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Post by Esmé's meme is meh on Jun 15, 2015 10:48:22 GMT -5
Okay, so we all know he's the Baudelaires father, and we all know (I guess) he was Theodora's previous apprentice. But... how decent was he in real life?
Considering who is Theodora and how she acts/thinks, it worries me when in ?3 says:
"[...] Bertrand, her previous apprentice. He was a saint. He never gave her any trouble whatsoever. He was a decent person who never gave anyone reason to lose any sleep. He'd end up married to a wonderful woman and have very charming children, while I languished alone and lonely."
I'm worried about Bertrand's decency/intelligence/moral values. If he is described like that, what can we think of him as an adult or as a volunteer?
Reading this and seeing how things ended up for Lemony and the Baudelaires I can't avoid relating them with Harry Potter and Snape/James/Lily love triangle. In HP we finally know James Potter wasn't so nice when he was young, actually he was a jerk. What if something simmilar happens here? What do you think?
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Post by Hermes on Jun 15, 2015 11:14:51 GMT -5
I don't think we should necessarily believe what Theodora says. There are two possibilities that may account for what she is saying:
a. She has a rose-tinted view of the past, and now she no longer has to cope with Bertrand suddenly realises how great he was. b. She deliberately praises her last apprentice, to annoy her current one, and will be praising Lemony to her next apprentice, if she has one.
I don't think the Snape analogy will be pressed further than it has already gone - Lemony's attitude is clearly very different from Snape's to James.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Jun 15, 2015 13:05:22 GMT -5
I don't think the Snape analogy will be pressed further than it has already gone - Lemony's attitude is clearly very different from Snape's to James. I don't believe there is any Snape analogy at all - ASOUE ended before HP did, so it's probably a coincidence that the two series use similar elements.
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Post by Dante on Jun 15, 2015 14:07:07 GMT -5
Let us not forget that TBL bade us ask the question "Are you certain your co-star is one of us?", and there's always been some question as to who that co-star was that Beatrice must have spent so much time with. Still, most likely Bertrand was like all of the other characters in the Averse - not perfect. Like Lemony, like Beatrice, like the Baudelaire children.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Jun 16, 2015 11:06:05 GMT -5
Let us not forget that TBL bade us ask the question "Are you certain your co-star is one of us?", and there's always been some question as to who that co-star was that Beatrice must have spent so much time with. Still, most likely Bertrand was like all of the other characters in the Averse - not perfect. Like Lemony, like Beatrice, like the Baudelaire children. I always figured that the co-star was Olaf, knowing that he's an actor, and that Snicket has attended and reviewed at least one of his performances while he was working at The Daily Punctilio. I take it as a kind of confirmation that Beatrice the elder wasn't aware of just how dangerous Olaf was, explaining why the Baudelaire parents' will wasn't explicitly designed to protect their children from him (and in fact ended up sending them directly into his clutches). I've often wondered about the relationship between Lemony and Bertrand, though, and I would really like WITNDFAON (is that really the acronym? I don't think I've used it before - ?4, anyway) to give at least some more hints about that. In ASOUE, Snicket clearly respects both Baudelaire parents equally (even if he's only in love with one of them), which is an interesting narrativistic decision of Handler's - the more typical choice would be to let him have some lingering jealousy, I would think.
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Post by gliquey on Jun 16, 2015 13:22:36 GMT -5
I think Theodora's positive impression of Bertrand makes me feel much more skeptical of him, given her incredibly poor judgement. But he seemed to be a good father, based on the Baudelaire's recollections of him and I think he's probably one of the most clearly good characters in ASOUE. That doesn't stop there being any conflict between him and Lemony though: it seemed to me like Lemony was (understandably) bitter when he narrated that passage in ?3. Maybe he's bitter because he can't find fault with Bertrand and understands why Beatrice chose Bertrand over him, which would be hard to accept.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 16, 2015 15:10:27 GMT -5
I think it's unlikely that the co-star is O, because Lemony actually mentions O and the co-star separately among people whom Beatrice might marry. Also, he asks rather carefully 'Are you certain your co-star is one of us?' while at the same time treating it as obvious that O is a villain. If the co-star is not Bertrand, a possibility is that he may be Mr Poe, sine we know that he (or at least someone of the same name) once had a stage name.
It strikes me that Theodora's praise of Bertrand might quite reasonably make L suspicious of him, and so give rise to this question, even if in the end his suspicions are unjustified.
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Post by Esmé's meme is meh on Jun 16, 2015 17:38:52 GMT -5
Snicket has always been someone with low self-esteem, that explains why he praises Bertrand and thinks he's a better husband for Beatrice than himself. Even when we know what the Baudelaires thought of their father, that doesn't mean he was so perfect, more like the opposite. We still don't know what happened with the poisoned darts, for instance. I don't think Bertrand was a villain or something like that, but I'm curious about his value as a volunteer and his aptitudes, since I always thought of him and Beatrice way too idealistically. An imperfect Bertrand would fit in the average adult profile we usually see in the books.
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Post by counto on Aug 14, 2020 1:18:41 GMT -5
It also may be possible that Theodora might have had a crush on him, but Bertrand might have not felt the same for her.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Aug 14, 2020 1:59:15 GMT -5
I am now in favor of philosophy that the simplest explanation is usually the true one. (Enjoy this time, because it can change). Bertrand should have been a young man who was the opposite of Lemony exactly as Theodora explains. But the opposite of Lemony means that he didn't have Lemony's good qualities either. Although I really want Bertrand to be a very good detective in mine in my fanfics, in the real ASOUE Bertrand must always play according to the rules. A detective who plays by the rules is bound to fail in the literature that ATWQ wants to honor. In ASOUE Bertrand is an exemplary father, who has his shortcomings, but he is an excellent father. I think Beatrice dominated the relationship because of the way Bertrand wrote in the island's book, although it is a mistake to judge a person's whole character by what he wrote while his wife was pregnant with their first child.
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Post by Dante on Aug 14, 2020 3:08:35 GMT -5
Jean Lucio, could you expand on what you mean regarding Bertrand's style when writing in the island history? Although there is one passage we know to be written by him, most of the ones we see were written by Beatrice; is that something to do with your suggestion?
Personally, one idea I haven't raised in this thread but remember suggesting elsewhere (perhaps in one of the rereads) was that Bertrand was simply better at buttering Theodora up; that is, he was simply better at managing her idiosyncrasies than Lemony, who doesn't even try.
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Post by Mr. Sharpe on Aug 14, 2020 15:33:17 GMT -5
Dante, which passage is the one written by Bertrand?
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Post by Dante on Aug 14, 2020 16:29:26 GMT -5
Pages 276-277; the other two passages given (p. 209, C14 pp. 1-2) are both attributed in-text to Beatrice in one way or another.
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Post by Mr. Sharpe on Aug 14, 2020 17:01:58 GMT -5
Thank you, I had forgotten that Bertrand has written anything in fact.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Aug 14, 2020 18:58:41 GMT -5
Pages 276-277; the other two passages given (p. 209, C14 pp. 1-2) are both attributed in-text to Beatrice in one way or another. Perhaps my impression of this text has to do with the translation into Portuguese along with cultural factors. When the member who dominates the relationship talks about teamwork, it is common to always use the word "we". That is, in the end Bertrand would say something like "in case we are banned, we hide a little ..." But the way it is written in Portuguese, it seems that he gives credit to "us" all the time until he quotes something that in fact it is a risk, providing in a report that the names of the person who did something dangerous and perhaps a little immoral for that community will remain for the next generations. This is typical of insecure people. On the other hand, when Beatrice wrote her reports she used "we" most of the time, and even when she referred to Bertrand, she preferred to use only his initial B. People who lead a relationship generally have this behavior when making reports, prioritizing the team and not wanting to overemphasize individual acts. Of course, maybe I’m just reading too much of a short excerpt. But add that to the fact that, according to Beatrice, she said that "we" decided to call the possible kid "Lemony". I have a great deal of certainty that it came exclusively from her, and that Bertrand simply accepted it. Then she wrote "we" in a way that looked like it had been a joint decision. This is also possible typical of people who have mastered the relationship. It is a way for people who do this to try to hide that they are doing it.
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