Zain

That's exactly what I am afraid of. I didn't mind Irene, because her appearance was only for an episode. She was the subject matter, yes, but her importance was limited. I could enjoy it, because I knew that she would not become a constant. Sherlock is a bit slow-paced, and that is fine, because it focuses on two characters. You need to slow down once you start to go into introspection mode. But that doesn't work if you overcrowd a series. There are only "limited" places on stage, and even the auditorium does only hold a limited amount of seats. Characters like Henry Knight or Irene Adler may enter the stage, but they are not there to stay. If they did, you'd lose either pace or depth. I'd love to have Irene around for another episode, but I would be rather sceptical if she became a regular. The format just imho does not work for more than two main characters. It is very character-driven, and centered. That's quite a strong base, but a tight rope. You have to believe in this format, there's not much room to fiddle with the controls. Just like with Molly: She's a great character, but she's great, because she is not dragged into the show's spot light. She is allowed to be there, the mortuary is her stage, and thus she becomes a character of her own (untold) story rather than being dragged into Sherlock's. I just do not think it's a good idea to drag the women into the spotlight for the sake of equality. That's discrimination in itself, somehow. In a way, it says that the character only needs to become important because of their gender, not because they have got a story to tell. (Though I am sure Molly and Irene have a story to tell. I was referring to the writers' statements which was far more general.) I'd rather have a great case in a monastery than a mediocre one just to get a more equal male : female ratio. If you tell a story, you should tell it, because it deserves to be told, and because there's this burning feeling inside of you that won't stop screaming "Write this." If they have a great story like this in mind, then I am the last to object. I do hope so, I do hope this is not just about the gender inequality.

Mycroft didn't get him off unscathed when Sherlock killed Magnussen. Mh, I wonder if that would not make it more likely for Sherlock to hold a grudge against Mycroft: Because whatever he does, there's dear brother to clean up behind him. It takes a part of Sherlock's freedom away. Some of his behaviour could be motivated by the wish to provoke Mycroft into dealing with Sherlock as a person, instead of dealing with Sherlock's "mess." It seems to imply a certain attitude of Mycroft's to take responsibility for his brother's actions. Wherever that may have stemmed from. If there really is a third brother, and that one did suffer some horrible fate as implied, I wonder what makes Sherlock different from that one. Because apparently Mycroft did not care much for the "other one." But that's diving too much into "if's."

Okay, maybe I am sh.. at googling in the middle of the night, but the only statements I could find were a bit older: Moffat basically says she's alive, and could return any time, but he'd rather tell other stories first. That's from 2013, mind you, not quite recent. Pulver said something similar, which boils down to "Irene Adler - not dead" and "not in season 3, there are other stories to be told." Both are diplomatic answers, which carry no true meaning whatsoever. It's the kind of answer they usually learn by heart to give a stunning performance, in which they recite it like a school kid does a poem.: With the same intonation pattern every time they are asked to spew out their text. If you stumble across the interview or web-chat or whatever your excerpt is from, could you put it up? Maybe it's more recent. But I don't think there's a real answer out there. You don't really get new information apart from updates, and well, dates, once the last series aired and the filming for the next one is not yet finished up. Well, it sounds better anyway to say "Oh, we got plans, it's so much fun, and we have already planned everything up to season 5" than to admit "yeah, I am stuck and I spent most nights with sitting at my desk and drawing stick men on paper, because I just don't like what I write. So far, we edited the draft of the first scene of the first episode 14 times, and the dialogue still doesn't quite work, the flow is too heavy, oh, and if you are interested in the organizing, the catering service cancelled today, so we got to organize another one. Don't ask me about what characters will appear: Whatever is convenient. Then I will think about what I'd LIKE to write."

Don't they? Did they explicitly say that? That comes as a surprise to me, to be honest. There have been quite a few hints at Irene Adler's "continued existence" in the third season, like the opera house reference, as well as the flowers in the hospital room. Or the Poland reference. I actually expected her back for the next season, and to be somehow related to the "East Wind." Sherlock and Irene dancing.... I CAN imagine that, but it looks more like wolves circling each other Well, in my fantasy, at least. Would be a rather tense scene... yes, I'd love that.

A very good question, indeed. Though I'd amend: Does Sherlock care as much about Mycroft as Mycroft cares about him? That's something they could explore in the next season. I'd really love it if Mycroft was in trouble for once, and he needed his brother's help. Not asking him to do legwork.

Oh, what about Sherlock as a pilot? I thought those parts were the most funny about Catch Me If You Can, and it would be a really nice intertextual reference to Cabin Pressure.

And that is a perfectly fine interpretation, sfmpco. Everybody has got the right to their own head canon. I prefer to see Sherlock as regretting the fact that he shot Magnussen, for example. And I rather hope he has got some plan to get Mary imprisoned. Otherwise HLV is a very sour episode for me, indeed. What Toby was expressing, and what I was attempting to express by analyzing the camera perspective: There's no RULE in any kind of writing, and there definitely is no rule that states "You must not confuse your audience by changing the perspective." Authors do, be it journalists (depicting both sides of a conflict), writers, even dramatists, and screen writers do, too. It's a tool of the trade, and wielded wisely, it can make a huge difference. Take Pride and Prejudice, for example. If there had not been a change in perspective, Austen could have never shown us the discussion between Mrs and Mr Bennett during the night (right at the start of the novel.) Or a more recent and equally well-known example, Harry Potter. There are three scenes which do not include Harry in any kind, which are not even retold to him: His arrival at Privet Drive, Snape's vow to Narcissa (mentioned, but the scene is never even dreamt by him), as well as the meeting with the Prime Minister. All of those are changes to the narrative situation. Just like an author may step back to show more than just what's in front of a particular character, or step closer to fool the audience by only depicting part of what's happening, a screen writer can shift between the perspectives. The audience's only way to know if such a shift has occurred is to rely on the director, the camera man, the actors, and so on to mediate it to us, for example by a change of the camera angle. It is completely fine to argue that the scene is a symbol of Sherlock's inner despair, but it is equally, and equally!, fine to argue the other way. If you do not like that interpretation, that is alright. I don't like the theory that Mary is a poor sod who is actually a tragic heroine and who only killed people that deserved it. Nonetheless I have to admit that the possibility is there, we simply do not know enough (though, if they portray her like that, I'll probably have a fit....).

We had that question a few pages ago, already. I think we agreed that it is unclear, both readings are valid and possible. To defend Toby's reading, though, once again:

The brainbleach is not available in your country.... And GEMA is rejoicing, it's not their fault for once. See, there's something you can wish for in s4. More introspection to get a deeper reading of Mycroft. I think I may have written this before, and if I did, I am sorry to bore you, just skip the next sentences: I do think Mycroft grew over their heads. He wasn't supposed to play such a major role, it simply happened that a good portion of the fandom took a liking to him. If you go back to the first season, he actually had a VERY minor role. Then there's the fact that Gatiss is very good at portraying this kind of person who is neither betraying their emotions nor their intentions. It's true that they never gave much background information, and I think they realized that the character grew over their heads. They forgot to define him, and thus the fandom defined him in a way that demanded more attention to Mycroft. Season 2 did give us some insight (mostly ASiB), then there's the brother-family approach in s3. Most of Mycroft's characterization is still very head canon-y for the fandom, because it's still not enough to get a clear "reading" of him. But I do think they are slowly penning in details to make him "round." That is what I think is most interesting about him, apart from his strange relationship with his brother: Mycroft is still in development. To me, it seems like they are still unsure how to place him, because he somehow got out of this neat role they originally had intended for him. Now he does not quite fit anymore. They seek to define him between those two extremes shown in HLV, the loving brother, and the uncaring, ruthless official. Again, he's neither, and neither role fits him. He's this kind of inbetween that is ugly to name, because it's a bit of both, and still nothing as easy to be named as "black" or "white."

Oh, god, no. Jane Eyre is a beautiful work, indeed. One of the greatest, I'd even say. It took me some courage to go through some of those so-called classics, but there is pleasure to be found between those lines. I was merely referring to the scene before Jane left in the middle of the night, the one with Mr Rochester. The dialogue made me laugh quite hard the first time I read it. It was just too much for me to take it seriously ^^ And I simply attempted to say that I would not mind if they put a scene like that into it, because it probably would be well-received with the majority of the audience. As long as she was gone at the end of the episode, and her airplane does not return.... Oh, Toby, most of the "Mystrade" fanbase would deeply resent your views on "Mycroft is no dating material." And I don't know if there's fiction to be found about him and Mary, but there's definitely the Sherlock/Mycroft fanbase, as well as the Mycroft/John part of the fandom. I think there are even a few Mycroft/Umbrella works out there. I think I once was very amused when I read this pairing tag.

Let her swagger off to whereever she came from in the first place, and let her take the baby with her. Both gone, nobody dies. John will suffer no matter how they remove her and the baby from the show. I see how some people need some sort of grand explanation or reason for her disappearance... but I couldn't care less, to be honest. It's just a general feeling of animosity based on her decisions, actions, and, most of all, reactions. I suppose this is valid the other way around, too. While I do feel the need for more explanations concerning John's decision, which frankly doesn't make any sense to me, others seem to be perfectly fine with it. For all I care they can make her disappearance as cheesy as Jane Eyre's after she was deceived... bread and games for the masses. Just do not let her come back as Jane Eyre did. The only thing that would really irk me is if they gave her too much space. I'd really like some shift back to a story that is about Sherlock and John, and not about John's relationship issues and his trouble to keep his friend Sherlock in the loop. Besides sidestepping bombs, fires, and murderers. TEH was all "oh, will she marry John, oh, does she get along with Sherlock, oh, she will marry John", then TSoT was the wedding, and the pre-wedding planning, and HLV, well, nothing more to say about that after 150 pages of discussion... I still hope they'll introduce Victor Trevor to us.... But one should be careful what one wishes for. Who knows, maybe they'll make him the guy who is after Mary, because she killed his father who was corrupt, and thus is a person which deserves to be killed by her. Though... that'd be interesting, especially if Sherlock got along splendidly with him, and Mary was panicking in the background.

Thanks Had a look at it. And it looks more like they are spouting whatever comes to their mind instead of giving some hard facts. Which seems to be their policy anyway. I mean... (from the article) Gatiss: And the telegram from C.A.M. – there’s a lot of stuff there. It’s nice, isn’t it? No one has actually said, ‘I guessed it. I called it.’ Ehm, yes. We did. Yes, we did call it. It didn't come as a surprise that CAM was Magnussen, or that he was blackmailing Mary. There's even hard fact, I'd love to send them a link to the first few pages of the 3.2 thread... Okay, we did not guess she was a rogue hitman on the run from the authorities and living under a false identity, but the clues that were in there were picked up fairly early into the game.

Well, if anything's clear then that HLV is an incomplete episode. There are too many holes and rough patches to ignore them. The episode has got its moments, but until it is brought to completion, I'd rather not "pass my verdict" on it. I feel like there are now more unresolved issues than there had been in February. It seems like no theory fills all of those holes at the same time. Maybe we are in for a brilliant revelation, or maybe the episode is just weak on the logical side. By the way, we've heard a lot about Moffat's intentions, but does anybody have information on what Gatiss thinks of that particular scene? He's part of this just as much. And it seems like he's the one doing the subtle patching, while Moffat is in charge of the big guns and special effects. Both is needed for a great outcome. But for now, maybe we are too fixated on Moffat?

While I love all of your other solutions, the part I like most about your post is the focus on the laptop trick. I think over all of these 140 pages we've forgotten to ask one question. And it's kind of basic, and not very amazing a question. But: How do we know there's something on that laptop? Magnussen mentions a GPS tracker, and we did buy that. But what if there was a GPS tracker, yes, but also a program that would register if the laptop was used? The laptop's camera is sufficient to prove that Magnussen had not only been in possession of Mycroft's laptop, he had tried to access restricted data. It's not exactly a difficult setup.

Yeah, I was confused by that too! But if I'm not mistaken, he shot him in the back in the unaired pilot (i.e., the original script); I remember, because the cabbie's blood was spattered on Sherlock's face. But in the aired version, definitely not in the back. Again, director's choice maybe, not the writer's???? Or a request from BBC? Someone had a change of mind, at any case. Well, it is less controversial, at least. The arm/shoulder is often chosen as a non-lethal spot to injure. Extremities and all that. Of course, there's the brachial artery, but in general, a shot to the extremities is less likely to cause death, though the consequences like permanent limitation of the target's mobility and so on are still there. It's like with the legs. You may hit the femoral artery, but it is a much more preferable spot to aim at than the torso/abdominal area like Mary did. The organs are a bit cramped up there. A lot of things your bullet has got to miss unless you wish ill on your target by default. Probably it was a decision to soften the issue around John's shot. He took the shot to take the cabby down, not to outright slaughter him. That way, the cabby's death does not appear to be the intended outcome, but a preferable one. Just softens the edges around just that debate we had about Mary's shot. There was quite a distance between him and the cabby, yet he only missed the "safer" shoulder/arm by a small margin.

How could I resist such a challenge? 1. Using Mycroft's extensive network to collect dirt on Magnussen. Beat him at his own game. 2. Or, what I favor much more, because it would be the courageous and moral thing to do, Mary could have stepped forward herself. Asked Sherlock to contact Mycroft and work out a deal which would allow her to repent for what she did, and he'd ensure she'd be protected. It's not like there was no other solution to "protect" Mary from those ominous, unnamed and faceless people which are allegedly after her for some unspecified crimes of hers, and which Magnussen allegedly has on speed-dial, and which allegedly would be keen enough on revenge to go on a manhunt after her, and which are allegedly desperate enough to believe Magnussen's allegedly non-existant evidence. There's a definite lack of details for such a definite and irrevocable choice of solution. Just too much "if" in there for my taste. If Magnussen isn't lying about those people being after her, and if he is not lying about knowing how to contact them, and if they in fact will be going after Mary after all those years since her intitial disappearance, and if they do believe Magnussen, then they may kill her. That sounds like a dire situation, what to do.... I know, let's kill Magnussen. Funny, just noticed another contradiction while typing this. Not that it supports what I say above, but I think it is a noteworthy discrepancy: Mary certainly was much more worried about going to prison than about being killed by those faceless persons. Magnussen however threatens to have her killed. Their conclusions about what would happen without intervention do not add up. One of them is withholding information from Sherlock and John, or there's a mistake in the script, maybe due to late editing. It's possible they added Magnussen's threat rather late to give Sherlock's decision to kill him more credibility. Another post you may tear into to your heart's content

I always thought it was an intertextual reference to Cabin Pressure. In the last episode of the fourth series Martin (Benedict Cumberbatch) shouts "Merry Christmas!" at another pilot during a job interview when he is asked about his reaction to an imaginative scenario. Just like there has been an intertextual reference to his role as Sherlock Holmes in Cabin Pressure itself (one episode in which he plays detective and misquotes from Doyle's books). That sure is a strong quote. Thank you for sharing it. It fits perfectly with what I tried to express, but I lacked the ability to put it in such great words.

On this notion, I have to strongly disagree with you. It may be regionally different, but from my experiences, it is due to this ugly part of our history that Germans are very, very, VERY wary of anything and everything that leaves someone dead at the end of the day. Such as capital punishment, terminating pregnancies, aiding in ending a terminally ill patient's life, war, deaths due to lack of gun control, and government sanctioned kiillings. Sure, most people will agree that in theory it may be better for some pregnancies to be terminated. If it comes down to it, though, such a decision will be met with suspicion. Because someone is judging who deserves to live and who doesn't. I would even go so far as to say that soldiers here have a hard time. Their job is burdened with the image of killing, and when they state their occupation, it is not something people will just nod at and stop thinking about it. There's this moment when people go "Oh" and consider if they are either very left wing or right wing, or if they had some childhood traumata, before people accept that they may be in for the money. Because any other motive is not something broadly accepted. The soldiers do not deserve this, sure, but there is a general distrust of anything related to killing. A heritage of that ugly, horrible stain on our past, the one we cannot shake off. I remember how cautious everybody was back in 2006, when we hosted the Soccer World Championships. Suddenly people started raising the national flag on the roofs of their houses, and I remember how strange a feeling it was to see the national flag raised in public without any political context such as a speech from the Chancellor. Before 2006, it was something only few people did. Even for sports events. Since then, it has become completely normal. Nobody raised an eyebrow in 2014 during the World Championships in Brazil. But I remember quite clearly how people in 2006 suddenly dared to raise a flag, despite the associations to Nationalism and so on. I am not much of a patriot or anything, but it was one of the most amazing things I remember from the first decade of this millenium. You could feel the change in our nation, a sudden desire to make this daring step in front of the cameras. In front of the world which had seen us at our worst, and which often still judges us on that. There's still that part in most of us that is ashamed of what our nationality represents, but it was a very strong symbol. It showed that it was okay to stop apologizing for what we did not do. We aren't our ancestors. I doubt we will stop feeling bad for those crimes anytime soon. That topic is haunting us, and in school, children year after year are faced with that past, and they have to watch recordings which either force you to bleed in sympathy and drown in your own tears or go completely face blank. It is important to know about what happened, but often I feel like we raise every generation since then to feel like a horrible being for something they did not do, and for being born to a family that already lived in Germany at the beginning of the last century. God. How did I even get here from the original statement? Sorry.... Anyway, just because you wish certain things had not happened, it does not mean that you wish death on all the people which were involved in those atrocities. Every death is such a waste of potential, and I think it is quite possible to feel bad for every death, be it on one's own side, or be it on the opposite side of the front lines. Or at the other end of the world, like, in Syria. For example, I do think Stauffenberg was one of the bravest men there were, and I feel horrible for what happened to him and his family, as well as his associates. If he had succeeded, maybe a lot of things wouldn't have happened. I feel bad he did not succeed. But do I wish he had? I do not feel that I have the right to wish death on anybody. That would involve acting as a judge over who deserves and who does NOT deserve to live. To simply think of having to make this decision... it makes me shake. I am not that brave to become either, judge or executioner.

I assumed that "wet jobs for the CIA" meant killings. I could be wrong. They sound vaguely disgusting, actually. Also, Mary's remark that people like her exist because people like CAM ought to be killed does imply that she is a killer. Regarding the morality of the writing, the odd thing is that Moffat has taken the exact opposite line in Dr Who. One of my sons- in- law, a Who fan since childhood, constantly moans about the various modern Doctors constantly agonising over matters of conscience. He misses the old days when the Doctor would cheerfully blast his enemies to bits without a thought for their side of the story. The Doctor in his more recent incarnations has developed a distinct dislike of guns and warfare and constantly tries to negotiate with alien life forms, even if he is forced to fight them in the end. (With the exception of the Daleks - he thinks they have no redeeming features. There are still moments, though, when he tries to reason with them.) Dr Who has become a more moral man according to Moffat's interpretation, which makes me wonder whether the writers can really want to say that vigilante justice is okay or that assassins who believe people deserve to be killed should suffer neither remorse nor retribution for their crimes. Seems to me that HLV makes both Sherlock and John into men with far less conscience than the original Holmes and Watson. It's up to the writers to create their own stories, of course, but it feels uncomfortable to me. Or maybe that's how the writers read the canon? Everybody interprets things differently. I haven't read all stories yet, and so far I have got a different picture of Sherlock Holmes, but maybe that's how they read the canon? On another note: Didn't Moffat take over from some first name T. Davies (I hope that's how he's spelled....), who was directing the first few seasons of the modernized Dr Who version? Maybe it's just him attempting to be consistent with what his predecessor started? Moral-wise. I haven't seen many Who episodes, so I am a bit out of my depth there. I only looked into it once, because, well, it is a rather big cultural heritage, in a way. And people often refer to it due to Moffat's involvement. I hope I did not just embarrass myself by uttering complete nonsense...

Whose absence, Mycroft's? I'm puzzled, I thought he was in it quite a lot. Or did you mean something else? You are completely right, I was being too vague. I meant that there has been a suspicious absence of Mycroft whenever he would have had to deal with Mary. We know he kept track of John during Sherlock's absence, yet he never mentions Mary other than alluding to her existence. There's no information on her in John's file, the one he presents Sherlock with. Then there's the wedding scene, another allusion, yet Mycroft does not directly comment on Mary. It's like the writers were very careful not to let their paths intersect. In HLV, Mycroft refrains from visiting Sherlock in hospital. Again, this separates him from Mary who is at the hospital and associated with it due to her charming visit and great bedside manner. Mycroft also does not seem to investigate the shooting. Sherlock keeps him, as far as we know, out of the loop later on, too, when it comes to Mary. Throughout the third series, Mycroft is given a lot of screen time to highlight their brotherly interaction. He comments on John, meets up with Lestrade, meets Wiggings, talks to Mrs Hudson, is even associated with Molly whom he takes over from in Sherlock's mind palace. The only major characters we do not get to see interact are Mycroft and Magnussen, as well as Mycroft and Mary. The first interaction is never shown, because otherwise Magnussen's reveal that Mycroft is actually working against him would come as less of a surprise. Mary's and Mycroft's interaction is noticeable missing. It is not a matter of their characters taking part in different story lines. Actually, their plots are very much interwoven. The writers pointedly separated Mary and Mycroft. They are, apart from Magnussen and Mycroft, the only main characters that share no common screen time. Even at the Holmes Christmas scene, they are never shown to be in the same room.

Oh, I fear I did not see the post pertaining to that. But you mentioned that quite early in this thread already, didn't you? Finally, it's time, huh? It must be hard to let go, the distance is quite... overwhelming. Well, when you are from a country that lacks the sort of enormous size like the US, Russia, Brazil or France have got. But on the other hand it is a great challenge and opportunity indeed. It's good of you to be supportive of their decision. That's something I've thought about, too, in the course of this discussion. Because Magnussen is a blur between a blackmailer and a whistleblower. We know that he at times demands payments, and at other times he simply publishes the truth, because he can. Of course, usually whistleblowers have got another element to them, the firm belief to be doing what's right. Magnussen's morals are too skewed for that. Not that Mary should be judging him on that.... She certainly is not in any place to judge other people based on their criminal acts. I find it quite daring to tackle his case this way when one thinks of the development of the last few years. I wonder if they were actively taking a stance, saying that things should stay buried, after all, that is what happens then. The characters hush everything up.And, so far, get away with that. I hope not. And yes, Mary's provocative statements seem to go unchallenged more than once. While S3 seems to promote vigilante action and self-justice.... I stil believe they will backpedal in s4. Maybe Sherlock will learn in S4 that he was wrong. Maybe he'll be the ones to suffer from nightmares this time. While I am not a fan of overly sentimentalizing him, I'd feel much more comfortable with this than with him forgetting about his murder from one episode to the other. If they simply ignore these issues S3 raised.... that will cast a rather large stain on the series, imo.

Funny To me, it sounds rather like boasting. A bit stuck-up. But that's when I am translating it mentally. It feels more natural to me to reverse it when used in a conversation, like: "I was not quite the worst thing that ever happened to you." Guess we just love our double negations and understatements. I actually have no clue what our "translation team" made with that line. Maybe they defused it somewhat, made it sound less offensive for our ears. Probably. Who knows, maybe Mary and I would have hit it off if I had not already had to frown at her first true line. Though I doubt it^^

That's what I've been contemplating for some time. Assuming this theory is right, and Mary was placed there, it allows for a lot of speculiation: Who, for what reason, for which purpose. And there's a lot of different shades in there, the good and the bad. Just imagine this as a tree diagram, and every question is a branch of its own with sub-branches. 1. There are two possibilities: Either she decided to approach John herself, or she was told to approach him by a third party/organisation. There are two persons of interest in his circle of acquaintances: Sherlock and Mycroft, though Sherlock is obviously an extension of Mycroft, because he is Mycroft's weakness (according to Magnussen, neither verbally acknowledged nor contested by Sherlock). 2. Now, there are, for easier categorizaion, either friends or foes, which limits the intention behind Mary's placement near John: Either she is a monitor to protect him from possible harm, or she was placed near him as a source of insider information. There's the matter of the odd timing, which tells us that she did not come into direct contact with John until well after Sherlock's "death." Both sub-branches have to explain this delay in placement. Ergo: Someone may have become suspicious and put the same clues together as Anderson in Many Happy Returns, and thus believed it necessary to start monitoring John closely for suspicious actions over a year after Sherlock's death. In this case, John was seen as a rat, and Mary became his monitor, either out of personal interest or because she took an assignment by a third party. If she was placed near John with the intention to protect him, then her late placement would hint at a suddenly materialized threat. John would be in danger if someone found out about Sherlock's survival while Moriarty's net was not yet destabilized. Mycroft could have called for Mary, we know both have connections to the CIA. If Sherlock had not managed to disintegrate a link of the web, and he feared for John's safety, he could have asked Mycroft for some form of protection for John. If she was placed for his protection by, say, Mycroft, he could not have been aware of her past. Otherwise she would not have had to rely only on herself when Magnussen blackmailed her. Both theories are based on no information whatsoever, which makes them equally likely and unlikely. To sum it up: Mary vs. third party as the mastermind, and she was either placed as a mole or for protection. Then there's the last question to be explored: The purpose. Mary is close to John, who later is close again to Sherlock. We know Mary pushed for their reunion. No matter her reason for approaching John, the ultimate goal was to get information on Sherlock, and possibly use him as an extension to get to Mycroft depending on the nature of the third party or Mary's own interests. If there's a third party, then it is clear that the collection of information for later use must be their main interest. But if Mary is acting on her own, that becomes much more of an interesting question. Sure, she could be interested in information, too. But there's the possibility that she is only after Sherlock and doesn't care for Mycroft at all, because she wants revenge, or to challenge Sherlock. On the other hand, her attitude towards him - condescending - would make it more probable that she is after Mycroft and using John and Sherlock as stepping stones. There are two sub-branches I can see if she is working on her own and simultaneously going after Mycroft: Either she is interested in working with him, or interested in working against him. The material she has got on the thumbdrive may be more about material on her former employers than about material on her past. Then she had gotten close to John to get protection/immunity. A silent agreement to keep the material hidden away as long as she was left alone. Then there's the less pleasant explanation that she intended to blackmail Mycroft into helping her with erasing her past. There's Magnussen hunting after her, as well as the person that provided Magnussen with the knowledge about her, as well as the families of her past victims. If she got close to John (and by extension Sherlock), she would endanger both of them, too. Deliberately. Mycroft would then step in to save his brother, and erase all her troubles, too. These are the different branches of the theory tree diagram that I can see. Not the most elaborate, sure. Just different approaches to the theory that Mary did not meet John by coincidence. And I hope I managed to be fair to her, even though I dislike her character. This may be complete nonesense, but it's worth a thought, I think... and it's much more fun to think there's more to the story than what HLV considers a sufficient exploration of her motivation.

I think she has a lot of things in her makeup, and not many of them are commendable In a way, Mary is condescending to John as well. Like when they confront her with her lies. Or even in TEH when he is about to propose. It seems like she does not feel like they are on an equal level with her. She is managing them, playing them. Sometimes I wonder if Magnussen, Jim and Irene were the only ones to use Sherlock to get to Mycroft. His absence in S3 is rather peculiar, indeed.

Sounds about right to me. If I am not mistaken, it's about the rough estimate in Germany, too. The website cites a higher rate, around 30.3 per 100 people. But if I remember correctly from a report, this count is the one which still includes the enormous amount of missing weapons from WWII, which are rotting in some cellar corner in a lot of households. I once heard that about half of all weapons from back then disappeared and their numbers are officially still in the records. The licensed guns are at a about 2,4 per 100 people, with the registered ones at 8,7 per 100. You can imagine how often people still find weapons somewhere in their parents' houses when their parents die and they have to sort through the inherited possessions. I myself remember two relatives which had this (un)pleasant experience and the moment of complete bewilderment: What to do with that thing? My aunt was worrying for days, because the secretary on the phone told her to just bring the gun over to the competent authority. Which meant walking into a building carrying a gun in a bag. She thought she'd be mistaken for a terrorist. I guess about 6-7 % is the rate you will get if there's tight(er) law regulation.