Remember how I promised a bunch of you that at some point I’d make that post about committed asexual relationships and A Scandal in Belgravia? Well, here it is. Along with some meta and spoilers about S3. So um. Sorry about that. But you can get through the meat of it without hitting the spoilers, which are labeled in big black caps further down.
Joolabee’s smart post about Sherlock and queerbaiting and S3 behind the read-more.
My agreement, with added comments about sexism and S3 and some general grumping behind this read-more.
I’ve of so many minds about the whole thing that I don’t even know where to start. Yes, Sherlock does a lot of queerbaiting (a word I’d never heard of until I got into Sherlock). No, I don’t want them to become a romantic couple in the show—I honestly think it would be OOC for Sherlock if not John, first of all, but also it means WAY more slash fics.
And now let me try to talk about what you’re (we’re) all maybe reacting to.
Let’s take sex out of the equation when it comes to Sherlock and John. Sex and romance both. What’s left? A deeply committed friendship.
In S2, they lived together, they worked together, and there seemed to be some merging of the finances. They made casual demands on each other that went beyond what you’d typically make of average friends or acquaintances. In Scandal, there was the issue of intimate relationships. We had John teasing Sherlock in a non-critical way, saying basically, “Yes, you have my approval if you want to chase Irene, yes.” Furthermore, Sherlock didn’t shut him down. Which is significant, because if anyone else in the whole universe had presumed upon him that way, he would’ve bitten their head off. We have John saying to Mrs. Hudson, the mother figure, “How do WE not know about his relationships?” All of which indicates that Sherlock has granted John the right to have some sort of say or involvement in Sherlock’s relationships.
Hell, let’s not play coy. We have the historic ‘We’re not a couple’/’Yes you are’ from Scandal. And Sherlock says flat-out in Hound that John’s his only friend. Even though he later shows in Fall that that’s not entirely true, it is true that John is the first name on his lips, and that short of family, which is not so much a relationship you choose, John is the closest person in Sherlock’s life.
That, boys and girls, is a committed relationship. Regardless of whether it involves sex or romance, Sherlock and John have allied their lives together. They’re heading in the same direction on this stretch of road. They’re sharing goals. They’re prioritizing each other, deliberately shifting their lives around to make room for each other.
(This, by the way, is what I mean when I say ‘committed asexual relationship.’ It doesn’t have to be romantic. It can be entirely platonic. It doesn’t have to be forever, any more than any other long-term relationship. It’s all about that commitment and melding of your priorities and future with that of another person.)
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON DOWN.
And then Sherlock ‘dies.’ John goes off to rebuild his life, alone, with his own solitary goals. One could argue it’s for the better for him, that he’s prioritized Sherlock’s life over his own TOO much. But regardless, he spends the next *mumblemumble* years following his own trajectory.
And then Mary. And it looks like he marries Mary. And that is a big ol’ realignment of his priorities again, to this OTHER person in his life. He has sworn to ally his life with hers. No matter how his friendship with Sherlock plays out after this, Sherlock is no longer his priority—or shouldn’t be. Their lives are not following the same path. They are no longer unified in their goals or working as a team in the sense of the future they’re trying to make for themselves. Certainly John can, and presumably will, continue to support and work with Sherlock, but it’s not a committed relationship anymore—as anybody knows who has watched their friends fall in love, get married and grow apart from them and toward another person they’re now committed to. The shift isn’t massive, it’s not the end of having them in your life…but in some senses yes, it is massive. They’re no longer ‘with’ you. From now on, you’re only a visitor in their life, not a roommate.
It has nothing to do with slash. It has everything to do with the dynamics of commitment and relationships. If you’re feeling unaccountably like your ship is threatened, if you always thought it wasn’t about the sex but you’re feeling kind of cast-off anyway…there you go.
(It also has to do with my concern that if you, as a writer, are marrying off one of your characters, that is a switch in commitment you SHOULD be prepared to have them make. If they don’t…well, then honestly they’re kind of an asshole because that is part of what marrying someone generally entails. Which in this case, short of killing off Mary when she starts getting in the way of the story, puts John’s character in a position where either he needs to be a good husband and commit primarily to his wife while abandoning the show’s main character, or be a good sidekick and commit primarily to Sherlock while bailing out on his wife.
There are of course various possible alternatives, but at this point in my life, I don’t have much benefit of the doubt to spare for TV series.)
Fangirl on a Bicycle: “I am disappointed in everybody”, Or: No, My Expectations were Never that High