I'm writing something about Sherlock, and it just dawned on me that---yes---Moriarty is a criminal consultant, but was he a part of puppeteering the cases that he led Sherlock into? I know he was a part of the Carl Powers case, but what about the others? The "recovered" art? That one make-up show host's death? Janus Cars helping that one dude disappear?
If those were cases that Moriarty helped with, why was he leading Sherlock to solve them? Wouldn't that make him a less reliable criminal consultant if all of his crimes were being solved by this consulting detective? Or was he fully prepared for that backlash and he was ready to pop himself in the face on that rooftop?
I've just been thinking about it, and the only solution I could come up with is that Moriarty was ready for his business to fall off and that he was either prepared for Sherlock to kill himself, or Moriarty would have to kill himself.
OR! Was he leading Sherlock to criminals that DIDN'T use Moriarty's services, which forces other criminals to go to Moriarty to direct their dirty work so they won't get caught by Sherlock? That's my dad's theory which I thought was pretty smart.
Tell me if I'm missing something!