mrwho995 wrote:

Apologies if these questions have already been answered, but there are a few things I didn't understand in this episode:
1 - Why did Moriarty kill himself? Yes, because he didn't want Sherlock to 'win', but what exactly did Sherlock do to convince Moriarty that Sherlock had 'won'?
2 - Was there any relevancy, in terms of Moriarty's plot, to the assassins assassinating one another to get to Sherlock? And why did Moriarty want the assassins to think Sherlock had the 'key'. Why did he pretend to give Sherlock the key?
3 - Why did Sherlock tell John, just before he jumped, that he was a fraud? The assassins were instructed to lower their weapons when Sherlock jumped, they weren't instructed to do anything with regards to Sherlock falsely confessing he was a fraud. So why did he make the false confession?

Sorry if I'm being terribly dense here. It's a fantastic episode but I didn't understand it all. Thanks for any replies.

1. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss once asked themselves of what kind somebody could be who frightens us to death nowadays. Their conclusion was - a suicide bomber. Somebody who is so much obsessed with an idea that he is even willing to kill himself. Moriarty is obsessed with Sherlock, to burn him and to kill him. For this he even resists the methods of Mycroft´s interrogations. On the rooftop finally he seems to have solved the final problem: Because there is no recall code Sherlock is willing to jump into his own death to save his friends. But then Moriarty fluffs: He accidentally reveals that there is a possibility to recall everything.Sherlock realizes that, convinced to get the code out of him, to maybe deduce it. He is not Mycroft and not the King´s horses. He is not even an angel, just on the side of them. He can convince Moriarty that they are still alike and Moriarty, insane as he is, believes this: If one is able to get anything out of him then Sherlock (at the point when he realizes that, directly at the end of the sentence "I am not one of them", there is a kind of thunder and lightening camera and sound efffect, the moment of Moriarty´s literal enlightment, if you want so). To bring his plan to a successful end he must necessarily kill himself. If Sherlock actually had get the code out of him in the end is left open, but more important is, that he also was convinced about that. So he was absolutely able to be deeply persuasive to Moriarty.
2. In short: Moriarty likes to see Sherlock dance. This is why he pretends to give him the key. And because the key´s in Sherlock´s head the assassins try to save his life on the one hand, but on the other hand they try to prevent each other to talk to him, even to touch him. "Last one at Sherlock is a sissy", the last one will get the key and was careful enough before not to get assassinated.
3. Sherlock must give John a reason for committing suicide. He can´t obviously tell the truth. The world shall believe that Sherlock is a fraud, so that gives him time to clear up the things afterwards. If we follow the canon Moriarty´s death is just the beginning: There are many threads of the spider´s web which still function. In my view Sherlock and Mycroft planned since a longer time to destroy also the whole spider´s web, And for this Sherlock has to be dead. And has to fall from grace before to have convincingly done this by himself.They couldn´t let John in that plan, he is not able to lie. For  this also the body of Moriarty had to disappear. The world should believe that the literal fall was"just" the commitment of a fraud, nothing else. So there is peace to clear up everything in the dark. It´s time for whitening Sherlock´s reputation after everything´s sorted out. And, yes, I hope this will be fact soon, can´t wait for this ;-)), In the original story three years have passed meanwhile - poor John.

Last edited by anjaH_alias (December 16, 2012 1:40 pm)

Just wanted to say I've thought of quite a few of those things before, but you just have a really nice way of putting it!!  That little face-off you describe between them on the roof....  that moment it gets to the point where they realize the depth the other person is playing the 'game', always get a bit of a chill from.  And even the duplicity going on, also, with Mycroft and John.  Seriously good writing, and seriously wondering how he's going to 'turn the tide' for himself when he 'comes back'.....

I'm still not entirely sure I believe Moriaty is dead. I don't remember Sherlock turning him over and looking into the wound, just seeing the blood flowing. That could be faked. It'd be difficult to fake, sure, but it's Moriarty. I find both his death being real and it being faked possible.

My first thought upon seeing him fall, even before he hit the ground, was, "So... how could he have faked that...?"

Following canon, which Steven and Mark do, Moriarty is definitely and definitively dead.

Sherlock must've realised at some point that Moriaty likes to watch him dance (heck, the poor dude wearing a bomb even told him so), likes to watch him solve the puzzle. So it must have occurred to Sherlock, what would happen if he stopped solving Moriaty's puzzles? What if he just decided to take on 'ordinary' cases?

I guess they might not have been ordinary cases, but it was a bit uncharacteristic of Sherlock to take on those cases. I mean, a stolen painting? Sherlock's always complaining that such and such case is boring, and a stolen painting is about as boring as you can get

I'm sort of surprised that Moriaty didn't suspect anything

1. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss once asked themselves of what kind somebody could be who frightens us to death nowadays. Their conclusion was - a suicide bomber. Somebody who is so much obsessed with an idea that he is even willing to kill himself. Moriarty is obsessed with Sherlock, to burn him and to kill him. For this he even resists the methods of Mycroft´s interrogations. On the rooftop finally he seems to have solved the final problem: Because there is no recall code Sherlock is willing to jump into his own death to save his friends. But then Moriarty fluffs: He accidentally reveals that there is a possibility to recall everything.Sherlock realizes that, convinced to get the code out of him, to maybe deduce it. He is not Mycroft and not the King´s horses. He is not even an angel, just on the side of them. He can convince Moriarty that they are still alike and Moriarty, insane as he is, believes this: If one is able to get anything out of him then Sherlock (at the point when he realizes that, directly at the end of the sentence "I am not one of them", there is a kind of thunder and lightening camera and sound efffect, the moment of Moriarty´s literal enlightment, if you want so). To bring his plan to a successful end he must necessarily kill himself. If Sherlock actually had get the code out of him in the end is left open, but more important is, that he also was convinced about that. So he was absolutely able to be deeply persuasive to Moriarty.
2. In short: Moriarty likes to see Sherlock dance. This is why he pretends to give him the key. And because the key´s in Sherlock´s head the assassins try to save his life on the one hand, but on the other hand they try to prevent each other to talk to him, even to touch him. "Last one at Sherlock is a sissy", the last one will get the key and was careful enough before not to get assassinated.
3. Sherlock must give John a reason for committing suicide. He can´t obviously tell the truth. The world shall believe that Sherlock is a fraud, so that gives him time to clear up the things afterwards. If we follow the canon Moriarty´s death is just the beginning: There are many threads of the spider´s web which still function. In my view Sherlock and Mycroft planned since a longer time to destroy also the whole spider´s web, And for this Sherlock has to be dead. And has to fall from grace before to have convincingly done this by himself.They couldn´t let John in that plan, he is not able to lie. For this also the body of Moriarty had to disappear. The world should believe that the literal fall was"just" the commitment of a fraud, nothing else. So there is peace to clear up everything in the dark. It´s time for whitening Sherlock´s reputation after everything´s sorted out. And, yes, I hope this will be fact soon, can´t wait for this ;-)), In the original story three years have passed meanwhile - poor John.

Yes, they had to make Moriarty's body disappear, and they did and there's proof too! Remember when Mycroft is reading the newspaper, it says "Suicide of Fake Genius-Fraudulent Detective take his Life", it doesn't say anything about Moriarty's dead body! So clearly somebody made it disappear!I'm willing to bet it was Mycroft!

Good point BG!

I suppose it could have been folded into a sort of cushion which the crown itself was sat upon but it looks like too much cloth to me.

Another display case perhaps?

-m0r