Now, of course this little theory falls apart after a moment of careful inspection (for one thing, if Watson were so forgetful about her disguise, she would be discovered immediately, particularly by a man as attentive as Sherlock Holmes; for another, there are a million other things that must be explained away, such as Watson's facial hair). But it does explain the two most irksome inconsistancies of Sherlock Holmes in a single stroke.
- And Mycroft likely has an even more severe form.
- Certainly the Mycroft presented in original ACD canon and the Ritchie films is even more socially inept/ socially apathetic than his brother, suggesting Asperger's. Unusually, the Sherlock BBC modernization appears to cure him of this, making him merely coldly manipulative, but in many ways more effective in social situations than Sherlock, probably due to his expanded career as "The British Government," while Sherlock's anti-social behavior is played as even higher up the autism spectrum. In the second series(2012), John Watson directly mentions Asperger's as a possible diagnosis of Sherlock's recent insensitivity to Detective Inspector Lestrade.
- There's also the fact that Mycroft was a founding member of the Diogenes Club, which sounds like it was built for people who struggle with sensory overload.
- Dr. Mortimer in The Hound of the Baskervilles might as well. He has specialized interests (phrenology and physical anthropology) that he's very enthusiastic about and brings up even when they're not immediately relevant to the situation at hand, and he has unconventional notions of what constitutes appropriate small talk.
He also has no tendency to exercise, but has physical strength which, no matter how good your genes are, doesn't come without some intense physical labor in one's youth (see Abraham Lincoln, who seems to have had a similar remarkable constitution). Finally, in 'The Naval Treaty,' while Watson takes an unenthusiastic view of the grim board-schools below, Holmes practically rhapsodizes over them - realizing the value of a good education as only a man who never had the benefit of one could.
Conclusion? This was a man who loved learning because he never, ever had to yawn through some boring class he'd never have to use, under some uninspiring schoolmaster. Holmes was, for whatever reason, withheld from elementary education (don't forget, this was before the Compulsory Education Act), and whatever education he did gather up was driven by his own driving curiosity.
He only did two years at University before dropping out, and probably gained admittance purely by demonstrating his knowledge of Chemistry.
- Watson describes the hound as something resembling a mastiff and a bloodhound, but such a mix would not resemble the book's other descriptions of the hound being a hulking beast, capable of scaring a man to death. A predecessor to the modern mastiff and Rottweiler, the Tibetan mastiff is one of the world's largest and most vicious dog breeds, known for being built like bunkers and having a loud, haunting bark, which resembles the baying heard in the distance on the moor. Being an Asiatic breed that's rarely seen in the West, it's possible that Watson could only guess as to what the dog actually was. Seriously, go look them up, you'd die of fright too with one of those things chasing you while on fire.
Given that Stapleton was both smart and quick-thinking, it'd make more sense if, having retreated out of sight into the edge of the Mire, he'd realized that the fog was too thick to go any further, and simply stayed put on the fringe of it until the weather began to clear up. Once he could make out the marker-posts, he had a head start on his pursuers, and could venture far enough in to discard the boot, then veer off along one of the side-pathways he'd used on his butterfly-hunting excursions. He listened until his enemies had followed Beryl toward the Hound's hiding-place, then returned to the main path and backtracked his way out of the Mire. With the manhunt for Seldon called off (by Holmes himself, no less!), the local constabulary were no longer sending out search parties and he could simply walk to the nearest farm, steal a horse, and ride away clear. The ooze of the Mire ate up his tracks, and Holmes returned to London too soon to hear about the horse-theft, which Stapleton could probably pass off as a strayed animal in any case.
- Holmes seems to have absolutely zero understanding of romance whatsoever, so that makes this unlikely.
- I ship it. They talked for hours on end. The way Victor's described is quite more...physical, I guess you could say, too. Holmes and Watson don't even talk for as long as Holmes and Victor.
- Problem is, in Valley of Fear we read that at least one senior Scotland Yard inspector has met Professor Moriarty. Not to mention verified his full-time employment as a university professor, at his university.
- Holmes created Moriarty to live a double life. By day he solves crimes and wins the respect of law-abiding society. By night he commits crimes and wins the respect of the criminal fraternity. He doesn't need the money: he just hates to be bored.
- And, keep in mind that Holmes dabbles in stage makeup (if by "dabble" one means "is so well-practiced that sometimes even Watson doesn't recognize him"). The inspector mentioned above might have met Holmes in a disguise.
- The problem is, Professor Moriarty has a full-time day job at a university. (Crime is his night job.) That doesn't leave enough room in the schedule for Holmes to be traveling all over Europe or moping all day in his parlour where Mrs. Hudson sees him at every meal.
- Moriarty's classes are so advanced that nobody even signs up and Holmes' absences from his flat are covered up using a Ferris Bueller-style mannequin and rigging, leaving Holmes/Moriarty with plenty of free time.
- This idea is actually used, in Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, when Holmes gets involved in the Jack The Ripper investigation. In his drug-addled state, Holmes is not just Moriarty, he's the Ripper; when Watson finds out, he pursues him to the Reichenbach Falls, where Holmes kills himself.
- Also in Nicholas Meyer's novel The Seven-Percent Solution, where Moriarty is a figment of Holmes' drug-addled imagination. Watson kidnaps him to Vienna where he gets detoxed through hypnosis performed by a promising young doctor named Freud...
- Just to quibble slightly; in The Seven-Percent Solution there actually is a real Moriarty, but he's actually just some inoffensive little maths professor who Holmes has blown up into a criminal mastermind out of cocaine-fuelled paranoia and the fact that Moriarty had an affair with Holmes' mum when he was a kid.
- The problem is, Professor Moriarty has a full-time day job at a university. (Crime is his night job.) That doesn't leave enough room in the schedule for Holmes to be traveling all over Europe or moping all day in his parlour where Mrs. Hudson sees him at every meal.
- P.G. Wodehouse theorized this, probably at least partly tongue-in-cheek. He believed that this could be why Holmes had enough money to live on comfortably and to pay the Irregulars without having an actual paying job.
- Except in The Final Problem, Watson writes that Moriarty's brother, Colonel James Moriarty, had spoken out against what he saw as defamation of his brother's name. There is also mention of a second brother and of Moriarty's academic accomplishments, all matters of public record and traceable. And, remember, the reason Moriarty came after Holmes was because Holmes was helping gather evidence to put him on trial. To say nothing of the fact Moran specifically is trying to avenge the Professor's death in The Empty House. So there's plenty of people besides Holmes who have seen or know of Professor Moriarty.
- New theory: Mycroft Holmes was actually Colonel James Moriarty. Knowing of his brother's dual identity, he followed suit, perfecting the illusion with falsified documents he acquired using government contacts, hoping to use the Colonel persona to manipulate Sherlock in both of his guises.
- Why would Moran know about his boss' secret identity any more than Watson knew about his flatmate's?
- Also, look very carefully at the scene where Colonel Moran is arrested. This scene could be interpreted to mean that Sherlock Holmes had hired the Colonel himself, and now the Colonel was angry at his entrapment.
- Why can't he? Spock says in an EU novel Ishmael that he's descended from Aaron Stemple and Biddy Cloom, 19th-century Earth humans.
- The "can't" comes from the EU novel Strangers from the Sky.
- I've always pictured a Vulcan survey ship crashing in Victorian England. A Vulcan named Sulak would be found, bob his ears, eat vegetarian, learn the violin (because his harp is broken) and take cocaine to alleviate the Pon Farr...
- Hard to account for Holmes' abilities as an ur-profiler if he was Vulcan, though. Anticipating the emotional state of suspects and victims is crucial to many of his successful cases.
- Holmes was never a vegetarian. He and Watson regularly eat poultry, mutton, etc.
- Sulak crashed out in the country, where he was taken in by the old country Squire who had no sons of his own. Maybe he married the man's daughter, too. Holmes is some portion - half or less - Vulcan. Being raised in human culture instead of Vulcan, he's much better at reading human nuances. And this means that Spock got a smidgeon of Vulcan from his mum's side, too.
- In Sherlock BBC Series 2, John Watson jokingly refers to Sherlock as "Spock."
- Biggest hole in this theory: Reread The Adventure of the Empty House. Watson's wife is already dead by the time Holmes comes back.
- Or: Watson was under scrutiny by the police for the murder, but got away with it. The case was probably at least somewhat publicised in the papers. He wrote the date of his wife's death as being before Holmes' arrival into the story to put the public into the mindset that he was innocent and that there had been no motive, and so kept his respectable position.
- And neither Holmes nor Mycroft, both of whom read the newspapers and Watson's publications religiously, never noticed this discrepancy? Watson's connection to Holmes makes him enough of a celebrity himself that his wife's death should've at least rated a mention.
Alternately...
Mycroft's job is strangely/vaguely described and clearly related to (presumed military) intelligence somehow... or something similar, anyway. Not such a stretch to name the VFD as something similar, is it? Not with all their sneaking about being weird and elusive. Plus, as the VFD kidnap their 'volunteers' as very young children, and this neatly explains Holmes' aversion to talking about his family, and both the brothers' strangeness. Not to mention just how Holmes gets away with what he does... the VFD are helping.
Also, it could explain why Holmes lets Watson publish sensitive cases. He's doing so to utilize them as a method of communicating codes to people.
Last but not least, the authorities are idiots in both the series. Clearly, they started off bumbling in the 1800s, Holmes' time, and just went downhill.
- Going with the above thread, this troper would like to pose that Moriarty was (is?) an ex-member of VFD, explaining his massive intelligence and cunning in creating detailed crimes. This would explain why Holmes was so keen on catching him, as it was an assignment given to him by his superiors who wanted Moriarty either caught or dead.
- This theory is bolstered by the fact that Moriarty attacks Holmes in FINA by setting his rooms on fire. Also — we know that the VFD recruit new members at very young ages and train them in skills of observation. Who else are the Baker Street Irregulars, then, but a group of neophytes Holmes is training to become full members of the organization? Perhaps they disappeared after the first couple of stories because their training had been completed...
Even if we accept that Watson is an essentially honest person giving us the truth as he sees it, that doesn't necessarily mean that we can automatically accept each case as being absolute gospel — Watson's got his perspective on events, and it's likely to conflict with the other major players, even Holmes. Furthermore, there's plenty of cases where we can assume or it's outright stated that the participants have either asked for discretion in reporting the case or are not likely to be very thrilled with having their dirty laundry aired for the gratification of the public; in order to avoid lawsuits (and keep business coming in — no one's going to go to a private detective they can't reasonably trust to be discrete with their affairs) Watson fictionalizes the affair, mixing and matching details and changing names just enough to keep an exciting narrative for publication whilst at the same time avoiding him and Holmes getting sued from here to doomsday by a parade of unhappy clients, occasionally dropping in a hint that someone's asked the case to keep quiet to Lampshade that the story is actually Ripped from the Headlines.
- The Jeremy Brett adaptations also played on this possibility. Both the Burke and the Hardwicke Watsons were much smarter than they were letting on in their publications, even managing to pull off the occasional Sherlock Scan; similarly, the interplay between Holmes and Watson made it clear that Watson was gussying up his material for sensational (or romantic!) effect. Holmes specifically complains about such in, if memory serves, "The Copper Beeches."
- And it almost goes without saying that there are plenty of events that Watson never viewed first-hand, so where Watson reported Holmes doing some fantastical deduction, it's just as plausible that Watson was paring down a lot of boring investigating into a single "A-Ha!" moment. "Holmes, your account of boring interviews with witnesses goes on too long. I'm going to say that you asked me to step out of the room, and then when you came out, you had the crime solved, all right?"
- Going with the above, it makes sense that Watson would exaggerate details in order to make a good story. Lots of stories that sold or were given the most attention in Victorian times were either fictional or exaggerated to the point of being so (e.g. Sweeeney Todd and Jack the Ripper respectively). Also, it seems strange that Holmes would complain about Watson blowing their adventures out of proportion when one of Holmes' canonical fields of expertise is that of sensationalist literature.
- One tangent to this would be the idea that Mrs. Hudson has seen the good that Holmes has done through his works and has effectively Become The Mask, going about her usual duties while either feeding the police blatant lies or breaking off her deal with them altogether.
- Another is that Holmes has known about this all along and opted to Feed the Mole, basically playing along with Scotland Yard since he regards them to be somewhat beneath him anyway.
- Alternatively, she was a spy for Mycroft, who wanted to make sure his little brother was well taken care of. Perhaps she was even a former agent of his. It would explain why she was willing to put up with him, and if she had previously worked with Mycroft she would be used to his...queerness.
- Alternatively alternatively, Mrs. Hudson is the Napoleon of Crime, forever evading Holmes using information she gets through eavesdropping. Moriarty is a patsy.
- Well, 'murdered' is perhaps a bit strong; there's a reasonably fair case for self-defense.
- This is essentially the basis of The Seven Per-cent Solution, innit?
- Sort of. The premise of that is that the Hiatus was Holmes traveling the world in a period of... mental decompression (I don't want to demean this with the phrase 'vacation', because it was a little more than that).
- Watson really solved all the cases after Holmes' death by himself.
- There's also the suspicious circumstances of Holmes' apparent return. Watson's wife is dead, he is trying to be like Holmes but just can't quite do it, he is stymied by a mysterious case... and suddenly, a Holmes personality emerges to solve the case. Also, notice how Holmes seems to have changed in personality after The Final Problem.
Holmes is actually just hiring some dude to tag along with him. Or, "Watson" is actually just a collection of henchmen of Holmes who do minor tasks. Or, perhaps Holmes is even well-known to have a split personality named Dr. James Watson. There are suspicious moments in the books, especially after The Final Problem, where:
- Holmes and Watson are supposedly both present, but only one of them is addressed by name while the other is simply "your friend" or is not recognized until someone explains who he is.
- Holmes and Watson are seldom separated within the narratives, and it is quite rare that Watson does anything independent of Holmes, especially after The Final Problem
- This is actually patently untrue — The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Lady Frances Carfax, The Dying Detective, and The Illustrious Client are just a few stories written after The Final Problem where a large portion of Watson's actions are largely independent and/or take place when he is out of Holmes's presence.
The "Sherlock Holmes" personality is triggered by turbulent periods in Watson's life. As Watson settles into married life, the Holmes personality is suppressed, finally eliminated during The Final Problem. But then Watson's wife dies, and he decides to jump into a case because he feels like he ought to pursue it for some reason, and the Holmes personality re-emerges stronger than ever.
As for Mycroft? Mycroft is an inmate at an insane asylum.
- As if Holmes, master of disguise, couldn't pass as a Muslim.
- And Sir Richard Francis Burton successfully infiltrated Mecca in real life, by disguising himself as a Muslim — to the point of circumcising himself — making the hajj.
- This is only amazing if one believes "Muslim = moor"; knowing the language and customs is more important to appearing Middle-Eastern (or any other ethnicity) than a particular skin-tone or facial feature.
- And Sir Richard Francis Burton successfully infiltrated Mecca in real life, by disguising himself as a Muslim — to the point of circumcising himself — making the hajj.
- Not sure about the in-universe timeline but he does state very clearly that he would have (quite unlawfully) killed one guy who shot Watson in a story published after The Final Solution. And even before 'The Final Solution', the only criminal he indirectly killed was done by sending a snake back through a secret tunnel, most definitely done with the intention of self-preservation rather than murder.
- Also, he shows no romantic interests in women. He even seems to scorn them, which may be the reason why he hides his biological gender.
- He explicitly does not trust women, views the eligible intelligent Violet Hunter as his sister, but shows some distant appreciation for the moral character of some women despite his initial poor estimation of them. If he keeps a priority on maintaining the secret of his apparent sex, he wouldn't be able to trust a woman even if he were generally attracted to them. Recall, he turns down payment for a case to keep the photo of Irene Adler after she disguises herself as a man and greets Holmes without his recognizing her. His own gender identity issues may be as much cause for this admiration of her as much as her foiling his efforts on a case.
- Far be it from I to point out the obvious, but he could just not be romantically interested in women.
- Unlike in the 2009 film, he has no facial hair in the books, even when he's been camping in the wild for a few days (Hound of the Baskervilles), which strikes Watson. Although he's very tall, he's described as slender, with narrow fingers.
- Lack of secondary sex characteristics is extremely suggestive, although he could be an XY with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which fits for being tall but light on the masculine features. If it were mild, he'd be an infertile man that doesn't shave, if it were more complete, the science of the time could hardly differentiate him from a female except for the lack of ovaries, but in a different presentation we could split the difference and say he had ambiguous genitalia, had any combination of female or male physical traits you may imagine, and was raised as a girl as per the following.
- OTOH, staying clean-shaven under all circumstances is a logical thing for a man who wears disguises for a significant part of his work. It's hard to apply a false beard over an actual beard, after all.
- Remember, though, he has a goatee in "His Last Bow," so he's clearly capable of growing facial hair. Unless the goatee was false, of course, although that would be difficult to keep up when one is maintaining the same false identity for years.
- He doesn't have the basic knowledge of a Victorian-era gentleman (according to Watson, no knowledge of classical literature, astronomy and philosophy, very little knowledge of politics), perhaps because as a girl, he wasn't taught things that would be useless to a future wife. His lack of interest in politics maybe because he's not allowed to vote.
- He's also a pretty good cook, was that normal for a guy then? Let us pretend it wasn't. He could've just sat down with some food and books and practiced because it interested him. But take it with the rest of his non-crime related interests and we get a collection of benign items in the education of a young girl to make her seem worldly but not over-educated: Music, cooking, a few foreign languages.
- Women were allowed very few professions at the time. Passing as a man was the only way for an ambitious and intelligent woman to have an influence on society. What policeman in his right mind would have asked or accepted help from an unmarried woman to solve criminal cases?
- The fact that Holmes was a successful prizefighter, and openly recognized as such by a fellow boxer, would tend to debunk this WMG. Why? Because boxers fight bare-chested, even in Victorian times. Even if s/he were flatter than average, Holmes' disguise skills aren't that good.
- While I do feel that that debunks the WMG, there is still the possibility of a flat chest and a Sarashi disguised as a bandage. Holmes was really interested in middle- and far-Eastern things, and even if he wasn't, it's hardly impossible for him to have thought it up himself. Fighting in the black or even grey markets would account for being allowed to fight while injured, and if Watson never saw Holmes' fights, it's possible (though unlikely) that he used (fake) severe burn scarring as a disguise (it would be a decent reason to use bandages during every fight, and explain why parts of the surface of his chest felt less solid than a boxer's should when [rarely?] punched).
- This is Sherlock Holmes. Wearing a shirt while boxing wouldn't be the most subversive thing he's done.
- And if we assume the above is plausible, it only adds flavor to the WMG: He took to boxing to taking passing as male to a ridiculous extreme, knowing that if he could get by in that, he'd be beyond question. On the other hand, he once effortlessly bends an iron fire poker back into shape, so he had greater strength than the giant brute that bent it. Most men don't posses that much upper body strength, for a biological female, it approaches impossible, and Watson says that he never witnesses Holmes exercising or doing conditioning of any kind, oddly.
- Even if they let Holmes fight while wearing a shirt or bandage, his opponents would surely insist that he be patted down first to ensure he isn't concealing, say, a leather chest protector. Boxers have been known to cheat, after all.
- The modern-day prevalence of gynecomastia across age groups is about one in three, although it's primarily concentrated in adolescents and seniors. Nonetheless, if you see a lot of dudes shirtless you're gonna see some dudes with tits, so it wouldn't really be a huge shocker.
- The other big problem with this theory is that female private detectives worked in Victorian London and were not considered particularly remarkable. Holmes could have worked as a female detective without any particular problem.
- "He" might've been able to work, but this would have not spared him from from inequality in pretty much every other aspect.
- Another point in favor: Watson occasionally describes Holmes' voice as high-pitched. Not entirely clear whether he means he always sounds like that or just when he's excited and yelling at Watson about whatever he's excited about, but nonetheless. High-pitched voice?:I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion’s voice. ("The Stockbroker's Clerk")
- Even more amazing is the fact that this essay by Rex Stout was translated into Russian language which even has a different alphabet - and the translator still managed to concoct a mathematical proof (admittedly different from Stout's) that supported Stout's thesis! Make of that whatever you wish.
- So what happened at Reichenbach?
- Watson shoves Holmes over the edge, then returns to the hotel under the implication that he had left before Holmes "and Moriarty" had fallen. The reason Moriarty was not caught at the station was that the tall man at the station was a paid actor, and had papers to prove his identity and likely more than one alibi for times that Moriarty had supposedly been confirmed by Holmes as being in a specific place.
Basically, put together Mycroft Holmes' legendary description that 'in certain circumstances, he is the British government', Sherlock Holmes' tendency to get trusted with highly sensitive government matters and the Diogenes Club being a place for notoriously anti-social people where the members are discouraged from talking to each other on pain of banishment, and you've got the perfect place for keeping secrets. The general rule is that if the Diogenes Club isn't the actual Secret Service, then it's certainly one of its fronts.
- Many of the recent film and television adaptations (specifically, the second Ritchie film and the BBC miniseries) certainly play off this assumption when determining the political reach of Mycroft and his ability to manipulate events. Interestingly, there seems to be an emerging trend in portraying Mycroft's career as some sort of below-the-radar diplomatic position, as evidenced by his role at the conference event in Switzerland in the second Ritchie film and his Coventry-like project for opposing terrorism in the first episode of the second BBC series, A Scandal in Belgravia. This isn't particularly in line with his slothful characterization in canon, although it's not the largest departure either work has made from the source material (usually resulting in a stronger narrative anyhow.)
- Building on that, the Diogenes Club is for former members of the Baker Street Irregulars who now put their talents to work on an international stage.
- More likely it's staffed by former Irregulars, as Victorian class-ism would surely bar Holmes's street-urchin contacts from the blue-blooded heights of British administration.
This is why his body is never found after the hound is killed. They think he was sucked into Grimpen Mire but really he died in wolf/hound form.
- Unless this WMG presupposes that werewolves live a lot longer than humans, the Hugo who wrote down the legend of the Hound can't be the same Hugo who appeared in the tale. The old manuscript shown to Holmes by Dr. Mortimer was dated to 1742, whereas the portrait of the original Hugo (that resembled Stapleton) was created in 1647.
- Two marriages, no children? Maybe Watson was hit somewhere a little more dear if you follow me.
- With Western Medicine being what it was at the time, there's no way he could possibly have survived the bloodloss a bullet wound to the genitals would entail.
- He most certainly could have. Even without restrictive athletic underwear that kept the particularly blood-infused bits out of the way of the progenitorial bits, he would merely have had to have been lucky (or unlucky, depending on his priorities) and escaped infection and clots. perhaps by cauterization, or a strange but not impossible quirk of his own anatomy.
- With Western Medicine being what it was at the time, there's no way he could possibly have survived the bloodloss a bullet wound to the genitals would entail.
- On a similar note, Julia Stoner (the victim from "Speckled Band") was bitten in the crotch by the swamp adder. Anywhere else, and the coroner would've surely noticed the bite wound, but Victorian proprieties ensured he wouldn't dare examine that portion of her anatomy for the police inquiry.
- Victorian proprieties were prudish, but we tend to exaggerate how much so; they weren't quite that squeamish. Sure, a man having intimate knowledge of a woman's private regions without being her husband while she was still alive would be scandalous in most circumstances, but much as with today general exceptions were allowed for doctors and medical professionals (on the basis that, well, as in this case they wouldn't have been able to do their jobs otherwise), and certainly if the woman was dead. Being a coroner back in the Victorian days would be much like it is now — the coroner would likely have seen far worse in their working life than a woman's genitals, and certainly would be unlikely to be so utterly scandalised at the prospect of seeing them as to be unable to even look at it.
And look at that last interview with Moriarty at Baker Street. Moriarty is looking at Holmes for the first time, and what does he notice first? "Less frontal development than he might have expected." Moriarty had a huge forehead. This takes on extra meaning when you think he may be comparing himself against his son. And he was giving Sherlock a last chance to bow out, no harm, no foul. What kind of sociopath DOES that? A sociopath who, all things aside, is proud of his boy, that's who.
Just throwing it out there.
- According to The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Moriarty has a history of sleeping with Sherlock's mum. I don't recall how the timing might have worked out, but that's there.
Having bested the (supposedly) greatest detective, our enterprising mastermind decided to take his former opponent's name as a sort of trophy. This new Moriarty's influence in the underworld grew in the following years, until the only thing lasting in peoples' memories of the name Moriarty was of a dastardly criminal. And then, Moriarty the mastermind meets Sherlock Holmes, an opponent equal to (or perhaps greater than) the now long dead detective. Initiating a dangerous, yet thrilling, game of cat and mouse, Moriarty tries to goad Sherlock into revealing himself, just as Sherlock does with Moriarty. This culminates in their final meeting, only the roles are reversed from when Moriarty bested the detective. Now, Moriarty is the older combatant, and Holmes intends to win. Unfortunately for them both, neither wins, though Holmes later returns. However, unlike a future incarnation of Light and L, Holmes doesn't claim Moriarty's name for his own. There could be a number of reasons for this: the name Moriarty sounds French, and the English and the French hate each others guts, Moriarty was a criminal mastermind, and his name had some weight in the underworld - one of the few places in the world a person dedicated to catching criminals wanted to place themselves, or simply because Holmes had a greater respect for those deceased than his Arch Nemesis did.
- I love this.
- In other words, typical ADHD?
To sum up, I find it quite plausible that Doyle wrote at least some of the Holmes series as a subtle (or not so subtle) attempt to satirize or even cash in on some of the gimmicks in writing of the time (The Murders in the Rue Morgue, practically anything with Magic Realism, and so on). If you choose the fairy interpretation instead of the vampire interpretation, it could have been satire or sincerity (I know Doyle believed in adorable little fairies, I just don't know if he also believed in The Fair Folk or if he thought that was just a writing gimmick).
- Also, Marcia Wilson (aragonite) had Lestrade point out in a fic that Holmes lets the police take the credit so that he can call it in as favors later.
- Assuming this is true, Holmes has on several occasions let a murderer go free if he feels that their case was not without sympathy; Lady Hilda was being blackmailed by a spy who was, at least, something of a scumbag. He might have pegged that Lady Hilda's account didn't quite add up, but felt that she didn't deserve to hang for it. Besides which, he was hired to retrieve the papers and prevent a scandal, not to solve the spy's murder, so he just decided it was Someone Else's Problem.
- Would that mean he was willing to let the mentally unstable foreigner get hanged? That would be out of character for him as for all of the murders he let's go free, he always warns that if there's a chance some innocent party gets the blame, then he will reveal the truth.
Secondly: If Porlock is a real person living in mortal fear who has managed in some capacity to operate under Moriarty's nose, it's strange that he doesn't seem to know what a code is for. Would a Nazi spy trying to pass information on Operation Husky encrypt every word except "Sicily"?
Thirdly: By FINA, we and Holmes both know that Moriarty is an accomplished forger. So, if a person who can assume any handwriting he wishes, and whom you have been battling on fronts uncounted, sends you an extremely vague taunt, how would you know the identity of the sender, much less the topic of the message? I say because it pleased him to assume Porlock's hand, thereby showing that he'd made Holmes complicit in the murder of Jack Douglas.
- Philip José Farmer states that Doyle's near-contemporary and fellow literary agent Edgar Rice Burroughs did exactly this for Holmes' relative, Lord Greystoke, so this is almost confirmed.
- Alternately, Moran's knowledge of Moriarty's criminal empire was deemed valuable enough that his life was spared in exchange for a very long prison term and his testimony against hundreds of lesser criminals.
- "Smarter" doesn't necessarily equate to "wiser". Mycroft is even more stringently data-oriented than Sherlock, and deals in documents more than individuals; he may have lapsed in not realizing what a gang of ruthless kidnappers or a timid bureaucrat might do under panic and duress, without diminishing his genius for calculated assessment.
The two years "Holmes" allegedly spent hunting down his enemies were actually two years Moriarty spent getting cutting-edge plastic surgery and training himself to replace the great detective. Ultimately, he managed to slip seamlessly into Holmes's life, even managing to fool his best friend.
Readers noticed that after being brought back, Holmes's personality became colder and more manipulative. This is because Moriarty is unable to completely hide his true nature.
He solves murders as Sherlock Holmes while using the immunity from suspicion his new identity offers him to sponsor yet greater crimes and nip potential rivals in the bud.