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“ | Join me. Please, join me. I want to offer that intellect of yours the authority I possess. Social status, my fortune, and my life—take all of it! Everything you require to fulfill that dream—I offer it all to you. | „ |
~ Albert making his offer to William James Moriarty |
“ | Would you be able to kill for the sake of an ideal? | „ |
~ Albert James Moriarty |
Albert James Moriarty is a major character in the 2016 manga series, Moriarty the Patriot, and it's 2020 anime adaptation. The oldest son of Earl Moriarty, Albert always had a desire for perfection and was disgusted by the corruption of the world around him and the inequality faced. Upon inspiration on hearing the speech of a young intelligent boy to cleanse society of evil aristrocrats, Albert adopts said boy to be his adoptive brother William James Moriarty, and does the same for William's biological brother Louis. Upon covertly murdering the rest of the Moriarty family, Albert uses his authority as Count push William's agenda for an equal Britain. He is based on the famous archenemy of Sherlock Holmes, James Moriarty, which in-universe is the collective identity Albert and his 2 brothers form to be the Lord of Crime
He is voiced by Takuya Sato in Japanese, and by Chris Guerrero in the English dub.
Personality[]
Unlike all of the aristocrats we see in the series, Albert is actually a mostly kind man. Ever since he was young, Albert was only disgusted by the unequal class divide that plagued British society. While most noblemen, including his family show disdain and ignore commoners, Albert actually goes out of his way to treat them with the most basic courtesy and even visits a local orphanage to help the children living there, and is always willing to help others. And he is a highly charismatic figure, in which even after he renounced his status as a noble, is frequently invited to noble parties and is swooned over by ladies.
However, Albert, while not a classist jerk like nearly all the other nobles we see, is far from a saint. Albert has a passive-aggressive approach to his disgust at corrupt noblemen, and has no compunctions resorting to violence, having his family murdered for their classism, and showed himself to be no better than the nobles he claims to fight against. He is even willing go to the same shady lengths other nobles that he faced did to further William's vision, becoming corrupt on his own and use government resources to further William's criminal empire and show that even if for society's benefit, he has become a hypocrite.
One thing he shares similarly with William is high-intelligence. While not portrayed as flashily as William's is, Albert is still a beast of intelligence on his won right. Not only was he excellent on his academics to become a King's Scholar, Albert is excellent at finding opportunities, perhaps even better than William is, that hearing someone blurt out a secret organization that answers directly to the Queen is enough to light up a bulb in Albert's head and plot with William to organize a grand plot that would see the formation of MI6 so that Albert can use this to secretly supply information to William. Another thing he shares with William is a flair for the dramatic, which is best shown when he uses Baron Rollinson to show the real power of the Lord of Crime.
However, one thing that is clear is that Albert is highly loyal to William and Louis. They may have never been his biological brothers, but Albert still treats them as if they were because none of the friends he had were able to love him for what he truly is, meanwhile William, Louis and Albert were able to understand each other beyond mere associates and come to love each other as brothers, as the all dedicate themselves to each other's vision for equality. Deep down however, Albert actually regrets what he did, and how due to his offer he feels he ends up corrupting the mind of a young innocent boy to become the criminal known as William James Moriarty. However, unlike William who had suicidal tendencies to escape his guilt, Albert had a more proper way of atoning, as he willingly surrenders himself to the police.
Appearance[]
Albert is reasonably tall man of height 6'2"(188cm) and is thinly built with pale white skin. He has brown hair with a side-split haircut that leaves short bangs on both sides, and strands of his hair descending to his neck. He also has a distinct eye colour of dark emerald. He also wears a dark-gray three piece suit with a lime green necktie and occassionally has a golden pocket watch, and sometimes wears a black top hat. After the 3 year timeskip, Albert hasn't changed much physically, the only notable difference he has is that his hair is slightly longer, his back strands now reaching his shoulders
As a child, Albert wore a navy blue three-piece with beige around the lapel and sleeve folds, with a walnut brown waist-coat underneath and a dark-teal bow tie around his collar.
Biography[]
Past[]
Albert James Moriarty was the eldest son of Count Moriarty, and the older brother of William James Moriarty. Having been a boy obsessed with perfection and doing so himself. Albert as a child wanted to be friends with other children, but ultimately he realizes that other children became only friends with him so that they can have connections to enrich their families, a dark revelation that stuck with Albert for the rest of his life as he realize people like his servants are helping him due to his status than out of kindness. Now obsessed with maintaining cleanliness by doing tasks himself, Albert is out trying to help people using his authority as a nobleman's son, having grown disgusted over the unequal society. A fateful day, Albert's carriage hit a man, who was in truth a thief. Wanting to help the thief have a chance at redemption, he gave the thief a place to stay with the nuns of an orphanage to redeem, however, the thief refused redemption and had killed people. This ends up causing Albert to nearly attempt suicide, but Albert was too weak-willed to even do that.
However, when hearing about 2 new kids that joined the orphanage, albert eventually realizes William is a genius and that he gave the thieves the advice to pull off a perfect bank robbery. Sneaking up to William, he overhears William's meeting with the rest of the orphanage's kids chanting to kill the aristocracy. Revealing himself, Albert denies the claim that he will report him to Scotland Yard, and instead voice his admiration over William's vision as he offers to take him, as well as his younger brother Louis, in and use his resources a noble to make William's vision a reality to kill all the evil nobles, beginning with his own family and classist servants. Upon hearing William's strategy of staging a fire over Moriarty Manor, the 3 brothers execute their plot, to which Albert personally impales his biological brother while leaving him alive enough to choke on the fumes of the flames as Moriarty Manor burn to the ground. He, William and Louis emerge from the wreckage, having hid on the cellar as protection. Albert will eventually live with the Blackwell family alongside his adoptive siblings where they will be mentored into killing by Jack Reinfield. He would eventually graduate university as a King's Scholar
Present[]
In the present, Albert was present helping William and Louis settle into Durham, and upon learning about the corruption of Baron, accepted a dinner invite to him to help William covertly murder him. Having stayed in London to handle his military career, upon seeing the rise of a huge opium scandal within England that would see the military's hands tied due to the nobles who could be tied to them, Albert eventually takes notes of a patriotic soldier's ramblings on a secret organization that is not on paper and directly answers to the Queen with full autonomy, Albert sees the opportunity in forming this and using the intel that would be supplied to help William's mission.
Collaborating with William to stage William's kidnapping on the hands of the opium cartel, Albert had his troops stationed to take advantage over this to not only save William but to expose the nobles helping the opium cartel and discredit them while taking the entire cartel down for good. Albert then uses this to convince Mycroft Holmes into giving him the authority to lead his own secret organization that doesn't even exist on paper and answer directly to the Queen with no limit: M16, hiring agents to acquire information to place an end to threats to Britain as well as give information to further William's criminal empire as he, William and Louis collectively form the identity of James Moriarty as the Lord of Crime. While William does the in-depth planning and Louis handles on-field affairs, Albert does the socializing, being the face as he meets with potential people of interest and charm them to William's vision.
Eventually Albert receives a mission from Mycroft to retrieve a bunch of documents stolen from Buckingham Palace by Irene Adler, Albert brings the potential of using the documents to blackmail the British Government upon inferring just how powerful those documents really are. Always one way or another invited to a party by nobles and swooned over by the ladies, one meeting had him in a party with Baron Ronald Rollinson, who had burnt a theatre down with no care to the lives who were endangered and lost as a result. Having organized the party to be a masked party with a game on 'The Lord of Crime", Albert secretly plants an invite to Irene Adler and has wine spilt on him to set up a meeting with Adler and negotiate on a much more anonymous place.
Having Baron Rollinson covertly poisoned to death to dramatically reveal to Irene the real power of the Lord of Crime, he ends up learning the true information of the documents that reveals Britain to have organized the French Revolution, and uses the display of his power as the Lord of Crimes to set up a secret meeting with Adler to hand over the documents. Fully anticipating Sherlock to hand over the documents, Albert has Irene write his identity and seal onto an envelope given to Sherlock as an assurance to leave, fulfilling Albert and William's plans and getting the documents. With this, Albert calls for a meeting with Mycroft and use the documents to negotiate with Mycroft into having Irene be considered legally dead and turn a blind eye to the Moriarty's criminal actions. He then watches as Irene Adler transforms herself to become James Bond.
Noticing the rise of MP Adam Whitely who is pushing for a bill on both the House of Commons and House of Lords that will see an end to the class barriers and bringing this up to William, after Adam passes William's secret test of character, Albert acquires documents containing information so powerful it can blackmail the House of Lords and wants Adam to use it to help him push his bill. When Whitely is manipulated by Milverton into committing murder, Albert introduces him to William who offers a plan to have Adam's misery end and die as a hero and cover up his sin. Upon Milverton's death and the dawn of "The Final Problem", as William decides to killing off the remnants of British aristocrats on his own, Albert leads the charge guiding the rest of the team to set fire to abandoned buildings to covertly set up a huge fire that would force the commoners and aristocrats into joining together to combat the graver threat, which is the fire, and be untied in hatred against the Lord of Crime. Upon William and Sherlock's presumed deaths and the abolishment of the House of Lords' supremacy over the House of Commons after it, Albert decided to personally surrender and take responsibility for William's crimes as his redemption.
After the 3 year time skip, Albert ends up released from prison where he would reinvent himself in life as he reunites with his 2 brothers
Trivia[]
- In both the first and second popularity polls of the series, Albert has been ranked #2 both times, just behind William.
- Albert serves as the fall guy for William, very much of his free will, as he knows only William can carry out the plans without falterng.