History Fridge / SherlockHolmes

* At first it seems anachronistic for guns like the Mauser C96 to be appearing in 1891, and simply an example of a [[CoolGuns cool] and [[RareGuns rare]] gun being shoehorned into a Victorian story. It's perfectly plausible for Moriarty's weapons business to be involved in advanced weapon design, and the Maxim machine gun that formed the basis of semi-automatic research was almost a decade old at the time of ''Game of Shadows.'' After Moriarty's death and the collapse of his empire, the plans would have been taken and developed into the C96 model half a decade later.

* There are plenty of gay subtext in 'The Game of Shadows' but there's a more subtle one. Apparently, Brighton has a substantial Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It was called 'The Gay Capital of Britan'. This is where Watson and Mary are going to have their honeymoon.

** A rule in chess is that if a pawn makes it to the other side of the board, it is promoted to a queen. Mary was pretty much a 'pawn' in the game since she didn't have much of a role in the case except as Watson's wife. However, at the end, she was instrumental in taking down Moriarty's organization because Moriarty was busy with Holmes and Watson to notice her. In other words, Holmes turned Mary from a pawn to a queen.

[[folder:Robert Downey Jr film series]]

[[AC: Fridge Brilliance]]
* ''Film/SherlockHolmes'': Blackwood [[spoiler:kills the ginger dwarf with cyanide (which deprives the body of ''air''), and buries him in the '''earth'''. He kills his father in a bathtub filled with ''fire''-heated '''water'''. He kills the American lodge member with by setting him on '''fire''' with what said member thought to be ''rain''. And finally, his machine, beneath the ''earth'', would poison the very '''air''' Parliament breathed.]] ''It's elementary.'' -- [[Tropers/{{Jonn}} Jonn]]

* In ''A Game of Shadows'', the ChessMotifs throughout the film cast Holmes and his allies as the black pieces, and Holmes takes the black side when he and Moriarty play chess in the GrandFinale. This clashes with the general [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience color-coding of pop culture]], which mandates that LightIsGood and DarkIsEvil. But in chess, white and black have nothing to do with good and evil, but rather with offense and defense. White moves first, and is therefore on offense, while black moves second, putting them on defense. And Holmes is very much on defense throughout most of the movie.

[[AC:Fridge Horror]]

[[folder:Original stories]]
[[AC:Fridge Brilliance]]
* A fairly simple one from ''SherlockHolmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles'': Watson remarks on the death of the escaped convict Neil Selden, brother of Henry Baskerville's butler's wife, that "Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him." After the hound set loose by Stapleton[[hottip:*:No spoiler for you, it's a 109-year old book]] fails to kill Henry Baskerville, his abused wife gleefully leads Holmes and Watson to his hideout. Watson doesn't outright say it, but this gives a strong impression of just how evil Stapleton is. (althechi)
** Another one from the Hound of the Baskevilles. The novel opens with Holmes reading about Dr James Mortimer who has written papers on 'Is Disease a Reversion', 'Some Freaks of Atavism' and 'Do we regress?'. Atavism is defined as 'The tendency to revert to ancestral type'. Later on, we discover that the main villain, Stapleton is a relative of the Baskervilles. How? By the fact that he looks almost identical to the painting of the evil Sir Hugo Baskerville (who was responsible for the Baskerville curse). In other words, Stapleton is a reversion to the evil Baskerville type and we have an incredibly brilliant piece of foreshadowing. {{Culfy}}
[[/folder]]

!!Film

!!Literature

* At the end of the first film, Watson and Mary find Holmes hanging from the ceiling. Watson quickly says: "Suicide is not in his repertoire, he's far too fond of himself for that." - Cut to the final confrontation at the end of the second film and it appears Holmes has in fact killed himself to stop the villain... only for us to find out minutes later that he hasn't.
* There are plenty of gay subtext in 'The Game of Shadows' but there's a more subtle one. Apparently, Brighton has a substantial Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It was called 'The Gay Capital of Britan'. This is where Watson and Mary are going to have their honeymoon.

* When Holmes and Moriarty meet in Moriarty's classroom, both make perfectly clear that they'll stop at nothing to oppose the other. At first, I was scratching my head and thinking WhyDontYouJustShootHim - to ''both'' of them. Then I realized, this is ''Holmes and Moriarty.'' It's completely in character for both of them to ''want'' the challenge of a WorthyOpponent.

[[AC: Film]]

* FridgeHorror: It's horrifying enough that Moriarty manipulates a man [[spoiler: into committing suicide]] by threatening to kill his wife and children, who are being held hostage. Then you realize that, given Moriarty's policy of "no loose ends," he almost certainly [[CompleteMonster had the man's family killed ANYWAY]].
* FridgeBrilliance: Every event in The Final Problem happens in some form or another in The Game of Shadows. It is feasible that Watson toned it down into the "marketable" story that was published.
* FridgeBrilliance: At the end of the first film, Watson and Mary find Holmes hanging from the ceiling. Watson quickly says: "Suicide is not in his repertoire, he's far too fond of himself for that." - Cut to the final confrontation at the end of the second film and it appears Holmes has in fact killed himself to stop the villain... only for us to find out minutes later that he hasn't.

[[AC: Literature]]

* Easy to not notice [[RuleOfFunny because it is so funny]], but during the climax of ''Game of Shadows'', Holmes [[spoiler: reveals that he swapped Moriaty's note book with one containing flick picture of a fish eating the fisherman, harkening back to Moriaty's boast in the torture scene. The fridge logic is that Holmes only managed to swap the books]] immediately during that same toture scene. So what, did he know in advance how Moriaty was going to specifically (and so unpleasantly) tease him?

* In the climax of ''Game of Shadows'', Holmes [[spoiler: reveals that he swapped Moriaty's note book with one containing flick picture of a fish eating the fisherman, harkening back to Moriaty's boast in the torture scene. But Holmes only managed to swap the books]] immediately during that toture scene. So what, did he know in advance how Moriaty was going to specifically (and so unpleasantly) tease him?

* In the climax of ''Game of Shadows'', Holmes [[spoiler: reveals that he swapped Moriaty's note book with one containing flick picture of a fish eating the fisherman, harkening back to Moriaty's boast in the torture scene. But Holmes only managed to swap the books]] immediately during that toture scene. So what, did he know in advance how Moriaty was going to specificly (so unpleasantly) tease him?

** Mary was pretty much a 'pawn' in the game since she didn't have much of a role in the case except as Watson's wife. However, at the end, she was instrumental in taking down Moriarty's organization because Moriarty was busy with Holmes and Watson to notice her. In other words, Holmes turned Mary from a pawn to a queen.

** [[spoiler:Lord Blackwood's death]] ended up being an unintentional replacement for [[spoiler:the parliament]]. How, you ask? [[spoiler:Lord Blackwood died by hanging, in the '''air''']].