Meta Rec: Moriarty as Two-Faced God and a Response
Title: Moriarty as Two-Faced God and Response
Author: sherlockedaspergirl (on hiatus) and mild-lunacy
Pairing: Gen
Length: 2,244
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: So I recently posted this meta about how the things that Jim says can be taken as prophecies in the pattern of Greek tragedy wherein prophecies are inescapable once uttered. But I would like to now show how it actually goes much further than that, and Moriarty is not merely a messenger of the gods as prophets are, but is in fact a god himself. His prophecies are still infallible in this reading, but his own role in Sherlock’s story is explained much more fully by this understanding.
Reccer's comments: Not long after the airing of S3, Sherlockedaspergirl examined the character of James Moriarty through a Greco-Roman lens, building on their earlier meta on his role as a prophet in the tradition of Greek tragedy. Prophets' prophecies are both inescapable pronouncements and clues that are invariably misunderstood (leading to tragedy). James might be a prophet (he is certainly full of pronouncements), but certainly he acts like a god when he makes use of prophets himself in TGG. Through them he makes himself known to Sherlock and tries to seduce him; many a god and goddess has fallen for a mortal. Sherlockedaspergirl argues that he is most like Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, of doors opening and closing, of birth and death. Janus seems a fitting identity for James, though he certainly plays more than two living characters during series 1-3: Jim from IT, James Moriarty, and Richard Brook. Even his dialogue tends to dualism, veering between playfulness and unhinged rage. After his death, he plays yet another role, representing the negative aspects of Sherlock’s id: doubt, fear, and self-loathing. He still appears at liminal moments as befits Janus, when Sherlock dies and then is reborn in HLV, and in TAB when Sherlock gets “too deep” into his Mind Palace, scenes that include James’s death and rebirth, his near destruction of Sherlock, and then his final(?) death. So perhaps we might argue his two main faces are his roles as a living being and then his incarnation as the negative emotions Sherlock tries to divorce from himself. If Moriarty always speaks as a true prophet, something which Sherlockedapsergirl notes is not yet certain (has Sherlock's heart truly been burnt out, with the rumblings of an even darker S4 ahead of us?) then he has achieved a kind of immortality as part of Sherlock’s inner world. Nevertheless, for the Falls scene in TAB to retain its symbolic power, James’s overwhelming influence over Sherlock should now be weakened. It suggests that an important turning point in Sherlock's character arc has been reached.
I think this is a fascinating way to imagine Moriarty, as a god and prophet, even as I wonder whether the show both supports and destablizes those roles. For example, I think TAB has done what the respondent mild-lunacy predicted: John Watson, not James Moriarty (“John or James?”) has become Sherlock's "other face”, the one whose name brings Sherlock back from the dead (a miracle worthy of a god) and who cheerfully kicks the seemingly indestructable Moriarty into the Reichenbach cauldron. “There’s always two of us,” Mind Palace!Victorian John says, negating James’s claim that "it's always" just Sherlock and himself. And yet afterwards in probably the only completely “real” or “waking world” scene in the episode, we are left wondering if "Moriarty" is now (or always was) a title, for it is heavily implied that "Moriarty" will return with a new face in the coming season. Janus returns?! If so, will this character have exactly the same kind of negative personal relationship James had with Sherlock? I suspect not, for there would be a risk of the newcomer becoming a pale imitation of their predecessor. However, unless a mischievous deity is choosing my words, I cannot be certain.
Author: sherlockedaspergirl (on hiatus) and mild-lunacy
Pairing: Gen
Length: 2,244
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: So I recently posted this meta about how the things that Jim says can be taken as prophecies in the pattern of Greek tragedy wherein prophecies are inescapable once uttered. But I would like to now show how it actually goes much further than that, and Moriarty is not merely a messenger of the gods as prophets are, but is in fact a god himself. His prophecies are still infallible in this reading, but his own role in Sherlock’s story is explained much more fully by this understanding.
Reccer's comments: Not long after the airing of S3, Sherlockedaspergirl examined the character of James Moriarty through a Greco-Roman lens, building on their earlier meta on his role as a prophet in the tradition of Greek tragedy. Prophets' prophecies are both inescapable pronouncements and clues that are invariably misunderstood (leading to tragedy). James might be a prophet (he is certainly full of pronouncements), but certainly he acts like a god when he makes use of prophets himself in TGG. Through them he makes himself known to Sherlock and tries to seduce him; many a god and goddess has fallen for a mortal. Sherlockedaspergirl argues that he is most like Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, of doors opening and closing, of birth and death. Janus seems a fitting identity for James, though he certainly plays more than two living characters during series 1-3: Jim from IT, James Moriarty, and Richard Brook. Even his dialogue tends to dualism, veering between playfulness and unhinged rage. After his death, he plays yet another role, representing the negative aspects of Sherlock’s id: doubt, fear, and self-loathing. He still appears at liminal moments as befits Janus, when Sherlock dies and then is reborn in HLV, and in TAB when Sherlock gets “too deep” into his Mind Palace, scenes that include James’s death and rebirth, his near destruction of Sherlock, and then his final(?) death. So perhaps we might argue his two main faces are his roles as a living being and then his incarnation as the negative emotions Sherlock tries to divorce from himself. If Moriarty always speaks as a true prophet, something which Sherlockedapsergirl notes is not yet certain (has Sherlock's heart truly been burnt out, with the rumblings of an even darker S4 ahead of us?) then he has achieved a kind of immortality as part of Sherlock’s inner world. Nevertheless, for the Falls scene in TAB to retain its symbolic power, James’s overwhelming influence over Sherlock should now be weakened. It suggests that an important turning point in Sherlock's character arc has been reached.
I think this is a fascinating way to imagine Moriarty, as a god and prophet, even as I wonder whether the show both supports and destablizes those roles. For example, I think TAB has done what the respondent mild-lunacy predicted: John Watson, not James Moriarty (“John or James?”) has become Sherlock's "other face”, the one whose name brings Sherlock back from the dead (a miracle worthy of a god) and who cheerfully kicks the seemingly indestructable Moriarty into the Reichenbach cauldron. “There’s always two of us,” Mind Palace!Victorian John says, negating James’s claim that "it's always" just Sherlock and himself. And yet afterwards in probably the only completely “real” or “waking world” scene in the episode, we are left wondering if "Moriarty" is now (or always was) a title, for it is heavily implied that "Moriarty" will return with a new face in the coming season. Janus returns?! If so, will this character have exactly the same kind of negative personal relationship James had with Sherlock? I suspect not, for there would be a risk of the newcomer becoming a pale imitation of their predecessor. However, unless a mischievous deity is choosing my words, I cannot be certain.