About ghost!Mary
“ SHERLOCK: Interesting, isn’t it? I have theorised before that if one could attenuate to every available data stream in the world simultaneously, it would be possible to anticipate and deduce almost anything. (He sniffs and looks down pensively.) JOHN (nodding): Hm. So you dreamed up a magic woman who told you things you didn’t know. MARY: Well, it sounds about right to me. (She looks up thoughtfully.) Possibly I’m biased. (She smiles down at John.) SHERLOCK: Perhaps the drugs opened certain doors in my mind. (He looks away again, thinking about it.) I’m intrigued. (He takes another drink from his mug.) JOHN: Oh, I know you are ... (He tilts his head towards the door.) JOHN: ... which is why we’re all taking it in turns to keep you off the sweeties. “ (Ariane Devere’s transcript here) Funny but it looks like John is answering ghost!Mary rather than Sherlock’s “I’m intrigued” line, like: “I know you are biased”, because you’re the part of me that is in awe with Sherlock’s clever mind, the part that wants Sherlock to put the hat on and be clever. Of course John is biased. I’ve seen some posts after TLD that said Mary was representing his emotions for Sherlock somehow, but I disagree with that, Mary was representing John’s admiration - he imagined a Mary that was nice and luminous and especially nice considering Sherlock, this was the part of him that wanted to forgive Sherlock, the part of him that represented his admiration for Sherlock. That’s the part of him that said Sherlock “is not a monster (...) he’s our monster”. The part of him that wanted Sherlock to be the detective again, the brilliant mind who solves crimes. The one who also wants him to put the hat on, aka the symbol of Sherlock’s public persona, the symbol of the great detective. And of course John is biased because his admiration for Sherlock is subjective, it comes from a deeper place. That’s this admiration that makes him forgive each of Sherlock’s actions, even the worst, that’s this admiration that makes him believe Sherlock can solve any problem (even disarming a bomb). And this admiration is the most explicit and textual evidence of the love he has for Sherlock. But it’s so conflicted in John’s head, so Mary also represents heteronormativity, it’s what he makes of his feelings, his representation of Mary is what we see once we erase the romantic feelings he has for Sherlock - a ‘no homo’ praise for Sherlock’s cleverness. Now I’m gonna put the tinfoil hat on for a sec, because if TFPb is actually in John’s head there’s a following to that reading. If Mary is the expression of John’s admiration for Sherlock, then, it makes sense that the Mary he imagines at the end of TFPb is telling that the most important is the adventures and solving crimes together. If this is true that all the ep happens in John’s head then Mary is still ghost!Mary. Aka heteronormativity. And if s4 is what it is and nothing cleverer, then my reading still is a better reading than mofftiss’. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Tagging @jenna221b , @the-7-percent-solution , @may-shepard