Liberty wrote:

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).

 

Once again - Mary is a driver of a car, pepared to run over an arsonist who walks towards the house with a canister full of oil and matches in his hands. She changes her mind at the last moment and runs over the fire-fighter instead. People burn to death as a result of this.

The fire-fighter maybe would not be able to save the people stuck in the burning house. The original intent of Mary probably would not be the death of fire´s victims.

But because she acted as she did, this would be the actual result of her action. And she would not be able to escape a certain responsibility for all this.

The only way she would escape responsibility for this tragedy would be if she let the fire-fighter alone.

Liberty wrote:

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.

 

No I couldn´t. Lady Smallwood didn´t know that a female assassin would decide to kill the person she hired for help and let the blackmailer live. Since she is not a Sibyl, she could be hardly blamed for this.

Liberty wrote:

(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). 

Lord Smallwood didn´t do anything wrong, he just wrote a letter to a person (similarily like in the original story, Sherlock´s client´s only guilt was writing a compromising letter). For this "hyenous" deed he was driven to suicide. Saying that he was responsible for his blackmail is simply.... wrong. Can´t any vitim of a crime be blamed to a certain extent that he/she asked for this with such reasoning?

mrshouse wrote:

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.

No, I don't see agree that their relationship was a sham from day one. Mary lied to him from day one, but her feelings - their relationship - was never a sham. 

To each it's own whether this is a good or a bad thing, but Sherlock's focus on logic over emotions means that he will understand Mary's reasons for shooting her, thus bearing no grudge towards her. Just as he bears no grudge for John headbutting him in the reunion, nor for Irene Adler outwitting him with the Bond air plan. Sherlock seems to admire those who can outwit him, give him a challenge.

 

I didn't say her feelings were never true, but it was a set up under false circumstances, so I would say the relationship - not the feelings, for me there is a difference- was made up as not what John was looking for.

Wow, away for one day, and four pages of discussion to catch up...

Susi, thanks for your pic a few pages ago. I think it is extremely telling.

I think it is time to shift our discussion slightly. Apparently, there are basically two ways to see Mary: good or evil. People tend to have extreme opinions about her. My question is, why? It would have been easy for the writers to let her continue to be the lovable character she was in TEH and TSoT.

Why did they decide to portrait her in such an ambiguous way?

I don't think so at all.
I think we are being shown a couple genuinely in love...
i mean not saying I wouldn't put it past Mr Moffat.
But I do agree with whoever it was earlier that said the assassin story was the big shock...will we really get anymore?

What a coincidence though that an assassin takes a place so close to the Holmes brothers.
If she were a simple nurse from the clinic, why not? But the universe is rarely so lazy.

We will just have to wait and see.

@ Nakahara, I'm not keeping up with the thread as I'm coming and going, so just quickly:

Lord Smallwood has some partial responsibility for his death (not because what he did was terrible  - it wasn't, but because he was unable to deal with public disgrace and killed himself).  
Which makes Magnussen even more at fault for using a vulnerable person.
Sherlock, Lady Magnusson and Mary are not at fault.  Sherlock and Lady M tried to prevent it, but misjudged the situation.   Mary didn't know about it, so is neutral, but what she was trying to do would have saved Smallwood.   I can't see how she can have been expected to know about him and to have predicted the course of events, and then to have changed her mind and shot Magnussen anyway.  

(Leaving Sherlock uninjured and Magnussen alive would never have been any guarantee of saving Lord Smallwood.  The way to save people, in this case, was to kill Magnussen.  It takes Sherlock a while to realise it, and not just because he's been shot, I don't think.  He just doesn't seem to be functioning at full powers all the time in S3.  And if he hadn't been shot and had realised it earlier, I'm not sure he could have coldbloodedly gone and executed Magnussen - that's Mary's forte!)

Liberty wrote:

@ Nakahara, I'm not keeping up with the thread as I'm coming and going, so just quickly:

Lord Smallwood has some partial responsibility for his death (not because what he did was terrible  - it wasn't, but because he was unable to deal with public disgrace and killed himself).  
Which makes Magnussen even more at fault for using a vulnerable person.
Sherlock, Lady Magnusson and Mary are not at fault.  Sherlock and Lady M tried to prevent it, but misjudged the situation.   Mary didn't know about it, so is neutral, but what she was trying to do would have saved Smallwood.   I can't see how she can have been expected to know about him and to have predicted the course of events, and then to have changed her mind and shot Magnussen anyway.  

(Leaving Sherlock uninjured and Magnussen alive would never have been any guarantee of saving Lord Smallwood.  The way to save people, in this case, was to kill Magnussen.  It takes Sherlock a while to realise it, and not just because he's been shot, I don't think.  He just doesn't seem to be functioning at full powers all the time in S3.  And if he hadn't been shot and had realised it earlier, I'm not sure he could have coldbloodedly gone and executed Magnussen - that's Mary's forte!)

For the most part I totally agree and wholeheartedly endorse what you said Liberty.  That's mainly what I see as well. 

Where I differ slightly though is that I have a gut feeling that Sherlock might have still shot Magnussen anyway even if he hadn't been shot himself if other events conspired along the same lines (lets say if Magnussen wasn't in his office and the final showdown was at Appledore) because like you said earlier in your post the way to save people was to kill Magnussen.  There wasn't any other alternative.  I think Sherlock and Mary were on the same track on this - they both hated CAM with a passion and thought he should be eliminated. There be dragons!

Not related to your post but going back to another one much earlier in this thread (I can't keep up with all the additions today too!!! There are a lot of interesting discussion points floating around today) someone mentioned something about people either liking Mary or not - she is viewed as good or evil.  That may be so for some fans but personally I hope that there are also some out there that think like me that she is much more complicated than just being a B/W character -  good or evil to be either wholly liked or disliked. 

I think she is a much more rounded personality and isn't all one way or the other.   I do like her but there are dark aspects to her - just like there are shadows to  Sherlock's character and areas of John personality that aren't all flowers and roses.  I love Sherlock for his finer points and his lesser noble qualities.  I like John for his entirety of his personality not just because I think he is a "good guy" without frailities.

Despite her dark side (assassin, liar) there are some very likeable attributes to Mary as well, to me.  I like her sense of cheekiness and sense of humour.  I like her spunk and she seems fearless.  And I like that she is devoted to John (at least to me she is) and loves him.

I don't interpret her humour as a bad thing nor do I see all her actions as all malicious.  I think she has a lot of attributes that compliment both John and Sherlock.  Others may not - that's their prerogative and I respect that. 

But it doesn't seem to me that it is written in stone anywhere in the fabric of the show that Mary is inherently all evilness in her deeds and words.  Even her most disturbing action - shooting Sherlock (and that was very disturbing to me) doesn't change that.  I accept Sherlock's verdict that she saved his life and that he genuinely wants John to trust her.  I just don't see that any of the arguments offered by those who do not like Mary that convinces me that Sherlock was wrong about this judgment of Mary by the end of HLV.   

-Val
 

Schmiezi wrote:

I think it is time to shift our discussion slightly. Apparently, there are basically two ways to see Mary: good or evil. People tend to have extreme opinions about her. My question is, why? It would have been easy for the writers to let her continue to be the lovable character she was in TEH and TSoT.

Why did they decide to portrait her in such an ambiguous way?

I would assume that is because there is more to come. There is so much we don't know about her (yet), and that gives us a lot to talk about during hiatus. (Although I don't think Mofftiss decided to hide those things from us so we'd not get bored during hiatus, I don't think they really care what we do while we're waiting for new episodes...). 
I don't see her as an evil character, I just don't like her - yes, it's as simple as that. I don't like her as a character. We had bad guys on the show, and I really wish I could love to hate her as I loved to hate Jim and CAM - but for me that doesn't work with her. Maybe because it's too close to home (and home in this case means: 221B), most certainly to some extent it's due to the fact that she shot Sherlock in a situation that still makes me believe that there was no need to do so.
I am well aware that Moftiss might present new facts and background information about her to us that will make some of us go "Oh my, well, in that case..." (and this could go both ways). I just really, really hope that they won't let some heartbreakingly cheesy cat out of the bag concerning her past, because that would most likely feel like a pretty cheap manipulation to me.