BlackButterfly

To give Mycroft the iceman morals beyond worrying about Sherlock , or expect him to do uneccessary legwork on Johns behalf , is I think a mistake. I don't think Mycroft planted Mary or foresaw Sherlocks shooting.....in fact it was that event that changed his mind on his harmless never hurts anyone of importance assessment on Magnusson. Rather , Mary shooting Sherlock was a lesson on collateral damage and when it becomes unacceptable. Look at the moral of the fairy tale and the ending is clearer.

If we don't believe in coincidence then Mary sought out John for a reason. Mycroft left her there , so he thought she was harmless and likely would protect John and could prove useful/interesting/bait. I think she wanted to know if Moriarty was really dead , because she had betrayed / informed on criminals connected to him , but then compromised herself by falling for John. Once Sherlock turned up alive and Magnusson played his hand , everything went wrong for her. Mycroft let it all play out to his advantage, either Mary would rid him of Magnusson or Sherlock would , and he had plausable deniability. In the smoking convo Mycroft did tell Sherlock to slay the dragon and Sherlock did tell John to bring his gun, both seemed aware of the possible outcome of taking Magnusson on. The "here be dragons" comment at the end could easily be a nod to playing the Moriarty alive card.

Ty for welcome Boton and agree Thats the genius of Moftiss they enthrall us with dragons , damsels in distress and villains , but every fairy tale needs a good old fashioned yet somehow new fangled moral.

Hello.... I agree with the pov that Mycroft knew what was going on and played along. I think Mycroft is a bit of a puppet master and saw which way the wind was blowing right back in TSOT and warned Sherlock against getting involved to begin with in the Redbeard phone call...obviously he knew back then about Mary. There was a wider issue to HLV...which linked back to TRF..the political message. In TRF a celebrity obsessed and media driven public @ police were corrupted by Moriarty to help drive Sherlock into suicide. In HLV the media barons were exposed as being all powerful so that even people like Smallwood and Mycroft had little power over them. The only solution was to get rid of them-the poster that read information is free. It's all linked very cleverly and neatly. Exposing social injustice and making points like this about our society is very canon, Watson describes London as a cess pit..and Holmes his job to expose the blood stains and cause. The BBC got a bit of flack for HLV being apparently too political and Magnusson being similar to a well known media mogul in the uk . I doubt Mofftiss care...Sherlock has been making theese political points all along. It's not just about making a great man good, but a great society good. This leads me to think that Mycroft may also be the puppet master behind some of the bad guys..but of course the excuse will be some kind of - the greater good. After all as in canon some secret societies and conspiracy theories are true...in this case the Moriartys V the Holmes.