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.

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.

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)

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 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)

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 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.
 

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.

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. 
 

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.