So when Sherlock deduces Mary is pregnant, he bases it on three symptoms: increased appetite, change in taste perception, vomiting. One theory is that Mary could have easily faked those symptoms.
But another option I haven’t seen (and if someone has written this up already, please help me out with a link!!) is that those symptoms were genuine but Sherlock deduced pregnancy when in fact they are symptoms of something else. Something possibly deadly? And that’s why Mary looks so worried in TSoT, because she knows for sure she isn’t pregnant.
And maybe now Sherlock is working that out? Because this whole consumption thing in TAB is pressed so hard on us. And this is a really heavy moment, there’s a pause like this is a VERY important revelation…
The bride was dying. For awhile I kept wondering if this meant Jim was dying, because Jim is the bride. But it’s not Jim’s whose symptoms Sherlock has deduced. And the bride is also a mirror of Mary.
There were clear signs…she wasn’t long for this world. // All the signs were there. The signs of three.
Mary is very not pregnant in that mind palace. Sherlock doesn’t even think about the baby. He goes through a fast-forward Victorian version of everything from meeting John through the tarmac and says “the stage is set,” but it’s not, because while he set up to the point where the Watson’s marriage was obviously in trouble, but there was NOTHING about the pregnancy. Maybe here, finally, Watson’s saying she’s dying is his brain telling him that this is because he deduced wrong?
So she decided to make her death count.
TAB: She was already familiar with the secret societies of America.
HLV: All those wet jobs for the CIA.
Then there’s the whole Moran thing, and/or the idea that Mary is carrying out the Moriarty legacy, that Moriarty really is “more than a man,” that it’s a GROUP.
ASiP: You’re not the only one to enjoy a good murder. There’s others out there just like you, except you’re just a man … and they’re so much more than that. What d’you mean, more than a man? An organization? What?
TAB: A legend to strike terror into the heart of any man with malicious intent. A league of furies awakened.
And there’s also the planting of an idea, the technique Jim uses in TRF to get people to think Sherlock’s the liar.
TRF: You can’t kill an idea, can you? Not once it’s made a home in there. Moriarty is playing with your mind, too – can’t you SEE what’s going on?
TAB: Once the idea exists, it cannot be killed. This is the work of a single-minded person…
Ack. Crap. I don’t know…this is definitely a cracky crack theory, but….Mary as a dying vigilante. Adding it to my list of maybes.
NO BUT I HAVE FEELINGS because okay, what if Mofftiss took this two dimensional female character who served as a wife for Watson and then wasn’t even granted the dignity of an on-page death and were like “Well Mary, you have to die but we will give you a REASON, YOUR DEATH WILL COUNT”
This is the sort of thing that gets me, as I was talking about in my idea of an HLV surface reading being for untrustworthy!Mary. More of the same sort of stuff we had in TEH and TSoT at the wedding, too (which is why HLV!Mary is not a discontinuous character). It’s these kind of moments, that are totally text, and also totally blatant. Just like 100% meant to go against the grain of Sherlock fans. And remember, we’re supposed to be Sherlock fans. He’s our hero. He’s the guy we like and are rooting for. We’re in no way supposed to excuse people who’re mean to him, regardless of whether he himself is tolerant of their behavior. I mean, this is just default kind of stuff, that I’m talking about. I feel like this is the text telling me, ‘don’t like her, don’t trust her, don’t go along with this’, even though I’m not even predisposed to being defensive about Sherlock.
It’s not really that ‘anyone who insults or is mean to Sherlock sucks and can’t be trusted’. That’s too absolutist, clearly, leaving no room for nuance. I mean, some people do take it that far, which is why you have a contingent of Sherlock fans who’re angry at John in Series 3 (though obviously Sherlock would really disagree with their perspective). At the same time, you can’t handwave this. You have to take it in context: what is the show trying to portray, here? What are we supposed to take from this?
This is negging. Like, classic, textbook, this is what it is. It’s a form of bullying. This is tearing someone down with no provocation, passive-aggressively, by way of ‘teasing’ (haha, how funny, right?). By contrast, Sally Donovan and Anderson (who also put down Sherlock in ways he doesn’t deserve) don’t go this far, because Sherlock is an ass to them (more or less provoked himself). Sally doesn’t bully Sherlock, she’s just antagonistic towards him. An antagonist or rival isn’t necessarily unsympathetic. A huge fan of the character will probably be more likely to resent an antagonist character, but they have their own dignity. Not so with a character who bullies without mutual antagonism, which is what’s going on here. Even a neutral viewer is not supposed to trust or accept such a character, from a writer’s perspective. That is what such a portrayal does.
Negging is– rarely from woman to man, frequently from man to woman– stereotypically portrayed as a romantic overture, and indeed this particular term was started by the self-described ‘seduction’ artists. In other words, it is understood as a sort of sexual bullying meant to destroy someone’s self-esteem enough to have them accept your sexual agenda. It is, needless to say, extremely problematic and highly manipulative, and a sign of extremely sexist attitudes when used in a romantic context. When one character is mild or open and the other is harsh and manipulative, and they are a man and a woman (such as Mary and Sherlock or Molly and Sherlock), this sort of abuse is perceived as ‘romantic’, because our society is sexist and problematic. In fact, TAB is in part about this, and this scene comes just before Sherlock realizes the problems inherent in just such behavior towards Molly. This scene is placed specifically right before that deduction. It cannot be a coincidence. The only reason this would not be connected to the explicitly problematic flashback from Series 1 Sherlock with Molly is heteronormative and sexist. Point blank.
This is the show explicitly showing us that Mary is essentially Sherlock’s dark mirror, and her behavior towards him cannot be condoned. The fact that many people think that Mary and Sherlock are portrayed romantically in TAB is thus missing the entire point of the episode, and of both Mary’s and Sherlock’s character arcs.
It’s clear that Sherlock doesn’t have much faith in the Watsons’ marriage (arguing at 221b; cold, empty hearth at home, etc.).
However, there’s another sign of (Sherlock’s opinion of) John’s happiness deficit: his GIANT MUSTACHE.
We all—including Sherlock—know that John grew a (measly, pathetic) mournstache back when he thought Sherlock was dead.
Here in the mind palace, that mournstache grows to immense proportions, purportedly due to the dictates of “the illustrator.” Yet who is the “illustrator” of the mind palace? Why, Sherlock, of course.
“Yet who is the “illustrator” of the mind palace? Why, Sherlock, of course.”
I HAVE BEEN OBSESSING OVER THE ILLUSTRATOR AND OMG OF COURSE IT’S SHERLOCK. OF COURSE IT IS.
AND SHERLOCK HATED THAT MUSTACHE BUT LIKE? HE MADE IT BIGGER? IN HIS FANTASY SIMULATION THINGIE? WHICH IS JUST?
the way sherlock’s eyes go from john to mary’s face and they flick down to the phone in her hand while his mouth pops open just the tiniest bit in horror… mercy kill me
the special is like “literally the only important thing is sherlock holmes and john watson being together and no one else matters”
like it’s no mistake that the final scene is sherlock and john alone together in front of the fire but there are still people who want to think mary has any kind of permanent role in their lives like lolololololol ok
