Zatoichi wrote:

I guesss the dark side of Sherlock´s character is also one of the many things that are left ambiguous and are not easily pinned down.. so there´s no right or wrong here. When I see him as not capable of becoming a second Moriarty or criminal mastermind I think of the things Steven Moffat said about him: "If you look at what actually happens in The Reichenbach Fall - never mind what seems to happen; pay attention to what did happen - Sherlock Holmes tricks him ruthlessly. I mean, he completely outclasses Moriarty actually, because Moriarty is the mad one. I think what Moriarty provides for Sherlock Holmes is permission to be a hero. I think Sherlock is troubled - not anymore - but when he says to Mycroft, 'Is there something wrong with us?' I don't think he's troubled about whether or not he's mad or evil. He meets Moriarty and thinks, 'No, no, no. I'm not that. Whatever I am, I am not that.' I don't think he even needs to beat Moriarty." 

I may have been careless in my wording of “a second Moriarty”. What I meant was not that Sherlock is a raging madman who seems to be spinning out of control most of the time. The only time he might be misinterpreted as one is when he cannot focus his brain on something substantial (a.k.a. a case, 7 or higher), but where Moriarty seems to delight in that spinning motion, Sherlock seems very uncomfortable with the feeling. In THOB he compares his mind to “an engine, racing out of control, a rocket, tearing itself to pieces, trapped on the launch pad” during those times. What I meant with “a second Moriarty” was someone who works mainly with his mind (and quite brilliantly so), as opposed to Mary, who seemed to have used mainly the gun in her hand.

Zatoichi wrote:

I guess it´s still ambiguous enough, but I  took that to mean that although Sherlock has a potential for violence which is bigger than most peoples´, and sometimes operates outside the law, he is in his essence nothing like Moriarty.. he is very much the dragon slayer, the pirate with his own moral codex which differs from the official one, but who´ll always enforce what´s good because he´s neither mad nor evil (nor a sociopath/psychopath). And I´m okay with John to be attracted to this, because his dark side would never turn against innocents (and I don´t count rude remarks as violene here), and he only ever uses it when there´s no other, more elegant/cerebral solution to stop the bad guys.
With Mary I´m not so sure.. we just don´t know. We don´t know whom she turned against in her past, but violence was very much her MO and she definitely seriously hurt innocents during her time with the boys. So I´m really very very uncomfortable whith comparing the three of them and with John being attracted to this kind of "dark". It´s just not the same as Sherlock´s battlefield.
I can see how hunting criminals can be seen as adventurous adrenaline fix you´re drawn to even as an honorable and upright person, but if you get the same rush about Mary´s deeds.. that´d be really problematic. I just can´t imagine there are essentially good people who´d feel that way about killing people for money.

I think John might be attracted to "darkness" in general, but he is also deeply moral. This is why Mary fears he would turn on her if he finds out about her and even afterwards she is convinced he could no longer love her after getting to know the details of her past. He seems to agree, as he chooses to not read what is on the USB stick. He also seems absolutely shocked when Sherlock kills Magnussen and strangely distant to Sherlock afterwards (Sherlock gets a hug for saying something nice at the wedding, but only a handshake when he is send into exile for something he has done to keep the Watson family safe? That felt odd to me, even though they are both not usually very physically affectionate with each other), like he still has to come to terms with Sherlock’s actions. So while Sherlock, Mary and Moriarty each have their own brand of “darkness”, I feel John is potentially attracted to all of them (maybe Moriarty not so much, but then he kidnapped John and strapped explosives to his body), but only acts on that attraction as long as he can get it in line with his internal moral compass.

Zatoichi wrote:

And I´m really troubled that John and Sherlock don´t even want to find out how deep in Mary was.. they don´t want to know whom she hurt and how, because now she´s there and she´s lovely no matter what.. she has a pleasantly thrilling air of danger, that´s what all of them like, so never mind the bad things she has done as A.G.R.A., never mind the bad choices she made as Mary and might make again when she feels threatened to loose John´s love again. For now she´s safe, the loose cannon has been defused so they all go back to business.

That´s indeed not the Sherlock Holmes and John Watson I think I knew, to paraphrase your lovely signature. Steven Moffat now says "they are all bad people, but they are bad together", and I just feel that while they are able to keep Mary now they´ve lost the essence of what Sherlock Holmes and John Watson used to be.. not all light, but definitely a force of good. So I guess that´s another point of my list of "why I don´t like Mary", because sentiment for her brought them knee-deep into morally grey area, to the point of potentially hiding a killer and becoming a murderer himself (which I´m not sure is still grey area or already pretty black..). I don´t think that´s the friend Sherlock or John need.. "don´t worry, I´ll get him into trouble for you" - "that´s my girl..".. what the what? Is the show about solving crimes or about keeping adrenaline junkies entertained? Is that what they mean when they say it´s not a detective story, but a story about a detective? I´m at a loss, and while this turned out to be mostly pointless rambling (sorry and kudos to everyone who made it through to here) it´s still my thoughts about Mary, so I hope it´s okay to post them here.
 

I, too, find it troubling that they have apparently chosen to not know the whole truth about Mary. The only explanation I can come up with is that John had decided that he did not want to be forced to stop loving his wife and the mother of his child and that Sherlock accepted that decision. But I cannot shake the feeling that this was a very odd choice for the characters we have gotten to know over the last seasons.

Zatoichi wrote:

I´m at a loss, and while this turned out to be mostly pointless rambling (sorry and kudos to everyone who made it through to here) it´s still my thoughts about Mary, so I hope it´s okay to post them here.
 

I feel like I have lured you into joining me in rambling land with my previous post, so no judgement from my side
 

She would have had enough time to dispose of the stick or hide it in a safe place, even if Magnussen gave it to her. The scene in Leinster Gardens takes place several days after the shooting. We can assume that John spent a lot of time with Sherlock in hospital. So there is at least no obvious reason why she carried it with her when chasing Sherlock. 

I have not the slightest idea but then I am not sure if there is really any evidence on the stick. Why would anyone who wants to hide their sinister past carry around evidence which might send them to prison? 
I do not believe that she wanted to ask Sherlock for help so why carrying it around? She did not expect to meet John, did she? She was just after Sherlock. 
A simple and frustrating explanation would be that it is a mere plot device so they could show John symbolically burning his wife's past in the fireplace. I hope there is more to it than that. 
And, btw, I am quite sure that at least Sherlock read it, maybe John as well. Everything elso would be completely out of character for both of them - the detective and the man with trust issues. 

SusiGo wrote:

I have not the slightest idea but then I am not sure if there is really any evidence on the stick. Why would anyone who wants to hide their sinister past carry around evidence which might send them to prison? 
I do not believe that she wanted to ask Sherlock for help so why carrying it around? She did not expect to meet John, did she? She was just after Sherlock. 
A simple and frustrating explanation would be that it is a mere plot device so they could show John symbolically burning his wife's past in the fireplace. I hope there is more to it than that. 
And, btw, I am quite sure that at least Sherlock read it, maybe John as well. Everything elso would be completely out of character for both of them - the detective and the man with trust issues. 

I do hope it was more than a cheap plot device. That would be so disappointing (not that I think it will ever be explained). I agree that is seems very out of character for both Sherlock and John to not read what is on the stick. Maybe we’ll find out more in the special/next season. But assuming that there was no evidence on it: Would John still forgive Mary? After being lied to, then being granted full disclosure about Mary’s past in form of the USB stick just to discover it was empty? That seems to me like the last drop to irretrievably loose all trust in her. Then again, why anyone would carry around discriminating evidence against himself is exactly why I don’t get what Mary was doing with that USB stick in the first place. It just does not make sense to me.
 

Zatoichi wrote:

Liberty wrote:

Zatoichi wrote:

And yet all she says after she bought her time with such drastic measure was "You don´t tell him.. don´t tell John!" I seriously doubt if that was worth the wound..
 

I think that must have been an interim measure - it wasn't something she needed time to say.  Before Sherlock gets to a point where he's really fit to "negotiate" he has already guessed the truth and pre-empted her.   What we don't find out is what Mary would have done if Sherlock refused to co-operate.  It looks like he'd decided not to co-operate, and was scared of what she might do to stop him, so needed to get in first before the "negotiating" started.   But I think his words do suggest that negotiating would have been her first option - shooting was the backup plan.  The shooting just showed what extreme measures she would go to.
 

Well, he said he would help her no matter what, so while he might not have been willing to cooperate to Mary´s terms he was still very much on her side, offering support. She could have said "Don´t tell John, I´ll explain later" and flee, to shoot at him first seems to be a strange way to ensure his cooperation. Surely he´s bound to regard her as an enemy afterwards, and he is unsupervised in the hospital, drugged.. he almost gave her away with his first words after partly regaining consciousness. There´s no way she could ensure he wouldn´t talk to John before she got to him, especially if she hadn´t expected the wound to be so grave as to get him into cardiac arrest..? 

I don’t believe Mary was really thinking in terms of long-term solutions in most of HLV. She went from trying to make sure Sherlock could not tell John the second he would follow him into the office, to trying to make sure he would not tell John while he was recovering in a way that his drug-ridden brain could comprehend to trying to make sure he would not tell John when he was lucid again – by threatening the physical safety a man who has singlehandedly taken down a whole criminal network and just discharged himself from hospital with a potentially fatal gun-shot wound. It all seems very much heat-of-the-moment like to me and not very well thought through. I don’t think she ever considered that Sherlock would actually help her, even though he offered right from the start. It was only after her worst nightmare had come true - John knew - that she finally listened.

Zatoichi wrote:

I accept it might be written like this, I just still find it really hard to embrace the storyline.. You guys arguing against me actually help with that, so please go on.. 

The fact that in this thread we encourage each other to discuss and even argue against us, instead of tying to necessarily get people to agree with us, makes me very very happy
 

There was a nice gifset on tumblr, that unfortunately I can´t find again.. it combined Sherlock saying in TGG that the victim carried all the missile plans with him on a memory stick, and John saying "Well, that wasn´t very clever.." and both smirk a bit.. with Mary saying that everything she was was on that memory stick, and both smirk a bit.. a really interesting parallel, maybe I should try and search again.

Ha, found it, and I can even link to your tumblr, Susi:

http://gosherlocked.tumblr.com/post/98129382131/findawaytoshine-1x03-3x03

SusiGo wrote:

I find it hard to accept that Sherlock hurts John in the 221b scene while defending Mary. Sorry, but this completely rubs me the wrong way. I believe that John chose Mary because she seemed different from Sherlock, because he wanted to leave his old life and the painful memories behind him. For me the idea that he subconsciously knew Mary was dangerous and therefore chose her is highly unbelievable, the more so when we take into account that she is not dangerous the way Sherlock is but because she has killed people for selfish reasons.

We differ I our views of what is a more likely action for Sherlock: trusting Mary and hurting John while tying to defuse the bomb she has become, or faking trust and leaving John alone with a still ticking bomb. Edit: And in our interpretation of how severe John's addiction to danger is. That’s fine. And as I said, I am notorious for misinterpreting whether or not Sherlock is acting (if he gives a good performance), so I might very well be wrong. And that’s also fine. It’s all fine

 

Last edited by Lola Red (February 2, 2015 11:32 am)

Zatoichi wrote:

Ha, found it, and I can even link to your tumblr, Susi:

http://gosherlocked.tumblr.com/post/98129382131/findawaytoshine-1x03-3x03

Thank you. 22 September, that was a long time ago. 
 

mrshouse wrote:

I slightly disagree here. One might argue that the bomb Mary has become ( nicely put btw) gets defused by actually faking trust because she feels safe.

The way I interpret it (and SusiGo please correct me if I am interpreting your position wrongly) the question is whether or not Sherlock believes that Mary is still very close to “going off” and shooting someone when she arrives at the airplane with John.
If Sherlock actually meant what he said at 221B, it can be assumed that Mary was only dangerous as long as she was cornered. Now that she knows that her secrets are safe with Sherlock and John, she is no longer likely to “go off”. To stay with the bomb analogy: with Magnussen gone and Sherlock and John on her side, the explosive agent (the danger of being exposed) has been removed and the bomb is effectively defused.
If Sherlock was acting at 221B, it can be assumed that Mary is just as dangerous when she arrives at the plane as she was when she visited Sherlock in the hospital (which I interpret as the time of greatest danger in her case). She basically stays an unexploded bomb, ready to go off at the slightest upset in her balance. Acting as if he trusted her might have avoided an immediate explosion, but the danger of a delayed detonation is still there.