There's got to be more.  I'm reassured by the fact that TAB addressed Mary's past to some extent - she was explicitly an agent in Sherlock's mind palace, so that is clearly on his mind and part of his view of her as person.  I don't think it can disappear. 

I would be prepared to believe that both John and Sherlock sense that she's basically an OK (or at least not evil) person.  They do that about each other - there's no questioning or looking for evidence.   I'm thinking of when Sherlock returns after being dead - John is not at all concerned about what he was doing during those two years away, whether he was saving the world or not - it's purely about his relationship with Sherlock and Sherlock deceiving him personally.  So I can believe that John's forgiveness of Mary is purely about that - about her deception of him, and not about her past. 

Exactly. 

Harriet wrote:

Only what does it mean: That SHE has to pay for it?

 
Good point.

"The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future are my privilege."
So if her past comes back onto her.... Not his business.

I find this an interesting thought.

Last edited by Mattlocked (May 1, 2016 9:54 am)

I have never looked at it like that but now that you are mentioning it … interesting. It could mean that he does not care for her past actions but also that he does not take any responsibility for it. 

Who else, if not John?

Mattlocked wrote:

"The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future are my privilege."
So if her past comes back onto her.... Not his business.

I find this an interesting thought.

 
But he could have meant it.
I think, we have discussions here, right?

More important: Why is her past not his business, if he loves her so much?

If it's taken at face value (assuming it isn't part of a plot by John and Sherlock, etc., etc.) it really does mean that John feels it's not his business.  I think he knows it might be hard to accept, and that may be why he destroys the memory stick.  Possibly, he has decided he wants to stay with her and doesn't want to make that any more difficult for himself by giving himself extra difficult information to come to terms with.  But "not my business" is recognition of the fact that things she did before they met weren't to do with him (whereas deceiving him was - that's what he forgives, I think.  I know she shot Sherlock too, but that's not really what John gets angry about at 221B - it's not what he takes personally).

But yes, the "problems of the future" definitely suggest that he knows it's not over for her.  It's a red flag that it's not going to be OK from now on, and John suspects that.  Something is going to happen involving Mary, one way or another.  "My privilege" is very forgiving, though.  It seems to mean that he feels lucky to be the one with her, helping her deal with those future problems.   I can definitely see why some people see it as romantic (the only reason I can't quite get there myself is because I feel Mary is still a bit of a mystery to me, even if she isn't to John, and because S4 is such an unknown.   Maybe it will feel more romantic in retrospect). 

I think my gut feeling is that this is genuine on his part.  (I can see a little bit of a parallel with John's attitude to Sherlock after the fall - where it's the personal aspect that really bothers John, his fury at the deception and the pain it caused him, and his forgiveness of that later)

Last edited by Liberty (May 1, 2016 10:51 am)

RE: John is ok with the Mary he fell in love with.
This bothers me a lot because for all he knows, the Mary he fell in love with is a complete fiction!  He has know way of knowing what was honest and what was an act.  He fell in love with a lie.

He's seen much more of her than we have, and I suppose he could have fallen for elements of her personality that still persist despite her background being different.  He did kind of fall in love with a lie, but it's not as if he fell for her because she was a nurse, because she was British, etc.  If she'd been, say, an agent working for Mycroft, he'd probably have fallen for her just as much.  He says "she wasn't supposed to be like that", but that seems to have been a conscious choice, rather than than a gut thing - he tried to choose something more mundane, but it wasn't her mundane-ness itself that attracted him and what he loved about her.

I do wonder about what she told him about her background and childhood - did she make things up completely, or twist the truth (e.g. tell childhood stories but change the location, etc)?   I suppose it's possible that they just didn't talk much about their pasts.