BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » My thoughts about Mary (all episodes)

Vhanja · December 28, 2014 5:42 pm

nakahara wrote:
Sherlock made it no secret when they first met that he is unconventional and doesn´t respects certain social rules. John loved exactly this aspect of his personality and so no matter what Sherlock did, he stuck to him, because he actually craved the excitement Sherlock´s actions brought into his life. The only thing that actiually wounded him was Sherlock´s faked death (which I need to repeat, was neccessary to save human lives) - precisely because those things disappeared from John´s life with Sherlock´s demise.

While Mary infiltrated John´s life under the false name, pretending to be another person entirely, making herself lovable and benign when she was anything but... and wounded John awfully with her betrayal (with a very weak excuse). John actually fell in love with an image she projected to him not with a woman herself - because if you think about it, nothing in her image before "the revelation" was real.

No matter how you compare the two, Mary still looks way shadier than Sherlock.

I guess we view it differently. I think Sherlock over the years have been a bigger arsehole towards John than Mary ever has. Mary has lied to John about one major thing. Sherlock has done the same - on top of a huge pile of other stuff he has done.

And I do believe everything we've seen about her was real. She wasn't acting the lovable girlfriend and fiancè - she felt those things, she loves John. As we saw her in TEH and TSoT was just a big a part of her personality as the assassin we saw in TLV.

mrshouse · December 28, 2014 5:48 pm

We don't know that, Vhanja. That's the big thing about Mary. We just.don't.know. But the snarky ugly assassin without being a bit remorseful is the last we get to see of her, so that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sherlock is way more humble about his deeds.

nakahara · December 28, 2014 5:49 pm

Liberty wrote:
That's actually kind of funny - I hadn't noticed that!

I rewatched HLV today and noticed this. It was very weird. Paramedics held Sherlock, trying to put him on a stretcher and John spoke about Mary shooting him right in front of them as if they were deaf, not even there or too stupid to comprehend human speech.

Liberty wrote:
I wouldn't blame Mary for Lord Smallwood's suicide ... she would have prevented it if Sherlock hadn't appeared! She spares Magnussen for John's sake (if we're going to believe Sherlock).

If Mary injured Sherlock and killed Magnussen, Lord Smallwood would live.

If Mary left Magnussen alive but also let Sherlock go (he offered help to her, so why not?), it´s probable Sherlock would be able to help Lord Smallwood by dealing with Magnussen himself.

But by shooting Lord Smallwood´s helper but letting an awful blackmailer scum alive, Mary as good as killed the poor Lord - as if she did it with her own hands. No matter what she intended, this was the result of her actions.

SusiGo · December 28, 2014 5:55 pm

Good arguments, nakahara. It is true. By letting Magnussen get away and incapacitating Sherlock she prevented anyone saving Lord Smallwood's reputation and thereby his life.

Liberty · December 28, 2014 5:57 pm

But we don't even know if Mary knew about Lord Smallwood in particular, just that Magnussen was evil and had other targets. If Sherlock hadn't walked in, she'd have killed Magnussen (at least the cut scene seems to confirm that - although it WAS cut, so we can't be sure! But she implies later that she was there as an assassin), and Lord Smallwood would have been saved. If she hadn't tried to prevent John from being a suspect, she'd have killed Magnussen and Lord Smallwood would have been saved.

And it's not as if she interrupted Sherlock's work (actually, it was the other way round!). If Mary hadn't been there, Sherlock wouldn't have got anywhere with Magnussen anyway.

Sherlock was the one who was actually tasked with saving Lord Smallwood and failed - he's more to blame than Mary for that particular death. (But of course, neither of them are to blame - Magnussen is. And to a certain extent, Lord Smallwood himself). Mary can be faulted in lots of ways, but this isn't one of them .

Last edited by Liberty (December 28, 2014 5:59 pm)

SusiGo · December 28, 2014 5:59 pm

And why did he fail? Because he was shot during his inquiries.

besleybean · December 28, 2014 6:02 pm

At least Lord Smallwood made his own decision to take his life...poor CAM never got that option!

SusiGo · December 28, 2014 6:03 pm

Poor CAM. Are you serious?

besleybean · December 28, 2014 6:05 pm

Yes. He deserved a trial...at least in all our civilised countries who are members of the EU, UN etc .

Last edited by besleybean (December 28, 2014 6:05 pm)

Vhanja · December 28, 2014 6:05 pm

mrshouse wrote:
We don't know that, Vhanja. That's the big thing about Mary. We just.don't.know. But the snarky ugly assassin without being a bit remorseful is the last we get to see of her, so that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sherlock is way more humble about his deeds.

I see no reason for her to be lying. Why would she? What would she gain out of faking a marriage with John? Even going so far as to get pregnant with him.

Last edited by Vhanja (December 28, 2014 6:06 pm)

besleybean · December 28, 2014 6:07 pm

John is quite clearly the love of her life, she risks everything to keep him...

SusiGo · December 28, 2014 6:10 pm

besleybean wrote:
Yes. He deserved a trial...at least in all our civilised countries who are members of the EU, UN etc .

Which would have worked as brilliantly as the trial against Moriarty.

besleybean · December 28, 2014 6:18 pm

Well that we will never know.

Liberty · December 28, 2014 6:35 pm

SusiGo wrote:
And why did he fail? Because he was shot during his inquiries.

Do you think he would have killed Magnussen before Mary did, if they hadn't happened to have bumped into each other? I don't think so. And it's kind of roundabout reasoning that Lord Smallwood's death is Mary's fault because she DIDN'T kill Magnussen but delayed Sherlock killing him. She had every intention of killing Magnussen and (apparently) only didn't to save John from being a suspect. Should she really have killed Magnussen there and then for Lord Smallwood's sake and let John take the flak? Did she even know about Lord Smallwood? And was she certain that he would kill himself if she didn't shoot Magnussen there and then?

(I don't think Sherlock was going to kill Magnussen in his office. I don't think he'd have planned to have John as an accessory and Janine as a witness. And he wasn't at that point in his thinking or feeling about the case. So Magnussen's death would have been delayed anyway - until he showed Sherlock his vaults or Sherlock worked it out, at least. And possibly until the setup with Mycroft).

Last edited by Liberty (December 28, 2014 6:47 pm)

SusiGo · December 28, 2014 6:47 pm

I just wanted to say that Sherlock obviously did not work for a while. He would at least have tried to find another way to help Lady Smallwood and her husband if he had not been shot. That is all.

nakahara · December 28, 2014 6:56 pm

Liberty wrote:
SusiGo wrote:
And why did he fail? Because he was shot during his inquiries.
Do you think he would have killed Magnussen before Mary did, if they hadn't happened to have bumped into each other? I don't think so. And it's kind of roundabout reasoning that Lord Smallwood's death is Mary's fault because she DIDN'T kill Magnussen but delayed Sherlock killing him. She had every intention of killing Magnussen and (apparently) only didn't to save John from being a suspect. Should she really have killed Magnussen there and then for Lord Smallwood's sake and let John take the flak? Did she even know about Lord Smallwood? And was she certain that he would kill himself if she didn't shoot Magnussen there and then?

Sorry, I don´t quite follow your logic. Why do you think Sherlock would kill Magnussen during the burglary? He was hired to negotiate with him - maybe he would settle for a nice sum being paid to him to ensure his silence. Or any other thing in the interest of his client, Lady Smallwood. He certainly didn´t intend to kill Magnussen before he knew that Magnussen has power over Mary and thus over his friend John Watson. Which was only after Mary shot him - after "the revelation" about her past, the revelation about the "facade" covering the ugly truth about her personality.

Yet you are trying to pass it as if Mary had some God given right to be in CAM´s office and Sherlock stupidly interferred. Sorry, but it can also be judged from the opposite point of view - Mary had no bussiness to be there while Sherlock was trying to burgle CAM´s office. She was the one that interferred with his effort to save people from the clutches of a blackmailer.

Also, I can´t see how Sherlock "failed" and Mary was "innocent" in this. Mary read John´s blog and heard about Sherlock´s past from John, so she had to know that occassionaly he solved cases in which any delay from his side would cause death of crime´s victims (The Great Game, The Reichenbach Fall). She knew quite well that the fate of other people is dependent on Sherlock´s fate. She become morally responsible for any harm that occured to the victims when she cold-bloodedly dismissed the fate of Sherlock´s clients and decided to shoot him, thus preventing him to finish his good work (because people are so enamored to the idea of Sherlock as an arse, they tend to forget the beneficiary aspects of Sherlock´s work - restoring order, preventing more crimes from happening, clearing the innocents from the suspicion of a crime, saving the innocents from criminals before it´s too late). Althrough it was the blackmailer who drove Lord Smallwood to suicide, Mary became his co-perpetrator by her deed.

Are people blind towards Mary´s responsibility because the victim who lost his life in this case was an elderly gentleman? Would they look at it the same if Sherlock´s case was similar to the one he solved in TRF and if two children had died on mercury poisoning because Mary shot Sherlock before he could find them?

mrshouse · December 28, 2014 7:23 pm

Vhanja wrote:
mrshouse wrote:
We don't know that, Vhanja. That's the big thing about Mary. We just.don't.know. But the snarky ugly assassin without being a bit remorseful is the last we get to see of her, so that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sherlock is way more humble about his deeds.
I see no reason for her to be lying. Why would she? What would she gain out of faking a marriage with John? Even going so far as to get pregnant with him.

I did not refer to a Mary lying about wanting to marry John or wanting a child. I was referring to the fact that the ugly and snarky and unnerved side is as much Mary as the loveable side in the first two episodes or maybe none of both. We don't know it, but the not so pretty and loveable side is what we get for hiatus.

Liberty · December 28, 2014 7:28 pm

It's nothing to do with the age of the victim. I'm just taking issue with Mary being blamed for his death (and I'm really surprised that people are blaming her for that!). I don't think she had any malice towards Lord Smallwood or any obligation towards him (any more than anyone else). The thing that would have saved Lord Smallwood was killing Magnussen (it becomes clear later that this is the ONLY way to stop him being a risk- negotiating wouldn't work). Mary would have done that if she hadn't been interrupted and Lord Smallwood would have been saved. (And she'd no doubt have saved other people as well - Lord Smallwood is the only victim we know about, it but no doubt Magnussen had others).

You could just as well say that Lady Smallwood was to blame because she didn't kill Magnussen, or because she didn't hire an assassin instead of a detective.

(And also, I know this is kind of touchy and I'm not blaming him, but it's also partly Lord Smallwood's responsiblity. He found it impossible to deal with public disgrace - but another person might not have done).

Last edited by Liberty (December 28, 2014 7:30 pm)

Vhanja · December 28, 2014 7:29 pm

mrshouse wrote:
I did not refer to a Mary lying about wanting to marry John or wanting a child. I was referring to the fact that the ugly and snarky and unnerved side is as much Mary as the loveable side in the first two episodes or maybe none of both. We don't know it, but the not so pretty and loveable side is what we get for hiatus.

Oh yes, they are both sides of her personality. Just as Sherlock can be the most loyal and kind friend one moment, just to turn around and be the biggest arse imaginable the next.

mrshouse · December 28, 2014 7:40 pm

The difference is, when John and Sherlock befriended each other they knew approximately what they were heading for. They bonded anyway. The love story between John and Mary was a sham to begin with. And the question is, was it a proper set up to make her a likeable third lead? Sometimes it is argued that John shot the cabbie. True. But he didn't survive, forgive John and we are meant to believe they have a bond to have fish and chips for dinner each friday.

Last edited by mrshouse (December 28, 2014 7:40 pm)