Let's start with defining blackmail. My handy-dandy Merriam-Webster dictionary says:

Black·mail
noun \ˈblak-ˌmāl\
: the crime of threatening to tell secret information about someone unless the person being threatened gives you money or does what you want.

Ex·tor·tion
noun \ik-ˈstȯr-shən\
: the crime of getting money from someone by the use of force or threats.

Blackmail is watching AMC's hit show Breaking Bad and sitting at the edge of your seat when cancer-diagnosed Walter White is faced with one of two options. Pay someone over one and a half million dollars in cash, running the risk that he will die of his illness and won't be able to leave a single penny to his poverty-stricken family OR keep the money and face life in prison for the manufacture of crystal meth and the murder of over three people, ruining his innocent facade and knowing his infant daughter will grow up only to learn of her father's sins.

THAT'S blackmail. That nauseating dread that solidifies and sinks to the bottom of your gut, occasionally throbbing to remind you that you're really screwed and all you have left to do is regret, regret, and regret some more. Would you like some cream and sugar with that regret? Are we clear?

So let's take a look at what BBC's Magnussen did.

Threat·en
verb \ˈthre-tən\
: to say that you will harm someone or do something unpleasant or unwanted especially in order to make someone do what you want

In·tim·i·date
transitive verb \in-ˈti-mə-ˌdāt\
: to make (someone) afraid

Much to my disappointment, Magnussen was all talk. Due to my Twitter account, I often feel the obligation to track the Magnussen tags of said website to get a handle on what the audience is thinking. And if I had a penny for everytime someone said "So he licked a face, peed on the floor, littered, and flicked people. Am I supposed to be scared of him?" I could afford the research to cure poor Walter White's cancer, I swear to God. Because you can't create all this hype and advertisement about a BADDIE and THE ONLY CRIMINAL SHERLOCK HATES when he's nothing but a show-and-tell object that Mycroft Holmes probably brought to world-domination class and said "look at this toy that I own but pretend to be owned by. Fear the scary Magnussen with his Mona Lisa smirk and raspy voice. Soooo scary."

I digress. I want to solely touch on Magnussen's actions, not his appearance. Because I was more than satisfied with Magnussen's physique and his personality and everything within Lars Mikkelsen's (the actor that played him) power. Brilliant acting and to that I say bravo! But the script.

It was written in the script, even in the dialogue, that Magnussen is NOT evil. He does not commit murder. Doesn't strap bombs onto children, old women, and your friends. He doesn't send you running around London looking for a computer stick that he'll later deem invaluable and toss into a pool for you to witness all of your efforts sink to the bottom. Doesn't hold all your loved ones at gunpoint. Doesn't manipulate your happenings so cleverly that nearly all of the press believes you to be a fake, a liar, and a con. No. He doesn't DO anything EVIL. Because it was written IN THE SCRIPT that he is "just a businessman." This is significant because that's what's supposed to be scariest about him. He's just a man, like any other in your life. >>Anyone can blackmail and anyone can be blackmailed.<< That's the catch. And he (potentially) has the power to fist his hand into your life, screw it up, turn you upside down, and leave you as leftover meat for the dogs to pick at.

AND NOBODY GETS THAT. Because his character was corrupted by the writer's ignorance of what blackmail even is. Magnussen cannot be glorified as a revolting devil to the level that Moriarty was because HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WORTH CREDITING. Please explain to me why you're going to write a character that you claim to be a genius, give him really cool and cinematographic Stat-O-Vision, and even give him a mind palace, but simultaneously write him to be the world's biggest idiot for not actually having any physical blackmail material? It was script suicide. The writing laughed in the face of the art of blackmail. And it disrespected the character, frankly.

This is the point where people start disagreeing with me because I'm very blatantly insulting the writing of Moffat but this isn't the first time he's pulled something like this. Sue me. But any invested fan watching the series for the brilliance and the complexity of the plot must've been more repulsed by the lack of "UNF" in the writing than they were at Magnussen rinsing his fingers off his Sherlock's glass of water and then flicking the droplets onto the remainder of Sherlock's meal. I dare say I was personally offended as a viewer because after two years of waiting, I was expected by the writers to settle back and just accept anything that popped up onto the screen. Allow me to elaborate.

When I found out the new baddie in August, I invested myself into him. I read every bloody wikipedia article on Charles Augustus Howell's real history, read & reread every adaptation of Milverton, and watched (almost) every movie that featured the antagonist because I thought season three was going to be BIG. Through this extensive research I have gained a deep seated respect for the character and if Moffat had half the respect for Milverton that I do, I almost guarantee you that we'd be curled in the fetal position, calling into school/work sick for an extra 24 hours to recover from the finale we waited YEARS for.

I want to write Magnussen's character because he means more to me than just licking faces and pissing on floors. He means something that only the most unfortunate of us have had to experience. He means more than 90 minutes of screentime and then a final shot to the head. He. Means. More. Than. That.

Again, I emphasize that I loved his portrayal. He made my skin crawl, really, and I've benefitted from the few scenes he had this season. Because everything that was said was absolutely perfect. It's what wasn't said.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rvptaq

And for some reason, I don't think Moriarty is back. I just don't think so.

Moriarty better just be a virus/computer thing.

I don't think that him just not being evil made any difference considering it was important that he was indeed a vilain, for which you don't always need to be evil

he had too much power on his hands and power corrupts while absolute power corrupts absolutely

and yeah ok he's not evil but he's a slimy arrogant sadist (with the power to extort anyone and everyone), yeah, much better

the most important thing is that sherlock felt he had to kill him mostly because of Jon and how Magneson would surely ruin his whole life if left alive

ill be honest though i only skimmed through that quote

...Mary and John made me shed a tear, or two.