Mary and John. Whatever it takes, whatever happens, from now on I swear I will always be there, always...

tjlcisthenewsexy:

Compare this to Mycroft’s words on the plane in TAB…

“I was there for you before. I’ll be there for you again, I’ll always be there for you.”

So Sherlock and Mycroft both make a vow. People commented right after TAB that Mycroft’s declaration on the plane was like a flashing neon death foreshadowing. If Mycroft’s vow was so obviously foretelling his death, suggesting that he in fact won’t be there for Sherlock, then can we read Sherlock’s vow in the same way?

I will always be there for you.

As it turns out, his words in TSoT did foreshadow his “death” a month later when Mary shot and killed him. 

SO what if the title “His Last Vow” refers not to the promise he made, but to the death it foretold. That the negative was true, like we were baited to believe will be the case for Mycroft. That Sherlock wouldn’t be there for them and would never get the chance to fulfil his vow at all. It was his last vow, his final vow, and death is our last and final act. So what if the “being there for John and Mary” never actually happened at all, but his “death” did…and he’s still dying?

Bonus cracky EMP thoughts: Forwards or backwards? A Bow is kind of like falling forwards. His Last Bow was chronologically ACD’s last Sherlock Holmes story. It really was the end for him, and it was an end that he went to without his Watson…

Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have. - His Last Bow

Forwards or backwards; Dream 1 where John chooses Mary, or Dream 2 where John chooses Sherlock (x)

Forwards, like ACD Holmes’s Bow that ends with him going alone to his eventual death, and like Sherlock does in his Modern Dream, Dream 1.

When John rescues him at the Falls, Sherlock was about to go off the falls backwards…

Backwards, to change 1895, to unstick the counter on John’s blog and start time ticking forwards again.

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