The Many Faces of Moriarty
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Although cross-cutting is employed to draw similarities between Basil and
Ratigan, they are physical opposites of one another: Basil is presented as the
mouse equivalent of Sherlock—tall, lean, stoically handsome—whereas Ratigan
is large and imposing, aspiring to an aristocratic appearance that cannot conceal
the fact that he is, as Basil states, “None other than a slimy, contemptible sewer
rat.” Their opposite nature is heightened by their polemical personas—beneath
Ratigan’s warm veneer he can barely contain the ruthlessness of his true nature,
while, on the other hand, Basil’s own attempts to hide his emotions behind the
cool mask of deductive logic are exposed when his compassion blazes forth at
critical junctures.
Unlike the League's Moriarty, Professor Ratigan stands alone, falling prey
to the classic kid’s-story-conceit that you can always tell who the bad guy is
because he’ll kill his own lackeys. Different from both Conan Doyle and
Moore’s arch-villains, Ratigan believes himself intellectually superior to—rather
than equal with—his great detective foe, just as he believes himself superior to
his henchmen; both his arrogance, as well as his overwhelming lack of
compassion, make this particular professor incapable of forming friendships.
This means that at the critical moment, when he plunges from atop Big Ben in a
scene evocative of Reichenbach, Professor Ratigan has no one to save him as
Moriarty does in so many representations.
Shortly before his presumed death, driven mad by his inability to best Basil,
Ratigan becomes bestial, ripping out of his evening dress in almost Hyde-like
imagery before physically assaulting the comparably smaller mouse detective. In
this respect, he does, if only metaphorically, mirror Conan Doyle’s original
character, who chooses what, in another context, Lehman terms “nihilistic
suicide,” rather than accept that all his plots have been laid bare. In a wellscripted reversal. Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) introduces a
holographic Moriarty who eventually begins to plot and scheme—first in the
name of self-preservation, and later, in the name of another type of selfpreservation—in order to prevent himself from going mad.
First appearing in the season two episode, “Elementary, Dear Data,” in
which Geordi LaForge misspeaks, instructing the holodeck computer to create
an enemy capable of defeating Data—not Holmes—the holographic Moriarty
takes a hostage in order to obtain a meeting with the captain. By some miracle
defying the crew’s understanding of holodeck technology, the holograph is
imbued with consciousness, which it must possess in order to meet its mandate
of possessing the capability of defeating Lieutenant-Commander Data. This
creates a