dmt
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 1
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Post by dmt on Aug 25, 2015 16:48:57 GMT -5
In rereading Book 1 Chapter 1 noticed I had missed things on my first read:
1. The narrator isn't reliable, or I'm still missing something. Support: Violet is said to be right handed, but this is twice contradicted by the fact she is going to throw a stone as far as she can with her left hand. Even as Mr. Poe is some distance away and she would want accuracy to hit him, she still has the stone in her left hand. Handedness is a critical detail to the first book. The narrator in Book 9 even makes the point of having an ambidextrous character. I think this helps us rule out that Violet was simply better at throwing with her left hand, as that would be cross-dominance, and the narrator takes pride in preciseness of language.
2. Mr. Poe is characterized ominously. We do not know how he knew all the information he did so quickly about the fire (it was morning). We also don't know how he was able to find them, despite the fog/mist which obscured him to the children. "Violet felt like Mr. Poe was the executioner." Also, perhaps the 'cold' bit is imagined and the cough is related to regular exposure to smoke?
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zakeno
Catastrophic Captain
"yikes"
Posts: 87
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Post by zakeno on Aug 25, 2015 19:44:29 GMT -5
I could be wrong, of course, but I think perhaps this is reading too far into things. I like to throw stones with my left hand even though I'm right handed, partially because I try to keep my left hand coordinated enough that if I hurt my right hand I can still finish up projects if necessary with my left, even though it isn't dominant. But you could be right, it could also just be foreshadowing to make it believable that she would be able to try to sign a document with her left hand, which she wouldn't be able to do if she weren't at least somewhat coordinated with her left hand. As an inventor, I think maybe she'd try to do the same thing and keep it trained to be functional.
And personally I think Mr. Poe is characterized ominously solely because he is the messenger of death. Hearing about the death of a loved one is enough to sully any character, no matter how bumbling they may truly be.
But interesting speculation nonetheless, and for all I know you may be on to something!
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Post by Dante on Aug 26, 2015 3:02:05 GMT -5
1. The narrator isn't reliable, or I'm still missing something. Support: Violet is said to be right handed, but this is twice contradicted by the fact she is going to throw a stone as far as she can with her left hand. Even as Mr. Poe is some distance away and she would want accuracy to hit him, she still has the stone in her left hand. Handedness is a critical detail to the first book. The narrator in Book 9 even makes the point of having an ambidextrous character. I think this helps us rule out that Violet was simply better at throwing with her left hand, as that would be cross-dominance, and the narrator takes pride in preciseness of language. You're right to be paying attention to the relative strength of Violet's hands, but I also think you're reading a bit too far into this. It is true that the narrative takes some pains in numerous chapters - Chapters Ten and Eleven also - to draw attention to the fact that Violet is right-handed, but this is to foreshadow her solution to Olaf's marriage plot, in which she deliberately signs with the wrong hand - and that wasn't accidental, that was planned. As far as I can see, Chapter One only mentions once that she had a stone in her left hand that she had been about to throw, but that doesn't signify anything about which of her hands is dominant; she might have been about to compare the strength and skill of each of her hands in throwing, or she might simply have been about to transfer the stone to her right hand. Actually, rereading the chapter, I strongly suspect the stone is in her left hand because she subsequently shakes Mr. Poe's hand, but doesn't drop the stone until the end of the chapter. I imagine that the author wanted her to drop the stone at the chapter's conclusion but also wanted her to shake Mr. Poe's hand. It might also be that the fact that the stone was in her left hand was to foreshadow the fact that it would not have been a good idea to throw it. The Baudelaires spend a lot of time with Mr. Poe and never once detect the scent of smoke upon him - and they would be very sensitive to this. I think zakeno is quite right; Mr. Poe is presented ominously here not because he is a villainous person but because of the evil news he brings. Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Aug 26, 2015 3:23:36 GMT -5
Hi Dmt! Welcome to the forums! =) 1. The narrator isn't reliable, or I'm still missing something. Support: Violet is said to be right handed, but this is twice contradicted by the fact she is going to throw a stone as far as she can with her left hand. Even as Mr. Poe is some distance away and she would want accuracy to hit him, she still has the stone in her left hand. Handedness is a critical detail to the first book. The narrator in Book 9 even makes the point of having an ambidextrous character. I think this helps us rule out that Violet was simply better at throwing with her left hand, as that would be cross-dominance, and the narrator takes pride in preciseness of language.
Lemony's reliability as a narrator is something which can be debated nearly endlessly. I think Zakeno's explanation of Violet training her left hand is plausible, and even if that's not the case, I take the 'as far as she can' to mean 'as far as she can with her left hand' - i.e., that she would've been able to throw it further with her right hand. Lemony's preciseness of language is also highly debatable - I take it as a running gag, perhaps not an intentional one, that Lemony presents his own language in a very precise manner, often taking a passage to describe the nuances of various words and phrases, but his definitions are just as often lacking in nuance themselves, or sometimes even flat-out wrong. That Mr. Poe is presented ominously is true. I personally don't think it's true that he was involved in the fire (though there are indeed clues pointing to Poe being in league with the villains, although in my opinion not enough to seem intentional from Handler's side), but rather to underline his role as the person who sets the Baudelaires adrift on their series of unfortunate events. I interpret the ominousness as not tied to Mr. Poe, but to the entire story that happens to begin with his appearance.
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Post by gliquey on Aug 26, 2015 5:58:07 GMT -5
I am left-handed, but there are certain tasks I'm better at with my right hand. I'm more comfortable playing melodies on the keyboard/piano with my right hand; I'm more comfortable using a mouse with my right hand; I use right-handed equipment for some sports (although I'm rubbish at all sports whichever hand I'm using). Even if Violet has been throwing stones with her left hand, I don't think it contradicts anything explicitly, and I think the solution is not that Snicket is unreliable (I'm sure he is, but that's due to other reasons). As for the issue of how Mr. Poe knew where the Baudelaires were, well that's been discussed on this forum quite recently in this thread. There are several plausible explanations.
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Post by colette on Jun 30, 2018 17:50:51 GMT -5
I always thought that Violet is right-handed but she can use her left hand too just worse than the right hand, unlike me who can do nothing with my left hand.
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