nakahara wrote:

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

[

If John has no idea how much Sherlock cares by now, he's very much like the Emperor with no clothes!

Maybe Sherlock should have stayed out of it. Then, when inevitably, John and Mary ended up having to deal with the people she hurt, whose family members or loved ones she killed, Sherlock would be out of the blast range.

Maybe, he should have left Mary to Magnussen?

If Sherlock had told John all about Moriarty's plan while he was on the phone with him, on the roof-- maybe John would have survived being shot by his sniper-- poor Mrs Hudson and Lestrade wouldn't have been so lucky. But, maybe he was being arrogant, trying to save their lives, right?

Maybe you're right, and Mary's actions are excusable because she was in love, and that trumps everything. I just hope Sherlock will get over that self-sacrifice thing he's got going. If nothing else, Mary has proved to Sherlock that Mycroft was right: caring is not an advantage.

As for John, I hate to think that he just blindly follows and does what he's told, never questioning, never thinking for himself-- if that's the case, it explains exactly why Sherlock couldn't just level with John about Reichenbach. Anyone could have influenced John in ways that would have gotten them both killed!

Here's another question: why does understanding why Mary shot Sherlock matter? Understanding the motive doesn't equal forgiveness of the act. It would be one thing if it was self-defense, but she shot an unarmed man who was offering her assistance down in cold blood! Any court of law would send her to prison.

Lastly, on John: remember that he is now covering up an attempted murder, covering up another attempted murder, harboring an international fugitive, who would go to prison for the rest of her life if caught, and possibly committing treason against the Crown by harboring said fugitive and perverting the cause of Justice. And he's planning to raise a child with this woman.

Again, this is going by the current surface reading of s3. I'm waiting for s4 to prove that John's forgiveness of Mary was a ruse, and a trap to bring her down. :-)

I have been unusually verbose today, and may need to watch that coffee intake!!! I'm going to shut up now, and let somebody else talk!:-D

 

Bravo! I agree with every word!

I can also add that forgiving Mary destroys John´s credibility as a character. The man who forgives attempted murder of his best friend and burns the evidence convicting the mass murderer of her crimes in the fire  cannot be considered "the man of strong moral principles" anymore. Nor can he be considered the loyal and dependable supporter of Sherlock anymore - his loyalties obviously lie elsewhere. Also, despite witnessing Mary´s attempts at violence towards Sherlock first-hand in Lennister gardens, he ignores this and only reproaches Mary that she is "the lying wife", he never ever mentions in his reproach that she is the murderer. This makes it look as if this side of Mary´s personality doesn´t bother him at all. The same man reproached Sherlock in the past that he was not visibly sad when encountering the bodies of murdered victims - but actually killing these victims is suddenly all right.

Thanks, and yep-- I think you're exactly right on the points you've made, above. 

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (May 5, 2016 8:12 pm)

I think that there needs to be a serious effort to "redeem" Mary, if Mofftiss wants her to remain a supporting character-- just having a baby doesn't cut it. If they don't fix this-- I suspect there will always be a schism in the fandom. But they haven't really tried. Either that, or make her very clearly a villain. One or the other. 

The other thing-- I'm not sure having her as part of the "new crime-solving trio" is going to work out all that well...

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (May 5, 2016 8:22 pm)

I doubt the team are very concerned about fandom schisms, I know I'm not.
Anyhow, I feel the second schism already exists: some people accept Mary and others don't.

I'm fairly certain she will die next series.

besleybean wrote:

I doubt the team are very concerned about fandom schisms, I know I'm not.
Anyhow, I feel the second schism already exists: some people accept Mary and others don't.

 
The funny thing is, I've always wondered about why the writers decided to portray Mary as they have. The character is canon, yes; but with a huge departure from the good girl of canon.  Right from the start it felt to me almost as if they were testing the waters to see if Amanda/Mary would be a good addition to the show. If she was beloved by the fans (like Molly) she could remain indefinitely as the third addition to the boys.  If not, there's plenty of wiggle room to write her out. The ambivalence is quite interesting to me.

besleybean wrote:

The other think I meant to say, is that I am assuming The Original fandom Schism is seen as Johnlock.
But to be honest, I don't see The Mary Schism as anything separate from that. I think it's all the same Schism.

I think it is way too easy to write it off as the same schism. There are so many forum members who have repeatedly said that their negative feelings towards Mary are directly linked to Mary shooting Sherlock and not showing proper remorse afterwards.

I for one am full-fledged Johnlocker (surprise) and liked her anyway, even during the wedding. It was her action and the way she dealt with it afterwards that ended my sympathy for her.

But of course it is easier to say "You hate her because of Johnlock" than at least to consider that there might be valid points that lead to a certain negative view of her character.

Schmiezi wrote:

But of course it is easier to say "You hate her because of Johnlock" than at least to consider that there might be valid points that lead to a certain negative view of her character.

I agree. I guess, it´s quite hard to defend a character´s image of a saint if the authors of the series do not contribute to that and introduce the same character as a cold blooded-murderer. So to achieve that, something just HAS to be wrong with the audience - some inherent flaw (like Johnlock or other factors) must prevent people from noticing how awesome Mary is....

But you didn't make that comments in question either.

I personally have no problem understanding that people don't like Mary. There are certain things about her I don't like myself. I just prefer a more nuanced view on characters instead of either "Mary is a saint" or "Mary is a psycopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever". In my opinion, it's clear that she is neither.

Last edited by Vhanja (May 6, 2016 7:57 am)

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