... I've thought of some more
Apparently, I'm not done with Sherlock thoughts just yet. Mostly because I've actually been reading through some of the theories and reactions and stuff on the tv tropes entry and its subpages, and it's stirred up thoughts I forgot to mention. (It's weird, the "fridge brilliance" entries are almost entirely intriguing and/or enriching; the "fridge horror" entries, below them, nearly all annoying for having missed the point in some way or another.) Quick thoughts, mostly, although raising more questions than the last, now that I've read what people (on that site, at least, who in this case appear to be obsessively thorough) have noted or not (and am wondering if I'm the only one who thinks it). Flistie reassurance that I'm not insane is appreciated, but not demanded.
Spoilers, still, naturally, since most of this has to do with events of the second season.
So, I assumed on first watching that the phone call that Moriarty received that defused the pool-bomb-sniper standoff came from Irene, telling him that she had in her phone'o'blackmail a piece of code that pertained to the Coventry plot. (Or perhaps the photos of the royal that are enough to get Mycroft involved. Maybe both, I don't know. How long was Bond Air being planned, anyway? Sherlock had the phone for six months!) I assumed that partly because Moriarty's next big play was to use Irene to get Sherlock to crack it (he does so love to watch Sherlock dance), and because in his criminal enterprise, this was a crazy-valuable piece of merchandise. And while he may just have changed his mind again, him walking away from killing Sherlock directly implies that he's just been handed enough ammunition for a far more entertaining go-round with him (and his brother), with far higher stakes. I mean, I don't think his base motivation ever wavered: he just wanted to stop being bored. Enabling terrorists and bringing England to its knees (and thus engaging at least one Holmes, likely both, in its defence) are only valuable to him inasmuch as they divert him from his Final Problem.
Which means that, unbeknownst to anyone except Moriarty, Irene saved Sherlock's life. Hello, bookends! We like you! - Except that I haven't noticed this mentioned anywhere, and while I haven't read everything on the series' entry (there's a lot), I thought this would be the kind of thing that would at least merit a mention. Maybe I'll find it after I post about it, like everything else.
Also, one of the few non-annoying fridge horror ideas pointed out that Sherlock's perceived fraudulence calls every case he worked on into question. Apparently (I haven't seen it) the television newsreport of Sherlock's death, posted on John's blog, has a detail scrolling below it saying the convicted murderer from the tv celebrity's death in "Great Game" was filing to reopen the case. Which, from a Moriarty-faked-his-death perspective, is brilliant. Destroying Sherlock's reputation not only is great fun, but buys back a lot of cred he might have lost as a criminal consultant by ratting out some of his clients for kicks - he destroys the credibility of the evidence against them. Also, it appears there's been no official mention of the body. I mean, I'm not saying that Moriarty definitely planned to fake his death for whatever lulzy reasons, but there are a lot of character-consistent doors being left open for that to be the case.
Here's another question I had as I watched that I haven't seen anyone ask (or answer, for that matter): exactly what was the extent of Mycroft's involvement in all of this? I mean, the clips of his reactions to everything (after the whole Adler/Coventry cockup, anyway) are highly ambiguous and in retrospect can be said to mean damn near anything. I kept watching to see him actually react to the death of the one person he absolutely cares about, and saw no such thing. Okay, Mycroft's a stoic, maybe. On the other hand, it read much more to me like he knew Sherlock wasn't dead. (Again, in the corresponding Sherlock Holmes canon, Mycroft is the only one who knows Sherlock isn't dead. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) I can't say this with any certainty (yet; it'd mean going back and watching all the relevant scenes to test the theory, and I don't have time), but I have something of a suspicion that Mycroft deliberately allowed Moriarty to go after Sherlock. Which sounds like a risky and completely dick move; ie, exactly what both Holmes boys do to test/solve their problems, especially when they feel it's the best option. The question is not so much would Mycroft do this, but having done it, how much would he tell/help his brother?
I mean, there are all these people decrying Mycroft for being so hubristic, or stupid, or childish, or whatever, in telling Moriarty all about Sherlock and then letting him go without warning Sherlock, apart from telling John to look out for him and no real reason why. And you start to go, yeah, that is quite a stretch, especially from the overprotective Mycroft. The only other option than him being very strangely OOC is that he did so deliberately. Which, if he doesn't know Sherlock pulled a switcheroo, would leave him absolutely devastated. Which he does not seem to be. Again, that might be a supreme stoicism, but that feels kind of an odd choice.
Although if we posit that Mycroft did this, we'd have to ask why. Why not just kill Moriarty when he had him in custody (as we assume he could without much trouble, considering Moriarty was in the kind of facility in which prolonged torture was conducted)? Quite likely for the same reason we were explicity told of why Mycroft couldn't just destroy Irene's phone's harddrive: he would never know the source and extent of any number of potential security leaks. Killing Moriarty would not solve the problem of the things he'd put in motion, which we know from "Scandal" includes assisting terrorists. Letting him go, and then tracking the contacts and resources he used to target Sherlock, would give Mycroft's secret service at least a partial map of Moriarty's network. In fact, to ensure Moriarty set his sights on Sherlock and would be less likely to notice being shadowed himself, Mycroft actively primed him by feeding his obsession with Sherlock. I mean, that's just one reason off the top of my head why it would make more sense in terms of national security to let Moriarty go than keep him locked up and not giving them any information. (It also makes a nice little parallel with Moriarty's arrest, "trial", and being released, all for ulterior purposes. Hello, parallels! We like you too!)
Of course, Mycroft couldn't know what Moriarty's plans were - quite likely Moriarty didn't formulate them in any detail until he got out. So even if he warned Sherlock that Moriarty was gunning for him in some way (and why he was allowing it), the sleuthing aspect of Sherlock having to be awesome and work out what was actually going on is not undermined, from the perspective of story satisfaction. And the question of why Mycroft couldn't help his little brother is easily answered by the idea that if he did, Moriarty would know and realise something bigger was up. (Thus also keeping the significance of Molly's involvement intact.) Mycroft did all he could by warning both Sherlock and John in different ways, and then for the sake of the operation had to stay the hell out of the way, and trust Sherlock's ability and John's loyalty. Made all the more fun (meta-wise, that is) that John called him out on pretty much all of this, without knowing what was (possibly) really going on, and received an extremely weak excuse in response. Because he could not, under any circumstances, tell John the truth. Now tell me if any of all of that sounds out-of-character for Mycroft.
And, if this is what happened, then Mycroft gets some character development. Which is nice.
Okay, that's it. Again.
For now.
Spoilers, still, naturally, since most of this has to do with events of the second season.
So, I assumed on first watching that the phone call that Moriarty received that defused the pool-bomb-sniper standoff came from Irene, telling him that she had in her phone'o'blackmail a piece of code that pertained to the Coventry plot. (Or perhaps the photos of the royal that are enough to get Mycroft involved. Maybe both, I don't know. How long was Bond Air being planned, anyway? Sherlock had the phone for six months!) I assumed that partly because Moriarty's next big play was to use Irene to get Sherlock to crack it (he does so love to watch Sherlock dance), and because in his criminal enterprise, this was a crazy-valuable piece of merchandise. And while he may just have changed his mind again, him walking away from killing Sherlock directly implies that he's just been handed enough ammunition for a far more entertaining go-round with him (and his brother), with far higher stakes. I mean, I don't think his base motivation ever wavered: he just wanted to stop being bored. Enabling terrorists and bringing England to its knees (and thus engaging at least one Holmes, likely both, in its defence) are only valuable to him inasmuch as they divert him from his Final Problem.
Which means that, unbeknownst to anyone except Moriarty, Irene saved Sherlock's life. Hello, bookends! We like you! - Except that I haven't noticed this mentioned anywhere, and while I haven't read everything on the series' entry (there's a lot), I thought this would be the kind of thing that would at least merit a mention. Maybe I'll find it after I post about it, like everything else.
Also, one of the few non-annoying fridge horror ideas pointed out that Sherlock's perceived fraudulence calls every case he worked on into question. Apparently (I haven't seen it) the television newsreport of Sherlock's death, posted on John's blog, has a detail scrolling below it saying the convicted murderer from the tv celebrity's death in "Great Game" was filing to reopen the case. Which, from a Moriarty-faked-his-death perspective, is brilliant. Destroying Sherlock's reputation not only is great fun, but buys back a lot of cred he might have lost as a criminal consultant by ratting out some of his clients for kicks - he destroys the credibility of the evidence against them. Also, it appears there's been no official mention of the body. I mean, I'm not saying that Moriarty definitely planned to fake his death for whatever lulzy reasons, but there are a lot of character-consistent doors being left open for that to be the case.
Here's another question I had as I watched that I haven't seen anyone ask (or answer, for that matter): exactly what was the extent of Mycroft's involvement in all of this? I mean, the clips of his reactions to everything (after the whole Adler/Coventry cockup, anyway) are highly ambiguous and in retrospect can be said to mean damn near anything. I kept watching to see him actually react to the death of the one person he absolutely cares about, and saw no such thing. Okay, Mycroft's a stoic, maybe. On the other hand, it read much more to me like he knew Sherlock wasn't dead. (Again, in the corresponding Sherlock Holmes canon, Mycroft is the only one who knows Sherlock isn't dead. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) I can't say this with any certainty (yet; it'd mean going back and watching all the relevant scenes to test the theory, and I don't have time), but I have something of a suspicion that Mycroft deliberately allowed Moriarty to go after Sherlock. Which sounds like a risky and completely dick move; ie, exactly what both Holmes boys do to test/solve their problems, especially when they feel it's the best option. The question is not so much would Mycroft do this, but having done it, how much would he tell/help his brother?
I mean, there are all these people decrying Mycroft for being so hubristic, or stupid, or childish, or whatever, in telling Moriarty all about Sherlock and then letting him go without warning Sherlock, apart from telling John to look out for him and no real reason why. And you start to go, yeah, that is quite a stretch, especially from the overprotective Mycroft. The only other option than him being very strangely OOC is that he did so deliberately. Which, if he doesn't know Sherlock pulled a switcheroo, would leave him absolutely devastated. Which he does not seem to be. Again, that might be a supreme stoicism, but that feels kind of an odd choice.
Although if we posit that Mycroft did this, we'd have to ask why. Why not just kill Moriarty when he had him in custody (as we assume he could without much trouble, considering Moriarty was in the kind of facility in which prolonged torture was conducted)? Quite likely for the same reason we were explicity told of why Mycroft couldn't just destroy Irene's phone's harddrive: he would never know the source and extent of any number of potential security leaks. Killing Moriarty would not solve the problem of the things he'd put in motion, which we know from "Scandal" includes assisting terrorists. Letting him go, and then tracking the contacts and resources he used to target Sherlock, would give Mycroft's secret service at least a partial map of Moriarty's network. In fact, to ensure Moriarty set his sights on Sherlock and would be less likely to notice being shadowed himself, Mycroft actively primed him by feeding his obsession with Sherlock. I mean, that's just one reason off the top of my head why it would make more sense in terms of national security to let Moriarty go than keep him locked up and not giving them any information. (It also makes a nice little parallel with Moriarty's arrest, "trial", and being released, all for ulterior purposes. Hello, parallels! We like you too!)
Of course, Mycroft couldn't know what Moriarty's plans were - quite likely Moriarty didn't formulate them in any detail until he got out. So even if he warned Sherlock that Moriarty was gunning for him in some way (and why he was allowing it), the sleuthing aspect of Sherlock having to be awesome and work out what was actually going on is not undermined, from the perspective of story satisfaction. And the question of why Mycroft couldn't help his little brother is easily answered by the idea that if he did, Moriarty would know and realise something bigger was up. (Thus also keeping the significance of Molly's involvement intact.) Mycroft did all he could by warning both Sherlock and John in different ways, and then for the sake of the operation had to stay the hell out of the way, and trust Sherlock's ability and John's loyalty. Made all the more fun (meta-wise, that is) that John called him out on pretty much all of this, without knowing what was (possibly) really going on, and received an extremely weak excuse in response. Because he could not, under any circumstances, tell John the truth. Now tell me if any of all of that sounds out-of-character for Mycroft.
And, if this is what happened, then Mycroft gets some character development. Which is nice.
Okay, that's it. Again.
For now.