Over the years there has been much conjecture by fans of the original ACD Holmes stories about how much of what John Watson wrote down actually happened exactly as he wrote it.
Many people believe that especially when it came to Holmes and Watson’s relationship, the stories that Watson published for public consumption were very sparse on details, or would change things that could possible incriminate them (homosexuality was illegal at the time, and in 1895, the year Mark Gatiss confirmed most of The Special was set, the author Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for just such a thing).
Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat have also talked about this in interviews, this theory that not everything John puts in print can’t be relied upon as accurate.
So in the clip they just released, we see a lot of focus on how John left Sherlock out of The Hound of the Baskervilles, even though it sounded like he featured more in the tale in reality, then what John’s story would lead you to believe. Mrs. Hudson bemoaned how John had characterised her, and John mentions that the illustrator is to blame for people thinking that their rooms are dingy and that John has a moustache. (I liked that part, because there is a certain level of gay subtext surrounding moustaches, and here we have, again, people making assumptions about John and Sherlock’s relationship. ‘The Illustrator’ is drawing John as moustached [gay], and so now John’s just like–fine, if that’s what you think here!)
Anyway… That’s what I meant by John as unreliable narrator. That did prattle on. My apologies.
Though, you know… The moustache might also be symbolic of a ‘beard’. So the illustrator draws john as strait, and now he’s had to act straight just so the public will recognise him, but he’s never been straight.
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Because Sherlock prefers him clean shaven!
The moustache is john’s ability to pass as straight, but like that means that in the special it is just something he has had to ‘put on’ to be acceptable to the general public. But in reality, he’s not that.
OMG!
I’m going to cry. Victorian John is full on embracing of his same-sex attraction, and he only puts on the moustache (’beard’) because Victorian homophobic society is forcing him to!!!
you were fuckin told and you didn’t fuckin listen (not u sussexbound 💗)
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