Canon Discussion: The Final Problem

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This week we’re having a look at The Final Problem. As always, I’ve typed up a few thoughts to get the discussion started.

My hand has been forced, however, by the recent letters in which Colonel James Moriarty defends the memory of his brother… As we see in EMPT, the former Professor Moriarty also appears to be called James. Could be just a slip on Watson’s part I suppose. But though it is unusual for siblings to have the same given name, it’s not entirely unknown. Holmes does say about Moriarty: “But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood…” Maybe a thuggish and controlling father who had such a rampaging ego that he named all his sons after himself? Or maybe in a Catholic family (as the Moriartys might be), a saint’s name has been used for both brothers but in different positions, and as adults both brothers have elected to be known by that name.

I wonder how much Colonel Moriarty knows about his brother’s life—whether he genuinely believes him innocent. Or is the “criminal strain” in Colonel Moriarty’s blood too?

He still came to me from time to time when he desired a companion in his investigation, but these occasions grew more and more seldom… Were they drifting apart? Or did Holmes think it was wrong to be taking Watson away from his wife and business? He doesn’t let Watson know anything about his investigations into Moriarty and his agents while they’re happening, but their friendship certainly seems as strong as ever—Holmes wanting Watson to come with him to the Continent, simply for the pleasure of his company.

“In three days--that is to say, on Monday next--matters will be ripe, and the Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police.” “...if we move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands even at the last moment.” I wonder exactly what the situation is that the police have to wait for.

"Baker Street?" "They set fire to our rooms last night. No great harm was done." I think this might have come up in The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is very specific—they set fire to “our rooms”. But Holmes and Watson (when he lived there) used the first and second floors. How did someone manage to set fire to just those floors? Something thrown through the window? Someone breaking into 221 to start the fire?

"I might have known it!" he groaned. "He has escaped!" "Moriarty?" "They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him. He has given them the slip. Of course, when I had left the country there was no one to cope with him.” But Moriarty had left the country too, following Holmes. Would the London police have been able to arrange his arrest abroad?

“…you will find me a dangerous companion now. This man's occupation is gone. He is lost if he returns to London. If I read his character right he will devote his whole energies to revenging himself upon me.” From this point on, Holmes appears to just accept that he’s going to die. Before, his trip was in order to keep out of harm’s way but after Moriarty escapes the police, it’s no longer clear why Holmes is continuing to travel. To run away from Moriarty? To try and draw him out into the open? He doesn’t seem to be looking for Moriarty. I’m surprised that Watson doesn’t query what Holmes’ plans are.

…he was well convinced that, walk where we would, we could not walk ourselves clear of the danger which was dogging our footsteps. Why is Holmes so fatalistic? As he says earlier: "There cannot be the least doubt that he would have made a murderous attack upon me. It is, however, a game at which two may play.” Instead of just waiting for Moriarty to find him, why doesn’t he try to get the upper hand: start searching for Moriarty, and work out how to trap him and win the game?

Happily, our hiatus is going to be a little shorter than the one for the original readers. Next Sunday, 21st September, we’ll be moving straight on to The Empty House. Hope you can join us for that.

Comments

[darkest-alchemy.livejournal.com]

The main problem with this story is it's so obvious that ACD was thinking 'I want to kill that little shit off' and put very little thought into the plot, building Moriarty up beforehand into a proper 'nemesis' & elements of Holmes and Watson's character. Too many things don't make any sense (why does Watson leave Mary behind if he believes Moriarty and his gang are so dangerous? Why does Holmes flee the country leaving the police to deal with Moriarty when he generally shows little confidence in them? Why is he then so surprised when Moriarty escapes them? How did Moriarty manage to get a special train almost instantly? Why does Watson fall for the ruse to lure him away so easily? Why if Moriarty is so terrible does he give Holmes all that time to write a farewell letter? Why does Holmes not just take a gun and shoot Moriarty if he's apparently convinced he's going to die anyway? Being hanged for Moriarty's murder surely wouldn't bother him if he's removed the master criminal. And why does Moriarty not just shoot Holmes? ACD may not have created Moran specifically by this point but he certainly had someone with an airgun after Holmes. Why do both of them suddenly have this death wish? Moriarty, from what Holmes said of him, really didn't seem to want to die before. Who is Inspector Patterson and why did we never see him before or after? And so many other things are vague/unanswered/contradictory).

Really the only way I can make sense of a lot of it is to say Holmes is heavily into cocaine by this point and has become increasingly paranoid and irrational, not on the level of The Seven Per-Cent Solution or The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (I think Moriarty is a real villain, and I think the latter story in particular is really quite bad) but where he is readily ascribing acts that are actually nothing to do with Moriarty to him (maybe the van driver was just a reckless driver, maybe the brick really did fall down by accident, maybe Holmes left his bunsen burner on by mistake or he just didn't quite put out a match and thus accidentally set fire to his own rooms) because of drug-induced paranoia and is behaving in a way that's quite out of character and has become very fatalistic probably because when the high of the drug wears off he sinks very low, and that, not Moriarty, is Watson's main concern. Also I've always thought we're supposed to think Moriarty lures Watson away but I feel it was Holmes who got him out of the way - Holmes would know better than Moriarty how to lure Watson away (and wouldn't Moriarty have been better off killing/physically incapacitating Watson?) by appealing to him as a doctor and a lover of women to help a woman in need. Either Holmes was trying to protect Watson or he wanted him out the way so he could meet with Moriarty privately. Also the fact that Moriarty is seemingly quite laid back about it all - not having loads of armed men with him (as we learn later even Moran doesn't seem to be armed), giving Holmes time to write his letter - would suggest even he wasn't plotting murder and he didn't believe Holmes was going to try to actually kill him, that either he thought Holmes was going to behave honourably and just calmly discuss things with him rather than trying to kill him or involving Watson (who might also have tried to kill Moriarty), or else Holmes was by now just a raving drug addict and basically harmless (another possibility with the note and getting Watson out of the way is Holmes had already written the note well in advance, then got rid of Watson and put the note in place before Moriarty showed up, because Holmes fully intended to draw Moriarty there and to kill him but believed he would have to sacrifice himself in the process and he didn't want Watson to have to witness that).

I mean it's an interesting story still and really fascinating to interpret in different ways and play about with but when so much of it especially is secondhand information (Holmes telling Watson about half of what happens - all of his meeting with Moriarty, the supposed murder attempts, etc - rather than Watson witnessing it), it seems even more unreliable than most of the other stories and so full of plot holes both alone and in conjunction with the events as explained in The Empty House.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I’m not sure I can really buy into the idea of Holmes being in the grip of drug-fuelled paranoia. I suppose, yes, I don’t want that to be the case ^^” But Holmes has never shown signs (via Watson’s writing) of being actually addicted to cocaine. Watson talks about the “black reaction” that comes upon him afterwards, but it never seems to stop Holmes from working or interfere with his life. I suppose Watson could be straight out misleading us in FINA about what he thought about Holmes’ state of mind but that would contradict everything I believe about the doctor. And, yes, what has happened to Holmes that day may all have been coincidences. But nearly being run down, nearly being hit on the head by a falling brick, and then being attacked by a ruffian – all in the same afternoon after being threatened by Moriarty? And then Holmes’ rooms being set alight? Taken together, it is highly suggestive – you’d be a fool not to take as a hypothesis that your life was in danger.

I do have to admit that the choice of final fight between Holmes and Moriarty seems odd. Moriarty is someone who doesn’t get his hands dirty – he always has agents. A physical wrestling match with Holmes? Even if the main objective was to pull him over the falls, it seems out of character. As you say, why not just shoot Holmes from a distance? I do believe that Moriarty wanted to kill Holmes but he picked a bizarre way of going about it.

I am intrigued by your suggestion that Holmes was the one to decoy Watson out of the way. Which I suppose would mean that Holmes knew Moriarty was nearby, or that Holmes himself had contacted Moriarty and arranged the meeting. And that’s an interesting idea that Holmes had composed his note to Watson before he had the meeting with Moriarty. As Watson says, the writing was “as firm and clear, as though it had been written in his study.”

It’s an unsettling story. I think its greatest strengths are in atmosphere and in understated horror, rather than in its plot and character motivations.

[darkest-alchemy.livejournal.com]

The attacks are both so unreliable though (not the one by the ruffian which is more direct) as in there's no way to really control whether Holmes is killed/hurt/escapes unharmed. If Moriarty's trying to kill Holmes there are far better ways to do so and if he's just trying to scare him then why use methods that could easily backfire and kill him? From a supposed criminal genius it doesn't make much sense. And Holmes is messy, he has lots of papers/clippings lying around, he uses chemicals/apparatus, he's a smoker, when he's at his most stressed/sleep deprived/even on drugs he could easily accidentally set his rooms on fire and probably not even realise it was his fault (that would explain how the fire was confined only to his rooms and did little damage - Mrs Hudson or the maid could have discovered it before it spread much and if something was just smouldering away for a while before catching fire properly there wouldn't necessarily be a sure way to judge when the fire actually started).

And it's the fact Holmes has been increasingly distant from Watson since Watson's marriage, he's gone places without Watson, Watson hasn't seen him for months and has no real idea what he's up to for a lot of that time. Then Watson has never met or even heard of Moriarty (except for when he has in The Valley of Fear - thanks for that contradiction ACD) up until Holmes turns up out of the blue even paler and thinner than usual, acting somewhat paranoid and going on about airguns and this master criminal who's supposedly behind half the crime in London but we've never met him and still technically never 'meet' him and up until The Valley of Fear too we never hear of anyone else from canon meeting Moriarty either (and even then there's no real evidence Moriarty is exactly what Holmes says he is).

Also Mary - Watson leaves her behind with no mention of arranging protection for her. That's suggestive either he didn't care about her much (which is an unjust theory I think) or he didn't regard her as genuinely in danger because he thought Holmes was vastly over-exaggerating the threat Moriarty posed and the extent of his power.

And yes the wrestling, these two geniuses who could kill each other in countless other clever or better ways and yet all they do is wrestle each other. It's so inelegant and bizarre.

I can't really think of another theory that covers so many of ACD's plot holes and inconsistencies than Holmes was becoming rather badly affected by drugs (maybe not even cocaine, he seems to like experimenting after all) and Watson recognised that and thus didn't entirely believe him about Moriarty. There is a strong case to be made that Holmes even just dreamed Moriarty the master criminal up in his paranoia but I don't like that theory. I prefer the idea that Moriarty was a real criminal mastermind, Holmes wasn't imagining all that but he started using more drugs perhaps as a way to try to keep himself awake and alert for longer so he could spend increasing amounts of time hunting him down, but then in conjunction with a lack of sleep perhaps it made him rather paranoid and liable to ascribe almost everything to Moriarty. I think SH: A Game of Shadows shows that sort of thing quite well, with Holmes and his big map with all the ribbons showing connections to Moriarty. There's *so* much there he's drawn connections between, what if he did let things slip in that were totally unconnected to Moriarty in reality? What if he's seeing patterns in things that were actually really just random? And if Moriarty is SO good how would Holmes get evidence that he was behind the majority of his crimes anyway? A lot of it must surely be unproven conjecture and thus without proof mistakes will creep in.

But then of course Watson loves Holmes, he respects him & he's trying to honour his memory so he wouldn't then tarnish Holmes's name by saying in the same story actually he was a raging drug fiend (LOL, no I don't think Holmes was SO far gone, but drug use could definitely explain a lot of Holmes's odd behaviour. It is my personal favourite theory now).

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

About Holmes' fatalism, I did wonder if Holmes might, in buiding a case against Moriarty's gang, have done something he couldn't forgive himself for. But darkest_alchemy 's suggestion is far better.

I do love your suggestions about the brothers' names; especially the father - most convincing. I rather think a brother would know his brother too well to think him innocent, (going with the theory Moriarty was what Holmes said). The surviving James might felt obliged to defend his brother's memory. Possibly if he'd admitted Watson's claims were true, it would have meant social ostracism.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

That is a really interesting thought about Holmes' fatalism - that he's trying to redeem himself.

I do suppose it's likely a brother would at least have suspicions. But we mustn't assume that the two brothers were close. Siblings don't always know each other inside and out. I really like your idea that the Colonel was defending his brother in order to indirectly defend himself. If he'd stayed silent, it might have implied he knew his brother was guilty.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

My own take is that Moriarty wanted the satisfaction of the final conflict with Holmes. He had seen his empire taken down and wanted to take physical revenge on his enemy.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Yes... I suppose I can agree with that. It does seem a bit odd though that they both have that fatalistic need to destroy themselves while destroying their enemy. Moriarty could have killed Holmes up close somewhere else - there wasn't any necessity for them both going over the falls.

[darkest-alchemy.livejournal.com]

Also I meant to say about the Moriarty brothers with the same name, I remember once reading about a man who named all of his children after himself (as in all with the exact same name) and he had something like three or four children I think (definitely more than two anyway).

(I don't know why but I imagine Colonel Moriarty having criminal tendencies but he lacks the intelligence to be a criminal himself so his criminal tendencies manifest more in morally despicable but not necessarily illegal behaviour like seducing and then discarding women and abusing the natives of whatever country he's serving in. I don't see him as knowing anything much of the professor's activities and I think the two brothers probably hate each other, but the colonel is a very vain man who's seeking to try to protect the family (and thus his) name and reputation by defending the professor.)