"Oh, are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas!"

“Oh, are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas!”

-

Mary Morstan, His Last Vow

I think that if I had to choose one line in series 3 that makes me loathe Mary Morstan above all others, it would be this one. Consider this: that Mary is so much of a self-absorbed narcissist that she not only doesn’t apologise to John - for anything - but in fact doesn’t appear to even consider it as an option or consider the notion that she might have to attempt to make some amends on her part for any of the things she’s done up to this point. And further to that, she’s actually angry with John for having left her after she very nearly killed his best friend. The best friend that he was still mourning, whose grave he was still visiting regularly when she met him. Whose death was the primary factor that drove him into her arms in the first place, so broken was he by that loss.

It has never even crossed Mary’s mind to think that John has a right to be angry with her. She has lied to him about everything from her name on forward and expected him to swallow it whole. She has a history that most people with a conscience or a soul would cringe at and doesn’t feel any need to explain or excuse it (as though that would be possible) - she never says, “look, so I kill people for outrageous sums of money. I realise that may be hard for you to accept, but if you’re willing to hear it, I’ll tell you the whole story of how a girl from (fill in the unfilled blank) becomes a cold-blooded killer and you might just understand by the end where I’m coming from. I don’t expect you to, but I want you to know me as I really am”. She just slaps down a memory stick with a teary, defiant “WELL, YOU’LL NEVER LOVE ME NOW, KNOWING THE TRUTH”, passive-aggressive bit of bullshit.

And on top of that, it doesn’t occur to her to try speaking nicely to a man who has maintained, in her own words, “months of silence”, whom she presumably wants to have take her back. Mary is so certain that her position is solid, her actions unquestionable, that she has the right to snark at John for having had the temerity to be angry!! This is actually what a psychopath and narcissist looks like: there is no right or wrong; there is only what she wants. She wants John and she therefore doesn’t care what he wants, what he feels, or about the legality or morality of anything she has done or their impacts on this man she supposedly “loves”. She doesn’t care what he thinks or feels about the fact that she shot Sherlock in the heart. She doesn’t care what it would have meant to him to lose Sherlock all over again, as he came within a hair’s breadth of doing. She only cares about what she wants. It’s literally the only thing that registers for her at all. 

A smarter, more externally aware person would try apologising, would try making amends and meeting the other person halfway - as though John has even done anything wrong here!! Anyone else would at least try for a kinder tone of voice. But no: Mary takes John’s forgiveness, if he did forgive her, as her due - and long overdue at that! She takes it with defiance, with snippy, pissy tones of voice and an attitude of having suffered unjustly, as though she never pulled any triggers, and even if she did, it wasn’t anything to apologise for. And even after he does, she doesn’t react with any particular relief, despite her tears - at least not enough to even jokingly agree to let him name their child. There is no gratitude, only expectation, only demand. 

It’s the same thing when Sherlock essentially martyrs himself for John’s sake in saving Mary from Magnussen’s threat of blackmail. She stands by and calmly lets him take his punishment - death within six months in Serbia - and the thought of thanking him for what he did for her (for John, really) never even crosses her mind. She doesn’t even send him off with wishes for his safety and speedy return. Oh no - what she does is remind him that she’ll be the one there with John, keeping him “in trouble”, which is about as subtle as her “but it’s my wedding day!” line in The Sign of Three. Sherlock gives up his entire life for them (John) and Mary blithely accepts his sacrifice as something that was owed to her and doesn’t merit so much as a thank you. 

Ugh. UGH.  

(via silentauroriamthereal)

Reblogging this from myself to celebrate this post reaching 1,000 notes. :)