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Post by Agathological on Oct 3, 2014 12:39:51 GMT -5
?4: Where is my chaperone?
Called it.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 3, 2014 13:51:33 GMT -5
One thing that puzzles me, though, is that if Stain'd Secondary is the only school in town, what do they do about primary school? Closed down due to insufficient primary-aged children. They've all grown up into secondary-aged children and not been replaced. ...Such is my theory. Possibly Stain'd Secondary was originally a joint primary and secondary school, too. Would not the narrators of 29 Myths be at primary school?
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Post by Dante on Oct 3, 2014 14:05:19 GMT -5
Ah, but they're from the next town over and/or in the past.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 3, 2014 15:17:49 GMT -5
Well, they say they're from the next town, so I suppose we'd better accept that, even though the illustrations contradict it. I don't think it's likely they're from the past: they refer to all the arson happening in town, which suggests they're around during SYBIS. Another possibility is that they came through a portal from another world.
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Post by bandit on Oct 3, 2014 17:45:22 GMT -5
Another possibility is that they came through a portal from another world. I think I smell a new fan fiction.
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Post by Ennui on Oct 4, 2014 6:28:21 GMT -5
OK. Here is my seasonal return&review. I promise not to promise a second instalment - which may make one fractionally more likely! I should also note I've only just discovered the existence of the 13 cases thing, haven't been able to get hold of it, and hope/ trust it isn't totes integral. (Would readers say it was on the Unauthorised Autobiog level of importance? Or more like Beatrice Letters? Or more sketchy yet?) I will write general stuff that doesn't require spoilering first. In the grand scheme of things, I still don't think Questions quite matches up to Events for me, and I think I can identify two reasons why. One, which I'm fairly sure I've brought up before, is the restricted nature of its scene. I loved the free-range, distorted, allusive world through which the Baudelaires, and their biographer, staggered. By comparison Stain'd is a bit of a bore for me - like being stuck in, I don't know, Paltryville for several books. I think this is definitely my taste, rather than the author's fault. It's clearly an intended limitation. There's a reason why LS keeps tantalising us with his sister's 'countertheme' and the only train to the wider orbit of the city we knew fairly well in the previous series. The second I've only recently realised. Lemony may be aiming at slightly older readers (with for me somewhat cringemaking, coy results - double entendrorama on oh blast I already need spoiler tags the hayride - but he is himself writing from a much younger point of view. I loved the wearied, distressed, morally compromised, rakish, cowardly or at least self-deprecating, adult narrator of the first series. By contrast his younger, more competent and earnest, less experienced, less forgiving self, taking on an older generation, only trusting fellow children, railing against the universal ineptitude of adults in the best Roald Dahl tradition, is to me a less complex and sympathetic protagonist. More like, say, Tintin.(Even his literary tips are notably less aggressively highbrow - and so actually rather harder to get!) Of course he still has his moments, though, and they are many. Since it's already been brought up outside spoilers, I thought I'd first linger a bit on the amazing Forster speech (VFD as an aristocracy). Naughty Lemony - I knew I'd read it somewhere but because he said 'Edward' Forster didn't lightbulb to me (EMF was always known as Morgan) until dr orwell enlightened us. I vaguely feel this trick - a sort of allusive 'hiding in plain sight' - is one that LS has used before? It's an interesting moment, though, all the more so in the context of its originator. OK, tags time again actually - Note that young Lemony deploys the speech in a less than wholeheartedly sincere spirit. He uses it, as presumably 'Edward' did, to inspire and beguile his associates. But in his heart of hearts he knows it is cant and propaganda. Is VFD, then, already less united and idealistic than is the impression he gives? Yes, probably. In what is probably some form of code nearly all the VFD adults in The End said the schism occurred when they were 'about nine years old.' Personally I still wonder if that means, like, the beginning of time (so long before 'Edward' and other famous, long-time past associates). But what is to me very unlikely, indeed all but impossible, is that Questions is set in a pure VFD heyday where the organisation makes a united front against exterior enemies like the Inhumane Society. (Incidentally, aren't that Society's initials chilling nowadays?) I do though accept that the said Society seems at present to be entirely outside, rather than a splinter group of, VFD. Note, also, the context in which Forster wrote this stirring credo. It's here, slightly abridged - www.skeptic.ca/EM_Forster_What_I_Believe.htm - and it was published in 1938. One terrible, bloody ideological schism, the Spanish Civil War, had just come to a close. An even worse one was about to begin. Forster was dismayed by the hardening of many of his friends into political divisions and totalitarian convictions. He wanted to express a noble appeal to a higher, more, er, humane sentiment. And so this is the essay that contains the famous lines: I hate the idea of dying for a cause, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalise the ... reader... It wouldn’t have shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circles of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome. Probably one won’t be asked to make such an agonizing choice. Still there lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer, and there is even a terror and hardness in this creed of personal relationships, urbane and mild though it sounds. Love and loyalty to an individual can run counter to the claims of the state. When they do — down with the state, say I, which means that the state will down me.Now this means many things (one of the most important relating to necessarily elitist, clandestine romantic friendship of a classic Brit, Cambridge variety). But it is, though stirring, easily perverted. If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. - this was exactly the doctrine cited by the Cambridge Spies, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and Someone Else who was never proven. They protected each other, their dear friends, they spied for the Soviets, and sent many strangers outside their aristocracy of the sensitive and the plucky to their deaths (Philby and Burgess, especially, definitely have blood on their hands, Philby gallons of it). This may have been a long diversion (longer than I intended!) but I think it is entirely relevant (especially as the next vol is about murder, right?). Lemony quotes a powerful but extremely corruptible piece of rhetoric, and deceives his new friends about the true complexity of their struggle. He doesn't himself believe in this aristocracy when it comes to it - or he'd have taken Theodora's advice and got out of Stain'd, rather than recruiting an entire new ad hoc VFD branch for the good of the town. The greater good, and so on. Ordinary, flawed, incompetent adults like Prosper Lost and Hungry Hix, who look nicer when they're worrying about people they love. ...clearly this book contains a lot of food for thought, perhaps more than the previous volumes! A few quicker points after that spiel in case I lack the appetite to come back with 'em later... - yes, delighted about the red meat on VFD we have, at long last, been thrown - Who else attended Wade Academy? R, Duchess of Winnipeg? The King of Arizona? Who is Q? Have we heard of any earls? - I thought the incompetent laudanum possibly VFD-schism pair, Gifford and Guedon or something, were not the police officers but the man and woman grinning behind them. Is this made clear either way? - Still totally on board with Hangstrong Feint. His surname, his continuing power over his daughter, his phonograph, his naturalist's affinity for birds... - are some cigarettes we saw in the prior series actually bark? Funny LS's spin on the film noir coffee and cigarettes trope. Course, hate to say it but real ones are stimulants too! I reckon they were all actually smoking heavily while underage but it was censored to protect the kiddies - ? !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by Ennui on Oct 4, 2014 6:37:04 GMT -5
OH! another important question - who on earth is the evaluator from VFD now we know it's not Prosper?
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Post by thedoctororwell on Oct 4, 2014 9:47:50 GMT -5
Ennui : The VFD coordinator who was supposed to evaluate Theodora's and Lemony's progress is probably Qwerty. He said "The World is Quiet Here" as a code in WDYSHL, and his very crucial position made him a target for Hangfire. He needed to identify and dispose of any undercover VFD in town for his plan to succeed. In her haste to suck up to her supervisor, Theodora unwittingly managed to frame him for arson. Just before he was arrested, he entrusted the book Hangfire wanted to destroy to Lemony so he could take on his job.
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Post by Ennui on Oct 4, 2014 10:00:27 GMT -5
Naturally! Spot on, thank you.
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Post by Dante on Oct 4, 2014 11:43:29 GMT -5
Hello, Ennui; nice to see you passing through again, and continuing to read Snicket. I won't take issue with your quibbles about ATWQ, as I think you're correct when you say they're subjective, and just as correct when you say the series can't help it. It's a very different animal. I think one of the advantages of the persistent location and cast may be seen in the next book, which is indeed forecast to be about murder (both implicitly by Handler, and by common sense). Here we all are, on tenterhooks about which beloved character's going to get offed among those we've had quite a lot of time to get used to, become friendly with, understand - it's an experience that couldn't really be replicated in ASoUE, where nobody ever hung around that long and any particularly important characters were likely to vanish and never be seen again after just a single tome (Quigley, Fiona). I really like the idea of just a single murder being a big deal, years after we read ASoUE in which Olaf murdered so many people. I'm looking forward to that a lot. I should also note I've only just discovered the existence of the 13 cases thing, haven't been able to get hold of it, and hope/ trust it isn't totes integral. (Would readers say it was on the Unauthorised Autobiog level of importance? Or more like Beatrice Letters? Or more sketchy yet?) Less than either. It's more of a "for fun" sort of thing, for people who like Stain'd and want to see a little bit more of its characters, a few short silly mysteries that don't have anything to do with Hangfire's schemes. Which is how Egmont have gotten away with not pubhlishing it yet - it's America-only for now, though Egmont have said they do intend to bring it over... I enjoyed that arguably the closest thing to a real romantic moment in the series, seemingly unambiguous, a gift to the shippers, was immediately pulled out from underneath our feet. Ellington blushes and slips her hand into his, and - nope! Beautiful. Quoting long passages of someone else's work and only quietly admitting that it is stolen? Vaguely feels familiar, but I can't remember any specific instances... I feel that perhaps it's probably just the cumulative effect of Lemony's allusions often delving quite a lot deeper than anyone else would dare to go. Well, in the same speech, Lemony admits that V.F.D.'s arguments and schisms might destroy it, and doesn't seem too worried - and a good thing too, considering that we all know that's exactly what's going to happen. So this is not a pure V.F.D. heyday, and it's tacitly admitted, I think, that something like the schism or approaching it has already occurred, though there's also reason to suspect that Lemony and Kit's plan might also have resulted in something similar, or may yet do so. I have a feeling that the schism may have broken out in force by the end of the series, making any V.F.D. recommendations Snicket might wish to make from Stain'd too dangerous to contemplate. With that said, we do know that Hangfire specifically hates V.F.D., so there's clearly some history there - maybe a splinter group is still possible? I doubt it, personally, but I think it's more possible now than it was. I don't really have much to add to this context, but I will remark that it is fascinating and I hope that some of your anticipations prove correct. I'll put a bit in spoiler tags, though: Lemony may not be willing to go riding to V.F.D.'s rescue because - well, he and Kit we know disagree with how their elders do things. He's always given every impression of agreeing with V.F.D.'s principles but not necessarily its practice. So maybe there's a suggestion that he feels V.F.D. is a lost cause, but Stain'd-by-the-Sea isn't? Or isn't yet? -Q is Quisling... in my dreams. -Regarding Gifford and Ghede as police, Lemony indicates that they're supposed to be the only two people in the picture with Kit, which rather suggests they're the two most prominent other figures from the last illustration. I feel likewise that it can't be a coincidence that said police officers in the illustration are one male and one female. You're only getting around this one if you can argue that Seth's misinterpreted the plot, I suspect - but Handler seems to be placing a lot of trust in his presentation of the Kit subplot. There's a lot we get from Seth's illustrations of it that isn't in the text at all. -I'm kinda surprised Hangfire wasn't outed this book as I felt ?2 made it fairly obvious who he was, with all the connections between Ellington's memories of her father and what we see in Hangfire's tower room. This time around we only get one hint, but it's much bigger. I've always suspected that Hangfire is Armstrong Feint, and at this point I have to say I'd feel it was a bit of a cop-out if he wasn't. I wonder if Ellington already knows this? Given that she's been toting around for months a possession of her father's which just happens to have "Hangfire" written on the side... OH! another important question - who on earth is the evaluator from VFD now we know it's not Prosper? I'm genuinely surprised that you credited the possibility of it being Prosper, incompetent eavesdropper extraordinaire; that would only have ever worked, I think, as a double bluff of the "Mr. Poe is secretly evil and working with Count Olaf" kind, where the least intelligent character magically is revealed to be the most brilliant actor. Meanwhile we have a cool librarian who spends every book giving Lemony whacking great hints about the plot. I'm actually a little bit surprised that the observer wasn't outed this book either, actually.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 4, 2014 12:30:49 GMT -5
I think I smell a new fan fiction. Don't tempt me. Though I have actually made this suggestion, the Swinster Pharmacy is a portal between worlds, before. Whether it will actually be useful for fanfic depends on whether Stain'd is still standing at the end of the series.
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Post by Dante on Oct 4, 2014 14:34:11 GMT -5
Oh yeah, that reminds me. Tangentially. Has anyone else guessed what the unheard words were that Josephine spoke to Lemony as her helicopter took off?
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Post by Agathological on Oct 4, 2014 17:44:26 GMT -5
Oh yeah, that reminds me. Tangentially. Has anyone else guessed what the unheard words were that Josephine spoke to Lemony as her helicopter took off? "Ike sends his regards?" "Gregor is going with the volatile fungal deportation?" "I before E except after C?" "In about 30 years time I'm going to adopt the children that the woman you love will bore with another man and they will mention Count Olaf and for some inexplicable reason I will forget about him and the eye tattoo he has that we also share?"
In other words, who knows.
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Post by Dante on Oct 5, 2014 7:21:21 GMT -5
Oh yeah, that reminds me. Tangentially. Has anyone else guessed what the unheard words were that Josephine spoke to Lemony as her helicopter took off? "Ike sends his regards?" "Gregor is going with the volatile fungal deportation?" "I before E except after C?" "In about 30 years time I'm going to adopt the children that the woman you love will bore with another man and they will mention Count Olaf and for some inexplicable reason I will forget about him and the eye tattoo he has that we also share?"
In other words, who knows. Well, I was more thinking that, given that the previous line is: "I've been a little lonely all my life," I said. "I see no reason why it should stop at age thirteen." That a more likely candidate was: "Happy Birthday."
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Post by gliquey on Oct 5, 2014 13:41:18 GMT -5
I did notice Snicket emphasising his age of "nearly thirteen" quite a lot in ?3, but I failed to piece together that Josephine may have said "happy birthday". I guess I had saved the event for ?4 - it would be nice if he almost forgot about it and remembered it in the middle of a crisis, like Klaus in TVV or Violet in TGG. I thought early on in the book Handler had forgotten that Snicket wasn't actually 13 yet - there's a phrase somewhere in the book that makes it sound like Snicket already is thirteen years of age (I'll stumble across it when re-reading the book). The first page of ?3, of course, describes Lemony as "almost thirteen", but that's a copy-and-paste from the intros of ?1 and ?2. Anyway, I enjoyed the book even if it was harder to read than ASOUE. This was the first book where I was well-poised for anticipating the plot twists, having properly re-read the previous books and making sure to take it slowly and make sure every word sunk in. I predicated Hangfire was the guy who asked for "fire" straight away, but was trailing behind Snicket's deductions in Chapter Twelve - I still trust Ellington far too much. Am I missing something, or are the honeydew melons going to be used for something other than the fruit basket to the Mitchums? Feeding the pond creature and/or tadpoles? I found it interesting how both laudanum and the melons have been used as plot points multiple times, almost like a recurring joke. I laughed at the floors of the school being mopped with laudanum.
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