How Did Sherlock Holmes Survive A Game Of Shadows? - CBR

In addition to the very anticipated and just as mysterious third installment of Warner Bros.' Sherlock Holmes film series, two spinoff TV shows were announced to be in development at HBO Max. It's been just over ten years since the release of the last epic installment of this franchise. So, now is the perfect time to dive back into the world of the two original Robert Downey Jr.-led films, quite literally in this case.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ended with an epic confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty. The scene initially starts with an intense game of chess between the two as Holmes puts his pieces, figuratively and literally, into place and thwarts Moriarty's plan for an early First World War. In order to protect John and Mary, Holmes grabs Moriarty and drags them both off the balcony and into the Reichenbach Falls below, seemingly to their deaths. However, much like in the original books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it's revealed that Holmes survived. He appears in the final scene to make one last amendment to Watson's memoirs, a tongue-in-cheek little question mark, implying that there is more to follow. Nonetheless, the question remains: How did Sherlock Holmes survive the fall?

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Unfortunately, the answer isn't easily found in the original text. Doyle wrote The Final Problem to be exactly that: the final Sherlock Holmes story. His original death was definitive. His subsequent survival in The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a retcon, revealing that he had actually won the fight and never fell off the cliff into the falls, to begin with. As the film clearly shows Holmes falling, the solution lies elsewhere.

To really figure out how Holmes survived, two questions must be asked. Firstly, how did Sherlock not die from the impact of hitting the water from that height? Secondly, how did he not drown while underwater for an extended period of time? Fortunately, the latter can be answered by the film itself.

Just prior to the peace summit in A Game of Shadows' finale, Holmes messes around with a breathing device belonging to his brother. As Mycroft put it, "That's my private and personal supply of oxygen." During the final scene, Watson receives the very same breathing device in the post, sent to him anonymously. This strongly hints that Holmes secretly stole the device from Mycroft and used it to avoid drowning after landing in the falls.

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Conventional scientific wisdom says the surface tension of water makes it so that landing in it from a certain height is fatal. Even if Holmes had the means to breathe underwater, the impact of the fall was just as likely to kill him. Luckily, this fan theory on Quora presents an explanation that demonstrates how Holmes could have survived the impact while remaining within the known laws of science.

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The theory suggests that in an area where the surface tension of a body of water is regularly disturbed, such as a waterfall, the force of impact is greatly diminished than in a still body of water. Therefore, with his breathing device, it could be argued that Holmes was actually more likely to survive landing in the falls.

With all the pieces laid out as such, it becomes less of a mystery as to how Sherlock Holmes survived the Reichenbach Falls in A Game of Shadows. As one of the smartest characters in fiction, it perhaps should be expected that he had a plan in place for his survival -- a plan that turned out to be as simple as it was brilliant.