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Post by Hermes on Jun 11, 2014 17:07:34 GMT -5
No one has found a satisfactory explanation for this. One possibility that has been suggested is that the scene was spliced into an existing film, and Olaf took part in the original shooting, but I think it's hard to make that work.
The other possibility is simply that Sally is confused. The Puzzling Puzzles shows that the character of Young Rolf appeared in other films of Sebald's too, so perhaps Olaf played the part in earlier films, causing her confusion.
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Post by Dante on Jun 12, 2014 0:48:45 GMT -5
Explanations vary. Are Dr. Sebald's films all old ones, made quite some time in the past, over which new coded dialogue is dubbed as appropriate for the situation? Maybe there are two Dr. Gustav Sebalds, father and son. There are worse explanations. Pretty much anything associated with Gustav is a bit of a continuity tangle.
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Jun 12, 2014 10:51:02 GMT -5
Explanations vary. Are Dr. Sebald's films all old ones, made quite some time in the past, over which new coded dialogue is dubbed as appropriate for the situation? Maybe there are two Dr. Gustav Sebalds, father and son. There are worse explanations. Pretty much anything associated with Gustav is a bit of a continuity tangle. Well, continuing with the father-son theory, probably Olaf was the first actor for Young Rolf. Then there was another person who was his successor. Or Olaf was the snowman- oops, my hand slipped
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Post by thedoctororwell on Feb 25, 2015 5:28:03 GMT -5
The young actor is Omeros, a young boy who's one of the castaways in TE. He probably washed up on the island's shores some time after TRR, and Sally is misremembering his name as "Omar" (note the phonic similarity). The allusion to Geraldine's infamous Count Omar is merely one of the series' many in-jokes. Sally is an old VFDer, there's no way she wouldn't remember Olaf's name. It's possible that Handler created Omeros in TE as a way of retconning a nonsensical plot-thread, providing the readers with a more suitable candidate for Young Rölf's actor.
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2015 5:55:47 GMT -5
I suspect that Handler probably didn't invent Omeros for that purpose, but otherwise I do agree, and I think this is a theory I've proposed elsewhere (or maybe supported elsewhere when you've proposed it?). Either way, it's my favourite explanation. As for the child Dr. Sebald, I'd say it's either a private joke on Sally Sebald's part, or the wrong photograph, or a non-diegetic joke on the source material (the U.A.'s plotlines being constructed in part out of whatever sets of stock photographs they could get their hands on).
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Post by bandit on Feb 25, 2015 10:28:09 GMT -5
I don't remember TE enough to get behind this theory, but I definitely agree that it is the line recalling Count Omar that should not be considered too much, and not the other way around. After all, Handler loves confusing coincidences and references-- just look at Adverbs, where there at least 10 different characters named Joe and Andrea.
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Post by Hermes on Feb 25, 2015 11:19:51 GMT -5
Really? I think you can make it work with two of each.
It occurred to me a while ago to wonder if Joan's girlfriend in WWBU is one of the Andreas from Adverbs.
(Which reminds me; has anyone else read We Are Pirates yet?)
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Post by bandit on Feb 25, 2015 13:20:09 GMT -5
Well, 10 was a hyperbole. My point was, there are a lot of people with the same name in similar situations who we can't be sure have anything to do with each other.
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Post by Dante on Feb 27, 2015 6:15:16 GMT -5
(Which reminds me; has anyone else read We Are Pirates yet?) I'll be putting up my review in a couple of days, when I have time to write it. Well, 10 was a hyperbole. My point was, there are a lot of people with the same name in similar situations who we can't be sure have anything to do with each other. Apparently there are two characters in Adverbs with the same names as a pair in The Basic Eight, too. One has to wonder how many of these connections are meaningful or even intended; Hal Hairdryer in File Under doesn't seem to be doing much, for instance, but the "Omar" reference is of course not a coincidence.
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Post by Hermes on Feb 27, 2015 8:34:37 GMT -5
There was a specific line in WAP which made me wonder.
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Post by gliquey on Feb 27, 2015 11:35:54 GMT -5
Hal Hairdryer in File Under doesn't seem to be doing much Handler needed (or at least wanted) something alliterative; I can't possibly imagine he'd forget he's used the name "Hal" before, but he needed an "H" name, probably had a male character in mind (eliminating Hannah, Holly etc.) and had used "Hal", "Hector" and "Hugo". Still, wouldn't it be easier to go with Harvey or something? I wasn't here before April 2014, but wasn't there some business about characters with names from ASOUE that were supposed to appear in FU13 that never did? Or names that were changed after previews of the book were shown? There could have been some theme involving ASOUE names that Handler eventually decided against. I could be completely making this up, but I'm sure I read somewhere...
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Post by bandit on Feb 27, 2015 13:32:00 GMT -5
Gliquey, "Harvey" could be just as confusing. It's safe to say that LS has run out of H names. And I think you're thinking of the preview for FU13 that had been released before the book came out, where the character of Marguerite(?) was named Colette instead. One has to wonder how many of these connections are meaningful or even intended; Hal Hairdryer in File Under doesn't seem to be doing much, for instance, but the "Omar" reference is of course not a coincidence. I wasn't saying it was a coincidence that Handler had not even meant to plant in the first place. Just that it could very well be similar to the connections in Adverbs, where he plays with the idea of intentionally identical names and similar characters, as a joke... or to manipulate the reader.
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Post by Hermes on Feb 27, 2015 14:19:53 GMT -5
I wasn't here before April 2014, but wasn't there some business about characters with names from ASOUE that were supposed to appear in FU13 that never did? Or names that were changed after previews of the book were shown? There could have been some theme involving ASOUE names that Handler eventually decided against. I could be completely making this up, but I'm sure I read somewhere... Yes. Previews showed a Kevin and a Colette, as well as a reference to Hal Hairdryer. We were confident that more names from ASOUE would appear in the complete volume; but when it appeared, not only were there no more, but Colette had been changed to Marguerite. This rather suggests that DH wanted to stop speculation about connections with ASOUE. What was particularly puzzling was a reference to Kevin holding pieces of wood in both hands, which seems very clearly to connect him with Kevin from ASOUE; but while this would make sense as part of a whole set of references, it doesn't really make sense as an isolated thing, since Kevin is not an important enough character to go out of the way to explain his backstory. So I'm now guessing it was a coincidence.
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Post by gliquey on Feb 27, 2015 14:42:04 GMT -5
Gliquey, "Harvey" could be just as confusing. Of course it could. I don't know how I forgot about that. I'm running out of male "H" names other than "Harry" or "Henry", neither of which I think would be very good choices for Snicket characters. I suppose it makes the accidental/meaningless theory more likely... ...but if there was a Hugo, a Colette and a Hal in FU13 at one point, then maybe the "Handler changed his mind about an ASOUE names in-joke" theory has more weight...
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Post by Dante on Feb 27, 2015 17:08:49 GMT -5
I do think Handler changed his mind about Colette either because the name was a coincidence and he realised, or because, unlike Kevin, the reference wasn't doing anything. Kevin's reference has his ambidexterity; Hal has... well, maybe alliteration.
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