History Fridge / SherlockHolmes

** [[spoiler: It's Helen's hearing the strange noises that wakes her up the morning she decides to see Sherlock Holmes. Later on, Holmes theorizes that it's possible for the victim to not be bitten by the snake for up to a week and both the light and Holmes' striking the bellcord with his cane anger the snake into crawling back, biting the murderer...if that's the case, Helen might've ''prevented her own murder from her insomnia''!]]

!!Fridge Brilliance

!!Fridge Horror

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Original stories]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film series]]
!!Fridge Brilliance
[[AC:''Sherlock Holmes'']]
* Why didn't Watson [[spoiler:come to Holmes' aid atop Tower Bridge]], and where did Blackwood get [[spoiler:a sword for his final fight]]? Look closely: Blackwood is [[spoiler: wielding Watson's sword cane, which Holmes of course makes sure to take with him at the end. Watson loses his sword cane when he gets thumped by the large French fellow, and he doesn't regain it during the ensuing fight scene. Blackwood might have found it on the sewer floor]].
* Watson chastises Holmes for drinking eye surgery medicine. It's cocaine, which (even today) has a medical use as a local anesthetic for eye surgery. In the books, Holmes uses cocaine.
* You know that mysterious wind during the opening sequence? The cops show up a few seconds later. It wasn't a wind, it was a draft from them opening the door.
* At the end of the film, look closer at the ring Holmes gave to Mary and Watson... [[spoiler: "Is that the Maharajah's missing diamond?"]] The last thing we see Holmes do before this scene is [[spoiler: grab Irene's necklace which held the diamond.]]

[[AC:''Sherlock Holmes: 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 by default, 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.
** 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 too busy with Holmes and Watson to notice her. In other words, Holmes turned Mary from a pawn to a queen.
* 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 torture scene. So what, did he know in advance how Moriaty was going to specifically (and so unpleasantly) tease him?
** As mentioned over at the Headscratchers page, the same piece of music was playing when they met at the university, and they discussed it, with the metaphorical subtext being clearly understood between the two of them.
** Alternatively, Holmes actually drew the entire flip book ''during'' the torture scene, in brief moments whenever Moriarty's back was turned. Because Holmes is ''just that good''.
** He ''must'' have prepared the duplicate book long before the torture scene, because he'd already tried and failed to pull off the switch at Moriarty's hotel. He couldn't have just been trying to steal the book and leave nothing in its place that time, because Moriarty would've surely noticed its absence too soon for Lestrade and Mary to purloin his fortune.
* Every event in The Final Problem happens in some form or another in ''Game of Shadows''. Watson just toned it down into the "marketable" story that Conan Doyle published.
* 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. [[spoiler: He really is too fond of himself.]]
* There are plenty of instances with gay subtext in 'The Game of Shadows' but one is particularly subtle. Apparently, Brighton has a substantial Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It was called 'The Gay Capital of Britain'. This is where Watson and Mary are going to have their honeymoon.
** That is a bit of a stretch - Brighton's (well deserved, bless it) reputation for gayness is modern and in fact the more obvious connotation of the town, to British viewers at least, is that Brighton is the traditional destination for the 'dirty weekend'. It's exactly where young couples, whether married or no, headed for rumpy-pumpy.
*** At the time, Brighton was also the entertainment capital of Britain. Think of it as a somewhat classier version of a week in Vegas and you're pretty on the money.
* 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 ''[[GreatDetective Holmes]] and [[EvilCounterpart Moriarty]].'' It's completely in character for both of them to ''want'' the challenge of a WorthyOpponent.
* 1891 was a hallmark in the road to WorldWarOne in RealLife, as it was the year that the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy was renewed (in response to France approaching Italy), France and Russia signed an alliance, and Britain refused an alliance offer from Germany. So Mycroft's comment that the conference's aim is to defuse the current crisis between France and Germany (who were sworn enemies since the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871) but that in case it doesn't work everybody else is there to decide which side they pick is part this and part ShownTheirWork.
* At first it seems anachronistic for the weapons used during the train yard shootout, 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.
** In RealLife, the design work on the C96 had already been underway in 1893.
* At first, many of the weird, steampunk-like things appearing in both films appear to be merely AnachronismStew designed to appeal to fans of 21st century action movies. But when you take a closer look, many of the elements--weird weaponry, concerns over foreign invasions, and stories about phony supernatural events--are exactly the sort of stories Victorian fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's works would have seen in other popular stories and novels of the day. This isn't a research error for the VictorianEra, but a careful reconstruction of the tropes found period pulp fiction that eventually inspired our current action movie cliches.
* Why does Mycroft have a personal oxygen supply at the peace summit? Because, as he mentions in a throwaway line near the start of the film, he suffers from asthma, which is made worse by the high altitude.
* The Cossack has chest protection against Simza's knives. Watch Holmes' mental version of the fight again. Entirely by coincidence, none of his blows are targeted at the Cossack's chest.
* The conductor telling the disguised Holmes, "I'm sorry, madam, you can't use the lavatory while the train's in the station". It may take a few viewings to realize that the movie takes place in a time period where, when you flushed the toilet in a lavatory, your waste was flushed right onto the tracks, and thus it was not wise to flush while the train was stopped in a station (these days, passenger trains use retention tanks that are emptied at stops where the train is scheduled for lengthy servicing).
* Right before [[spoiler: Holmes sacrificed himself by pushing him and Moriarty over the edge]], he closed his eyes just as [[spoiler: Watson]] walked in. He wanted [[spoiler: Watson]] to be the last thing he saw.


!!Fridge Logic
* If either Holmes or Moriarty had simply thought to ''bring a gun'' to their final confrontation, he could have killed his opponent without risking his own life.
** They were at a peace conference, and tensions were already high enough. Bringing a gun and having it found would have been extremely bad.
*** First off, they're both quite capable of concealing weapons if need be. Secondly, the idea that the presence of a gun could raise international tensions may have been a problem for ''Holmes'', but not for Moriarty. Moriarty ''wants'' to increase international tensions.
**** Yes, but he also wants to survive/retain his freedom long enough to profit off the tensions. He's not doing this ForTheEvulz, he's doing it as a war profiteer. Not a lot political shuffling would save him from, best case, incarceration if he's found packing heat there.

!!Fridge Horror
[[AC:''Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'']]
* Bear with me here, but there is a distinct possibility that [[spoiler: MORIARTY IS ALIVE. Holmes is shown to survive the fall from the castle by using the oxygen device he ostensibly took from Mycroft. This got me wondering - why on earth would Mycroft have had one in the first place? Simple - the altitude of the castle meant the air would be thin. Thus, all the guests of summit would likely have had such a device - including Moriarty.]]
** Mycroft implies that [[spoiler:it's merely a new toy for him. He describes it as his ''personal'' O2 supply. Plus, since he suffers from asthma, he probably bought it with him to help him cope with his condition.]]
** Actually, I caught a clue that may imply that [[spoiler: Moriarty is indeed alive... The last we see of Sebastian Moran is when Simza's brother dies. He's shown leaving the party. Moriarty hadn't fallen off of Reichenbach Falls yet and wasn't going to for another good 6 minutes. Sebastian most likely was making his way down the mountainside when he would've heard the sound of Moriarty screaming (as the film shows us when it slows down). It's later said that neither body was found. What if Sebastian fished Moriarty out of the river and is revitalizing him somewhere?]]
*** [[spoiler:You really think he would have heard Moriarty' scream over the roaring falls?]]
* Holmes crashing Watson's honeymoon in (terrible) [[DisguisedInDrag drag]] is [[PlayedForLaughs indisputably hilarious]], but let's talk about travel times for a moment. Even today, Cambridge to London isn't exactly a ''short'' trip. Holmes' meeting with Moriarty is sometime after 4 PM, when the Professor's lecture concludes. Watson and Mary's train appears to be departing in the early evening sometime. It's heavily implied that the reason Holmes is dressed as a woman is because he simply grabbed the first available disguise and "made do" in a mad rush to the station, not even bothering to shave, ''because he wasn't certain if he was going to make the train''. And he had the entire journey back to London to imagine what was going to happen to Watson and Mary if he didn't.
** As Holmes said: "Not my ''best'' disguise, I'll admit..."
** The Game of Shadows app lists Moriarty's university as King's College, London. (If I'm remembering correctly, Holmes first described Moriarty as "the boxing champion of Cambridge, where he made friends with our current Prime Minister." He's talking about the Prof's alma mater, not his current employer.)
[[/folder]]

* Right before [[spoiler: Holmes sacrificed himself by pushing him and Moriarty over the edge]], he closed his eyes just as [[spoiler: Watson]] walked in. He wanted [[spoiler: Watson]] to be the last thing he saw.

* "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" starts with Watson explaining to the reader that he had kept the story from the public eye until now due to a promise he made to an unnamed young woman. He adds that the young lady's untimely death is part of the reason he now feels that he can come forward with it. Fair enough, however [[spoiler: this becomes considerably more tragic at the end of the story when the reader realizes that Helen Stoker is the only significant female character in the story. So not only did the poor woman have to endure her mother's death at an early age, growing up in the "care" of her abusive and violent stepfather with only her twin sister for company, watching said sister die in her arms due to a murder plot by her stepfather, and narrowly dodging the same fate, but it can be inferred that she didn't live very long after the case.]] It's even possible that [[spoiler: the strain of the ordeal could have contributed to her death.]] Even sadder if you recall [[spoiler: Helen was about to be married at the time of the case. This means her husband would have lost his wife not long after the wedding.]]

* 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}}
** [[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''', from a bridge, which connects two pieces of ''earth'']].
* The scene where Holmes is confronted by Lord Coward. Holmes shuts the fireplace to fill the room with smoke and prevent Coward from shooting him. How Holmes doesn't cough in the middle of all that smoke? Take in consideration how heavy smoker he is especially in books.

* One of the points of criticism that was raised was that Holmes and Watson's relationship was more tense and prone to bickering than their solid friendship in the original novels. Of course, if you subscribe to the idea that Watson's a bit of an UnreliableNarrator and that the movie is getting under the skin of the original stories this makes a bit more sense, since Watson's hardly going to write about all the times that he and Holmes bicker like an old married couple.
** Also I would like to fill this in somewhat. He has a HeterosexualLifePartner in real life. While our friendship can never be broken, we bicker A LOT, often sounding like a married couple. So having them bicker for me didn't make it feel as if they were less friends. The opposite, they were so good friends they were ''basically married''. This is the reason Holmes is so jealous of Watson's fiance!
*** I'd reverse that cause and effect - after years of sharing a home, a job and a life, Watson is marrying someone else, moving away and quitting the detective business. Holmes is enormously jealous and feeling abandoned and is lashing out at his best friend.
* Holmes drinking eye surgery medicine just seems like an amusing throwaway joke, until you learn that [[ContinuityNod cocaine]] was widely used in Victorian times as an local anesthetic for eye surgery. In the books, Holmes' drug of choice was cocaine rather than alcohol.
** Even better, Holmes's creator Conan Doyle, specialised as an opthalmologist (eye doctor) in real life.

* At the end of the film, look closer at the ring Holmes gave to Mary and Watson... [[spoiler: "Is that the Maharajah's missing diamond?"]]
** There's even a clue to this as the last thing we saw Holmes do before this scene was [[spoiler: grab Irene's necklace which held the diamond.]]
* At some points, Holmes wears shaded glasses. Common today, but back in that era they were considered medical aids. In Holmes' case--for someone who is stuck on HyperAwareness all the time--they're aid for an out of control brain, to help reduce the amount of information Holmes has to take in.

** Also [[Tropers/{{Gabel}} this troper]] would like to fill this in somewhat. He has a HeterosexualLifePartner in real life. While our friendship can never be broken, we bicker A LOT, often sounding like a married couple. So having them bicker for me didn't make it feel as if they were less friends. The opposite, they were so good friends they were ''basically married''. This is the reason Holmes is so jealous of Watson's fiance!

* The Cossack has chest protection against Simza's knives. Watch Holmes' mental version of the fight again. Entirely by coincidence, he never strikes the Cossack in the chest.

*** Either that, or after several cases where he solves the problem due to some odd bit of knowledge not directly related to criminology, Holmes comes to the conclusion that pretty much ''anything'' can be potentially relevant to his work at least once given that he specializes in taking cases outside of conventional criminology, so he'd better broaden his general knowledge base.

* There are plenty of instances with gay subtext in 'The Game of Shadows' but one is particularly subtle. 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.

** 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 (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}})

* 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 had the man's family killed ANYWAY.

* 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 boastr 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?

** 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}})

* Holmes drinking eye surgery medicine just seems like an amusing throwaway joke, until you learn that [[ContinuityNod cocaine]] was widely used in Victorian times as an local anesthetic for eye surgery.