But how much haven't Sherlock done to John without apologizing? He did towards the end sincerely apologize for the two years of lying (at lest I think he did, I wouldn't put it passed him if that was acting as well), but he has never apologized for all the other things he did to John before the fall (and the tube scene itself that he did afterwards).

Granted, the entire episode of TSoT is more or less Sherlock redeeming himself, and that episode alone makes up for a LOT of crap from his side. 

But as people say about Sherlock and John (had it been a man and a woman, there would have been no doubt that these two have romantic feelings for each other), I would say that if Sherlock were Mary, she would have been despised for the way she had treated him over the series.

If you rewatch HLV, the Baker Street confrontation between Mary, John and Sherlock, you will see right away why John couldn´t be informed about Sherlock´s fake death before TEH. In this scene, John babbles: "She shot you." to Sherlock quite loudly right in front of the paramedics! It was a miracle Mary wasn´t arrested immediately after this slip. And that´s exactly why Sherlock couldn´t trust John´s discretion in his absence - if John became slightly angry, everyone in London and their dog would know about Sherlock´s faked death right away.

When Sherlock was jumping from the roof, he was not just protecting John, but Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson as well (and Mycroft had no idea who their shooters are, so they remained in danger even after John was "safe"). John´s grief was a paramount tool in persuading Moriarty´s Network that Sherlock is dead, so there was no helping it, Sherlock was forced to hide from him untill he destroyed Moriarty´s wide web of criminals.

You can´t be serious that a few harsh words and a cold shoulder offered to Mary for her misdeeds equal Sherlock´s many punishments. Try to count all the verbal abuse Sherlock must put up with (both whispered behind his back and spoken right into his face, even from his best friends and family) and add to it the physical violence including his near death aimed at him to it - the result is incomparable.

There was an argument that John was actually henpecked from Sherlock, not from Mary. But when I look at the actual relationship between these two pair of people, I see just the opposite:

Sherlock hit John - John hit him right back.
Sherlock drugged John and called him an idiot - John wrote awful things about him on his blog and allowed Lestrade to make nasty videos about Sherlock while he was heavily drugged or physically ill (taken out of context, they made Sherlock look like an idiot too).
Sherlock insulted John to his face, when they were in private - John insulted him behind his back, in public (calling him Asperger, speaking ill of him in front of Dimmock, revealing his ingnorance about Solar System to the Scontland Yard via his blog).
In HOTB John forced Sherlock to give up smoking.
In TRF he started to manage Sherlock´s public relations and shut Sherlock up always when Sherlock wanted to utter some inappropriate remark.

Their relationship was balanced, they were on pretty equal terms, they got their ways how to pay their friend back if they were cross with him.

While John´s dealings with Mary looked like this:

She shoots his friend (indirectly causing suicide of another human being) and defiantly talks back when called on it - John almost apologises for his harsh words and kindly takes her back to him.
She dismisses the possibility of John naming their child - John silently complies.
She decides that John should "run" Sherlock (like a dog) - John complies, althrough he din´t want to do it on his own volition.
Sherlock must check with her and ask her permission if he wants to take John on a case with him. John is not his own master anymore.
John asks her not to go with him, because the situation is dangerous - she disrespects his wish and inserts herself right into things into which she was not invited.

All this makes John look like a henpecked husband.

Which brings me to the reason why Mary is and will be a Mary Sue.

Mary Sue is mostly defined by two things:
the story which was about main characters before becomes Sue-centric when Mary Sue enters it,
the skills of Mary Sue surpass the skills of all the established characters.

Do I need say more? The moment Mary entered S3, the entire series became heavily Mary-centric. And as as a bonus to that, Mary:
had better memory and puzzle solving skills than Sherlock,
was better shooter than John,
managed to hide even from the all-knowing, omnipotent Mycroft,
boasted that she is not so gullible as John,
althrough being endowed with all those magnificent skills, she was also declared to be "sane" and "normal" by Sherlock´s father in HLV, because, you know, Mary Sue must excell in everything, even when it directly contradicts itself.

Which part of his past should he regret? He has not done anything comparable to being a professional killer.

He wasn't paid for that by a client. As he said, it was a christmas gift.

Nothing Sherlock has done to John can even begin to compare to being a professional killer.

True, tonnaree. And we should always give them the benefit of being the main characters, which Mary.is.not.

Vhanja wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

Which part of his past should he regret? He has not done anything comparable to being a professional killer.

All the crap he had done towards John from more or less day one since they met.

Like healing his leg? Making him laugh? Sharing his credit card with him? Being his best man?

nakahara wrote:

Ascribing medical conditions to people who don´t have them is quite insulting in my book.

I never saw that statement meant as an insult, neither from Lestrade nor from John.

nakahara wrote:

I meant the scenes like the one in TSOT in which Mary directly ordered John to find Sherlock a case and "run" him, then the next scene where Mary and John staged the situation, in which Sherlock had to explain to Mary that he is taking John out (why would he bother, if he wasn´t indirectly asking for her permission?). In HLV John tried to be dramatic and told Sherlock that he comes to a case if he is free and Sherlock replied: "You are free, I checked" (he obviously checked with Mary, who else is there whose permission would he ask in such situation?). Both scenes grated on my nerves a lot when I watched them for the first time, because to me they signified that the relationship between Sherlock and John started to be dependent on Mary´s permission and approval. Which is awful, IMHO.

That would be awful, but I don't think that is the case. Mary was never meant to be a wedge between Sherlock and John, and she isn't. The "ordering" is her pushing John to do what he WANTS to do. Sherlock and John are holding back, trying to not run off on cases so that they can plan weddings with Mary instead. Mary knows this, and she knows Sherlock is afraid of losing John, so she pushes them to do what it is they want, but try to avoid for her sake. 

As for John being free, I don't think that was checking with Mary if it was ok with her, but checking his schedule that he didn't have any other plans. I don't really think he had any other plans, I just think he said it so that Sherlock shouldn't take him for granted, really.


 

Vhanja wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

Vhanja: But then you also have to look at the reasons they had - Sherlock tried to save John's life while Mary lied about her identity from the very beginning and to keep him from leaving her. 

I am talking about all the stuff he has done. Not just the fall itself - everything he did before the fall. Including insulting him, crashing his date, ruining and insulting his other date, shutting him out, performing a terrifying experiment on him and overall being a selfish and sarcastic prick a lot of the times. And that is just before the fall, then we have lying to him for two years, and then the tube scene with the emotional blackmail. 

Sherlock made it no secret when they first met that he is unconventional and doesn´t respects certain social rules. John loved exactly this aspect of his personality and so no matter what Sherlock did, he stuck to him, because he actually craved the excitement Sherlock´s actions brought into his life. The only thing that actiually wounded him was Sherlock´s faked death (which I need to repeat, was neccessary to save human lives) - precisely because those things disappeared from John´s life with Sherlock´s demise.

While Mary infiltrated John´s life under the false name, pretending to be another person entirely, making herself lovable and benign when she was anything but... and wounded John awfully with her betrayal (with a very weak excuse). John actually fell in love with an image she projected to him not with a woman herself - because if you think about it, nothing in her image before "the revelation" was real. 

No matter how you compare the two, Mary still looks way shadier than Sherlock.

Brilliant observation, nakahara.