BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / The dynamic between Sherlock, John & Mary - an attempt at explanation

**Posted by Willow** January 20, 2014 7:54 pm

silverblaze wrote:
Willow wrote:
Mary to Holmes senior:

'Oh my God; you are the sane one, aren't you?'

To which he replies:

'Aren't you?'.

Mary is portraying herself as the sane one, trying to create a non-existent link between herself and Holmes senior; I very much doubt that he would regard her as sane if he knew what we know.
No, she says he is the sane one, not she. He says 'aren't you' and she looks unconfortable and breaks eye contact, as in 'not really'. She really says 'you', she never implies that she means herself, she's just placing herself in his position. As I said, smalltalk.
She looks uncomfortable and breaks eye contact because John comes into the room. Previously she was giggling and mildly flirtatious with Holmes senior, trying to set up an equivalence between him and her.

Willow wrote:
The second piece of dialogue is John coming into the doorway of the room where Mary and Holmes senior are and saying:

'Oh.' Sorry, I, I, just, er'

whereupon Holmes senior says:

'Oh, er. Do you two need a moment?

To which John replies:

'If you wouldn't mind'.

This is a blatant breach of middle class English conventions; they've been invited into someone else's home for Xmas day and yet John, who had convention ground into him in the Army if nowhere else, apparently forgets the most fundamental rules. It has been established that Mary is very probably not English, so she wouldn't know the rules, but John does.
Ok, I'm not English, you're spelling it out for me and I still don't see the faux pas. He walks into the room, surprised to find them, he and Mary are immediately unconfortable and mr. Holmes is nice enough to notice and to give them some space. He doesn't ask him to leave, he probably would have left himself if mr. Holmes hadn't picked up on the signals. Then he's visibly relieved that he did and accepts the offer. What's impolite about that? Should he have said no, stay?

Well, the reason that you do not see the faux pas is because you are not English and do not understand the particular social conventions at play; John should have said 'of course not', not 'if you wouldn't mind'. It's not about Holmes senior being nice; it's about John not being nice in return. You do not expect your host to provide you with a place to have a private discussion; we are in 'An Englishman's home is his castle' territory, and the fact that it is Xmas day makes it all the more jarring.

There is also the fact that John is turfing out Holmes senior in order to inform the person who nearly killed Holmes' son that he has, to all extents and purposes, forgiven her for nearly killing Holmes' son. Again, this is not the time or the place to do that; John is entirely free to forgive anything he wants to forgive but it is an abuse of hospitality to expect the Holmes to provide him with a cosy sitting room and a welcoming log fire to do it in.

These are social conventions, but they are important social conventions which Moffat understands very well...

**Posted by silverblaze** January 20, 2014 8:46 pm

Willow wrote:
Well, the reason that you do not see the faux pas is because you are not English and do not understand the particular social conventions at play; John should have said 'of course not', not 'if you wouldn't mind'. It's not about Holmes senior being nice; it's about John not being nice in return. You do not expect your host to provide you with a place to have a private discussion; we are in 'An Englishman's home is his castle' territory, and the fact that it is Xmas day makes it all the more jarring.

Well, if I ever go to England I hope they're patient with foreigners. I consider myself a nice and polite person but I would never have worked that out. I would have expected that if someone kindly offers you some space that you obviously need, you could accept it without reprecussions. The Dutch are more straightforward in that way.

Willow wrote:
There is also the fact that John is turfing out Holmes senior in order to inform the person who nearly killed Holmes' son that he has, to all extents and purposes, forgiven her for nearly killing Holmes' son.

Yeah, that doesn't sound particularly polite. But it wouldn't have hurt Holmes because didn't know that. And Sherlock has already forgiven Mary and wants John to do the same. That's quite a big difference I'd say.

It's interesting, these intercultural differences. They're rather subtle sometimes. Well, not the killing thing, that's a bit bad.

**Posted by lil** January 20, 2014 9:03 pm

LoL here..is this a case of Sherlock rubbing off on John..John forgetting his manners a few times lately...here and the surgery disguise guy , and caring less what people think..non couple denial in hounds .
Be funny if that as Sherlock gets more humanised/caring like John...John gets more rude/uncaring like Sherlock.
Couples do rub off on each other after time don't they.

**Posted by besleybean** January 20, 2014 9:43 pm

As do friends!

**Posted by silverblaze** January 21, 2014 3:25 pm

Maybe it's a bit much to expect politeness in a household full of maniacs.

**Posted by Willow** January 21, 2014 4:53 pm

silverblaze wrote:
Maybe it's a bit much to expect politeness in a household full of maniacs.

Oh, they're not maniacs; the only person who suggests that is Mary. Her host responds politely, but there's really no evidence that possessing a very high iq makes people insane. And as we all know, Mary is not exactly a reliable arbiter when it comes to that sort of judgement; the vast majority of sane people do not shoot someone who has just offered to help them.

**Posted by silverblaze** January 21, 2014 5:21 pm

Sure Sherlock and Mycroft are examples of good manners.

**Posted by Willow** January 21, 2014 8:13 pm

silverblaze wrote:
Sure Sherlock and Mycroft are examples of good manners.

Well, manners are not an infallible means of working out whether someone's a lunatic either; I suspect that it would be difficult to get a psychiatrist to sign up to such a diagnosis on the basis that someone's an ill-mannered genius.

**Posted by besleybean** January 21, 2014 8:18 pm

I'm sure Moriarty was a very well mannered lunatic!

**Posted by silverblaze** January 21, 2014 8:44 pm

CAM less so.

**Posted by Willow** January 21, 2014 8:51 pm

silverblaze wrote:
CAM less so.

Yes; I must confess that I quite liked Moriarty in an evil villainous bbbrrraaaahhhhaaaa sort of way but CAM really did turn my stomach. A tribute to the skills of the actor, no doubt, but it's skin crawling; I find myself fast forwarding through the horrible bits...

**Posted by silverblaze** January 21, 2014 8:57 pm

I do the same. He's a great villain but... yuck.

**Posted by besleybean** January 21, 2014 9:01 pm

Unfortunately, I keep finding myself saying 'yummy' and 'yum yum'.
Every time I do, I think of CAM!

**Posted by ukaunz** February 18, 2016 9:13 pm

It was quite tricky to find the right thread to put this in.

http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/139521477645/jupitereyed-clueinglock-clueinglock-ive

I never consciously noticed hearing Sherlock's voice saying "Mary" in the dramatic Baker Street scene, but I've watched it again to check, and sure enough it's there, just after John says "You should have got married" (meaning Sherlock and Mary). Wow, that really puts a spin on things. Was John really jealous that Sherlock said Mary's name when he woke up from surgery? It would have been something he wondered about, I guess. So when John says "Ohhh. Look at you two. You should have got married." This is the moment that Sherlock realises/remembers that John heard him say Mary's name, and that he has misunderstood the reason why.

Before I read this tumblr, I just thought John was being angrily sarcastic about the conversation so far, because Sherlock and Mary are as bad as each other (with their skill sets, and using Janine to get at CAM) and then because Sherlock smiles at Mary. But jealousy because he thinks there actually is something going on between Sherlock and Mary... Poor John

Last edited by ukaunz (February 18, 2016 9:14 pm)

**Posted by Liberty** February 18, 2016 9:38 pm

I don't know ... I remember John trusted Sherlock when hardly anyone else did, in TRF. I don't think he'd suspect him of having an affair with Mary. Especially as it's so far from the kind of thing Sherlock would do. Look at how suprised he is at Sherlock getting off with anyone at all (Janine - and within hours, he realises that it was all fake anyway - it really wasn't something that Sherlock would do), and it's a huge step on from that to imagine Sherlock getting off with John's wife, of all people.

I think when John finds out that Mary shot Sherlock, it becomes obvious why he said her name when we was waking up afterwards.

**Posted by ukaunz** February 18, 2016 9:42 pm

So why did the sound people feel the need to repeat the sound byte of Sherlock saying "Mary" just then?

**Posted by besleybean** February 19, 2016 6:47 am

For me there is no way John is really jealous of Sherlock or would ever imagine anything was going on between Sherlock and Mary.
He simply recognises that Sherlock and Mary are very alike, he loves them both: that's why one's his wife and the other his best friend.

**Posted by ukaunz** February 19, 2016 7:07 am

But in that moment, he's very angry, upset and confused. It's possible he does feel irrationally jealous during this conversation. I don't think he really does believe that Sherlock and Mary would be having an affair, I'm mostly just curious as to why that "Mary" sound byte was played again during this scene.

**Posted by besleybean** February 19, 2016 7:09 am

I think he could be feeling got at by both of them.

**Posted by SolarSystem** February 19, 2016 7:38 am

I don't know. If they wanted to put an emphasis on this, why did they include that second "Mary" in 221B in a way that it's hardly audible? As a normal viewer - and even as a fan - there is no way you would ever hear this. That tumblr blogger even states that she had to fiddle with the audio track in order to make it more audible - and I have to admit that I'm still having problems to really hear the word "Mary".