BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Mary

RavenMorganLeigh · July 8, 2015 5:51 pm

Someone brought up a point on another thread; I thought I'd bring it up here--

With the info that we are given about Mary, is there any reason to think of her as Heroic?

My take: NO-- I haven't seen her do *anything* that puts her squarely on the side of the Good Guys.

She can remember room numbers. Okay,but that only indicates her training---

She recognizes a skip code. Training, again. But she's not the one diving into a fire to save John Watson.

And, after that point-- she reads as a baddie.

Vhanja · July 8, 2015 5:57 pm

To me, it's not always as simple as being a "goodie" or a "baddie". I mean - some characters are very clearly either/or, like Lestrade and Moriarty. But a lot of the characters are quite grey and transcends the groupings of goodie/baddie. I feel Mary is one of them.

SusiGo · July 8, 2015 6:01 pm

I think Moffat knows very well how to write morally complex characters, e.g. for Dr Who. But in my opinion Mary is not one of them because we do not get enough reasons to empathise with her. She is basically a blank page.

Vhanja · July 8, 2015 6:16 pm

I find her to be a very moral complex character. She seems (a bit like Sherlock) to be on the side of angels, but not to be one of them. Although we don't know that for sure yet.

To me, I don't have enough information to say the she for certain is a "goodie", nor do I have enough information to say that she is a "baddie" (not that these labels are that important to me in the first place). So I hold back any strong judgement on her character until next season, when I hope we will learn more.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 8, 2015 6:42 pm

I think that when she says (referring to the AGRA thumb drive) "The stuff on there, I would go to prison for the rest of my life", that tells me that she is not on the side of Law and Order.

Sherlock, for all his faults is still on the side of what we call "good". He catches criminals. His methods may be chaotic at times, but he's "on the side of the Angels".

John, is even more so. He's Queen and Country, through and through.

Mary, however--as an assassin -- doing "wet jobs" and going "rogue" and "freelance"-- shooting her friend, and thus running the distinct chance of "breaking John"--- I'm trying to find something in the way she's shown to us that says "Heroine", and I'm not seeing it.

By the way-- I'm wondering if half the difficulty in trying to make sense of Mary is caused by the idea of what an assassin actually is? I mean-- if that's an acceptable job choice, what does that say about her?

My view: An assassin is someone who kills people for money.

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (July 8, 2015 6:46 pm)

Yitzock · July 8, 2015 6:42 pm

I agree with what Vhanja said.
We were already given that Sherlock was morally ambiguous at times at the beginning of the series before we knew him that well. I feel like even though she has only been around for three episodes, that Mary has been given the same complexity. Much like what we got from Sherlock when we first started seeing his character, we have seen some different elements of personality, and see how she is not entirely good or bad.
She obviously cares for John, and I thikn Sherlock as well. She can be very loving towards both of them. One example that stands out for me is during the wedding preparations. She can tell that amongst the fact that it was something they had to do, there were nerves and it meant that they weren't doing what they usually like to do, which is to solve cases. So she gets them to go out and do what they like doing. At first it seems like shes pretty much completely out of that part of them, but then she helps them with the case as it continues on her wedding day. She doesn't let them go on their own, she wants to help and be involved with it. She's clearly not stupid.
We learn later that she has a dark past, so maybe she's not completely good, but obviouslyy at least in part she wants to put that behind her, or at least not let it define her as being wholly bad.
Perhaps we knew Sherlock more than we did Mary after only three episodes, but we still were given both sides of them, the light and the dark, at that point. I don't think we can be completely daming towards Mary until she gets more development, though I would say that her development has already begun.

Last edited by Yitzock (July 8, 2015 6:43 pm)

Harriet · July 8, 2015 8:07 pm

I wonder what that "moral complex" in her character might be. Lying, killing, more or less killing, torturing, belittling, blackmailing, ... but I guess there must be something on the other side as well. So she must be almost good then. And I'm looking forward to her development too. What comes next? Will she assassinate the the Queen? Will she blow up Baker Street? There is always space for surprise.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 8, 2015 8:14 pm

Harriet wrote:
I wonder what that "moral complex" in her character might be. Lying, killing, more or less killing, torturing, belittling, blackmailing, ... but I guess there must be something on the other side as well. So she must be almost good then. And I'm looking forward to her development too. What comes next? Will she assassinate the the Queen? Will she blow up Baker Street? There is always space for surprise.

Grrrrrllll--- my neighbors could hear me cackling. You are a funny woman. Assasinate the Queen, indeed! :-D

About Mary's development-- okay, assuming she's now going to ..what, just become a housewife? With her skill set?Seriously? And-- err-- what kind of mom would an assasin be? Seriously? This is a woman who thinks that it's perfectly alright to kill people, that's being an assasin is a good career choice, that shooting someone (and very nearly killingt them) is an acceptable way to hide one's blood-spattered past from her husband.... what kind of values is she going to teach her child???

SusiGo · July 8, 2015 8:15 pm

I remember Amanda mentioning on in an interview how cool it would be for a child to have such BAMF! parents.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 8, 2015 8:18 pm

Well, the family that slays together....

Vhanja · July 8, 2015 8:18 pm

If you haven't seen the good side of her, you are so determined to see her as only mean and black that no further argument is fruitful. I don't get how that is possible, myself, but it's clear from this thread that it is.

Harriet · July 8, 2015 8:23 pm

Ok, covering my head with ashes - maybe that will make me a wiser and better person

SusiGo · July 8, 2015 8:23 pm

In my opinion her negative sides outweigh the positive ones, that is all. And I have always supported my views with evidence from the show.

Vhanja · July 8, 2015 8:25 pm

I can understand finding her negative sides outweighing her positive. I do not understand not seeing her positive side at all.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 8, 2015 8:27 pm

Vhanja wrote:
If you haven't seen the good side of her, you are so determined to see her as only mean and black that no further argument is fruitful. I don't get how that is possible, myself, but it's clear from this thread that it is.

I don't think anyone is trying to demonize Mary-- in my case, I'm asking questions that are coming from what I saw on the show, itself. Not headcanon-- the show.

Yes, Mary was cheeky, fun, cute, adorable, and quite delightful for the first two episodes of season 3-- and then all the skeletons tumnbled out of her closet in an avalnche that essentially made everyone go, "whoa!". She shot Sherlock to cover up her past from her husband, and that's what we're left with.

It's not like HLV didn't happen, though I think there's a tendency of some to pretend that episode doesn't exist, or to excuse Mary's behavior in any way possible in order to keep the part of her character that they liked-- Mary from the first two episodes.

Maybe that's the point: the Mary that we saw in the first two episodes was a facade, a fantasy, and like John-- one we might desperatley have wanted to be true--- but unfortuantley for John and for us, we are left with the "reality", if we can say such a thing while referring to fictional character...

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (July 8, 2015 8:31 pm)

Vhanja · July 8, 2015 8:29 pm

You call it excusing her behaviour, I call it demonizing her when all her positive sides are suddenly non-existent.

What ever happened to being able to see nuances?

Last edited by Vhanja (July 8, 2015 8:29 pm)

SusiGo · July 8, 2015 8:32 pm

As I have said before, killing the protagonist of the show is inexcusable for me. At least in the form in which it is presented here.

kornmuhme · July 8, 2015 8:33 pm

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:
Harriet wrote:
I wonder what that "moral complex" in her character might be. Lying, killing, more or less killing, torturing, belittling, blackmailing, ... but I guess there must be something on the other side as well. So she must be almost good then. And I'm looking forward to her development too. What comes next? Will she assassinate the the Queen? Will she blow up Baker Street? There is always space for surprise.
Grrrrrllll--- my neighbors could hear me cackling. You are a funny woman. Assasinate the Queen, indeed! :-D

About Mary's development-- okay, assuming she's now going to ..what, just become a housewife? With her skill set?Seriously? And-- err-- what kind of mom would an assasin be? Seriously? This is a woman who thinks that it's perfectly alright to kill people, that's being an assasin is a good career choice, that shooting someone (and very nearly killingt them) is an acceptable way to hide one's blood-spattered past from her husband.... what kind of values is she going to teach her child???

Being far away from standing up for Mary, I don't think it is so easy to judge her. We definately have no information about her reasons why she became an assasin. Maybe she was kind of forced into this "world", wanting to escape again but not being able to. We just don't know. We are just shown in series 3 that she is deeply in love with John now and that she wants to leave her past behind - and she does everything to protect this past from being revealed, she even almost kills two men again (although she wants to leave it all behind). Although she isn't one of my favourite characters, I do imagine she can be a good mom and a good wife.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 8, 2015 8:38 pm

Vhanja wrote:
You call it excusing her behaviour, I call it demonizing her when all her positive sides are suddenly non-existent.

What ever happened to being able to see nuances?

Okay. I'll explain where I'm coming from--

Mary, first and foremost, lied to John about her extremely bloody past-- and it's a past I don't think he would have approved of. She shot John's best friend--to cover up that past.

There are people who can appear to be absolutely lovely people, no-one would ever think that there was anythinhg not to like about them--and some of those folks can be the worst abusers; they take on a persona to get what they want, and meanwhile-- they're actually horrible people. They lie and manipulate and hurt people.

I still say, if this was a situation with a man doing the same to his wife, we'd start screaming abuse, and psychopath, and everything else.

By the way-- what about John????

Why is it that Mary's desires trump John's in this? He didn't get a choice in whom he wanted to marry. He married a lie. (Actually, are they even legally married?)

SusiGo · July 8, 2015 8:41 pm

I do not think they are legally married Mary having used a false name.

And poor John does not really have a choice. He has been betrayed and must ask himself why he should believe anything at all about their relationship. And another thing - some people mention how wonderful their relationship has been but we do not get to see much of it. And by the beginning of HLV things have started going down the drain IMO.