From http://copperbadge.dreamwidth.org/693410.html - "One presumes the Holmes Boys come from money, but it's difficult to know for sure."

From the level of education and the attitudes evinced by Mr Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet", I'd put him at the upper levels of the middle classes at the very least, but more likely a younger son of an aristocratic family whose relations don't want the inconvenience of dealing with him at home (in an earlier era, young Sherlock would most likely have been sent out of "colonial experience" to one of the colonies - either Australia or Canada would have been good candidates). He doesn't have the right sorts of attitudes to be believable as someone from a lower strata of society, and (the kicker) he's too highly educated to be believable as someone from any stratum below the upper middle classes. University education only really became available to the lower classes in the late 20th century, and Sherlock Holmes is a product of the early 20th century at best.

Some of the cues for this: he picks and chooses his case load, rather than taking whatever comes up. This is not the behaviour of someone who is doing this because they need to earn a living. It's the behaviour of someone who is amusing themselves. He spends large amounts of time experimenting - again, amusing himself. He's odd in his personal habits to the point of eccentricity, something which would most likely have had him locked up in an insane asylum (or at the very least, being kicked out onto the street by his landlady) had he not got the backing to support them. He certainly appears to have a nigh-unlimited budget for transport and travel, as well as the sorts of connections which get him in at all levels of society (read these connections, and the ones with the aristocracy are at a level of equality; the ones with the lower classes all have that element of "young master" in them).

Needing to split the rent with Watson is just a reflection of lousy day-to-day money-management skills, something you're likely to come by if money isn't something you've had to think about all your life. If it's literally been Someone Else's Problem, then you don't need to learn about it yourself.

Mycroft Holmes working as a public servant is still workable if you take the position that they're part of an aristocratic family. The tradition for aristocratic sons was to have one son who was the heir, then the others were sent to the army, the church, or the government if they wanted to be productive. So if we posit an aristocratic family with a minimum of three sons, there's the eldest who inherits the estates (and possibly a title, thus distancing himself from his brothers who wear the family name), Mycroft who has gone into government service, and Sherlock, who didn't want any of the defined social roles and instead chose to be an eccentric wastrel in the eyes of his Family.

Avengers Movie:

• By this time, Loki has had enough time to come to learn of his chaotic nature, and his existence as a creature of discord. My guess is that his journey between falling off Bifrost and arriving in the joint facility in New Mexico was definitely occurring on non-Newtonian timescales - or in other words, while only a few months may have passed back out here on Earth, for Loki it's been the equivalent of years, maybe even centuries. He's learned, to an extent, how to plan around his inherent abilities. His plans incorporate his involuntary ability to mess up plans and work to mitigate this.


• This is, in part, why he got himself captured by SHIELD in the first place. His capture in Germany is entirely too easy, let's face it, particularly when you consider the Avengers aren't actually working as a team at this stage, so it has to be a deliberate move by Loki.


• Another clue toward this is that he doesn't escape while Thor, Iron Man and Captain America get into a three-way argument. He practically gives the impression of just wanting to sit there with popcorn and watch. So his capture isn't against his will in the least. On the one hand, it gets him away from Selvig and what his team are trying to do, and minimises the chance of their work being sabotaged by his chaotic nature. On the other hand, it gets him (and his effects) into the place where his ability to create disharmony and discord will do the most damage to his enemies: right slap bang in the centre of where his enemies are. I'd be looking for this in future plans of Loki's - he's going to turn into something of a suicide bomber, in effect.


• The reason Loki's plans for conquering the earth wind up falling apart are twofold: firstly, the structure of something like SHIELD is such that it works to counter or at least mitigate Murphy's law the whole damn time it's in operation (a besetting tendency of any bureaucracy, because large numbers of people cause problems just by being gathered).


• Secondly, Loki winds up getting involved at the crucial moment - the actual conquest. His ability to cause discord started backfiring at about the point where the Avengers crew worked out that Loki's effects are able to create discord just as much as he is, and they're being affected by them. End result is that while they're aware of the effect Loki creates, they're going to work to counter that effect.


• When Loki got involved in the actual conquest of New York, he wound up trying all the wrong tactics on all the wrong people.


• He tried to suborn Tony Stark by force (which failed because he didn't take the arc reactor into account - it's likely he never knew of it prior to the point where he attempted to turn Stark, and instead of touching his spear to flesh, he hit the reactor instead. I have to admit, I love that he tries it twice, just in case he did something wrong the first time). One thing which he's forgotten to take into account is that Tony Stark is, as they pointed out in Iron Man II, a textbook narcissist, albeit one with a profound masochistic streak - Tony doesn't do what Tony doesn't want to do. In that, he's very much like Loki himself (if Loki had decided to try and seduce Tony over to the Dark Side, he might have stood a chance... but only a small one).


• Then Loki tried to grandstand intellectually against the Hulk. This didn't work because Hulk knows he's not the smart one out of him and Banner, and Hulk is fine with that. After all, it's not Banner who gets the two of them out of situations where people are shooting heavy artillery at them. Loki might be smart like Banner, but he's also squishy, like Banner. Hence, "puny god". Which led to a smackdown worthy of Wile. E. Coyote at his best/worst.


• Loki also under-estimated both Clint and Natasha. As several fanwriters have pointed out, Clint is a sniper, and he could have killed off both Fury and Hill with head shots very early on in the plot line, as well as probably taking out Natasha from a distance on the catwalk in the helicarrier if he so desired. If he'd been completely under the control of Loki, he would have done so. That he didn't implies firstly that there was still some part of Clint Barton which was in control of choosing targets, and which chose to hit the non-lethal ones. That arrow he sends at Loki later on is a brilliant example of how damn good Clint Barton is when he needs to be - he anticipated that Loki was going to catch the arrow before it hit him, and used an explosive arrow in order to injure him when he did.


• Loki under-estimated Natasha in her interrogation of him. She's a very clever player, because she'll use everything at her disposal as a weapon, including her own vulnerabilities. (The hints are there early in the film in her interrogations firstly of the Russian general, and secondly of Bruce Banner, when she's trying to bring him in - watch carefully, and you'll see she uses her own weaknesses as weapons against both of them). She goes into things well aware that as a small, delicate-looking woman, she's judged to be weak by a lot of male players (head canon: she secretly appreciates Bruce Banner because he never really believed it for a fucking second) and she uses that perception of weakness to perform feats of psychological judo which leave her opponents winded and gasping for breath. And she did that on Loki, and did it so smoothly he barely noticed when she'd extracted the information she was after and walked out.

Some preliminary thoughts about Loki

• Loki starts to come into his own as a deity of chaos during the Thor movie.


• At the start of things, he isn't aware of his identity and potential as a chaotic deity. While he may be mildly aware of his potential to cause or heighten discord, it's probably just in the sense that he's aware that other people always seem to be arguing around him. He thinks this is a property of other people, rather than any quality of his own.


• Loki's presence around arguments (eg Thor vs Odin in the armoury re what's to be done; Thor trying to convince his friends to go to Jotunheim with him; Thor attempting "diplomacy" in Jotunheim; and Odin dressing down Thor in the observatory afterwards) makes the argument more tenacious, more vicious, and more hurtful.


• Loki is probably the weakest physically of the "gang" he hangs around with (mainly it's Thor and Thor's pals, who accept Loki because he's Thor's brother). On sheer physical power he's on a par with Sif, but where Sif supplements her strength with warrior tenacity, Loki supplements his with trickery and magic (neither of which are much respected in a warrior society such as that of Asgard). Loki is basically a geek in amongst all the Asgardian jocks.


• As someone who isn't able to compete on grounds of brute force, Loki makes up for his "lack" through planning. Prior to his chaotic side maturing, he was probably the one who was the planner in their group (the skinny little kid who came up with the plan for raiding the larder and so on). He probably handled logistics, intelligence and cover-up in their original childhood escapades, and was still handling the planning side when they were teenagers and as they grew to maturity. However, at present the Warriors Three and Thor are all at that stage of their lives where they're young, they're strong, and as far as they're concerned, they're immortal, so they don't see the value of planning when they can pretty much overwhelm everything with brute strength. So Loki's importance has been fading.


• Loki gives the impression of always having had to take second place to Thor. He's learned to accept it, but he's also grown to resent it. He would like to have his potential recognised, and his talents praised for what they were. He knows he's better at the thinking side of kingship than Thor ever will be, and can't see why (in a time of peace) he's not an equivalent candidate for the throne.