OOC: Moriarty Family Notes
Jun. 27th, 2017 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thelastgoodoneThere are so many references to the Canon and various adaptations when it comes to August and his siblings. Here are a few I've noticed.
The Canon
Each of the four most recent Moriarty siblings embodies one of the aspects of Prof. Moriarty described in VALL and FINA:
Lucien (murderer): In his discussion of the double-agent Porlock in VALL, Holmes mentions that the only punishment for failing Moriarty is death (although this is seemingly contradicted by the depiction in FINA, which seems to suggest Moriarty provides bail and legal services to arrested minions who keep their mouth shut). His going after Charlotte (and Jamie) to avenge August may also be a reference to Col. Moriarty claiming his brother was innocent, possibly coming into conflict with Watson over the publication of FINA.
Hadrian (forger): Holmes is (sort of) able to convince Inspector Alec MacDonald of Moriarty's illegal income in VALL by referring to his owning a Greuze painting worth several thousand pounds more than a professor earning £700 a year should be able to afford. Holmes fandom has run with the idea of Moriarty being an art connoisseur and/or involved with art crimes.
Phillipa (con man): One of the barriers to Holmes convincing Scotland Yard to look into Moriarty is his charm, observed by Mr Mac in his description of meeting the prof in the second chapter of VALL.
August (...improbable): August's youth and mathematical ability are obviously a reference to the description of Moriarty's career in FINA. Milo having the story in the Daily Mail scrubbed from the Internet may also be a reference to the "dark rumours" that ruined Prof. Moriarty's academic career. Moriarty's legitimate career in London was an army coach, a sort of independent tutor hired to get would-be military officers through exams.
Adaptations and Pastiches
"Professor Moriarty had a little red notebook": While Prof. Moriarty pulls out a memorandum book in FINA to recount to Holmes the times he was "seriously inconvenienced," the Moriarty in A Game of Shadows specifically uses a coded little red notebook to keep track of his vast fortune.
Lucien and the current Prime Minister: In A Game of Shadows, Moriarty is described as being "close personal friends with the Prime Minister."
Art forgery: In the Granada adaptation of FINA, Moriarty is involved in a plot to steal the Mona Lisa and sell forgeries to unscrupulous art collectors. Elementary also gives us a Moriarty who uses her job as an art restorer to forge and steal paintings. (It's possible that all of the Moriartys being blond is also a shout-out to Natalie Dormer's Jamie Moriarty). August's great-great-great aunt Pearl is described in Charlotte's family tree as "assassin and artist" and gave the Holmeses a painting of Holmes and Watson, supposedly as an apology for her father's actions. This might recall Jamie's giant portrait of Watson.
August's tutoring, Charlotte's drug use, and guilt: William S. Baring-Gould was one of the first to propose that Holmes and Moriarty actually met when Moriarty was Holmes's childhood mathematics tutor. Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution imagines that the Holmes brothers' social isolation and obsession with problem-solving (and Sherlock Holmes's drug addiction) stems from learning that their father murdered their mother after discovering she was having an affair with Moriarty, who is otherwise innocent of any criminal activities and is shown to feel both guilty and terrified of Mycroft decades later. The film Sherlock: A Case of Evil proposes that Moriarty was both a tutor and a drug kingpin (and responsible for Mycroft's heroin addiction).
Bryony: Lucien calling Charlotte on Bryony's phone is slightly reminiscent of Jim's use of different people's voices in the first season of Sherlock. (Is Bryony herself maybe a Molly-gone-wrong? Medical person dating a Moriarty who uses her knowledge for evil? If nothing else, she's definitely a callback to Holmes's remark about a "when a doctor goes wrong" in SPEC.)
Phillipa's orchids: In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (the last Basil Rathbone Holmes film to be set in the 1890s), Moriarty berates his butler for not properly taking care of his garden. (Her love of oysters may also be a Holmes reference, if not a Moriarty one--during Holmes's fake delirium in DYIN, he tells Watson that oysters will take over the world.)
August commandeering one of Milo's cars to warn Jamie is a reversal of what happens in FINA, where Holmes instructs Watson to take a particular cab (driven by Mycroft in disguise).
"Felix's" planned return to academics: Frank Vigor Morley (elder brother of the more famous Christopher) wrote a novel in 1947 called Death in Dwelly Lane. It was narrated by a mathematician and retired gangster who changed his name to Lionel Mimms while living in America, but who returned to England after a short prison sentence in the hopes of completing a mathematical treatise. His given name is never stated, but he's mentioned to have despised his stationmaster father and adored his uncle, a renowned mathematician who left him a Greuze painting and had one of his academic detractors murdered. Lionel spends most of the novel worrying about being rotten by nature, failing to get his work published because of his name, and trying to get out of a heist led by a socialite who has uncovered his past. Morley's youngest brother, who wrote crosswords for the BSI under the name "Mycroft Holmes," was named Felix.
August's possible fate in TLoA may also be a reference to the Michael Hardwick novel Sherlock Holmes: My Life and Crimes, wherein Moriarty's past catches up to him just about the time he is reconciled to quietly living out his life under an assumed name. (He's calling out the Holmeses for deceiving him, too, which seems appropriate.)
The Canon
Each of the four most recent Moriarty siblings embodies one of the aspects of Prof. Moriarty described in VALL and FINA:
Lucien (murderer): In his discussion of the double-agent Porlock in VALL, Holmes mentions that the only punishment for failing Moriarty is death (although this is seemingly contradicted by the depiction in FINA, which seems to suggest Moriarty provides bail and legal services to arrested minions who keep their mouth shut). His going after Charlotte (and Jamie) to avenge August may also be a reference to Col. Moriarty claiming his brother was innocent, possibly coming into conflict with Watson over the publication of FINA.
Hadrian (forger): Holmes is (sort of) able to convince Inspector Alec MacDonald of Moriarty's illegal income in VALL by referring to his owning a Greuze painting worth several thousand pounds more than a professor earning £700 a year should be able to afford. Holmes fandom has run with the idea of Moriarty being an art connoisseur and/or involved with art crimes.
Phillipa (con man): One of the barriers to Holmes convincing Scotland Yard to look into Moriarty is his charm, observed by Mr Mac in his description of meeting the prof in the second chapter of VALL.
August (...improbable): August's youth and mathematical ability are obviously a reference to the description of Moriarty's career in FINA. Milo having the story in the Daily Mail scrubbed from the Internet may also be a reference to the "dark rumours" that ruined Prof. Moriarty's academic career. Moriarty's legitimate career in London was an army coach, a sort of independent tutor hired to get would-be military officers through exams.
Adaptations and Pastiches
"Professor Moriarty had a little red notebook": While Prof. Moriarty pulls out a memorandum book in FINA to recount to Holmes the times he was "seriously inconvenienced," the Moriarty in A Game of Shadows specifically uses a coded little red notebook to keep track of his vast fortune.
Lucien and the current Prime Minister: In A Game of Shadows, Moriarty is described as being "close personal friends with the Prime Minister."
Art forgery: In the Granada adaptation of FINA, Moriarty is involved in a plot to steal the Mona Lisa and sell forgeries to unscrupulous art collectors. Elementary also gives us a Moriarty who uses her job as an art restorer to forge and steal paintings. (It's possible that all of the Moriartys being blond is also a shout-out to Natalie Dormer's Jamie Moriarty). August's great-great-great aunt Pearl is described in Charlotte's family tree as "assassin and artist" and gave the Holmeses a painting of Holmes and Watson, supposedly as an apology for her father's actions. This might recall Jamie's giant portrait of Watson.
August's tutoring, Charlotte's drug use, and guilt: William S. Baring-Gould was one of the first to propose that Holmes and Moriarty actually met when Moriarty was Holmes's childhood mathematics tutor. Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution imagines that the Holmes brothers' social isolation and obsession with problem-solving (and Sherlock Holmes's drug addiction) stems from learning that their father murdered their mother after discovering she was having an affair with Moriarty, who is otherwise innocent of any criminal activities and is shown to feel both guilty and terrified of Mycroft decades later. The film Sherlock: A Case of Evil proposes that Moriarty was both a tutor and a drug kingpin (and responsible for Mycroft's heroin addiction).
Bryony: Lucien calling Charlotte on Bryony's phone is slightly reminiscent of Jim's use of different people's voices in the first season of Sherlock. (Is Bryony herself maybe a Molly-gone-wrong? Medical person dating a Moriarty who uses her knowledge for evil? If nothing else, she's definitely a callback to Holmes's remark about a "when a doctor goes wrong" in SPEC.)
Phillipa's orchids: In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (the last Basil Rathbone Holmes film to be set in the 1890s), Moriarty berates his butler for not properly taking care of his garden. (Her love of oysters may also be a Holmes reference, if not a Moriarty one--during Holmes's fake delirium in DYIN, he tells Watson that oysters will take over the world.)
August commandeering one of Milo's cars to warn Jamie is a reversal of what happens in FINA, where Holmes instructs Watson to take a particular cab (driven by Mycroft in disguise).
"Felix's" planned return to academics: Frank Vigor Morley (elder brother of the more famous Christopher) wrote a novel in 1947 called Death in Dwelly Lane. It was narrated by a mathematician and retired gangster who changed his name to Lionel Mimms while living in America, but who returned to England after a short prison sentence in the hopes of completing a mathematical treatise. His given name is never stated, but he's mentioned to have despised his stationmaster father and adored his uncle, a renowned mathematician who left him a Greuze painting and had one of his academic detractors murdered. Lionel spends most of the novel worrying about being rotten by nature, failing to get his work published because of his name, and trying to get out of a heist led by a socialite who has uncovered his past. Morley's youngest brother, who wrote crosswords for the BSI under the name "Mycroft Holmes," was named Felix.
August's possible fate in TLoA may also be a reference to the Michael Hardwick novel Sherlock Holmes: My Life and Crimes, wherein Moriarty's past catches up to him just about the time he is reconciled to quietly living out his life under an assumed name. (He's calling out the Holmeses for deceiving him, too, which seems appropriate.)
