notagarroter:

it-is-never-twins-watson:

penelope1730:

notagarroter:

a-consulting-criminal:

isitandwonder:

thediogenes:

notagarroter:

notagarroter:

JOHN:
Redbeard?
SHERLOCK: He was my dog.
MYCROFT : Eurus took Redbeard and locked
him up somewhere no-one could find him.

JOHN:
Mycroft’s been lying to you; to both of us.
JOHN: They’re not dogs’ bones.

I’m working on another meta and I’m curious what headcanons people have formed on this point.  Preferably Watsonian, not Doylist explanations.

I get that, as children, Mycroft would have wanted to protect Sherlock from the ugly memory of his best friend’s murder.  But now that they are all adults and Eurus is using Sherlock’s ignorance on this point to manipulate him, why doesn’t Mycroft simply tell him, “By the way, we never had a dog.  Redbeard was a young boy who went missing”?

@anafea? @thediogenes? any other Mycroft-stans out there?

Aside from saving a juicy plot reveal till later in the episode, I think he was probably hoping/clutching desperately at straws that it wouldn’t come out. Either that or he hoped that he’d have chance to bring it up at a later date when he thought Sherlock could deal with it better (or when John wasn’t around – he clearly wasn’t at his most comfortable having to air the dirty family laundry in front of John).

For all Mycroft is ruled by reason and pragmatism, he makes some terrible decisions when his judgement is clouded by emotion, and particularly terrible ones when he has little to no control over a situation. I think him withholding that information was both

a way of him maintaining some sort of semblance of control over the situation and an attempt to shield Sherlock from further emotional pain.

Mycroft is a very cost/benefit analysis kind of thinker to me, and personally I don’t think he wouldn’t see the utility in telling Sherlock something so distressing unless it was absolutely necessary. Especially given that he’s been forced to dump a metric shit ton of fucked up family history on him in a very short space of time.

Also:

I used – at discrete intervals – potential trigger words to update myself as to your mental condition. I was looking after you.

Redbeard was a trigger word. Even at the point at which Mycroft has pretty much lost all control of the situation in Baker Street, he’s still trying desperately to cling on to it because he thinks if he can he can look after Sherlock (even though it’s quite evident that he can’t, but hey, emotions + Mycroft = blindness to his own flaws and limits).

Mycroft’s whole life since he was a child has consisted of him carrying the family secrets in order to protect those around him. He then went into a career where keeping secrets is top priority in order to protect lives. It’s ingrained in him to keep things to himself for the good of others. I think giving up that responsibility and burden in one go would be hard for him, he’s hard wired to want to keep things quiet.

But if what Redbeard really stood for was such a big secret that even Mycroft dared not to reveal it to Sherlock in one go – how could Magnussen know about Redbeard and even had a file on it/him? Because I doubt Magnussen cares for missing dogs…

If Magnussen knew about Redbeard/Victor and thereby of Eurus and her existance/function, why was he allowed to continue? Why does Mycroft say people like Magnussen never do too much harm when he in fact knew one of the biggest secrets not only of the Holmes family, but of the British Government (Eurus and Sherrinford) and was very likely to use it for blackmail? Why did he built a nonesensical chain of pressure points when he had both Mycroft and Sherlock in his pocket by knowing about Redbeard/Eurus?

And how did Magnussen know?

And why did Moriarty, who also knew about Redbeard, never use this specific, devastating knowledge against Sherlock or Mycroft, but instead  killed himself before his greatest triumph?

And if Moriarty was in cahoots with Eurus, who gave him the perfect ammunition to destroy Sherlock, why did he set up that suicide plan in which Sherlock had to kill himself or his friends would be killed? Why did Moriarty neither mention Victor, Redbeard or Eurus to destroy Sherlock? To show him that he knew nothing and was but a puppet, operated by his brother?

What was all this about?

Also,
what about the Holmes parents? They also didn’t know were Victor was, what
happened to him and who did it. I don’t see any reason, why they would agree to
the brilliant idea of turning Sherlock’s memory of Victor into a freaking dog!
Or do they wanna tell me they didn’t know about the memory conversion and by
pure chance no one ever mentioned Victor ever again after he got lost?

In
general, the Holmes parents are so OOC and act implausible in TFP. At the end
of the episode they are told that their son Mycroft has lied to them for
decades because their daughter Eurus is alive, a psychopath and, in fact, the
murderer of their other son’s childhood friend. But apparently, the Holmes are
alright. I must admit, they were a bit annoyed, but maybe visiting Eurus on her
lonely island and listening to her playing the violin calmed them.

@isitandwonder, I think you may be assuming too much?  All we know from HLV is that Magnussen knows the word “Redbeard” and knows that it relates to something sensitive for Sherlock Holmes.  That doesn’t necessarily imply that he knows all about Eurus and Victor and Sherrinford and Musgrave.  Odds are, he got the info from someone in Moriarty’s criminal network – someone who knew that “Redbeard” was connected to a big secret involving Sherlock, but nothing more. 

As for why Moriarty didn’t use the information, my sense is that he regarded it as an insurance policy, in case he died but Sherlock survived.  He wanted to be sure the “game” would continue after his death, and he’d be able to torture Sherlock from beyond the grave.  Eurus and “Redbeard” was the best way to do that.

@a-consulting-criminal, your question about the Holmes parents is one of the things I’m hoping to address in the meta I’m working on. 

Regarding Magnussen and for whatever it’s worth – he said it himself – he doesn’t need to know all the details of a secret or even the truth – just having limited information is all that’s important. Or, the fact that he knows certain people or subjects are pressure points. Redbeard could have been fed to him through a multitude of avenues. Eurus could have done it…if for no other reason than to see where that particular investigation led Sherlock – how he handled it. She was (obviously) aware of what was going on, since it was her, after all, that broadcasted Moriarty’s pre-recorded message that brought Sherlock back from exile and certain death.

As for Eurus and Moriarty – she also wouldn’t have to feed him every bit of information. Moriarty was so fixated on Sherlock that just bits and pieces was more than enough to pacify / excite him. Eurus did say that Jim Moriarty wasn’t nearly as interested in staying alive as he was Sherlock’s eventual demise – no matter how that came about. Even posthumously.

While it’s never said directly, there is aspects of dialogue that implies Sherlock and Moriarty began their ‘dance’ as children. Sherlock was the ONLY person who suspected Carl Powers’s death was not an accident. He was the ONLY one who noticed Carl’s shoes were missing. As a kid, he went to the police, “made a fuss”, but no one paid attention. James Moriarty must have been made aware of this at the time (maybe they lived in close proximity to one another?) – because Carl Powers is how Moriarty began TGG with Sherlock – his first case. It was Moriarty’s ‘treat’ to Sherlock – to show him he had been right all along. So, Moriarty knew of Sherlock as a kid and it fascinated him – that there was someone else in the world like him – as brilliant as him.

The Holmes parents – I don’t think they lived in obliviousness regarding Victor Trevor. They knew Eurus knew his whereabouts as they were desperate to get this information out of her. This much was stated in Mycroft’s flashback. Mycroft also added that they knew what happened, that Victor died, since Eurus began calling him “dead Redbeard.” So, none of that was left ambiguous.

I think it’s a lot to assume that these parents “allowed” Sherlock a “conversion” of his memories – it’s something he did on his own. Which, btw, is not uncommon in children with PTSD. Realistically, it’s not a leap to think that everyone, including Mycroft, suffered from the emotional fallout of what happened (Mycroft still feels it). These parents not only lost a 4 year old daughter to an asylum and what they thought was her eventual death a few years later;  their 5 year old (Sherlock) almost died in a house fire, they later learn Victor had also died but were helpless in finding him, they lost their home and undoubtedly dealt with an ongoing investigation. They further continued to have both Mycroft and Sherlock professionally evaluated with psychiatrists and specialists – not only for their intelligence, but emotional trauma. This much is said within the episode, but also through Sherlock’s sarcasm throughout the entire series, such as: John: “Are you insane?” Sherlock: “No, my parents had me tested. Numerous times.”  Sherlock’s parents might have been encouraged to maintain the illusion of Redbeard as a dog, until a later time when memories began to surface.  And, since I suspect they lost all of their possessions in the fire at Musgrave Hall, it means they also probably lost family photos and any physical trace of Eurus.

We have to remember that at one point Sherlock was just a clever little boy. Not the man who denies emotion. For children you have to let them grieve in a certain way. The Holmes parents are not going to keep bringing up a boy who went missing, that meant a great deal to their son. They don’t want him to keep feeling pain. The same for Mycroft as a big brother. Sherlock was his little brother who played pirate games with his best friend. Just an extremely clever little boy, not the consulting detective who has honed and crafted his mental ability today.

Mycroft didn’t know how the memory of Eurus and Victor would affect Sherlock if and when it would be revealed. He always went out of his way to protect Sherlock even if it wasn’t the right way about it.

As we have seen, drugs played a large part of Sherlock’s like and his balance on the edge of falling into hole was always uncertain. This could’ve been the leap off. Mycroft just simply didn’t know. Also, just like Sherlock today, there’s a chance Sherlock detached himself from his parents from an early age so where might the conversation about Victor even come up?

Just remember at the time and ever since, Sherlock has been a vulnerable little boy who went through an extremely traumatic experience and his family, out of love, would not mentally want to do anymore harm.

reblogging for insightful commentary by @penelope1730 and @it-is-never-twins-watson