3. Villain
Essential – Crime or Detective Drama
Inspire Fear – Chills up and down your spine
Worthy Opponent
Jim: “Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain”
Series highlights – Sherlock and Jim meetings
4. Sherlock and Jim Set Pieces
Swimming Pool, Tea Party, St Barts Rooftop
6. Conan Doyle
Canon Moriarty
• Age? - Paget
• Extremely tall and thin
• Good birth, excellent education
• Professor Moriarty – Maths
Professor
• Looks and acts like a professor
• Extraordinary mental powers
• Genius, Philosopher, Abstract
Thinker
• Brain of the first order
7. Conan Doyle
Canon Moriarty
• Hereditary tendencies of the
most diabolical kind
• Criminal strain ran in his blood
• “Napoleon of Crime”
• Central organizing power
• Numerous agents
• Pervades London
• Most dangerous criminal in
Europe
8. BBC Sherlock
Jim Moriarty
• Young
• Stylish “Westwood”
• Handsome (dates Molly!)
• IT wizard/geek, tech savvy
• Psycho / Mad
• Funny
• Irish
• Consulting criminal:
“specialist” arranging crimes
9. Reptilian
“His face protrudes forward, and is for ever slowly oscillating from
side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion”
12. The Devil
• Temptation
• Eve, Serpent, Garden of Eden, The Fall
• Sherlock “on the side of the Angels”
• Jim “I owe you a Fall, Sherlock”
• Apple inscribed with I O U
13. Humour /
Light relief
• I gave you my number
I thought you might call
• Is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your
pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?
• The flirting’s over Sherlock, Daddy’s had
enough now
• Westwood!
• Staying Alive ringtone
16. Moriarty the Spider
Conan Doyle Canon
“He sits motionless, like a spider
in the centre of its web, but that
web has a thousand
radiations, and he knows well
every quiver of each of them”.
BBC Sherlock
Jim Moriarty is a “Spider”
“A spider at the centre of a
web, criminal web, with a
thousand threads, and he knows
precisely how each and every
single one of them dances”.
17. Moriarty’s Web
Moriarty “pervades” London and is behind all the crime in London
Canon: Moriarty’s first appearance is in “The Final Problem”
In BBC Sherlock:
A Study in Pink: Taxi driver’s dying scream of “Moriarty”
The Blind Banker: M is behind the Chinese gang and Shan (gang leader) is
assassinated by a sniper sent by M at the end of the episode
We (the audience) learn to fear the name of Moriarty way before he makes his
first on-screen appearance – builds suspense “who is he?” and rachets up tension
The Great Game: Jim Moriarty only appears in closing scene (final 10 mins of
Series 1) – Moriarty always used sparingly
18. Modern Day “Evil”
• 9/11 New York, US
• 7/7 London, UK
• Most horrifying crime
today = terrorist bomb /
suicide bombers
• The Great Game
19. Yin and Yang
Holmes and Moriarty
Opposite/contrary forces are
interconnected and
interdependent in natural
world
Physical manifestations - natural
dualities: light & dark, hot &
cold, fire & water, life &
death, sun & moon, male &
female
20. Yin and Yang: Sherlock and Jim
Consulting Detective – Consulting Criminal
21. Intellectual equals:
Using brain for good or bad?
Holmes - Fights crime
Deduction and Detection
Consulting Detective
Moriarty - Perpetrates crime
Criminal Mastermind
Consulting Criminal
22. Interconnected & Interdependent
The Great Game: Sherlock is “bored, bored, bored”. Without
work, his brain rots
The Hounds of Baskerville: Sherlock sees Jim in the fog – Sherlock’s
“Hound” is Jim
The Hounds of Baskerville: “Sherlock” inscribed on Jim’s cell walls
The Reichenbach Fall: “Get Sherlock”, Cat and mouse game
His Last Vow: Jim is in Sherlock’s mind palace and brings him back
from the dead by telling him John Watson is in danger
His Last Vow: “Miss Me?” Jim’s “return” saves Sherlock from certain
death as he is recalled to UK