The Losing Side (Who is the winner in A Scandal in Belgravia?)
The Losing Side
I don’t think many people will disagree with me when I say that A Scandal in Belgravia centers around the contest between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. The question is, who won?
That is the question I will try to answer.
Of course, before we can decide who actually won the contest, we have to ask what was at stake. I suggest that this is a contest for Sherlock’s heart.
In the opening of A Scandal in Belgravia, one line from the approximately ten minute final scene of The Great Game is highlighted: “I will burn the heart out of you.” And it sets the stage for the episode. Moriarty will attempt to destroy Sherlock’s heart. Irene will be his weapon.
Irene’s job, as it turns out, is to find the key to Sherlock’s heart. Nudity only earns Sherlock’s disdain (“If I wanted to look at naked women I would borrow John’s laptop”), but powerful cleverness intrigues him. He is unaffected by her body, even though he observes it, but when she drugs him and figures out the backfiring car mystery, she becomes someone special - someone whose texts he will keep, but never reply to. Her death causes a reaction that John feels warrants worry, even though he is confused by it. And finally, her return inspires Sherlock to a brilliant feat of deduction, only remotely rivaled in the episode by his cracking the code to her safe. As Mycroft told Sherlock, “This was textbook: The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption, then give him a puzzle and watch him dance.”
Sherlock loses his heart, and lets it trump his head. But who is the winner?
Not Irene. And that is important. The game Irene has been playing up to this point is Moriarty’s. She had information and she consulted Moriarty for help to make mischief with it. Moriarty sent her pictures of Sherlock and gave her a mission. Moriarty told her about Mycroft and Sherlock - “the ice man and the virgin.” She had clearly taken her cue from him, trying to seduce the sexually innocent, and therefore possibly vulnerable man with her broad experience. When she got her information, she passed in on to Moriarty as per instructions. Moriarty is the one who loves to watch Sherlock dance. He was always the master of the game. The obvious contest between Irene and Sherlock, up to this point, has not been a contest at all. It’s been part of Moriarty’s puppet show. Moriarty has used Irene, and thereby he has won Sherlock’s heart.
But then Irene makes her bid for her own profit. And Sherlock realizes that when she took on this disguise handed to her by Moriarty, she did portray a truth about herself - she truly had felt some sort of attraction for him, and that was enough information for him to open her phone, and make her completely powerless. She’d said earlier that she’d make Sherlock beg for mercy twice, and he remained completely unaffected. Instead, she has to beg for mercy from him - once - because she has succumbed to some feeling of attraction for him, however slight it might have been. And Sherlock has no mercy.
And there it seems to be finished. Sherlock has beaten the woman, and he despises her for her petty chemical weakness.
But then as we think we are in the epilogue it happens - John comes to Sherlock with Irene’s file and the witness protection program story, and Sherlock begs. Irene begged Sherlock for her life. Sherlock begs John for Irene’s empty phone. He demands help twice. He holds out his hand to John. It’s far more dramatic and drawn out than Irene’s plea, and the stakes are much, much lower.
And finally, as Sherlock holds out his hand, he murmurs, “please.” He is truly begging. The Woman has won.
She has forced him to embrace sentiment - something she has never done. His flashback confirms this. Irene might have felt some attraction at some point, but in the wake of losing her pictures, she is resigned to the fact that she cannot have him, and that she will die. She texts “Goodbye, Mr. Holmes,” gives her phone away, and accepts death with dignity.
But Sherlock is not free. He is compelled to save Irene even though she didn’t ask for his help. He is compelled to keep her texts and read them repeatedly. And he is compelled to remember her always as the Woman.
Irene Adler is indeed the woman who beat Sherlock Holmes.
