artemisastarte:

theirglassofteaat221b:

fireflake007:

Like we get it that she lied to John about the whole assassin thing, but all she ever wanted to do was to protect him by going as far as to hurt Sherlock. In the end, she takes the bullet for Sherlock so that he and John can have each other companionship. I mean she risked her daughter’s future so her husband could be with his friend. The last time we hear her voice is remarking their friendship. What I mean is she ships Johnlock.

She didn’t “hurt” Sherlock to protect John. She nearly killed an unarmed man offering her help, all so that she could continue to lie to her husband and keep him in the dark. And in fact put him in more danger because he didn’t know about her past, and that people may want to hurt her by going after him. She then threatened to kill Sherlock again if he told John the truth, all so she could “keep him”. Then she abandoned her husband and daughter, again not trusting John to figure out how to deal with the AJ situation together (you know, how married couples should do). And how the hell is Rosie at risk by Sherlock being in John’s life, or any more at risk than the risk she herself brought to their family. 

“Mary” taking the bullet for Sherlock was not some noble sacrifice (it was poor writing)   she knew her past was going to catch up to her sooner or later (and her marriage to John was headed for disaster), and she took the opportunity to be a martyr and manipulate John yet again by forever being “the wonderful woman who gave her life for Sherlock” instead of the fact that she lied to John at every turn, never trusted him, and never treated him as an equal partner. Not to mention those manipulative, and dangerous videos she sent. She told Sherlock, a recovering addict who everyone with eyes knows would do absolutely everything for John, to essentially kill himself all so that John could save him. She was manipulating them and pulling their strings, playing with their lives, even in death (and intentionally used Moriarty-esq wording to get their attention, which is frightening and could trigger past trauma in anyone who dealt with him.)

So yeah, pardon me for not looking back fondly on a woman who brought nothing but pain and suffering to the show’s heroes.

I posit for discussion that anyone who does not see Mary as cruel, narcissistic and emotionally manipulative from the moment she was introduced, has perhaps never been unfortunate enough to be emotionally manipulated by an experienced narcissist themselves.

I think if one has been, one sees it: if one hasn’t, all the smiles and the sugary sentimentality, and the verbal and body language put-downs, the gaslighting and the control, the ruthless disdain for the needs, wishes and desires of others are not immediately recognisable for what they are … as they are not, in fact, immediately recognisable for what they are when one is first groomed by an emotionally manipulative narcissist.

I wanted to like Mary: she was part of Canon. But from the moment in TEH when I saw the way the character was subtly monitoring/controlling the primary relationship of the Holmes/Watson dyad – which for many of us should always have been the primary focus of the show anyway – there was an undercurrent of unease in my mind which increased over the episode to the point at which I realised what I was looking at was emotional manipulation.

And that’s where the character lost me. The show lost me when the writing became totally incoherent, but that’s another issue.