"I.O.U." Theories

[Julia Mae]

It seems to me that Moriarty was tired of living, and would have committed suicide no matter what. He says that staying alive is boring, especially since he had no more distractions. He was self-destructive, and no matter what Sherlock did, he was probably going to kill himself.

 

I agree. In SiB, when he gets the call that saves everyone's life, he is really angry at first: SAY THAT AGAIN! He was going to fulfill an obligation (kill Sherlock Holmes) and be able to end his torturous existence at the same time. He couldn't die until he was sure he had "won" and that Sherlock would die, also. I wonder if he had planned to die on the roof in a way that would have implicated Sherlock in his death, making it look like Sherlock killed him? That'd be the final death of Sherlock's reputation, by golly!

[Joalro]

So I've been checking a few topics in these boards for inspiration, and to check my assumptions, and I think I have a work-in-progress theory for what Cinderella means.

 

So Sherlock, on the rooftop with Moriarty, said he wanted to use the key code to get rid of Rich Brook and bring back Moriarty.  Moriarty then states that there is no key code (dummy).  I'm thinking this is partly true, but not completely.  I still think the key code is used for something, and CAN be used to bring back Moriarty.  It just isn't the powerful hack anything code that Moriarty made it out to be.  It can only bring back Moriarty if the code properly fits.  Hence, the key code is the slipper.  The problem is, it doesn't fit Rich Brook, because Rich Brook is real.  Rich Brook is actually an actor playing Moriarty.  This is a theory others have been toying with.  So this places Rich Brook as one of the evil step sisters.

 

But then who is Moriarty?  Well it's the one who the slipper fits, the Cinderella.  But if Sherlock is indeed the Evil Step mother, then Cinderella is the one who he neglects, poorly treats. 

 

Molly.  This is an idea that has been brought up a lot in the "Moriarty is a women" thread, so I've been reading through that.  After reading part of the first page, i'm not seeing any mind blowing evidence to support the idea, but so far this is the most natural interpretaiton of Cinderella I've been able to come up with.

 

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Making it look like Sherlock killed him?

That would go a long way in destroying Sherlock's reputation for a very long time indeed especially if he had in fact died in the jump.

 

Kitty Winter was used by Moriarty to make sure that the story got out that Sherlock was a fake and that Moriarty was an actor hired by Sherlock to play his arch nemesis Moriarty.

 

Since supposedly, the truth is out, Sherlock's world is falling apart so n the rooftop Sherlock kills the actor Richard Brooks and commits suicide. The world never knowing that it was in fact the other way around. Moriarty commits suicide and so Sherlock is in fact "pushed" into jumping and so is the intended murder victim.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

... so far this is the most natural interpretaiton of Cinderella I've been able to come up with.

I'm pretty sure that everything you say fits, but I'm not trying too hard to follow it, because my brain is starting to hurt. Maybe I don't really want to learn how to think like Moriarty!

 

I do think you're on to something, though.

[Julia Mae]

.... this is the most natural interpretaiton of Cinderella I've been able to come up with.

 

I have to say, while I find some interesting Grimm's fairytale parallels, I have never seen anything to make me think Cinderella is one of them.  I do find the stories that involve two siblings to have strong ties, but any story with two siblings is going to have strong ties, what with the Holmes Boys and the Moriartys.

 

And Rich Brook isn't the real identity of anyone, IMO, as Sherlock says so and so does Moriarty.

 

[Joalro]

 

.... this is the most natural interpretaiton of Cinderella I've been able to come up with.

 

I have to say, while I find some interesting Grimm's fairytale parallels, I have never seen anything to make me think Cinderella is one of them.  I do find the stories that involve two siblings to have strong ties, but any story with two siblings is going to have strong ties, what with the Holmes Boys and the Moriartys.

 

And Rich Brook isn't the real identity of anyone, IMO, as Sherlock says so and so does Moriarty.

 

 

 

I'm sorry, but I honestly get the impression you didn't read the posts this conversation is about.  I gave you a reason to think Cinderella is one of them.  It comes from a few premises which lead to the conclusion of Cinderella. The theory relates to three specific stories, and I give a reason as to why I'm interested in those three.  Two of the three stories have more than some parallels, I manged to retell two Grimm stories in near completion from the episode, from a very specific part of the episode. If the ordering of events in the episode were any different, the theory would fall apart.

 

Please be sure you read the theory before you comment on it.

[bborchar]

 

 

.... this is the most natural interpretaiton of Cinderella I've been able to come up with.

 

I have to say, while I find some interesting Grimm's fairytale parallels, I have never seen anything to make me think Cinderella is one of them.  I do find the stories that involve two siblings to have strong ties, but any story with two siblings is going to have strong ties, what with the Holmes Boys and the Moriartys.

 

And Rich Brook isn't the real identity of anyone, IMO, as Sherlock says so and so does Moriarty.

 

 

 

I'm sorry, but I honestly get the impression you didn't read the posts this conversation is about.  I gave you a reason to think Cinderella is one of them.  It comes from a few premises which lead to the conclusion of Cinderella. The theory relates to three specific stories, and I give a reason as to why I'm interested in those three.  Two of the three stories have more than some parallels, I manged to retell two Grimm stories in near completion from the episode, from a very specific part of the episode. If the ordering of events in the episode were any different, the theory would fall apart.

 

Please be sure you read the theory before you comment on it.

 

 

I've read a theory saying that IOU correlates to the periodic table and the chapters of those numbers are the stories of Snow White (the red apple; who is the fairest in the land), The Strange Musician (violinist vs fox) and The King of the Golden Mountain (the man with the crown is king)...all of which make more sense to me.  I'm not saying that it's the meaning of IOU, but I also don't see the correlation between Cinderella and anything in the story- and I did read the entire thread.  There are a lot of leaps to make connections, but I could do that with practically any fairy tale if I wished.  But the point of Cinderella is that a girl is being abused by her stepfamily and ends up losing a shoe and eventually marries the prince.  Nothing in the story parallels that in any way.  It's also more believable to me that Moriarty could fake being an actor than the other way around...especially since he admits it himself at the end and then kills himself.  He could easily fake all of the paperwork the reporter has that "proves" he's an actor, just as he could easily erase his past with Carl Powers.  The man has connections- that's his job.

[Julia Mae]

 

Please be sure you read the theory before you comment on it.

 

 

I did. I read it all.    We all see things in art, we relate to it on some personal level and ideas and perceptions are formed by our own subjective reality.  That I find nothing whatsoever to support the notion that Cinderella has anything to do with Shelrock does not mean I didn't read.  It means I see differently than you do.  It's not personal. It's not right or wrong or correct for false.  It's different.

[Joalro]

That's fair enough. I was not really understanding your reason for dismissing it, it had seemed to me that what you said didn't relate.

 

Personally I think the 12 brothers and the Hansell and gretell connection is quite strong. I agree the cinderella is weaker, but I think that is because that part of the story wasn't fully on screen. The connection to the first two allows us to infer the third and hopefully predict what happened.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Personally I think the 12 brothers and the Hansell and gretell connection is quite strong. I agree the cinderella is weaker, but I think that is because that part of the story wasn't fully on screen. The connection to the first two allows us to infer the third and hopefully predict what happened.

I agree that you've made a very plausible case for the first two stories, and you may well be right about why the Cinderella connection seems weaker.

 

However, I disagree on "predict what happened." The whole Grimm thing was Moriarty's idea, so all we can infer from any of it would be what Moriarty had planned. And we're already reasonably sure that what actually happened was somewhat different from what he had in mind.

[Montag]

Something is tickling my mind. Sherlock says to Molly "I want you". Is he saying that he wants Molly to be his Cinderella?

 

The story has a few things to ponder.

 

She was tricked by getting stuck

She prayed to a tree

The birds told of the blood

 

But the one I like the most is how the birds blinded the sisters. Is Sherlock asking for her help to keep everything out of sight?

 

Also I like the idea that Sherlock that knew what IOU meant and was turning it back on Moriarty.

 

He does everything he can to save his friends like the mother in 12 brothers, he feeds Moriartys ego by acting as he was expected to, while lying about it until he can get his revenge with the help of Cinderella.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Something is tickling my mind. Sherlock says to Molly "I want you". Is he saying that he wants Molly to be his Cinderella?

 

Technically speaking, Sherlock doesn't exactly say "I want you":

MOLLY: What do you need?

SHERLOCK: You.

 

But for the sake of the point you're making, I think it amounts to the same thing.

 

Also I like the idea that Sherlock that knew what IOU meant and was turning it back on Moriarty.

 

He does everything he can to save his friends like the mother in 12 brothers, he feeds Moriartys ego by acting as he was expected to, while lying about it until he can get his revenge with the help of Cinderella.

 

Even though I'm not a bit IOU theorist, I believe that Sherlock was indeed stringing Moriarty along by playing dumb through most of this episode.  If IOU actually means anything other than (very literally) "I owe you," then it's Moriarty's idea, not Sherlock's -- but then again, it might amuse Sherlock to play along with that as well.

 

[littlefoot]

This thread is brilliant. Too bad it has been abandonned. The majority of the fandom is done with RF. But there are still so many things to discover which might have an impact on S 4! I could never let go of the Enigma, that is I-O-U. I think, the explanation offered here is spot on, and HLV supplied another piece to the puzzle.

The code I-O-U is delivered to Sherlock carved into a bitten apple. While Jim is carving, he drums with his fingers a rythm which may or may not be some kind of code. I think, the drumming was indeed 'utterly meaningless'. Well, not quite meaningless: Jim wanted to underline -or drum in - his message: Sherlock, learn to solve riddles and crack the code, solve the enigma! The bitten apple is of course an allusion to Alan Turing, the famous scientist and cryptologist, who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII and helped to crack the German Morse codes that were generated with the Enigma-machine. When he died, they found a half eaten apple at his bedside. At the time it was suspected, that he had laced the apple with cyanide in order to commit suicide. 2012, the year RF was broadcasted, was the Alan-Turing-year because of his centennial birthday btw. Turing was persecuted because he was gay. Maybe Gatiss, who is openly gay wanted to give Turing a salute with the code in the bitten apple. So Jim was asking Sherlock to crack the code I-O-U! Sherlock couldn't do that rightaway, because he didn't have the code book.A code book is a classic espionage item.It is later given to him in connection with the Hänsel-and-Gretel case. And the explanation given here is correct. I-O-U stands for the position the three relevant tales have in the book. And that is indeed, as explained here, The Twelve Brothers, Hänsel and Gretel and Cinderella (please read the whole thread). The meaning of the first two are explained well here. In the fairy tale the 12 brothers prove the innocence of their sister - and the 12 members of the jury find Jim innocent. Hänsel and Gretel doesn't need any further explanation. But how has Jim, whose alias is Rich Brook, the story teller, recreated Cinderella? That couldn't be explained with the material of 2012. But I think, HLV gives us some hints:Everybody seems to have forgotten Kitty Riley's kiss-and -tell story in the tabloid with damaging info from Sherlock's past. It is never revealed, what exactly those tasty morsels from Sherlock's past are. But it must be important because Jim mentions newspaper articles and grim fairy tales again on the roof top. So, what kind of damaging skeleton could lurk in Sherlock's past? Cinderella is the story of a girl, whose mother dies, and when her father remarries she finds herself sattled with an evil stepmother and two stepsisters, who hate her. In TEH and HLV we learn to know Sherlock's parents, and Mycroft mentions in passing ANOTHER brother, who was apparently not on Mycroft's good side. So, could it be that the Holmes family, whom we learn to know in nice and cuddly circumstances, are not as idyllic as shown? They haven't done Chrismas dinners for ages, because Mummy was upset, the third brother is not invited to this family reunion. Sherlock and Mycroft are both psychologically damagaged to a certain degree. That suggests that maybe not everything was harmonic in the past. If we take the Cinderella story as a template, Sherlock's mum could be the stepmother of the third Holmes brother, who isn't around anymore for some reason. Maybe Sherlock's and Mycroft's mum was the second wife of Mr. Holmes senior, who brought his son into the marriage. That would make him Sherlock's and Mycroft's stepfather. He says, his wife is the smart one and he himself is a bit of a moron. Sherlock and Mycroft are very smart. Could that be a hint that he is not their biological father? Maybe Mrs. Holmes couldn't love the third brother who was not hers. And could this brother have done something awful, which upset Mummy? Could this cuddly old lady be the evil stepmother of the fairytale? Well, there's a very suggestive hint: she says, if she ever finds out, who shot Sherlock, she will turn absolutely monstrous. Could the third brother have done something bad, which turned his stepmother into a monster from his point of view? And could Kitty Riley have written an article about these old stories, maybe twisting the facts a bit along the way? Jim/Rich the storyteller could've created with Kitty a story of three siblings and an evil stepmother for the tabloids. The Cinderella story ends pretty grim (pun intended): Crows (in some version it's doves) destroy the eyes of the bad sisters. Did Jim see himself as the crow/dove who is out to ruin Sherlock and Mycroft? He has a bird in his signum... Well, he is shown together with a crow, when he scouts and photographs at the Tower museum. And one of the graffiti I-O-U's has black raven or crow wings.

This is of course very speculative, but it fits all the known facts pretty well. There's only one thing I'd like to know: When they made RF, did Mofftiss know that Benedict Cumberbatch would play Alan Turing??? Or did the makers of the movie see Sherlock with a bitten apple in RF and decided to cast him as Turing???? This seems to be such a coincidence...

[sittything]

This is of course very speculative, but it fits all the known facts pretty well. There's only one thing I'd like to know: When they made RF, did Mofftiss know that Benedict Cumberbatch would play Alan Turing??? Or did the makers of the movie see Sherlock with a bitten apple in RF and decided to cast him as Turing???? This seems to be such a coincidence...

 

I found this just now:

 

http://deadline.com/2013/02/benedict-cumberbatch-in-talks-to-play-alan-turing-in-the-imitation-game-418902/

 

So TRF was filmed, and aired, before BC signed on to play Alan Turing.

 

ETA:  I'll have to look at your post more tomorrow.  I'm marginally awake right now. 

[Arcadia]

This thread is brilliant. Too bad it has been abandonned. The majority of the fandom is done with RF. But there are still so many things to discover which might have an impact on S 4! I could never let go of the Enigma, that is I-O-U. I think, the explanation offered here is spot on, and HLV supplied another piece to the puzzle......

Wow. I find some of that pretty plausible. I have to admit, I've never been able to make any sense of the whole Hansel & Gretel thing and how (if?) it relates to the rest of the story. I'm afraid I'm going to have to read your post a few times, and watch TRF again, before I can make a sensible comment. Sorry about that!

[littlefoot]

Well, guys, take your time. It has taken me two years to put this together. Like Sherlock with the missing bodies and the airplane I've skirted around this for quite a while. I've just never been able to put everything together. I've had discovered one end of the story - a huge meta clue - already two years ago.;

Jim in his Rich-Brook incarnation calls himself the 'Story Teller'. Now, the interesting thing is, that 'story teller' is also the word for the game master of role playing games. And 'Staying Alive' is one variation of an end game you can choose for your avatar. 'Final Problem' can also be used in connection with role playing games. And with these three fairy tales (12 Brothers/Hänsel and Gretel/Cinderella) Jim, the game master or story teller has created three live action games by manipulating events and people, starring Sherlock as the main character. His final problem in those games is quite literally 'staying alive'.

[littlefoot]

There's a big hint that the live action role playing game angle is viable. Interestingly there are two role playing games from the 1980s, which are called 'IOU' and 'Vigilante' , the term Lestrade's boss uses in connection with Sherlock, when he gets arrested. They are both created by the same author. I will look up all my old material again and tell you his name. 'Vigilante' is pretty chilling. It's a draft which tells people to go out and shoot real people on the streets. The author saw it as an art work at the time. This author wrote another role playing game, which can be combined with IOU. Interestingly it features angels and demons on campus. And St. Barts is not only a hospital but also a university. So the final show down at St Barts roof could fit the imaginary location of this game. The rules for the characters also match up pretty well with the behavior of some people in RF. The actions of the killers, who have to protect Sherlock at all costs, but get shot as soon as they've touched him, match the rules of some demons awfully well. So, I think, it's not a coincidence that the three fairy tales, which produce the code IOU, are chosen for Jim's live re-enactment by Mofftiss .

I don't want to imply btw, that IOU in the Sherlock universe means that Jim tried to stage those really existing games. But Mofftiss often use real life hints to point at story lines. Maybe one or both of the duo liked to play role playing games, when they were younger and might have known the concepts of those two games. They could've just had fun by by dropping hints at these existing games. They do things like this all the time.

At the time, when I found out about the role playing angle, all this didn't really make sense. The possible Alan-Turing connection hit me about two month ago, when I read about his life because of the upcoming movie. Just for fun, please google 'Alan Turing' and 'apple' in 'google images'. You will be surprised how suggestive it is.

Thanks for the info about when Benedict got the role for the movie. I still think it's not a coincidence, since casting and contracts can take time.The actor normally gets the script in advance - often a long time in advance. So the thought of Alan Turing might've been knocking about for a while and inspired the idea to present the code in a bitten apple. I think, the fact that 2012 was the Turing centennial is also pretty suggestive.

[littlefoot]

Ok, one more post: I presented one idea, how the 'Cinderella' story, featuring an evil stepmother and two step-siblings could make sense and spill over into the upcoming season. But there are certainly a lot of variations possible and from this perspective it could suddenly make sense, that Sherlock's parents have been brought into the story. When I watched HLV I was pretty neutral about it and thought it kind of cute that Sherlock's parents turned out to be ordinary and loving parents. But at the same time this idyllic picture didn't make sense. There were plenty of hints in every season that Sherlock's early family life might've been troubled. Is Uncle Rudy, the cross dresser also a hint, lol? The hint at a third Holmes sibling (could 'the other one' be a sister btw? That would match better with the Cinderella angle) took me by surprise. First I dismissed it as not relevant, but with a re-interpretation of RF it would make perfect sense.

[littlefoot]

When Mycroft drops the hint at what happened to 'the other one', the persons in the room seem to know what he's talking about. Maybe because this has been common knowledge since Kitty has written her tabloid story?

[littlefoot]

The guy who created IOU, Vigilante and In Nomine (which features angels and demons and can be played in an IOU setting on campus) is Steve Jackson. He is a bit of a legend in the gaming scene. 2010 Vigilante was apparently re-issued as Villains and Vigilantes. Isn't that an apt name for the game Sherlock and Jim are playing? Jim texts Sherlock 'Come and play'. Also Jim's sentence 'You are boring, you're on the side of the angels' makes suddenly a lot of sense. When we played 'Cowboys and Indians' as kids, I would always say 'Cowboys are boring, I want to be an Indian'.

Again, I'm not saying that Jim staged these really existing role playing games. Jim in the Sherlock-verse staged three Grimms' fairy tales. But Mofftiss might've fiddled with these existing games as some hidden in-joke.

Ok, I stop now. It's too much to process. But when I read this thread yesterday, everything I had collected and already dismissed as darn curious but probably not relevant, suddenly fell into place.

[Carol the Dabbler]

This thread is brilliant. Too bad it has been abandonned. The majority of the fandom is done with RF.

Not us, though! Our "Reichenbach" thread is still going strong, as are some other related threads. Thanks for reawakening this one!

 

The bitten apple is of course an allusion to Alan Turing.... When he died, they found a half eaten apple at his bedside. At the time it was suspected, that he had laced the apple with cyanide in order to commit suicide.

The apple-suicide theory has been disputed, and rightly so, I think. Amazingly enough, the apple was never tested for poison, and people who knew Turing say he often left half-eaten food lying around. Also, as shown in the movie, Turing used cyanide in his work, so a lot of people think his death was simply an accident. All of that may be irrelevant, however, since as you say, the half-eaten apple has become a symbol of Turing's death.

 

But that said, I tend to doubt that this was the intent of this episode's writers. Even if it is, it probably had very little to do with Mr. Cumberbatch's future role. It could have been an homage to Turing in his centennial year, though, and an additional tie-in to the code concept.

 

Everybody seems to have forgotten Kitty Riley's kiss-and -tell story in the tabloid with damaging info from Sherlock's past. It is never revealed, what exactly those tasty morsels from Sherlock's past are.... Maybe Sherlock's and Mycroft's mum was the second wife of Mr. Holmes senior, who brought his son into the marriage. That would make him Sherlock's and Mycroft's stepfather. He says, his wife is the smart one and he himself is a bit of a moron. Sherlock and Mycroft are very smart. Could that be a hint that he is not their biological father? Maybe Mrs. Holmes couldn't love the third brother who was not hers. .... Could the third brother have done something bad, which turned his stepmother into a monster from his point of view?

When you put it that way, it does start to sound a bit like Cinderella, doesn't it? 

 

I have to admit, I've never been able to make any sense of the whole Hansel & Gretel thing and how (if?) it relates to the rest of the story.

I think it's basically Moriarty's reference to the kidnapped children,  though it may well tie in (as I believe was suggested earlier on this thread) with other elements of the story as well.  Or is that what you meant?

 

... with these three fairy tales (12 Brothers/Hänsel and Gretel/Cinderella) Jim, the game master or story teller has created three live action games by manipulating events and people, starring Sherlock as the main character. His final problem in those games is quite literally 'staying alive'.

You (and Joalro before you) are making a good case for Moriarty seeing the events of this episode as one big role-playing game.

 

[littlefoot]

Carol, I will check out more threads. I just found this site a few days ago, lol!

Thanks for considering this theory. As far as I noticed so far everybody here is very tolerant. We have all our own head canons and don't like to part from them, but it's always worth to check out other view points. I've changed my mind a couple of times since I started to 'sherlock' seriously ;)

You are right, it's quite possible that Turing didn't even commit suicide, but it's also true that his death has no relevance for the riddle Jim presented Sherlock with. You have an apple and letters, which might be a code, and Jim orchestrates this with some finger drumming, imitating the sound of a morse ticker. It's almost a classic charade. Maybe he expected Sherlock to jump up immediately and say: 'Got it! Your're hinting at Alan Turing, right? Now, where's the code book?'

I also don't really believe that Benedict got that role because of that scene in RF. That was my attempt at a joke because the coincidence is so stunning. But again, who knows, when they started talking about the movie and sending out scripts? Alan Turing might well have been in the back of their minds and they created this little hommage.

I really hope Joalro checks back once in a while, because he supplied the missing piece to my theory.

[Arcadia]

 

I have to admit, I've never been able to make any sense of the whole Hansel & Gretel thing and how (if?) it relates to the rest of the story.

I think it's basically Moriarty's reference to the kidnapped children,  though it may well tie in (as I believe was suggested earlier on this thread) with other elements of the story as well.  Or is that what you meant?

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what I mean at this point. I really need to watch the episode again, I just have a vague memory of thinking the storybook (? -- there WAS something about a storybook, right?) was a clue, or foreshadowing, or some other reference, but I couldn't figure in what way. I'm actually trying to get through Season 2 this month, maybe I'll be more coherent in the future. Nah, probably not.

[littlefoot]

The more I think about it, the more I gravitate to the idea, that 'the other one' whom Mycroft mentions so ominously at the end of HLV, might be a (step)sister rather than another brother. That would fit better into the frame of a potential Cinderella story with a 'monstrous' stepmother - and it would nicely replay Sherlock's one deduction error from SiP: He thought Harry/Harriet is John's brother. There's nothing in Mycroft's words which suggests, he's specifically talking about a man and somehow I would like that better - if something like my suggested Cinderella story really will come out. I can well do without a third Holmes brother.

[littlefoot]

Arcadia, Sherlock gets a Grimm's fairy tales book in connection with the abducted kids. Jim has apparently sent it to the girl in an envelope with his signum (a bird). Sherlock gets it as a piece of evidence. He examins it closely and the table of content is very visible for a few frames. Joalro, who started this thread makes a very good case, that this story book is a so called code book, which means you need it for code cracking. Joalro then explains that with this IOU-code the position of each letter in the alphabet stands for the position of the fairy tale in the book. (they are numbered). That is classic code cracking and fits well into a Sherlock Holmes story. And Jim DOES proceed to loosely re-enact those fairy tales by manipulation and staging them as live action games. That's why I think Joalro was spot on with his explanation. I added my observation, that the presentation of the code in a bitten apple plus Jim's morse code-like finger drumming is an allusion to Alan Turing, who helped to crack the enigma code. Which means that Joalro was probably right: IOU is indeed a code and can be cracked with the story book.