Post by lorelai on Jan 1, 2016 16:36:30 GMT -5
This question has cropped up on tumblr recently, and I was curious what the 667 consensus would be.
We know Bertrand and Beatrice were part of V.F.D., but their children never recall seeing their tattoos. We know Lemony, Kit, Jacques, Olaf, and Ishmael have them, and we can presume others do (Josie, Monty, Widdershins, Hector, Olivia), despite never seeing or being told about their feet. Though we know from TUA that the tattoo's no longer a requirement, that comment is addressed to us readers (it's in chapter twelve, page 189, question 3), and we know Baeatrice and Bertrand were in Lemony's year/training group/what-have-you--Bertrand possibly being a bit older than Lemony because he was Theodora's former apprentice--so we can't say they missed the tattooing days.
The popular reasons for why/how the Baudelaires never saw these markings are:
1. Bea and B used a combo of socks, tights/leggings, and makeup to hide them. With Beatrice being an actress and the mentions of socks in the first five books, this seems likely (the sock passages boil down to it being impolite to wear shoes without socks, which Olaf does from the beginning). We have the fountain memory making this shaky, but it's not like the series is riddled with comments about the Baudelaires jumping into fountains, there is watterproof makeup, and the narration only says that the Baudelaire's mother: "kicked off her shoes", and that each footstep afterwards was "awet squish" (TE, chapter five, page 116). This could suggest no socks were removed by the adults (or the kids), and even if you don't read anything into what is or isn't described, what would prompt Violet or Klaus to look at their parents' feet during or in the direct moments after the swim?
2. The couple got their tattoos removed. This would explain the nonchalance of the fountain moment, and well, explain everything .
3. Beatrice and Bertrand refused to be tattooed from the start due to religious reasons. I'm not Jewish, though given how little a character's religion is talked about in the series, and how unity-centric V.F.D. is, I find this unlikely.
Discuss.
We know Bertrand and Beatrice were part of V.F.D., but their children never recall seeing their tattoos. We know Lemony, Kit, Jacques, Olaf, and Ishmael have them, and we can presume others do (Josie, Monty, Widdershins, Hector, Olivia), despite never seeing or being told about their feet. Though we know from TUA that the tattoo's no longer a requirement, that comment is addressed to us readers (it's in chapter twelve, page 189, question 3), and we know Baeatrice and Bertrand were in Lemony's year/training group/what-have-you--Bertrand possibly being a bit older than Lemony because he was Theodora's former apprentice--so we can't say they missed the tattooing days.
The popular reasons for why/how the Baudelaires never saw these markings are:
1. Bea and B used a combo of socks, tights/leggings, and makeup to hide them. With Beatrice being an actress and the mentions of socks in the first five books, this seems likely (the sock passages boil down to it being impolite to wear shoes without socks, which Olaf does from the beginning). We have the fountain memory making this shaky, but it's not like the series is riddled with comments about the Baudelaires jumping into fountains, there is watterproof makeup, and the narration only says that the Baudelaire's mother: "kicked off her shoes", and that each footstep afterwards was "awet squish" (TE, chapter five, page 116). This could suggest no socks were removed by the adults (or the kids), and even if you don't read anything into what is or isn't described, what would prompt Violet or Klaus to look at their parents' feet during or in the direct moments after the swim?
2. The couple got their tattoos removed. This would explain the nonchalance of the fountain moment, and well, explain everything .
3. Beatrice and Bertrand refused to be tattooed from the start due to religious reasons. I'm not Jewish, though given how little a character's religion is talked about in the series, and how unity-centric V.F.D. is, I find this unlikely.
Discuss.