{"id":229907,"date":"2014-01-31T02:02:39","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T02:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/01\/31\/the-weight-of-our-actions-further-considerations\/"},"modified":"2014-01-31T02:02:39","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T02:02:39","slug":"the-weight-of-our-actions-further-considerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/01\/31\/the-weight-of-our-actions-further-considerations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weight of Our Actions: Further Considerations on Major Sholto, Sherlock and The Reichenbach Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

stephisanerd<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

(Note: Trigger warning: \u00a0Suicide\/ Suicidal intention.<\/strong> \u00a0This is the second part of\u00a0this<\/a>\u00a0post. \u00a0I edited the original post slightly and moved the conclusion over to this one and expanded it. \u00a0I\u2019m borrowing some of my own thoughts from here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\n

John<\/strong>: Look, Sherlock, this is the biggest and most important day of my life.
Sherlock<\/strong>: Well \u2026
John<\/strong>: No, it is! It is, and I want to be up there with the two people that I love and care about most in the world.
Sherlock<\/strong>: Yes.
John:<\/strong> Mary Morstan \u2026
Sherlock<\/strong>: Yes.
John<\/strong>: \u2026 and \u2026 you.
\u2026
Sherlock<\/strong>: So, in fact \u2026you-you mean \u2026
John:<\/strong> Yes.
Sherlock<\/strong>: I\u2019m your \u2026best \u2026
John<\/strong>: \u2026 man.
Sherlock<\/strong>: \u2026 friend?
John<\/strong>: Yeah, \u2019course you are. \u2019Course you\u2019re my best friend.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Saying that Sherlock is stunned by this information would be an understatement, but as hilarious as the delivery is, it drives home a very important point.<\/p>\n

Sherlock has never understood how John feels about him. <\/em>Sherlock has always believed that John values him because he is clever and brilliant, and because it meant that John gets the danger and adventures that he so clearly needs.<\/p>\n

Reconsider the Reichenbach phone call again. If Sherlock believes that all John cares about his cleverness, he has to believethat if John stops valuing that, that he will simply walk away, that he will no longer care about Sherlock. \u201c<\/em>I\u2019m a fake.\u201d <\/em>Sherlock tells him. He<\/em> isn\u2019t <\/em>just saying goodbye or trying to protect John-he\u2019s trying to convince John that everything that he has ever believed mattered about Sherlock is a lie. Sherlock is trying to break John\u2019s faith in him, hoping that it will lessen the loss. \u201cNobody could be that clever.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Sherlock tells him. <\/em> John doesn\u2019t see the truth of what Sherlock is really saying, what it really means, and he simply tells Sherlock \u201c<\/em>You could\u201d. <\/em>They\u2019re not having the same conversation, and so Sherlock goes to his \u2018death\u2019, believing that John still values him for his cleverness, but nothing more. He spends the next two years, on his own and lonely, believing that he does not matter to anyone beyond that. He comes back to find John furious and can\u2019t make sense of his anger, because he doesn\u2019t understand the source of it. He doesn\u2019t understand how much of a loss his \u2018death\u2019 was. He doesn\u2019t realize that John might forgive him, because he doesn\u2019t realize what is there underneath the anger.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not until John finally spells it out for him that Sherlock finally sees the truth of it. He matters to John. John loves him.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

And so, when Sherlock is confronted by Major Sholto, it gets to him. All along, Sherlock has been taking in the similarities and he, while occasionally jealous of Major Sholto\u2019s connection with John, sees himself. He sees a man needlessly dying, a man who is willfully letting his life be taken. He sees someone that John loves about to take his own life in front of him. Again<\/strong>.<\/strong> <\/em>\u201cThere\u2019s a proper time to die, isn\u2019t there?<\/em>\u201d <\/strong><\/em>Major Sholto says. \u201cAnd one should embrace it when it comes<\/em>.\u201d But Sherlock understands the cost of that; the cost of embracing a death that could be avoided, of accepting the story that someone else has written for you<\/em>. More than that, he knows the cost of doing that to someone who loves you<\/em>. He understands all too well the grief and pain that it causes. He knows just what to say. \u201c<\/strong><\/em>We wouldn\u2019t do that, would we \u2013 you and me? We would never do that to John Watson.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And Sherlock wouldn\u2019t. At least, not anymore.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He steps back, knowing that he has seen the truth of it, knowing that it will work, even as John threatens to break down the door.<\/p>\n

Major Sholto emerges and says to John what Sherlock now realizes he should have said before, on the day he faked his death. \u201cI believe I am in need of medical attention.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI believe I am your doctor.<\/em>\u201d John says. And he is, to both of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

stephisanerd: (Note: Trigger warning: \u00a0Suicide\/ Suicidal intention. \u00a0This is the second part of\u00a0this\u00a0post. \u00a0I edited the original post slightly and moved the conclusion over to this one and expanded it. \u00a0I\u2019m borrowing some of my own thoughts from here.) John: Look, Sherlock, this is the biggest and most important day of my life.Sherlock: Well \u2026John: … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Weight of Our Actions: Further Considerations on Major Sholto, Sherlock and The Reichenbach Fall”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[129,15,1810,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}