BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012.
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| His Last Vow » Some thoughts about Sherlock and Mary » January 19, 2014 2:44 am |
- Clancy
- Replies: 72
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The show is so medically improbable that trying to decide Mary's intention by where she shot him is probably futile, but since he actually arrested I think we can assume in story it was a very near thing.
!warning for largely irrelevant medical geekery!
As to what would happen if you actually shot someone on that trajectory, and assuming normal anatomy:-
t the very least you'd make 'holes' in the left lobe of the liver, the anterior and posterior walls of the stomach, and the ribs posteriorly as they come down a lot lower in the back. You might also get the diaphragm and lung, depending on individual anatomy and how inflated their lungs where. You might also hit the splenic artery and/or vein and the head of pancreas. If your shot was angled a bit to your right you might also hit the vertebral column.
To make matters worse a bullet doesn't punch clean holes - it sets up a shockwave and kills a fair bit of tissue as it passes through. This can be worse with a slower bullet that stays in the body because it looses all it's energy in the body rather than passing through.The liver is particularly inelastic and tends to shatter rather than give a clean tear.
If he lived to get to OTH he'd have several flood lines in and would have been volume replaced, at least partially, before they started. If he was going to arrest he'd probably have done so on induction of the anaesthetic, not on the table.
In the unlikely event he survived Sherlock would have a full length midline laparotomy scar rather than the neat little incision the bandage on his right upper quadrant would suggest.
| Meet The Members » Tell us what part of the world you come from » January 18, 2014 11:07 pm |
- Clancy
- Replies: 319
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Australia (Newcastle, NSW).
| His Last Vow » Some thoughts about Sherlock and Mary » January 18, 2014 10:43 pm |
- Clancy
- Replies: 72
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Willow wrote:If you move the writing away from that then you have a much less attractive script, in professional terms, for the two stars. Benedict and Martin are hugely in demand, and they do have agents; allowing Season 4 to be all about Mary is not a good plan, looking at it from the perspective of working actors trying to maximise their career potential.
Both Benedict and Martin are in great career shape at the moment, Amanda is Martin's partner and they seem to get on well. I agree the creators probably still wouldn't make Mary the sole focus but I could see the stars accepting a fairly major role for her for series 4.
| His Last Vow » Some thoughts about Sherlock and Mary » January 18, 2014 10:39 pm |
- Clancy
- Replies: 72
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Other possibilities for the shooting/ambulance thing include
- Mary didn't shoot Magnussen because she thought there was hard copy somewhere that might get found in the course of a murder investigation (the secret service would be all over Magnussen's effects, given a chance). Her initial intent had been to torture him until he handed it over. Unlikely IMO - I prefer the protect John line here.
- accepting Mary as a highly skilled assassin she had to know there was a fair chance of Sherlock dying. Maybe she didn't go for a 'kill immediately' shot because she wanted John to be distracted trying to save Sherlock and thus give Mary time to get clear.
- It's possible that Mary didn't call the ambulance. That could have been done by Magnussen (we only saw the pistol whip in Sherlock's recap, Magnussen might have been conscious), to preserve his line to Mycroft. Perhaps the ambulance station is just alot closer to Magnussen's office, or Magnussen has done something to ensure a rapid response to his office, in case he ever needs it (massive donation if he's a smart as they say).
| His Last Vow » Some thoughts about Sherlock and Mary » January 18, 2014 11:28 am |
- Clancy
- Replies: 72
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I have trouble believing Sherlock 's acceptance of Mary, for several of the reasons given elsewhere in this thread (mostly the fact she' s still in practice and the fact his survival very nearly wasn't, as well as her still being a possible risk to John, if she's a true psychopath and eventually gets bored with him).
The thing is I can't tell if the creators mean it to be uncertain or if it's a result of Moffat 's style of writing, which I don't think of as bad necessarily, but he certainly doesn't let details get in the way of the story.
Since this is largely based on inference I can't think of a way of resolving it, short of series 4.
| His Last Vow » The dynamic between Sherlock, John & Mary - an attempt at explanation » January 18, 2014 2:45 am |
- Clancy
- Replies: 102
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Swanpride wrote:
That's what I call selective argumentation...for example, the writer totally ignored the fact that Mary was the one who called the ambulance. Or that John would have realized that the stick is empty if he looked at it, and even if he decided against it, there was a high likelyhood that Sherlock might do it at one point (in fact, perhaps he did). And yes, naturally Mary does look worried when Sherlock wakes up...she didn't have the opportunity to speak to him, yet. And why should Sherlock push Mary and John together if he doesn't trust her with John?
wrt "Mary saved my life" I have real trouble with this - Sherlock came very close to dying and IMO it was an odd shot for a "trained assassin" - there are better ways to incapacitate someone without killing them but also better, quicker ways of killing. Medicine in show doesn't work the way it does in the real world (I'm a pathologist) but in this case it was a narrow call in show too. I'm working on the theory that she was conflicted on whether or not to kill Sherlock.
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wrt why Sherlock would push John and Mary together - because of the baby, at least in part? Possibly he does think she's still working for someone and is trying to get to them through her? As a remote possiblity Sherlock thinks she's a true psychopath and would have gone after John once convinced she'd truly lost him.
As I see it we know very little about Mary for sure - the information about her being a freelance killer came from Magnussen who is not reliable. Mary could have been exagerating the 'you won't love me after you read it' bit so that John be expecting something awful and find whatever she'd done better than he feared. She could have been involved in something else he'd have trouble with (drug running, prostitution). Of course whatever was on the key could have been fake...
to add to my problems someone on Digital Spy pointed out that the key we see a close up of in the fire has slightly different wri
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