RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

But wasn't she supposed to have gone rogue? As in freelance? If all she did was on the up-and-up, why would she need to go into hiding? ***Why would she need to hide it from John, who is ex-military? Of all people, he would understand, right?***  

Sherlock was totally on the up and up, and yet he faked his own death and went into hiding for 2 years. He thought he had his reasons, and I suppose that Mary had hers. All we can do is speculate at this point... we've got a long time to wait for any answers.

As for men, well, who in hell knows what they want, really?  Mars, Venus, you know.

 

Ancientsgate @ spot on !
Sherlocks not a psycopath , he is very morally ambiguous but John- keeps him right.
The way Sherlock and Mary ganged up on John was just awful.
Yes John likes a dangerous adrenalin rush and chasing the bad guys, but for John I always thought it was also as much about helping people and just generally being a good guy because he cares.
Like he cares for Sherlock , because he see's the good in him and nurtures that.
There's nothing wrong with John..apart from his bad choice in women.

Last edited by lil (February 14, 2014 10:44 am)

lil wrote:

There's nothing wrong with John..apart from his bad choice in women.

I hope Sherlock would agree, but....  I dunno, in HLV, I thought he was brutal with John, almost as though he thought John was flawed for having decided that Sherlock was worth helping and worth being his friend. I don't get that; it seemed like yet one more example of how season 3 Sherlock seemed to have had a bit of a personality transplant, and I didn't like it one bit. ???
 

ancientsgate wrote:

Tinks wrote:

......But I think on balance, Sherlock remains the one who behaved the most selflessly and who ended up suffering the most.

 
Our hero. After all, the show is called Sherlock, not The Adventures of Sherlock and John.

 
This is very true.
(But the big softie in me wants someone to care about the hero )

Swanpride wrote:

I wouldn't say that Sherlock and Mary ganged up on him. It's more that they tried to keep him from making rash decisions.

Maybe. I guess the way they acted towards him set my teeth on edge. I personally cannot stand it when someone puts on a concerned face and (for my own good, of course) sidles up to me and proceeds to tell me I'm a worthless, misguided piece of sh**.  Oh, really. And you're my friend, so what does that make you?  Except in John's place, he knows exactly what Sherlock and Mary are made of. His only mistake (if there was one made, and only John can decide if there was or not) was in trusting them to have his best interests at heart.
 

ancientsgate wrote:

I don't understand that whole thing from HLV about how John was so flawed in his choice of friends. If he's like me, well.... call us naive, maybe, but to me, everyone's on the up and up and telling me the truth, until proven otherwise. I don't go around all day every day being suspicious of every single thing my friends and family do and say.  Once I find out that someone is a liar or otherwise untrustworthy, then all bets are off-- I personally believe, once a liar, always a liar (which John needs to deal with, now that he's decided that Mary's past will remain buried in the past). Poor John..... nothing like blaming the victim. His friends are psychopaths...  but I don't get the reasoning that that therefore makes HIM one, for having chosen them, trusted them, trying to support them and be their friend. I wish he'd told Sherlock and Mary to f*** off, that the fact that they're a screwed up mess isn't anything he had anything to do with. "It's what you like."  Baloney.  When he kicked the chair at 221b and bellowed, "Why is everything MY fault?" I rooted for him. Why, indeed.

I don't get this line of thinking that I'm seeing in the fandom about how John is so darned flawed, and as you said, "foolish".  Since when?  I think the man is the f***ing rock of Gibraltar. 

I really agree with you there.

Picking Mary because he subconsciously sensed that she was dangerous, calling Mary and him psychopaths, saying he put this upon himself...

What? 

I hated that scene because of it's implications about John's character. I thought the whole scene ruined what I loved about John. He is an exsoldier/doctor who, after his experiences, now has Blood Knight tendencies, and yet, he can still manage to live a normal life if he wished. We are seen he can deal with the mundane unlike Sherlock. That's what makes him different. Now, the show is saying he is just like Sherlock who needs a fix or he will go insane? 

I believe that ruins the point of John's character to me. 


But anyway, let me put my two cents in about Mary shooting Sherlock.

I read a good article about this as well as took what Sherlock said in that episode into account. Mary is a professional killer. Her main instinct, her main reflex, is to shoot. But John, he was there, so she couldn't shoot CAM because that would implicate him. She couldn't kill Sherlock because of his connection with John. Mary knows how dear Sherlock is to John. Like Sherlock said, her sentiment got the better of her. She was calculating and ruthless, shooting Sherlock in an area that would render him unable to speak until she could negotiate his silence about her secret, and knocked out CAM then called for an ambluance.

She had her reasons and I think John did have the right to feel betrayed and mistrusting of her, but like Sherlock said, everything she did was to maintain her secret yet also, to protect John.


 

ancientsgate wrote:

lil wrote:

There's nothing wrong with John..apart from his bad choice in women.

I hope Sherlock would agree, but....  I dunno, in HLV, I thought he was brutal with John, almost as though he thought John was flawed for having decided that Sherlock was worth helping and worth being his friend. I don't get that; it seemed like yet one more example of how season 3 Sherlock seemed to have had a bit of a personality transplant, and I didn't like it one bit. ???
 

 
Yup in HLV they all got personality transplants to make Marys extreme personality fit the story.

Lily wrote:

But hasn't this been implied [about John being a psychopath just like the rest of them] since the beginning of A Study in Pink? It's what Mycroft says to him when they meet for the first time: 'You're not haunted by the war. You miss it.' That's why he immediately goes to Baker Street when Sherlock sends him the text, saying it 'could be dangerous'. That's why he brings a gun with him. That's why he so easily bonds with Sherlock. He doesn't necessarily trust him, but he knows that Sherlock can give him the kind of life he craves for.

Being an adrenaline junkie doesn't [necessarily] make someone flawed. John has always fought for the right, whether as a physician or as a solider, but especially when he combined the two jobs. I have known nurses and doctors who genuinely are happiest in the middle of a medical crisis. A male RN I know went on to train to be a nurse anesthetist, and while serving in the US Navy, he worked in a non-combat trauma unit in a military hospital, where the patient's lives were held together by cobwebs, and it was his job as part of the surgical team to save them. He loved it, thrived on the work, the adrenaline rush. But does that make him a crazy man? Not in my opinion. In fact, I think he's one of the sanest people I know.

Why wouldn't John have been missing the war when he met Sherlock?  He got mustered out with no job to go to, unable to walk without pain, not enough money to even find a place to live, no friends, his only family his drunk sister who had problems of her own. Why wouldn't he brighten up at the idea of being friend, roommate and assistant to the brilliant Holmes?  What I mean to say is, Mycroft can eat my shorts....  lol

  Apart from that, I don't buy the whole 'Because you chose her' thing. I don't think that John subconsciously sensed that there was something dangerous about Mary, and I still believe that this was Sherlock manipulating John into forgiving Mary because he thought it would be what's best for John.

Yes, good point, that all makes sense.

 

ancientsgate wrote:

  Apart from that, I don't buy the whole 'Because you chose her' thing. I don't think that John subconsciously sensed that there was something dangerous about Mary, and I still believe that this was Sherlock manipulating John into forgiving Mary because he thought it would be what's best for John.

Yes, good point, that all makes sense.

 

After all that was what he vowed, to be there for "the three of them".. so maybe he feels that also includes keeping the family together?