Sentiment
"Sentiment is a chemical compound found on the losing side."
-Sherlock Holmes, "A Scandal in Berogravia."
Irene Adler's mum had been a strong-minded woman. At least those were the stories her Aunt Gracie told her. But she had fallen in love. And it was her undoing. Mr. Adler had turned out to be an abusive, womanizing drunk. In the end, Mrs. Adler was left beaten by her husband. In the end, Aunt Gracie turned into a Mrs. Havisham, bitterly watching from the sidelines and whispering into Irene's ear, "Never love. Be the one who is loved and have them worship at your feet. Dominate. Never submit."
And Irene, who was a smart, little girl, took to her Aunt Gracie's advice like duck to water. Because she saw, like mathematical beauty of geometrical patterns in nature, the truth that in human connection was human struggle for power.
It was all a power play.
At first, it is material wealth. But after having every man and woman provide her with money, she finds that it is all child's play. The real game is in how much did people trust you with their secrets. How much information did they give you?
And wasn't Sherlock Holmes at the pinnacle of all of that? After all the ministers, members of the Royal Family; after all the scientists, the chief executive officers and generals…Sherlock Holmes was…a challenge. Someone who entertained her.
Because if John Watson's blog was to be believed, he didn't have to do anything to obtain information off of you, he merely had to look. And he had the same power that Irene Adler had in a session of recreational scolding.
So, it was at first, curiosity.
And then when she saw him, and she had made him forget his alias, what a rush that was! What a thrill! To duel with one of the most brilliant minds in all of Britain, maybe even the world, and find that she can make him stumble over his words explaining a murder mystery or make him keep his eyes averted. It was even more delicious than playing games with the Royal Family.
Being Irene Adler, she would rather die than detail and go back to each message, to each joke, to each response savored to trace her fall. From the time that she saw him type correctly her measurements into that safe to the time she heard John Watson say that he barely ate and composed sad songs since she had faked her death to all the moments that she thought of him and asked him to have dinner. No. She would not do that. She was Irene Adler. The Woman.
She won't trace her fall.
Because to tell you the truth, she hadn't even known. She hadn't even known till she thought she had been victorious.
"No." Sherlock turns to them from the armchair.
"What?"
"I said, no." Sherlock gets up. And for some reason, Irene feels a prickle in her chest, she stands straighter as Sherlock comes nearer.
"Sentiment is a chemical compound found on the losing side."
"What are you talking about?"
"You." He gazes down at her, implacable. His eyes…why can't she understand what they are saying to her?
"Oh, the poor man. Did you think I was actually interested?" The disdain drips from her words.
He draws nearer and takes her wrist, and it sends a shiver up her spine, "I took your pulse."
His lips come around and his mouth practically caresses her ear, "elevated." Just as now, her pulse was scrambling. Irene feels the first licks of panic.
"Eyes dilated." In pleasure, remained unspoken.
Sherlock took the phone from his brother. "John keeps saying I don't understand love, but the chemistry is actually really simple." And he walks away from her, and Irene…there's a part of her that hurts. That feels hollow and hurting.
"You got caught up, the game became too elaborate. You said that disguises are self-portraits. And you couldn't have been more right. The measurements in the safe; but the phone…this is your heart. I thought a random number would have sufficed, but you fell prey to sentiment once more proving it a disadvantage," and Sherlock is punching the letters into the keypad and each sound hurts as Irene's soul and heart is laid bare.
Her phone reads, I am SHER locked.
She has after all, lost the game. Because it is at this moment that she realized that Shelock is right. He has exposed her. Her heart in his hands. Torn it asunder of its mask and laid her vulnerable.
Irene Adler becomes a tragic figure. Rather than a portrait of power and greed, she becomes tragic as love becomes her primary motive. Like the difference between the womanizer, notching trophies on his bedpost, versus the lonely heart that seeks love in every woman he seeks, the difference is an abyss.
Irene Adler becomes human.
She still refuses to trace her fall. She doesn't even know. She will not go back to sitting at her chair, watching him watch her, puzzled. She will not go back to finally relishing outplaying him with the code for the phone (1058, ha!), not because she outsmarts him, but because it amuses and impresses him. She will not go back to that moment in the darkened jumbo jet when she crowed with triumph, but felt her smile bright and hard as diamonds, seeing the expression in Sherlock's eyes (She's hurt his pride, that's all. That's all). She will not.
She will simply say, "Goodbye, Mr. Holmes," as she kneels and faces the end, and finally, finally understood that submission in love was not weakness…it was simply going where the river was rushing so that you could be brought to something vast, immeasurable, and mysterious as an ocean.
And she has a fleeting thought of him in the firelight, of his voice becoming something different, roughened by something, as he whispers to her, "Why should I eat if I'm not hungry?"as if daring her to say that he was, he was hungry. For something else.
And she hears her own moan. The ringtone.
She opens her eyes, and smiles.
The End of Sentiment