The Dichotomy of John Watson

welovethebeekeeper:

John’s bisexuality is only one of the traits found in this character. Let us look at the others:

The healer and the warrior: doctor and soldier. Killer and saviour. John killed a man to save Sherlock. He’d do it again. Will do it again.

The romantic and the platonic: John vents all his romantic love for Sherlock subconsciously in his writing, and deep in his eyes when he looks at Sherlock. (Sherlock has subconsciously picked up on this) Yet John represses that love and maintains a facade of platonic affection. It fools many people.

The temperate man and the angry man: John hides behind accepted social norms, people view him as calm and controlled, even moderate. He isn’t, he seethes with anger. Anger at life, anger at self repression, anger at his own wants and needs, anger at his inability to have the man he craves.

The bad liar and the good liar. John’s reputation is that he is a bad liar, Sherlock’s decision to keep John in the dark during his hiatus was predicated by this. Yet John lies to people everyday. The married facade, earlier the initial weeks of a new relationship with a female, the contented GP in his surgery tending to mundane ailments, and the whole Sholto affair that he managed to keep from the most observant man on the planet. John even lies to himself and believes it! John is lying in his reconciliation with Mary and maybe covert work for Mycroft. John is a far better liar than his reputation would have people believe.

The nurturer and the nurtured. John has an assumed persona of a nurturer; the domestic nesting qualities associated with domesticity. Yet Sherlock in actuality is the nurturer in the relationship. He feeds John, makes the tea, considers John’s creature comforts to the point of encouraging outlets for John sexually, even to the point of supporting John’s marriage.

The damsel and the knight. In TBB, TGG, TRF, TEH and HLV Sherlock saves John. But Sherlock knows that in all actuality it is John who saves him. In ASiP John physically saved Sherlock, but in every episode John Watson emotionally saves Sherlock, he even tried in TSoT to throw Sherlock an opportunity to stop the marriage (stag night) and in TAB this arc was highlighted in the save at the falls from the very thing that is killing them both: Their fear to deal with their sexual attraction and the fact they are IN love. John kicked that over the cliff. In series 4, John will be the knight, one BAMF when pushed.

Lovely observations.