. I’m just saying what I think/feel and whomever can either agree or disagree.
I’m not going to hide or pretend I’m not pissed. Seriously if folks wanna keep on believing and loving Mofftiss, that’s fine by me. But I’m mad as hell and I’m not quiet about it.
“I wrote it in two hours.” – Mark Gatiss
The best part is where he didn’t believe that the ratings for TFP were low. 😂 that’s some real deep “fake news” type bullshit justifying.
@yorkiepug I *try* not to personally post too much salt here (it’s hard) but fuck yeah did I agree with everything you wrote.
Let’s get this straight; Mofftiss came to the project as experts in Sherlock Holmes history. They knew all the components of Doyle’s Holmesian universe plus the subsequent myths, theories and pastiche that grew from the original stories. They came to their BBC project fully aware that for decades there had been a reading of canon in which Holmes and Watson were in love. They spoke openly about TPLoSH as one pastiche that covered this topic. The ‘famous desperately unspoken’ comment referred ONLY to that issue, for what else was ‘desperately unspoken’? Holmes is known for being outspoken, blurting out facts, secrets and deductions all over canon. Ejaculations all over the fucking place. So his ‘desperately unspoken’ can and does refer to his romantic feelings for his Watson. Mark means exactly that when he used this phrase about Sherlock in TPLOSH. In my opinion it is Mark’s KINK, his tie in to a trope in the gay community of longing and unrequited love that is so painful it’s delicious. He wanted that in his Holmes AU. [On a side note, I think Steven has wet dreams over Gabrielle Valladon, and wanted her in the AU, morphing from naked seductress Irene into covert operator Mary] Mofftiss were using their Holmesian knowledge to make their AU at the same time as writing their Holmesian fantasies into the vehicle. They KNEW what they were doing from day one, following Doyle with the hook of all hooks: SEX.
Johnlock HAD to go into the AU. It was started not by Mofftiss but by Doyle himself. It IS the hook in the stories that captivates and holds the reader/viewer enthralled. But in this modern era, any story with an element of gay love should have that element upfront and played out on screen. Not used as Victorian subtext or modern queer bait. It was the most obvious modernisation of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Fuck the mobile/cell phones, texts, messages on screen, and all the other clutter the writers go on about in their ‘genius’ updating, it was the John and Sherlock relationship that had the most traction, the most lure, the most pull, for an audience. Just look at the reaction, even in non johnlock fandom, the casual viewers all picked up on it; in jokes, in skits, in polls, in teasing. They all knew it was there. Where do you all think the bromance trope originated? Two buddies solving crimes but on the verge of sexual attraction/love? It started with Holmes and Watson. Why was this not updated to be a true romance?
Mark and Steven had an opportunity that they let slip away. Instead of making history they had taken Victorian subtext to an absurd level with the use of mirror characters, which ceased to be clever after s2 and became just sloppy and easy writing of the gay romance. ‘Let the mirrors have all the fun’. Ending with the last straw of Sherlock telling mirror-John-Molly ‘I love you’. They crossed the line in s4 in so many ways, it was like watching a clever theory combust into insanity. All the hubris and nepotism exploding back into their faces. Separation of Holmes and Watson never works, and violent estrangement was a stupid way to go, especially over the ridiculous death of Mary. Wasted opportunity on a grand scale.
We didn’t start johnlock, neither did Mofftiss. Doyle did. For those people on here who came to the party later, I just ask that you respect johnlockers who have predated BBC Sherlock. They cared just as much about this love affair as you do. Don’t attribute to Mofftiss this glorious century old gay romance, they just used it to pull in viewing figures as a tease.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 