Does Sherlock love Irene? 

(Sherlock meta by mollymatterrs)

Q: [...] Do you honestly believe that [Sherlock] felt love for Irene Adler? Moffat himself said that the episode was about "Sherlock /and/ love, not Sherlock /in/ love". Do you equate the sexual implications and mental manipulations (complete lack of trust) between Sherlock and Irene to "love"? Lust, I can understand. But I'd like to know why you think he felt love, and in a "large dose" too. Is being attracted equal to feeling love?


A: [...] First off, I’ll answer this plainly: I don’t ship Sherlock/Irene. I do not think Sherlock loved Irene, and I don’t think Irene loved Sherlock. They found one another intriguing, and they were both attracted to one another, but it wasn’t anything deeper than that.

So, with that in mind, do I equate the sexual implications and mental manipulations between Sherlock and Irene as “love”?

Evidently not.

[...] Sherlock—up until ASiB—had gone through much of his adult life in a very machine-like way. Indeed, [...] You cannot deny that Irene had a major effect on Sherlock. To be honest though, that was the whole point wasn’t it? Irene’s sexual confidence was a vehicle for Sherlock to realize that he isn’t the robot he has tried to be. [...]

Take the first time we meet Sherlock in ASiP. He is oblivious to everything except the case he’s currently working on and his experiment. Molly distracts him with her invitation to coffee, but he doesn’t register the subtext behind it, and as such, he continues on his merry way.

In my opinion, Sherlock meeting Irene in Series 2 was a catalyst. Irene, whilst being similar to him in terms of intellect and the way in which they both use emotions for their own gain, is vastly different in other ways. The most prominent is that she is sexually confident and isn’t afraid to show emotion; unlike Sherlock who prefers to lock it all away, deeming it distracting. (Example: His “don’t make people into heroes” speech from The Great Game.)

As such, it’s always struck me as quite odd that Sherlock only wanted Irene’s phone at the end of the case. That phone—whilst being a callback to the canon of Doyle’s books—is also the symbol of who Irene is; that’s a fact that is made plain throughout the episode. Sherlock even says, “This is your heart”. So why, when he’s of the belief that she is dead, does he request the phone? It is, as he said, her heart. Does that mean that Sherlock wants Irene’s heart?

My thoughts? Not really. It’s like I said [before]. Sherlock recognizes that meeting Irene has had a great effect on him: in a way, it changed his outlook on love, sex and relationships. But you’re right. How can Irene’s encounters with Sherlock possibly be considered as “large doses”?

I guess what I [mean] by “large doses” is the fact that Sherlock’s—for want of a better term—‘awakening’ comes at the hands of a woman who is overly sexual and doesn’t apologize for it. Just look at the sequence where Sherlock and Irene ‘prepare’ themselves for battle. When the camera focuses on Sherlock, it’s logical. But when the camera focuses on Irene, the focus is on her femininity. One could make an argument that this is over-sexualising a female character on television yet again, but the way I see it is that we are actually being shown just how out of his depth Sherlock is. He is wading into a territory he doesn’t fully understand (yet). This is emphasized with Irene’s nude scene, where Sherlock fails to deduce her because she is so upfront (“There. Now we’ve both been defrocked”). Sherlock’s deductive skills rely on seeking out hidden information. By putting everything out there—literally and figuratively—Irene gains the advantage. She continues this throughout until the very end where her explicit nature becomes her undoing (“I am SHERlocked”). Unlike the game played between Sherlock and Moriarty, the games and the mental manipulations played by Irene aren’t to do with the mind—they’re to do with the physical. (“He did know where to look.”)

As such, and for a man like Sherlock who was previously ignorant about such things, I’m pretty sure that his attraction to Irene could be considered a “large dose” of previously unknown emotion.

The experience he has with Irene continues to be built on in another “large dose” of emotion with HoB; this time though, it’s fear. Now Sherlock—within what I can only assume is a matter of months—has experienced the pain and europhia that comes with experiencing such large doses of two potent emotions such as attraction and fear. For a man who has basically been a walking computer for much of his life, that’s a lot to take in. So he of course reverts to type to prove that he is… working properly, let’s say.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of why he asked for the phone—could it be that he doesn’t want it as a souvenir his triumph over Irene? Could it perhaps be that he wants it a way to remind him that emotions aren’t as restrictive as he previously believed?

And by realizing that, he is able to open up to people he might not have before. People like… Molly Hooper. When we first meet Molly, she’s the archetypal girl-with-a-crush type, but throughout the events of Series 2, that changes and she eventually becomes the woman who can deduce the great Sherlock Holmes. (“You look sad… when you think he can’t see you.”)

Now, I’ll say this [...]: I ship Sherlolly. [...]

That’s why I appreciate the character of Irene Adler and the effect she had on Sherlock. His encounters with her were a stepping stone for his humanity to come through. Couple that with the events of HoB, and the result is a man who, in a moment of emotional turmoil, went to a woman he trusted: Molly. He bared himself to her, and told her that he was afraid, that he doubted himself. (“Molly, I think I’m going to die. […] If I wasn’t everything that you think I am—everything that I think I am…”) In that scene, Sherlock shows real fear and worry. But what does Molly do? She still wants to help him, no questions asked. Some people might call her a doormat for doing so, some might call her naive. I personally believe it shows an almighty amount of strength.

[...] Although Sherlock didn’t love Irene, he was attracted to her, and because of that, she did (inadvertently) start him on the journey to becoming human enough to love others—both platonically and/or romantically.