A failure with a massive, monstrous consequence 

(because Sherlock is an idiot)

 (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

I think, in retrospect, one of my favourite things about series 3 is how we learned that Sherlock’s lie to John about his fake suicide is actually fairly pointless and was just a really bad idea from start to finish.

I know lots of fans were distraught that Sherlock’s death was planned in the first place, and many more were horrified that Sherlock didn’t appear to have a clear and meaningful reason to lie to John about it. Sherlock decided that he would fake his death, and only the people who had to know, would. His brother because he was part of the large mechanism that made it possible. Molly for practical reasons. And his parents, because naturally. But not John. He didn’t need to know. Sherlock obviously failed to articulate a reason why he did.

John should have been the other exception, but he wasn’t. It was such a total betrayal of that relationship, and many fans had invested in the idea that Sherlock would only do such a thing under very extreme circumstances. He had to do it for a reason. But that’s not what we got. It was just a terrible, thoughtless oversight. It was tone deaf and cold-hearted. It was a complete misreading of their relationship. It was stupid.

And I love it. It’s just delicious, isn’t it? It’s perfect.

It’s not because their relationship wasn’t as devoted as we wanted it to be. It’s because Sherlock is an idiot.

Is John trustworthy? Of course he is. Sherlock should have known that. Even if John failed to keep a secret, would it have mattered? I can’t see how. You can build a version of the story where John’s belief that Sherlock is dead is significant, where his grief serves an obvious and useful purpose (I gave it a shot myself), but that’s not what we got, in the end. At least, not so far.

It’s possible that we’ll learn more about Sherlock’s hiatus in series 4, and perhaps John’s grief will gain some meaning if we do. That would be terribly interesting.

But as it stands, Sherlock simply failed to understand that lying to John meant losing the thing he valued most in the world. Sherlock only wanted his coat and John after coming home, that’s all he cared about. Being Sherlock Holmes again, hanging out with his mate, solving crimes, getting back to how it used to be. It hadn’t crossed his mind that he had destroyed that with his lie.

He fucked up.

And why? That, it seems to me, is the theme of series 3. Sherlock is pretty useless at processing his own emotions. He’s kept them in check for so long I’m not sure he even able to easily identify them. And he’s certainly crap at coping with them when they become overwhelming.

He doesn’t understand why John cares what people say about him. He can’t imagine what it would be like to hear slander about someone you love; he can’t imagine that he is someone John loves, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. His lies tell us that he doesn’t understand what it’s like to love someone, either, even though he does. He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t understand that he and John are a matched set, that they belong to each other. Even at their very closest, when they are, as Irene correctly points out, a couple, Sherlock fails to see it. The man who can deduce everything fails to deduce the very thing every single other person who comes within ten feet of him and John have already deduced: John loves Sherlock, and Sherlock loves John.

I like that failure. It’s a failure with a massive, monstrous consequence. You think it’s all over and done with in The Empty Hearse, since he was forgiven and all was well, but it’s not. The entirety of series 3 is an exploration of the consequences of Sherlock’s failure to understand his relationship with John. He loses that relationship, then has to process the fact that he had something to lose in the first place. And then he has to cope with the fact that John’s pain and his own loss is entirely his fault.

He can force John to forgive him in a pinch, but the consequences of his terrible actions remain. He has lost John, and even when he gets him back, he doesn’t really. John has moved on. That thing they had, that you and me against the world, that’s over. Not only is John married, he’s about to have a baby. It will never been just Sherlock and John again.

Or so he thinks. We’ll see what comes next.

Sherlock redeems himself the end. His great act of emotional awareness and understanding, the demonstration of his growth, is pretending, not that he’s going to die, but that he’s going to live.

Now, we see, he understands: John’s feelings matter, they’re important, and Sherlock is mindful of them, even in the face of his own tragic end. He wouldn’t have understood it before, but now he does. He understands, and he accepts it.

In what was meant to be his last act as Sherlock Holmes, he opts to avoid hurting John all over again with the truth. He gives John a happy lie instead, because he loves John, and he doesn’t want to cause him any more pain. John being happy is more important that Sherlock’s own needs. It’s more important than the truth.