Post by Hermedy on Feb 3, 2005 4:22:32 GMT -5
V.F.D. Dictionary
V.F.D. stands for Volunteer Fire Department. It aims to extinguish fires, both literally and figuratively, although most of its work is conducted in secret. It values knowledge, particularly that from books.
Verdant Flammable Device
The Verdant Flammable Device is used to alert VFD members of each other’s presence. They are green cigarettes, and when lit, they emit a thick, green smoke that can clearly be seen from far away. Quigley and Esmé used them in TSS. (See the Book the Tenth, The Slippery Slope)
Vertical Flame Diversion
The Vertical Flame Diversions are chimneys of sorts. These chimneys, as their name suggests, divert the smoke of small heating or cooking fires upwards and often disperse the smoke so that it cannot be noticed. There are many such chimneys in the Gorgonian Grotto. There is also one in the Mortmain Mountains that leads up to the Vernacularly Fastened Door (see Vernacularly Fastened Door). The smoke that travels up the chimney is dispersed by the four drafts from each compass point in the Valley of Four Drafts. This chimney is located in the cave where the Snow Scouts stayed in TSS (see Book the Tenth, The Slippery Slope). It used to have a pole in it, that one could slide down or climb up, but it was used in the construction of a submarine (see VFD Submarines). There are also foot and hand holds to get up, now that the pole is gone. (It is unknown whether or not there where poles or footholds in the Gorgonian Grotto Vertical Flame Diversions.)
Vernacularly Fastened Door
To activate a Vernacularly Fastened Door, it should be placed against a doorknob and the letters V, F and D should be tapped on the keyboard.
The Vernacularly Fastened Door is the door atop the Vertical Flame Diversion (see Vertical Flame Diversion) in the Mortmain Mountains (as seen in TSS). It leads to the Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters (see Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters). In order to open it, one must type in three phrases:
The first is:
The name of the scientist most widely credited with the discovery of gravity.
The answer is:
Sir Isaac Newton (all written together)
The second phrase is:
The Latin name for the Volunteer Feline Detectives (see Volunteer Feline Detectives). The answer is:
Panthera Leo
The third phrase is:
The central theme in Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.
The answer is:
A rural life of moral simplicity, despite monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy.
Another Vernacularly Fastened Door appears in TPP, and is used by Dewey Denouement to seal the door of the laundry room to trick his enemies into believing that the sugar bowl is there. The three phrases used on it are:
A description of a medical condition that all three Baudelaire children share
Answer: Allergic to peppermints
The weapon that left Count Olaf an orphan
Answer: Poison darts
The famous unfathomable question in the best-known novel by Richard Wright (Native Son)
Answer: Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?
Volunteer Feline Detectives
The Volunteer Feline Detectives are lions that were trained to smell smoke from a long way away. They where trained by the V.F.D. until the schism, after which the fire-starting side took control of them and corrupted them, making them wild, savage beasts that ate people (see Book the Ninth, The Carnivorous Carnival). Trained lions are usually named after their trainer.
Hotel Denouement
Hotel Denouement is the last safe place for the V.F.D. It has eleven floors, including a basement and a rooftop sunbathing salon, arranged according to the Dewey Decimal System, such that each room, or each object in the lobby, is assigned a Dewey Decimal number and its contents or guests correspond to that numbered entry in the System. The hotel is famous for the enormous clock in its lobby, which can be heard striking throughout the hotel.
The building is built with one side facing the sea and its front side facing a large pond. A steam funnel from the laundry room covers the entrance in vapour. The signs on the front of the building are mirrored so that they can only be read properly when reflected in the pond, such that the hotel’s main sign reads TNEMEUONED LETOH.
The managers of the hotel are triplets, Frank, Ernest, and Dewey Denouement. Ernest works against V.F.D., but Frank and Dewey are volunteers, although Dewey is commonly supposed to be a legendary figure and spends much of his time either winding the hotel’s clock or conducting research with his comrade Kit Snicket.
Dewey has a secret and enormous catalog of evidence hidden in a mirror replica of the hotel beneath the pond, disguised as the hotel’s reflection.
Hotel Denouement was supposed to be the location of an important meeting of V.F.D. on a Thursday, but this was moved forward to the preceding Wednesday following the accidental killing of Dewey Denouement with a harpoon gun by the Baudelaires, who were disguised as concierges at the time. The meeting was, in fact, an enormous trial that aimed to properly punish every villain, although it was primarily set up to try the Baudelaires and Count Olaf. For the purposes of the trial, volunteers and villains lured anyone who might have relevant evidence to the hotel. However, the trial was disrupted when members of the High Court were revealed to be two notorious villains, the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard, who allowed the High Court’s third member, Justice Strauss, to be kidnapped by Count Olaf. At the suggestion of the Baudelaires, who wanted to warn their friends away from the building, Count Olaf set fire to the hotel and escaped by boat from the roof. The Baudelaires and Justice Strauss attempted to warn the hotel’s guests and staff about the fire, but Count Olaf attempted to convince people that they were lying. It is unknown who survived the fire, but the hotel burnt to the ground, although the underwater catalog remains safe to this day.
The sugar bowl was intended to be delivered to the hotel via crow for the trial, but its journey was interrupted and it instead ended up at the bottom of the hotel’s pond, where it was apparently removed.
V.F.D. Submarines
The V.F.D. submarines are the submarines that are owned by the V.F.D. The only V.F.D. submarine that we have so far encountered in the books is the Queequeg. Its captain is Captain Widdershins, and he is charged with finding the sugar bowl (see sugar bowl). It is interesting to note that Queequeg is a character in the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Coincidentally, the crew of the Queequeg wear diving suits with a picture of Herman Melville on them. Perhaps the other V.F.D. ships are named after the characters of the famous authors on those volunteers’ suits.
For more information on Captain Widdershins, the submarine and the sugar bowl please read Book the Eleventh, The Grim Grotto.
The Queequeg was wrecked within the few days between the Baudelaires’ meetings with Kit Snicket at Hotel Denouement and on a faraway island, after an aerial vehicle fell upon it.
Sugar bowl (Vessel For Disaccharides)
The sugar bowl is sought by all, especially Olaf. We do not know what it does, or contains, but we suspect that it may somehow hold incriminating evidence that will prove Count Olaf guilty of several fires and will lift the arson charges on Lemony. It was thrown out of the Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters (see Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters) when it was burning, and it floated downstream and ended up in the Gorgonian Grotto (see Gorgonian Grotto). The Baudelaires and Fiona, stepdaughter of Captain Widdershins (see V.F.D. submarines), were sent to recover the sugar bowl, not knowing that it had been removed quite some time before. It may have been taken by a swimming woman who visited the grotto just before the Baudelaires and Fiona arrived.
It was carried to Hotel Denouement by crows, which were attacked with a harpoon gun by Carmelita Spats. They fell onto sticky birdpaper and dropped the sugar bowl; Dewey Denouement left clues indicating that it had fallen down the Hotel Denouement’s laundry room funnel, but it had in fact fallen into the hotel’s pond, where it is thought to have been retrieved by a woman in a diving suit (possibly the same woman who beat the Baudelaires and Fiona to Gorgonian Grotto) and taken away in a taxi, which may have been driven by Lemony Snicket. As such, the sugar bowl is currently thought to be in his possession. It does not reappear in the series, nor are its contents confirmed.
Anwhistle Aquatics
Anwhistle Aquatics was a marine research and rhetorical advice center, but it was also a V.F.D. research post that was run by Gregor Anwhistle, brother of Dr. Isaac “Ike” Anwhistle (see The Wide Window). One of the many projects run here was the Voluntary Fish Domestication (see Voluntary Fish Domestication). Anwhistle Aquatics burnt down in a tragic fire started by Fernald, stepson of Captain Widdershins, who also participated in the destruction.
During their time as facilitators of a certain faraway island, Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire attempted to build a passageway from the island to Anwhistle Aquatics, but were prevented from doing so over fears that the island would become too connected to the outside world (and, later, that fire or Medusoid Mycelium could spread to the island through the passageway).
Voluntary Fish Domestication
A project run by V.F.D. at Anwhistle Aquatics (see Anwhistle Aquatics) in which salmon were trained to swim upstream and search for forest fires. This is not thought to have included the Stricken Salmon (from the Stricken Stream) as the entire Voluntary Fish Domestication fleet was taken away by Café Salmonella. The Snicket siblings fought against this in what was called the Snicket Snickersee, but 'Too many waiters turned out to be traitors.'
The Gorgonian Grotto
The Gorgonian Grotto is a grotto that is located below Anwhistle Aquatics. There are several Vertical Flame Diversions (see Vertical Flame Diversions) which a woman may have used to take away the sugar bowl away in (see sugar bowl and Book the Eleventh, The Grim Grotto). The grotto is the only place that still holds the Medusoid Mycelium (see Medusoid Mycelium). It may have once been a V.F.D. meeting place due to these statements:
Sunlight had not reached the waters of the grotto for some time – not since Anwhistle Aquatics was still up and running, a phrase which here means “not destroyed under suspicious circumstances”…
TGG – p126
Had the grotto been equipped with some sort of lighting system, as it once had, the children could have seen a number of things. They might have noticed the mosaic on the grotto floor – thousands and thousands of colourful tiles, depicting noble events from the early history of a secret organization, and portraits of famous writers, scientists, artists, musicians, philosophers and chefs who had inspired the organization’s members. They might have seen an enormous, rusted pumping machine, which was able to drain the entire grotto, or flood it with seawater again, in mere minutes. They might have gazed upward and seen the sharp angles of various Vertical Flame Diversions and other secret passageways that once led all the way up to the marine research center and rhetorical advice service, or even spotted the person who was using one of the passageways now, and probably for the last time, as she made her difficult and dark way toward the Queequeg.
TGG – p126-127
Medusoid Mycelium
The Medusoid Mycelium is a rare fungus, which grows only in the Gorgonian Grotto (see Gorgonian Grotto and Book the Eleventh, The Grim Grotto). It waxes and wanes (grows and shrinks) extremely quickly, and it is a deadly poison that when inhaled, can kill very quickly. The only antidote is horseradish, or its culinary equivalent, wasabi. Gregor Anwhistle was researching it for use as a weapon against the fire-starting side of the schism, but many on the fire-extinguishing side of the schism believed that this research constituted playing with fire, and that use of the Medusoid Mycelium against their enemies would be fighting fire with fire, which was the very tactics used by their enemies. Thus the research was opposed because it was morally unsound. There is a horseradish plant on Lousy Lane (see The Reptile Room for more details about Lousy Lane) that was used to neutralize or minimize the effects of the fungi. Sunny Baudelaire was poisoned by it on an expedition to Gorgonian Grotto (see Gorgonian Grotto) to retrieve the sugar bowl (see sugar bowl) yet she managed to eat wasabi and survived.
“A single spore has such grim power/ That you may die within the hour.
Is dilution simple? But of course!/ Just one small dose of root of horse.”
On a faraway island, the Baudelaire parents caused the island’s enormous apple tree to hybridise with horseradish, creating a powerful cure for the Medusoid Mycelium, although there is something in the hybrid that harms yet-unborn children, so the cure should not be eaten by pregnant women.
Another alternative to dilute the poison may be other plants of the family Eutrema.
Valley of Four Drafts Headquarters
The Valley of Four Drafts Headquarters was stationed in the Mortmain Mountains, until recently; it was burnt down two sinister people, a man with a beard but no hair and a woman with hair but no beard, connected with Count Olaf. (see Book the Tenth, The Slippery Slope).
Coffee Stain Marker
The Coffee Stain Marker is a coffee stain that is on a map. To the ignorant eye, it is a simple coffee stain, but to the eye of a V.F.D. member it is actually the location of a V.F.D. building. An example of this is seen in Book the Ninth, The Carnivorous Carnival, as Olaf discovers on Madame Lulu (Olivia)’s map the whereabouts of the V.F.D. headquarters (see V.F.D. headquarters). Olivia was taught this by Captain Widdershins, captain of the Queequeg (see V.F.D. Submarines) when they were both young.
V.F.D. stands for Volunteer Fire Department. It aims to extinguish fires, both literally and figuratively, although most of its work is conducted in secret. It values knowledge, particularly that from books.
Verdant Flammable Device
The Verdant Flammable Device is used to alert VFD members of each other’s presence. They are green cigarettes, and when lit, they emit a thick, green smoke that can clearly be seen from far away. Quigley and Esmé used them in TSS. (See the Book the Tenth, The Slippery Slope)
Vertical Flame Diversion
The Vertical Flame Diversions are chimneys of sorts. These chimneys, as their name suggests, divert the smoke of small heating or cooking fires upwards and often disperse the smoke so that it cannot be noticed. There are many such chimneys in the Gorgonian Grotto. There is also one in the Mortmain Mountains that leads up to the Vernacularly Fastened Door (see Vernacularly Fastened Door). The smoke that travels up the chimney is dispersed by the four drafts from each compass point in the Valley of Four Drafts. This chimney is located in the cave where the Snow Scouts stayed in TSS (see Book the Tenth, The Slippery Slope). It used to have a pole in it, that one could slide down or climb up, but it was used in the construction of a submarine (see VFD Submarines). There are also foot and hand holds to get up, now that the pole is gone. (It is unknown whether or not there where poles or footholds in the Gorgonian Grotto Vertical Flame Diversions.)
Vernacularly Fastened Door
To activate a Vernacularly Fastened Door, it should be placed against a doorknob and the letters V, F and D should be tapped on the keyboard.
The Vernacularly Fastened Door is the door atop the Vertical Flame Diversion (see Vertical Flame Diversion) in the Mortmain Mountains (as seen in TSS). It leads to the Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters (see Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters). In order to open it, one must type in three phrases:
The first is:
The name of the scientist most widely credited with the discovery of gravity.
The answer is:
Sir Isaac Newton (all written together)
The second phrase is:
The Latin name for the Volunteer Feline Detectives (see Volunteer Feline Detectives). The answer is:
Panthera Leo
The third phrase is:
The central theme in Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.
The answer is:
A rural life of moral simplicity, despite monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy.
Another Vernacularly Fastened Door appears in TPP, and is used by Dewey Denouement to seal the door of the laundry room to trick his enemies into believing that the sugar bowl is there. The three phrases used on it are:
A description of a medical condition that all three Baudelaire children share
Answer: Allergic to peppermints
The weapon that left Count Olaf an orphan
Answer: Poison darts
The famous unfathomable question in the best-known novel by Richard Wright (Native Son)
Answer: Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?
Volunteer Feline Detectives
The Volunteer Feline Detectives are lions that were trained to smell smoke from a long way away. They where trained by the V.F.D. until the schism, after which the fire-starting side took control of them and corrupted them, making them wild, savage beasts that ate people (see Book the Ninth, The Carnivorous Carnival). Trained lions are usually named after their trainer.
Hotel Denouement
Hotel Denouement is the last safe place for the V.F.D. It has eleven floors, including a basement and a rooftop sunbathing salon, arranged according to the Dewey Decimal System, such that each room, or each object in the lobby, is assigned a Dewey Decimal number and its contents or guests correspond to that numbered entry in the System. The hotel is famous for the enormous clock in its lobby, which can be heard striking throughout the hotel.
The building is built with one side facing the sea and its front side facing a large pond. A steam funnel from the laundry room covers the entrance in vapour. The signs on the front of the building are mirrored so that they can only be read properly when reflected in the pond, such that the hotel’s main sign reads TNEMEUONED LETOH.
The managers of the hotel are triplets, Frank, Ernest, and Dewey Denouement. Ernest works against V.F.D., but Frank and Dewey are volunteers, although Dewey is commonly supposed to be a legendary figure and spends much of his time either winding the hotel’s clock or conducting research with his comrade Kit Snicket.
Dewey has a secret and enormous catalog of evidence hidden in a mirror replica of the hotel beneath the pond, disguised as the hotel’s reflection.
Hotel Denouement was supposed to be the location of an important meeting of V.F.D. on a Thursday, but this was moved forward to the preceding Wednesday following the accidental killing of Dewey Denouement with a harpoon gun by the Baudelaires, who were disguised as concierges at the time. The meeting was, in fact, an enormous trial that aimed to properly punish every villain, although it was primarily set up to try the Baudelaires and Count Olaf. For the purposes of the trial, volunteers and villains lured anyone who might have relevant evidence to the hotel. However, the trial was disrupted when members of the High Court were revealed to be two notorious villains, the man with a beard but no hair and the woman with hair but no beard, who allowed the High Court’s third member, Justice Strauss, to be kidnapped by Count Olaf. At the suggestion of the Baudelaires, who wanted to warn their friends away from the building, Count Olaf set fire to the hotel and escaped by boat from the roof. The Baudelaires and Justice Strauss attempted to warn the hotel’s guests and staff about the fire, but Count Olaf attempted to convince people that they were lying. It is unknown who survived the fire, but the hotel burnt to the ground, although the underwater catalog remains safe to this day.
The sugar bowl was intended to be delivered to the hotel via crow for the trial, but its journey was interrupted and it instead ended up at the bottom of the hotel’s pond, where it was apparently removed.
V.F.D. Submarines
The V.F.D. submarines are the submarines that are owned by the V.F.D. The only V.F.D. submarine that we have so far encountered in the books is the Queequeg. Its captain is Captain Widdershins, and he is charged with finding the sugar bowl (see sugar bowl). It is interesting to note that Queequeg is a character in the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Coincidentally, the crew of the Queequeg wear diving suits with a picture of Herman Melville on them. Perhaps the other V.F.D. ships are named after the characters of the famous authors on those volunteers’ suits.
For more information on Captain Widdershins, the submarine and the sugar bowl please read Book the Eleventh, The Grim Grotto.
The Queequeg was wrecked within the few days between the Baudelaires’ meetings with Kit Snicket at Hotel Denouement and on a faraway island, after an aerial vehicle fell upon it.
Sugar bowl (Vessel For Disaccharides)
The sugar bowl is sought by all, especially Olaf. We do not know what it does, or contains, but we suspect that it may somehow hold incriminating evidence that will prove Count Olaf guilty of several fires and will lift the arson charges on Lemony. It was thrown out of the Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters (see Valley of the Four Drafts Headquarters) when it was burning, and it floated downstream and ended up in the Gorgonian Grotto (see Gorgonian Grotto). The Baudelaires and Fiona, stepdaughter of Captain Widdershins (see V.F.D. submarines), were sent to recover the sugar bowl, not knowing that it had been removed quite some time before. It may have been taken by a swimming woman who visited the grotto just before the Baudelaires and Fiona arrived.
It was carried to Hotel Denouement by crows, which were attacked with a harpoon gun by Carmelita Spats. They fell onto sticky birdpaper and dropped the sugar bowl; Dewey Denouement left clues indicating that it had fallen down the Hotel Denouement’s laundry room funnel, but it had in fact fallen into the hotel’s pond, where it is thought to have been retrieved by a woman in a diving suit (possibly the same woman who beat the Baudelaires and Fiona to Gorgonian Grotto) and taken away in a taxi, which may have been driven by Lemony Snicket. As such, the sugar bowl is currently thought to be in his possession. It does not reappear in the series, nor are its contents confirmed.
Anwhistle Aquatics
Anwhistle Aquatics was a marine research and rhetorical advice center, but it was also a V.F.D. research post that was run by Gregor Anwhistle, brother of Dr. Isaac “Ike” Anwhistle (see The Wide Window). One of the many projects run here was the Voluntary Fish Domestication (see Voluntary Fish Domestication). Anwhistle Aquatics burnt down in a tragic fire started by Fernald, stepson of Captain Widdershins, who also participated in the destruction.
During their time as facilitators of a certain faraway island, Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire attempted to build a passageway from the island to Anwhistle Aquatics, but were prevented from doing so over fears that the island would become too connected to the outside world (and, later, that fire or Medusoid Mycelium could spread to the island through the passageway).
Voluntary Fish Domestication
A project run by V.F.D. at Anwhistle Aquatics (see Anwhistle Aquatics) in which salmon were trained to swim upstream and search for forest fires. This is not thought to have included the Stricken Salmon (from the Stricken Stream) as the entire Voluntary Fish Domestication fleet was taken away by Café Salmonella. The Snicket siblings fought against this in what was called the Snicket Snickersee, but 'Too many waiters turned out to be traitors.'
The Gorgonian Grotto
The Gorgonian Grotto is a grotto that is located below Anwhistle Aquatics. There are several Vertical Flame Diversions (see Vertical Flame Diversions) which a woman may have used to take away the sugar bowl away in (see sugar bowl and Book the Eleventh, The Grim Grotto). The grotto is the only place that still holds the Medusoid Mycelium (see Medusoid Mycelium). It may have once been a V.F.D. meeting place due to these statements:
Sunlight had not reached the waters of the grotto for some time – not since Anwhistle Aquatics was still up and running, a phrase which here means “not destroyed under suspicious circumstances”…
TGG – p126
Had the grotto been equipped with some sort of lighting system, as it once had, the children could have seen a number of things. They might have noticed the mosaic on the grotto floor – thousands and thousands of colourful tiles, depicting noble events from the early history of a secret organization, and portraits of famous writers, scientists, artists, musicians, philosophers and chefs who had inspired the organization’s members. They might have seen an enormous, rusted pumping machine, which was able to drain the entire grotto, or flood it with seawater again, in mere minutes. They might have gazed upward and seen the sharp angles of various Vertical Flame Diversions and other secret passageways that once led all the way up to the marine research center and rhetorical advice service, or even spotted the person who was using one of the passageways now, and probably for the last time, as she made her difficult and dark way toward the Queequeg.
TGG – p126-127
Medusoid Mycelium
The Medusoid Mycelium is a rare fungus, which grows only in the Gorgonian Grotto (see Gorgonian Grotto and Book the Eleventh, The Grim Grotto). It waxes and wanes (grows and shrinks) extremely quickly, and it is a deadly poison that when inhaled, can kill very quickly. The only antidote is horseradish, or its culinary equivalent, wasabi. Gregor Anwhistle was researching it for use as a weapon against the fire-starting side of the schism, but many on the fire-extinguishing side of the schism believed that this research constituted playing with fire, and that use of the Medusoid Mycelium against their enemies would be fighting fire with fire, which was the very tactics used by their enemies. Thus the research was opposed because it was morally unsound. There is a horseradish plant on Lousy Lane (see The Reptile Room for more details about Lousy Lane) that was used to neutralize or minimize the effects of the fungi. Sunny Baudelaire was poisoned by it on an expedition to Gorgonian Grotto (see Gorgonian Grotto) to retrieve the sugar bowl (see sugar bowl) yet she managed to eat wasabi and survived.
“A single spore has such grim power/ That you may die within the hour.
Is dilution simple? But of course!/ Just one small dose of root of horse.”
On a faraway island, the Baudelaire parents caused the island’s enormous apple tree to hybridise with horseradish, creating a powerful cure for the Medusoid Mycelium, although there is something in the hybrid that harms yet-unborn children, so the cure should not be eaten by pregnant women.
Another alternative to dilute the poison may be other plants of the family Eutrema.
Valley of Four Drafts Headquarters
The Valley of Four Drafts Headquarters was stationed in the Mortmain Mountains, until recently; it was burnt down two sinister people, a man with a beard but no hair and a woman with hair but no beard, connected with Count Olaf. (see Book the Tenth, The Slippery Slope).
Coffee Stain Marker
The Coffee Stain Marker is a coffee stain that is on a map. To the ignorant eye, it is a simple coffee stain, but to the eye of a V.F.D. member it is actually the location of a V.F.D. building. An example of this is seen in Book the Ninth, The Carnivorous Carnival, as Olaf discovers on Madame Lulu (Olivia)’s map the whereabouts of the V.F.D. headquarters (see V.F.D. headquarters). Olivia was taught this by Captain Widdershins, captain of the Queequeg (see V.F.D. Submarines) when they were both young.