t
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 80
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Post by t on Jun 6, 2009 8:28:29 GMT -5
According to Madame Lulu (page 109 of the Carnivorous Carnival), "... one of the Baudelaire parents is alive and hiding in the Mortmain Mountains."
We can assume that it was Beatrice, the mother of the orphans, she was talking about. However, when the Baidelaires found the headquarters, it was already after the fire. If that happens, there would nowhere to escape except riding the toboggan and sliding through the Stricken Stream. Beatrice therefore was either ending up in the ? or asking the captain of the Quequeg to help her get to the Hotel.
Hotel Denoument was burnt so she ended in the Coastal Shelf with her children.
The point is, could she have done it alone? It's impossible, right?
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Post by Dante on Jun 6, 2009 15:57:28 GMT -5
Except Olivia admits that she was just guessing (page 155 of TCC). I don't know why you'd just assume it was Beatrice who survived. There was nobody at the headquarters when the sinister duo arrived to torch it, so presumably everyone had already escaped, and since the Stricken Stream would have been frozen at the time, as well as the fact that V.F.D. has numerous vehicles at their disposal, it seems there would have been multiple escape routes.
I'm not quite sure I see what you're getting at. Beatrice was never on the coastal shelf with her children. The orphans finally realised there that she'd been dead all along. Is this meant to be a hypothetical situation?
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t
Catastrophic Captain
Posts: 80
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Post by t on Jun 11, 2009 9:54:17 GMT -5
The orphans finally realised there that she'd been dead all along. Is this meant to be a hypothetical situation? Is there a proof that she didn't survive? There would be, perhaps, someone from the Baudelaire parents who would be alive - or try to stay alive if they already know what is lurking out there to look after their children. And yes, it is just a hypothetical situation. So, sorry if it's wrong. ;D
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Post by Dante on Jun 11, 2009 10:32:18 GMT -5
Okay then. Since this is a multi-section question, I'm moving it to Sardonic Series.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 12, 2009 11:14:59 GMT -5
I don't think there's any proof she didn't survive - it's just that the main positive reason for thinking she did, the 'survivor of the fire' thing in the Snicket File, turned out to be a mistake - it was really about Quigley. So now we don't have any special reason for thinking she's alive.
I agree she would have a reason for trying to stay alive - but that's not to say she would succeed. These villains are cunning (or so we're always told).
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Post by Dante on Jun 12, 2009 16:18:25 GMT -5
Of course, there are also references in the U.A. to volunteers being captured by their enemies. How does that suit you as an explanation for why a surviving Baudelaire parent never turned up?
Edit: That is to say - the suggestion being that the reason Beatrice isn't out roaming the world searching for her children is because she's languishing in an unknown villain's basement, or an enemy ship, or something of that nature. Plenty of dramatic potential there.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Jun 22, 2009 15:15:24 GMT -5
I think it means something that the only thing that survived the fire (besides the refridgerator, and different pages of books.) was the "The World is Quiet Here" sign above the entrance to the library. Maybe someone made that somewhat fireproof? If so, then it promotes the theroy that there was an escape route (trap door, maybe) in the library. And since a lot of volunteers are 'well read' then a lot of them will have escaped, since a lot of them could have been reading at that time. Plus, there must have been some warning signal, because the two most sinister villians (man with beard but no hair, woman with hair but to beard) said that no one was there when they got there. And why the volunteers would just desert a place like that I don't know, unless they knew something like this was coming, or was trying to get at the Hotel before Thursday. And they had to have escaped it at the last couple of days, because someone had to have kept things running.
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Post by Dante on Jun 23, 2009 3:57:56 GMT -5
I agree. Evidently the volunteers either saw the sinister duo coming from afar - perhaps using the Mortmain Mountains eagles, which have been trained to see smoke from a great distance - or they evacuated as soon as they decided that the Hotel Denouement was to be the location for their next meeting. We know that one volunteer physically threw the sugar bowl out of the window to protect it, which indicates that they were very much aware of the danger the headquarters was in. It's still quite a mysterious incident, though. Almost spooky.
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Post by hieitouyaicedemon on Jul 24, 2009 17:03:28 GMT -5
Actually, there was one passage in TBB that always bothered me. It's during the story the children tell of Violet and Klaus trying to make breakfast for their parents, and burning the toast. It says that their parents, "smelling smoke, ran downstairs to see what the matter was." Now, while this was probably before V.F.D. was ever thought of, it makes me wonder - if the Baudelaire parents are so conditioned to the smell of smoke as to detect burning toast, how on earth could they not have gotten out of the house in time, especially with a trapdoor so conveniently placed in the library?
It makes sense - obviously members of a Volunteer Fire Department would be well-used to the smell of smoke. And the Baudelaire parents did not have to worry about their children's safety, as the Quagmires had. So why not get out in time?
This is what I believed happened at the V.F.D. headquarters. The Man and Woman did say they burned the library down LAST, and the fact that the sign still remained does seem an odd coincidence. It's possible it does somehow lead to an underground route, perhaps like the Vertical Flame Divisions, and would naturally need to be fireproof to do so.
Also, is it just me, or do most of the passageways appear to be in libraries? The Baudelaires never say where in the ruins of their house they pop out of the tunnel in, but Quigley implicitly states that his mother hid him in a passageway in the library, and that he pops out in the Reptile Room, the same room in which Uncle Monty kept his library. And this was in TSS, the same book as the burned-down headquarters. It's possible Lemony was trying to give us a sign.
As for Beatrice, I find it very difficult to believe she didn't get out in time, considering nothing was blocking the trapdoor, or else the children wouldn't have been able to get out. So either she and Bertrand (being a member of V.F.D., he obviously knew about the passageway, too) were kidnapped, or they got out, and for some reason did not tell their children. Either way, it's hard for me to believe they perished in that fire.
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Post by Dante on Jul 25, 2009 8:21:56 GMT -5
Since the BBRE indicates that there was another person present in the Baudelaire mansion on the day of the fire, it's been suggested that they could have been tied up, or restrained in some similar way. I think one suggestion raised during the reread project is that they might have escaped, but then died off-screen in a separate situation. The explanation the books themselves would probably settle with is likely plain bad luck, since it goes unaddressed. With Esmé Squalor in control of the Baudelaire-667 passageway, the secret route out might have been blocked for just such an occasion, leaving the Baudelaire parents rushing to their library only to find their escape route shuttered.
Edit: Good to see you back, too. We could use your input.
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