I just want to add at the very beginning of this that while I have a pretty good grasp bet. the difference of the series re the fanfics I've read, since the hiatus has been so very, very long, it is quite possible that by this point in time, I may have some of my facts messed up re series v. hundreds and hundreds of fanfics b'c after a while, it gets a little difficult to remember that certain aspects of Sherlock were totally made up by fans. (A good example might be that prior to season 3, I think I really started to believe that Sherlock's father was an awful man. For whatever reason. Based on nothing, mind you. There were no references to him in the show & this was totally coming from stories I had read, but I honestly was starting to get it fixed in my head.)
So.
Not to sound like a complete moron, but when does Moriarty (or someone else) tell us when he was born? Did they SAY that he was 13 when he killed Carl Powers, b'c I don't remember that at all. I DO have this idea (also based on nothing) that Sherlock was 11 when Carl was killed, but I'm not sure where I got that, and there's a FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC fic that specifically states he was ten so I don't know how we get the ages of Sherlock and/or Moriarty in the series, unless we take what Sebastian Wilkes said in The Blind Banker as gospel wherein Sherlock hasn't seen him in 8 years (and we now ASSUME that means since uni) and he was 22 (altho I'm not really sure that's how it works in London) and then Sherlock would be 30 at that point. Or whatever age he would be using college age, correcting for London specifics. Something like that.
And I completely agree w' your analysis, altho I believe I said something similar in my first comment, albeit certainly not going as deeply into it as you did. Sherlock wouldn't have cared so deeply about his pet; Sherlock wouldn't have been so vulnerable to what the other students' thought of him; Sherlock would obviously have cared about the 'puzzle' of how Carl Powers was killed, but as you mentioned, he went that one step further -- he tried and tried to get the authorities involved, and if he truly had some sort of socio or psychopathic personality, that shouldn't/wouldn't have mattered to him. Indeed, he would have shied away from that type of authority figure. Just like Mycroft's famous quote from ep4 Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock..., perhaps Sherlock learned from his brother that it was better to pretend to not care, pretend to be aloof and unaware and so apart from his peers that anything they might say would never touch him.
Or even with some of those defenses in place, maybe he allowed one person to get close and they were awful and cruel and led him to believe: never again. It's not worth it. (Until he met John and realized that all people are not awful and friends can actually be sort of cool.)
I've read many, many stories where Jim either has a twin or a brother who is an equal to the horrible father with which Jim (apparently) grew up. He (also) could have (I read this too) just a regular twin (meaning a twin who doesn't have the same scholastic ability or the same sociopathic personality) but who COULD actually BE Richard Brooks (altho that would be stretching credibility... re the famous painting, etc... but let's ignore that for now) and for whom he wrote out a specific script for the rooftop on Barts, just left out the part where there would be actual bullets in the gun.
Or we could simply have yet another Moriarty, but worse that the first. However, I'd prefer the Jim Moriarty 1.0, Original Jim, b'c it would have symmetry and would have the Sherlock v. Moriarty dance continue, wherein now Sherlock has actually killed somebody, something that Jim can use as a pressure point to try and show Sherlock that they are more alike than Sherlock would like to believe. (Not that I think that's true -- just that would be something Jim would say...)
Pt 1. of 2
So.
Not to sound like a complete moron, but when does Moriarty (or someone else) tell us when he was born? Did they SAY that he was 13 when he killed Carl Powers, b'c I don't remember that at all. I DO have this idea (also based on nothing) that Sherlock was 11 when Carl was killed, but I'm not sure where I got that, and there's a FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC fic that specifically states he was ten so I don't know how we get the ages of Sherlock and/or Moriarty in the series, unless we take what Sebastian Wilkes said in The Blind Banker as gospel wherein Sherlock hasn't seen him in 8 years (and we now ASSUME that means since uni) and he was 22 (altho I'm not really sure that's how it works in London) and then Sherlock would be 30 at that point. Or whatever age he would be using college age, correcting for London specifics. Something like that.
And I completely agree w' your analysis, altho I believe I said something similar in my first comment, albeit certainly not going as deeply into it as you did. Sherlock wouldn't have cared so deeply about his pet; Sherlock wouldn't have been so vulnerable to what the other students' thought of him; Sherlock would obviously have cared about the 'puzzle' of how Carl Powers was killed, but as you mentioned, he went that one step further -- he tried and tried to get the authorities involved, and if he truly had some sort of socio or psychopathic personality, that shouldn't/wouldn't have mattered to him. Indeed, he would have shied away from that type of authority figure. Just like Mycroft's famous quote from ep4 Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock..., perhaps Sherlock learned from his brother that it was better to pretend to not care, pretend to be aloof and unaware and so apart from his peers that anything they might say would never touch him.
Or even with some of those defenses in place, maybe he allowed one person to get close and they were awful and cruel and led him to believe: never again. It's not worth it. (Until he met John and realized that all people are not awful and friends can actually be sort of cool.)
I've read many, many stories where Jim either has a twin or a brother who is an equal to the horrible father with which Jim (apparently) grew up. He (also) could have (I read this too) just a regular twin (meaning a twin who doesn't have the same scholastic ability or the same sociopathic personality) but who COULD actually BE Richard Brooks (altho that would be stretching credibility... re the famous painting, etc... but let's ignore that for now) and for whom he wrote out a specific script for the rooftop on Barts, just left out the part where there would be actual bullets in the gun.
Or we could simply have yet another Moriarty, but worse that the first. However, I'd prefer the Jim Moriarty 1.0, Original Jim, b'c it would have symmetry and would have the Sherlock v. Moriarty dance continue, wherein now Sherlock has actually killed somebody, something that Jim can use as a pressure point to try and show Sherlock that they are more alike than Sherlock would like to believe. (Not that I think that's true -- just that would be something Jim would say...)