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Straight ahead or two steps forward, two steps back?
Linear and non-linear narrative in BBC’s Sherlock

I was probably not the only one to be blown away by the complex narrative in season 3 of Sherlock. It has been nagging me for a long time, so of course I had to visualise it. 

What started as an experiment, turned into a monster that would not let me go. In the end, I just had to finish it, so here you go. (If someone ever tells you that they intend to make 224 frames by hand, please tell them to go learn animation properly. I do know that I ought to!)

This is what you need to know when watching the animation: 

• The size of the jumps do not match time passed in the show’s universe. 
• The jumps are placed roughly at the point in time in the episode where they take place. Since legibility takes precedence, complex episodes do not align well. 
• Jumps forwards in time are only ­noted when they are very large and obvious in the storytelling (weeks or months) or when they are part of a non-­linear narrative. 

Considering the recent discussion about the order of events in A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville, I should also point out that each episode has a line of its own. I did consider letting the dots jump to the right line when there are flashbacks to earlier episodes, but that would have turned this regular monster into a flaming balrog that would have burnt me to crisp. So each line refers only to that episode and flashbacks to earlier episodes are simply put to the left of the events that actually take place in the episode. I hope that made sense … 🙂

In case I make corrections, updated versions can be found here: http://obotligtnyfiken.se/sherlock/straight-ahead-or-two-steps-forward-two-steps-back/ 

Tagging a few people who might be interested below the cut.

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@isitandwonder @the-7-percent-solution @ilovesubtext @sussexbound-main @miadifferent @imtooticky @thebisonwitheadphones @hudders-and-hiddles @inevitably-johnlocked @multifandom-madnesss @girlofthemirror @jenna221b

This is BEAUTIFUL! Watching TSoT and HLV is so visually pleasing! Well done, well done! 😀

abso-fucking-lutely BRILLIANT.