Sherlock’s Disguise: On Believing in a High-functioning Sociopath as a Higher Power

 (Sherlock Meta by stephisanerd)

IRENE: D’you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr. Holmes? However hard you try, it’s always a self-portrait.
SHERLOCK: You think I’m a vicar with a bleeding face?
IRENE: No, I think you’re damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it’s yourself.

Irene, here, is seemingly talking about Sherlock’s obvious disguise—he’s dressed as a vicar.  She’s talking about that, but she’s also talking about another disguise that Sherlock uses—one that he never acknowledges is a disguise.

SHERLOCK:  I’m not a psychopath, Anderson. I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.

Sherlock believes that he’s above it all—he’s above ordinary human emotions and actions.  He’s clever and intelligent and that’s what matters.  High-functioning sociopath.  It’s what he believes himself to be, though he knows deep down that it’s not true.   John, too, believes it.  “He doesn’t feel things that way … I don’t think,” he tells Mycroft.  He knows that Sherlock is fallible and that he’s human, but under stress, he never acts like it. Whenever he comes face-to-face with Sherlock’s humanity, he doesn’t see it.  He views Sherlock as this higher power who’s above human emotions and who doesn’t make mistakes.  Sherlock continues to encourage himself to do so, because it’s what he values about himself and what  he thinks it’s what John values about him.  The disguise slips off entirely once, and John’s reaction is enough to ensure that Sherlock takes care to ensure that he never puts himself in such a situation ever again.

JOHN: Sherlock?
SHERLOCK: Always been able to keep myself distant …divorce myself from … feelings. But look, you see …body’s betraying me. Interesting, yes? Emotions. The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment.
JOHN: Yeah, all right, Spock, just take it easy.

We later find out that the Sherlock was under the influence of a fear-inducing drug.  John, under the influence of it, sees the hound as he expects to see it. It doesn’t create fear—it acts on the things you already fear. The drug acted on Sherlock’s fear and made him doubt his abilities, his cleverness, and his ability to trust his senses.  Sherlock clings to that disguise, because he believes that without it he is nothing.  Under the influence of it, he snaps at John “I don’t have friends.” He believes that. Sherlock in that moment is completely stripped of his disguise—he’s fearful, emotional, and believes that he is worth nothing and that he is alone. John doesn’t see what Sherlock is really saying and maybe he doesn’t want to see it.  Sherlock, who is still under the influence of the drug, sees what I can only imagine is his worst fear realized.  John walks away.  It’s the last time Sherlock attempts to communicate anything to John about his true feelings without somehow disguising them.   Sherlock believes that faced with the truth of him that John will always walk away.

It’s why when standing on the roof, he tries to break John’s faith in him.  He believes that John values him as a clever genius, as a higher power, and that if he is no longer that, then John has no other reason to care about him. “I’m a fake… Nobody could be that clever,” Sherlock says.  “It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.”   Sherlock is being fairly honest with John, though  he’s still hiding the depth of his feelings.  Sherlock could and is saying so many other things that John can’t hear.  John response is only to continue to insist on his belief in Sherlock.  “You could,” he tells him. It’s further evidence to Sherlock that what John values about him is abilities and his cleverness.

 Think about what John says at Sherlock’s grave.  “One more miracle. Sherlock, for me. Don’t be dead.” He’s asking Sherlock for another miracle.  He still has faith.  We, as the audience, know there’s more to the story than that.  We know what John tells his therapist—that Sherlock is his best friend; we know how much he’s grieving.  We know that what he said at the grave isn’t a real prayer for anything.  He doesn’t believe there’s any possibility Sherlock’s alive.  Sherlock doesn’t know any of this.  What he sees is John being utterly devoted to him as an object of his faith, and not him as a real human being. It doesn’t occur to Sherlock that underneath it all, what John values about him is him as a person. It doesn’t occur to John that what Sherlock thinks John values about him is his cleverness and his god-like identity.

This misunderstanding is, in part, responsible for the way Sherlock reveals himself to John in The Empty Hearse.  Think about the stories we know about higher powers that die and are resurrected.  In none of the Gospels do Jesus’ disciples react by punching him in the face. (If they did, nobody wrote it down.)   Sherlock doesn’t understand John’s reaction because he doesn’t realize how deeply John has grieved his loss.  Faced with John’s grief, Sherlock is unable to allow himself to be vulnerable.  He babbles, he makes a joke, he makes flippant comments, and he appeals to John’s love of danger.  Any time vulnerability or his true feelings begin to leak through, he shuts down.

SHERLOCK: I’ve nearly been in contact so many times, but…I worried that, you know, you might say something indiscreet.
JOHN: What?
SHERLOCK: Well, you know, let the cat out of the bag.

He can’t allow himself to be human. We’ve been talking about the train car as a deliberate set up for Sherlock’s apology, but maybe it wasn’t.  Sherlock believes that John needs to view him as a higher power. He needs to believe that Sherlock is clever and can get them out of any situation.  It’s what Sherlock believes has been broken—John’s faith in him.  Calling the police would be the human thing to do, and so he doesn’t tell John he’s done so.  Unable to disable the bomb, he panics.  When he does manage to turn it off, he apologizes to John without telling him that it’s disabled.  He knows it will work, because he’s just managed to do something that will restore John’s faith.  He got them out of the situation.  The apology itself is superfluous, at least from Sherlock’s perspective.  He does it because he needs to say it, but he has to do it in such a way that there’s plausible deniability about his humanity.

SHERLOCK: Please, John, forgive me … for all the hurt that I caused you.
JOHN No, no, no, no, no, no. This is a trick.
SHERLOCK: No.
JOHN: Another one of your bloody tricks.
SHERLOCK: No.
JOHN: You’re just trying to make me say something nice.  Not this time.  It’s just to make you look good even though you behaved like …I wanted you not to be dead.
SHERLOCK: Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for.  If I hadn’t come back, you wouldn’t be standing there and you’d still have a future … with Mary.
JOHN: Yeah. I know.  Look, I find it difficult.  I find it difficult, this sort of stuff.
SHERLOCK: I know.
JOHN: You were the best and the wisest man that I have ever known. Yes, of course I forgive you.

It works.  Sherlock doesn’t reveal his humanity, and John can convince himself that Sherlock isn’t capable of it. Sherlock is stunned by John’s forgiveness, but notice that John doesn’t tell Sherlock what he really means to him.  He doesn’t tell Sherlock that he matters to John as a person, that he loves him—he tells him “you were the best and the wisest man that I have ever known.”  It’s something that one would say about a religious figure.

JOHN: Sherlock, you are gonna tell me how you did it? How you jumped off that building and survived?
SHERLOCK: You know my methods, John. I am known to be indestructible.
JOHN: No, but seriously. When you were dead, I went to your grave.
SHERLOCK: I should hope so.
JOHN: I made a little speech. I actually spoke to you.
SHERLOCK: I know. I was there.
JOHN: I asked you for one more miracle. I asked you to stop being dead.
SHERLOCK: I heard you.

Again, Sherlock plays into the idea that he is a higher-power, and John continues to say things that would indicate that he views him as such.

Even in The Sign of Three, it continues to be true.  John tells Sherlock that he loves him, and that Sherlock is his best friend, but he still doesn’t explain to Sherlock what he values about him.  Sherlock’s whole speech is a love letter to John.  It is maybe the most honest Sherlock has ever been, but it’s also said in the context of a Best Man’s speech.  Plausible deniability again.  Sherlock could easily play off everything he says about John as being part of the speech—it’s the only way that he’s able to say any of it.

Whatever you interpret his “You. It’s always you,” to mean, he doesn’t explain it to John.  The waltz he writes, and the vow he writes are also disguised.  I posit here that they are deliberate reference to the poem and song “My Heart and Lute” that begins:

I give thee all — I can no more —
 Tho’ poor the offering be;
My heart and lute are all the store
 That I can bring to thee.
A lute whose gentle song reveals
 The soul of love full well;
And, better far, a heart that feels
 Much more than lute could tell.

Sherlock vows to be there for John and Mary, but he doesn’t tell John that the above is what he’s really saying.  Afterwards, with the realization of what Mary’s pregnancy means for his relationship with John, Sherlock can’t hide his expression from John.  John, again, looks away.

In His Last Vow, John is all too willing to believe that Sherlock’s drug use is for a case.  He’s got it under control.  He accepts Sherlock’s explanation about the chair.  Neither one could possibly be for any more human reasons.  Even once Sherlock has been shot, they continue to dance around it.  Sherlock escapes from the hospital, and reveals Mary’s secret. Back at 221B, John angrily lashes out at Sherlock as much as he does Mary. Sherlock appears to be standing strong and stoic. “Is everyone I’ve ever met a psychopath?” “But she wasn’t supposed to be like that. Why is she like that?” “Look at you two. You should have gotten married.” Sherlock lets him do it.

When he describes himself to John, he tells him “your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high.” He continues to hide behind his disguise.   John in turn, continues to believe it. He ignores the fact Sherlock is, in fact, barely able to stand at all.  

John assumes that Sherlock has the upper hand, and goes along with his plan.  Magnussen, however, has always seen straight through Sherlock and his disguise.

“Very hard to find a pressure point on you, Mr. Holmes…the drugs thing I never believed for a moment, anyway, you wouldn’t care if it was exposed, would you? But look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.”

The truth of Sherlock’s humanity is once again staring John in the face, though he continues to ignore it. “You put me in a fire for leverage?” he asks Magnussen.

When Sherlock’s plan falls apart, he realizes how very wrong he’s been about everything all along—Mary, the drugs, the glasses and the vaults.  Faced with that, John can only ask “Sherlock, do we have a plan? Sherlock?” “Sherlock, what do we do?”  He again assumes Sherlock’s infallibility in the face of his humanity.  Sherlock’s cleverness and all of the rest of it stripped away, he makes the same choice that John once made for him. He grabs John’s gun and kills Magnussen in cold blood. Sherlock, here, still doesn’t tell John the truth, even though it’s staring them both in the face. Everything Sherlock has ever tried to hide about what he feels and what he is almost entirely exposed, but he clings to his usual disguise. “Oh, do your research. I’m not a hero; I’m a high-functioning sociopath,” he tells Magnussen.  Maybe Sherlock needs to believe it, but he also believes that John needs to.  Sherlock needs John to continue to believe it.  Sherlock sacrifices almost everything, he thinks.  He knows that he has likely ensured his own death, but it still not a total sacrifice. His disguise stands.  He has not failed John, and so it’s Sherlock that walks away.  He doesn’t have to watch John do so.

I’ve focused mostly on Sherlock here, and I’ve really only given a couple of examples.  There are countless more.   I didn’t really dwell on it, but I also think John believes that he has to view Sherlock as a higher power in order to keep Sherlock from leaving.  He believes that Sherlock doesn’t feel things like that, and so he too, doesn’t betray his real feelings, because if he did, Sherlock would reject him.    Do I think that John and Sherlock really believe that Sherlock is a god-like high-functioning sociopath?  Yes and no.  I think Sherlock believes it because it keeps him from being vulnerable. When people are angry or disappointed or leave him, it’s because of his disguise.  If he allowed himself to be vulnerable and human and people were disappointed and left him (and he probably thinks that’s inevitable), that would be a whole different level of pain.

 I think that deep down,  both Sherlock and John know that it’s not true, but I think they cling to it because it keeps them from facing the truth about the nature of their relationship and their fears.  It’s human nature—we believe a great number of outrageous things. We cling to our disguises,  facades, and lies about who we are and who the people around us are in order to avoid facing down the truths and fears that we believe we cannot face.

Note:  I’m talking about Sherlock and John here, but that last sentence applies to a great many more things that happen in Series 3.  I’m actually going to hit that in one of my story pieces, because there’s a Through the Looking Glass reference there.

Additionally, I want to be clear that I am not all suggesting  that they don’t love each other.  I think they even both know that the other loves him—I think they have a fundamental misunderstanding about the type of love it is.  There’s also a couple of posts about that being written, as well as a post about John’s disguise.

All transcript excerpts from here.