You guys don’t understand
just how badly I want to demonstrate to you how Johnlock is real.
And maybe it’s homosexual and erotic or homosexual/asexual or queerplatonic, but whichever it is, they’re canonically together and even the writers and actors have told us so, without even recognizing what they were saying with their own words (because lemme tell you people are forever discussing committed asexual relationships without even realizing that’s what they’re trying to put into words).
And it doesn’t matter if they aren’t having sex on screen (or at all) because their primary way of getting each other off is really this BDSM danger game they play together.
Where the cases are scenes, and John puts himself into Sherlock’s hands to lead John into danger and through it, and sometimes John doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’s doing and he may as well be blindfolded and spinning in circles, and sometimes Sherlock even lies to him and tricks him, but that’s okay because part of the thrill is Sherlock scaring him and guiding him.
I want to get on board with this, I really do, and I AM on board with all of it until and except one thing: the shooting.
It is not my thing at all, but I can understand the idea of wanting to experiment with limits and non-consent but jfc, Sherlock was shot and actually killed by Mary and he pops back up ready to accept that as part of the game (maybe?) and as an example of the kind of ‘danger’ that Mary brings to the relationship but … ugh. No. At this point I want to haul Sherlock off and say: there have to be limits. This isn’t fun—this is self-destruction. Otherwise—like if we are really playing with pain and manipulation to the point of actual lethal chest wounds…I’m not sure that’s a place I can go with this show.
No no. Mary was not playing the game. The game is between Sherlock and John—and generally when things are working right it does NOT involve either of them actually getting severely wounded or dying (although close calls seem to be fun for them).
No, Mary shooting Sherlock was just Mary being homicidally protective of her secrets and her relationship with John.
That Sherlock did not then choose to toss her in prison or kill her or do his level best to push her out of John’s life…well, there are a lot of possibilities there. I can see many possible reasons for why Sherlock might have made the choice he did, ranging from altruistic desire for John to keep the woman he loved to Sherlock selfishly wanting to make sure that John would remain as knotted up in the world Sherlock lives in as possible.
And you’ll note that Sherlock did proceed to dick Mary around a bit.
I mean, he was throwing the entire thing in John’s lap. Sherlock ruthlessly gambled with Mary’s future that night; he did not gamble with his own or John’s. John COULD have decided to bail out on her. She spent one very frightening evening (and then, while waiting for John, a few more months) wondering whether this entire life she’d tried to put together for herself might be falling apart.
Although maybe also Sherlock did argue for John accepting her. But then, assuming she has no more lethal secrets that might screw them over, at that point it was basically Sherlock arguing in favor of John keeping this murderous lioness who would go to amoral lengths to protect him and would not have any qualms about the way Sherlock and John choose to live their lives.
You can see why Sherlock might be okay with that.