The thing about John’s question — “Is everyone I’ve ever met [read: loved] a psychopath?” — is that is has another edge. He could just easily ask, “Is everyone who has ever loved me a psychopath?” Because it’s not just about who John is attracted to, it’s also about who is attracted to him. Who chose to move in with him, to marry him, to love him. What sort of people choose to love a man who is addicted to danger, heedless of his own safety, has violent outbursts, is frankly a misogynist, and is still in denial about all of those facts? We might see John as Sherlock’s moral center, but that says an awful lot about how ambiguous both of their morals are. And Mary, in this episode, is as much John’s mirror and foil as she is Sherlock’s. (“People like Magnusson deserve to die; that’s why there are people like me [like you, John; like you, Sherlock].”)
#I am deeply invested in morally ambiguous John#I don’t always write him that way#because I don’t think it’s the only interpretation#but taking off my rose-colored glasses#he is a right bastard#and I love where we can take that in fic#sherlock series 3#okay off to write with that
YES ALL OF THIS.
I’m really trying to behave, but I can feel my hackles raising at the arguments I’ve already seen that John shouldn’t have taken Mary back (or that he only did so because of the baby) because she was an awful person who killed people and lied, and really?
John has killed people and lied. Sherlock has killed people and lied. Nobody has a problem with their moral ambiguity, but now suddenly it’s awful and terrible because Mary has?
Looooooooooove thiiiiiiiiis.
When it comes to Mary…well, ex-assassin for hire (presumably ex) exists significantly further along the spectrum of ‘killed people and lied about it’ than John or even Sherlock. So they’ve kind of got a point there. But that was a decision John made based on emotion and what he wanted in his life, not on intellectual moral judgments.