Alright everybody, this post has been itching at my brain for a while now. There is a Grimm Fairytale where a Fox fakes his own death, called “The Wedding of Mrs. Fox.” The fairytale follows an Old Mr. Fox who believes his wife Mrs. Fox is unfaithful, and to prove his point, pretends to be dead in order to catch her cheating. I have no clue what this fucking story’s moral is, aside from the fact that Mr. Fox is a COMPLETE asshole and deserves to stay dead for putting his wife through all that bullshit, but dick-ness aside you REALLY have to stretch your imagination to try and make it allegorically link with Jim Moriarty and the Reichenbach Fall at all.
So I did some searching, and found a Greek fable known as “The Fox and (DRUMROLL PLEASE) The Hedgehog” which is the inspiration for the Grimm Fairytale known as “The Fox and the Cat.” This fable contrasts the fate of the proud and self-proclaimed clever Fox who has many tricks at its disposal against the self-assured and humble Hedgehog who has but one simple trick. The overlying moral throughout these variants is having one simple trick proves more effective than having many tricks.
The Fox and The Hedgehog team up to steal grapes from a farmer’s vineyard. The first time they go, The Fox gets caught in a trap, and The Hedgehog tells the frantic Fox to play dead. When The Farmer approached the Fox, he believed it dead and removed it from the trap. For a second time The Fox and The Hedgehog visits the vineyard to eat grapes. This time, The Hedgehog is snared. The Hedgehog calls out to the Fox, pleading that it come with its “bag of tricks” and free him from the trap, which The Fox claims to have dropped. Stalling, The Hedgehog asks to be forgiven for it’s sins, then hugged, and then finally kissed by The Fox. The Fox abides to all three of these, and with the kiss, The Hedgehog bites down on The Fox’s tongue, and holds The Fox there until The Farmer comes along, who laughs, kills The Fox, and frees The Hedgehog.
I personally see these connections as something like this:
The Hedgehog = Sherlock Holmes.
The Farmer = Mycroft Holmes.
There is a Greek Proverb that states: “The Fox knows many little things, but The Hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Sherlock knew of Moriarty’s cleverness. He knew of his many tricks just as The Hedgehog knew of The Fox’s. Sherlock knew the only way to win against Moriarty was to make sure Moriarty died. Now, I’m not saying that Sherlock wasn’t surprised at Moriarty for pulling the gun on himself, but I do believe that to some extent Sherlock was contemplating coaxing Moriarty into some form of demise.
After all, Sherlock is never show “deducing” Moriarty in the standard textual manner he deduces everybody else, and in the scene where Moriarty postulates The Final Problem in Sherlock’s flat, you can bet your best fucking cow that Sherlock was deducing the SHIT out of Moriarty. It’s subtle, but Sherlock shows us that he knows Moriarty is left handed, as he purposefully passes Moriarty his tea fashioned for a right-handed person out of spite.
That definitely means that Sherlock knows something about Moriarty that the writers do not want the audience to know that he knows. WE all know he’s crazy—WE all know Moriarty feels so fatally bonded and kindred to Sherlock that this could only end in death and destruction. The real mystery was WHAT Sherlock knew. Sherlock knew Moriarty was a fatalist—he wanted to die, but it had to be done poetically—artfully, if you will. Moriarty does mean “To die is an art” after all, do you think Sherlock wouldn’t correlate that? Do you think Sherlock wouldn’t say “Isn’t it OBVIOUS” dryly, sarcastically, in that beautiful baritone voice of his?
So Sherlock had to give Moriarty an artful death. I do not think that Sherlock was exactly expecting Moriarty to blow himself away at the time and place that he did, but I do believe that Sherlock was trying many different methods to see what struck a chord to make Moriarty react. Sherlock:
A. Feigned stupidity by allowing Moriarty to believe he had outsmarted Sherlock (As if Sherlock could decode the: “There is no code” Binary. He patted the rhythm anyways, for Moriarty, to make him think Sherlock he had outfoxed Sherlock.)
B. Threatened Moriarty by dangling him over the ledge.
C. Related to Moriarty in a devilish/angel way.
D. And finally, continued to play the game with Moriarty by laughing and stating that he didn’t have to die “As long as I’ve got you.” Meaning, as long as Moriarty was alive, Sherlock could find out how to call off the assassins.
Moriarty, not wanting to lose, kills himself, which makes it SIGNIFICANTLY EASIER for Sherlock to fake his own death. Moriarty, The Fox, was tricked into dying by Sherlock, The Hedgehog, who feigned dying. Now how Mycroft Holmes, The Farmer, comes in a very shadowy manner to pull Sherlock from “death” and free him from danger. We all know Mycroft is an intelligent and far-reaching man—part of the British Government and dabbles in many other secretive matters.
It would be no stretch of the imagination to think that Mycroft (who did not so much as grimace upon reading of his beloved brother’s suicide) had some involvement in the cover up and help his brother “die”. Moriarty’s death was mutually beneficial for the Holmes brothers, so why not just this one time collaborate?
Now both The Hedgehog and The Farmer are freed from the tricksy burden of The Fox.
