Does John love Sherlock more than Mary?
Anonymous asked:
I want to believe that John loves Sherlock more than Mary, I really do. But what's up with this line on his blog - "She's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Sorry Sherlock. ;)."? Like...ouch. :(
painlock:
But look at the context. This is an extremely long post about Sherlock coming back in which John writes how alive he feels again, how amazing it is, how happy Sherlock makes him, that he’s not felt like that for a long long time, that “Sherlock’s oh so brilliant and amazing and I love it when I’m with him and there’s nothing quite like the feeling when we’re together” and then he’s like “oh and btw I got engaged”
sooooo
ivyblossom:
Additionally…
The context of that exact wording is really fraught. John has been in the depths of despair for quite a while over Sherlock’s death when he meets Mary. They have a whirlwind romance, and for reasons we don’t see on screen, John decides to propose. There’s a story in that, I’m sure.
And he says to her: “Meeting you was the best thing that could have happened.” She picked him back up again, so that certainly seems to be true. But Mary takes that and turns it into “I’m the best thing that ever happened to you.” Which startles John, because that isn’t quite what he was saying, but it’s out there now, and he’s about to marry her, so…sure, I guess so. That should be true. I feel like the blog is repeating that consensus, but John clearly isn’t 100% on board. Which is why there’s an apology to Sherlock appended. Because John knows it feels wrong, but makes a joke out of it.
The truth is that it isn’t entirely true, and John tells us that repeatedly. When John asks Sherlock to be his best man, he says he wants to be “up there with the two people I love and care about most in this world,” and when he’s trying to reassure Sherlock that everything will be okay after he gets married, he talks about how Mary turned his life around, and is about to explain that Sherlock did that too, but Sherlock runs off instead of hearing it. It would be interesting to see where that conversation would have gone.
I have no doubt that John loves Mary, at least until he discovers that she isn’t the person she claimed to be, and probably even after that. But Sherlock is special to John in a way that no one else really can be. John and Sherlock are each other’s souls, they are part of a whole. Apart they are broken; together, they can do anything. No matter what else happens, that’s always true.
With the caveat that TAB is all in Sherlock’s head, I think it’s an interesting depiction of John’s very conflicted loyalties.
It starts with Watson having abandoned Mary to the point that she plays a client just to see him. She doesn’t object to her husband spending time with Holmes, as modern day Mary doesn’t mind John spending time with Sherlock. She likes Sherlock, she just doesn’t want to be completely abandoned by her husband, which seems fair. Both Victorian and modern day Mary don’t mind John having the friendship, but they mind when the friendship is all he talks about, or all he commits to.
Victorian!Watson, confronted with his failures as a husband, tries to repair the damage he’s caused, which we can see from the empty chair in 221b that Holmes keeps on talking to, but he fails. He falls right back in with Holmes and vanishes. Victorian!Mary finds her own excitement to replace her marriage. She has goals of her own that Watson knows nothing about. Their maid points out that they’re basically ships passing in the night, and they have effectively abandoned each other. John can’t seem to keep his attention where it ostensibly belongs, and once again, in the desanctified church, he has to admit to Mary that they’d neglected each other (again). Little wonder. He keeps leaving her. She finds other ways to pass her time.
I don’t think it means he doesn’t love Mary, or even that he loves her any less than he loves Sherlock, but Sherlock is his soulmate and his companion and his world, and everything else, including Mary, will always be left behind if Sherlock wants him or needs him, or even finds something intriguing to explore. This is really damaging for John’s love life, but it seems like he can’t fight it. This is how he’s built.
It will be interesting to see if this theme continues to hold into series 4.
becumsh:
[...] John and Mary are a very happy couple. Fandom tries to find the ways and means in which John hasn’t forgiven Mary or she’s a villain or whatever. But John loves Mary and he puts an effort to forgive her and make their marriage work. Sherlock likes Mary and he understands why she’s made all of her bad decisions. It’s the point that Sherlock is still John’s center of the universe that pulls him and Sherlock’s life basically turned into “how to make John happy” ever since s3. John doesn’t necessarily wants to be so dependant on Sherlock but it already happened and here you are.
The s2 finale was a mess and even though no one has died (or faked one’s death, y’know) s3 is even more of a mess. I don’t quite comprehend how moftiss are going to fix it.
ivyblossom:
I’m not really sure how you get “very happy couple” out of what I wrote above.
Mary and John are in what appears to be an impossible situation. Even if Mary were the sweetest, most innocent, most adored, and most forgiven woman in the world, it wouldn’t change the fact that her husband, who loves her, seems destined to always run away from her and towards someone else.
Even before Mary shoots Sherlock, it’s clear that John and Mary are not especially happy. John’s bifurcated loyalties have made themselves plain; he misses Sherlock. He won’t shut up about Sherlock, he dreams about Sherlock, and tries his hand at being Sherlock. He’s a junkie; he’s addicted, and it’s already starting to impact his marriage.
To be clear: that is not why Mary shoots Sherlock. Mary is not the stereotypical wife of literature whose first priority is the state of her marriage. John’s obsession with him is John’s issue, not Sherlock’s. Sherlock does Mary the courtesy of dropping off the radar after the wedding. John can’t bear it, but Mary doesn’t blame Sherlock for that. She blames John, as she should. At the start of HLV, John and Mary are okay, but there are cracks in the surface of that relationship. I certainly wouldn’t say they’re very happy.
Loving someone, and being loved, is not the same thing as being happy. Love is not just a “vicious motivator”; it also hurts, and it can make you sadder than you’ve ever been.
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