History Manga / MoriartyThePatriot

** Billy seeks out McGinty afte McGinty killed Pat Garrett and destroyed his hometown to try to ''forgive'' him instead of seeking revenge...only for it to nearly faily because he was so tempted to take revenge himself. Fortunately, he manages to deliver McGinty over to the law.

* SparedButNotForgiven: Billy delivers McGinty over to the law instead of killing him for revenge, but he cannot find it in himself to forgive the man for what he did.

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: Billy doesn't feel any better after apprehending McGinty and giving him to the law to face justice accordingly. Sherlock points out that the person he truly has to forgive in order to feel better is himself, for doubting his friendship with Garrett.

** Billy's choice to hand McGinty over to the law instead of killing him himself extrajudicially is portrayed as not truly taking harmful revenge and instead as the proper course of action.

* VigilanteInjustice: This story portrays a WellIntentionedExtremist version of Professor Moriarty. Moriarty knows the murder he's committing of monstrous nobles in hopes of bringing equality to the British Empire is wrong and openly says it's not justice but still seems to view it as a necessity he's committed to for too long to abandon. [[spoiler: The series actually has him survive ''The Final Problem'' arc in which he dies in the original canon so he is forced to find a proper way to atone for everything he's done and find a new way to commit to justice.]]

* FoeRomanceSubtext: William and Sherlock are on nominally opposite sides of the criminal/detective match up for much of the series. Despite this, Sherlock talks about a RedStringOfFate tying him to William repeatedly, is unabashedly excited every time he sees William, and is fixated on saving him from himself. On William's part, he hopes to be reincarnated with Sherlock to be with him in another life, desires to throw his entire plan and life away to spend more time with Sherlock, requests to die with Sherlock alone at his side, and thinks of Sherlock as a warm breeze in a cold and lonely room he's trapped in--even compares meeting Sherlock to a [[FlamesOfLove fire being lit in his dark, cold, empty life]]. Sherlock says they have ''always felt the same way''. [[spoiler:Then Sherlock catches William in his arms and cradles him protectively surrounded by [[CherryBlossoms cherry-blossom]] imagery. After that, in Sherlock agrees to work with Billy to provide William's medical care and stays vigilant at William's bedside in the manga, and in the anime Sherlock is asked if he is looking for a "lover" and answers that he is looking for a "friend" and grins at William]]. And on top of all of that profession of feelings, their story matches the usually-romantic shinjuu plot structure. With their constant devotion to each other, it gets harder and harder as the series goes on to see their professed "dear friendship" as JustFriends. Plus, you know, they live together for a while and [[CurtainFic literally discuss buying curtains for their home together]].

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: Billy doesn't feel any better after apphrending McGinty and giving him to the law to face justice accordingly. Sherlock points out that the person he truly has to forgive in order to feel better is himself, for doubting his friendship with Garrett.

* RevengeIsNotJustice: For all that the Moriarty family is portrayed sympathetically, their actions are not portrayed as acceptable or forgivable. They were evil and they all commit to devoting the rest of their lives to atoning for their crimes. William even outright states that he's never thought of his actions as justice, nor that he has any right to have done what he has.

* HotSpringsEpisode: The anime OVA episodes were announced to take place in Bath, England, at a hot springs resort for the upper class, where Sherlock and William become intrigued by an incident.

* CastFullOfPrettyBoys: The series has very few prominent female characters, and the male characters are all commented on even in-universe to be very handsome. In "The Tea Party" chapter, the women visiting the Moriarty manor drool over how pretty ''even the Moriarty servants'' are, even the older SilverFox Jack.

* MythologyGag: The series has featured a couple to ''Series/{{Sherlock}}''
** Dr. Watson is blonde(the Paget illustrations and most adaptations have Watson as dark haired) and lacking the traditional mustache until after a TimeSkip.
** Milverton backports a lot of elements from his counterpart Charles Augustus Magnussen, including his much nastier personality, status as a media mogul, and death [[spoiler:by Holmes.]]

* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:William and Sherlock's. Both, of course, survive.]]

* SeriesFauxnale: Subverted ''hard''. Readers (and even some media outlets) assumed the manga would wrap up with ''The Final Problem''. After all, it's the story of Moriarty who dies in that story in the original canon, it seems to be the final clash between William and Sherlock, the first page of the first chapter foreshadowed it, and, well...it's called "Final" for a reason. But ''The Adventure of the Empty Hearts'' follows immediately after and introduces a character that had been shown on the cover of chapter one alongside William's other subordinates who weren't introduced until much later, so the authors intended to go past ''The Final Problem''...since chapter one.

* AgeLift: Just about all of the main characters are younger than they seem to be in the original canon. Before the TimeSkip, Professor Moriarty and Sherlock are only 24, Mycroft only 31, Colonel Moran only 35, and John Watson only 26, with everyone else hovering around their twenties and thirties as well.

* EvilVersusEvil: The concept of the show. William murders people who are worse than he is. Also seen with his decision to confront Milverton, the King of Blackmail, whose actions are solely rooted in his own desire to push people toward evil, as opposed to William's hope for a more equal world.

* ImprobablyFallingSave: After William falls from the Tower Bridge, Sherlock grabs his arm in hopes of hauling him back up, and manages to hold him up for long enough to have an argument with William before William notes that the bridge won't hold them forever--never mind that Sherlock's arm should be ripped from its socket.

** The manga shows the founding of the UsefulNotes/MI6 before Dr. Watson publishes his first Sherlock Holmes novel, under the pen-name of Creator/ArthurConanDoyle. In reality, ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet'' (first published in 1887) precedes the [=MI6=] by 22 years ([=MI6 =]was formed in 1909). Of course, since the [=MI6=] in this setting is founded by Moriarty (hence his codename "M"), while Sherlock Holmes is their UnwittingPawn whose involvement in the murder case that became the basis of Dr. Watson's first novel is due to Moriarty's machinations, the manga couldn't possibly use the correct historical order.

** Miss Moneypenny is the only woman on William's team in MI6.

** Possibly most notably, the central driving conflict of the series, Moriarty’s desire to reduce the political power of the nobility, is half a century or more too late to be realistic. In reality that conflict had played out over the late 18th and early 19th centuries culminating in the passing of the Reform Act of 1832 (which instituted the reforms that appear to be contemplated by the legislation proposed in ''White Knight of London''). To be fair the passage of the Reform Act was at least as controversial as it is portrayed as being in the series. Arguments about the extension of the franchise and making the Lords subordinate to the Commons brought down several governments and the initial rejection of the Act by the Lords provoked riots (though, as far as anyone is aware, there was no assassination campaign by the Lords). By the late 19th century when the work is set the main conflict in British society was labour versus capital rather than commoners versus nobles.