home again home again, + Sherlockish thoughts

[marta_bee]

This afternoon and tonight I flew back from fun in the sun to... reality. It felt good being there, not so good being back but glad to have my own bed to sleep in and . Theoretically there is sugar of some variety in the kitchen, which I will hunt out momentarily. For the moment, though, I'm just tired. Those four flights are a killer, and because

Comments

[scfrankles]

Can I just chuck in my two penn'orth about that bit in TBB?

When I first got involved in the Sherlock fandom, I was taken aback by the angst surrounding that part because for me that bit was funny (and not terribly important). And it wasn't just my personal interpretation: the day after TBB's first showing, a workmate spontaneously mentioned that bit, and she'd apparently experienced exactly the same reaction.

Now, it might be because I'm British and middle-aged but for me there are two different meanings of "friend" in that exchange. Sherlock pointedly says: "This is my friend", which I took to mean that he's telling Wilkes: "You lot never liked me, did you? But now I've got a real friend." However, I think Wilkes misinterprets Sherlock's emphasis, and his own: "Friend, eh?" means: "Oh, I see. He's your boyfriend." John picks up on the implied boyfriend meaning and is embarrassed and uncomfortable. He uses "colleague" to try and get the conversation back on a formal footing - to remind Wilkes that he and Sherlock are there on

[marta_bee]

It's ironic this is coming up now. Just this weekend I was having a conversation with a relative about my gay uncle (literally, my father's brother in a long-term romantic relationship with another man, A.; that's not a euphemism), and the other person referred to A. as his "friend." It took me a minute to work out just what she meant by that because to me friend by itself doesn't mean anything sexual. Special friend, maybe, or even good friend, but friend by itself is just a friend to my ear.

But I like this perspective a lot, if only because it's a nice way back around to the basic point I was trying to make in this interpretation: that this isn't so much a way of distancing John from Sherlock as asserting his value independent of that. Though I can also easily see how Sherlock (this version of Sherlock) might misread that.

I'm glad you liked the photo, too. :-)

[shadowfireflame]

Oh, I adore this explanation so much--John' feeling undervalued with his skills and wants to reassert his professional competence: he's important too, he's there for a purpose. Whereas Sherlock thinks he's just given John the highest compliment he can imagine and will fret until The Sign of Three, thinking he and John aren't friends. *cries* Brilliant reading of the scene!

[marta_bee]

Well, to be fair they work out the friend bit behind THOB, don't they? But even so, so much of the show's characterization seems to be about Sherlock overestimating his importance to John and I wonder whether how much can be traced back to moments like this where John feels the need to bulk up the fact that he's good and sufficient on his own.

It's heartbreaking, really. Beautiful, though. I'm glad you liked this reading.