What if the events of S3 were in fact Moriarty burning the heart out of Sherlock Holmes

 (Sherlock Meta by stephisanerd)

plaidsuitcase said: Loved your analysis of His Last Vow--It got straight to the heart (pun intended) of what I felt throughout that episode. And it also makes me wonder... What if the rooftop scene in Reichenbach was the beginning of The Game and not the end. What if the events of S3 were in fact Moriarty burning the heart out of Sherlock Holmes. The moment Sherlock's plane takes off he's won and steps back out of the shadows.

stephisanerd: (This ask is in response to this piece.) (Also, YAY HEART PUN.  Clearly I like those.)

That’s something I’d probably actually be willing to bet on.  Maybe not a whole lot of money but some. I originally had that quote in there and a couple of thoughts about it, but I cut a whole lot of things for flow and clarity because it was long, and I was already trying to do so much. (The number of metas I need to write/ones that I have half-written just keeps growing.)  I’d say this series went a hell of a long way towards burning the heart out of Sherlock.  but there’s also this that makes me think that Moriarty (Or whoever else is involved) was playing the long game.

In The Reichenbach Fall, Mycroft and Sherlock were basically playing into Moriarty’s plan and letting him destroy Sherlock’s reputation—Sherlock said this of it when they were on the run:

 ”Everybody wants to believe it – that’s what makes it so clever. A lie that’s preferable to the truth. All my brilliant deductions were just a sham. No-one feels inadequate – Sherlock Holmes is just an ordinary man.”

In some ways, it’s what Moriarty was trying to do with the lies.  He was trying to convince everyone that Sherlock was a fraud, but also that he was only human.  Sherlock and Mycroft let him do it, but like the fall itself, it was a bit of a magic trick.  Sherlock came back with his reputation intact.  It was only temporary. He still gets to “be Sherlock Holmes”

This series may not quite have proven that Sherlock Homes is an ordinary man, but it’s brought us pretty close. Just like it came close, but not quite to burning the heart out of Sherlock.   They’re all still kind of standing there with their facades sort of intact at the end of the His Last Vow, but it’s not going to take much to blow them down.  The whole series feels like the set up for what happens next, and being as that involves Moriarty in some for or fashion, I’d be willing to be that it’s exactly what he intended.

(And since I’m sure someone will ask I’ll go ahead and say it.)  I’m sure it involves Mary and what she was/is.  I’d be willing to bet that she was involved at some point in the past with Moriarty and what he’s doing.  I know there are some theories that she’s kind of the mastermind of the thing or that she’s still involved, but I tend towards thinking she’s a bit of a pawn as well.  Not because I like her, and not because of anything that happened in the last episode, but because of this.  Moffat and Co. are reallllly fond of foreshadowing and putting texts in the show that are relevant in more than one place and way.  I’m working on a piece that’s basically a list of quotes from A Scandal in Belgravia that were relevant/were probably relevant to this series, and there are so many (And not just the obvious ones—there’s the love/loss/redemption one, but there are so many TINY things too.)

In The Empty Hearse, when Sherlock apologizes, this is part of the exchange.

SHERLOCK: I’m sorry.
JOHN: What?
SHERLOCK: I can’t … I can’t do it, John. I don’t know how... Forgive me?
JOHN: What?
SHERLOCK: Please, John, forgive me … for all the hurt that I caused you.
…
JOHN: It’s just to make you look good even though you behaved like… I wanted you not to be dead.
SHERLOCK: Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for. If I hadn’t come back, you wouldn’t be standing there and you’d still have a future with Mary.

Sherlock is supposedly apologizing for the bomb, but on rewatch, you know he’s disabled it right before he begins speaking there, so it’s really an apology for what he did to John.  That last line is different though.  It is the only line in the entire sequence that is only relevant in one way as far as we can see.  It only refers to the bomb ruse and in no way serves Sherlock’s apology for what he did to John over the past two years.  HOWEVER, I would be willing to bet quite a bit actually that it also has a double meaning.  It’s too perfectly placed and too perfectly worded not to have one.  I think that line will prove to eventually need to be as part of Sherlock’s apology as the rest of it.  I think whatever happens next, it will need to be true that if Sherlock hadn’t come back, John could have had a future with Mary.  If she’s playing them all, then that wouldn’t be the case.

(And yes, I’m basing my opinion on one line I think has to be foreshadowing, but the double-meaning/foreshadowing is Moffat’s MO, so I feel justified.)