I’ve been reading through “Between Each Beat Are Words Unsaid” and when I read chapters 10 & 11 it reminded me of how my interpretation of that scene is often a bit different than the rest of the fandom.
Ok so I know the scene in “The Blind Banker” where John corrects Sherlock about being his “Colleague” instead of his “Friend” gets a lot of mileage, and this idea has probably been posted before, but most of the time I see it from the “Poor Sherlock” standpoint.
I feel sad for BOTH of them in this scene. They are still trying to figure each other out, and as the show will establish, they are both absolute SHIT at feelings. Remember what happened right before this scene, John ran out of money at the market, and had to ask Sherlock for money. He’s embarrassed and wrong-footed.
They hardly know each other at this point. A month, maybe two. (Just checked John’s blog, only two months.) They haven’t “worked” together much if you go with the assumption that John would have blogged about it. (He had only blogged about “A Study in Pink” and a few other random things at this point)
One interesting thing I noticed is that during his write-up of ASiP he says:
“We arrived in ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ where, to my surprise, he introduced me as his colleague. The police seemed surprised by this as well I get the impression he’d not had ‘colleagues’ before.”
That is such a loaded statement. John is surprised that Sherlock views him as a colleague and that is important to John. We know this now because John skips so many details when writing up the cases, and the ones that make it are the ones that stick in HIS mind.
I created gifs of the scene and let me tell you, when you are advancing frame by frame to get the clips correct, these scenes are PAINFUL.
This introduction as “colleague” showed John that Sherlock wanted John to be viewed as an equal from the start. That would be VERY important to someone like John. (He hasn’t yet secured the job at the clinic at this point in the show, and he is very low on money, he is an injured army doctor…he has no PLACE, but he wants it desperately to be with Sherlock)
Also, something I never noticed before, Sherlock introduces Sally as his friend. And John observes how Sherlock treats his “friends” at this crime scene.
BUT given Sally’s reaction to the introduction John can’t help but notice that Sherlock catches the police off-guard with the use of “colleague” so he assumes it means he doesn’t have any/many.
In John’s mind I think he makes the connection that “colleague” is an important word to Sherlock, and “friend” is not, so he choses to use it from then on. He wants to show Sherlock that he is paying attention.
We have to remember that everyone who had met John up to the scene with Sebastian has assumed that he is sleeping with Sherlock, and it’s OBVIOUSLY a sensitive subject for John, so if you look at Sebastian’s creepy/knowing glance at Sherlock after “friend” you can understand why John reinforces it with “colleague.”
I think part of it is to counter the look Sebastian gave Sherlock and reinforce the whole “it’s all fine” vibe he is trying to solidify, and also to show he was paying attention on the last case, and using the word Sherlock picked for them.
See how he smiles at Sebastian in the gif above, and then glances at Sherlock for approval in the gif below. (It happens so fast that I didn’t see it until I was going frame by frame for these gifs.
John can IMMEDIATELY tell he has done the wrong thing, and you can see if on both their faces in the gif below.
This is why my heart breaks for both of them in this scene. They are both trying so hard to figure each other out and prove that they can be what the other needs, but they just aren’t quite there yet.
So I don’t think John was being deliberately mean, I think he was just caught off-guard that Sherlock had friends in uni, (because he determined he didn’t have a lot of friends in ASiP) and as he was processing that, he belatedly heard the intro and corrected Sherlock to show he was paying attention on the last case and that he is WORKING with Sherlock.
(We’ve all done it in our lives. Those cringe-worthy moments where you had the best of intentions but fell embarrassingly flat…)
I think he realizes his mistake in the last gif, but it’s too late to recover because Sherlock and Sebastian have moved on.
The whole scene reminds me of the scene at Angelo’s. John is trying SO hard to make a good impression on Sherlock that it makes him awkward at times.
I feel bad for both of them in this scene. Mostly Sherlock, because he had more to lose, but John also because he isn’t sure of his place by Sherlock’s side yet.
I really dig this interpretation of the scene. I’ve never seen John’s use of “colleague” as mean-spirited in any way–it’s a knee-jerk reaction for sure, but it’s not like he was trying to put Sherlock down by calling himself a colleague rather than a friend–and I like this explanation for why he does that. When you try to assimilate into a new culture, which is essentially what John is doing here as he tries to find his place in Sherlock’s world, you pick up and use the language that already exists there, and along the way, you’re bound to make some mistakes. It’s like learning a foreign language or even like joining a fandom. You try to copy the things you see others doing, use the words they’re using, and sometimes you might not get it quite right because you don’t have the full context and history and connotation associated with it, but at least you’re trying. And I agree with you that I think that’s what John is doing here.
This also fits so well thematically with tbb anyway. The episode is about them finding their groove, figuring out how they work together, how they live together, and how those two halves of their relationship fit with each other. At home, we’ve got Sherlock telling John they’re going out in the evening when John already has plans and Sherlock showing up on John’s date and John not knowing how he’s going to pay his half of the bills. And then for the work, we’ve got John leaving Soo Lin’s side in the museum and Sherlock sneaking into Soo Lin’s flat without John
and John not knowing to run when the cops come for Raz
and Sherlock not realizing John was smart enough to have taken a photo of the cipher. There’s conflict and miscommunication and a sense of feeling each other out in every aspect of their lives because they aren’t in sync yet. And this is another of those places. Sherlock considers them friends, and he wants to show that off to Sebastian. And John doesn’t realize the significance of that term being applied to him here–for all the reasons you mention above. Essentially, he hasn’t learned yet to play along with Sherlock in front of others. He’s learned this by the next episode–he doesn’t call Sherlock out about not having a case in front of Mycroft, waiting instead until Mycroft leaves to say anything about it–but here he doesn’t know yet that part of his role is to play along with what Sherlock says. That’s not to say that he never disagrees with Sherlock, obviously, but that is part of their dynamic that is shown repeatedly throughout the series. Later, John recognizes when Sherlock is either trying to save face or is playing a role for a case and therefore knows to keep his mouth shut, but in tbb he hasn’t learned that yet.
(I just had a conversation with Katie @therealmartinsgrrrl that is fucking me up so hard right now.)
John Watson is a man who is a study in contradictions. He’s a soldier and a doctor, yes, we all know that. But he’s so much more complex than that shorthand lets on.
He’s a man who has a deep seated compulsion to care for and nurture others, yet has studiously avoid forming deep personal connections well into his forties. He’s pleasant and polite on the surface, but scratch past that and he’s a bit difficult, a bit salty and surly and not always a very nice person. He’s a friendly person that doesn’t have any friends. Not real ones.
The caretaking bit is an ingenious move. It’s a control thing, it’s a way of being in charge of every situation, of never being at anyone else’s mercy, of never being the vulnerable or needy one. I know this because I do this. I literally have made a career out of it, of never ever revealing myself yet focusing my attention and caretaking on many others. People like me, we like to see ourselves as the good ones, as the tireless givers, maybe even sometimes as martyrs.
We’re not always good people, though. Not necessarily. What we are, are people deathly afraid of being vulnerable, of being on the other end of that equation. Because needing others is a surefire way of getting hurt, and hurt badly.
Somewhere along the line, probably early in life, John Watson got badly let down by someone he depended on. Fanon often lays the blame at the feet of alcoholism running through the Watson clan (and as the adult child and grandchild of alcoholics, I personally tend towards this view.) Perhaps is was poverty, not of the grinding sort but the everyday, not-enough-money, working-two-jobs sort that tends to let kids’s needs slip through the cracks. Perhaps it was just a combination of a sensitive temperament and a home life that just didn’t have room for those kinds of needs.
Whatever happened, it made John Watson shut down the parts of him that needed, made him sublimate that basic desire for connection into caretaking, into doctoring, into healing the wounded, and in a war theater, no less, an arena that cranked the stakes up to do-or-die and left no room for emotions or vulnerability.
(Insert “And whatever the hell happened with John and Sholto” somewhere in here.)
But then…Sherlock. Why Sherlock? Why anyone, honestly? Whatever the reason, something about this strange, strange man awakens something so long dormant in John that he probably thought it didn’t even exist anymore. A feeling of needing. Of wanting. Of a desire for connection so deep and terrifying it hurts to much to contemplate.
John dates all these women in the interim. He probably sleeps with most of them at some point. But none of them are Sherlock. None of them reach that deep place of needing, of wanting to be understood. Not even close.
(And then Sherlock goes and does the worst possible thing and leaves him behind. Good God. No wonder John is traumatized and wounded and still angry as fuck three years later. Just think of the magnitude of that betrayal, of the one person you allow yourself to need wholeheartedly leaving you behind. It’s hard to even think about for too long.)
And even after all that, John’s need for connection to Sherlock is so great he doesn’t even hold out a week before he’s back in his orbit.
And that, I think, is what John is running from, what he can’t yet deal with, why he marries Mary even after Sherlock’s return. He’s not hiding from his sexual attractions. Well, maybe he is, just a little, but much more than that he’s hiding from the enormity of his own confusing and overwhelming emotional need, and the power it gives Sherlock over him, the way it takes away John’s control and ability to keep another at remove.
At the end of it all it’s not his orientation, but his desire for love and acceptance and true companionship from Sherlock Holmes, that are the actual skeletons in John’s closet.
(Am I projecting? God yes. It’s late and it’s tumblr and I’ll ramble if I want to.)
