How Mary Feels About Sherlock

sherlockian-1881:

mild-lunacy:

wellthengameover:

(People have strong feelings about Mary so I’m disclaiming now: this isn’t “pro-Mary” or “anti-Sherlock;” I’m just thinking from Mary’s POV. I totally think she’s Moran, meant to kill Sherlock, will die, was a meanie from the beginning of TEH, etc., but I also think she’s a great villain and thus interesting. after John. Interesting doesn’t mean she’s a good person.)

There are some elements of Sherlock’s personality Mary despises (which I’ll get into later), but I believe she has some mild - if very condescending - fondness for Sherlock, at least until the Watsons Have A Domestic. (After that, she finds him a much more direct threat to her keeping John, and is so done with him - he’s now “the enemy.”) I completely think Mary spent the entirety of TEH and TSoT manipulating both Sherlock and John and putting them down very cleverly, but you’ve got to think of this like Mary: being fond of someone and deliberately hurting them for your own gain are not opposing forces in her mind. Regina George was mildly fond of Cady Heron in Mean Girls, too; that doesn’t mean she didn’t get off on putting her down.

I started thinking about this because of Mary’s words right after she shoots Sherlock:

This line just seems odd because if she really was sorry, she’d apologize again later - which she doesn’t - and if she’s not sorry, then why bother to apologize now? I thought for a while that maybe she was banking her options: she means to kill Sherlock but in case he doesn’t die, she’s setting up for later, but then she doesn’t apologize later, so that doesn’t make sense. But then I figured it out. She does mean she’s sorry, just not in the way you or I would mean it. She doesn’t mean “sorry,” precisely, more like “it’s not personal.” Like, “Sorry, but it was necessary.” It’s the same kind of sorry you say when you cut someone off in heavy traffic. You’re sorry … but you’re really not because you did it because it was best for you. Mary needs to kill Sherlock, and she supposes she wishes Sherlock didn’t have to die - she doesn’t really care either way, but she didn’t set out to kill him when she came to CAM’s office - but he does have to die, so oh well.

Mary sometimes goes along with Sherlock - but only when he’s being emotionally unavailable to John. Think the waiter reveal in TEH. She was playing that to keep Sherlock from revealing any real feeling to John and thus keeping Sherlock and John apart with her as their mediator, but I also just think she finds it amusing when John is put down, so her amusement and exasperation in that scene is real. Sherlock is making John feel like crap, so Mary’s on board and pals with Sherlock. She puts John down often enough herself, and generally like she finds some vague, dark humor in it.

At first, she starts out with some mostly-appropriate - if meddling - comments, but by the time they get to the deli, Mary’s so done with this whole thing. This is right when John starts to get really angry again:

She’s clearly playing up Sherlock’s inappropriate comments, validating him, but I also think this is real. She thinks this whole thing is funny; she’s relaxed. Mary’s like “John … don’t try to pretend like you have any real authority over anything, sweetie. You’re a bumbling little sweater-wearer. It’s cute. Stick with what works for you.“ At first, in Sherlock, Mary sees someone who can put down John with her, at least temporarily, until he’s no longer useful. (She’ll always be in charge of that, of course.)

She’s totally playing Sherlock here by setting herself up as the mediator in John and Sherlock’s relationship, but I don’t think that necessarily excludes fondness. It’s just not what you or I would call fondness. Mary’s like “Ah, Sherlock. He’s so stupid. I’ll have fun with him for a while, as long as he doesn’t make any moves on John. Not like he’d succeed at that, though, so it’ll be cute. Maybe I’ll have someone to joke with about how stupid John is.” Which she does:

SHERLOCK: You’ve put on seven pounds since you got married, and the cycling isn’t doing it.
JOHN: It’s actually four pounds.
SHERLOCK: Mary and I think seven.

Mary can afford to be mildly fond of Sherlock because she’s not worried about Sherlock’s feelings for John. She’s “the best thing that’s ever happened to John,” after all, so while it’s cute that Sherlock has a crush on her husband, it doesn’t matter. Just like if a twelve year-old has a crush on your boyfriend: that’s funny that Sherlock thinks he has a chance. Mary reminds Sherlock every once in a while that she’s won, but it’s not like she was ever going to lose. 

Most people hurt people because they don’t like those people; Mary does it because she enjoys it. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t like them.

SHERLOCK: Both of you, now, go dance. We can’t just stand here. People will wonder what we’re talking about.
JOHN: Right.
(Mary reaches out to touch Sherlock’s arm, her voice tearful.)
MARY: And what about you?

Mary is still probably reminding Sherlock she got John and Sherlock didn’t, but it’s not the same tone as her reminder when John was talking to Sholto, which was pretty gleeful. Her reminder about the dancing isn’t so much. I think there’s some real emotion in that one. “Poor little Sherlock. He really didn’t realize this was always going to end like this.”

Mary recognizes - and kind of likes - that Sherlock is clever, but she only thinks of him as moderately clever. To be fair, she has some reasons for this: Sherlock hasn’t worked out that she’s an assassin, so she would definitely feel that she’s much cleverer than he is, and she can’t tell anyone.

This is such an interesting moment because Mary’s just exasperated with Sherlock. He breaks in on her assassination attempt and she’s just like “Sherlock, why are you such a pain?” It’s such a contrast because she’s got a gun pointed at him, so you think she’s just dead serious, and she is - we know this because she shoots him - but what she’s saying is pretty much “Sherlock, I’m going to count to three, and then you’d better go to your room.” Mary definitely does not think of Sherlock as a threat to her or worthy of her respect at this point. She’s like “Yes, Sherlock, I’m an assassin; it only took you nine months and a visual demonstration to figure it out. Excellent deduction.” This is such an important line because it irrevocably ties Mary’s patronizing and degrading treatment of John and Sherlock in TEH and TSoT to her villain persona: she’s not a different person now that she’s a villain; she was always a villain and it always showed in the way she treated John and Sherlock. She says this “Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step, I swear I will kill you” line exactly like she says “I’m not John; I can tell when you’re fibbing.” Mary treats both John and Sherlock like children, but Sherlock much more so. I think she really thinks of him that way, which can somewhat explain why she’s fond of him but still doesn’t respect him: he’s a kid; he doesn’t know any better.

I think it would be very grating for Mary, listening to someone else being praised when she knows she’s so much better. We know for a fact she’s getting sick of it by the beginning of HLV:

Being an assassin would probably give you very good reason to feel like you were more competent than pretty much anyone, yet people treat Sherlock like he’s the competent one, not her. So she sort of likes the small amount of cleverness that she feels Sherlock possesses; she just doesn’t like that other people (John, but also the general world) like the cleverness.

There’s a nasty put-down here from almost ever conceivable angle. Mary reminds Sherlock that he’s okay, but he’s really nothing special. Here, he’s not being clever, so she’s got no use for him. Mary - not John - is the one who only likes Sherlock when he’s being a high-functioning sociopath. People have talked about how Mary is sort of John with the moral center removed: she’s a government-contracted killer, she’s a medical professional, etc. Moran was always going to be a foil for John in the way that Jim is a foil for Sherlock: the “bad” version of John.

Mary only likes the high-functioning sociopath, so she doesn’t like Real Sherlock. She despises Real Sherlock. All the things that the majority of the fandom adores about Sherlock - that he’s a sad soft small nerd penguin - Mary can’t stand. Sherlock’s delicate. He’s fragile. He cries. It’s repulsive to her. I think one of the things Mary actually really likes about John is his stoicism - she must know about it because she was around when he was grieving Sherlock - and she doesn’t feel like Sherlock has any. He’s so weak. It drives her crazy that other people seem to think Sherlock’s a mysterious emotionless badass - she thinks being an emotionless badass is a good thing, remember, because she is one: the Dark Fuck Princess of this show - and Sherlock gets the credit for it when Mary finds it so obvious that he’s really just pathetic. Sherlock makes her want to hurt him and hurt him and hurt him until he learns to stop crying. Mary feels justified in hurting Sherlock because it’s his own fault for being so vulnerable.

I know everyone wants to be like “Mary loathed Sherlock 100% the whole time and came to CAM’s office to shoot him,” but I actually think her having any sort of affection for him - however condescending and horrible - actually makes her worse. If she didn’t have any sort of twisted fondness for him, there’s literally no reason for her to say “I’m sorry, Sherlock; truly am” after she kills him. This is the way she treats people she vaguely likes. That makes her a) much more interesting and b) much crueler. Basically, it has to do with the fact that Mary is a psychopath and therefore able to compartmentalize her feelings towards people so well.

Of course, all this changes when Sherlock finds Mary in CAM’s office. At that point, Sherlock becomes dangerous to her, where he never was before - because, in Mary’s mind, he’s too stupid to ever figure it out. So he’s now a threat to be disposed of ASAP. I believe she’s going to try to kill Sherlock again in 4x3 because she believes the only way for her to stay alive, out of prison, and keep John is to kill both Sherlock and Jim.

My favorite point to underline here is that Mary likes John’s stoicism while she has contempt for Sherlock’s vulnerability. That’s such a great insight, and I really think this is exactly the part of the character arc that has to become clearer in Series 4. It’s interesting because the way it seems to me they’ll really defeat Mary on the abstract level, as an emotional threat and Romantic False Lead is with John showing his actual vulnerability and Sherlock demonstrating his cleverness and strength.

Check this out @silentauroriamthereal

Yes to almost all of this. This is more or less what I’ve been saying from the start. :P I’m so glad other people are getting on board with this!