Mary and Sherlock are ganging up on John
silentauroriamthereal:
One thing I absolutely hate about series 3, unreservedly: Mary and Sherlock ganging up on John. Not cool, Sherlock. Seriously not cool.
I'm a Sherlock-centric fan, meaning that 99.9% of the time I'll take his side if there are sides. The vast majority of the fandom are John-centric fans, I'd say (except of course for the Mary-centric fans, but that's a different kettle of piranhas), but in this one thing, I am 1000% on John's side.
I hated it in The Empty Hearse when Mary suddenly took Sherlock's side, first about John "overreacting" (which he wasn't, at all!), then about his moustache (admittedly horrible, nightmare-worthy, but come ON, the timing!), then about Sherlock himself. That revelation wasn't about Mary's opinions of Sherlock. Her view of him was completely irrelevant in that moment. This was about John and Sherlock, about their friendship, and John was clearly Not Good then. That was not the time to hang back with the new person on the scene while your lover/almost-fiancé goes storming off to hail a cab. That's the time to stand by him, let him rant and shout and rage and be there for him. Later, when he's calmer, that's the time to share your own opinion. I hated that. And I hated it when Sherlock makes John feel like he and Mary are talking about him behind his back - and about a humiliating thing like weight gain, too (note: that's not to say that I personally consider weight gain to be humiliating or that it should be, just that to JOHN it was, and that they both knew that). And of course, the Baker Street post-revelation discussion is the worst, with both of them gaslighting John. I would REALLY like to think that Sherlock was lying to John to keep him safe, because he didn't know what a cornered, desperate assassin might do if her husband walked about on her, which John was clearly on the verge of doing when Sherlock bulldozed him with "logical" reasons to stay (none of which Mary either supported or denied). If that was the case, though, then I wanted an explanation sooner rather than later. If there isn't one forthcoming, then I won't be happy with Sherlock about this at all, because what the fuck.
Anyway, moral of the story: loyalty is important. And John is such a beautifully, staunchly loyal person that to have these two outsmarting him and arranging his schedule and commenting on his weight gain and whatever else just makes me really angry.
ceywoozle:
Omg all the yes. This was a huuuuuuge problem for me in s3. I am a johncentric viewer (are there more of us? I always feel so outnumbered by the sherlockcentrics lol!) But I adore Sherlock. He’s such a bloody git but oh god I love him so.
But s3, I have never been angrier and it is exactly these scenes that you mention here. Sherlock jiving John and John jiving Sherlock is nothing new, but at THOSE moments, when ohn is at his weakest, his most vulnerable, to have the two people he loves the most in the world ganging up and making him feel worthless? I was so not okay with that. I AM not okay with that. This is not Sherlock hate, but oh god I wanted to slap him myself in these moments.
This is one of the reasons I had so much trouble with Mary even before she shot Sherlock, too. Just the fact that she was so clearly pursuing her own agenda instead of just being a decent human being towards the person she should most be caring about in these moments. It’s implied that she’s the one who got him through his grief, but where is her support of him now?
I’m basically the opposite of you. If there is a ever a point at which one needs to be taking sides, I am invariably on John’s. But usually it’s more a “tsk tsk Sherlock really?” These parts were more like “WTF SHERLOCK?!?”
They left me so angry and is basically the biggest problem with Sherlock’s fall, as well. Not the idea that Sherlock pretended to be dead and involved himself with Jim, but that he left John behind while doing it. There is nothing that John wants more than to feel that he is needed and wanted and being helpful, and when Sherlock jumped he tore that happy little bubble to pieces. And in these moments, when Sherlock is lying about Mary, when he is planning things without John and manipulating John behind his back…This is an exact replay of why Sherlock’s death and Sherlock’s return hurt John so much, and to think that Sherlock went through all that, came out the other end, and STILL doesn’t get that is….Heartbreaking. Which is why everything in me is hoping that John is in on it too.
archipelagoarchaea:
I’m, er, 99.9% Sherlock-centric, and I really struggle to get into John’s head, so I’m not as emotional about this as you guys, though I see your point and agree that it’s a terrible place for John. It’s made me want to get into Sherlock’s head, though, ‘cause there’s so much about what goes on in S3 with John, Sherlock, and Mary that I don’t think makes sense on the surface.
First of all: Sherlock conspiring with Mary. Maaaan, no, that can’t be right. If Sherlock’s going to conspire with someone, he’d much rather conspire with John. There is just no way he likes anything about Mary more than he likes the same thing about John. I really can’t see them being genuinely buddy-buddy. What I can see is Mary manipulating Sherlock into treating her as the gateway to John. I mean, it’s even right there in the text: Sherlock admits he’s not good at understanding emotions (‘human nature’), so Mary tells him ‘I’ll talk him ‘round.’ Rather than saying ‘He’s hurt and angry, try again when he’s calmed down,’ or ‘He just needs more time,’ or ‘I don’t think you understand how much you hurt him,’ she tells him that she’ll get John back for him. She might as well have said ‘Your access to John depends on me. I control his life.’ And I think Sherlock took this to heart. That’s why he gets so into the wedding planning thing: it’s a way to spend time with John even when John’s spending time with Mary. Before Reichenbach they’d had all their free time together, as long as John wasn’t visiting friends or on a date. Now that’s ‘John and Mary”s place, and Sherlock has to figure out what cracks he can — and is welcome to — fit into. I don’t think it’d occur to him to invite John over for ‘Bond night’ or anything of the sort, so that basically means (a) cases and (b) expanding his best man duties well beyond the norm.*
I think this might also explain, just a little bit, the whole ‘control your wife’ thing in tSoT. I mean, internalized misogyny is one answer — he certainly has some issues with that — but I wonder if he hasn’t also internalized some nasty ideas regarding marriage. He seems to believe that each spouse controls the other, rather than being partners who live their own lives together out of choice. When John is angry with Sherlock, Sherlock looks to his future wife to ‘fix’ the problem. When Mary turns on Sherlock, Sherlock looks to John to ‘fix’ the problem. Anyway, just a thought.
So His Last Vow, then! The prevailing opinion seems to be that Sherlock has been in contact with Mary behind John’s back. I have trouble with that idea. I certainly think it’s entirely in character for Sherlock to go into a snit and refuse to contact John because he wants John to prove he’s still important. In that case, it’s plausible that he would still talk to Mary just so he’d know what his best friend is up to. However, if that were true then why would he be surprised by the whole cycling thing? If he’s been in contact the whole time, Mary wasn’t telling him much. Also, I think the desire to know what John was doing would be outweighed by the pain of knowing that John was out living his life without Sherlock. He’s an emotional idiot, but he’s not that masochistic. Also, while Mary is very sneaky and a good actor, she’d have to hide from Sherlock the fact that she is fed up with him, and from John the fact that she is in contact with Sherlock even when he’s not. Can you imagine how angry he’d be with her? Bit risky, that.
So here’s what I think actually happened: Mary cornered Sherlock at Bart’s when John was in another room. She then told him that John had really just been so bored recently. He didn’t know how to entertain himself, anymore, without cases and he wasn’t getting out of the house enough. He’s even gained 7 pounds! The cycling to work just wasn’t cutting it. So could Sherlock maybe run him a bit? For Mary this would accomplish several things: it would get John out of her hair so she could make her little assassin run, it would subtly reinforce the idea that Sherlock is more important to John for the entertainment value than the emotional connection, and it would give John a temporary ‘Sherlock fix’ so that he’d be less irritating with her. I think this is pretty well reinforced by the scene in The Sign of Three where she manipulates John into ‘running’ Sherlock behind Sherlock’s back (and to a lesser extent vice versa).
As to why Sherlock didn’t basically tell John this: well, as much as I hate that scene in The Sign of Three, he is a drama queen. And he’s going to try to play the role of the hyper-aware and in-control consulting detective as hard as he can, if only to impress John. I don’t think it’d occur to him that he was being controlling. If you look over the rest of the show, there’s really no evidence for that. He doesn’t use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but that’s just because he’s rude (and because he leads when on cases — he’s the commander, no need for pleasantries). The closest we get to him arguing with John’s independence is when the whole ‘not much cop, this caring lark’ thing, which had more to do with trying to prove his point than with making John do what he wants. If you look at The Blind Banker, for example, he ‘tells’ John they’re going out for dinner, but doesn’t really argue when John says he has a date. He tries to make the case that they’re going on a date, but he doesn’t say anything that would suggest he thinks John has no right to do what he wants. Yes, he crashes the date, but John could have still ignored him if he really wanted. Really, the only reason we don’t have much more evidence for Sherlock’s respect for John is the fact that John does whatever he wants anyway. Which, of course, makes the whole manipulation thing even sadder, but… I don’t think this is Sherlock taking John for granted. I think it’s Sherlock seeing John as his partner, and (to him) of course they work well together and John will do what Sherlock says on cases just as Sherlock will do what John says when someone is dying.
That’s my headcanon, anyway.
So, the million dollar question: what’s going on in the confrontation scene? If Sherlock’s really hiding everything from John because John’s such a terrible liar, and John is obliviously going along, it really just seems like Reichenbach redux. And that’s not just problematic in terms of character development, it’s problematic in terms of a stagnating narrative. I think it could be rescued somewhat if John saw through Sherlock and/or Mary and had his own plan for dealing with her which he hadn’t told Sherlock. In fact, I think it’d be interesting even if John was half-in-on Sherlock’s plan, ‘cause it’d be Sherlock sort of getting a taste of his own medicine. What better way to really cement the lesson of Reichenbach? If John’s not up to something, I’ll be very surprised. Not just because it seems very out-of-character for him to forgive Sherlock’s near-murderer (except, possibly, if he’s so completely broken he’s not even trying anymore), but because it’d mean that the massive time gaps in His Last Vow and the missing bedside scenes really would just be bad writing. And I don’t like to ascribe things to bad writing until I have no other choice. I really really hope Sherlock told John something, though. Even if it’s just ‘follow my lead, whatever I say’. ‘Cause yeah, that’s one issue I really think they need to get over sooner rather than later. Sherlock’s got plenty of other character development to get done, he doesn’t need to save this one for later, too. And how much more of that sort of thing could John even take? He has to be in on it to some extent, or his loyalty will stretch credulity. He has to.
Aaaanyway, that’s my long-winded opinion.
*FYI, if you look closely at the ‘wedding planning wall’ you’ll see that Sherlock has an entire section on ‘security’, which makes me kinda sad.
ceywoozle:
I love your long-winded opinion so don’t apologise to me at least ;)
I actually pretty much agree with you completely, as odd as that might sound given my johncentric rant lol! But for me I think it’s less about not being able to understand where each character is coming from, and more just about where my greater emotional sympathy lies.
Like I love John. He is one of my favourite characters... Pretty much ever. And I have an unholy amount in common with him in terms of basic personality type and the way he reacts to things so I get him. I completely get him, and because I get him and because I see so much of myself in him, I do feel the greater amount of sympathy for him. I also think that out of the two of them, given what they’ve each gone through, John deserves more sympathy, but obviously I would think that, wouldn’t i? ;) But a great deal of that also comes from the fact that there are a whooooole lot of people out there who seem to think he’s an asshole. Like, a lot. I’m definitely not saying anyone on this post! But when people start complaining that he didn’t forgive Sherlock right away, that he didn’t leave Mary for Sherlock, that he didn’t dance with him at his wedding... I mean good lord. I’m sorry but good lord. Like I don’t even have to think about why those views are ridiculous because I absolutely understand his motivations behind them, which really isn’t fair to get annoyed with people just because they don’t, but I have to admit that pretty much the fastest way to get me to unfollow someone is if they post something awful about John. (Man, I’m not even sorry, I’m just such a terrible person.)
With regards to how Sherlock thinks that it’s through Mary that he has his only hope of getting back to John, I completely agree. I think the manipulation is happening on Mary’s side for the most part. We have her face in the restaurant when he first appears and she even says “do you have any idea what you did to him” (or something to that effect) so it’s not that she’s not perfectly aware of the effect Sherlock’s death had on John. I think she knows exactly what she’s doing when she suddenly turns around and starts playing them both, by subtly encouraging Sherlock into being as big of an asshole as he can (oh look, someone finds me hilarious and thinks John is overreacting so it must be true!) and john into feeling as isolated and humiliated as he possible.
(I love your explanation of the “control your wife” scene, btw. I think Sherlock is a sexist jackass at times, but I love this added layer that you give it. So much heartbreak ugh!)
I love your headcanon regarding Mary approaching Sherlock in St Barts. However, I still think Sherlock and Mary being in contact behind John’s back over text or something is also still plausible. In no way do I think Sherlock would ever approach Mary. I think he’s too proud but I also think he’s too scared. He’s written John off as beyond his reach. He doesn’t think he’s worth John, so he probably thinks of the idea of trying to get into contact with John as forcing himself on a man who doesn’t want him. Sherlock is such an odd combination of self deprecation and conceit and I understand that feeling of thinking “I’m not good enough” and covering it with a layer of “well what do I need them for anyway?” I think a lot of us can relate to that, if not now then at some point in our lives. (Both he and John are such gloriously complex characters my god.) I absolutely believe that it was Mary who approached Sherlock. She’s subtle and sneaky and so incredibly manipulative. She is so smart in the way she handles these boys it’s honestly terrifying in its subtly and quiet brilliance. I can’t picture the hospital scene you put together specifically, but I can easily picture her dropping short texts, small hints of how John is getting by. I’m still not sure if I believe whether or not she actually loves John, but I do think she feels possessive over him, and I also feel that she is under someone else’s orders other than her own.
Oossibly another way of looking at her impatience with Sherlock and John is her impatience with the situation itself. If she has no interest in being where she is at all, if she’s just there waiting out the final confrontation, waiting for her next order on when to move, and then suddenly surprise! Pregnant! I mean shit, that’s got to put a bit of a delay on things. Is she waiting for this baby to be born just as much as John and Sherlock are? (But honestly I’m just throwing ideas out here, I haven’t thought too deeply about them, just wondering if maybe there’s another way to look at it that we might have overlooked.)
As to Sherlock’s manipulation and use of John, while I think these things do happen, I think they happen because John lets them. John is entirely capable of standing up to Sherlock, the problem is is that he doesn’t want to. You’re right in just about everything you say about this. Yes, Sherlock is an annoying little git, but John loves it when Sherlock’s an annoying little git. He’ll never admit it, obviously, but he never ever stops it, either, and I think that’s hugely telling. John Watson is many things but a weak character is not one of them.
Which is why it is so incredibly important to me that he does get his agency back in the next series. Because all through s3 he was floundering in the wake of people who were cleverer than him and I think it’s because the brittle shields he had managed to build around himself at the end of s2 were utterly shattered by Sherlock’s “death” and I don’t think he’s over that yet. He can say he’s forgiven Sherlock, but I don’t think he’s in any way forgotten what that feeling was like and I don’t think Sherlock understands the depth of what he’s done to John Watson, either. I don’t think it’s possible for them to find that middle ground until they figure these things out, but it’s not the fault of one or the other. This is just who they are in all their bloody infuriating glory, which is why so many of us have this unholy urge to shake and scream at them to JUST TALK ALREADY.
So yes, I think John needs to rediscover who he is without reference to either Sherlock or Mary, but that’s for him to do. It’s no one’s responsibility but his own. Not even Sherlock can do this for him, nor should he. But while John’s still lost and building his life up around other people, he will never be able to be whole because the relationship between John and Sherlock as it stands now is just too uneven. Not because of anything Sherlock’s done or not done, but because John is still that broken man who limped home from the war and he needs to figure out how to fix himself before he can enter into any kind of equal partnership, especially with a personality like Sherlock’s.
With regards to what’s going on in the confrontation scene, that’s pretty much exactly how I feel. It needs to be different, because otherwise it’s just The Fall all over again in which case nothing has changed at all. And given the length and infrequency of the episodes, there’s just no room for that kind of repetition and lack of forward motion in the narrative or in the character development. Hell, s3 was all about character development. The plot certainly didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense on its own. And to circle right back to the beginning again is ridiculous.
What does make sense is if this is deliberately framed as a repeat of The Fall….With that one crucial difference. That—that—would be a beautiful narrative.
No comments:
Post a Comment