BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / My thoughts about Mary (all episodes)

**Posted by Be** February 27, 2014 3:19 pm

The wedding message is most certainly from CAM.

**Posted by Be** February 27, 2014 4:08 pm

She said that she had no parents.

**Posted by SusiGo** February 27, 2014 4:16 pm

The problem is that Mary basically represents a sort of vacuum. We do not know anything about her. The only facts are (and please correct me if there are more):

She works as a nurse/assistant in John's surgery/clinic. They have not known each other for long. They marry. She is a good shot. She is pregnant. She knows how to drive a car.

Everything else is conjecture or hearsay. There are few other characters, if any, in the show about whom we know less. And this makes it so difficult but also interesting to speculate about her motives, character, emotions. She is like a blank page on which everyone can draw their own picture.

**Posted by lil** February 27, 2014 4:38 pm

Be wrote:
Read the text on screen in 221 B about Mrs Hudson, John and Sherlock. CAM reads their files and we get hints to other files that reads: "see file". No "(see file)" when Mary Watson, wife is mentioned. Therfore it is possible/probable that he had no file on her.

Then she wouldnt be on the pressure point list..like Sherlock isn't for John.
Mary tells us herself..when she hands over the memory stick.

**Posted by SusiGo** February 27, 2014 4:41 pm

The difference is that we hear all this from the characters themselves. They occasionally talk about themselves or make confessions whereas we never ever get anything from Mary herself. She never denies or confirms Sherlock's theories.

**Posted by Willow** February 27, 2014 4:51 pm

SusiGo wrote:
The difference is that we hear all this from the characters themselves. They occasionally talk about themselves or make confessions whereas we never ever get anything from Mary herself. She never denies or confirms Sherlock's theories.

Yes: that is the fascinating aspect of those conversations. It's almost as if she's an actor onstage who has forgotten her lines and is getting prompts from her fellow actors rather than the prompter offstage...

**Posted by lil** February 27, 2014 5:02 pm

We only get from Mary something like she's the type of person that kills people like Magnusson., and that John won't love her anymore if he discovers "who" she is.
Magnusson doesn't have a reason to lie though...he has won at that point.
Magnusson must have had contact with Mary some time before the wedding..unless Mary already knew Janine.
So well b4 the baker st scene Mary was targeting Magnusson , maybe it escalated because he was targeting John again to pressure Sherlock?
Eitherway the shooting worked for Magnusson...he won and had to be shot.

**Posted by SusiGo** February 27, 2014 5:13 pm

Swanpride wrote:
I think hitting the coin is a good confirmation of his assessment of her shooting skills. The part about John never being able to love her if he knew what she did in the past is also her own words.

Is it really THAT important what she did for the story? It might be important for our own peace of mind if we got some neat "what she did was forgivable because...." explanation, but I think in this case not revealing what really happened in her past is more powerful, because it makes John's forgiveness so much more selfless, and therefore a much bigger act of love. Does it really matter if Mary was really worthy of it?

I think this discussion leads nowhere because our views are so fundamentally different. Yes, to me it matters if a person is worthy of another's love, at least in a context like this. Yes, I have difficulties in believing the explanations for her behaviour. What really bothers me is the fact that she returned to her former identity, that she still owns the outfit, that she has kept the silencer gun, that she shoots a man. She does not turn to John or Sherlock for help but returns to her old MO.

Last edited by SusiGo (February 27, 2014 5:16 pm)

**Posted by lil** February 27, 2014 5:34 pm

Swanpride wrote:
Who says that she "kept" this stuff? Perhaps she organized it when she realized that she would need it.

Because she must of been practicing her shooting quite regularly.

**Posted by SusiGo** February 27, 2014 6:21 pm

Swanpride wrote:
Who says that she "kept" this stuff? Perhaps she organized it when she realized that she would need it.

Which would not have been any better. Let us say she owned the stuff and the gun.

**Posted by Willow** February 27, 2014 11:24 pm

It may be helpful to note that possession of a handgun without a license carries a mandatory five year jail sentence; unsurprisingly this means that it is very difficult, though not impossible, to acquire handguns without a license.

**Posted by RavenMorganLeigh** February 28, 2014 12:33 am

You know, the more I read of the meta that I posted, and then re-watching all of series three-- I just can't see a logical way (Based on what actually happened in the show) --to "make Mary one of the good guys". By the way, the author has posted another section, on John and his Curiculum Vitae-- and deals with him as soldier and army doctor. (Author referenced John's blog post) - and talks about his reaction to Sherlock's shooting.

(Happy dance) I chatted with the author, and she is working on detailing complications from the wounds and surgeries. Awesome resource for writers.

**Posted by Willow** February 28, 2014 8:49 am

Swanpride wrote:
The handgun doesn't bother me because John carries his around all the time. Concerning this, the show seems to exist in his own alternate reality.

The author I linked too (the livejournal one) has btw a quite excessive lists of meta...among other things multiple ones about John's career.

Actually, John doesn't carry his around all the time. And John would have no difficulty in getting a license for it; there is no need for an alternate reality.

So, perhaps we could get back to Mary, which is what this thread is about.

**Posted by Be** February 28, 2014 10:14 am

And where Mary is able to shoot a coin
1. in a very small room inspite of the danger that the bullet might recochet
2. in a dark room where you can't see much
3. in a room where several lights shine from above so that you can't actually see something when you look up because you would look at the light
4. although she is according to Sherlock's deductions short-sighted and doesn't wear spectacles (does she wear contact leses?)

Just saying.

Last edited by Be (February 28, 2014 10:17 am)

**Posted by Willow** February 28, 2014 10:29 am

Swanpride wrote:
In England? Where even the police doesn't wear guns? Nope, don't see it.

I see the show more in some sort of alternative reality....in which people don't loose their shooting skills that easily, and a army doctor can actually be shot at the front. And were the fifth Northumberland fusiliers still exist. And a army doctor would be attached to them.

It's fiction after all.

It is indeed England, where I live. The laws relating to firearms are easily accessible on the web, as are the websites of shooting clubs, and, as I have previously noted, many of the members of shooting clubs are former military; John could obtain a license. Mary could not.

Incidentally, for the benefit of fanfic writers everywhere, we do have some armed police. There are specialist squads; normal police officers do not carry weapons.

You are perfectly free to see the show in whatever way you like; we are equally free to point out that, in our view, your view doesn't make sense....

**Posted by Willow** February 28, 2014 10:34 am

Be wrote:
And where Mary is able to shoot a coin
1. in a very small room inspite of the danger that the bullet might recochet
2. in a dark room where you can't see much
3. in a room where several lights shine from above so that you can't actually see something when you look up because you would look at the light
4. although she is according to Sherlock's deductions short-sighted and doesn't wear spectacles (does she wear contact leses?)

Just saying.

And very nicely too; Mary's ego is so great that she would do that because she has to prove all of the time that she is superior.

Highly implausible as to the facts, but plausible in demonstrating what sort of person she is...

**Posted by Be** February 28, 2014 10:53 am

We might talk about what this means for us and our deductions. Should we stop deducing or imagining a story line? On the one hand we start to investigate and read all kinds of science stuff (gun shot wound and anatomy) because think we might find a clue or explane what we see to make sense of it. And on the other hand we get (or we think we get) a lot of very improbable scenarios which don't make sense.
I actually started wondering whether the coin shot was a fake. A magic trick with a manipulated coin for example.

Either we go for the "this has to make sense" or we go for the "this is all weird and just fiction".
Where can we draw the line?

**Posted by SusiGo** February 28, 2014 11:02 am

Yes, Be, I think we have to decide if we want to take the things we see at face value and try to interpret them accordingly (and do research in science, etc.) or if we treat almost everything as pure imagination or possibility. I honestly do not know where the latter approach would lead. If everything we see could be a fake there is no real use in discussing anything, is there?
Personally I would have no fun with a show in which everything was just a magic trick (apart from the fact that of course the whole show is make believe but this is not what we are talking about).

(Which reminds me of Cabin Pressure: You find Arthur in philosophic mood. )

**Posted by Be** February 28, 2014 11:22 am

I really like to look at it from a philosophical point of view or from a view of the writer while I also stand with one foot into the fairy tale.
We were told that there were clues to solve it. So when we believe that it is perfectly all right to research and imagine something we have to stop when things get too complicated or the "ordinary" viewer would quit. For example we don't need to research how to build a giant bomb.

What I am trying to say is that it is difficult to draw the line between reality and fiction in Sherlock. We see this in our own posts when members argue about their theories and suddenly start to say "but it's all fiction".

**Posted by Willow** February 28, 2014 11:27 am

SusiGo wrote:
Yes, Be, I think we have to decide if we want to take the things we see at face value and try to interpret them accordingly (and do research in science, etc.) or if we treat almost everything as pure imagination or possibility. I honestly do not know where the latter approach would lead. If everything we see could be a fake there is no real use in discussing anything, is there?
Personally I would have no fun with a show in which everything was just a magic trick (apart from the fact that of course the whole show is make believe but this is not what we are talking about).

(Which reminds me of Cabin Pressure: You find Arthur in philosophic mood. )

I agree that a show in which everything is just a magic trick wouldn't be fun for me, and I like the odd pathways our research takes us. For example, I now know that Baragwanath is the largest acute hospital in the world and that 50% of their patients have stab or gunshot wounds; I would never have found that out if I wasn't tracking down gunshots to the chest, and pondering why someone would ignore a large case series in favour of one half its size.