BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » What theories do you think fail?

Tantalus · May 31, 2012 2:19 am

Hey, moderators/administrator...

Being rather new still, I likely could have overlooked it (I've already done so with other topics more than once!), but if there is not one, could we maybe have a thread listing "things we are pretty sure happened" and "things that just don't hold water", etc.? Maybe a poll or something?

For example, numerous people (all over the Al Gore internet) have suggested that Sherlock used the squash ball to stop his pulse. Do we here, on this forum, think that is likely true or false? And so on.

I guess that's sorta how this thread began, but I'm thinking more of a succinct list.

Just an idea.

Last edited by Tantalus (May 31, 2012 2:20 am)

kazza474 · May 31, 2012 2:25 am

From what I have seen there's a split in thinking for some things and a general 'oh it may have happened/not sure' over other things.
There are many mentioned in the theory thread and in the whole Reichenbach section actually. That's a good place to start if you wanted to debate the pros and cons of the old rubber ball trick.

You're welcome to make a thread with poll attached in any section. I'm not sure making any more sections would be wise at this stage. I've been in forums where they suddenly wanted to fragment everything further, in every case without exception it killed the forum.

BrightBlueEyes · June 27, 2012 2:34 pm

kazza474 wrote:
There are so many theories, some are quite bizarre.
Which ones or which parts of some do you disbelieve?

For me it is the part of Sherlock landing in the truck.
Come on, have you seen how far he'd have to jump out to? He didn't take a running jump, he simply fell. No way would he have made it THAT far away from the building.
And the landing? After falling from an angle like that, he'd have to thread a needle to get in the truck without hitting the sides.
FAIL for that one I think.

I agree that he didn't land in the truck..but, I wonder if he fell on something that was then put in the truck and driven away. I just find it wonky that the truck was there, someone throws themselves off the roof, and the truck casually drives away..

KeepersPrice · June 27, 2012 3:43 pm

Davina wrote:
It would have been easy to hypnotise the little girl or use auto-suggestion to make her scream when she saw Sherlock.

I've never really given too much thought about the little girl screaming - except to note there's a shadowy nurse-type person sitting with her. That person could be a Moriarty plant who coached the little girl; or baring that, the nurse could have been as susceptible to a personal "pressure point" as the 12 jurors were at Moriarty trial. I've often thought about the little brother who loved spy books and who was so resourceful with the linseed oil. He didn't die. He's in ICU and when he comes around he may be able to shed some light on the situation. Or, maybe nothing about the kids is of any real importance to the story line anymore - not sure.

I have no clue how the trick was done. All I know is if professional magicians like David Copperfield can make the Statue of Liberty disappear, then somehow our brilliant Sherlock would be able to pull this one off. But if it really does come from a professional magician's bag of tricks then how are Moftiss going to reveal the trick without giving away professional secrets. Wouldn't this scenerio in the next episode just take the cake:

John: "But Sherlock...how did you do it?"
Sherlock: "Sorry John, professional secret. Magicians never tell"
The End.
At which point again, I will leap up and throttle the telly

I think this has been mentioned numerous times - at least online - but for those that missed it, we get to see some newspaper headlines during the shows stating "Refit of Historic Hospital". If this was happening at Barts it could have factored into somehow aiding the trick. My head hurts now!

BrightBlueEyes · June 27, 2012 3:51 pm

I would positively SHOOT the telly.

Sentimental Pulse · June 27, 2012 4:36 pm

tobeornot221b wrote:
Maybe the little girl has been made watching some frightening stories on kids TV like "The wicked man in a bad coat (with a short friend)". This was of course told by THE STORY TELLER...

I see no reason why Moriarty could not have cut and pasted some sort of Sherlock video montage and told the kids that the man in the video was out to get them or their parents.

imane nikko · June 27, 2012 4:49 pm

BrightBlueEyes wrote:
I would positively SHOOT the telly.

If only you were doing it out of boredom, and not frustration, that would be an entirely Sherlockish thing to do.

imane nikko · June 27, 2012 4:51 pm

Sentimental Pulse wrote:
tobeornot221b wrote:
Maybe the little girl has been made watching some frightening stories on kids TV like "The wicked man in a bad coat (with a short friend)". This was of course told by THE STORY TELLER...
I see no reason why Moriarty could not have cut and pasted some sort of Sherlock video montage and told the kids that the man in the video was out to get them or their parents.

Even a photo would do. Moriarty could easily have showed them a picture and told them that even if they managed to escape, he or his 'friend' would catch them again.

BrightBlueEyes · June 28, 2012 2:14 am

imane nikko wrote:
BrightBlueEyes wrote:
I would positively SHOOT the telly.
If only you were doing it out of boredom, and not frustration, that would be an entirely Sherlockish thing to do.

Hand to heart, I almost shot the wall out of boredom the other day. Then I realized it would result in a draft and the money it would cost to fix it and sighed heavily.

(Because that's absolutely the answer to boredom)

kazza474 · June 28, 2012 4:53 am

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
I think it was to do with the fact that she had mercury poisoning. It can cause delirium and hallucinations...she'd only really need to be shown a picture of Sherlock in order to get freaked out by seeing the real Sherlock...

It is the simplest explanation is it not? Even simpler, a person (especially a child) with mercury poisoning only needs the suggestion of "a man with a large coat will try & take you away" to evoke the reaction we saw.
No hypnosis, no props, just words & the vision of a man with a big coat. How simple, how clean, how quick, how easy it would be.

kazza474 · July 9, 2012 9:45 am

I've been doing a lot of research lately; going off on lesser known tangents to see what I can dig up.
Now one of the theories being thrown about is the " Moriarty didn't really kill himself" one. The suggestion is that more blood & splatterage would have been seen had he really shot himself.

I found this Twitter conversation from way back in January.

Lee Randall
On second viewing, I think if Moriarity'd really shot off a gun inside his mouth more of his head would be missing. ‪#Sherlock‬

Mark Gatiss
@randallwrites You're forgetting something important.

Lee Randall
Also, sneakily reading online theories about Sherlock and think I know what big clue @markgatiss hinted that I missed.

Mark Gatiss
@randallwrites The thing I meant is Editorial Policy. You'll never see splattered brains on BBC1!

Now I found reference to this conversation in a small forum; the thing is they used the first part of the conversation & 'ran' with it & quite a few of them are just believing this to be true. With a bit of extra effort they would have seen the ensuing tweets that explained what Gatiss meant. But by then they were all foaming at the mouth with excitement no doubt, lol.
To me , this validates the death of Moriarty and the reasons why we don't see a more 'realistic' portrayal of a guy who blew his brains out.

hypergreenfrog · July 9, 2012 12:34 pm

Thanks for the Twitter conversation, surprisingly straightforward answer from Gatiss.

For me, any theory involving Moriarty surviving seemed very far fetched even without reading that statement.
1.He died in the canon, so it would be a massive step in a different direction if he reappeared again later on.
2. We got to see a lot of him last series, it would start to get a little boring to keep him as the main villain, even for a huge Andrew Scott fan like me. So much else they can do, no need for Moriarty to stay alive.
3.Both Sherlock and Moriarty faking their own death in the same scene... just can't see it.

Apart from that, I cannot get myself to believe anything to do with body swaps, dead bodies being thrown from the hosptial roof, or Doppelgänger Sherlocks.

I was hugely disappointed at Moffat for the "solution" in DW involving a fake Doctor, even though my expectations were much lower, because, after all, it's a sci-fi/fantasy show, written (at least partly) for kids. So if they do come up with something involving a Sherlock double for anything more that lying on the stretcher in the very last scene, I will be immensely dissapointed.

Chrissi · July 9, 2012 7:36 pm

I think that everything involving Sherlock doubles, clones or face masks etc fails.
It's definitely Sherlock who jumps from the rooftop,

And yes, Moriarty really seems to be dead.

Sherlock Holmes · July 12, 2012 8:55 am

I'm not a fan of the rubber ball theory either.

Sumac60 · July 12, 2012 8:13 pm

kazza474 wrote:
Sherlock Holmes wrote:
I think it was to do with the fact that she had mercury poisoning. It can cause delirium and hallucinations...she'd only really need to be shown a picture of Sherlock in order to get freaked out by seeing the real Sherlock...
It is the simplest explanation is it not? Even simpler, a person (especially a child) with mercury poisoning only needs the suggestion of "a man with a large coat will try & take you away" to evoke the reaction we saw.
No hypnosis, no props, just words & the vision of a man with a big coat. How simple, how clean, how quick, how easy it would be.

Even simpler...

Moriarty has shown that he is able to insert stills and videos into cable broadcasts (I'm in the USA so I don't know how "private" networks work there) but the hotel threats to the jury members and the break-in to the taxi television feed show how he could easily broadcast a little storytelling "show" over time to the kids' televisions at school and terrorize them with an evil Sherlock character. You don't even need the mercury on this one.

"Easy peasy"...right?

Smoggy_London_Air · July 12, 2012 9:17 pm

I find the body swap idea ridiculous, as has already been said.

The Rhododendron Ponticum also seems a little too...Guy Ritchie. I already said this in another thread, but they wouldn't have such an important thing hinge on a mere joking reference to another franchise. They're better than that.

kazza474 · July 13, 2012 4:38 am

Sumac60 wrote:
Even simpler...

Moriarty has shown that he is able to insert stills and videos into cable broadcasts (I'm in the USA so I don't know how "private" networks work there) but the hotel threats to the jury members and the break-in to the taxi television feed show how he could easily broadcast a little storytelling "show" over time to the kids' televisions at school and terrorize them with an evil Sherlock character. You don't even need the mercury on this one.

"Easy peasy"...right?

You call that simpler/Easy peasy?
#1 If that was fed into the school's network & got past the security filters (remember this isn't a Hotel, this is a private school that caters to the elite of society), a lot more than just the 2 kids would have seen it. That's a very risky plan. Not simple at all.
#2. The taxi one was probably a DVD.
#3. Mercury featured in the show, the kids ate it, it produces hallucinations. The mercury would have still been in their system & causing problems at the time.

Sumac60 · July 13, 2012 10:34 pm

kazza474 wrote:
Sumac60 wrote:
Even simpler...

Moriarty has shown that he is able to insert stills and videos into cable broadcasts (I'm in the USA so I don't know how "private" networks work there) but the hotel threats to the jury members and the break-in to the taxi television feed show how he could easily broadcast a little storytelling "show" over time to the kids' televisions at school and terrorize them with an evil Sherlock character. You don't even need the mercury on this one.

"Easy peasy"...right?
You call that simpler/Easy peasy?
#1 If that was fed into the school's network & got past the security filters (remember this isn't a Hotel, this is a private school that caters to the elite of society), a lot more than just the 2 kids would have seen it. That's a very risky plan. Not simple at all.
#2. The taxi one was probably a DVD.
#3. Mercury featured in the show, the kids ate it, it produces hallucinations. The mercury would have still been in their system & causing problems at the time.

Ah...#2 DVD. Of course you've got to be right on that one...obvious.

As for the mercury, the reason I'm not satisfied completely is that it isn't controlled. The girl might hallucinate a monster onto anybody...certainly Sherlock is scary, but so is Anderson, kind of. (Wasn't he a death eater in Harry Potter? LOL) I agree about the enhanced terror due to disorientation/hallucination, though.

Somehow the girl had to associate Sherlock's face in particular with an evil person enough to scream in terror. I have no problem with the whole school (or at least the girl and her friends) tuning in and seeing these faux storytelling broadcasts; that only would enhance the terror due to group hysteria, even if mild. He could be subtle about the association; after all "every story needs a villian"--why not one that looks like Holmes?

I can't see Moriarty slipping DVD's to the kids and assuring that the kids would watch them--so that's why I favor the hacked broadcast--captive audience. Also I assumed that the children would have a TV in their rooms, but see I was wrong on that. (Maybe their I-pads?)

besleybean · October 7, 2012 12:22 pm

I do think the girl's reaction is interesting...
The shadow through the door?
Did the kidnapper wear a Sherlock mask?!

Schmiezi · October 12, 2012 11:07 am

I loved reading all kinds of theories, but lately I find myself stop reading as soon as they mention

1. the lorry
2. any kind of body double and/or
3. Rhododendron Ponticum.

The reasons for 1. and 2. have been explained by quite a lot people here already, and for 3. I´ve really tried to find a source saying what it actually does and finally stumbled over this one:

http://www.aschoonerofscience.com/poisons/rhododendron-poison-truth-behind-the-science-of-sherlock-holmes/

Wrong Sherlock Holmes, though, but reasonable explanation why it wouldn´t work to fake your death, anyway.

Oh, and I rule out anything that does not include Mycroft, but I know this is kind of a touchy subject!