destinationtoast:Ooh, lovely thinkiness from fursasaida about the limitations of the characterizatio

destinationtoast:Ooh, lovely thinkiness from fursasaida about the limitations of the characterization in Sherlock and in fandom — particularly with regard to the interpretation of this particular gifset, but I’m taking the opportunity to think about their characterization in general.  (Also, in case you try to click through — she deleted her post after making it because she’d posted it from the wrong blog — check out 22drunkb for any followups — but kindly gave me permission to respond here anyway.)(Cut for looooong thinkiness :) )Read MoreHey friends, so the thinky stuff toast is quoting from fursasaida is actually me! I just put it on the wrong blog and then was too tired/distraught/off-balance to do anything but delete it yesterday when I saw my mistake. But all the stuff is in there, if you want it.The only things I’d say really in response to this are:I agree the fandom tends to go one of two ways–either total sociopath or a bit woobie–but I guess I feel like I’ve seen the former more? Or maybe it’s just that that interpretation bothers me more, so I notice it more.I of course didn’t mean to say that a neurodiverse Holmes could or should be completely excused for pulling dick moves, because that attitude is patronizing and unfair–just that it changes the way I can interpret those dick moves and helps me see him as an interesting character instead of completely a self-centered show-off that I’d rather write off. You’re right! The ACD stories don’t do a lot, especially in the beginning, to develop the relationship. I think there are little moments sprinkled here and there throughout that give you some of that, but there’s also the fact that Watson is explicitly narrating, so he can flatly tell you “man this dude is real smart and I dig him a lot!” or “I’ve seen him be really sweet to people like this before,” or “he would often muse on such seemingly flighty subjects,” etc., which you can’t really do in a visual medium so much. I think my objection re: BBC is that, at the end of the day, we have these two people very closely bound and I never felt like I really understood why except that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are bound by fate because they are who they are. But at a certain point that just becomes a matter of personal reaction to the material, not something that can really be picked apart or argued. :)However! I think this might be key. You said: “I don’t actually think they’re mutually relying on each other so much until S2 (unlike this gifset postulates).” I think what really bothers me so often is that it seems like Sherlock is almost immediately relying on John a bit, which in itself seems out of character (I’d expect him to be more cautious, even with someone who so unusually has responded positively to him and while John certainly gets stimulation and companionship out of his relationship with Sherlock, it’s rare that he seems to get much of anything back in terms of conscious choices by Sherlock to be a friend to him. And it’s in series 2 that that gets, in fact, even worse, IMO (the apex being Baskerville, my god). Sherlock seems to ask more and more of him without ever really picking up any slack, and I just eventually don’t want to see that anymore, nor do I fully understand why John allows it. This is another reason I find it really important that Sherlock’s characterization change post-Fall–that he come back with greater sensitivity to others, more demonstrative, more accommodating, more thoughtful specifically towards John. If there’s no shift in that regard then I’ll be hard-put to keep watching, tbh.  -- source link

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