Well, seeing as Moftiss are known to lie a lot, we probably shouldn't trust their words on Mary any more than we should trust their words on Johnlock.

Last edited by Vhanja (April 21, 2016 10:48 am)

Yes. We should know by now that they usually do not tell us anything crucial or necessary for the understanding of the show. IMO it is mostly light banter and anecdotes about the making of the episodes. Benedict of course tends to get carried away which might be the reason he did not participate in the commentaries for series 3. 

SusiGo wrote:

Yes. We should know by now that they usually do not tell us anything crucial or necessary for the understanding of the show. IMO it is mostly light banter and anecdotes about the making of the episodes. Benedict of course tends to get carried away which might be the reason he did not participate in the commentaries for series 3. 

Ben is a bad liar, bless him.  
 

I know...but he isn't going to be able to answer that either.
If it has implications for S 4!
Not that I'm going, but if I did, I would be asking about Johnlock!

Well it is a combination of everything...body language etc.

Harriet wrote:

I find this here quite telling:

"never forget, mary went ahead with lying to john after he’d been tossed in a bonfire. she went ahead with lying to john after CAM sent a threat on their wedding day. she went ahead with lying to john rather than accepting help from the one person who could have helped her. she risked john’s emotional breakdown and relapse by shooting john’s best friend. john’s emotional and physical safety is less important than keeping her secrets."

http://abitnotgood.tumblr.com/post/142478689338/never-forget-mary-went-ahead-with-lying-to-john

I think it's true that she lied but we don't really know enough about her motivations to know that she put that above John.  John was put in a fire because of Sherlock and Mycroft, not because of Mary.   She had no way of knowing that Sherlock would help her (yes, he did, in the end, but surely it was a little surprising that he helped a known assassin, even to the extent of killing their target?).   She believed that John would have an emotional breakdown if she didn't keep her secret.   As it was, John took the news better than expected, but again, was it obvious that he would be able to cope with that information and even forgive her? 

If anything she seems to be protective of John.   Sherlock kind of leaves John in her care. 

So I suppose it comes down to filters or angles again - the writer is just taking one angle, and only being able to see Mary's actions from one point of view.  But there are other angles.

Right. And we all can see how they write John and Mary.

Vhanja wrote:

Vhanja wrote:

Lola Red wrote:

can you elaborate on this?
I always felt that John likes to see himself as the sane man, but he is everything but. When he first meets Mycroft, we learn that his PTSD is not due to the trauma of having been in a war, but of having to leave it behind (also "I said dangerous, and here you are"). I think it is the danger that attracts him to Sherlock. In my mind it made sense, that, with Sherlock gone, he would (unconsciously) find another source of danger in his life. I do, btw, not think that John is aware of any of this, I do not think it ever occurred to him that his nightmares or the pain in his leg were due to not being in mortal danger on a regular basis. I would even go so far as to say that John, in a weird way, could be much more happy being married to Mary the assassin, than he was was being married to Mary the nurse (see the beginning of HLV).

Oh, I agree that John is drawn to danger, there is no doubt about it. And I also agree that the danger and the thrill was probably a large part of why he agreed to share a flat with Sherlock.

But with Sherlock the danger was obvious - he joined a murder investigation, ran all over London and shot a guy on their second day together. 

Mary, however, was a - to him - regular nurse. I just don't believe in the possibility of him "picking up" something of her unconsciously. That he was attracted to her because he unconsciously felt/knew that she was dangerous or liked danger too. It sounds too "magical" to me.

Also because I think John - more or less consciously - wanted to try a regular, normal life after Sherlock "died". Sherlock was everything he liked in his life, and with Sherlock gone, he wanted to distance himself from everything that could remind him of his previous life (danger, excitement, thrill...) because it was too painful. So he went for the normal life - job, wife, house in the suburb... 

So he was drawn to Mary because she was NOT like Sherlock. She was warm, caring, normal, understanding - everything he needed at that time of life. ("She wasn't supposed to be like that!").

Or that is my very subjective interpretation of it, anyway.

To get back on track:

Lola - a couple of pages ago, you asked me to elaborate on this topic (see above).
 

thank you, I totally missed your response

I can see where you coming from. I think always saw it as something that John felt he should want (John the "everyman") vs. what he needs (John the "dangerjunkie") combined with something of a sixth sense. I know (and indeed are one of them) people that will always go for the same type (I do not really like that word, but I guess you know what I mean), even when trying to avoid said type because experience has told them that it just does not work. So you go for the person least resembling your type and somehow always end up with a prime specimen of your type in disguise. Some people seem to really seem to have a sort of radar for their type. So in John's case I found it plausible that as he is attracted to danger, he would indeed of all the women in London fall for the assassin-turned-nurse, because on the surface she is everything he thinks he should want (kind, caring, warm, even working in healthcare like himself) but deep down she also still oozed some of that danger that John needs, or, as Sherlock said, "likes".
I would like to hear your opinion about how that relates to victim blaming. I, personally, do not think John is to blame for Mary's actions in any way. I can kind of get my head behind why she did what she did, but that does not make it right and it surely does not make it John's fault. 

Lola Red wrote:

I would like to hear your opinion about how that relates to victim blaming. I, personally, do not think John is to blame for Mary's actions in any way. I can kind of get my head behind why she did what she did, but that does not make it right and it surely does not make it John's fault. 

With victimg blaming, I'm refering to the "Watson domestic" scene, where both Sherlock and Mary keeps telling John that Mary is who she is "because you chose her". .Whenever John asks why she is like that, why everyone in his life "turns out to be a psychopath" (a bit of rage hyperbole from John there), both Sherlock and John keep telling him that it's because it's what he chose.

So instead of putting the blame of the situation where it belongs - on Mary - it's put on John. Because he chose this. It doesn't sit right with me at all. (A milder version of this is in the reunion scene where Sherlock says he didn't tell John about him being alive in case "he said something indiscreet". Again hinting that it's John own fault why he was left in the dark). 

I think that is why John yells: "Why is everything always my fault?", and I couldn't agree with him more. I think it's horrible the way they both turn on him in both the reunion scene and the domestic scene. I guess Sherlock and Mary have that in common - the coldness where John's emotions are viewed as over dramatic and that he should just calmly accept that this is his own fault. It's one of the most disconserting things in the entire series for me.

Can't remember if this has been posted before but even so I think it holds up under repeating.

http://abitnotgood.tumblr.com/post/80189067761/mary-is-no-better-than-sherlock