So, a question about Mary inspired by your recent post. I know you hate her (I think she is horrible too), but is she a character that you love to hate? Do you think she is an interesting character? Does she fit a role she is written to play? There are

Interesting question. I would have to say no, though. For me, what makes me appreciate a character in any respect is a combination of things, such as how interesting I find them, whether or not their motivations feel clear and well-founded, consistency, continuity in writing/characterization. Sometimes other factors, like how sympathetic I find them, or how likeable or admirable I find them in spite of agreeing wholeheartedly that the character is a terrible person from every moral standpoint. Some of these things are more subjective than others. From where I’m standing, the BBC version of Mary Morstan is severely lacking in a lot of these areas, but most sorely in having well-founded motivations and consistency/continuity. I don’t find her to be a well-written character, at all. Let me break this down a bit.

1. Do I find the character likeable in spite of moral flaws (and is this important)? No, to both. There are definitely villains that I do find likeable in spite of obvious moral failings. The obvious comparison in the BBC Sherlock world would be Moriarty. He’s obvious a terrible human being - a literal terrorist - but he’s so damned charming about it that you almost can’t help but root for him, in a way. Loki in the MCU universe is rather like that. Other villains, like Benedict’s Khan, are sympathetic not because they’re charming, but they’re intelligent and have genuinely understandable motivations (the safeguarding of his crew, for instance). Does a villain have to be likeable to be a well-written villain? Absolutely not. To use two other examples in the BBC Sherlock universe, I would cite both Magnussen and Culverton Smith. Horrible men. Good consistency of writing. Not charming or sympathetic in any way, but solidly written characters. Do I love them/love to hate them? No. I just dislike them, full stop. 

2. Do I find her motivations well-founded or sympathetic? No, neither. Mary is a character who, canonically (aka this bit is not subjective to my personal opinion): 

lied about her name, background, personal history, all of it, to the man she claims to love, never apologized for it or demonstrated any manner of remorseis canonically someone who kills people and destabilizes governments (at the very least) for personal gain, never faced any consequences in terms of criminal justice or retribution for these crimes or indicated any manner of remorse for them attacked her own maid of honour - a person whom she befriended for the sole reason of gaining access to her boss’s office - and left her bleeding on the floor, never demonstrated any manner of remorse for this, eitherher motivations are weirdly unfounded. The best example of this is her choice to shoot Sherlock rather than Magnussen that night. Her initial motivation was to ensure Magnussen’s silence so that John wouldn’t find out who she really was/so that she wouldn’t be forced to face justice for her criminal history. Shooting Sherlock did nothing to ensure Magnussen’s silence. If she intended Sherlock to die, it would have ensured HIS silence, but not Magnussen’s. If she didn’t intend Sherlock to die, then I’m not sure what it accomplished, since the very first thing he did once he was physically able was to tell John - exactly what she didn’t want. And it still did nothing to ensure Magnussen’s silence. She just left that wide open and instead made the extremely overboard choice to shoot the best man at her own wedding (not hugely worse than attacking the maid of honour, but still). She could have tried appealing for his help, using compassion for John as a persuading factor. She could have tried threatening HIM at gunpoint to guarantee his ongoing silence. Instead she went straight for the heart, quite literally. Unfounded and ineffective - a really irritating combination! 

3. Do I find the character consistently written with solid continuity? NO. This is probably my biggest beef with the character. The worst, I find, is being sold a crock of horseshit about Mary having had some sort of redemption “arc”. An arc, by definition, is a shape that has a beginning, a peak, and an end. There was no lead-up to this “peak” moment of Mary suddenly discovering remorse for having shot Sherlock - that, and nothing else. There was nothing in the writing or in her characterization to support such an out-of-left-field move. There was no gradual shift in her motivations, which were consistently to that point nothing more than self-preservation, protecting her own interests: keep John in the dark so that he couldn’t make an informed decision for himself, tell any lie to keep what she wants (John, albeit an ignorant version of him), run away/protect herself. She deserted her AGRA teammates, leaving literally half of them behind to suffer torture and/or death without even confirming that they were beyond rescue, then repeated her pattern, attacking Sherlock (AGAIN) and running off to leave John and her own child behind. Her lack of remorse for any of this was consistent as well - she clearly felt wholly justified in all of these actions, that she had nothing to apologize for. That JOHN was the one in the wrong by not speaking to her for “months of silence” after she shot his best friend in the heart, that she had every right to dictate what John could or could not do, that he had no right to have a say in naming their child, that she somehow “had” to shoot Sherlock, that John and Sherlock were so much less intelligent than she was that she couldn’t have them “hanging off her gun arm” - when in fact, it was John who outsmarted her by planting the tracking device in the USB key that he already knew she would attack Sherlock over and steal. 

4. Do I find the character admirable, if not likeable? No. Mary is a coward, interested in nothing beyond what she wants. She has no noble, greater motivations than personal gain. She doesn’t care about what consequences her actions have, least of all on the man she supposedly “loves”, or on her own infant that she left behind. She commits crimes for money, not out of some need to defend the innocent, patriotic reasons (which I personally don’t subscribe to anyway, but others do), self-defense, even - just money. I find that so completely gross. Money =/= an admirable motivation, especially not when it’s gained through literal murder. I admire honesty, courage, self-sacrifice, real love, which puts the needs and wants and health of the beloved above one’s own. Mary demonstrates absolutely none of these things. She wants for herself and no one else, and I have never once swallowed this notion that she’s somehow smarter than Sherlock, Mycroft, and John combined. Not only did John himself outwit her with ease, but it felt like transparent pandering to Amanda Abbington as recompense for them writing her out of the show. And then they doubled down on it with creating some ghost version of Mary that John needs some SERIOUS therapy to deal with that actually bore no resemblance to Mary as she actually was, then gave her that gross voiceover that reasonlessly granted her credit for having created one of the greatest friendships in English literary history. That, at least, is consistent with the writers having had Mary set herself up as the broker of John and Sherlock’s friendship in TEH, which I also never bought. They didn’t need her help; John just needed time to cool down and come to understand - he couldn’t even last 24 hours without going to find Sherlock of his own accord. They didn’t need her “help” and she certainly didn’t “create” them. 

So yeah, no: I hate the character, hate the inconsistency even more, wish they had followed through with the solid villain arc they actually wrote. I don’t think that Mary is “strong” or “interesting” just because she uses violence for personal gain. I don’t think she’s a good role model or an interesting character - I just see selfishness, greed, and cowardice.