About John’s guilt and the question of humanity posed throughout s4

 (Sherlock meta by airstyledraconos)

[a comment to this post]

[...] S4 is fundamentally about discarding unobtainable personas and accepting that we’re “all human,” particularly when it comes to John Watson. John carries an incredible amount of guilt over the dissonance between the man he wants to be/thinks he *should* be and the man he *actually is*. We see this guilt simmering in the background of s3, but Mary’s death blows it into the open. And that deep guilt over resenting Mary to the point of starting an emotional affair at the first chance he gets…that guilt causes him to lash out like a wounded animal. The guilt of not loving his wife like society says he should, the guilt of feeling a stronger emotional pull to his 'friend’ than his marriage (and romantic partners are supposed to trump friendship, isn’t that what society tells us?), the guilt of Mary dying while seeing John as some perfect person when he knows down to his bones that he is not. That’s what breaks him. Even Sherlock places John on a pedestal that John feels he doesn’t deserve. And the pressure of those expectations, the pressure to live up to an ideal lest you reveal your inadequacy to the ones who love you for what you believe is the honorable persona–there’s a deep fear of being found out as a fraud and losing the love that deep down is feared to be undeserved.

This fear is what is finally addressed at the end of The Lying Detective. The fear of being merely human in Sherlock’s eyes, the fear of losing the esteem of the man who, despite everything, John values above all others. But what we see is what’s been obvious to everyone else all along: Sherlock loves John, human failings and all. And Sherlock affirms this by revealing his vulnerable underbelly in return–he’s human too. He puts on the hat of “Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective” just as much as John puts on the metaphorical hat of “John Watson, moral paragon.” The Final Problem goes even further in deconstructing Sherlock’s affected persona, revealing it to be largely his subconscious emulation of Eurus. Plot weirdness aside, that theme of being just human beneath it all comes through.

That brings us back to the final montage and Mary’s much-reviled narration. I’m not going to get into the choice of messenger here and instead focus on what she says as part of the narrative, namely that who you really are doesn’t matter. I think so many people had invested so much in the identities of the main characters that this came across as a slap in the face, but I don’t think this statement was meant to be about identity politics at all. It’s closure to the question of whether Sherlock Holmes and John Watson can still be the legendary duo despite being humans who cannot always live up to their own mythos. The narrative answers with a definitive yes. Who they really are does not prevent them from being the crime-solving heroes that they want to be. Sherlock’s emotions do not have to threaten his public persona. John’s inability to be morally pure does not destroy his ability to be Sherlock’s moral compass.

Yes, they are human. So very painfully human. That doesn’t make their best versions of themselves frauds. It doesn’t matter. That’s the whole point.