BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » John's evovlement throughout the show

SusiGo · September 30, 2015 8:16 am

Nakahara: Yes, but why this change after the wedding? Sherlock recounts their cases during the speech and as I understand it, some of them, if not all, happened between Sherlock's return and the wedding. John obviously had no qualms about working cases with Sherlock then. So I take it that the marriage has been a game changer.

Last edited by SusiGo (September 30, 2015 8:17 am)

RavenMorganLeigh · September 30, 2015 8:17 am

nakahara wrote:
SusiGo wrote:
But for me there is another reading - John is married now and he woke this morning from dreaming about Sherlock, with his wife at his side. And he apparently expects to find him in front of the door and is disappointed and exasperated when seeing then neighbour instead. I think he cannot trust himself to be a married man who is "just friends" with Sherlock.
I have a feeling that John wants to continue doing cases with Sherlock very much, but at the same time, he is very proud to admit it - maybe is confusing behaviour is his attempt to make Sherlock beg for his help, so that he feels needed and not just a tag-a-log...

One day-- I swear these guys will learn to Use. Their. Words!

nakahara · September 30, 2015 8:18 am

SusiGo wrote:
Nakahara: Yes, but why this change after the wedding? Sherlock recounts their cases during the speech and as I understand it, some of them, if not all, happened between Sherlock's return and the wedding. John obviously had no qualms about working cases with Sherlock then. So I take it that the marriage has been a game changer.

Yes, that´s true.

RavenMorganLeigh · September 30, 2015 8:19 am

SusiGo wrote:
Nakahara: Yes, but why this change after the wedding? Sherlock recounts their cases during the speech and as I understand it, some of them, if not all, happened between Sherlock's return and the wedding. John obviously had no qualms about working cases with Sherlock then. So I take it that the marriage has been a game changer.

Here's a question-- did John *actually* want to get married-- or did he just *think* he should? Do you think he's holding onto that, even though it's obvious that he's unhappy-- out of pride? Hurt? A combination of the two? Or just stubborness? I think there's a little part of him that's also punishing Sherlock for the Fall.

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (September 30, 2015 8:20 am)

SusiGo · September 30, 2015 8:37 am

All of that may come into it. I never get the feeling that John is really in love with Mary but maybe this is just me.

Just had another thought: The baby might be a game changer as well. Before it was just John getting married, but now he will be a father with responsibility for another human being. And another thing - we do not know what went on after the wedding, if there has been contact between them at all. In the blog we get John and Sherlock texting and reading each others' comments on the blog during his honeymoon but this is of course never mentioned in the actual show.

Vhanja · September 30, 2015 11:26 am

I think John clearly has feelings for Mary. At least before the assasin reveal. I don't see why he would want to propose to her if he didn't, being all nervous and flustered (John usually struggles with anything have to do with talking about emotions, so the proposal was clearly emotional for him).

I think he would've been content, although perhaps not properly happy, with a married life with Mary if Sherlock really had been dead and Mary had never been revealed to be an assassin.

But I think Sherlock returning changed everything, both to the better and to the worse. And I never got the feeling that John didn't want to marry. In TSoT John is in general in a good mood (apart from the Sholto bit). It's not until he returns from his honeymoon he realises that this new life isn't working for him. That doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have any feelings for Mary, only that it's not enough. And that the suburbian life isn't enough.

But John is a man of strong moral principles. He can't just divorce and leave his pregnant wife because he needs his danger fix. So I think we see him being very frustrated and in turmoil over not getting his new life working.

His playing hard to get is only a token resistance, he tags along as he always does. Perhaps Sherlock knowing that he will is a reassurance? But I do struggle a bit to understand why the token resistance at all.

RavenMorganLeigh · September 30, 2015 8:52 pm

I think-- honestly--- if John wanted to, after he found out Mary was an asassin-- and he wanted out of the marraige, he could easily have done so. He could have turned Mary in. (Baby will be born in a nice facillity, immediately given to John who now has sole custody.) He could have gone to Mycroft, and let him extricate John from the marriage-- and they could have locked Mary down, till she gave birth.

So, either John's love for Mary is so strong he can just "forget" all his medical training and beleive the "surgery" explanation, not read the memory stick, and "forget" that Mary shot Sherlock-- and possibly even forget that Sherlock *is* his best freind at all-- or, there's something else going on that we don't know about.

Please!!!!

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 9:17 am

or maybe John is still so attached to his 'queen and country' attitude, still clinging strongly to the idea that he should have a wife and a nice family alongside the thrill of the chase with Sherlock, that he's willing to do this enormus effort to move on from the bad stuff that's happened - a bit like a spouse who's been cheated on but wants to forgive after their partner confesses? And let's not forget that Sherlock pushed him into it, guilted him into it in fact, told him it's what he likes. And when has John ever denied Sherlock anything?

To me, that could definitely be an explanation for John's decision.

Vhanja · October 1, 2015 9:33 am

To be honest, unless Sherlock and John got some kind of plan against Mary, I think John's decision to not read the drive and to forgive her was his own. As I see it, Sherlock pushing John "because it's what you do" seems more to be to get John to listen to Mary. It's Sherlock's pushing that makes John sit down and even considering just listening to what she has to say.

But after that, it seems Sherlock had enough just to recover, and John made the decision on his own what to do.

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 9:51 am

I think seeing that Sherlock wasn't against Mary even after what she did to me played a big part in John's attitude towards the whole thing...

Vhanja · October 1, 2015 11:30 am

Annoyingly enough, we don't know. Those six months off-screen are a huge gap. Where was Sherlock recovering? Mostly in hospital? 221B? With his parents? Where was John? At home with Mary? With Sherlock in 221B or with his parents? In a flat of his own? How much contact did Sherlock and John have? Did they speak about Mary and the USB drive?

We know nothing, Jon Snow.

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 11:34 am

We discussed this quite a lot in another thread - my idea is that since Sherlock's mum says that their reason for being all together for Christmas is that Sherlock is 'back from the hospital', he must have been there recovering for the whole time (I'm thinking, he was in a private wing, as shown in the hospital scene - thanks to Mycroft, I don't think he would have left his brother in a 'normal' facility - so it was a bit like a hotel).

John saw Sherlock every day and looked after him as he recovered; but he lived in 221B (as hinted by Moffat with John's line 'why does Sherlock think I'm moving back in').

And my idea is also that John and Mary weren't speaking.

Last edited by Dorothy83 (October 1, 2015 11:34 am)

Solenn · October 1, 2015 12:04 pm

Why did Sherlock told John to forgive her? Obviously he made the vow because she was what John wanted, but now? What if one day he doesn't love her anymore , what is Sherlock gonna do? It left me confused 😐

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 12:44 pm

Sherlock saw that John was suffering, and knew that Mary loved him. So he pushed for John to understand why she did it so that they could move on and solve the case.

If John stops loving her for other reasons, that'll be out of Sherlock's hands.

Whisky · October 1, 2015 12:56 pm

How can marriage be the game changer? If it is, it must be Mary or John who ask for this change. Would Mary ask John to stay at home and not do cases with Sherlock? Apparently he's not on cases anymore after the wedding, but why? Or has John this image of perfect marriage where he stays safe and normal and doesn't go out on chasing criminals anymore? (at this point he doesn't know yet that Mary wouldn't mind quite so much as he thinks). Or did Sherlock tell John to stay away?
I cannot really see Mary forbid John to go on cases with Sherlock. I can John see staying at home because his wife is pregnant (but he goes to the drug den which doesn't fit this image). I can also see Sherlock do cases on his own because John has chosen Mary not him and at the wedding Sherlock's way of leaving early is a sign he is not as comfortable with the situation as John might assume. I think if Sherlock asked John to come on a case, he would come. So I assume that John stays at home is probably because of Sherlock... because Sherlock doesn't want him around, or at least, doesn't actively invite him anymore.
John's "is it Sherlock Holmes you want, haven't seen him long time" suggests that John is passive and waited for Sherlock to call, which he apparently didn't.

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 1:01 pm

the way I see it: the month of not seeing each other, we have to consider John and Mary have been away on their honeymoon, so we could account for like, a couple of weeks? Then once they're back, Sherlock didn't call John because, as we know from the ending of TsoT, he now thinks he is redundant in John's life. And John hasn't heard from him, and is being proud and not contacting him because he doesn't understand why Sherlock is staying away and wants Sherlock to contact him first (because he wants to feel that he is still important for Sherlock).

I have been in both their situations with my own friends (I'm an insecure person, as John and Sherlock are in their new 'situation' after the wedding), so I can see this happening quite clearly.

SusiGo · October 1, 2015 1:10 pm

If we disregard the blog (in which they communicate during the honeymoon) we get the following situation:

Sherlock leaves the wedding without saying goodbye. John and Mary go on their honeymoon. They come back and there is no contact between Sherlock and John. Sherlock and Mary, however, must have been in contact since they allegedly talked about the weight John put on.

These are the facts. And they are very, very strange if you ask me.

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 1:13 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Sherlock and Mary, however, must have been in contact since they allegedly talked about the weight John put on.

to me, that is incorrect. Yes, Sherlock does say 'Mary and I think this', but I don't read that as them talking - I read that as him deducing that Mary thought the same and he deduced it from observing Mary that morning at the hospital most likely (when they were talking about the biking to work, perhaps).
Just like when he deduced that Mary also didn't like the moustache, in TEH.

It doesn't make sense that Sherlock would talk to Mary but not to John (also because what would he talk to her for?)

Last edited by Dorothy83 (October 1, 2015 1:14 pm)

SusiGo · October 1, 2015 1:15 pm

Okay, I prefer this explanation, I really do.

Dorothy83 · October 1, 2015 1:15 pm

I truly believe that is how they meant it.