BBC Sherlock Analysis/Essays and Fanfiction

Below are the projects for Sherlock I'm currently working on/have completed. Please assume all stories are WIPs except the ones specifically stated as one-shots. I am a big fan of writing horrendously long multi-chaptered fics, but I highly recommend even people who don't like WIPs to give WIPs a try. I have always found the anticipation of the next chapter makes the reading so much sweeter.

Master List:



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Witches/wizards are very rare when you think in terms of the world as whole. JK Rowling has stated that there are “about 3000” witches/wizards in the UK and there are around 72 million people in the UK. That means magic has a prevalence of 0.0042 in 100,000 people or 42 in 1 million.

Given that most genetic diseases have a higher prevalence than magic (cystic fibrosis: 125 in 1 million, sickle cell anaemia 139 in 1 million), we must ask the question: why is magic so rare in humans?


This is series of essays I will explore:

• The Demographics of the Wizarding World


• Magical Disease and Medicine


• War and Dark Lords


• The Genetics of Magical Inheritance


• Hogwarts: a History

In order to discover why the wizarding world is so different from our own and why there are so few wizards/witches.

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There is no evidence that the founders actually built Hogwarts Castle, and the castle was not purpose built to house a school (Hogwarts: the Castle). However we do know from the sorting hat that one founder did build something that would become incorporated into the modern day castle: the Chamber of Secrets.

The myths surrounding the Chamber of Secrets are contradictory and nonsensical, just like the information we have about Slytherin himself. Although legends say Slytherin left a monster to purge the school of muggleborns, the basilisk itself is an indiscriminent weapon and harmful to the entire school. When it was unleashed Hogwarts was nearly closed down twice. Even if we believe all that is said about Slytherin, there is no doubt that he loved the school he had helped create. Therefore it is more likely that the Chamber of Secrets and the basilisk within was placed there for an entirely different reason.

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Hogwarts castle was not built by the founders, nor was it originally built to house a school. Castle building technology did not arrive in Britain until after the Norman Conquest in 1066. The founders most likely set up their “school” in a large town called Hogwarts, which had already existed in one form or another for millennia.

Hogwarts castle must have been built long after the founding for the defence of the town called Hogwarts and continued to be used for military and political purposes for many centuries afterward before it came to house the modern Hogwarts School.

I explain:

• When Hogwarts was built


• How it lead to the founding of Hogsmeade


• What purpose the castle was used for before it became a school


• Why it contains something as powerful as the Room of Requirement

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(Copyright - mellie-lyn)

Hogwarts did not appear fully form out of the founders’ shared vision; it evolved slowly over the centuries to the recognisable school in the Harry Potter books.

The modern version of Hogwarts is a post-industrial concept of education, where children are organised by age and progress in a linear fashion through distinct phases of learning. It is nothing like what the founders would have set up over 1000 years ago.

I have previously explained that the concept of school, as we understand it, simply did not exist during the founders’ time (Hogwarts: a Founding). The only form of instruction that existed for common people in dark ages was apprenticeships. The founders must have taken dozens of personal apprentices to be instructed in their own unique trades.

In essence what the founders set up were four individual apprenticeship schemes which were independent of each other but happened to inhabit the same area – most likely a fortified town call Hogwarts which had existed on this site for millennia (Hogwarts: a Founding)

However the four individual “schools” did eventually unite into one.

I explain:

• What prompted the four different apprenticeship schemes to unite into one


• What happened after Slytherin left


• The original role of the sorting hat


• How Hogwarts evolved into the modern school seen in the books

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I have seen many writers assume that the Hogwarts has remained exactly the same since the time of the founding. Fanfiction often describes the first students having very similar experiences to Harry.

Although the founders created what would become Hogwarts School, the modern school we see today evolved slowly over time. The original establishment had no resemblance to a modern boarding school with four houses. In fact it could not have been a school as we would understand it.

What the founders really set up was four different apprenticeship schemes with four different trade masters within in the same fortified town called Hogwarts.

I explain

• What existed on the site of Hogwarts before the founders


• Where the name Hogwarts comes from


• Why the founders choose to located their “school” a remote part of Scotland


• What the founders actually taught and the style of education the first students would have received


• What each founders actually did for a living – because there were no professional teachers in the Dark Ages.

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I understand this topic has been analysed repeated and extrapolated on. Nearly every conceivable conspiracy theory has been rolled out to explain why Sirius (and James) escaped any kind of justice for what is essentially attempted murder, except of course, the one theory that no-one was willing to write down: maybe nobody cared enough to do anything.

I explain:

• Why wizards attitudes to child protection are different to muggles

• Why it would be more surprising if James and Sirus had been called to account.

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The wizarding world has many inherent prejudices, the most notable of which is pureblood prejudice against muggleborns and squibs. On a superficial level these view appear only to be a product of the nasty personalities of people like the Malfoys.

However this prejudice runs deep within wizarding society, so deep that pureblood families would rather breed themselves in complete degeneracy than broaden their gene pool with non-purebloods. Whilst we can write this off as pure pig-headed dedication to ideology. I believe that there is a much deeper, rational reason behind pureblood prejuidice.

I explore:

• Why pureblood families continued to inbreed to the point of degeneracy.


• Where pureblood prejudice came from and how it developed


• The effects of seclusion on wizarding culture and stigma


• The genetics behind squibs/muggleborns and why they are hated by the pureblood supremists.

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Exploring

• How humans became magical


• Our evolutionary relationship with fellow magical creatures.


• The genes responsible for being magical and how they are inherited


• The existence of squibs and and unusual explanation for Muggleborns.

Magic will always be magic and the beauty is that it does not follow the laws of science or logic. It is something wild, unexplained and unknowable, but given this blog is all about semantics: I say to hell with beauty, let's douse Magic in science and see what strange hybrid ideas are produced!

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