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Post by Dante on Oct 20, 2014 15:13:02 GMT -5
Lemony even suggests as much - proposing, at the end of ?3 Chapter Five (I think), that he doesn't even have a voice of his own any more. It's striking that Hangfire doesn't utter a word during all of ?3. I wondered for a while if he'd actually lost his voice. (I might've posted that before; not sure.)
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Post by Dante on Oct 21, 2014 8:44:51 GMT -5
Actually, Hangfire does have a beard in ?3, Chapter Two. It's the bottom of page 26.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Oct 21, 2014 9:48:30 GMT -5
Aha! And by that I mean 'Aha!' Ah. Remind me to "Ha!" later.
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Post by venomwolf on Nov 9, 2014 9:18:41 GMT -5
I think Lemony will have his 13th birthday during the fourth book. Originally, I did think it would happen in the third book.
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Post by Dante on Nov 9, 2014 12:57:12 GMT -5
I'm of the opinion that it did happen during the third book...
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Post by venomwolf on Nov 9, 2014 17:33:38 GMT -5
I'm of the opinion that it did happen during the third book... I've just re-read the last chapter when Lemony is talking to Josephine and you're correct. I missed it on my first read-through. Does anyone think the Duchess of Winnipeg might have attended Wade Academy at the same time Olaf did?
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Post by Hermes on Nov 9, 2014 17:52:11 GMT -5
We know, from TUA, that Lemony and The Duchess were recruited to VFD at the same time. Of course, given VFD's recruitment practices, it's still possible that R is quite a bit older than L, in which case she could have been at Wade before that.
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emf3rd
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 40
Likes: 24
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Post by emf3rd on Dec 10, 2014 13:51:40 GMT -5
Hello everyone! I'm currently rereading All the Wrong Questions and came upon an interesting theory that I hadn't seem brought up before and figured this would be the best place to share it;
Prediction: Moxie Mallahan will die due to her family ties to the Bombinating Beast, and Snicket will keep her typewriter as a memento and a reminder that it's his duty to chronicle the news exactly as it happened... He then uses this portable typewriter to chronicle ASoUE.
I know there isn't much cannon wise that would explicitly point to this happening, and even I don't truly believe it will be Moxie who will die in Question 4, but it WOULD be quite shocking considering her brush with death in Question 2. Most people might not expect it again. Also, I'm a little fuzzy but I seem to remember her typewriter breaking in Question 2 or 3. Even if it isn't her exact one, he may have gotten the idea from her and used it later in his life. Just a bit of headcannon I thought would be interesting to share!
Side note: I have very little doubt in my mind that Ellington isn't bad news. A crazy, less supported theory of mine is that Armstrong Feint is actually Hangfire and that the entire time they have been working together, father and daughter, to try and capture the statue. This one I don't believe nearly as much, just another interesting thought. But I don't see that one happening.
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Post by Hermes on Dec 10, 2014 15:12:19 GMT -5
That AF is Hangfire is very plausible, and something several people have speculated. But I don't think Ellington can be in league with him; she has the Beast, and has had it for some time, and if they were straightforwardly in cahoots could have handed it over to him long ago, and yet she hasn't, because he refuses to collect it - presumably so as not to reveal his identity. (I think it's fairly clear that in SYBIS, when she says it has been confiscated, it hasn't been and in fact she still has it; she has something hidden in her bag, and while later on that's the book, it can't be when the matter first comes up, as at that point the book is in plain sight. Here, by the way, is the passage I was thinking of earlier about Ellington as a femme fatale, which I think shows that she is not straightforwardly a villain.
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Post by Dante on Dec 10, 2014 17:13:11 GMT -5
I think the Moxie theory is one that would be satisfying, but her typewriter was smashed in ?3, and I think the impact of Snicket using her typewriter as a memento would be a little diminished if it was a new typewriter she got only a couple of chapters before she died. Otherwise I'd be right on board. Oh well.
I am well and truly all aboard the Armstrong Feint for Hangfire train, and have been all along. I think there is definitely more to Ellington's activities in ?3 than we have been made aware, and I think that there is plenty of potential for a twist along the lines of "she knew all along that her father was Hangfire"... but I don't think it makes sense for them to have been in cahoots all along, either.
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emf3rd
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 40
Likes: 24
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Post by emf3rd on Dec 11, 2014 1:08:02 GMT -5
I think the Moxie theory is one that would be satisfying, but her typewriter was smashed in ?3, and I think the impact of Snicket using her typewriter as a memento would be a little diminished if it was a new typewriter she got only a couple of chapters before she died. Otherwise I'd be right on board. Oh well. I am well and truly all aboard the Armstrong Feint for Hangfire train, and have been all along. I think there is definitely more to Ellington's activities in ?3 than we have been made aware, and I think that there is plenty of potential for a twist along the lines of "she knew all along that her father was Hangfire"... but I don't think it makes sense for them to have been in cahoots all along, either. Yes, you're correct; Moxie's typewriter does get smashed. I wasn't 100% sure when I had typed that. I agree, I just thought it would tie in nicely if that had been a 'revelation' of sorts. And as for the Armstrong-Hangfire/Ellington plot, it's just little things like this that happen that make me think the whole thing COULD easily be one big ruse; WDYSHL pg 151 ""It's the only way," Ellington said. "I went to all the trouble of getting the Bombinating Beast, but when I left him a message telling him I had it, he never answered. I need to rescue my father, Mr. Snicket. Pleasing Hangfire is the only way." I did not mention that the one who had gone to all that trouble to get the statue was me. I did not ask her how she left a message for Hangfire. When I sit and think of this incident in my life, beginning with the phone call from my sister and ending of the basement of the Colophon Clinic, the list of things I did wrong stretches out in front of me and I cannot see the end of it." Ellington somehow gave him a message, but how? And why wouldn't he be listening to her and take it? Just to hide his identity? Seems rather thin to me... Snicket himself says later in life he should have wondered such a thing. He says something similar to that in the first book as well. All kind of points to her being in cahoots in my eyess. I'm not sure how, but perhaps even someone from the Inhumane Society is the one watching Snicket/Theodora, and the reason Ellington hasn't given the statue to Hangfire/her dad is because, in reality, they're trying to trick Snicket/VFD somehow by making him/them only THINK the statue is important, when in reality it isn't at all! Or something like that... There's so much to consider!
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Post by Hermes on Dec 11, 2014 12:03:53 GMT -5
I think there's evidence from interviews that the BB is genuinely significant in some way; but I have long suspected that it isn't as important as the characters seem to think, largely because Hangfire could have got it much more easily if he had wanted to. It's quite likely the Mallahans, who don't seem to attach much importance to it, would have handed it over if he had turned up and asked; or, once Theodora and Lemony had burgled it, he could simply have collected it from them in his guise as butler, instead of going to the trouble of getting them arrested. This leads me to suspect that he is using it largely to immobilise various characters - first L and S, then Ellington - though he may still plan to collect and use it when the time comes.
But the fact that he hasn't collected it from Ellington seems to me to support the idea that getting it is not, at least, his primary aim. I suppose it might be a further trap for L, getting him to hang around E in the hope of getting it back; but in that case she would surely want him to think that she still has it, not that she has lost it.
Regarding the typewriter: I think that it Lemony's world typewriters are just what one writes with, so a particular character having one isn't especially significant. The computer at Prufrock Prep is advanced because it has a screen, but we aren't told it can print.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Sept 7, 2015 4:57:55 GMT -5
Not really speculation, this just seemed the most appropriate thread to post this in. I'm sure someone has noticed this before, but I fell upon a few pieces of foreshadowing in the first two books that I didn't notice the first time around.
WCTBATH P. 79:
WCTBATH P. 116:
WDYSHL P. 168:
Of course, we now know what the books filled with blank pages were about, but the gears used in botanical extraction doesn't ring any bells to me. Could these become relevant in WITNDFAON?
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Post by Dante on Sept 7, 2015 6:50:20 GMT -5
Yes, I'd noticed those, and I think there are a few others - I think there might've been a reference in ?1 to Lemony needing a haircut, too, but I'm not sure. Another point of significant foreshadowing is that the berets used by Cleo and Ellington in ?2 actually appear among Ellington's things in ?1 - as does an evening gown that hasn't appeared yet, although I wonder if it was substituted with the summery dress she wears at the end of ?3.
The gears used in botanical extraction I assume are part of what I.S. is up to in the background. I think there's a good chance that we'll see them. Incidentally, it's still not clear why I.S. wanted Cleo's invisible ink research in ?2, but that chemical process could well involve botanical extraction of some sort.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Sept 7, 2015 9:06:50 GMT -5
Yes, I'd noticed those, and I think there are a few others - I think there might've been a reference in ?1 to Lemony needing a haircut, too, but I'm not sure. There is, I think it's in connection with a description of Theodora's hair. The passage with the berets was actually another one I'd copied out for reference. WCTBATH, P. 133: I left it out because none of those things, apart from the hats and the tube (which I discounted because it becomes significant in that same book), have been seen again yet, and because the hats are by far the most closely described of those things. I figured the other items might just have been picked at random to get the 'disguise kit' message across. But if you're right that the evening gown was intended to be seen in ?3 - which seems likely enough - , it makes sense that we would see some of the other articles in ?4. Come to think of it, the red wig might've been intended for Ellington's change of hair in ?2, if DH at that point hadn't thought of using it to confirm Cleo's chemical skills. Does the description of the purse put anyone else in mind of the Snow Scouts?
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