Weirdness wrote:

silverblaze wrote:

If Mary were really selfish and wanted Sherlock to die she would've shot him and Magnussen in the head. She didn't, therefore she wasn't. They explained that pretty well in the episode. 

 
By selfish I meant that she will do anything to keep John while Sherlock will do anything to protect him even if he can't be wherever John is at. She basically said she would do anything in the empty house.

She also confirmed with Sherlock that John was at CAM's office before shooting. If she had shot and killed both Sherlock and CAM then John would have been a suspect to the murders. She didn't want anything to affect her and John.

I think I understand but I disagree. It's not selfish to protect your family. Especially not when you're pregnant. And she would never have shot Sherlock in the empty house, she bluffed and he called her bluff. Or do you think he would have put John there if he really thought there would be any danger. 
 

yes, that's how I saw it too. As in, if my only choices were to either be honest and tell John the truth, but risk losing him, or kill Sherlock and keep everything hidden from John, I would do it.
This is what Mary was thinking to me, And I didn’t find that redeeming for Mary – this is my issue with her

Aytoun wrote:

Well, I’ve got one big problem with Mary, she a murderer.  Leaving her shooting of Sherlock aside for a moment she has by her own admission committed crimes for which she would spend the rest of her life in prison. Is this woman worthy of John’s love and Sherlock’s protection?  Personally, I don’t think so. John may be attracted to dangerous people and situations, perhaps as a symptom of his PTSD, but there’s a world of difference between him shooting the taxi driver in ‘Study in Pink’ to save Sherlock and literally getting into bed with a contract killer.

Nor do you save someone’s life my shooting them at point blank range and then phoning an ambulance.  Okay, Mary could have gone for a head shot or a heart shot and finished Sherlock instantly, but at best she was gambling on his survival and he nearly didn’t make it.  Incidentally, I don’t see why she would shoot to wound, if she didn’t want Sherlock dead so that he couldn’t betray her to John there was no point in her pulling the trigger.

Sherlock and John have always been ultimately on the side of the angels and this is where the shielding of Mary makes me really uncomfortable.  It opens them up to accusations of hypocrisy everytime they apprehend a murderer or wax lyrical about how evil Magnusson and Moriarty are or were.  How can they claim the moral high ground when they’re protecting an assassin? Sherlock may have ensured Mary’s safety, but I’m far from convinced that Mary deserves to be safe.
 

 
That is very interesting.

@Aytoun Killing people doesn't automatically make you a bad person, soldiers kill people all the time. She was an assassin, or something, but whether that's good or bad really depends on whom you choose as your employer. She worked for the CIA, maybe morally grey but surely not black. 

Swanpride wrote:

She is not simply a murderer, she used to be working for the CIA - it's hard to judge her actions if we don't know exactly her reasons, but in priciple, there is not THAT much of a difference between killing someone as a soldier and doing it as a secret agent. There is this believe that it is okay to kill if you do it for the right reasons. John has done it, Sherlock has now done it too...so we can hardly judge her without knowing her reasons.

It's not so much the CIA part, I can accept that as a one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter type of thing, but somethnig is said to the effect that she went freelance afterwards and she herself calls her actions crimes. Of course, this is just my take on this and I realise that there are other ways of viewing the evidence we're given in the episode.

Last edited by Aytoun (January 13, 2014 3:55 pm)

The only danger Sherlock was in when John shot the taxi driver was from himself. Sherlock chose to take the pill. So John has no defence for shooting Jeff.
 

dartmoordoggers wrote:

The only danger Sherlock was in when John shot the taxi driver was from himself. Sherlock chose to take the pill. So John has no defence for shooting Jeff.
 

You're right, but John didn't know that. He only saw Sherlock nearly taking the pill and maybe he assumed that Sherlock was being threatened. Anyway, the situations in which all of them kill, are very different, so it's hard to weight them against each other.

We don't know what Mary did and why. We don't. We can only judge her on her future actions. That's all John can do. But deep down I'm with Ozma. I think Mary wasn't a good person before.  Maybe she's becoming a good person now.    If that's enough for John, that's fine by me. It wouldn't be enough for me, I think, but I'm not John. I guess, it shows his good heart.  (... and I don't think there's anything wrong in loving someone despite their history, so I don't blame John or Sherlock at all. It's not their duty to judge her or her history. They love her and that's that.)

Last edited by Hera (January 13, 2014 4:12 pm)

I just don't think that, after what happend in HLV, she will be sticking around for long.

I think this is why they made her pregnant - to throw us off. Expecting a baby makes you think of the future - and we also think she might be untouchable because of it. This is what they want, and this is why they didn't kill her in HLV - because we were expecting it.

What Sherlock said at the wedding - 'We care about John and we have a lifetime to prove it to him' was telling, in my opinion. He didn't have to say that. (I don't mean he sees the future, I just mean Mofftiss do and know where this is going).

Last edited by Ozma (January 13, 2014 4:21 pm)

I would like to remind, this might seem incomprehensible, that Sherlock trusts Mary and everything, but he has his own mind working, and that's how most of the times, solves cases, without knowing what's on his mind, and then revealing all the details and showing off,(sometimes he's a real bitch). 

 I just don't trust her anymore. How come she get to know John in first place? Was it just coincidence? And I don't see why she had to shot Sherlock at all. Personally, I wish she could be out of the picture soon, but don't really see this happening... =/