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Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » September 21, 2016 8:00 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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That's a fine piece of work, dottoressa, and it does sound very much what the producers would do.  I'm still hoping, however, that what transpires in January confirms my belief that a true Sherlock-level genius like Moriarty would not kill him because he believed that would force Sherlock to jump.

After all, it didn't work, right?  So he died for nothing.  Dumb plan for a genius, eh?

What DOES seem smart (and interesting story-wise, as I've said to death on this fine forum — and please forgive me), is for both men to enact clever suicide hoaxes, and both men fall for each others ruse at the time they were conducted.   Sherlock thought Moriarty was dead, so he jumped, and Moriarty wasn't allowed to see that Sherlock landed in a fireman's net below, because Mycroft's men rushed out and apprehended him shortly after Sherlock went off the ledge.

The Big Reveal in January would then be when Mycroft admits that Moriarty had been in custody during the entire time Sherlock dismantled Moriarty's network, but he recently escaped.  I also love the idea that while Moriarty was in custody, he was kept from knowing that Sherlock was still alive.

Wouldn't you love to see the scene in which Mycroft brings Sherlock up to date on all this?  It appeals to me so much more than just having Moriarty dead because he wasn't as smart as he thought it was.

Mycroft would look like this . . . .




 . . . and Sherlock would look like this.  :D



 

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 15, 2016 4:05 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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I may have misunderstood some of the comments above, but it sounds like you folks are leaning a bit towards my pet theory, that Moriarty faked it and either escaped or was arrested on the rooftop as soon as Sherlock jumped (thereby explaining how Sherlock planned to prevent Moriarty from looking down too soon and seeing that he'd been tricked by Sherlock.)
 
I really love some of the new ideas presented above that fit in with this line of reasoning.  For example:
 

tehanu wrote:

TAB does change things? Before it, Sherlock thought Jim was dead, and only now thinks he is alive? I think that "of course he's dead" line is actually a lie for Mary's benefit.

Wow, that seems quite plausible.  Good one!  I hadn’t thought of that possibility at all.
 

Liberty wrote:

Why doesn't Sherlock just assume that the video we see was pre-recorded?  What's the mystery?  If he actually saw Moriarty's unsurviveable head wound, then why does he need to question whether he's dead or not?  
 
It's not as if TAB actually answers that question (Moriarty is dead, but his supporters could have set things up to look like he's back - really?   Isn't that the just the first thing Sherlock would think?).

Exactly!  Sherlock seems to doubt his prior conviction that Moriarty is dead.
 

SusiGo wrote:

This is indeed an interesting question. My only spontaneous answer would be: because Sherlock thinks that Moriarty, if alive, would wish to continue their game in exactly this way. If Jim wants to play with him, he needs Sherlock alive, not on a death mission. This would be no fun. 

The video probably reminds Sherlock of the video set up for him in the cab.

 
Ouch!  Why didn’t I think of that?  The playful way Moriarty competes for the coveted title of Smartest Guy in the World is obviously what’s driving Jim to come back — not some act of revenge against Mycroft because he locked him up for two years (if that turns out to be what happened).
 
[quote=teh

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 12, 2016 1:08 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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tonnaree wrote:

No worries BC.  
I myself spent a couple of years arguing that there was no way in hell Darth Vader was REALLY Luke's father.

I did that too.  My reasoning was simple:  Darth Vader was a bad guy with evil intentions and a rotten reputation.  Obi-Wan Kenobi was good guy who would never, ever lie to Luke about something so important.

Therefore, Vader was lying.

I was much younger and more trusting back in those days . . .

 

Fan Art » Fan art » January 9, 2016 5:45 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 1779

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____________________________________

I wasn't happy with my avatar, so I went looking for something better.  I found this great picture —


— and I flipped it around so that Sherlock wouldn't have to stare at the left edge of the screen when I made it my avatar.   Then I enhanced the color a bit.


But I didn't like the way the right side cut off his hand, so I used MS Paint to expand the background to the right, and I painted in the part of his gloved hand that didn't show.

It makes a nice avatar, don't you think?




Later I found the full picture which the cropped version was taken from.  I didn't do too bad a job on that glove, just making it up without having seen this photo. 




Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 9, 2016 5:08 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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The night they air the next episode in 2017, I'll probably have a bottle Vodka next to me so I can drown my sorrows if I'm proven wrong, after shooting my mouth off so publicly for the last few years! 

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 8, 2016 11:37 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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Thank you!  Apparently I'm the only one who is convinced it WILL happen, but I'm certainly not the only one who WANTS it to happen.

How do you like my new avatar?
 
* Right click on it and select "view image" to see the big version on Photobucket.

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 8, 2016 10:04 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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James Norrington wrote:

Well, of course he is, but at the same time he's a highly intelligent human being (when we look at what he did in the past, he cannot simply be just crazy, and he wouldn't be able to keep up with Sherlock and playing those games with him if he wasn't), and therefore it's still disappointing to believe that killing himself is the solution the writers have come up with to end with this brilliant character.

Notice how I left out the part I didn't agree with at the bottom of your post. Other than that, I give your comment two thumbs up!  
But I feel compelled to point out that brilliant writers thrive on challenges, and our good friends Mark and Steven have (I remain convinced) presented us with a situation that looks one way but really is another.  Plus, I still think there's a TON of evidence that the rumors of Jim's death have been greatly exaggerate!
 

The Abominable Bride » The Abominable Bride (for those who have seen it) » January 8, 2016 3:49 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 849

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____________________________________

Here's a fascinating question I just posted in another thread.

Why did Jim really shoot himself?

His stated reason is bogus
 — to prevent Sherlock from forcing him to call off the snipers.  He told Sherlock that nothing would stop them other than seeing Sherlock jump.  Jim just smiled and went along with Sherlock's tough talk about how he would be happy to "shake hands with you in hell", but we all know that's all it was.  Tough talk. 

Moriarty was more than capable of holding out long enough for the snipers to pass the time limit they must have been given before killing their three targets.

Therefore, there was really no reason for Moriarty to commit suicide
 — real or faked.

So . . . why did he do it? 

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 8, 2016 2:53 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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___________________________________________

Consider this fascinating thought that just came to me.

Mycroft told John he'd held Moriarty for weeks, but he couldn't beat the info out of him about the (non-existent) "key code", so he let him go.  (We see a scene of him being beaten.)

On the roof, Moriarty told Sherlock, “You can have me arrested, you can torture me, you can do anything you like with me . . . but nothing is going to prevent [the snipers] from pulling the trigger.”

Sherlock told Moriarty,  "I'm prepared to do anything . . . prepared to burn . . . prepared to do what ordinary people won't do.  You want me to shake hands with you in hell, I shall not disappoint you."

Big bold words, but do we really believe Sherlock could torture Moriarty badly enough right there on the roof and get him to call off the snipers before they carried out the "hits" they were paid to do because Sherlock hadn't jumped?  There must have been a time limit for how long they'd wait, right?

So, here's my question;  Why did Moriarty even bother with a suicide
 — either real OR fake?  He didn't have to kill himself to prevent Sherlock from stopping the snipers!  As he told Sherlock, "Nothing is going to prevent them from pulling the trigger.”

Therefore, since there was absolutely no reason to actually kill himself . . . I don't think he really did!  However, faking out Sherlock with a bogus suicide just before the poor guy has to jump to save his friends?  Yep, that sounds exactly like old crazy-smart Jim to me!

It was just one more way to “burn the heart” out of Sherlock, a bit of additional humiliation, completely consistent with everything he’d already done to destroy Sherlock’s own self-image.


Thoughts, anyone? 

The Reichenbach Fall » thoughts on rooftop scene after watching the empty hearse [spoilers] » January 7, 2016 5:15 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 37

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______________________________________

Here's a nice analysis of the version that Sherlock told Anderson and why it's a joke from the first word to the last.  Enoy it, folks. I'm proud of it.


Sherlock's version of the hoax, told to Anderson

The Abominable Bride » The Abominable Bride (for those who have seen it) » January 7, 2016 4:23 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 849

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Great remarks, guys -- one and all. 
I just finished a post in the thread called "Moriarty's Death", in which I really tried to pitch the idea that the series has planned all along for Moriarty and Sherlock to show an equally high level of intelligence by coming up with similar plans to defeat their foe
—[size=125] without knowing it, thereby creating an truly ironic situation.  Here's the link to it, if you haven't seen it yet.

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=243406#p243406

We all know that this show strives for a high standard of imagination and complexity — which is why we enjoy watching every episode many times.  About a month after seeing TRF (and figuring out Sherlock's simple method for faking his death), I became convinced that Moriarty had faked his own suicide as well, to show Sherlock he wasn't as smart as he thought he was — and that's exactly what happened!  In fact, absolutely everything went Moriarty's way up there on the roof. 

He humiliated Sherlock by revealing that the "key code" which both Sherlock and Mycroft had been so worried about did not exist!  He revealed that his three simultaneous "demonstrations" of the key code were simply the coordinated efforts of various accomplices in the prison, the bank, and the Tower of London. And he showed poor Sherlock that after destroying his public reputation, he could force him to jump to his death!


The coup de grâce was when he brazenly convinced Sherlock that he had blown his own brains out right in front of him!   At this point, Sherlock was so shaken by all this that his legendary powers of observation failed him completely.  He didn't question the oddly small amount of blood (which was simply oozing from a tube connected to a blood bag taped to Moriarty's back), and he didn't take note of the way Moriarty fel

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 7, 2016 2:35 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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Liberty wrote:

It's possible, but Mycroft has taken Moriarty into custody before and it seems that it doesn't work.   And it doesn't even occur to Sherlock that that might have happened.   Why would Mycroft keep it quiet, unless he was in league with Moriarty in some way?  Again, possible, although I hope not.

 
[size=125]Wow, great comments!  I may not agree with all your views, but I see the solid reasons behind them.  Allow me to respond with a few comments.   (This is getting more fun by the minute!)
First of all, you're dead right when you say that Mycroft already tried  unsuccessfully to interrogate Jim once before (and he had him for weeks, Mycroft told John) in a desperate effort to get the non-existent "key code" — proof positive that both Mycroft and Sherlock were fooled by that trick.
 
So, Sherlock's doubt and confusion was real when Moriarty told him he was a doofus for believing the ruse about the key code.  It was not just acting for Moriarty's sake.


But if Moriarty had been arrested on the roof after Sherlock jumped, the situation would have been very different.  After all, Moriarty is now guilty of conspiring to commit murder (the three assassins), and he can be charged with jury tampering in the trial he rigged to get an acquittal.  He's also the head of a dangerous criminal organization, and Mycroft would have no qualms about keeping Moriarty in a cell indefinitely (and secretly) if it "protected the security of the realm".

I think Mycroft might have "stepped up his interrogation efforts" (ouch . . . ) to extract information from Moriarty about his criminal network.  The info he got could be sent to Sherlock and aid him in dismantling Moriarty's “worldwide web of crime”. (Nice phrase, eh?)  The fact that Mycroft would allow Moriarty to believe Sherlock is dead j

His Last Vow » I don't think Moriarty is alive » January 6, 2016 4:24 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 39

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besleybean wrote:

Is coming back from the dead  a modern thing?! Tee He!

No, but hoaxes, cover-ups, conspiracies, and lying public officials is very NOW, very today, very modern.
Besides, the point is that Moriarty doesn't have to "come back from the dead", because he never went there in the first place!  And I love the fact that he didn't fool anybody but Sherlock and the people close to Sherlock who found out about Moriarty's death only after Sherlock came back two years later and told them!

They couldn't have known prior to that, because Sherlock was "dead", and the news media never mentioned a word about Brook/Moriarty dying on the roof.  Mycroft wouldn't have told them, because he was holding Moriarty in a cell, and there was no reason to bother lying about the "death" of Moriarty.

In TRF, Mycroft's men dashed out onto the roof, shouted "Freeze!", and didn't let Moriarty look down to see that he'd been tricked.  Or maybe they did let him look after the thirty seconds it took to stow the fireman's safety net and let the laundry truck drive away, just so he would labor under the misconception that Sherlock was dead and gone.

So, Moriarty sat in a holding cell in MI-5 for two years and thought Sherlock was dead, while Sherlock roamed the world and took down Moriarty's web, all the while thinking Moriarty had killed himself!

Come on, guys, am I really the only one who thinks this scenario is a whole lot better than just, "Well, good luck with that."  Bang . . .

Yawn.  The end of the "Napoleon of crime."   Don't sound dat smart to me, ya know?

 

His Last Vow » I don't think Moriarty is alive » January 6, 2016 4:21 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 39

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anjaH_alias wrote:

Just a simple question: Then nobody of Mycroft´s people noticed that there wasn´t a dead body on the rooftop? Or they purposely left it there? I think the fact that nobody e.g. mentioned the body afterwards (and how they got rid of it) is a kind of proof that Moriarty is really dead. Don´t you think that Mycroft had said a word to his brother if the body had been missing? Moriarty is surely not back.

I've said all this on other threads you've probably read, and apologize if this is just a repeat, but I couldn't resist adding it here, too, 'cause I'm just a tad bit obsessed on this subject.

Jim didn't die, he was arrested on the roof right after Sherlock jumped.  That was the plan all along: fool the watching sniper across the street with Sherlock's fake suicide, then have Mycroft's agents rush out onto the roof and apprehend Moriarty before he looked over the edge and saw the "ground crew" stowing the fireman's net in the back of the laundry truck before it drove away.

The fact that Jim surprised Sherlock with his convincing fake suicide didn't change Sherlock's plan a bit.  He still had to do his little act for the sniper, so that John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade wouldn't be killed.

But yes, Jim body was whisked away after Sherlock jumped.  He just happened to be alive when that happened. That's why the press has never said a single word about the death of "Richard Brook" on the roof after the "fake genius" took his own life. 

If the media had known Richard Brook was laying on the same roof from which Sherlock jumped, the press would have reported it as the murder which Sherlock committed before he did the swan dive into the street!  After all, poor Richard's brains have been blown out and a gun is clutched dramatically in his hand, placed there by the murderer for his own twisted reasons
 — instead being dropped as soon as Moriarty supposedly shot himself, [size=125]w

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 6, 2016 1:55 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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Liberty wrote:

TAB suggests that he saw a more graphic version of Moriarty's corpse before going undercover.

I think I pretty much established in the post above that nobody saw the body other than Sherlock on the roof, and I think that's because Jim just got back up after Sherlock jumped.

But he was promptly arrested by Mycroft's men, who rushed out onto the roof from where they had waited, in the stairway.  Doesn't it make sense that if they had a whole team down in the street, ready to assist Sherlock with this elaborate plan, they'd also have agents waiting close by to grab Moriarty as soon as Sherlock jumped?

They would have done that even if Moriarty hadn't surprised Sherlock by pretending to shot himself, so Sherlock wasn't a bit worried that the only person who might be tricked by the fake suicide was the sniper across the street (and John), because that's who Sherlock did it to fool any way.

Not Moriarty.  He was minutes away from being arrested and didn't even know it.  That's how Sherlock outwitted Moriarty.

And that's why the press were never told about the "suicide" on the roof and the death of "Richard Brook".  He didn't die.  Sherlock thought he did, but Mycroft let him go off for two years to dismantle Moriarty's network thinking Moriarty was dead.  Good old Mycroft, eh?

Sherlock knew Moriarty wouldn't be given time to call the three assassines and tell them the suicide was fake, even if he'd walked over to the ledge and looked down to see Sherlock land in the fireman's safety net.


And the way Sherlock acted after Moriarty shot himself (hyperventilating, covering his mouth with the back of his hand, barely able to look at the body) is certainly not consistent with the notion that he somehow tricked Moriarty into shooting himself.

Why would poor Sherlock do all this if he weren't genuinely shocked?  Who would he be putting on the big act for?


[i

The Abominable Bride » The Abominable Bride (for those who have seen it) » January 6, 2016 1:00 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 849

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[size=125]________________________________

After watching The Abominable Bride three times (the minimum number of times a member of this board can watch it and still call himself a true fan) , I think I’ve got this amazing story figured out. 
Before this gets all deep and intellectual, I loved the way the first scene on Baker Street in 1880 did several things to emulate the 1984 Grenada series, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett.
 
The music is a variation on the theme from that series, the camera pans down from a slight elevation to the street level, and Martin Freeman starts narrating the tale in the same manner as David Burke’s version of Watson did in the Grenada series from 32 years earlier.
 
It was a delightful “in joke” for fans of the classic series.
 
Now, on to deeper matters.
 
One important aspect of the story in the Christmas special is — in my highly biased opinion — the idea that Sherlock is having doubts about whether or not Moriarty is actually dead. The hints start fairly early.
 
In The Abominable Bride we see a crazed woman stick a pistol barrel into her mouth and appear to blow her brains out, even though she shows up hours later and murders her husband with a shotgun before she walks off slowly into the fog.
 

Sherlock is mighty vexed by the idea that somebody could turn their brain into Yorkshire pudding and still walk around in a wedding dress.  With him, this is very personnel  . . . and we know why.
 
Later in the morgue, Sherlock is examining the body of the woman, and he starts mumbling things like " . . .  blew his brains out . . . how did he survive?"
 

And when he's talking to Microft about the “Miss me?” note Sherlock found on the murdered

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 5, 2016 4:04 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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Apparently Steven and Mark like to tease us endlessly with things like the method Sherlock used to fall six stories without being harmed, and whether or not Moriarty is dead.  If they don't come clean with both of these mysteries in the next episodes, we're all going to be quite put out with these gentlemen.
 

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 4, 2016 8:55 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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besleybean wrote:

Also, Sherlock would have to be lying about Mycroft being on the phone, asking if the deed had been done -- in dispatching the sniper.

Oh my goodness, you're not suggesting that Sherlock's elaborate practical joke on poor Anderson near the end of The Empty Hearse wasn't 90% fantasy are you?

Wow . . . I thought we all knew that Sherlock's Tall Tale was definitely NOT how he faked the suicide.  I suggest you read this rather witty analysis of that whole thing on the wonderful site at this link.  You'll enjoy it, I promise! 
Sherlock's version of the hoax, told to Anderson


And here's another item you'll find interesting at the same site.

Miss me? Yes, Moriarty is NOT dead!

 

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 4, 2016 8:22 pm

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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[size=125]___________________________________

After watching The Abominable Bride twice (which is not as often as anybody else around here, I know — but I’ve been working on this little piece for you nice folks to enjoy), I’ve come to an important realization.
 
We need to approach this question a little more like Sherlock and a little less like fans who hang on every word of dialog written by Mark and Steven. The Abominable Bride is wonderful, I agree, but it isn’t exactly a treasure trove of hard evidence on this subject. It’s mostly a drug-induced dream by a tortured man who has Moriarty chasing him in his nightmares.
 
Therefore, we should look for concrete proof that Moriarty shot himself on the roof of the hospital — or indications that he did not.
 
If Moriarty is actually dead, there’s a very important question that’s been plaguing me for years.  Where is Moriarty’s body?  In fact, why is there absolutely no official public acknowledgement that Moriarty is dead . . . or even missing?
 
The fact that the whole area around the hospital was crawling with Mycroft’s agents means the body of Jim Moriarty might have been spirited away, and neither the public nor the police were ever told that Moriarty died on the roof.
 
But wait a minute.  That doesn’t work, for several reasons.
 
First of all, Anderson’s crazy theory (as told to Lestrade) clearly proves that he somehow knew Moriarty was on the roof and had killed himself.
 
And yet his theory assumed that the body had been removed by Sherlock’s “assistants”, fitted with a mask, thrown down to the street, and then deliberately misidentified as Sherlock Holmes.
 
So, who actually told Anderson (a member of Scotland Yard at the time) that the body of Jim Moriarty was up there?  If the police had recovered the body from the roof, why did Anderson think it ended up in the street, masquerading as Sh

Reichenbach Theories » Moriarty's Death » January 4, 2016 4:12 am

Bruce Cook
Replies: 112

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besleybean wrote:

Yeah but did he?
Sherlock specifically says he didn't see that coming!

[size=125]And I maintain that he's now having doubts about whether Moriarty is really dead.  In The Abominable Bride we see Sherlock in the morgue, and he starts saying things like " . . .  blew his brains out . . . how did he survive?"

And when he's talking to Microft at the 40 minute mark, Mycroft says, "DO you miss him?"
Sherlock: "Moriarty is dead."
Mycroft:  "And yet . . ."
Sherlock: "His body was never recovered."

In the regular episodes, the news reports have never mentioned the fact that Richard Brook or Jim Moriarty was found dead on the hospital’s roof.  Not a single word about that rather newsworthy event.  What should we make of that sly omission?  Hmmm?

When Sherlock has his macabre conversation with Moriarty in The Abominable Bride, his nemesis says,  "The bride put a gun in her mouth and shot the back of her head off, and then she came back. Impossible . . . and yet she did it . . . and you need to know how. It's tearing your world apart not knowing.  Because doesn't all this remind you of another case?  Hasn't all this happened before?"

At the end of the episode, Sherlock says he did the near-OD to to prove it was impossible to blow your head off and survive. 

And then he says "Moriarty is dead.  But more importantly . . . I know just what he's going to do next!"

How should we interpret this apparent contradiction?  Well, folks, here’s my own interpretation.
 
The Abominable Bride was about a woman who faked her own suicide and then “returned from the grave”.  In that sense, it just might be construed as a prelude to revealing that Moriarty actually fake his suicide.  That, of course, is what I’m desperately hoping for. 
 
But what about Sherlock’s solid pronouncement at the end, when he states unconditional

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