John Watson

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, but Sherlock is about a hundred times smarter than John, so John's experience is irrelevant. :P

[Arcadia]

 

Sherlock's tendency to cut John out when the chips are down has nothing to do with John's gender, and everything to do with the kind of person Sherlock is, imo. He's a bit like Mary; he thinks he can handle it by himself better than if he has John "hanging on his gun arm."

Isn't that exactly what a lot of men say with regard to women (especially in the military and such)?

 

 

I don't know, is it? I always thought their arguments were more gender specific ... "women aren't strong enough", etc.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've heard -- though admittedly not first-hand -- that a lot of military men are concerned that if women are allowed in combat, then the men wouldn't be able to do their job properly, because they'd be too busy protecting the women.

 

Which may well be true -- but if so, it's because of the men's attitudes, not the women's weakness. So I'd say that the men need extra training in treating all their comrades alike on the job.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Oh, but Sherlock is about a hundred times smarter than John, so John's experience is irrelevant. :P

Ca... Carol.. is that you?

 

 

I've heard -- though admittedly not first-hand -- that a lot of military men are concerned that if women are allowed in combat, then the men wouldn't be able to do their job properly, because they'd be too busy protecting the women.

Which may well be true -- but if so, it's because of the men's attitudes, not the women's weakness. So I'd say that the men need extra training in treating all their comrades alike on the job.

Yup. Agree.

I do agree by default most women are physically less strong than men, (actually I don't understand why many women feel insulted on this). It doesn't have anything to do with feminism, more to anatomy. Just like men mostly rely on shoulder and chest strength for heavy backpack while women rely on hips (try that), or men have more advantage using upper body strength for hauling themselves up during rock climbing, while women need a lot of balance in maximizing lower body balance etc etc.

 

However, that doesn't mean women are always less strong, and in other areas, we can be stronger (I think Molly is strong in her own way, and Mrs.Hudson too) especially if there is proper training etc.

Women who enter military wouldn't have 'the boys will protect me' mentality anyway, but yes, it's very common for men to think that way (many that I know don't do it as mean spirited but more on clueless chauvisim and old thinking, but yes, there are MCP~Male Chauvinist Pig too). For some others, the first instinct for gentlemen (bless them) is to protect women.

 

Imo, that's fine, it's nice to be protected but personally I would jump to join them instead of waiting if, only if, I'm sure I would be asset instead of liability.

 

That works for both gender, to know own limit, and also for both gender, not to dismiss the other as unsuitable merely based on gender.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, but Sherlock is about a hundred times smarter than John, so John's experience is irrelevant. :P

Ca... Carol.. is that you?

I take it you've never heard of sarcasm (she said sarcastically).  :P

[Artemis]

I am getting very weary of every. single. female. in movies and TV to have to be a complete bada$$ or else it is viewed as not "feminist."

 

^ Ditto.  It's actually rather unfeminist, in my opinion.  Now, instead of being depicted as less capable, they have to be implausibly good at everything, and still look sexy while doing it.  I feel like it's actually leading to the opposite of its intended result.

 

I really liked how Mary was portrayed in the Guy Ritchie films, especially "Game of Shadows".  She was a happy medium with realistic strength, not entirely helpless and not a complete BAMF.

 

 

[Boton]

 

I am getting very weary of every. single. female. in movies and TV to have to be a complete bada$$ or else it is viewed as not "feminist."

 

^ Ditto.  It's actually rather unfeminist, in my opinion.  Now, instead of being depicted as less capable, they have to be implausibly good at everything, and still look sexy while doing it.  I feel like it's actually leading to the opposite of its intended result.

 

I really liked how Mary was portrayed in the Guy Ritchie films, especially "Game of Shadows".  She was strong in a very realistic way, not entirely helpless and not a complete BAMF.

 

 

It's also really bad story-telling.  If we say that women can never be portrayed as weak or scared or simply bad at doing something, it really limits the character development. And yes, I think these BAMF portrayals are as damaging as some of the ones where the women are incompetent.

[Pseudonym]

It would just be nice to see things in the middle, where the woman is not a screeching damsel in distress nor is she superhuman and BAMF. Which brings me back to Mary and how much better if would have been if she were nice and normal. I wonder if they were so wary of being accused of being misogynistic (again) and of Mary being a weak damsel in distress type character that they then went too far the opposite way?

[Arcadia]

That's what I think.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Either that, or they just couldn't resist the temptation to do something unexpected. But of course they do the unexpected so often that a lot of fans were expecting it....

[Boton]

I do too.  I think, by the point of Mary's introduction, there had already been so much (IMHO, unnecessary) criticism about the number of female characters and how they were portrayed that they were scared to death of making another Molly.  Molly was absolutely fine, as far as I was concerned, in her original pre-slapping incarnation that we saw through S2 and the beginning of S3, but people seemed to want a "powerful" woman, whatever that might mean in this context, and they just went overboard with Mary.  They even had Mrs. Hudson and John almost break the fourth wall explaining that her role "within the narrative" was to be a caretaker, and then they made her BAMF in S4.  

 

I wonder what the show would have been like without that kind of pressure?  Maybe we would have gotten a Mary that wasn't a super spy but who functioned more like a modernized version of the original Mary Morstan.  I think that would have been fun and would have distracted less from the focus on Sherlock and John.

[Carol the Dabbler]

If they'd just kept her as she was in TEH and TSo3, that would have made me very happy (even if they killed her off later). I liked the way she interacted with the boys in those two episodes.

[Boton]

Yes, not an idiot, but not always having to upstage the boys.

 

The one thing that makes me think that Moftiss succumbed to pressure is the presence of Rosie. If they were intending to follow more of a traditional ACD plot line, it makes sense for Mary to get pregnant.  But, in the modern day with modern contraception, it makes no sense for a 40 year old woman and her doctor husband to accidentally get pregnant; it makes even less sense that a super-spy would do anything she wasn't in complete control of.

 

The only thing I can think is that there's an aborted story line here: Moftiss intended Mary and John to be one of those couples who discontinue contraception on the eve of the wedding because it takes older parents longer to conceive, and they surprised themselves with how quick it happened. Mary was going to be who she was in TEH and TSo3, cheering the boys on, contributing intelligent things, but not particularly involved.  Then they realized they wanted to go the super-spy direction, and that made things weird.

 

What also is weird, from a John point of view, is that bit in TAB where John says "I'm taking Mary home," and she bristles and he amends to "Mary's taking me home."  That didn't make anything better.  If one statement is sexist or demeaning, so is the other. It should have been, "We're going home." Anything else feels like an over-correct. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I think the humor lay in the overcorrection. It was almost as though John was still shaking off the effects of the Victorian scenes -- which of course makes no logical sense but still adds to the tone of the scene.

[Artemis]

I wonder what the show would have been like without that kind of pressure?

 

I always hope that the writers of a show will stick to their guns and make the show they wanted to make instead of pandering to the audience.  When they start adding or changing things from their original intent for the sake of audience appeasement, it's the marker of the show going downhill or ending.  I think it ruins it, and often the love the creators had for it when they started it.

 

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

I take it you've never heard of sarcasm (she said sarcastically).  :P

I am quite familiar with the concept of sarcasm, sometimes even accused of breathing it.

Just want to be sure you are not possessed that's all :p

 

 

Regarding Mary, is it possible they make her that way because they want to kill her?

And how to kill Mary in Sherlock universe? Maybe they are trapped with Sherlock's syndrome, wants everything to be clever (arguable) so they decide to make it into spy assassin dangerous world in order to kill her in reasonable way.

They probably didn't see that making Mary ordinary (smart but ordinary) could actually make her death much more powerful. People die. That's what that do.

 

Sherlock and John are living in dangerous world, and they keep reminding us that it is, but it seems to me that they are scared to take it too seriously. We saw them in serious situations but the impacts are always short-lived. In a way I understand that they don't want Sherlock to get too dark, but I think it may work with more realism and believability if, Mary is the collateral damage of Sherlock and John's world/work. And in a way, Sherlock actually make a mistake in his deduction/timing/target/suspect that contributes to Mary's death/the failure to save Mary that actually makes John's anger actually justifiable?

 

Not aiming to put the mistake on Sherlock, but something more belivable with the situation in TLD (that he feels guilty, John is angry), same end game but more justifiable imo than the forced reason we are given.

I think it's unnecessary to introduce that Mary's world is dangerous to kill her. Why. We already have Sherlock and John's dangerous world and we had seen the impact on people around them. (Molly, Mrs.Hudson, Lestrade)

[Artemis]

I think John is one of those people who attend first glance seem open and approachable but really aren't. They have plenty of casual acquaintances, buddies, but only very few real friends.

 

Couldn't that be said of most people, though?  If you even have a few real friends, I'd say you're pretty lucky.  I guess it depends on how you look at it.  I don't think making friends easily means that all the friends you make are close friends.  If John has plenty of casual acquaintances and buddies, I'd say he does make friends easily, because that's what "easy" friends are.

 

If Mycroft was meaning "You don't have oodles of close friends," that's kind of an empty statement.  He may as well have said "You're a typical human being," lol.  It's not really anything worth pointing out unless John's friend-making ability is actually worse than average, but I'm not sure what evidence there is of that.  His social network seems about the same as an average person's.

 

 

Just to be clear, my original post on the subject wasn't asking so much about whether John really does or doesn't have friends, but about the psychology behind why he wouldn't make friends easily (if indeed Mycroft was correct).  It's obvious why Sherlock doesn't make friends easily, but why John wouldn't is a little more mystifying to me.  True he's guarded and has a much more complex inner life than we get to see, but he's also sociable and seems friendly enough.  Is there something about him that people don't like, or something about other people that he doesn't like?

 

I remember Sherlock telling Mary who of her friends hate her. The list seemed to be… well, a list.

 

BTW, the friend that hates me. Isn't it a strange line?

 

What scene is that line from?  I can't find it.  :/  I don't think it was a list of her friends, was it?  She said, "Who else hates me?" after Sherlock told her that John's cousin hated her, so I had presumed that many of the people on the list were from John's side.

 

What's funny is that Sherlock had it written out ahead of time, like he expected her to ask, lol.

 

 

[Arcadia]

 

I take it you've never heard of sarcasm (she said sarcastically).  :P

I am quite familiar with the concept of sarcasm, sometimes even accused of breathing it.

 

Oh, really? I hadn't noticed. :P

 

Just want to be sure you are not possessed that's all :P

 

 

Regarding Mary, is it possible they make her that way because they want to kill her?

And how to kill Mary in Sherlock universe? Maybe they are trapped with Sherlock's syndrome, wants everything to be clever (arguable) so they decide to make it into spy assassin dangerous world in order to kill her in reasonable way.

They probably didn't see that making Mary ordinary (smart but ordinary) could actually make her death much more powerful. People die. That's what that do.

 

Sherlock and John are living in dangerous world, and they keep reminding us that it is, but it seems to me that they are scared to take it too seriously. We saw them in serious situations but the impacts are always short-lived. In a way I understand that they don't want Sherlock to get too dark, but I think it may work with more realism and believability if, Mary is the collateral damage of Sherlock and John's world/work. And in a way, Sherlock actually make a mistake in his deduction/timing/target/suspect that contributes to Mary's death/the failure to save Mary that actually makes John's anger actually justifiable?

 

Not aiming to put the mistake on Sherlock, but something more belivable with the situation in TLD (that he feels guilty, John is angry), same end game but more justifiable imo than the forced reason we are given.

I think it's unnecessary to introduce that Mary's world is dangerous to kill her. Why. We already have Sherlock and John's dangerous world and we had seen the impact on people around them. (Molly, Mrs.Hudson, Lestrade)

I agree ... if Mary had been just "ordinary", her death under the circumstances shown in T6T would have been really brutal. Maybe too much so? Maybe they were afraid to go that far, and made her a semi-villain so her death wouldn't be felt so hard? Who knows, but count me in the club that would have preferred Mary to be "ordinary."

 

 

I think John is one of those people who attend first glance seem open and approachable but really aren't. They have plenty of casual acquaintances, buddies, but only very few real friends.

 

Couldn't that be said of most people, though?  If you even have a few real friends, I'd say you're pretty lucky.  I guess it depends on how you look at it.  I don't think making friends easily means that all the friends you make are close friends.  If John has plenty of casual acquaintances and buddies, I'd say he does make friends easily, because that's what "easy" friends are.

 

If Mycroft was meaning "You don't have oodles of close friends," that's kind of an empty statement.  He may as well have said "You're a typical human being," lol.  It's not really anything worth pointing out unless John's friend-making ability is actually worse than average, but I'm not sure what evidence there is of that.  His social network seems about the same as an average person's.

 

 

Just to be clear, my original post on the subject wasn't asking so much about whether John really does or doesn't have friends, but about the psychology behind why he wouldn't make friends easily (if indeed Mycroft was correct).  It's obvious why Sherlock doesn't make friends easily, but why John wouldn't is a little more mystifying to me.  True he's guarded and has a much more complex inner life than we get to see, but he's also sociable and seems friendly enough.  Is there something about him that people don't like, or something about other people that he doesn't like?

 

I agree; both Ella and Mycroft stated that John had "trust issues", or something like that ... but we were never shown that. We only have the word of two other characters to go on, and no reason to believe that either of them know what they are talking about. I always found that a bit jarring. In all other respects, it seems to me John is presented as a perfectly sociable guy ... until S3, when he appears to have become more callous. I always thought that was meant to show that Sherlock had rubbed off on him in some ways (not good ways), as a counterpoint to how Sherlock softened a bit due to John's influence. But now I'm not so sure. Now it seems more like they were just showing a darker side of John Watson than they originally revealed.

 

 

I remember Sherlock telling Mary who of her friends hate her. The list seemed to be… well, a list.

 

BTW, the friend that hates me. Isn't it a strange line?

 

What scene is that line from?  I can't find it.  :/  I don't think it was a list of her friends, was it?  She said, "Who else hates me?" after Sherlock told her that John's cousin hated her, so I had presumed that many of the people on the list were from John's side.

 

What's funny is that Sherlock had it written out ahead of time, like he expected her to ask, lol.

 

 

That was my understanding as well, that the people who hated her were from John's side, although why they would care is beyond me.

 

Ohhh ... maybe all John's friends and family were Johnlockers! And that's why they hated Mary. Aha!

[Carol the Dabbler]

I agree; both Ella and Mycroft stated that John had "trust issues", or something like that ... but we were never shown that. We only have the word of two other characters to go on, and no reason to believe that either of them know what they are talking about. I always found that a bit jarring. In all other respects, it seems to me John is presented as a perfectly sociable guy ... until S3, when he appears to have become more callous. I always thought that was meant to show that Sherlock had rubbed off on him in some ways (not good ways), as a counterpoint to how Sherlock softened a bit due to John's influence. But now I'm not so sure. Now it seems more like they were just showing a darker side of John Watson than they originally revealed.

I believe Mycroft was quoting Ella -- so we really have only her opinion about the "trust issues," and she's a shrink, so she may mean something a bit different from what a lay person would, plus of course she may be misinterpreting.  Or actually, she could easily be overgeneralizing, because John doesn't really open up to her (or to Eurus-as-shrink either).  So yeah, he doesn't trust HER (or them).  That doesn't necessarily have any bearing on how he interacts with other people.  Maybe he only trusts people that he feels are trustworthy, and he doesn't really know his shrink, so how could he fully trust her?  Of course he's paying her to help him, which would work a whole lot better if he opened up.  But I've seen that sort of reaction a few times in real life, and it seems to be a guy thing.

 

Note that we also have only the word of Mycroft, Sherlock, and Mary that John is an adrenaline junky.  One might say "takes one to know one," but then again people tend to assume that their friends are just like them.  (Which come to think of it may explain why a person could be accused of lying if they disagree with a friend/acquaintance/relative -- but that's a whole 'nother thread).

 

My interpretation of John's different demeanor in S3 and early S4 is that he's dealing with feelings of betrayal.  He's hurt and bewildered, and therefore morose.

[Pseudonym]

Just a lil point atm, too busy to answer properly annoyingly, but he's probably not paying her to help him, he's likely been referred to her on the NHS possibly against his will. He certainly doesn't seem to want to be there.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Ah, good point.  I have no experience with the NHS, so I defer to your knowledge of them.  Plus I suppose the Army may insist on his seeing a shrink in order to keep getting his pension.  In either case (or both), his arm's-length attitude is even more understandable.

[Pseudonym]

I don't know anything about how it works in the army but I suspect it's something like that. He had a traumatic injury and lost his career, it seems entirely reasonable they would force him to see a therapist. As for the fact he's seeing a therapist in season 4, that might be something he's paying for since he seemed to be a bit more free to choose who we went to and what hours his appointments were. Though if we went to a doc and said his wife had just died in traumatic circumstances they would immediately refer him if he did want to do it free. 

The trust issues is another reason I would prefer to know more about John's past rather than Sherlock's non-Doyle sister. I don't see why the army would have instilled a lack of trust in him so it must be something from when he was younger, if, as you point out, he has issues at all and it's not actually that he just doesn't trust therapists. 

[Van Buren Supernova]

Actually at what point trust issue becomes a problem to address?

 

I think it's good to have trust issues, especially for strangers.

People who don't have trust issues are the ones I am worried for.

 

Trust shouldn't be easily earned.

[Artemis]

I believe Mycroft was quoting Ella -- so we really have only her opinion about the "trust issues,"

And Mycroft told John to fire her, so he might not even agree, lol. He was of the opinion that John was "very loyal, very quickly," which I'd think would be an indication of someone who trusts more easily than not. (I disagree with Mycroft on that count, personally.)

 

I always thought it was a bit funny that Sherlock and Mycroft both commented on John's therapist at their first meeting, and in opposite ways. Sherlock deduced that she had correctly determined John's limp to be psychosomatic, and Mycroft deduced she had incorrectly determined that John was haunted by the war. It's almost like a foreshadowing of the discordant relationship between the two brothers, lol. I wonder if it was intentional.

[Pseudonym]

Surely it's not up to a therapist to decide a limp is psychosomatic anyway? Wouldn't it be up to medical doctors?