An analysis on Sherlock and William [with Watson propaganda at the end]
Spoilers for Moriarty the Patriot [more specifically "the Noahtic" and "the Final problem", with brief mentions of "two criminals" on the side ;) [pretty much everything]
Another long post lol
The very first introduction of Sherlock is in "the Noahtic", where William finally kickstarts the Moriarty plan.
The obvious highlight of the whole episode is Sherlock's character and, more importantly, his dynamic with William. So far, we have seen William solving certain puzzles [example: William's childhood] by using already established facts. We know that William is not afraid to bend the rules, fabricate evidence if there are none in order to catch the culprit and generally does things that would absolutely not fly in a court room. But the reason why he does this is why he is the main character, and not the villain. He wants to establish a world where the class system doesn't exist, a world which does not bury the thousands of possible geniuses that could shine and make the world a better place. He is willing to sacrifice anything so that people, and the people he cares for, can see that world, to reap the rewards he had sown, even if it means that he can't live to see it. His method is wrong but his goal is right, making him much more nuanced.
"The end justifies the means."
Sherlock, on the other hand, uses facts that have a high probability of being true, which means that sometimes he can be wrong [about William being the Lord of Crime and not considering his brothers as well] and his deductions are forced [something William pointed out himself]. Sherlock also plays by the rules, he's never the one to fabricate evidence, because the thrill in solving a crime is the process of solving itself. If he fabricates evidence to catch the culprit, where's the fun and frustration of a good mystery? Why would he bother to crack a case when he can take the easy way out?
One thing I noticed about Sherlock that not a lot of people talk about is that he's not THAT good, morally speaking. Case and point, A Study in S. This episode is mostly around Sherlock, Watson and their first case together, with my personal favorite part, being the offer given by Jefferson Hope and it's aftermath.
This whole episode is a clear cut test for Sherlock and shows the audience where he is in the morality scale. In the end, Sherlock is left with two choices; he can either choose to shoot Hope, an already dying man, and therefore reveal the identity of Lord of Crime, the mastermind behind the case. Or he could choose not to, never to have conformation on the mastermind's true identity. Sherlock inevitably chooses not to shoot Hope, but that doesn't mean he did it purely out of the goodness of his heart. He did it partially because the offer itself was not interesting enough and because of Watson. Had William tweaked the contract just a bit and Watson not been there to stop Sherlock, we could have seen a very different ending. But what interests me the most is the aftermath of the decision.
In the episode "The two detectives", we see Sherlock actually regretting the fact that he did not shoot Hope. Hell, he even starts to dream about it and it frustrates him so much he starts to look into other cases in the hopes of coming across another big mystery, a mystery secretly orchestrated from the Lord of Crime. This is a clear indicator that Sherlock is still flawed. While William respects him and says he should be the "hero" of the Moriarty plan, that doesn't mean he is morally great. He is, at the end of the day, not as righteous as William, which is one of the characteristics that makes Sherlock want to save William, despite his actions.
Funnily enough, Watson is the one of the few people that is mostly good in this whole series. I mean, look at him, he's too precious for this world
He's the person who pops the champagne when Sherlock solves another grand mystery, but that doesn't mean he's afraid to knock some sense into Sherlock when he does something that he should have not done, like, Milverton's murder.
This scene was probably the one that has the most parallels to William and his brothers [or pretty much everyone in Moriarty & co.]. He wasn't sad that he had to taint his hands for a friend. He was pissed off at him, berating him for ever thinking that this would make him happy at all. After all, murder is still murder, no matter the consequences. And wasn't Sherlock the one who placed himself in a high and mighty place by swearing to capture the Lord of crime, despite his "noble intent"? I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that this is how the Moriarty brothers, or maybe the entire crew, feels about William's grand sacrifice. They don't want him to take all the blame and die for it. They don't want William to put in so much effort, only to not see the fruits of his labor. Why would William think that this would make them happy? That they would want to be in a world, knowing that they could have stopped it and bearing the regret and grief that came after the plan? The only reason why the Moriarty plan had that resolution was because William didn't know a better way to atone for his sins. Sherlock was the only one to call him out for it, to say that it was a cowardly way to atone. He made William realize that no one would be happy with this ending, just like Watson did with Sherlock.
TLDR; Watson deserves more love, and if he didn't smack Sherlock for killing a man, William would not have realized his mistake at all [I wasn't kidding with the title lol]
I genuinely did not plan on Watson showing up but here we are [just like William didn't in "A Study in S" ayyyy amiright] [Please k!ll me].
