Here’s the other thing that Series 4 killed in my soul besides beating the crap out of Johnlock … 

OR

What happens when Johnlockers operate in a bubble where critical thought is ostracized in order for them to bask in imagined superiority 

(By alexxphoenix42 and thecutteralicia)

alexxphoenix42:

Here’s the other thing that Series 4 killed in my soul besides beating the crap out of Johnlock … the loss of the idea that anything in the show MEANS anything beyond a surface level reading.

I found it fascinating to follow the metas that people wrote about what all the symbolism revealed in the show. LSiT wrote some amazingly thoughtful stuff and others followed. A drinks code was developed - drinking tea meant gay, coffee meant straight, beer was friendship, wine was romance and social time, hard liquor meant fear, and so on. Side characters mirrored John and Sherlock often in name as much as role, and we seemed to get so much information from them for our two protagonists.

The whole name thing that “William” was Sherlock’s actual first name, and “Hamish” was John’s hidden hated middle name fit into a fantastic theory that heimishtheidealhusband had – the names were code for Sherlock and John’s state of mind. Sherlock wanted to be extraordinary, thought of as high-functioning sociopath, and as such he embraced his oddness, his queerness and reveled in being “Sherlock.” With smoke and mirrors, he hid his fallible, vulnerable human side, his ordinary self called Billy.

John on the other hand, tried desperately to fit in and appear normal, wanting to erase anything weird or unusual about himself. Everything from his middle name, to his destructive impulses, to his bisexuality needed to be under lock and key. And how many other John’s, and Billy’s did we get in this show? The names come up over and over, pointing to things like Billy Wiggins showing a path that Sherlock could have followed, or Jonathan Small, the Mayfly Man, working as a mirror for John in his casual dating of women, using them to reach a special man as his target. So interesting!

The introduction of Sholto to John and Mary’s wedding seemed to be a fantastically coded moment revealing John’s bisexuality more fully in the show. Sherlock planning John’s wedding and knowing the bridesmaids’ dresses were called “LILAC” and then folding napkins to look like swans and opera houses seemed to out him as a lovely camp gay.

So many moments of Sherlock sliding in and out of his mind palace were great fodder for speculation, what was real and what was mind palace? During TAB, it was more obvious that any Victorian era shots were in Sherlock’s drug-addled dream, but some of the “real world” scenes seemed to be fantasy as well. In TSOT, Sherlock slips in and out of his mind palace as he give his epic best man speech. When he interviews women in a courtroom, this is obviously metaphor, but when he sat in 221b with a host of open laptops on a table, this too seemed to be mind palace, just on another inception-like level, worlds within worlds.

I was utterly captivated that a show could BE this clever. I read every meta I could find about how the characters tied together, was Janine Moriarty’s sister, was Mary serving as the Sebastian Moran character in this version of Holmes and Watson? It was heady, creative stuff, and I so enjoyed playing the game, dissecting with the creators gave us to find layers of meaning.

And then Series 4 came out, and nothing made sense. Nothing fit together well. If parts of the series were in the mind palace, we got literally no cues to be able to sort them out. The relationship between John and Sherlock, something that seemed to be at the heart of BBC Sherlock from the beginning got shuffled to the side for some Bond-like splash and dash.

The creators themselves stated several times that the “gay” theme running through the show was a joke, something they lifted from another movie - “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” written by Billy Wilder. Wilder made a more openly gay Holmes pining so obviously after his Watson in his version, but played it off for laughs. Later though, he revealed a deep regret that he hadn’t gone further with the queer relationship in the film, saying the 1970’s just weren’t the right time for it.

So, nothing means anything, the gay is a joke, none of the character have anything more interesting going on with them than whatever quick surface reading you can glean, and oh by the way, here’s an explosion. I know some people enjoyed the madness of Series 4, and I’m glad they did. Sadly, though, I found it to be a death of my favorite show, because in the end, I thought BBC Sherlock was something much different from what it actually turned out to be.

The good news to this is that the meta writers, and the fanfic writers, and the artists, and the vid makers continue to be clever, creative people, and we in the fandom can continue to make the Sherlock world and characters come to life with the depth and respect they deserve no matter what the showrunners think about it.

 +++

MY META ON S4
part 1 - The Laws of Good Writing
part 3 - On the death of a partnership


thecutteralicia:

If you believe that characterization means things like invented fictional codes about tea meaning homosexuality or imagined relationships that don’t exist between characters, rather than actual emotional beats and plotlines, it just shows that what people knew all along: you Johnlockers don’t know how to read a text. Your never did. You know how to invent completely fictional “codes” connecting mundane things, but not a single thing about narrative. You don’t know how to debate, to engage, to determine and interrogate evidence like true analysts or academics. Inventing imagined connections between props is not storytelling. Johnlockers operate in a bubble where critical thought is ostracized in order for them to bask in imagined superiority - telling themselves that never having created an original work or written a story doesn’t matter, they are still supremacists above all others, whether it’s other shippers or casual fans or even the actual storytellers and creators of content (Peabody and Emmy Award winning writers).

Johnlockers tried to destroy depth in favor of delusional codes. They tried to destroy respect by attacking the show’s cast, crew and other fans. They replaced the camaraderie of fandom with cultish obedience and nastiness. What’s really interesting to me is that most people are content - and even revel - in their sexual and romantic fantasies. They recognize them for what they are. But Johnlockers lash out because at heart, they are completely insecure regarding their fantasies. Whether trying to wrap it in a false social agenda or simply use it to destroy others, it must mean something to them because they can’t accept they got this invested in a fantasy of two white men gettin’ it on. If you look in the tjlc tag, you can see many posts repeating over and over variants of, “We’re not wrong. We’re never wrong. Everyone else is wrong, including reality.” While other shippers (whether in Sherlock fandom or other ones) are happy to enjoy both canon and their own works (and recognize the difference) if Johnlockers don’t have anyone to look down upon, they don’t exist. They’re like Trump supporters in that way, where it is more important to bubble wrap one’s fragile ego than confront the real world and the realization that you are like every other human being and can be wrong - and you can lash out over and over, but it won’t make the world bend to your will.

It has been gratifying in recent days to see the old fandom come a bit back to life and see several old names return, emboldened, to help return depth and respect to the Sherlock world, characters and fandom that they deserve. If S4 does nothing else but drive away permanently the Johnlockers who tried to hijack and destroy the fandom, it will be worth it.