BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Which pill was the poisonous one??

Liberty · August 21, 2014 7:00 am

I think that's possible. Another similar idea is that the cabbie has some condition that makes him resistant to the poison. Or that he takes some medication that would cancel it out. Surely Sherlock would work out that that was a possibility and that it was a silly idea for him to actually swallow the pill?

I do think it's possible it could be chance. Sherlock points out that the cabbie is already likely to die at any moment, and maybe he doesn't mind playing the same game against his body. Does it matter to him if it's the poison or the aneurysm?

Another possiblity is that he never takes his pill. Why does he need to? He's threatening people with a gun, and their only way to avoid being killed (they think) is to take the pill. It doesn't make sense for him to take his too, unless he wants to. And he doesn't take it when he plays the game with Sherlock. He's waiting for Sherlock to take it first.

I don't see him say or do anything that would be guaranteed to make somebody choose one pill over the other, so I don't think he can be as clever as he claims.

Of course, it might be exactly as the cabbie says it is. One pill poisoned, the other not, and the cabbie knows which is which and can manipulate people into choosing the poisoned one. And Sherlock can work out what he's doing and choose the correct pill. But in that case, I think it needs more of a clue about what the cabbie was actually doing and how Sherlock might guess. Otherwise it seems like the writers don't know.

Alecto_Holmes · January 7, 2015 9:04 pm

I personally think there is no good or bad pill. I believe both are poisonous, and the cabbie just had the antidote to it in his system beforehand.

chloejellybean5 · January 8, 2015 9:57 pm

The thing is, you never actually know for sure that the cabbie takes the pill too, maybe he just waits for the other person to do it and then doesn't do it himself, because you never see him actually taking the pill in any of the cases. I guess we will never know.

Lilythiell · February 27, 2015 6:05 pm

My theory is somewhat similar to dyxdyx, in the sense that both are poisonous (whichever pill the victim choses would always kill) and that the cabbie has taken an antidote against it beforehand.
However, we must keep in mind that he's been commissioned by Moriarty, who has, just like Sherlock, a flair for the dramatics. This could imply that he never took (I should say swallowed. Or bit into) any pill. Putting one into his mouth at the same time as the victim ("and together we take our medicine") was just for show.
If some sort of accident happened though, and the poison got into his system, he would have been saved by the antidote he had taken earlier on.

kornmuhme · June 29, 2015 3:31 pm

I would like to reopen this thread and aska question: While watching the scene I have the steady feeling as if Sherlock doesn't take the cabbie and the game he's playing seriously ANY SECOND! It seems to me, as if he has pity on the cabbie the wohole time - in a negative way, as if thinking "Gosh, what a poor and bluffing guy". Only in the last seconds, when the cabbie tries to seduce him to take the pill and play the game, Sherlock seems to REALLY think about the challenge and tends to swallow the pill. But before? Bored, I think :-).

What's your opinion? Come on, ladies, I need some stuff to discuss :-).

SusiGo · June 29, 2015 4:09 pm

I think we see Sherlock in a very early stage of his development. Bored to death, desperate for anything to distract him. There is a deleted scene with Lestrade in the Chronicles which even hints at suicidal tendencies. I think he is bored until he realises that there is someone bigger behind the cabbie. This is what arouses his interest and this is why he steps on the wound, a cruel thing to do. He realises that this is just the beginning of the great game between him and Moriarty.

Last edited by SusiGo (June 30, 2015 7:21 am)

SolarSystem · June 30, 2015 6:58 am

I agree. He basically uses the whole case to distract himself from boredom. And maybe a teensy bit to impress John. Sherlock's whole behaviour indicates that it's not serious but fun. The way he's talking to Lestrade after he has examined the pink lady's body... it's almost as if he's on drugs, he's totally euphoric. (And at this stage I assume that he uses a case as substitute for drugs...) And he's definitely not worried at all, not until the very end.

Last edited by SolarSystem (June 30, 2015 7:00 am)

kornmuhme · July 1, 2015 5:33 pm

Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me! I'm still thinking very much about this last scene, the conversation between Sherlock and the cabbie (by the way, it's great character studies, isn't it?).
I totally agree with you, that Sherlock obviously has got a problem with boredom - he can't fill his life with anything sensible and practical. Apart from the cimes. Yeah, they seem to be like drugs for him, a distraction from his (dull?) life, up to the point of self-distruction and even suicide! That's what I believe to see in his face and eyes when he's about to take the pill - and then fortunately the cabbie is shot.
What do you think: Would Sherlock have finally taken the pill? Just to prove he's right - or ready to die (if he failed) to escape his boredom? I find this very hard to decide ...

nakahara · July 1, 2015 9:17 pm

kornmuhme wrote:
I totally agree with you, that Sherlock obviously has got a problem with boredom - he can't fill his life with anything sensible and practical.

But he can - he had found his "calling" in solving unsolvable mysteries. His sensible and practical must not neccessarily match other people´s sensible and practical.

kornmuhme wrote:
Apart from the cimes. Yeah, they seem to be like drugs for him, a distraction from his (dull?) life, up to the point of self-distruction and even suicide! That's what I believe to see in his face and eyes when he's about to take the pill - and then fortunately the cabbie is shot.

I don´t really think Sherlock ever wants to committ suicide. We know next to nothing about his drug use, maybe it was not so serious as we are led to believe. Anyway, in this conversation between Sherlock and a cabbie and Sherlock´s willingness to swallow the pill, the real issue is Sherlock´s pride and not his nihilism. He will loose face if he admits he cannot correctly guess which pill is poisonous and which is harmless. And such thing is inconcievable for the still young, arrogant Sherlock. He would risk to prove himself. I don´t believe he percieves the thing as a possibility of death. The issue is rather an extreme sport for him - something like swallowing a dish prepared of fugu fish or making a daring bungee jump. He is irresponsible and careless more than suicidal.

kornmuhme · July 3, 2015 6:48 pm

nakahara wrote:
kornmuhme wrote:
I totally agree with you, that Sherlock obviously has got a problem with boredom - he can't fill his life with anything sensible and practical.
But he can - he had found his "calling" in solving unsolvable mysteries. His sensible and practical must not neccessarily match other people´s sensible and practical.

That's right - I just wanted to express the fact, that getting involved in the criminal cases is his ONLY way to escape from boredom. He doesn't have any other things to do in his life. That's kind of distratction, IMO it can be compared with taking drugs or any other way of getting satisfied. And if a person only has one channel to make his life worth living ... that seems to me a little dangerous. That is proved by the fact, that Sherlock often complains about being so bored. Apart from solving mysteries and competing with "other" psychopaths he doesn't have anything interesting in his life - until John enters his life.

nakahara wrote:
kornmuhme wrote:
I totally agree with you, that Sherlock obviously has got a problem with boredom - he can't fill his life with anything sensible and practical.
But he can - he had found his "calling" in solving unsolvable mysteries. His sensible and practical must not neccessarily match other people´s sensible and practical.

That's right - I just wanted to express the fact, that getting involved in the criminal cases is his ONLY way to escape from boredom. He doesn't have any other things to do in his life. That's kind of distratction, IMO it can be compared with taking drugs or any other way of getting satisfied. And if a person only has one channel to make his life worth living ... that seems to me a little dangerous. That is proved by the fact, that Sherlock often complains about being so bored. Apart from solving mysteries and competing with "other" psychopaths he doesn't have anything interesting in his life - until John enters his life.

kornmuhme wrote:
Apart from the cimes. Yeah, they seem to be like drugs for him, a distraction from his (dull?) life, up to the point of self-distruction and even suicide! That's what I believe to see in his face and eyes when he's about to take the pill - and then fortunately the cabbie is shot.

nakahara wrote:
I don´t really think Sherlock ever wants to committ suicide. We know next to nothing about his drug use, maybe it was not so serious as we are led to believe. Anyway, in this conversation between Sherlock and a cabbie and Sherlock´s willingness to swallow the pill, the real issue is Sherlock´s pride and not his nihilism. He will loose face if he admits he cannot correctly guess which pill is poisonous and which is harmless. And such thing is inconcievable for the still young, arrogant Sherlock. He would risk to prove himself. I don´t believe he percieves the thing as a possibility of death. The issue is rather an extreme sport for him - something like swallowing a dish prepared of fugu fish or making a daring bungee jump. He is irresponsible and careless more than suicidal.

I agree with you, that Sherlock never wants to commit suicide directly. But at this very moment, when the cabbie talks about all this boredom in life and that it is so easy to escape from all this by just taking a pill and play the game (and maybe lose it!) Sherlock understands the full sense of that meaning. He's standing on the edge - of course it also has a lot to do with proving that he's taken the right pill and beats the cabbie with his own means. Nevertheless I believe to see a quantum of "knowing", the possibility of being able to fully escape.
You might find another hint for this danger in SiB, when Mycroft asks John to stay at Sherlock's side the whole night after Irene's (faked) death. So also Sherlock's brother sees a certain danger in Sherlock doing something stupid (not necessarily sucide, but maybe taking drugs again or something else).
I think Sherlock has some tendencies of self-destruction.

Last edited by kornmuhme (July 3, 2015 7:39 pm)

Kittyhawk · July 3, 2015 7:13 pm

Strange, I thought I had posted that yesterday - I hope I'll remember what I wrote:

nakahara wrote:
....We know next to nothing about his drug use, maybe it was not so serious as we are led to believe.

Personally I'm not led to believe that Sherlock's drug use was serious by the tv show - all we get is Lestrade's harassment and Mycroft's innuendos and Sherlock's "John, you probably want to shut up now." There's just countles fanfic stories that show Sherlock as a junkie...

nakahara wrote:
....the real issue is Sherlock´s pride and not his nihilism. He will loose face if he admits he cannot correctly guess which pill is poisonous and which is harmless. And such thing is inconcievable for the still young, arrogant Sherlock. He would risk to prove himself. I don´t believe he percieves the thing as a possibility of death. The issue is rather an extreme sport for him ....

Have I understood correctly, you think that Sherlock does not think he is risking his live because he is convinced that he chose the right pill? (LIke youths who are convinced that driving down a country road at 100 mph is perfectly safe - we know how that works out much too often. Of course, Sherlock should have passed that stage at his age, but then they say that men never grow up...)

That's actually a really good idea - I like it much better than mine (which consisted mainly how Sherlock could be such an idiot - I'd have pocketed and analysed the pill) - thank you!

Last edited by Kittyhawk (July 3, 2015 7:13 pm)

Vhanja · July 3, 2015 11:49 pm

I don't think Sherlock was sucidial in that last scene with the cabbie. Not at all. I think the cabbie hit the nail on the head himself: "You would do anything, risk anything, to stop being bored".

Sherlock turned to drugs to cure his boredom (and his version of boredom I think is something else than our "regular" boredom). He says it himself as late as HLV "... solving cases as an alternative to getting high". He solves cases to cure his boredom, to stop him from letting drugs to the same. And before John, that was really all he had.

So I get what he was doing with the pill. It was not so much suicidal as him having nothing to lose.

Yitzock · July 4, 2015 1:35 pm

I'd say so, too. It was for the excitement, the risk, to get a high from that.
Also, while he has met John at this point, he still does not really feel like he has anyone around him that he can really depend on or get close to, no really valuable friendships that he feels really add to his life (I think he values his friends more as the series continues, but at this point I'd say there's not much in it for him). He does not know how much he is going to value them, so all he feels he really has for excitement is cases, and the game that the cabbie presents to him is exciting. It's high-risk, just like going after criminals can be, which is what Sherlock enjoys: high-stakes games.
The cabbie is like Sherlock, in this respect. That's why he created the game with the two pills. Sherlock is playing the game with someone clever like himself, someone who needs something to stave off boredom. A young man with no fully-satisfying connections to people and an old man who drives taxis. Neither of them have anything to lose at that moment, and they both crave the high from taking a big risk.

kornmuhme · July 4, 2015 7:38 pm

Yitzock wrote:
Neither of them have anything to lose at that moment, and they both crave the high from taking a big risk.

Of course they have something to lose - their lives! Both risk their lives and one of them - according to the game - will lose it, because one pill is the poisenous one.

Kittyhawk · July 5, 2015 12:34 pm

kornmuhme wrote:
Yitzock wrote:
Neither of them have anything to lose at that moment, and they both crave the high from taking a big risk.
Of course they have something to lose - their lives! Both risk their lives and one of them - according to the game - will lose it, because one pill is the poisenous one.

And Sherlock has more to lose than the Cabbie, who most likely will die from his aneurism in the near future anyway. The Cabbie has not much to lose (between a few days and a few years) but quite a lot to gain from this "game": Money for his kids. Sherlock on the other hand has very little to gain (the ability to say "I was right") but all of his future (ideally several decades) to lose. It's a bit like a millionaire and a person with a few thousands in savings sitting down for a high-stake poker game...

So for me Sherlock's actions only make sense if it is as nakahara said: He doesn't think the is taking a risk because he is deeply convinced that he knows which pill is the poisenous one. (and here is a lovely story where that didn't work out very well: http://archiveofourown.org/works/367174)

Yitzock · July 5, 2015 5:27 pm

Well, yes, they have their lives to lose, but I'd say for both of them that was a risk they were willing to take, especially for Sherlock. He was very much sure that he was right. He was willing to risk his life to prove that he was brilliant. I'd say he wasn't worried too much about it, he wanted to prove it.

Vhanja · July 5, 2015 6:45 pm

I think he was worried about it. If you don't think you are taking a risk, there is no adrenalin and no "cure for boredom". It's the risk that makes it interesting, the heart pounding with the idea that you MIGHT be wrong,and the thrill of the game itself.

If he had no doubt whatsoever that he was right, it would be "dull, boring, predictable".

Yitzock · July 5, 2015 8:23 pm

Yes, you're right. The fact that there is a risk is important for the excitement. What I meant by "not worried about it" was that it didn't matter if he lost his life or not, it was the fact that it was a high-risk game (even if he felt like he was very likely to win and beat the cabbie) and that was what was important. He may have thought through the fact that he could die, but the excitment made it worth it and not really that much of a negative a it might be for someone else. Especially since at this point he is not as connected with people as he becomes later on in the series.

Vhanja · July 5, 2015 8:25 pm

I agree, I see it quite the same way.

Cabbie · February 23, 2016 10:27 am

Hi. I came across this thread and decided to register to join the discussion. In 2013, I watched the episode and the game amazed me at how simple it was and how complicated it seemed to be. I am closely familiar with the game because I actually played it. Not the deadly version, of course. Just two small strips of paper rolled up into identical cylinders. One reads "Poison. You're dead." The other is blank. I assume the role of the killer. And anyone who played against me is the "victim". I played it 10 times. I was never "killed".

We have to remind ourselves that the actions we make, no matter how arbitrary they may seem, are determined by prior events and that people are predictable. Depending on the situation and victim, the game changes. The victims of the cabbie were all afraid. Fear makes people even more predictable. Because they don't think, they just act when afraid. That relies on instinct or gut-feeling. And gut-feeling is a proto-response when our brain automatically processes any input. This is why the "move" the cabbie does is very powerful. Moving one pill towards the opponent. Plus, he emphasized to Sherlock that, "I'm not gonna kill you, Mr Holmes. I'm gonna speak to you, and then you're gonna kill yourself." You can't really read minds but you can understand how they think(by studying people) and you can make them do what you want with the power of suggestion or NLP.

As I said, each play of the game is different. In my case, death is an abstraction and only a story element of my version of the game. So I got players who actually think. That might seem more difficult but I have known these people for two years. Lived with them in a huge dormitory and they have been almost like family. I know how they think, act, or speak. Half of them were really smart but I got the better of them. One even played twice to prove he can beat it.

This does not make me better than them or supernaturally smart. In reality, I have already studied them for 2 whole years. I just recognized that people can be predicted. I didn't cheat and made the game unwinnable, my opponents know that. Otherwise there won't be any thrill to the game. I can lose but the fact that I know w/c pill is w/c and they don't gives me great advantage.

Now, the cabbie is a genius because he just met these people, offered them a ride and then made them play the game. In that short amount of time, he studied them to the point he can easily predict them. Before coming to Sherlock, he did his research and studied him, as well. Take note, his last victim was smart and might have chosen her as a dry run for Sherlock.

There are two pills: poison pill and sugar pill. They are not both poisoned.

Some of my friends who played the game actually made up their own character backstory while playing the game. That gave me the idea to write a short story based on our experience with the game. It didn't escape the rough draft stage. but here it is below:
https://web.facebook.com/notes/carlo-quita/killer-on-the-loose/659172210762499
I don't know yet if links are allowed so sorry in advance.