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ailangam-blog · 9 years ago

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Confirmation that Moriarty is a title, not a single person

Well it took me three watches to get here, please don’t judge me for it:

Moriarty is dead, but Sherlock knows exactly what he’s going to do next. Impossible? No, because he knows the next Moriarty has to do something.

He realizes this through the organization in 1895. Mrs. Ricoletti kills herself in front of a crowd of people and comes back. How?

Because Mrs. Ricoletti/The Abominable Bride is a title, not a single person. All of the women in the organization were able to carry out their revenge on the men who had wronged them by dressing up as her and using her name, despite the fact that she was, in fact, really dead. Absolutely dead. Never coming back dead. She blew out the back of her skull, and no one survives that.

So there it is: Moriarty is a title. An organization. But not a person.

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ailangam-blog · 9 years ago

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fandom’s demand fulfilled...

moriarty spoke for fandom in the sherlock special

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ailangam-blog · 9 years ago

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Upon rewatching this scene, I noticed something interesting about the way this moment was shot. Notice that there is one moment this close-up shot of Moriarty that the camera shifts to show the picture alongside his head. I believe there are implications and certain conclusions that can be drawn through these few frames.

The cinematography in Sherlock (like everything else) is typically exquisite and painstakingly detailed. Everything is chosen with care and the team responsible obviously plans and optimizes every movement of the camera. So why is it that Moriarty is not centered in this shot? Why is he slowly dragged to the left, drawing the viewer’s eyes to the painting?

It had to be intentional. That means that the painting is important - but not in general, not like the blue painting in the normal 221B set. In the beginning of the episode we see little details that have changed in Victorian 221B, and other details that have stayed the same. The penknife in the mantle, for example, was featured alongside the painting. But this was shown again and again.

So: what are we to deduce about this painting? Why is it important, why here?

Obviously, this painting in particular was chosen with care. Out of any countless memento mori that could have been used, this one was chosen in particular, but why? The painting, as shown above, is a bit of an illusion. From far away or at first glance it appears to be a human skull, but upon further inspection it is really a picture of a woman looking at her reflection.

I will address my theory about the skull first, and then the women.

The fact that the first thing a viewer sees is a skull implies that it is the obvious answer, what anyone could see at first glance. This is what the entire episode is dealing with: the Moriarty problem, the final problem. Moriarty is obviously dead, he shot himself in the head in The Reichenbach Fall - Sherlock saw it himself and could not question it. No matter how he looks at it - and he certainly ponders on the mystery - the man we know as James Moriarty is dead. There’s a hole in the back of his skull, there’s no chance of recovery.

So our James Moriarty is dead. That much is obvious. Anyone could ascertain this at first glance.

But there’s more to this than meets the eye, isn’t there? If he is dead, who is sending out this message? Who is still a threat to our protagonists? What is behind the mystery - who is behind the skull, the skull so blindingly obvious that one can only discern anything (or one) else if one really observes?

The woman and her reflection are behind the skull in this painting, and that would lead one to believe that there is a woman behind the skull in this series. A woman behind this Moriarty conundrum.

Mirrors, subtextual and otherwise, are a tool frequently utilized in Sherlock. This has never been more true than in The Abominable Bride. We see a mirror’s importance within the story itself - the theater trick that causes Sherlock and John to see the bride, the shattering of the mirror that eventually leads to the solved mystery. Symbolically, we see examples of mirror images of one’s own character - from the representative mirror of all the mistreated brides in one to Molly Hooper’s mirror image of herself when she disguises herself at the morgue. We also see mirrored images of all the characters as they appear in both modern and Victorian times.

Mirrored characters in particular are important throughout the series. There is one, big and obvious and always there is the mirror of Sherlock and Moriarty. They are reflections of each other, one dark, one light. They even physically mirror each other’s movements in this very scene, drawing guns and circling around each other in a strange, antagonistic dance. However, viewers have been reminded of this mirror nearly constantly throughout the series. “We’re just alike, you and I…” et cetera. They even have similar features - intelligent, snarky, dark hair, light skin.

Back to the painting. While the mirrored woman may be taken literally to further demonstrate the Sherlock-Moriarty mirror to the audience, I believe it has an even more intricate implication. The Abominable Bride was very female-driven: the mystery was about a women, women feature heavily in all sorts of occupations, we find Mary at the end of the mystery, so on and so forth. The painting also features a woman. Coincidence? Doubtful, as it has been explicitly spelled out in season three that, in this universe, there is no such thing as a coincidence.

This leads down the path of other, female mirrors. Who could mirror Sherlock or Moriarty, with similar intelligence, wit, charisma, physical attributes? It cannot be just any person, any woman - it would be The Woman.

Irene Adler: briefly mentioned in the special, tall, pall, dark-haired, intelligent, witty, charismatic, enigmatic. She’s an obvious mirror for Sherlock, but she could also easily mirror Moriarty. She intellectually challenges Sherlock, interests and repels him at once, has a place in his mind palace, and has an entire episode dedicated to her in season two - all things that can be said about Moriarty himself. She also worked alongside, or for, Moriarty.

But mirror or not, there are two female images in this painting, not one. A reflection inside of a painting inside of Sherlock’s Victorian hallucination.

And there is another woman in this series that has all of Moriarty’s intellectual traits, though not the physical ones. This is obvious - Mary. If one of the women is supposed to represent Irene, who worked for Moriarty, there are implications that arise about Mary’s (former?) employment. Mary’s previous life is a mystery as of yet to the audience, but this shot may reinforce the assumptions and theories regarding Mary as Moran.

I’d also like to address the Twins Theory that has been circulating. I believe that it could very well be a red herring - but, again, the universe is rarely so lazy. While Mary and Moriarty are very dissimilar physically, I have still seen the theory that they are twins. Janine is another that has been speculated about as a potential Moriarty twin or relative. Either way, this is incredibly interesting because it would mean that Moriarty’s twin brother is now a twin sister. This is another mirror. Who else has a gender-swapped sibling in this show? That’s right, John Watson. This would set a fascinating parallel that could possibly make for an interesting final showdown-type scene (made even more by the fact that John married Mary and Janine and Sherlock were briefly together).

[Janine as Moriarty’s twin gives her a connection to all of our Big Bad’s so far - Moriarty, Mary, and Magnussen. She also physically fits in better with my mirror theory. However, as she has been only a minor character so far and has so far only been a victim or a comedic relief character, I am hesitant to believe that she will become a more influential character later on]

Gif credit to @martinsbaby and photo credits to @grinchlestrade for the screenshot and @sherlockr for the close-up of the painting (yes, I grabbed it from kik, I hope you don’t mind!)

Also credit to the TAB kik group I’m in for inspiring this idea, encouraging it, and helping me out with those gifs and images listed above!

Please feel free to add on to this and tell me your thoughts!

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ailangam-blog · 12 years ago

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