Jim Isn’t Dead, Peeps

miadifferent:

shadowfax044:

I was going to wait on doing this until I rewatched TAB
another time or two, but all the “Mary is the new Moriarty!” on my dash just
made me want to pull my hair out. I’m sure there’s tons more evidence for the fact that Jim is still breathing, but as I
really want to get something out there now before I go nuts yelling at my computer
screen, here we go.

Obviously, Jim and Emilia Ricoletti have been equated to one
another: Jim dressing in the bridal gown, both of them shooting themselves in
the head through the mouth, speaking and writing a threatening three-letter message
(IOU and YOU), having a network of others helping out behind-the-scenes. And yet the
fandom seems to be forgetting the most important part, here. Emilia Ricoletti didn’t commit suicide.
Alright, what she actually did was commit assisted
suicide, but she didn’t actually shoot herself in the head. That
was a ruse. And so was Jim’s
apparent suicide. (Remember Sally’s “these apparent suicides” in ASiP? You were told, but did you listen?)

Here’s where Emilia and Jim differ: Emilia only went through
the whole thing in the first place because she
was dying anyway, and this ruse would help advance women in the cause of social, economic, and political equality. Emilia faked her suicide to make her already-imminent death
count; Jim faked his suicide to ensure that Sherlock and John would be
separated (so that Mary/Moran could do her job and get to John).

And, as far as Mary taking Jim’s place as Moriarty… then
why would she put Jim’s little message up all over England? She has no reason
to want to bring Sherlock back. Whether some of TAB was real-time or all of it
was in Sherlock’s MP (I’m still a little undecided on that point), it was obvious that Mary wasn’t happy that Sherlock was
back; even in the last scene of HLV, Mary doesn’t look happy about the plane turning around. She can’t have broadcasted Jim’s message. And no one else, other than Jim, had reason to do so, either: for more detailed analysis on the motive issue, I recommend
reading what @someabominablemeta says here.

TL;DR Jim is
equated with Emilia, who wasn’t actually
dead, and who only died later and not
by suicide. It only makes sense if Jim was the one to broadcast his message
(or demand that someone else, such as Mycroft, have it broadcasted; seriously,
read that meta by someabominablemeta, it’s awesome).

EDIT: Also, the fact that the writers have been saying forever that he’s dead makes me even more sure that he isn’t. We know they lie. All. the. time.

I don’ think that “Mary Moriarty” and Moriarty still being alive are exclusive. Mary is in my opinion undeniable set up as Moriarty, or as his mirror. (And that casual viewers are blind to this enforces the relevances for me). 

I can solve your Miss Me video problem though with my “nothing is real” theory. I think, that Sherlock tries to figure out, who Mary is. On the timeline this is at some point after the shooting and right after Sherlock gets on the plane. So he drugs up, tries to figure out who Mary is, and his subconscious produces the result as a big blinking warning video. Moriarty is back. But this is just Sherlock’s subconsious deduction. There is no Miss Me video in reality. This can mean Moriarty is back in the form of Mary or they worked together all along and both are “back”.

It’s true that Emilia didn’t actually commit suicide that first time, but had a friend shoot her shortly thereafter (cause she was dying anyway). And I’m sure they could twist their way out of Jim’s death if they wanted to. But I think the biggest point about Emilia is that idea that anyone can now be the ‘bride’ because she set it up that way. That’s by far the more important aspect of the whole bride metaphor, which is sort of irrelevant if Jim is still alive.

As for who did the “Miss me” video, I agree Mary has no motive to do that and was genuinely alarmed/annoyed. My bet would be Mycroft or John with the motive to stop Sherlock’s forced exile in its tracks, which is precisely what it did.