BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Mary – the subject of discussion

**Posted by Schmiezi** February 1, 2015 7:15 pm

Swanpride wrote:
And the deduction scene is a memory. It is a flashback to exactly the same scene from TEH, Mary doesn't look any different because the only thing which changes are the words around her.

The expression on her face is also different, and I think that the lightning is different. As I remember it, Memory-Mary's face is lit in a harsher way. But I need to check that with pics from the episodes.

**Posted by Lola Red** February 1, 2015 7:26 pm

SusiGo wrote:
I hope it is alright if I post my ideas about the symbolic use of Mary's costumes right here. As I said, it is a slightly different way of looking at what happens in the show.

Of course it is alright to post this here; this is the exact purpose of the thread: to post anything related to Mary without constraints of the “source material” (as long as it is made clear where a given interpretation stars off on). In fact, I have been waiting all day. So thank you for sharing your thoughts.

SusiGo wrote:
Stylistic choices - Mary's costumes

In HLV we see Mary twice in Sherlock's mind palace. I would like to take a closer look at the way she is visually presented in this episode:

1. I wonder why we do not speak more about the way Mary appears in Sherlock's mind palace after he has been shot. Can we please for a moment talk about a bride shooting her husband's best friend in the chest? I mean, they are laying on the symbolism really thick here. Why does Sherlock not see her in her black combat dress, just the way she was when she shot him? This would have been logical.
But no, his mind blends Mary the bride and Mary the assassin.
Why? My answer would be because he has been hurt long before she shot him. He has been hurt by the marriage even if it was not Mary's fault.
This explains why Moriarty does not just mention "pain" and "death" (caused by the shot wound) but also "heartbreak" and "loss" (explaining those with the loss of his childhood dog seems a bit farfetched to me). Therefore these terms cannot be explained by the current situation but by something that happened earlier, i.e. the wedding. IMO this explains why Mary the bride and Mary the assassin visually merge into the person we see in Sherlock's mind.

2. Sherlock's deduction in hospital. After Janine has left, Sherlock retreats into his mind palace. We see Mary standing in the hallway from ASiP (I think, correct me if I am wrong), again not wearing the clothes she wore when shooting him but the dress in which he saw her for the first time. The dress she wore as the lovely fiancee who promised to talk John around, to help Sherlock to restore their friendship, who showed compassion and understanding.
But this again is just a facade because in this scene she does not appear lovely and helpful, she is standing there motionless, a calculating look in her face. And now Sherlock finally accepts what he saw from the beginning but probably chose to ignore - that she is a liar.

We should always remember that this is the way Sherlock sees her, the way he thinks about her. He visually associates "good" Mary from TEH and TSOT with the woman that has been revealed as a former assassin who nearly killed him. This IMO confirms that Sherlock regards everything Mary was before the shooting as a facade (which also corresponds with his remark about the projection in Leinster Gardens).

I agree with everything you say. I feel Sherlock was indeed terrified by the upcoming wedding: obsessive serviette folding, making seating order arrangements, not sleeping the night before. I think Mary was right in analyses of his behaviour: he was terrified the wedding would destroy the balance the three of them had established. And when he deduced her pregnancy, I think his fear became reality. The balance was destroyed and I think he felt he would now loose his place in the life of those two people he loved. The one-month silence that followed must have confirmed that feeling, though we don’t know how initiated that silence. It might have been Sherlock distancing himself from them to prevent himself from hurting even more.
I think the fact that he does see Mary in her wedding dress and in the dress he first met her in shows just how hard it is for him to see her as a cold-blooded killer. He had truly and utterly trusted her and I think it must have been very traumatic for him to have that trust shattered. For once he had not trusted his mind (“Liar”), but the person in front of him and the outcome was devastating. He has to work hard to be able to trust people and it must hurt to be wrong about someone. His “Mary?” just after the shot pretty much broke my heart. I think that might be part of the reason why he is insisting so much on John to trust her again, he believes her, but he also just wants to trust her again, he does not want to be wrong about her.

SusiGo wrote:
And one last point - her red coat in the tarmac scene. For me it is highly incongruous, a visual slap in the face. It is a sad and somber scene which is emphasised by the dark clothes worn by the other characters. IMO Mary is presented as an outsider here and this fact is underlined by the very conspicuous colour of her coat.

I absolutely agree, Mary stands out in a way that almost painful to my eyes. A truly “alarming shade” of red. And I could not be more curious of what is going to happen next.

**Posted by SusiGo** February 1, 2015 7:30 pm

Thank you for your comments, Lola. Interesting to see how there are several explanations of the same fact, with or without Johnlock involved, but both still take into account how deeply shocked Sherlock is at Mary's betrayal of trust.

Swanpride: Please have a look at the hospital mind palace scene. Mary's whole posture, face, and stare are completely different from anything we see in the scene from TEH. For example the curious way she is holding her hands in nothing we ever get to see in TEH.

**Posted by Lola Red** February 1, 2015 7:33 pm

tonnaree wrote:
Lola Red wrote:
tonnaree wrote:
Once again, the main reason Mary is such a divisive character is because so much of her is left blank.
You are very right, but when has the absence of an abundance of fact ever stopped us from having these delicious discussions?

Oh, I'm not complaigning!

Says the girl who spent 3 years in the 80's debatting passionately wether or not Darth Vader was REALLY Luke's father. *giggle*

Haha, brilliant! And three years well spent

**Posted by Harriet** February 1, 2015 7:35 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Why? My answer would be because he has been hurt long before she shot him. He has been hurt by the marriage even if it was not Mary's fault.

See also his words "Sorry, did I say ‘murder’? I meant to say ‘marriage’ – but, you know, they’re quite similar procedures when you think about it."

**Posted by SusiGo** February 1, 2015 7:37 pm

Very good point. Wow, I never thought of it like that.

**Posted by Schmiezi** February 1, 2015 8:58 pm

Swanpride wrote:
He also says that he compliments John for his good taste in marrying Mary and that she deserves John. (but then the whole wedding is staged like a three person unity until the point when Sherlock walks out).

Actually, during the best man's speech it is staged like a two person unity. Mary is almost always covered by Sherlock or John, partly or completely, or simply out of sight. You can see Sherlock and John (in matching suits), but not Mary. Judging from what I learned at "Film Analysis 101" at University, shooting it that way required a lot more work for the camera crew than shooting it with Mary to be seen.

I wonder why.

Last edited by Schmiezi (February 1, 2015 8:59 pm)

**Posted by Lola Red** February 1, 2015 9:48 pm

Zatoichi wrote:
(Edit: I don´t think Sherlock has a character that would enable him to work as an assassin.. from S1 and 2 and also from some ealier interviews with Steven Moffat I got the impression that Sherlock just wears the mask of the unaffected sociopath, but is really very emotional and caring about right and wrong. His morality might be a bit different from normal people, but that he´s a psychopath who will cross the line someday is a misunderstanding by Sgt. Donovan, who thinks him capable of all kinds of things because of his rude and sometimes dismissive behaviour. The later interviews sound different and Sherlock´s cruelty is emphasized.. if your assessment is correct and Sherlock would indeed be able to kill for money just as Mary did and has to decide on a day-to-day basis whether to be on the side of angels or not, and John secretly roots for that while displaying an upright facade and occasional outrage about their behaviour.. well. A bit not good, I´d say.)

Sorry, I just saw your edit now.

Before I say anything, I just want to make clear that all I write now is purely speculation, I don’t have any evidence whatsoever, it’s just my own personal feeling, so if you cannot relate, that’s fine.

I think there is a very, very dark side to Sherlock. I think the same is true for Mycroft btw. I think both have decided to take the side of the angles, but it was a conscious decision, not something that necessarily came natural to them. I do not think there is anything really wrong with the Holmes brother’s psychologically; they are just both extremely intelligent and were apparently poorly socialised as kids. Outwardly Mycroft has recovered better from this, but it is actually Sherlock in all his rudeness who is willing to engage in relationships with other people, while Mycroft dismisses them as “goldfish”. Sherlock already has Molly, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson in his life when he meets John and all three of them adore him, each in their own way. I believe that both brothers are deeply emotional and caring, Mycroft is just better than Sherlock in hiding it. Sherlock is actually the most emotional character on the show; it just tends to come out at odd times. And while Donovan’s prediction actually became true that “they would stand around a body” and Sherlock was “the one who put it there”, I do not think Sherlock would have ever become an assassin. I think he could have been a second Moriarty, more planning and scheming than shooting and stabbing. I might have exaggerated when I said that Sherlock has to decide “every single day of his life” if he still wants to be on the side of the angles or not, but I think it was a decision indeed and he could still reverse it if he chooses to. Something about his shooting of Magnussen to me just seems so much darker than John’s shooting of the cabbie, though I cannot really put my finger on it. Also the way he dealt with Irene, even though he saved her in the end, just seems incredibly dark to me. I think Sherlock could have been a criminal mastermind, but at some point in his life has decided not to go into that direction but take the side of the angles instead (and the same it true for Mycroft). And I actually believe that it is that danger and darkness in him that attracted John. And that is indeed a bit not good. But I will not now nor ever claim that my assessment is “correct”, it just makes sense to me at the present time.

**Posted by Lola Red** February 1, 2015 10:00 pm

Schmiezi wrote:
Swanpride wrote:
He also says that he compliments John for his good taste in marrying Mary and that she deserves John. (but then the whole wedding is staged like a three person unity until the point when Sherlock walks out).
Actually, during the best man's speech it is staged like a two person unity. Mary is almost always covered by Sherlock or John, partly or completely, or simply out of sight. You can see Sherlock and John (in matching suits), but not Mary. Judging from what I learned at "Film Analysis 101" at University, shooting it that way required a lot more work for the camera crew than shooting it with Mary to be seen.

I wonder why.

Swanpride wrote:
Depends on the angle you go for. It is always easier to have two people in the picture when you film from the front and want to go as close as possible than three. From the side, yeah, there it is more difficult to keep the "background" character out of the shot. But in this case, I think the point is to underline that the speech is a love letter from Sherlock to John, therefore Mary is only in the shot when she is the topic, too.

When I saw the episode and the way it was filmed it appeared to me to be mainly the story of John & Sherlock (and Mary), as opposed to the story of John & Mary (and Sherlock) or the story of Sherlock, John & Mary. I feel like the shooting angles were chosen in a way to confer that feeling. So to me it did not seem to be filmed so much like a three person unity, but like a 2 + 1 person unity most of the time.

**Posted by SusiGo** February 1, 2015 10:02 pm

I had the feeling that they went to great lengths to get all those shots with Sherlock and John in the centre. In this show there is no coincidence where artistic decisions are concerned.

**Posted by Lola Red** February 1, 2015 10:07 pm

Swanpride wrote:
I agree that Sherlock wouldn't make a good assassin, and that he is actually very caring. But he is also able to detach himself from his caring side and put logic above everything else. So while Sherlock isn't the type who would pick assassination as his favourite solution, he would do it if he considered it the logical solution. I can certainly see him killing of key figures in Moriarty's network. And his decision who should live and who should live would be mostly dictated by his emotions, while Mycroft and even Mary would always see the bigger picture.

I agree that Mycroft is very logic driven and usually can see the bigger picture, but Mary, when we meet her on the show, seems to be driven by emotion. It is sentiment that gets in her way, not logic.

**Posted by lil** February 1, 2015 11:08 pm

I really like the Duality of Mary and most things people have mentioned especially Susie...and that her dark side is very dark.
It works very well with the sinister way they filmed her in the mind palace...I really like the head tilt they gave her..reminding us of Moriarty@what Andrew said about that and that Sherlock says 'into battle' reminding us of Irene also ..Sherlocks two greatest adversaries so far....interesting choices all round.
@Zatochi the career choice of agent turned asassin for hire is very telling....what kind of person goes there?
When Mary is bad...she is very very bad..oh she's wicked... .I like her that way a lot and it makes more sense @ the coincidences.

What I don't like is the way they try to soften or pretty that up post shooting....with the rubbishy excuses...I can only think that is done for John...because as lolaR says... Sherlock and John all have grey to white ish sides...but Mary is grey to black...and while that may be all fine with Sherlock...It wouldn't be with John.
Mary and her true persona....are and would be unacceptable to John...thus they bury it and burn the memory stick...neither of them will allow John to be broken.

Maybe in SO4 , John will have to face what he burnt in S03.
However it's likely the long hiatus has led to an over - analysis of Mary.....the writers maybe didn't consider....they prob felt free to have fun...because the canon is so empty and she is so temporary..

Last edited by lil (February 1, 2015 11:10 pm)

**Posted by lil** February 2, 2015 12:07 am

I don't understand the Mary is really a good person..that messed up because of sentiment pov. Whats wrong with Mary as a highly skilled and trained agent / woman..capable of making the hard decisions to protect her new life with John and the baby. ?

Turning her into the sympathetic desperate woman...makes her weak and undermines her decisions....shooting Sherlock and expecting him to survive and then stay silent@John...makes her stupid.....the better argument is Sherlock messed up her op...without his interference there wouldn't have been a problem...because Mary had it sorted!

.

**Posted by Lola Red** February 2, 2015 12:54 am

lil wrote:
I don't understand the Mary is really a good person..that messed up because of sentiment pov. Whats wrong with Mary as a highly skilled and trained agent / woman..capable of making the hard decisions to protect her new life with John and the baby. ?

Turning her into the sympathetic desperate woman...makes her weak and undermines her decisions....shooting Sherlock and expecting him to survive and then stay silent@John...makes her stupid.....the better argument is Sherlock messed up her op...without his interference there wouldn't have been a problem...because Mary had it sorted!

.

I don’t quite understand what you are trying to say. I’m not a native speaker and your way of using language is a bit confusing to me sometimes, so I hope I’m not totally misinterpreting the point you are trying to make.
Do you mean you don’t understand why some people see Mary as a “good person”? I assume you mean good as in mostly white, not grey or black, what I affectionately call “Mary Lovers“(is there an official name for them?). In that case maybe you can address someone who feels that way and ask him or her to lay down his or her reasoning in detail. Be gentle with them tough, I fear the heated discussions in the past have made some of them quite wary about posting about their view of the character outside of the “Why we love Mary!” thread. I hope that if we keep the discussion as civilized and constructive as we seem to do at the moment we might get to hear more of their view about certain aspects over here, too.
Do you mean you don’t understand why for example I myself think that sentiment let to her failing to make a kill shot? I have laid down my reasoning in the second post (http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=208659#p208659) and have quite thoroughly discussed it with different people throughout this thread. If you can’t get behind a specific point you can always ask me or however made the point about it. For my part, I’m very willing to go into more detail or rectify where necessary. I do not demand that anyone agrees with me btw
Or do you mean you interpret the writing as having changed Mary from someone how used to be “a highly skilled and trained agent” to someone prone to sentiment? In that case I cannot give you a satisfying answer, I do not write on the show. Maybe they hoped to make her more “relatable”.

**Posted by lil** February 2, 2015 1:36 am

I like bad Mary. (BAMF) Problem?
I don't like good Mary. ( stupid )

Interesting@languages...not native either but first time call on it.

Last edited by lil (February 2, 2015 2:01 am)

**Posted by Liberty** February 2, 2015 7:12 am

Swanpride wrote:
@LolaRed Yeah, but I get the impression that in this case, her feelings for John and her desire to sheed her old self once and for all got in the way. I mean she immediatly sees the problem when Sherlock turns up...which is not Sherlock's presence, but that John might be with him. But when she knows that he is, she is cornered and running out of options.

Yes, it's interesting. She's cornered but in control still. She had to know if John was there - what would she have done if John wasn't there? I suspect that she maybe would have talked to Sherlock then - difficult in front of Magnussen - but I presume that was why she asked. If John hadn't been there, she wouldn't have "needed" to shoot Sherlock (unless he didn't play along, and then she'd have had to do something). Sherlock does say that she shot him to buy time to negotiate with him. It was a matter of time, time she didn't have because John could have walked in at any minute.

**Posted by Zatoichi** February 2, 2015 7:33 am

Lola Red wrote:
Before I say anything, I just want to make clear that all I write now is purely speculation, I don’t have any evidence whatsoever, it’s just my own personal feeling, so if you cannot relate, that’s fine.

I think there is a very, very dark side to Sherlock. I think the same is true for Mycroft btw. I think both have decided to take the side of the angles, but it was a conscious decision, not something that necessarily came natural to them. I do not think there is anything really wrong with the Holmes brother’s psychologically; they are just both extremely intelligent and were apparently poorly socialised as kids. Outwardly Mycroft has recovered better from this, but it is actually Sherlock in all his rudeness who is willing to engage in relationships with other people, while Mycroft dismisses them as “goldfish”. Sherlock already has Molly, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson in his life when he meets John and all three of them adore him, each in their own way. I believe that both brothers are deeply emotional and caring, Mycroft is just better than Sherlock in hiding it. Sherlock is actually the most emotional character on the show; it just tends to come out at odd times. And while Donovan’s prediction actually became true that “they would stand around a body” and Sherlock was “the one who put it there”, I do not think Sherlock would have ever become an assassin. I think he could have been a second Moriarty, more planning and scheming than shooting and stabbing. I might have exaggerated when I said that Sherlock has to decide “every single day of his life” if he still wants to be on the side of the angles or not, but I think it was a decision indeed and he could still reverse it if he chooses to. Something about his shooting of Magnussen to me just seems so much darker than John’s shooting of the cabbie, though I cannot really put my finger on it. Also the way he dealt with Irene, even though he saved her in the end, just seems incredibly dark to me. I think Sherlock could have been a criminal mastermind, but at some point in his life has decided not to go into that direction but take the side of the angles instead (and the same it true for Mycroft). And I actually believe that it is that danger and darkness in him that attracted John. And that is indeed a bit not good. But I will not now nor ever claim that my assessment is “correct”, it just makes sense to me at the present time.

Good morning, and thank you for taking the time to lay down your thoughts about Sherlock (and his possible similarities with Mary.. it´s not OT ;P)! Discussing like that is really a pleasure and enriching experience!

I guess 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 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. 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.

**Posted by Zatoichi** February 2, 2015 7:37 am

Liberty wrote:
Swanpride wrote:
@LolaRed Yeah, but I get the impression that in this case, her feelings for John and her desire to shed her old self once and for all got in the way. I mean she immediatly sees the problem when Sherlock turns up...which is not Sherlock's presence, but that John might be with him. But when she knows that he is, she is cornered and running out of options.
Yes, it's interesting. She's cornered but in control still. She had to know if John was there - what would she have done if John wasn't there? I suspect that she maybe would have talked to Sherlock then - difficult in front of Magnussen - but I presume that was why she asked. If John hadn't been there, she wouldn't have "needed" to shoot Sherlock (unless he didn't play along, and then she'd have had to do something). Sherlock does say that she shot him to buy time to negotiate with him. It was a matter of time, time she didn't have because John could have walked in at any minute.

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..

**Posted by Zatoichi** February 2, 2015 7:46 am

Swanpride wrote:
Well, a long speech to someone under drugs would be pretty pointless. And later on Sherlock is the one who sets the rules, and she knows it. Plus, "don't tell John" is pretty much exactly what she wants from Sherlock.

It is, but she could have just said that in the building, that´d have spared him a lot of pointless suffering.

Last edited by Zatoichi (February 2, 2015 7:55 am)

**Posted by Lola Red** February 2, 2015 7:55 am

lil wrote:
I like bad Mary. (BAMF) Problem?

No, no problem at all. I just failed to include that possibility in my answer.

lil wrote:
I don't like good Mary. ( stupid )

I might have gone for a more diplomatic choice of words myself, but ok. Point made.

lil wrote:
Interesting@languages...not native either but first time call on it.

I hope I did not cause offence, I was just trying to explain why I might fail to address the point you are trying to make in my response.