Up For Discussion...

[laurtew.livejournal.com]

Hey, everyone. Hope your week has been going well.

Our discussion from last week (well, okay, Monday really, but...) went very well. I had a great time and I adore seeing everyone else's point of view.

So, today we have a new topic. The most brilliant Scandalbaby sent me this:


The Link: http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/140592/Benedict-Cumberbatch-On-Sherlocks-Devastatingly-Cruel-Love-Life


Benedict Cumberbatch on Sherlock’s “Devastatingly Cruel” Love Life

The series three conclusion of Sherlock was full of surprises, with fans of the reclusive super sleuth, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, even treated to a bit of romance.
His Last Vow aired in the UK last month, and aside from the return of Moriarty and the secret identity of Mrs John Watson, viewers also saw Sherlock proposing to pretty bridesmaid from episode two, Janine.

Just when we thought the confirmed bachelor had gone and got himself a girl it turned out it was all a ruse to get close to new super villain Magnussen.
In a behind the scenes interview with Benedict and show creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss on the soon to be released DVD of the series, the trio explain the the decision to have Sherlock break a woman's heart.

"In the original story, he does become engaged to Milverton's maid," MTV News report Gatiss as explaining on the DVD. "Heartlessly, which is what Steven has extrapolated into this thing."

Gatiss and Moffat go on to laugh about how Watson's (Martin Freeman) reaction to Sherlock was spot on: "But you're behaving like a human being here!" Gatiss says, laughing.

"You think it's nice, he's become humanised," Moffat continues. "He knows how to do all that, but he exploits it to terrible ends."

"It's devastatingly cruel, what he does," Cumberbatch chimes in. "He inveigles his way back into her life and impresses her, and turns his ability on to a single focus."

At a Q&A ahead of the last episode last month, Moffat explained that such scenes, along with glimpses of the detective's parents, were all about humanising the character:

"The frightening thing about Sherlock Holmes is that he has all the impulses that other human beings have, he just suppresses them in order to be a better detective and it's in those moments that he doesn't successfully suppress it that he gets into trouble.

"He believes that emotion gets in the way of his brilliant brain. On the evidence of the show so far and on the original stories, he's completely right. When he gets emotional, he gets blinded, he doesn't stop Mary as a fraud like he should have had, as she points out in the episode, ages ago."

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What is your favourite part of this? Do you agree with what they say about Sherlock and emotions?

Comments

[laurtew.livejournal.com]

As before, I'll put my comments here. :)

I like seeing the thought processes in how the character development goes. But the thing that caught my attention here was the last part. Sherlock thinks his emotions get in the way and Steven Moffat thinks he's right. I'm not sure I agree. Okay, he does make some interesting choices, but I think his emotions give him a broader view for his brain. Before John, he only saw love and caring in an academic way, a motivator for crimes. Now he can understand it, can see how loving someone, no matter what form that love is, can inspire one to do something drastic for them. I think, because he doesn't have much experience with the softer emotions, he's floundering, getting used to them. But, I think he'll come to realise, that if he lets John in, really lets him in, that they can make each other stronger.

As to Mary, I might agree that he should have caught her right off, but he was too overwhelmed with John. But, in the end, he didn't really spare John, taking the emotion out of it and making her simply a client. Did he make a mistake? I'm not sure yet. I feel like there is a bigger game being played here with Mary and we're only seeing the beginning of it.

Just my thoughts. :)

[salustra.livejournal.com]

I do agree, it's the same theory I've had. He suppresses emotion like he does the need to eat.

[fueschgast]

I can't help but be grumpy at the "behaving like a human being" and "he's become humanised". It just kind of comes off as calling being asexual or aromantic not human. I thought I have a pretty open view on the show, that they could hsow me whatever and I would go with it. But actually in one respect I will cling to my headcanon, no matter what Mofftiss say: to me Sherlock is asexual and/or aromantic. I'm just getting a bit desperate for representation.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Ugh, Moftiss, I am 3000% DONE with you guys and your stunted, adolescent understanding of the interplay between intelligence and emotion. *flings up hands*

In reality, the absence of emotion is far more likely to impede Sherlock's intellectual and psychological functioning than its presence. It's called emotional intelligence for a reason: it's actually really important. And you could say that the text (apparently unwittingly) backs up that argument too. Why does Sherlock suffer so intensely from spells of boredom? Why does he require constant stimulation to stave off his impulsive, neurotic, and seemingly depressive moods? Why does he resort to hard drugs and other destructive behaviors in order to stave off these moods? Could it be because he suffers from a self-identity made precarious by its lack of emotional grounding? Hmm...

Sherlock suffers from boredom with the severity that a young child suffers from boredom, possibly because he's never progressed emotionally beyond the age of a young child. He hasn't developed the capacity to be secure in his self-identity without needing to elicit constant feedback from the world around him. He needs constant stimulation from the outside world ("I NEED a case!") because he can't turn inward for self-comfort and emotional self-sustainment*. Why can't he? Because there's very little in there. Little that he sees fit (or knows how) to acknowledge, foster, or make any use of, anyway. Not only has he spent his whole life rejecting emotion, he hasn't even accepted the idea that the value of a thing may, in some cases, be predicated simply by one's own emotional enjoyment of said thing. So he deletes what isn't useful, abstains from what isn't rational, rejects whatever is sentimental, and basically does everything he can to insure that his inner landscape is as BARREN AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. And it's sad, IMO, because he absolutely believes this is what he needs to do, because The Work is all that matters...because Sherlock himself has unwittingly made it so that he doesn't have anything else to point to and say "That's important. I care about that. That matters."

Obviously this is just my reading of the character. And obviously it's all much more complicated than what can be summed up in a two-paragraph rant. But I stand by my rant.

I love Sherlock, and I love him in part because he is a deeply confused and stunted adult human being. But that the writers suggest he's not confused or stunted - that in fact his simplistic, backwards beliefs about human emotion are right - is something I find endlessly aggravating. Mainly because by understanding him in such simplistic terms, it means they then write him in simplistic terms, which makes it all so much less enjoyable.

Granted, I do think it's highly realistic that Sherlock would struggle with emotion. He's in his mid(?)-thirties, but has the emotional development of a child. If/when he does begin to experience some emotion (beyond whatever limited amount he already experiences) he's probably not going to know how to deal with it. Plus, his deeply ingrained automatic response is to see emotion as a repellent and hostile thing, which is likely to make dealing with his emotions all the more difficult for him, at least at first. But there's a big difference between saying "His inability to integrate his emotional intelligence with his intellectual intelligence is detrimental to his deductive abilities," which is true, and saying "His emotions blind him," as Moffat and Gatiss are saying.


**He needs constant stimulation from the outside world ("I NEED a case!") because he can't turn inward for self-comfort and emotional self-sustainment // Of course Sherlock is not completely unable to provide his own self-comfort and emotional sustainment. He is not a completely...hmm, shall we say "empty house," on the inside. He simply has a very limited range of ways at which he is practiced in doing so. He has his experiments, for example, which he is capable of producing for himself and by which he is capable of entertaining (and perhaps also comforting) himself. However, his experiments don't seem to be adequately sustaining for more than short periods of time between cases.

[k-for-kerfuffle.livejournal.com]

I have to admit to enjoying the S1/S2 more rational and less emotional Sherlock far more than his S3 presentation. I hope he'll come to terms with his emotional side soon, so that he hasn't to repress it all the time, but can somehow integrate this part of himself and return to being more about ratio with the emotions not being actually absent but taking a backseat. I don't enjoy emo-characters. Being ruled by emotions is nothing that I find in any way, shape or form admirable. Every animal has emotions. Those are not what divide us from the animal kingdom. It's our ability to think and be rational that does.

[angelachristian.livejournal.com]

I thought Sherlock was autistic and therefore unable to understand people's emotions and not having a theory of mind.