Sherlock: 10 Ingenious Pieces Of Foreshadowing You Never Noticed

10. "What Might We Deduce About His Heart?"

So often, Sherlock revolves around one of the greatest fictional minds ever conceived, but more and more in this show, we're being given just glimmers and glimpses of what the man's heart is like. It's a question openly discussed by Mycroft Holmes in 'A Scandal In Belgravia' in Series 2, shortly after the chapter of Irene Adler. John doesn't know where to begin when deducing the heart of his best friend, and appears, neither does Mycroft. "Initially, he wanted to be a pirate," he remarks though. It's a joke on how much Sherlock's changed, and a comment on how Mycroft will always assume a condescending older sibling position within the show. But it's also very telling, and a series later, we realise why Sherlock wanted to a pirate. Panicking at John's wedding, he phones his brother, uncharacteristically, and Mycroft reminds him of Redbeard, to try and calm him down; just an episode later, we see Sherlock looking for Redbeard in his mind palace. Redbeard is a dog, a much-beloved dog it would seem, that keeps Sherlock calm. There's a mention of having to put the pet down, and suddenly it makes sense: Sherlock wanted to be a pirate, and named his dog Redbeard, but after the dog died, it changed his life. The flippant joke about Sherlock's childhood is Series 2, is in fact a serious deduction from Mycroft; once more, it foreshadows a glance into the detective's heart in 'His Last Vow'.