BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012.


You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?



February 21, 2017 3:20 am  #341


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Let's hope we get to see John resolve all of his issues before the series is cancelled for good!  And not just his needs for adrenaline and for a wife and child, either.

 

 

February 21, 2017 9:14 am  #342


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Yeah, John almost never seems 100% happy. He does look happy in that last scene in TFP, though, when Sherlock hands Rosie to him.

 


"It is what it is"
"You see, but you do not observe"



"I shall die upon a cloud of Johnlock fluff and have my body launched into the sun". - LadyTuesday
 

February 21, 2017 12:14 pm  #343


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Elemental wrote:

Yeah, John almost never seems 100% happy. He does look happy in that last scene in TFP, though, when Sherlock hands Rosie to him.

 

Yes he does look incredibly happy. It seems that he does not need a wife to be truely happy.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I still believe that love conquers all!

     

"Quick, man, if you love me."
 

February 21, 2017 12:57 pm  #344


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Liberty wrote:

I don't think the tracker is about mistrust, but about being able to predict Mary - she HAS to deceive them at that point. 

John and Sherlock aren´t just anyone, they are men more than capable to deal with danger and risk.
That Mary has to deceive them and leave and to deal with a dangerous situation on her own is a telling sign that she does not trust in their abilities and that she underestimates them.
Her past is not a shocking surprise to them anymore. She could sit down with them and come together with a plan how to capture AJ.
But no. Her first impulse is to leave John without a word of explanation and to drug Sherlock who offers to help her.
To me this seems like a complete distrust, even contempt for both men.
 


-----------------------------------

I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 

February 21, 2017 2:39 pm  #345


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I don't think it's contempt at all.  It's her problem, and she deals with it herself, and tries not to involve them or put them at risk.  She doesn't really underestimate them - we don't know exactly what would have happened if they weren't on the scene, but when they were on the scene, they led Ajay to Mary, and Mary was almost killed (only alive because Ajay hesitated rather than killing her outright, and perhaps because she threatened to kill him too).   They were at risk too.  I actually think Mary probably did the right thing for everybody.  She only underestimated Sherlock and John when it came to the tracking device. I suppose she should have anticipated that.  (But she's not Sherlock Holmes - ha ha!).

 

 

February 21, 2017 2:50 pm  #346


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I tend to agree with nakahara. I cannot help myself but I really, really dislike this "terrifying superagent" stuff. And I also dislike Mary belittling Sherlock and John constantly. This has never sat right with me, not in TSoT and surely not in TST. The problem for me is that with Mary the writing is terribly inconsistent - why does she name her daughter after herself, knowing only too well that she is a danger to all people around her, after trying all she could to hide her real identity from the world? Not to mention the frankly bizarre und unbelievable scene in the plane. Sometimes she does not seem like a SH character but more like a Marvel superhero. 

Sorry for deviating here but I am absolutely unsure what John really wants. He is not happy with a "normal" suburban family life but he does not want a wife who goes on adventures and leaves him and her child and causes danger to them all either. I honestly think there would have been no future for them but this is just my personal view. 

 


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 

February 21, 2017 3:29 pm  #347


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I have to agree that I do not like Mary's actions in TST. And she does say that she doesn't want them "hanging on her gun arm", which basically means she sees them as a liability, not a help. 

What gets me the most, though, is that she promised John she would involve him in her future problems. It was his condition for giving their relationship another go. To me, that is a much bigger break of promise than Sherlock's alleged break of the vow (which I can't see that he did at all).

But, yes, I am not sure what John wants either. In particular because whenever he does get what he wants, he just wants more. (And it just occured to me that is what he said himself - he wanted more). 

Last edited by Vhanja (February 21, 2017 3:30 pm)


__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"We'll live on starlight and crime scenes" - wordstrings


Team Hudders!
 
     Thread Starter
 

February 21, 2017 4:29 pm  #348


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Yes to all this.


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 

February 21, 2017 4:47 pm  #349


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I seemed to be in the minority thinking he was saying he wanted more women!


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/105838327464/heres-an-outtake-of-mark-gatiss-on-the
 

February 21, 2017 6:26 pm  #350


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I think that with Magnussen gone, Mary believed there was less risk.  She thought she was the only one of AGRA who had survived.  But I think they were never going to have a long life together.  As Magnussen said, people like her tend to die (be killed) young.   She had her appointment in Samarra.

I think it's debatable whether she should have told John - he did seem to make it clear that he didn't want to know about her past.   So given that she thought Sherlock had dealt with the risk she continued ... and at that point, it wouldn't have seemed a risk to name her daughter after her.   In the end it was Sherlock and the wedding photos which caught up with her - well, mainly Sherlock inadvertently telling Ajay that he knew her.   Then after that, she knew that if she told John he'd try to stop her, but I'm sure she knew that Sherlock would tell John anyway. 

I remember after HLV that Mary was criticised for sticking around, because of the possible risk to John (although Mary was the one most at risk - John was at risk because of Sherlock/Mycroft rather than her).   Then in TST she's criticised for leaving to keep John and Rosie safe (she couldn't have protected Rosie in that way in HLV as she was still carrying her and she would have been at risk wherever Mary was).   She did seem to have been in a situation which was very difficult to get right.   And honestly, Sherlock and John were not really helping to protect her, despite their best intentions (I do think Sherlock kept his vow as well as he was able).   Sherlock put Ajay on to her in the first place, then led him to her, and put her at risk by insisting she return to his own turf - not his fault, but still, it does show that she wasn't far off the mark when she felt she had to work alone. 

As for John (getting back on topic!), I do think TLD shows his true feelings for Mary.  They did banter, as Sherlock and John did, but we see that John saw her as caring and understanding - and that she looked up to him, and he knew that. 

Last edited by Liberty (February 21, 2017 6:35 pm)

 

February 21, 2017 9:01 pm  #351


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I think using Ghost Mary was a very clever move on Steven's part. Why? Because he cleverly distracts us from the fact that this is not Mary talking but John playing out his inner conflict. This is not the Mary we have seen over the episodes from TEH to TST. It is a manifestation of his own contradictory feelings. 


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 

February 21, 2017 9:17 pm  #352


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I think it's partly that, but I do think we see the heart of Mary too and how John responds to her.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/105838327464/heres-an-outtake-of-mark-gatiss-on-the
 

February 21, 2017 9:51 pm  #353


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Yes, I think it shows us an awful lot about what John thinks about Mary and feels for her (and some of what she feels for him too) - in a way, it's more revealing about their relationship than what's come before. 

 

February 22, 2017 10:54 pm  #354


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Yes, it is.  It shows what John feels for Mary, and what she felt for him while she was alive.

 

 

February 23, 2017 11:30 am  #355


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

SusiGo wrote:

Sorry for deviating here but I am absolutely unsure what John really wants. He is not happy with a "normal" suburban family life but he does not want a wife who goes on adventures and leaves him and her child and causes danger to them all either. I honestly think there would have been no future for them but this is just my personal view. 
 

Vhanja wrote:

But, yes, I am not sure what John wants either. In particular because whenever he does get what he wants, he just wants more. (And it just occured to me that is what he said himself - he wanted more).

My feeling is that he is more content and happy with his life with Sherlock (S1 and S2) than with Mary. He's annoyed sometimes, and pissed off with Sherlock often, and worried, and in danger... but I do get a feeling that he's more content with his life then than later on the show. We see more laughter, more fun, even more comfortable domesticity.

This general discomfort that a lot of us seem to perceive during S3 and TST is one of the reasons why Johnlock makes sense to me. To me, he's not happy because he belongs with Sherlock (there, I said it ).

But even if you do not believe in a romantic relationship between them, I do think he'll be happier and more fulfilled sharing time and adventures with Sherlock than in a suburban family life. It's what we've been told about the character from the very beginning. He misses the battlefield.

Living with Mary was part of his conflict, so it makes sense that he is unhappy, or at least not completely happy, while it lasts. It was not his happy ending. His happy ending is the legend, the adventures, who he really is (AKA TFP's last scene)... as told by Mary herself.


"It is what it is"
"You see, but you do not observe"



"I shall die upon a cloud of Johnlock fluff and have my body launched into the sun". - LadyTuesday
 

February 23, 2017 11:33 am  #356


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

No, but he wasn't content in S1 and S2. He kept dating women, so he was obviously again looking for "something more". And when he found a woman, he missed Sherlock. And when he had it all - a wife, a daughter, a job, a house AND Sherlock as a friend, he STILL wanted more. 


__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"We'll live on starlight and crime scenes" - wordstrings


Team Hudders!
 
     Thread Starter
 

February 23, 2017 11:35 am  #357


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

Elemental: I agree. That happiest John we got was in S1 and S2 up to TRF. The very special relationship with Sherlock and the shared domesticity is something we never got again. This is, btw, why I think that the fall served as a sort of "Urkatastrophe" or seminal catastrophe from which the characters (and the story) never really recovered. It echoes throughout the episodes up to TLD where John shows that he is wearing the scars of those two years. And in my eyes he never got with Mary what he had with Sherlock in S1/2. 

Last edited by SusiGo (February 23, 2017 11:35 am)


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 

February 23, 2017 12:00 pm  #358


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I do think he's happy with Sherlock as a rule (obviously not romantically!), but he has Sherlock in TST too - they're involved in each other's lives and going on cases together.   Sherlock is not any less devoted to him than he was in S1 and S2. 

I think part of the problem with Mary was that Sherlock was right - he did fall for her because of who she was.  But they don't actually fulfil that part of their lives together much - both have that thirst for adventure, but they're almost in competition over it.  Both feel tied to down to Rosie and struggle to deal with the less fun parts of parenthood and suburban life.    In a way, they rarely "consummate" (just the word that sprung to mind!) what drew them together, so their shared experience is mundaneness rather than adventures and danger.  I think that was changing a little in TST but never really had a chance to come to fulfilment. 

 

February 23, 2017 12:14 pm  #359


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I think by choosing to include a baby and make them a family (contrary to Canon), this chance of fulfilment was doomed to fail from the beginning. Because is is next to impossible for two parents to have this sort of life - battlefield, crimes, secret assassinations, whatever. It does not work. It does not even work in TST with the dog scene because three's a crowd. Sherlock and Mary siding against John, assigning him the role of the carer. I do not see how this should have worked. Which may be one reason why the writers chose to end this before it had truly begun.
 


------------------------------
"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 

February 23, 2017 12:40 pm  #360


Re: John's evovlement throughout the show

I actually got the impression that Mary was doing the bulk of the childcare, if anything (because we see John on cases with Sherlock), although it could have been more evenly split than we see.  It's only when Sherlock needs Mary's particular skills that the childcare swaps over to John, and that seems to have been a one-off (I don't get the impression from their conversation that it's something that happens regularly).   And even then, John just brings Rosie along with them! 

But I agree generally that it was doomed - we were pretty sure Mary was going to die in S4, and I think it was clear that Moftiss planned to set them up as the Holmes and Watson of legend, not as a threesome!

 

Board footera

 

Powered by Boardhost. Create a Free Forum