This seems to me to be a bit more in the category of "look how horrible John is", so not sure I want to go into it too much.

No my intent isn.t to slag anyone. As I mentioned before, it's not necessarily a matter of better or worse, just different.

Well, I wanted to point out that being calculating is not neccessarily a bad character trait while being hot-blooded must not always be a positive quality... it largely depends on the circumstances and the background of the actual acts.

nakahara wrote:

Well, I wanted to point out that being calculating is not neccessarily a bad character trait while being hot-blooded must not always be a positive quality... it largely depends on the circumstances and the background of the actual acts.

Absolutely. So for the third time: It's not about better or worse, it's about different.

nakahara wrote:

Vhanja wrote:

Lola - Yes, Sherlock (and maybe Mary) seems to have a more calculative (is that a word?) nature than John, who seem to run more on instinct. However, I reckon that John's background as a soldier and doctor is the basis of his instinct, and so he more or less have control of his damage output without having to calculate it to the extenct that Sherlock and Mary does.

John is less calculating than Sherlock, that´s true, but on the other hand, he is far more violent when intent on doing the harm to somebody.
We saw exactly three scenes of Sherlock being violent so that he physically hurts people - the cabbie scene, the CIA guy scene, the Magnussen scene. All three guys were quite nasty and tortured others with glee before Sherlock dealt with them. Also, cabbie was previously shot by John, so Sherlock can´t be blamed entirely for his demise nor for the hurt caused to him.
Now John...
After being dealt a blow by Sherlock in ASIB (unexpected but leaving no mark on his face)  John retaliates so viciously that his own hand hurts like hell and Sherlock wears the bloody scrape on his face quite long after that.
John headbuts the chief-inspector in TRF.
He at first strangles, then beats and at last headbutts Sherlock in TEH so that Sherlock bleeds.
He sprains Bill Wiggins in HLV, later threatens Sherlock that "he won´t need morphine" and kicks a chair furiously.
He is abusive towards Sherlock in TAB when they hurry after Mary and threatens him: "tell me when my wife is, you pompous prick, or I´ll punch your lights out!"
What is interesting - none of the guys John attacked like that (actually, it´s mostly Sherlock) can actually be categorised as a bad guy... and when John faces the big bad, Magnussen, at last, he just stands there, all cowed and let himself be flicked into his face... weird.

So yes, Sherlock is more calculating, but he doesn´t do as much physical damage as the more temperamental John, IMHO.

Agreed. 
 

If we include "abuse of inanimate objects" in the same category, I think the difference becomes even more clear (and I agree, it is not about better or worse, just different): John kicks a chair out of the impulse to kick a chair. What condition the chair ends up in does not seem to bother him. Sherlock shoots the wall, but he is very peculiar about the condition he wants the wall to be in afterwards. He does not shoot at random, but created a pattern. So, one might say, Sherlock is more methodical in his destructive outbursts than John is. 

So, seeing as the show has come to a (temporary?) end, I would like to bring up John's evolvment again.

I think we got more from John in S4 than I had ever expected. He was given another layer of nuances and weaknesses, something I find very interesting.

Of course, his estrangement from Sherlock was painful to watch. In particular his extreme violence. However, when I understand it as a culminaton of all the anger he has felt towards Sherlock over the years (I've always felt that John was poorly treated by Sherlock quite a bit), his grief and perhaps even his PTSD, I can understand where he comes from. Not agree to it, but understand it. Sherlock became the scapegoat. It helped me a lot to hear Martin Freeman's own thoughts about that scene, to make any kind of sense of it.

I think his evolvment culminated in The Hug in TLD. I saw it as a huge jump forward for him to open up as much as he did, finally allowing himself to be vulnerable and accept help and support.

I still find this John Watson an incredibly layered and interesting character.

You know what I'm going to say, but I'm going to say it anyway:
I think I would take almost any evolution in John's character, if it meant we got a future episode.

I really don't think he was considering a separation, an affair- certainly.

I agree, Susi. I noticed that dialogue too, and I got the feeling that his feelings for Mary was diminishing.