Hey there, new on this boards, but I simply had to write something on Mary, because the matter bothered me since I first saw HLV.
So here are 2 of my personal conclusions:
1) Firstly, I don’t think that Mary really does care about Sherlock himself. She likes him, yes, but that’s it. I don’t think that his life weighs much more to her than the life of a mere stranger. As a trained assassin, I would guess that during her career there have been casualties, collateral damage. Imagine someone else would have confronted her during her “meeting” with CAM. She would have shot the witness, no questions asked, don’t you think? So, why didn’t she go for the immediate kill shot? My guess is, because of John.
2) So my second assumption is that she really cares for John. I am going to elaborate this, but as a leap ahead, I can’t possibly think of another reason why Sherlock would try to reconcile Mary and John.
So, why do I feel the way I do?
When surprised while holding a gun at Magnusson, Mary shoots Sherlock. This for me is the proof for both my points.  Like Sherlock said, she had a problem: a witness who could threaten her new life by exposing her involvement now und ultimately leading to the exposal of her past. She is a trained assassin, willing seemingly to do anything to hide her past. Yet she doesn’t shoot Sherlock in the heart or the head. She could have, but she didn’t. But she DID shoot.
If you do really care for someone, you don’t shoot them in the chest. Yes, he had a fighting chance, but she simply couldn’t be sure that Sherlock would pull through. Look at the scene in his mind palace. If he would have fallen on his stomach, he would have died. She couldn’t anticipate that he wouldn’t bend over, for example. He could have grabbed his wound and toppled over. In that case he would have most certainly died of blood loss, no matter whether she phoned the ambulance or not. At least that’s what Sherlock tells us. Even the way it turned out, it was touch and go. The shock could have killed him, the pain could have killed him, and there could have been complications while operating. The time for an ambulance to arrive might be 8 minutes, but what if there were complications and they simply turned up to late? There are so many ways that this could have gone wrong. So she gave him a chance to live, true, but she clearly also accepted the great risk, that Sherlock wouldn’t pull through.
You don’t do that to people you really care about. Yet, when she clearly doesn’t really care about Sherlock, why not shoot CAM and Sherlock? Right, because she really does care about John. I think that’s what Sherlock meant when he said that sentiment got the better of her. He didn’t mean that her affection for himself got in the way, but that her affection for John got in the way. The first question she asks Sherlock is, whether John is with him. Sherlock’s answer therefore must mean something to her. I think the outcome could have been very different if John wasn’t with Sherlock. So, why didn’t she go for the direct kill shot? Because of John, naturally.
I think Sherlock does have a point when he says she couldn’t just shoot them both. John would have been a suspect and questions would have been asked. She couldn’t allow that to happen, not for her sake nor for John’s. Also, the only reason why she was at Magnusson’s seems to be that she wanted to preserve her current live. She could have just fled, but she decided to stay and try and stop Magnusson from blackmailing her. That means that she likes her current life and wants to continue to be Mary Watson. This indicates that she really does care for John. She didn’t say much about her motivation, but the one thing she did say was “…I would lose him forever and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to prevent that”. I guess I believe that part. Sadly, though, that leads to the assumption that she would indeed kill Sherlock if that would help preserving her relationship. I guess that’s the reason why she asked whether John was with Sherlock.
Imagine if John wasn’t with Sherlock. What would she have done then? Do you believe she still wouldn’t have killed Sherlock? My guess is she would have. You could argue that, when she really does care about John, she should care about his feelings for others. I think she does, but it’s not her priority. Her priority is her relationship with John. She worked with John through his first time of grief over Sherlock’s death. She could do that once again. In the end, Sherlock’s death would be devastating for John, but with her at his side, life would go on. I think that’s the way she sees it.  
But John is there, so instead of killing Sherlock, she shoots him in the chest. She’s an assassin, she knows the risks of shooting someone in the chest. Either Sherlock dies and she just would have to deal with Magnusson later or Sherlock nearly pulls through and she has time to negotiate with him. If he wasn’t ready to listen to her reason, I fully believe that she was ready to kill Sherlock. In the end, not Sherlock’s life was important, but her relationship with John.
I further think that Sherlock deduced as much. I can’t believe that he would try and reconcile Mary and John if he honestly thought that Mary could be a danger to John. I think he believes that Mary does really care for John and would do everything to protect their relationship; ergo she would do nearly everything to protect John. As in protect his life. That’s why she is trustworthy despite shooting Sherlock, at least in his opinion. She could have immediately killed him, but didn’t do it in order to protect John. That’s enough for Sherlock. But it absolutely shows that she doesn’t really care for Sherlock, because she willingly took the risk that he could die in this “surgery” shot of hers.
So that’s my take on it and honestly? It’s quite a sad one. It doesn’t quite sit right with me that John just up and forgives Mary for shooting Sherlock. I know, he trusts Sherlock’s opinion and all. But seriously? A controlled shot in the chest? You can’t tell me that she didn’t calculate the risk that Sherlock could die. Maybe she even wanted him to pull through (I’m not fully convinced of that), but she couldn’t know for sure, could she? And John was there when Sherlock flat lined, wasn’t he? Didn’t that show the seriousness of the situation? I think, John could be a bit blinded by his love for Sherlock and Mary and their unborn child. But Mary gambled with Sherlock’s life here, is that not something that should irritate him? I know, he believes in Sherlock, but he is able to form his own opinion, isn’t he?  Of course Sherlock did everything to reconcile them, so perhaps John just deluded himself into believing the “surgery” explanation. Yes, she didn’t go for the immediate kill shot, but her shot could have easily killed him. She might have informed the ambulance, but there were so many ways this could have ended with Sherlock’s death (apart from the fact that there was never a chance she could kill Sherlock, because the show’s name is Sherlock, but you know what I mean). And she did shoot Sherlock anyway. Like I said, she’s an assassin; she knows exactly what kind of damage a bullet in the chest could cause. But this isn’t a discussion about John, so I stop here.
I could imagine a scenario for the next season: (I know, they won’t do that, but still, I can visualize it;))
Someone from Mary’s past comes along and somehow kidnaps Sherlock. Then of course there’s a video or something, revealing to John and Mary that this someone will eventually kill Sherlock and that he’s after Mary. I would bet that her first instinct wouldn’t be to think of a way to rescue Sherlock. I imagine she would try to convince John, that Sherlock was lost anyway and that they should hurry and leave. Go hide somewhere. Protect their little family, because next the evil men would come after John or their daughter or Mary herself. I think that protecting that family is her first priority, so she wouldn’t risk staying or trying rescuing Sherlock once her enemies know where to find her. Like I said, she doesn’t particularly care for Sherlock if there’s a danger for her new family. So when John declines, because he wants to protect both his family and Sherlock, Mary leaves him and takes their daughter with her in order to protect their daughter. Then John rescues Sherlock with the help of Lestrade and Mycroft and viola: Mary and her daughter are somewhere safe and John can return to Bakerstreet  
Sorry, after HLV I can’t imagine a happy threesome (four with the child). It could have worked for me before, at least for a while. Mary staying in the background, our heroes still very codependent and solving crimes together. But not like this. Not if Mary doesn’t really care for Sherlock, because I find that sad. And it’s sad that it doesn’t bother Sherlock and that John doesn’t seem to see it. In my world, a threesome could only work, if we really saw Mary regretting her shooting; if we saw her caring about Sherlock’s life, anything.  I didn’t see that. Sherlock didn’t die, but he could have and we didn’t even see her apologize for this. Not verbally and most certainly not in acts. True, she did offer John the stick. But she did offer JOHN the stick, to show him that she really cared for their relationship. That was not a sign of trust towards Sherlock or anything. And who knows? At the moment, I think that the stick was empty. Seriously, why would she keep a stick recording all her past? Even if it did contain what she said it would, this gesture didn’t show me that she cared for Sherlock. It would just confirm my opinion that she really cared for John and her relationship with him. So, this threesome would seem to me very unbalanced, especially since John seems to fail to notice this. It doesn’t ring right to me that Mary would risk Sherlock’s life in order to protect her relationship with John and everyone seems to be alright with that. No matter if you believe the surgery theory or not, there always was a risk that Sherlock could die.
So, what do you think? Did I get it all wrong or would you agree with some of my points?
Another interesting side note: do you think Mycroft knows that Mary shot Sherlock? He’s Mycroft, I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t know something like that. And yet he would “celebrate” Christmas with her? I guess Sherlock must have convinced him to let this one slide, but I still can’t wrap my head around this. Would he sit at one table with a person who was prepared to gamble with his brother’s life just to protect her romantic relationship? Ideas anyone?

If you actually read all my post, thanks for that Please note, that I don't want to offend anyone, not Mary fans, not John fans, not Sherlock fans, I just wanted to share my view and maybe discuss this and other theories. Have to pass the time until the next season, right?;)

I forgot to say.
I rewatched The Sign of Three last night.
But Friday night I rewatched Empty Hearse.
Sorry if this has been mentioned before:
The restaurant scene.
Mary apologises to John for 'that taking so long'.
What is she talking about?
Toilet? Hair/make up fix? Phone call? Or was she taking a pregnancy test?
It dawned on me about her wearing a big, baggy jumper with her pyjamas...tyring to hide something?
I watched her carefully in Sign of Three.
When Sherlock makes his deduction...does she already know?

@ SolarSystem That's a really good point about the preparation, because I've been stuck with thinking that John couldn't lie well or keep secrets, so while Sherlock is clearly hiding his true feelings from Mary, John can't be.  But preparing the speech - maybe.  I still think it's a bit of a push, though.  Mary would be difficult to deceive.  Sherlock is an expert at it, but John's the opposite. 

@ShadyShapeshifter Welcome!  I'm newish here too.   I think I agree with most of your points.  Mycroft ... I'm not sure, but I think Sherlock knows more about Mary than he's letting on, and perhaps Mycroft is in on that as well and is also putting up a front.  But I don't know.  I've wondered about the whole family Christmas thing - it seems kind of odd for Mary to be invited to the Holmes Christmas do at all, considering that they don't normally do family Christmases anyway.   But of course Sherlock has to invite John because he's bringing him along to meet CAM, so I suppose it makes sense that Mary wouldn't be left on her own. 

There's an interesting blog post hereon why Mary did not intend to kill Sherlock (that she aimed for the liver and accidently hit the inferior vena cava).  It's a great post, but I think what we've got is just what we see - Mary did essentially kill Sherlock.  It's too much of a double twist for me for Mary to have tried not to kill him but then accidently killed him but then he comes back to life.  So I have to lean towards Sherlock covering for Mary - or feeling that he has to cover for Mary. 

However, it would have been difficult for Mary to incapacitate Sherlock both physically and mentally - and she had to think quickly.  The injury had to make him unconscious or incoherent, otherwise he'd have told John what had happened before Mary could get to him again.  So I admit it's possible that she shot to incapacitate, not kill.  At least she didn't go for his brain (and we do see that happening later with CAM, as if to make that point).  That would have been a surer way of keeping her secret.

Last edited by Liberty (August 25, 2014 4:52 pm)

Welcome, ShadyShapeshifter and thanks for your detailed post.
I like it quite much - especially the point why Sherlock actually could have died (or even did die).
To me it confirms my opinion that Mary did risk Sherlock's life, no matter what some doctors on tumblr or other fans say ("but she placed the shot in a very safe area... and so on"), because, indeed, so much could have gone wrong. And she risked it.
Thank you for pointing that out again.

Welcome, Shapeshifter.
I love your post, especially your elegant yet potentially very angsty way to write Mary out of the show.

maryagrawatson wrote:

Until then, I refuse to pass judgement on her.

How are you going to spend the hiatus then?



IMO every discussion on a ambiguous topic like this one is far from being redundant. As a teacher who alweays tries to make her pupils to finally think, I like the idea that intelligent people spend so much time on writing sophisticated metas and posts.

Last edited by Schmiezi (August 25, 2014 5:22 pm)

I agree, Schmiezi. And for me this is not really about "judgement" and "conviction". I started this thread with my observations, based solely on things we see and hear. It would be a pity to leave out such a controversial and interesting topic just because we do not have all the evidence. 

People have been discussing how Sherlock faked his death for two years without having all the evidence. Much of it may seem redundant now but they had lots of fun during the hiatus. 

 

Last edited by SusiGo (August 25, 2014 5:34 pm)

How did you stand 2 years between TRF and TEH?  I don't think I managed to hold out for 2 weeks.  I don't know how I'm going to get through until the next series, so I feel for you all having been through this torture twice already! 

Well, it was a lot of fun really. And special fun to be waiting with so many other fans. 

No one has mentioned so far that Sherlock calls her Mrs Watson instead of Mary. I think he tries to remind her of who she is, of the man she has married. Could this possibly have influenced a last second decision not to ge for the head shot but to take the risk of killing him anyway?

 

Last edited by SusiGo (August 25, 2014 5:42 pm)

@ Schmizie
Concerning my “little story” Thank you, sadly (or perhaps luckily ) enough the writer of my favourite shows never illustrate my wishes. After seeing John and Mary hand in hand and the way Sherlock said goodbye to Mary, my guess is, that there will be a “happy” threesome. It will leave me feeling sad whenever there will be scenes with the three of them together, because no matter Mary’s past or her motivation, for me the fact will always remain that she gambled with Sherlock’s life, that she put up with the fact that she might have killed him. So I want her gone, but not in a way that John will be devastated or blaming Sherlock for it. I don’t want John mourning his wife or his child. But I no longer want them to be a part of Sherlock’s life, at least not as a happy threesome. But I don’t want her leaving to stain Sherlock’s and John’s friendship, so she does have to leave on her own accord. Since I am no writer, this was just my first, not worked out, idea how that could work But I’m very anxious to learn what plans the writers have with Mary. She really is an interesting character, but can a character really get away with shooting Sherlock Holmes?
@Liberty
Why did Mary wait until Sherlock made a step? I think she had to make up her mind and quickly. She did need a few seconds to think her options through and to decide which course of action she would take. She asked if John was there with Sherlock, but that was it. She had all the important facts for the moment and considered her options. The moment Sherlock took a step was just the moment where she had to decide which course she would make, because now Sherlock was going to do something. Whatever her plan would be, she needed to be faster than him. So that’s when a quick decision was needed and she made it.