See Icon (Molly Hooper defense post)

[neadods]

Engaging would be the world's most pointless use of my time, but I do have to come here to vent a little bit about having seen Molly Hooper dismissed as "we know little about her except ... she doesn't mind dead bodies" and that everything else came from Lou Brealey, not the script

Comments

[penguineggs]

Hear, hear!

There's also:

- she's the woman who dumped Moriarty - and survived
- she's the woman whom Moriarty overlooked so comprehensively that she could bring off a plan which outwitted him and led to his death
- she's the woman who tore Sherlock a new one in front of John for taking drugs
- she's the woman who sees as well as observes: "I know what it means, when someone only smiles when there's someone there"

and finally, when Sherlock himself uses language to her which suggests it's pathetic that she's making herself obvious running after a man (whom he's dense enough not to spot is him - I'm thinking of the Christmas party scene) she stands up for herself with such force that she surprises him into the first sincere apology he gives on the show.

One minor niggle - in BriEng a coroner is a quasi-legal position, just as often held by a lawyer as a doctor, whose job is to conduct post-mortems involving the calling of witnessess. What I think Molly is is a pathologist -- which would mean she's also got a medical degree or

[neadods]

I think there's a difference between your coroners and ours... or perhaps just on TV. Molly must have a medical degree -- which strengthens the Molly/John parallel even more, except besotted Molly hangs on to her job and besotted John doesn't, preferring to hang out with Sherlock (which is, admittedly, canonical.)

The only thing is... although Molly says she broke up with Moriarty, I've always read that as wounded pride, that Moriarty just walked out of her life when he had accomplished his goal (which strengthens the Sherlock/Moriarty parallel because Sherlock does so often use her in the early seasons.) Except, as you point out, that leaves overlooked Molly to be the key to Moriarty's doom; he underestimated her and died, where Sherlock underestimated her, got his ass handed to him, and learned.

[hernerdiness]

I too am on the Molly Hooper Defense Squad (she's my icon) and I could talk about this forever. There's SO MUCH in the text to show how awesome, smart, and competent Molly is, and yet people just ignore it. Infuriating!

[neadods]

Shall I kick off the Women in Sherlock panel with some Molly love?

[hernerdiness]

Sure! :D I may actually be able to go to that panel since registration will be closed by then.

[neadods]

Just pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don't put me up against the Peter Blau story hour. I know the schedule has to shift a bit.

[amethyst_hunter]

THIS. I like Molly and it's disappointing (though not surprising) to see that she doesn't get nearly enough credit for her awesomeness.

[penguineggs]

I think it's like people claiming women don't have a sense of humour and then, when a woman actually makes a joke, explaining it to her on the basis that because she's a woman, it must be an accident rather than a joke.

That is, because the Tumblr mindset is all "Moffat is the worst sexist EVAH" they can't look at a character created by Moffat as being someone who isn't a sexist caricature, and even though people are always going on about how they want to see female characters of agency who aren't ninja waifs (like Buffy or River Tam) when they actually see one, like Molly, they can't get their heads around it so they have to fall back on applying the double standard.

[neadods]

Someone once explained to me that I "didn't realize" that I had "subconsciously written" this very complex bit of wordsmithing that I had very consciously taken about 4 hours to work out.

The internet is a good thing, because I couldn't reach out and kill that person...

[penguineggs]

I once had a character describe herself as "the whore d'oeuvres to the hearty breakfast" to indicate that her boyfriend had pressured her to have sex (which was the only way she was able to categorise it at the time; seeing as her low self-esteem and the way the boyfriend had exploited it) when they were both in the condemned cell. The number of comments I got which began "Actually, one minor niggle. That phrase is really spelled...." had to be seen to be believed.

[neadods]

Tears. Of. Blood.