Joe Lidster talks about the process behind the blogs he writes for BBC Sherlock in a Feb 2012 (x) interview, post Sherlock S2 airing.
JOE: The thing that we’re all very keen on, is that they’re done ‘as real’. I mean, obviously on this websites you have to have a disclaimer somewhere, so people won’t think it’s a total new person (…) But on the blog itself and on the website; very keen that it’s all done in-universe, it’s all done as real. That there’s no sort of giveaway so this isn’t part of that universe.
INTERVIEWER: From what I saw, they all look very very subtle.
JOE: They’re very suble, I think there’s a tiny sort of thing at the bottom of the page. I mean, you have to be careful, because specially since it’s the BBC, it have to be seen to be truthful, so there is a disclaimer. It’s basically at the bottom of the page –I think it says ‘more information’– or something like that, and that takes you to a page that basically says ‘it’s a part of the Sherlock universe, here are the websites’.
If they’ve always been so careful to make it all look real, with only that tiny link to a disclaimer at the bottom of the page to account for it belonging to BBC…
Why would they put that huge message linking to the show’s website and utterly destroy the fourth wall? Perhaps because they wanted to cement the idea that the show’s universe is no longer “real”?
@teaandforeshadowing Very true! And I just realized they may have warned us about this long ago, back in TEH:
SHERLOCK: You have to trust me. I’ll find the answer. It’ll be
in an odd phrase in an online blog, or an unexpected trip to the
countryside, or a misplaced Lonely Hearts ad. (…) Rest
assured, Mycroft – whatever this underground network of yours is up
to, the secret will reside in something seemingly insignificant or
bizarre.
‘The answer will be in a seemingly insignificant, bizarre, odd phrase in an online blog’. Sherlock actually said that.
And it gets better when you factor in that Sherlock was talking about what turned out to be a very carefully planned conspiracy featuring a bisexual-coloured ticking time bomb hidden right underneath Sumatra Road –a nod to ‘the story for which the World is not yet prepared’.
reading more and more about “theatre of the absurd” and how waiting for godot is meant to represent how the audience feels while watching the play, waiting for something to happen but no one knows what, the questions the characters ask put words to the questions the audience has… thanks rachel for the tip
Plot and Structure
anti-realistic, going against many of the accepted norms of conventional theatre
labeled by some critics as ‘anti-theatre’
often characterised by a deliberate absence of the cause and effect relationship between scenes
non-linear plot developments, sometimes cyclical – ending where they began
occasionally appearing as though there is no plot at all to speak of
deliberate lack of conflict
this is just…….. especially the idea of absurdist theatre “ending where it began,” making no progress, etc. and how that relates to the “only the cases matter” ending of tfp, rebuilding the set and the freeze-frame at rathbone place and how that directly conflicts with moffat’s “only do something if you’re going to fix it” maxim
what i find really intesting about this is I was so perplexed and thought it didn’t make sense in show like, if these people love the blog so much then they would know that john writes it?? i mean it says his name right on there?
and then i realized alskdfkl this is a drag of people who claim to love things but don’t actually pay attention to them, like, idk saying something is your favorite tv show but hardly knowing anything about it, and despite not even following along with it, purporting that it’s gotten worse like
re this post. Wow, anon. I’m. I’ll just leave this standing like this so everyone else can be blown away like I just was but yeah, if you look at it like this. Just, wow. Also, what a vile thing to do. But good that we finally know their true colours now.
I was thinking yesterday and I realised I never questioned how well Moriarty was able to sell his fake actor persona. Sherlock thought it was because of the key that’s able to break into every computer, but we know that that key doesn’t exist, so how was moriarty able to do it?
I definitely hated the reporter chick, but are you telling me she didn’t at least check out these shows and see if he was actually in them? And it took the police over two years to prove Moriarty was actually real. If all of these were fake I’m sure it would only have took them a couple of days. Or what Moriarty was actually an actor on the side in case this situation ever came up?
No, I think Richard Brooke got the same deal as the cabbie. Maybe he was dying as well and in exchange for money he took up the persona of Moriarty.
So, who’s behind Moriarty? Mary, of course. She’s been orchestrating all of this from the beginning. Remember in the blind banker just before Shan was killed, she got a message from M and we assumed it meant Moriarty? Well, what if it was actually Mary?
It was Mary all along who wanted to burn Sherlock’s heart out. She made him into a fake and got him to take his own life. I do think that for a while there she actually believed that he was dead, but if Anderson could figure out he wasn’t dead then so could she. She called Mycroft and got him to tell the police and media that Moriarty was real and Sherlock is innocent, so he could come back.
So, I think she realised that killing him wasn’t the best idea anyway and decided to take something way more important from him, John. And boy did she try to break them up. Marrying him, then getting pregnant all that just to chain John to herself.
Shooting Sherlock in HLV was a mistake, because she didn’t plan on him interrupting her. What Magnussen knew could have blown her whole operation apart and she had to stop him, but also couldn’t let Sherlock stop her.
And then in s4 we really saw her evil side. Saving Sherlock from a bullet and making John lash out at him trying to drive a wedge between them. Sending Sherlock to hell was just a little bonus.
This is it though. She ruined him and the possibility of John and Sherlock ever getting together. I mean look at her evil face. This was her plan all along.
But yet again she underestimated the love John and Sherlock have for each other and that they can always find their way back to one another.
So, I think she was done waiting and just ended up shooting John. There’s no Eurus, it’s always been her and she put a bullet through John’s eye and Sherlock is the only one who can save him.
So yeah this is my theory, on the one hand i hate it cause it would mean moriarty is not real but i love him so much, but on the other hand it would reveal mary to be even more of despicable human being than we could have ever anticipated.
Sorry if this has been talked about before, please do link me to other metas on this if you have any.
Tags under the cut (if you want me to untag you please let me know, i just don’t have too many followers but am excited about this)
Ok. So up until this point I haven’t really participated too much with meta creation simply because I struggle with subtext and I always thought myself too slow to find anything. Anyway I was singing the first part to Eurus’ song today and it occurred to me that the song may or may not have clues for us to find.
“I that am lost, oh who will find me?”
The lost special is the speaker,
“deep down below the old beech tree”
Beech trees are generally symbolic for the written word, so perhaps a link to the original story or something else (?)
“come succour me the east wind blows”
succour means ‘to give aid or assistance to’ so if this could refer to either the lost special itself or John and Sherlock. I favour John (”John Watson definitely in danger”) the threat being the east wind (Mary or Euros depending on your favoured theory)
“sixteen by six brother and under we go.”
This line is what got me. I thought that perhaps sixteen by six couldiI be a date. sixteenth of June. And then I remembered the tweet regarding Fireworks and Guy Fawkes day. Now I’ m an aussie so I have no idea what or when it is. So anyway that added up to nothing (its in November) anyway I did another search ‘sixteenth June Sherlock” to see what would come up. Lo and behold the first thing that comes up was John’s blog. The entry you ask?
Fucky??? I thought so too. I’m going to track down the rest of the song see what I can find. I haven’t seen anything like this so far, if you have any thoughts feel free to add them.
#norbury
I can’t believe there’s legitimate meta about how Eurus’s song could actually be helpful
This lovely blog post (Watch the eyes…) by
@hubblegleeflower rolled across my dash today and I had to chime in on the five
minutes!
I too believe that this scene is incredibly important for Sherlock and
John (and us too) because we hear about the “five minutes” one other time that I can think
of in Season 4, back during The Six Thatchers.
When Sherlock is entering the aquarium for his meeting with “Vivian.”
A voice comes over the loudspeaker: (transcript courtesy of Ariane Devere)
NIGHT TIME. COUNTY HALL, SOUTH BANK. Inside the Sea Life
London Aquarium housed inside County Hall, Sherlock makes his way along the
blue-lit corridors and through the glass tunnels under the water.
TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT: Ladies and gentlemen, the Aquarium will
be closing in five minutes. Please make your way to the exit. Thank you.
SO:
What REALLY occurs in the aquarium takes just five
minutes.
What Mary does to Sherlock and John in the aquarium takes
just five minutes.
Those five minutes serve to knock the entirety of Season 4 out of whack.
Important, indeed.
As always, apologies for tagging the unwilling or missing a
tag! Please share with whoever may be interested. Thank you!!
So I headed over to Ariane DeVere’s transcript of TLD and searched for “five,” and HOLY shit…
It took five minutes to kill Mary and wrench John and Sherlock apart. Five minutes to erase our memories. Five minutes to reprogram us and launch us into TFP hell.
Sooo… I decided to quickly do a search through the entire show, and I found a couple of interesting things.
Most notably:
Sherlock and John met Moriarty for five
minutes at the pool in TGG
It took five minutes for the TEH train car
to “disappear”
David always responds to Mary’s tweets within five minutes
Bainbridge *died* five minutes after coming off duty
John didn’t find Sherlock until five minutes after Mary shot him
TAB takes five minutes in real time
There’s also some interesting mentions of “five years;” Lestrade has known Sherlock for five years as of ASIP, and Mary has had her present identity for the past five years as of HLV.
After hours of discussion with @posh-boy-clever-boy, we have a theory on this East Wind/Redbeard musical theme and its occurrences in S3-S4. This is a joint effort – thanks again so much for theorising with me! You rock!! ❤ ❤ ❤
Okay. I will start by stating again that the East Wind/ Redbeard Theme is one and the same, and I’ve been wondering forever why this is the case. I thought it may have to do with Eurus specifically because Eurus’ name literally means East Wind. Then, I’ve realised that I have made a grave miscalculation in one aspect. All this time, I was comparing Redbeard theme to the “East Wind” track, not with the matching scene; I had been thinking that this will correspond to the mentioning of East Wind on the tarmac. Well, damn. It wasn’t the case. The track is titled “East Wind” but the scene on screen at this point is MYCROFT in a helicopter. I wrote this bit in the Villain meta that I wrote earlier, but this is an extension from that bit. Mycroft has the Redbeard/East Wind theme, not the mentioning of “East Wind” on the tarmac.
Mycroft is, after all, who brought up both concepts to us. Mycroft is also who gives us the insight.
TSoT: when Sherlock is audibly distressed on the phone, Mycroft brings up Redbeard, to which Sherlock petulantly answers, “I’m not a child anymore.”
HLV: Surgery!Sherlock hears Mycroft telling him to “find something to calm him down,” because “East Wind is coming, Sherlock. It’s coming to get you.” He finds Redbeard. He “comes back to life” eventually.
Later we find out that this is a story that Mycroft used to tell young Sherlock. A Cautionary tale. Cause and effect. When East Wind happens, you find Redbeard. East Wind is what takes us all in the end— the terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path.
If TFP was to be taken at face value, Redbeard is Sherlock’s disappeared childhood friend whom he has forgotten for decades, and East Wind is another name for Sherlock’s disappeared sister whom he has forgotten for decades.
Cause and effect. Lost and found. Attack and Defense. East Wind and Redbeard.
Somehow, this is all about pressure points. Magnussen says it himself. Mycroft’s pressure point is Sherlock. Sherlock’s pressure point is John.
The following are the moments in which East Wind/ Redbeard musical theme take place. Music SAVES US ALL!!!!
1. HLV: Sherlock is losing his life. He has been attacked. He climbs his way back, and finds the one thing that will calm him down & help him survive. He finds that one thing that he needs to defend and protect. Thinking of Redbeard, to save John. Cue Redbeard / John’s theme.
2. HLV: Mycroft’s pressure point is attacked when Sherlock is threatened by Magnussen. Mycroft came in a helicopter and brings dozens of armed soldiers. Mycroft was ready to kill if need had arisen. The one thing he needs to protect was threatened. He loves his brother more than he lets on, and he already does a lot (I mean, have you heard “Brother Mine”?!??!!??!?! THE MOST HEARTBREAKING and BROTHERLY!! ULTIMATE SACRIFICE). Cue East Wind / Redbeard theme.
3. TFP: Sherlock is lost in a room with faux walls. John is lost in a well. Eurus is lost, wondering who will find her. Sherlock finds a dog bowl that has Redbeard’s name on it. John finds bones. Sherlock’s pressure point has been found, and it is his childhood and the trauma (whether it was a dog or a child) that changed his once emotional self entirely. He needs to solve the riddle to defend it. Cue East Wind / Redbeard theme.
4. TFP: The mystery to Sherlock’s emotional childhood / pressure point is “solved” by remembering Victor Trevor, his childhood best friend who drowned. This is distinctly redolent of his first case, Carl Powers, who was also drowned by Moriarty. Meanwhile, his current best friend is still lost and is about to drown in a well. No one is happy. In fact, everyone is very unhappy. Sherlock had no one before John, and no one else since. and he can’t lose him. Cue East Wind /Redbeard theme.
5. TFP: Eurus is found. She confesses: “Every time I close my eyes, I’m on the plane. I’m lost in the sky and no one can hear me.” This is Eurus’ pressure point: being alone, being abandoned, not knowing how to land, not knowing if anyone understands her. Cue East Wind/Redbeard Theme.
Read 1: If Eurus is fake and is a part of Sherlock’s brain or imagination, this could be interpreted as his constant self-identification as a “sociopath,” trying to stay closed off (“Alone protects me”), trying not to get involved, but he needs to be more grounded emotionally. As if everyone is “asleep,” everyone is dull and slow and mundane, and he is alone, high above in the sky; but he is terrified because at some point he has to land. His pressure point is his emotions. This is his Final Problem: embracing that he is, after all, the most human human being.
Read 2: If this is taken as John’s TAB, this could be interpreted as being trapped within his feeble consciousness while losing blood, very alone, with no one to hear his screaming. He wants to be heard. He wants to be found. He wants to land. He wants to come home. He needs to be saved. For Sherlock, if John dies like this, his heart will be burned out. He won’t survive this blow. Saving John Watson is his Final Problem.
If anyone would like to posit with us as to why Mycroft would have this musical theme – or what else this theme could mean – please feel free to add!
I cannot thank the composers enough. These are incredible pieces of music.
Thank you for reading! Tagging some people who might be interested.
Sincerely, these music metas are amazing. Thank you for writing this, and thanks to your collaborator @posh-boy-clever-boy!
*raise hand* I have a theory! In TFP, Mycroft let slipped how he use Redbeard to check up on Sherlock:
Redbeard, a trigger word – I think Mycroft taught Sherlock how to build a mind palace to lock away his memory of love (caring is not an advantage); the reason Mycroft asked about Redbeard when Sherlock called at John’s wedding 😭 Mycroft knew all of this from personal experience – because he had to do the same when he lost his best friend: Carl Powers. Remember the serial suicide of the 18-yr-old boy at the sports center in ASiP? Pretty sure that’s a parallel, the boy was soaked from the rain = Carl Powers “drowned.” Sherlock didn’t solve the case completely at TGG though, I think the other part of the case has to do with the Moriarty/Mary mystery.
p.s. Here’s my take on Eurus if you’re all interested
p.p.s. I think east wind = love (conquers all), and Mycroft found his goldfish 😉
I feel like I had an “aha!” moment. I might just be saying something everyone else has, and forgive me if that’s the case, but hear me out.
Prior to January 15th, we all thought Sherlock would confess his love to John during The Final Problem.
However, Sherlock couldn’t have. He still wasn’t ready for romance. How do I know this? The Abominable Bride told us so.
This postby jon-lox pointed out that the line “romantic entanglement” is very specific, and it occurs twice, first in the greenhouse scene from TAB:
John: Why do you need to be alone?
Sherlock: If you are referring to romantic entanglement, as I have often explained before, all emotion is abhorrent to me.
And then in TLD:
Sherlock: As I think I have explained to you many times before, romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for other people–
John: Would complete you as a human being.
Jon-lox’s post concludes that since these two big scenes were interrupted, since this entire conversation was aborted twice, it has to happen again, and on the third time, it will be resolved. I agree. It’s significant that those two scenes had very similar dialogue and neither conversation brought about any real change in Sherlock and John’s relationship. It leaves the audience yearning for something substantial to come out of Sherlock and John’s exchange, or else it feels kind of pointless.
But, I think a lot of us forgot about how the greenhouse scene concluded, and I believe it’s crucial. After going back and forth, Mind Palace John askes, “What made you like this?”
Sherlock responds, “Oh, Watson. Nothing made me…I made me.” Then, a dog barks, and he goes, “Redbeard?” But, the case picks up, and Redbeard isn’t mentioned again for the rest of the episode.
I think it is so important that Redbeard was included in this specific scene. The scene, of course, tells us that, although Sherlock is unable to recognize this on a conscious level, whatever happened with Redbeard is responsible for who he is today, which is later confirmed in TFP. This scene could have been placed anywhere in the episode, but Mofftiss chose to conclude the conversation about Sherlock’s love life in this way. Why?
The greenhouse scene, in its entirety, told us that Sherlock could not open himself up to emotion and romantic entanglement until he confronted the trauma that forced him to emotionally shut down in the first place.
Again, Sherlock could not make this conclusion about himself because the pieces were still missing with Redbeard, which is why the conversation is left hanging again in real time with John. I remember when TLD aired, I thought, “Why did Sherlock deny feeling romance again? What about the scene in TAB?”
Now, I realize that Sherlock actually couldn’t progress on this matter while there were still unanswered questions so deep in his mind that even his drug-induced dream in TAB couldn’t get to the heart of the problem.
Personally, I don’t have strong feelings about whether TFP is real or fake. I’m keeping an open mind to everything. But, whether Sherlock found out about Victor Trevor/Redbeard in real time or in his mind doesn’t matter. What matters is that Sherlock confronted his childhood trauma which made him (at least attempt to) divorce himself from all emotion. He confronted it, and he overcame it.
Where does this leave us? It’s simple: Sherlock’s ready now. When the third version of this conversation occurs, it will not be left hanging anymore. It will resolve.
I’m pretty new to the meta world and I would really love to get some opinions on this. I’m going to tag a couple blogs which immediately come to mind, and I hope I’m not bothering anyone! Everyone is free to comment on this, though. @inevitably-johnlocked, @tjlc
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