Written by Lauren Shultz

While the heroes are considered the most important and popular characters in the fictional world, everyone loves a good villain. No book or film would be even half decent without a serious baddie, and every Sherlock fan knows that James Moriarty is the baddest baddie that ever existed, real or fictional. Wicked, malicious, insane, you name it; Moriarty is the definition of evil genius. This article illustrates the most diabolical deeds Moriarty has done.

 

5. Killing the old woman

“His voice … He sounded so … soft.”

In “The Great Game”, Moriarty targets several innocent people to test Sherlock’s abilities. He gives Sherlock a puzzle, and if he doesn’t solve it… Well, BOOM. Sherlock saved all of the victims except for the old woman. He solved the puzzle (as he always does), but the old woman started to describe the voice that had been giving her instructions. This, of course, was Moriarty, and he couldn’t let anyone reveal anything about him. He stopped her before she revealed anything meaningful to Sherlock. First off, how evil do you have to be to kidnap and threaten innocent people? But then killing the old woman, not to mention blowing up a building with 12 more fatalities in the process, because she started talking about your voice? That’s way past insanity.

 

4. Richard Brook

“Invented him?”
“Mmm-hmm. Invented all the crimes, actually – and to cap it all, you made up a master villain.”

Richard Brook was Moriarty’s fake identity that he used to destroy Sherlock’s name. He convinced the world that James Moriarty never existed and that Sherlock paid the actor Richard Brook to become Moriarty. All of this was part of Moriarty’s plan to destroy Sherlock’s reputation as the greatest detective in history. If everyone believed that Sherlock created a fictional arch nemesis to use to deceitfully enhance his genius status, no one would believe him or that any of his brilliant deeds were genuine.

 

3. “Burning” Sherlock’s reputation

“‘Genius detective proved to be a fraud.’ I read it in the paper, so it must be true.”

Whether he admits it or not, Sherlock cares about the impression he makes on others. Not about whether he’s a nice or generous person, he doesn’t care about that; he wants people to think he’s clever. He wants people to be so blown away by his genius deduction skills that they doubt if his “skills” are humanly possible. Unfortunately for Sherlock, that’s exactly what Moriarty uses against him. He uses Sherlock’s pride and desire for attention to destroy one of the few things that matters to him: his reputation. After Sherlock finds the kidnapped children (even though it seemed impossible) with the very few leads that he had, certain people start to wonder if he was the one that kidnapped them in the first place. It hardly seemed possible for him to have found them unless he was the one behind it. After nurturing these few seeds of doubt, Moriarty manages to convince almost everyone that Sherlock’s genius is fake. The only thing that matters more to Sherlock than his reputation is his friends, and Moriarty threatens them too.

 

2. Targeting John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade

“Your only three friends in the world will die…unless…”

Sherlock may be arrogant and cocky, but he does have a heart. You just have to find it, and according to Moriarty, these three have. While up on St. Bart’s rooftop with Sherlock, Moriarty has to give him a bit of an “incentive” to complete his dynamic story. With three assassins lined up to kill John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade, Moriarty challenges Sherlock’s devotion to his friends by offering him a choice: his life or theirs. Even though Sherlock has a plan that Moriarty doesn’t know about, Moriarty still does everything he can to ruin Sherlock, and this isn’t the first or last time.

 

1. Kidnapping John

“I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one.”
“But we both know that’s not quite true.”

On the pool deck where Moriarty’s first murder was committed, Sherlock and “Jim from IT” had their first infamous encounter. This may not seem too bad at first, just a typical hero versus villain face-off, but things get nasty when Moriarty adds a semtex-plastered Dr. Watson into the mix. John is one of the first and only people Sherlock has ever truly cared about that has felt the same toward him. How Moriarty knows this is a mystery since they haven’t realized the depth of their friendship themselves, but he uses John to show Sherlock just how far he is willing to go to hurt him.

 

Have any other diabolical Moriarty moments you’d like to share with us? Leave them in the comments below!