haseoke39 wrote:

dartmoordoggers wrote:

Wholocked wrote:

My issue with the third solution (and it jumped out at me as I was watching it the first time, it was such a huge issue) is that it implies the entire 'faking my death' was to fool John into believing he was dead. That's not why he faked his death. He did it because Moriarty's men needed to believe he was dead in order to stop the three snipers. He stayed 'dead' so that he could unravel the web but he wouldn't have had to 'die' in the way that he did if he just wanted to disappear to take out the web.

The idea that the entire 'production' was purely to fool John is bollocks. Also, if Mycroft's men had eliminated the sniper thread, it wouldn't have been necessary for Sherlock to go through with the faked death after Moriarty died at all. 

This theory works perfectly well as a 'how I faked my death' if you don't consider the reasons WHY he was faking his death. And that's where the ginormous holes are for me.
 

But this assumes the Watson sniper is the guy who is going to send the Moriarty recall code to the other two snipers.
This particular killing ground would have been one of many  selected by Sherlock/Mycroft during the early stages of the plan. Probably when Moriarty was still being held by Mycroft and Mycroft discovered that Moriartys weakness was Sherlock. I imagine Mycroft (who is after all the British Government and British Secret Service) would have had the site extensively surveyed for vantage points, blind spots, and angles of sight. I would also imagine that Mycroft would have been informed by Sherlock that the roof top location was a go before he invited Moriarty. Thereby giving Mycroft plenty of time to secure the location before any of Moriartys henchmen arrived. It would not take much for Mycrofts men to secure any advantageous  vantage points leaving the guy with the recall code an obstructed view. Once the recall guy was in position Mycroft/Sherlock selected the appropriate plan, which may have had a number of options depending on Moriartys actions. The recall guy saw what Mycroft/Sherlock wanted him to see; and sent the recall code.

As I see it the primary purpose of the operation would have been to convince Moriarty/Moriartys organisation that Sherlock was dead. Saving Watson and the others was not the primary goal.

I see this as a Mycroft operation against the Moriarty web using a willing  Sherlock as bait. Mycroft played Moriarty from the moment he gave away his weakness when being held prior to the Crown Jewels raid.

 

Well, someone sent the recall code, and it wasn't Moriarty, so it was John's sniper or another of Moriarty's men who could also view the scene. What other possibility is there?

We know that John's sniper didn't have an obstructed site, because we watch his rifle scope zoom in on the ground where Sherlock fell at the end of TRF. If Mycroft arranged to have the rifleman have the same obstructed viewpoint as John (which, again, is controverted by the scope view we see in TRF), that's THE essential piece of information for this explanation to make sense (that and how Sherlock ever planned for Moriarty to not see the trick as well if he hadn't unexpectedly shot himself). Fans making up possible explanations for the show creators after the fact doesn't make theirs a good or reasonable explanation, especially when it relies on so pervasive a control over the area around the hospital as to somehow guide the shooter directly into a given spot. If you have that kind of power, you have the power to just shoot the shooter.

Sherlocks' motivation is to not have the shooters kill his friends (and if he knows about this already, why doesn't he just arrange for them to be protected?). The core, the entire point of this plan is that Sherlock has to know where Moriarty and all of his men will be and what they'll observe. That aspect is never explained, as though Sherlock weren't even concerned, as though all the show creators were concerned with explaining was how Sherlock tricked John and a television audience. 

It's dumb at this point. They don't have an explanation for why they did what they did except that it theoretically created a tense TV moment while we waited for their nonanswer. I hate it when shows pretend to be smart only to serve up something like this.

 
No, we don't see the sniper scope on the ground where Sherlock fell; the whole scene between John and Sherlock is just them. We see a sniper scope on John Watson's head at the very end when Sherlock's body has already been taken away but it's part of a panning shot as the rifle comes up with the guy preparing to dismantle it.

We don't  know whether that is Moriarty's man or Mycroft's man; on balance it is more likely to be Mycroft's because no sane assassin hangs around when there are large numbers of people and the police are undoubtedly on their way. But in any event Moriarty is dead and Sherlock is almost certainly facing a murder charge for his death; Sherlock has to stay 'dead' to avoid that charge and get on with tracking down his network; as I have noted elsewhere it is difficult to do that when you are in the dock at the Old Bailey on trial for murder...

Brilliant.

Oh my giddy aunt.

Mark did a Q&A in Rio the other day and is still teasing about the Anderson theory being the right one...
I only ever cried for John's sake.
But now I've seen him hit Sherlock, I don't think I'll cry any more.

I think it is really interesting that tipping and turning is used so often.

Can you explain what you mean when you say everything after TRF is fake? Do you mean like a dream or MP or halucination?

Last edited by Schmiezi (January 29, 2017 7:19 am)

I think that's a good analysis.