#something's

To start off, a disclaimer, this is almost completely different than other theories I’ve seen about what’s going on in The Six Thatchers, but I worked really hard on it and I’m fairly new to the fandom so bear with me (and correct me) if something is deviant from accepted fan theories and stuff. I’m taking things on a more literal level here and then I’ll digest some of the more layered theories afterword- can’t wait to see everything! I saw a post that talked about the Sherlock fandom theory acceptance, and in the words of the blogger, I’m going to see if anything sticks. Maybe I’m not a Sherlock of fan theory, but I can at least be a conductor of light, right? Here goes:

I’m not nearly as eloquent and good with words as some people in the fandom, but I saw @moriarty ’s post about how people theorizing about John and Sherlock premeditating Mary’s murder is a bit off, and I got inspired.

I feel like the events of TST don’t explain a strong enough motive for a man like John to go to the aquarium with the sole intention of shooting Mary. He has such a strong moral compass, as shown by the shooting of the cabbie in the first episode (it was one of the first really important things we learned about John, right? He only kill in Sherlock’s or his defense) all through the series to him turning down the Bus Stop Woman’s advances (accepting the theory that John was texting Sherlock in the Devil Baby scene at the Watsons’). “E” might be important in the next episode, but she was put in TST for a reason, and I think showing John’s self-control once again might be one of them.

Mary literally shot Sherlock, and almost killed him. I think if John were to kill Mary, it would’ve been after he found out, right? Of course, she was carrying their child, and he wouldn’t want to kill the baby, but if he’d really wanted to kill her he would’ve divorced her right after he found out she shot him. He didn’t. She doesn’t really do anything worse in TST, so why would John decide he wanted to kill her after that? Ok, she lied a lot, but HER SHOOTING SHERLOCK WASNT A STRONG ENOUGH REASON FOR HIM TO WANT TO EVEN DIVORCE HER. It seems unlikely that anything Mary did in the new episode would even be a “last straw” to John, and I think he would have just divorced her rather than kill her, mainly stemming from the fact that she’s the mother of his child, no matter how much he comes to hate her. He doesn’t divorce her = he likely doesn’t even hate her.

Conclusion: Mary either did something even worse than shooting Sherlock that TST episode covered up so that John wouldn’t get executed/exiled/jailed for her murder (I’m not familiar with murder punishment in the UK), and/or John killed her at the aquarium in self or Sherlock’s defense and Mycroft and Crew covered it up Magnussen style (supported by previous things I’ve reblogged about the Hollywood cheesiness of Mary’s death, how fake the scenario we see seems, and the showing of the doctored video in the beginning of the episode). I also believe that John didn’t hate her, and was genuinely grieving at the fact that he’d had to kill her in the end, even though the scenario we saw probably wasn’t what happened actually.

This conclusion satisfies Johns tendency to do the right thing soldier-style, the genuine emotion the asked Ben, Martin, and Amanda to show during her “fake death” scenario, and Mary’s “go to hell, Sherlock” line at the end of the episode that puts us right back into seeing Mary as a villain.

In short: Mary’s really dead, John really loved her till the end, John really hates Sherlock at of the end of the episode (keep reading for more on this), and Mary’s death scenario, as well as probably the events of nearly the whole episode, are fake.

However, I do think the alibi theory (I reblogged earlier) is legitimate BECAUSE the episode seems fake. The timeline’s a little wonky, but Sherlock’s cases throughout the beginning of TST could be shown onscreen to not only show Sherlock hiding his grief at John and Mary’s happiness (as suggested by the “Norbury” conversation with Mrs. Hudson) but also to show the cases Sherlock went back and sifted through in order to make John an alibi to give to Mycroft to fabricate and paste into “what really happened” like with Magnussen. This doesn’t mean John was actually a part of the planning other than to inform Sherlock that he knew what they fabricated, maybe via the letter? (Written things are nearly untraceable), and was going along with it.

FURTHERMORE: (Accepting TJLC-) John’s “anyone but you” hatred of Sherlock in the end: we don’t know what really happened, so John could actually hate Sherlock, making Moriarty’s threats of “burning the heart out of” Sherlock come true. After all, burning requires the situation to progressively get worse: Sherlock can’t be with John for two years, causing John grief; Sherlock returns, only to find his “heart” unavailable in the hands of another person; John married said person, who turned out to be a liar about practically everything, which is DEVASTATING to Sherlock; said person then causes their further separation even after her death, and this plausibly could’ve been predicted by Moriarty if Mary was, in the end, Moriarty’s metaphorical matchstick with which to burn Sherlocks heart out.

OR they might be required to act that way because they know that was part of Moriarty’s plan and they both could both be in danger if they don’t fake it (parallel to why Sherlock had to fake his death and leave in Season 2). That would support the theory of John’s letter being a secret correspondence of sorts, entrusted to Molly, but not a very good explanation of Sherlocks decline back into drugs in the upcoming episode (The Lying Detective), his conversation with Mrs Hudson about “Norbury”, and him seeking Ella out at the end of the episode in order to figure out how to help John.

So what the heck really happened to make John kill Mary and hate Sherlock? There’s definitely something deeper going on behind the scenes.

Either way, it seems likely that Mary was working in Moriarty’s web, especially since she would’ve been out of a job after the British Government (literally Mycroft, teehee) stopped employing freelancers.

Predictions: - We don’t have an answer to what Moriarty’s intention was with DID YOU MISS ME and that whole thing, so we’ll probably see more of his plotting somewhere in the rest of the whole show. Mary will be involved with it, as well as another living person, maybe Culverton Smith or maybe even Sebastian Moran, whom we haven’t seen yet on the show.