Super interesting theory! Where are all the mind palace moments in S4? Were there any?? Was it all? I love this stuff so much
this meta is actually rly cool and is organized so well its like ur actually following a story !!!! reminds me of the theory of morality: mary v. moriarty !!!!
Thank you so much, @selinaphile. That is a lovely compliment and I’m thrilled you took the time to check it out.
So far I haven’t seen anyone analyse the deduction Sherlock makes about the unemployed fisherman and his mother in THoB – or rather I have seen a few posts here and there, but they didn’t interpret it the way I would. A lot of these interpretations read this dinner scene at the inn as Sherlock metaphorically meeting his own mother (or John meeting his, for that matter.) Personally, I would disagree with both those readings and would propose a different interpretation that I think (I hope) hasn’t been done before.
(Please correct me if I’m wrong. This fandom is so huge that it’s perfectly possible that someone has done this before, and I just missed it.)
Now why is the unemployed fisherman important? And what does this have to do with dogs? (Because this scene is actually a big deal for all things dog-related that I’m trying to take a look at in this ‘Follow the dog’ meta series…)
When I first watched this scene, I, too, thought the fisherman might mirror John (because of the jumper) and wondered who the mother sitting across from him might represent. Since then, however, I have come to realise that we have to do something else to understand this scene: We have to look at this in exactly the same way @loudest-subtext-in-tv looked at the hiker-and-the-backfiring-car deduction in ASiB:
The point I will be trying to make is that both the unemployed fisherman and his mother represent John. They represent two aspects of John, which is important since John’s sexuality is depicted as having a dual nature throughout the show.
I propose that the unemployed fisherman and his mother together represent John’s bisexuality, with the fisherman representing John’s homosexual side and the mother representing his heterosexual side.
We already know that Irene is Sherlock’s sexuality from ASiB. One episode later, we get to meet John’s in the form of the fisherman and his mother.
So, let’s take a look at these two characters representing John’s bisexuality:
1) The unemployed fisherman
It’s very obvious that the fisherman mirrors John: Both the ugly jumper (a John reference if there ever was one), the fact that it’s a Christmas jumper (which takes us back to the Christmas scenes in ASiB where John wore a jumper like that) and the fisherman’s unemployment (John referred to his unemployment in TGG) are clear indicators that this all is about John. And we can add the fisherman’s poverty (Sherlock points out his worn cuffs and old shoes) to that list since we saw that John, too, sometimes struggles to make ends meet (TBB).
All of these facts about the fisherman have more than just a literal meaning, though. They have a symbolic meaning, too.
Why was the ‘hound’ of the ACD!canon story title turned into the plural ‘hounds’ in the title of the episode THoB?
I’ve seen a few explanations for this change (cf. this comment by @raggedyblue (and @ebaeschnbliah) under a post of mine) according to which the two dogs represent John and Sherlock, the two loyal companions in love with each other. Personally, I don’t think this is the case. I think there’s a different reason for the use of the plural ‘hounds’ in the title. (Although with a multilayered show like ‘Sherlock’, who knows…Both explanations could be true at the same time. Mine doesn’t have to be the only accurate one.:) I’m just tossing a few ideas around here.)
So, why this change from ‘Hound’ >> to ‘Hounds’. Why is there a plural? And why are we shown two dogs (not one!) behind Speedy’s shop window at the beginning of THoB? What do these two dogs represent? Why is it important that there are two of them?
Remember what Sherlock tells us (and himself) at the beginning of TAB?
To solve a case, one must first solve another, a much older case.
@ebaeschnbliah once pointed out to me that what Sherlock is talking about in TAB is more than just the connection between the Moriarty case (new case) and the Emelia Ricoletti case (old case).
She pointed out, accurately, I think, that subtextually the new case Sherlock has on his plate is the How-can-I-be-in-a-(gay)-relationship-with-John case, while the older case is the What-happened-to-me-in-my-past case. The new case is Sherlock’s homosexuality, his love for another man (John) and the question of how they can both declare their love for each other and be together. The old case is Sherlock himself; the repressed memories from his past. It’s whatever trauma was buried in his past (possibly his childhood).
These two cases that Sherlock mentions in TAB, while connected, are still essentially two separate cases. To solve one, you must first (!) solve the other (older) one.
So, there is a strong connection between the two cases, but they have to be addressed separately. In other words, if Sherlock just tries to solve the new case by declaring his love for John, and doesn’t deal with his own past, it won’t do. He won’t be able to solve that new case if he just ignores the trauma of his past. He has to dig up that shit first. He has to actually deal with it.
Two cases: Sherlock’s homosexuality in the here and now. And Sherlock’s trauma in the past.
These two cases are actually the core of the entire show. They are what it’s all about. These two cases have to be solved.
So, what if these two cases (the new one and the old one) are represented by the two ‘hounds’ in the title of THoB?
Let me explain:
I think it’s crucial for the understanding of THoB to keep in mind that there are actually two (!) dogs in the episode itself, not just one:
There’s the monstrous dog that everyone is afraid of (and that later turns out to be imaginary and, most importantly, induced by a hallucinogenic gas).
And there’s the actual, real dog that belongs to the (gay) inn keepers.
So, two dogs, yes?
And while these two dogs are connected in many ways, they are essentially two separate entities in the episode’s subtext.
Now, what do these two dogs represent? And why is this so important for John and Sherlock?
(More about Churchill, dogs and cases under the cut…)
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