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Post by Lachrymose on Jan 17, 2011 20:52:52 GMT -5
At the beginning of The Bad Beginning, if you look closely at the firemen, you will see something interesting. The Firemen have ?s on their helmets. I don't know if this is a reference to the Great Unknown, but I find it's worth investigating.
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Post by Wasabi on Jan 17, 2011 21:28:06 GMT -5
Either that, or it could make reference to whether they are villains or volunteers. Very good theory, Lachrymose. I hadn't really thought of that one before until now.
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Post by Dante on Jan 18, 2011 2:55:11 GMT -5
We've discussed this before, and I'm pretty sure that it's just the shaded edge of a shield emblem. Helquist later did a full-colour painting of the same scene that appeared in special editions of TBB and I think on one of the calendars, and the supposed "question mark" is totally absent, whereas one would expect it to be made quite prominent if it was, in fact, a clue, especially given the importance of the question mark in TGG and The End.
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Post by Leanora Crowe on Jan 18, 2011 12:08:02 GMT -5
It's possible that the question mark originally had some symbolic meaning, but it would appear that Lemony didn't actually want the Great Unknown to be introduced until later. That's most likely the reason that the question mark is no longer there in the full color version of the picture. I don't think Lemony had the exact same plan at the beginning of his writings as he ended up with, so he wanted to alter that since he got the chance. That's my opinion, anyway.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Jan 18, 2011 12:44:17 GMT -5
I'm somewhat skeptical toward Handler having the idea of the Great Unknown from the beginning. It seems more likely to me that he introduced it as an element only later on, bringing corporality to the mystery that had been following the Baudelaires for the previous volumes. I don't know how much canonicity we can put in the illustrations, anyway. We don't know how much Handler tells Helquist. But I don't think the idea can be completely dismissed solely as shading, either; we see the same technique used in the last illustration of TE.
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Post by Leanora Crowe on Jan 19, 2011 10:38:12 GMT -5
It's actually possible that Helquist just put the question marks there because he thought it would be interesting (perhaps as a symbol of how strange the children's lives are going to become). I think Handler may actually have seen the question mark and decided to do something with it, hence the Great Unknown. I guess what I'm saying is that we may have been looking at this backwards.
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Post by Ernist on Feb 11, 2011 11:22:51 GMT -5
you know I never noticed the question mark
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Emily
Reptile Researcher
"The World is Quiet Here"
Posts: 16
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Post by Emily on Feb 27, 2011 19:09:29 GMT -5
Why,yes.You could say that their is a ? mark on their helmets,but you could also say that there is cheetah on the fire truck.
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Post by colette on Mar 21, 2011 16:11:47 GMT -5
Yes, I think it is reference on the Great Unknown
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Post by Dante on Mar 21, 2011 17:00:59 GMT -5
Alright, let's say it is a reference to the Great Unknown, ten books before it was introduced. What does that mean, then, for these firefighters?
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