captain-liddy:John went into his relationship with Sherlock knowing it was going to be “the...

captain-liddy:

John went into his relationship with Sherlock knowing it was going to be “the battlefield.” He expected wild adventures, and Sherlock never hid the fact that an association with him could be dangerous. “Could be dangerous” is like the 5th thing Sherlock ever even said to John. And John came running! This is what John wants and has always wanted from his relationship with Sherlock. He and Sherlock face danger together and it makes them feel stimulated and brave and useful and connected to each other. They’re a team. They do these things together, and they want to do them together.

Now Mary also introduces turmoil into John’s life, but it isn’t the two of them facing down evildoers together and battling for justice as a united front. Mary hid the fact that she is herself an evildoer and that an association with her puts John in material danger. John himself says, “she wasn’t supposed to be like that.” John wasn’t looking for wild adventure from Mary and what’s more, John really doesn’t want to be married to an assassin. Mary knows that, so she lied to him about who she really is. She constructed a wholly false persona because she knew John wouldn’t give the time of day to her real self.

Now even before Mary revealed herself as an assassin, she still wasn’t completely aligned with John. Even apart from the lies, she was constantly needling him, undermining him, and embarrassing him. She made it clear that she doesn’t respect him. She does not say one single nice thing to or about John in all her screen time. Not when John is proposing to her. Not when John’s best friend has just come back from the dead and insulted his mustache. Not when John has been pulled out of a fire. Not at her wedding to John. Not when Sherlock is trying to tell John to trust her. Not when John offers her a reconciliation. Mary doesn’t care about John. Mary doesn’t think well of John. Mary doesn’t want John on her team. She only wants the protection John and Sherlock will provide her with, so she manipulates them in order to keep it.

Compare that with the way Sherlock treats John. He holds John’s opinion in high esteem immediately. Remember in the first episode how he brings John along to a crime scene and presses him for his true opinion? He wants very much to live with John, but all he’s expecting from John is companionship. John’s companionship is enough for Sherlock, and he’s pleasantly surprised when John “can actually do stuff!” And not only does he happily and openly lavish John with praise, he organizes his life around pleasing John, expecting nothing in return but the heartbreak of watching his beloved marry another person.

Sherlock is for John. Sherlock is on John’s team. John can cheerfully deal with the danger that he and Sherlock encounter together, because they do it as a partnership. Mary refuses to have John as her partner. The danger he meets with through her is because she is using him as a shield.

YES, exactly!!!! Now can we PLEASE kill any and all arguments that Mary has ever, in any way, cared about John’s well-being once and for all??