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marta_beeI stumbled across some Discourse (TM) over at Tumblr regarding Sherlolly tonight. The details don’t particularly matter -- the people posting thoroughly earned the capital-D in that moniker, as I recall, and it was the slightly snappy attitude I’ve seen too many places in too many different fandoms to want to dwell on. But it did get me thinking about Sherlolly generally, and how it played out (or didn’t) in S4.
See, I love Molly Hooper, particularly in S1 & S2 but also as the show evolved. I love imagining her going to post mortems while in training and Sherlock just kind of crashing them, turning up with overboiled tea and Kitkats and MST’ing the heck out of the board of doctors grilling the poor physician. Maybe crashing on the couch in her office when he was between flats, turning on smarmy charm that she knows is fake, and it being kind of a game with her. Noticing odd behavior and telltale physical signs and insisting on absolutely no more thumbs or kidneys until he pees in a jar.
Science bros, is what I’m saying. I love the concept of Molly having a bit of a crush on Sherlock but that trending to a real platonic friendship that predates John and probably even Lestrade. I’ve always liked the headcanon that Sherlock has so much access to St. Bart’s because he was a postgrad researching biochemistry, so I can easily imagine them training together and taking different paths, and generally knowing each other like only fellow PhD candidates or their med-school equivalent really can. I can also see Sherlock being extremely protective of her as something separate from the realm where Mycroft has any kind of power because she’s a) not really operating in his realm, and b) come on, she was turned on by Sherlock flogging a corpse and dated Moriarty. Those colors don’t run.
... It’s just possible I’ve thought about this. A bit.
And this is where I feel a bit, not betrayed, but certainly like I've lost my bearings a bit in S4 and TFP in particular. Part of what I loved about Molly was she seemed to skirt the line of someone romantically/sexually attracted to Sherlock but who'd worked her way past all that. It's not that I can't enjoy fanfic about a romantic relationship, or I want to discourage people who ship that. But I do feel the show lost something vital about a friendship between those two, when it dipped into the romantic. Particularly when Sherlock's manipulated (even with the best of motives) to convince her to say the words. It really is a rarity, for a man and a woman to be allowed to stay friends. I wish they could have honored that. (Or still will, if the show comes back.)
And the irony's not lost on me. This is really similar to the arguments people have over shipping John and Sherlock, isn't it? Except literature is full of deep male friendships in a way it isn't for cross-gender ones, so it feels like something particularly unique is lost with the way this strand of the show played out. I don't know. Maybe this does just come down to personal taste.
See, I love Molly Hooper, particularly in S1 & S2 but also as the show evolved. I love imagining her going to post mortems while in training and Sherlock just kind of crashing them, turning up with overboiled tea and Kitkats and MST’ing the heck out of the board of doctors grilling the poor physician. Maybe crashing on the couch in her office when he was between flats, turning on smarmy charm that she knows is fake, and it being kind of a game with her. Noticing odd behavior and telltale physical signs and insisting on absolutely no more thumbs or kidneys until he pees in a jar.
Science bros, is what I’m saying. I love the concept of Molly having a bit of a crush on Sherlock but that trending to a real platonic friendship that predates John and probably even Lestrade. I’ve always liked the headcanon that Sherlock has so much access to St. Bart’s because he was a postgrad researching biochemistry, so I can easily imagine them training together and taking different paths, and generally knowing each other like only fellow PhD candidates or their med-school equivalent really can. I can also see Sherlock being extremely protective of her as something separate from the realm where Mycroft has any kind of power because she’s a) not really operating in his realm, and b) come on, she was turned on by Sherlock flogging a corpse and dated Moriarty. Those colors don’t run.
... It’s just possible I’ve thought about this. A bit.
And this is where I feel a bit, not betrayed, but certainly like I've lost my bearings a bit in S4 and TFP in particular. Part of what I loved about Molly was she seemed to skirt the line of someone romantically/sexually attracted to Sherlock but who'd worked her way past all that. It's not that I can't enjoy fanfic about a romantic relationship, or I want to discourage people who ship that. But I do feel the show lost something vital about a friendship between those two, when it dipped into the romantic. Particularly when Sherlock's manipulated (even with the best of motives) to convince her to say the words. It really is a rarity, for a man and a woman to be allowed to stay friends. I wish they could have honored that. (Or still will, if the show comes back.)
And the irony's not lost on me. This is really similar to the arguments people have over shipping John and Sherlock, isn't it? Except literature is full of deep male friendships in a way it isn't for cross-gender ones, so it feels like something particularly unique is lost with the way this strand of the show played out. I don't know. Maybe this does just come down to personal taste.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 03:51 am (UTC)It's not that I don't believe Molly really loves Sherlock. I do think she loves him, and I *also* think she's gotten over him. I think both things can be true, because I've experienced it. You can adore someone and wish they were with you, and at the same time accept and respect that they never will be, and be happy at least that they are in your life.
And it's not that I don't believe Sherlock loves Molly, in his way. My personal headcanon is that, somewhere around Reichenbach, Sherlock realized that if his life were different, he *could* have fallen in love with Molly. But he made a choice not to go down that road, so he doesn't let himself explore those feelings. (I feel the same way about Johnlock and other ships, really -- Sherlock has strong feelings for lots of people, but he'll never act on them because the work comes first.)
In some sense, the ILY scene doesn't necessarily change any of that. Because it was all under duress, we can't draw and firm conclusions about what exactly it meant. But that's exactly why it annoys me. I love when this show insists on ambiguity, but in this particular case it feels graceless. Instead of deepening and complicating the relationship, it felt like a cheap attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. "Oh look, a love declaration! Except it's meaningless! Or is it??? It's whatever you want it to be!"
Compare that with the gorgeously understated knee-grope scene in TSoT, where so much is communicated with just a few gestures and glances. And maybe we can't pin down precisely what it meant, but it clearly meant *something*.
The ILY scene just feels sloppy and overstated to me. Like a rough draft.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 05:33 am (UTC)But that doesn't mean he doesn't care for Molly deeply. Clearly he does. I actually read that asking her out to dinner in TEH as him trying to express largely non-romantic love (but love nonetheless) in the context he's been trained to think is how you should express those things. I've been there in my RL, though in my case it's making sense of deep loving relationships as someone who's asexual.
(Worth saying: I have no problem enjoying Sherlolly as fanfic when done well; it's just not how I parse the show's canon.)
On the specific ILY scene in TFP: it is sloppy, but it could have been written properly. A part of me wonders how much of it was written to surprise the audience, to turn their Johnlock expectations on their head. (I don't mean queerbaiting, it's just the Mofftiss have this drive to expect us, even at the expense of the story.) Here's the thing, though: even if they'd told that scene with all the subtlety and beauty of the knee-grope, it still would have been really disappointing to me because it would have turned Molly's character arc (her romantic love of Sherlock transmuting into a deep friendship -- that's my read at least) on its head, changed it from a woman existing with someone she loved and owning that space to a woman who would only be completed if she actualized that romantic interest. And that story's been told, ad nauseum. I like my read before TFP much better, personally.
Actually, come to think of it, romantic moments between Molly and Sherlock have always been told a bit badly, haven't they? Anderson's fantasy of their kiss, for instance. (Well, the Christmas party in ASIB was lovely, no doubt there.) I don't say that to shame the ship or its canon status. It's just a bit odd given how subtly they've written other romantic relationships, at least to me.