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Post by Dante on Oct 1, 2014 3:10:12 GMT -5
Cheers very much for the tips, takato.
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Post by Agathological on Oct 1, 2014 12:39:19 GMT -5
This is an amazing book for (among other things) character development. I did not suspect we'd see Prosper Lost as a brave firefighter. Let alone Theodora admitting she's out of her depth and has made some mistakes. Of course, positive character development may not bode well for their survival in a murder book. Kellar Haines is also an interesting character; it becomes clear that he's trying to covertly help Lemony without letting his mother (or any bystanders) have any idea what he's doing. And Sharon is a lot like Sally Murphy-- nervously playing a role for Hangfire's plan, but she seems a lot more willing to participate. The Ellington meeting is quite strange; I think this is the first time Snicket has had a viewpoint character in an altered state of consciousness. Ellington (sorry, Filene) is very courageous and skilled. So is Ornette, and it occurs to me that her origami is foreshadowed by Chapter One's reference to the polysemy of "folded." I was skeptical that a real Beast would show up, but what else could that pond creature be? It must be an advanced growth stage of the tadpoles. Someone previously drew a connection between these critters and certain cinematic cloned dinosaurs; though I wonder if what we're seeing is more akin to a chickenosaurus-- a modern creature genetically tweaked into something more primitive and fearsome. Perhaps the "tadpoles" also need to be well-fed in order to grow this much. Fisheries need loyal workers and a constant food supply, and I have a terrible suspicion that the former may sometimes become the latter. On a related note, I am not entirely clear about the identity of the various papery materials found in the vicinity of Wade Academy. Some might be stimulant bark, others something more sinister. Note that some such material provokes Lemony to speculate that the pond creature is growing-- and reptiles cast off a papery skin each time they grow. I am also reminded of the "paper" on the Beast statue-- a DNA sample? Chapter Twelve was a rollercoaster of surprise and subversion-- the purpose of the romantic hayride is for Lemony to call out Ellington on her treachery; Lemony's predecessor turns out not to be Olaf but his name appears anyway; and the library is destroyed by water (itself an inversion of the usual Snicket pattern), only it turns out that all the real books have been safely removed. Except one-- and what a cruel irony that Lemony was too distracted to read more of it in Chapter One! Another thing I loved is the hint at an age-old, globe-spanning war between secret organizations, involving a thousand fragmentary plots-- even above and beyond the game of thirteen-dimensional chess which we have witnessed in Stain'd. And I think Lemony's speech about VFD and its "aristocracy" is very inspiring-- I might even say that it's what we, as readers and researchers, strive to be. Never mind that it was plagiarized (Orwell found the source elsewhere). I must say you have the same avatar idea I had! Though I never imagined Theodora wearing sunglasses. I must say that this book has been my favourite so far. It really made Theodora out to be a more compassionate character. I hope she is not the one killed in the next book. Having to wait another year for the next book is going to be agony maybe he will be released another supplementary tome. The interactions between the gang was also fun to read. V.F.D's name 100% confirmed finally.
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Post by Dante on Oct 1, 2014 12:47:48 GMT -5
Though I never imagined Theodora wearing sunglasses. Inside. At night.
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Post by Agathological on Oct 1, 2014 13:01:42 GMT -5
Though I never imagined Theodora wearing sunglasses. Inside. At night. They are never mentioned anywhere in the text. She is an odd duck.
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Post by Dante on Oct 1, 2014 13:14:09 GMT -5
(I take it that first post went awry, huh?)
Qwerty also was illustrated in ?1 as wearing sunglasses inside. Maybe it's a Seth thing.
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Post by Agathological on Oct 1, 2014 13:28:25 GMT -5
(I take it that first post went awry, huh?) Qwerty also was illustrated in ?1 as wearing sunglasses inside. Maybe it's a Seth thing. Remedied. Plus she looks older than I imagined; her jaw give her the look of a woman in her late 40's. Gah! Another year to wait!
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Antenora
Detriment Deleter
Fiendish Philologist
Put down that harpoon gun, in the name of these wonderful birds!
Posts: 15,891
Likes: 113
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Post by Antenora on Oct 1, 2014 14:33:10 GMT -5
This was an excellent book for character art. And putting a mask on Lemony gave Seth more opportunities to draw him from different angles and in the foreground, without showing his face.
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Post by Agathological on Oct 1, 2014 15:15:24 GMT -5
This was an excellent book for character art. And putting a mask on Lemony gave Seth more opportunities to draw him from different angles and in the foreground, without showing his face.
I think every main character now has an full facial image (Hangfire aside)
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Post by Dante on Oct 1, 2014 16:15:42 GMT -5
I can think of two characters missing, but neither are main - though one might end up on the level of, say, Pip and Squeak and Cleo and Jake: Hungry Hix and Ornette Lost.
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Post by Agathological on Oct 1, 2014 16:46:01 GMT -5
I can think of two characters missing, but neither are main - though one might end up on the level of, say, Pip and Squeak and Cleo and Jake: Hungry Hix and Ornette Lost. They are the exact two I was thinking of also. I was surprised we didn't have any mention of Margurite Gracq, Jackie and Oliver Sobel in SYBIS. I'm guessing the laudanum got to them. I am trying to place where canonically those stories in FU:13SI take place in the ATWQ native.
Where are Flammarion and Dander? Has the train already taken them to the city?
Will the Electrical Supplies in Black Cat be used in the next book?
Snicket mentions that the statue of Colonel Colophon started all the trouble. Theories?
Are these the wrong questions?
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Post by Hermes on Oct 1, 2014 17:03:38 GMT -5
I was surprised we didn't have any mention of Margurite Gracq, Jackie and Oliver Sobel in SYBIS. I'm guessing the laudanum got to them. I am trying to place where canonically those stories in FU:13SI take place in the ATWQ native. Marguerite and Oliver were planning to leave town. Jackie should be there: I take it that working children had been mostly been rounded up by the Dept of Truancy in the days before the fire, and so, yes, they were among those who were drugged. I'm fairly sure all the stories in FU13 happen before this, since they end with L perhaps spotting Ellington, clearly before their next actual meeting. One thing I was expecting was a mention of a distillery. Almost certainly. Weeks, at least, have passed; many trains must have left in that time. Don't we already know that? The IS was originally formed to protest against the statue (because it glorified war and threatened moths).
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Post by Agathological on Oct 1, 2014 17:16:15 GMT -5
I was surprised we didn't have any mention of Margurite Gracq, Jackie and Oliver Sobel in SYBIS. I'm guessing the laudanum got to them. I am trying to place where canonically those stories in FU:13SI take place in the ATWQ native. Marguerite and Oliver were planning to leave town. Jackie should be there: I take it that working children had been mostly been rounded up by the Dept of Truancy in the days before the fire, and so, yes, they were among those who were drugged. I'm fairly sure all the stories in FU13 happen before this, since they end with L perhaps spotting Ellington, clearly before their next actual meeting. One thing I was expecting was a mention of a distillery. Almost certainly. Weeks, at least, have passed; many trains must have left in that time. Don't we already know that? The IS was originally formed to protest against the statue (because it glorified war and threatened moths). Ah yes of course, I was too busy reading the books recently looking for locations for my map for the competition than the actual plot.
The distillery got me too; Moxie says that Snicket has met the Williams who work there; well we sure haven't! Do they distil laudanum perchance? The famous Stain'd-by-the-Sea poppy fields? (I jest)
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Post by spookyghost on Oct 1, 2014 19:05:56 GMT -5
New to the forum, but a long time Snicket reader (haven't missed a new book on release day since 6th grade, and i'm a 2L in law school now!), and freshly finished with ?3. Just like the first two ATWQ books, after a single pass I always feel a little bit disoriented. I'm speeding though the first time, but the prose just doesn't go down as smoothly as ASoUE did. It makes the reread (and the reread after that) more rewarding to take it really slow and digest each sentence, but something about the narrative voice causes me to stumble and miss details a lot. Specifics below in the spoiler tag: Mostly, I'm a little confused about the library plan. Obviously some suspension of disbelief needs to occur in Snicket books (breaking out of the jail in the Vile Village still comes to mind of a tough one to swallow), but something about the scale of transporting, literally, an entire library in a wagon, feels like "too much". We never see the wagon in a drawing, but it's small and light enough for some teenagers to throw it over a wall, and to not be destroyed under its own weight on impact. Plus the amount of time it would take to empty out and restock a library two separate times all seemingly occurs in a single night.
Just how much time is passing at various parts of the story felt unclear to me too. Specifically, the time between everyone is taken to Ward to the time Snicket actually arrives at the school seems to be less than a day, yet the characters' reactions all felt (at least to me) like it had been longer than that.
Against, maybe I just wasn't reading closely enough and some of this will clear up once I revisit the book in a few days. If anyone has any thoughts in the meantime, I'd like to hear!
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Post by Dante on Oct 2, 2014 3:01:22 GMT -5
I was surprised we didn't have any mention of Margurite Gracq, Jackie and Oliver Sobel in SYBIS. I'm guessing the laudanum got to them. I am trying to place where canonically those stories in FU:13SI take place in the ATWQ native. I don't expect anything exclusive to File Under to reappear unless it's recontextualised (like "No way, Fay Wray," which I believe originates in that volume). So I was never really expecting the likes of Marguerite, Jackie and Oliver to show up, but I think when Snicket mentions in Chapter One that he recognised some of the schoolchildren, then that is a nod to such characters. I guess so, or else that jail cell is going to get a bit crowded. Sure was convenient for ?a, though. Can you remind me what those were? I remember that the Black Cat's attic held blank books (now used) and gears used in botanical extraction (which are a bit more ambiguous). One thing I was expecting was a mention of a distillery. Me too, but I suppose that's another off-screen story. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit more to it than that. The distillery got me too; Moxie says that Snicket has met the Williams who work there; well we sure haven't! Do they distil laudanum perchance? The famous Stain'd-by-the-Sea poppy fields? (I jest) Well, clearly Hangfire is getting a lot of laudanum from somewhere. The Swinster Pharmacy, perchance? Mostly, I'm a little confused about the library plan. Obviously some suspension of disbelief needs to occur in Snicket books (breaking out of the jail in the Vile Village still comes to mind of a tough one to swallow), but something about the scale of transporting, literally, an entire library in a wagon, feels like "too much". We never see the wagon in a drawing, but it's small and light enough for some teenagers to throw it over a wall, and to not be destroyed under its own weight on impact. Plus the amount of time it would take to empty out and restock a library two separate times all seemingly occurs in a single night. This one I think we'll have to put down to suspension of disbelief, but maybe both libraries are a bit smaller than we're imagining - which is more than conceivable, I'd say. Snicket's associates are kidnapped after breakfast. Snicket heads over to the Wade Academy after lunch, waits until nightfall, and gets whopped over the head and falls unconscious until farther into the night. I would agree, therefore, that the associates have spent less than a day in Wade at this point, but it would've been a fairly long day and they're fairly resourceful children.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 2, 2014 7:38:03 GMT -5
Mostly, I'm a little confused about the library plan. Obviously some suspension of disbelief needs to occur in Snicket books (breaking out of the jail in the Vile Village still comes to mind of a tough one to swallow), but something about the scale of transporting, literally, an entire library in a wagon, feels like "too much". We never see the wagon in a drawing, but it's small and light enough for some teenagers to throw it over a wall, and to not be destroyed under its own weight on impact. Plus the amount of time it would take to empty out and restock a library two separate times all seemingly occurs in a single night. I agree with all this. And it's loaded onto the wagon while the children are waiting for the bus. While, as Dante says, we don't know the exact size of the library, it is in both cases enough to furnish a room which can hold a considerable number of people. I agree; and I think there are in a couple of places references to things happening regularly which imply a longer time. The set-up at Wade Academy may have been in place for a while before the children from Stain'd Secondary were brought there; Stew and Ellington are there voluntarily, and the Dept of Truancy has been rounding up working children for some days. But that wouldn't account for Moxie and co. seeming so well established.
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