notagarroter:

strangelock221b:

Thank you!

Honestly, Mrs. Holmes’ line has confused a lot of people – you should’ve seen the number of “Since when?!” reactions. Really, Sherlock has been the overgrown teenager and Mycroft has been the responsible one for ages.

The only way the line makes sense to me is that in that moment, Mrs. Holmes wanted to emotionally hurt Mycroft. That seems like bad parenting, but then again the Holmes family isn’t the most functional family around.

Hope that helps!

I agree that a lot of people were surprised/confused by that line,
but I think that was kind of the point.  If the line had been “Mycroft
was always the grown-up”, it would have wound up on the cutting room
floor, because it would be redundant.  It would have told us only what
the audience already felt certain of, and therefore would be
unnecessary.

The whole point of this line is to destabalize
our assumptions, and make us *rethink* the Holmes family dynamic in a
new light.  Yes, we all feel like we know Sherlock and Mycroft and their
relationship really well at this point, but if there’s anyone who might
know it better, or might have a different perspective on it, it would
be their mother.

I think it’s interesting to consider what Mummy
Holmes might know about her boys that we might have missed.  Why might
she consider Mycroft a little immature?  Sure, he seems very grown-up to
us, with his weighty responsibilities and his power and his
protectiveness toward Sherlock.  But consider, this is a man who locked
up his difficult sister and then pretended she never existed – that’s a
lot like a kid breaking Mummy’s favorite vase, and then sweeping it up
and hoping no one notices.  To Mycroft, it felt like he was solving a
problem, but obviously he just created a much bigger problem.  

Perhaps Mummy also sees something childish in Mycroft’s need to control and manipulate people to suit his own emotional needs.

Why,
on the other hand, might Mummy view Sherlock as more grown-up?  
Certainly, he can seem a bit immature, what with his shooting guns
indoors when he gets bored, etc.  But Mummy clearly has something else
in mind.  

Maybe it’s because Sherlock is more forthright with his emotions.  While Mycroft will do anything for Sherlock,
Sherlock will go out of his way for complete strangers (like Faith, but also
countless other clients).  He draws on a
deep well of sympathy for outcasts, the hopeless, the misunderstood.  He has a firm sense of justice, but it’s
tempered with a great capacity for mercy and compassion, even toward those who
have done wrong (like Mary, like Eurus, like Irene, like Wiggins). His care and
protectiveness isn’t hyper-focused on one person, but available to anyone who
truly needs it.  

Could it be that *that* is what Mummy views as truly grown-up?