normalontheoutside:
cumberqueen:
I’d like to get something off my chest. It’s been bugging me for a very, very long time. Sherlock Holmes is not a sociopath. He is not even a “high-functioning sociopath,” as the otherwise truly excellent BBC Sherlock has styled him (I take the words straight from Benedict Cumberbatch’s mouth). There. I’ve said it.
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Okay, I’m going to take the author’s word for it that psychopathy and sociopathy are two names for the same thing, but there’s something that sadly has not been addressed in this.
Just because Sherlock says it in the show doesn’t mean the writers have made that mistake. Moffat has said that he envisions the Sherlock he writes for to be one of the most emotional characters of the show. In other words, Sherlock only fancies himself a sociopath/psychopath and the author of the article missed an entire level of Sherlock’s character. By revealing the fact that Sherlock is convinced that he’s a sociopath the audience is let into Sherlock’s head, even just that little bit. In other words, it doesn’t even matter whether Sherlock is a psychopath/sociopath/whatever, just that he thinks he is. It’s a rather delicious thing for a writer to work with, not to mention the fandom, which certainly doesn’t portray Sherlock as a psychopath in fan works. So you can take your moaning somewhere else, because I’ll have none of it.
Of course the writers know, and of course Sherlock doesn’t really think of himself as a sociopath. Sherlock of all people would know what a psychopath/sociopath really is, and if he really was one (or thought he was one), he would never make the mistake to tell anyone he was a sociopath. Why he said it is a completely different side of it. It is just as likely that he was mocking Anderson as it was to make him keep his distance. Because Anderson/Donovan wouldn’t know, would they? As Sherlock says himself, he needs distance from people. Alone is what I have, alone protects me. And if that alone wasn’t enough, Sherlock is more than arrogant enough to say such a thing just to keep “annoying, stupid people” like Anderson and Donovan off his back.
And I am adding; he never whole-heartedly, directly admitted to the fact that he doesn’t have sympathy for others - he claims others thinks he doesn’t. Ergo, he knows for a fact that he is very capable of feeling sympathy. In addition to that I think he has more than enough self-insight to realise that he do in fact have a heart and a conscience - he bloody jumped off a building for his friends.
My opinion is that one with statements such as the one above are greatly underestimating Sherlock and his abilities.
(And yes - people in the fandom do constantly go on about Sherlock being a sociopath. Far from all in the fandom, of course - but many, many people. )
A thing that is constantly on my mind: We don’t fool Sherlock. Sherlock fools us.