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Post by Grace on Aug 24, 2018 17:59:36 GMT -5
Apologies if this has been posted already, but I was rereading Who Could That Be At This Hour? and Ellington refers to Theodora as "the woman with the hair." Chapter 12, toward the beginning. p. 229/278 on the Kindle (lol).
This immediately made me think of the woman with hair but no beard, cause of the phrasing. I know a lot of people have wondered whether Theodora was actually sinisterly unhelpful or unhelpful in a more typical, Uncle Monty type way, and I definitely always thought it was the latter, still do. But why would Handler use that same phrasing since he's so big on (repetitive) phrasing? Could it be an accident?
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Aug 24, 2018 18:05:25 GMT -5
Don't mind that fleshy crackling sound, that would be my eye sockets beginnign to crack as my eyes get ever more comically wide.
Good lord. If you're right this is a big discovery.
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Post by Dante on Aug 25, 2018 3:30:53 GMT -5
It's been suggested before, and there's really nothing to connect the two, not in terms of background and especially not in terms of personality; Theodora is obviously unhelpful by reason of incompetence, and this is demonstrated again and again. The woman with hair but no beard didn't even have excessive amounts of hair, she was just named as such in comic inversion of the man with a beard but no hair. It's an obvious dead end.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Aug 25, 2018 5:03:31 GMT -5
Theodora is obviously unhelpful by reason of incompetence, and this is demonstrated again and again. Count Olaf's go-to M.O. is disguises to make himself appear innocuous. If the Sinister Duo are "him, but older, more evil and more competent", it would make sense that the Woman with Hair but no Beard would hide behind an act of incompetence that oh-so-conveniently excuses any time it might indeed appear like she was unhelpful to V.F.D. And if she's overheard muttering about grand world-sweeping plans… well, that's just Theodora being Theodora, hm? ( The S stands for Sinister.)
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Post by Dante on Aug 25, 2018 6:39:02 GMT -5
I'm not going to take your counterargument seriously. If you honestly believe that these two characters have the potential to be the same individual, despite behaving completely differently in every single one of their appearances and having as their only common characteristic that they are both women who possess hair, it's difficult to see what wild theory your credulity would not permit. Perhaps the bald man is actually the man with a beard but no hair. After all, they're both bald, though Snicket is suspiciously evasive about describing the man with a beard but no hair as such; and the man with a beard but no hair only enters the narrative after, and immediately after, the bald man exits. Coincidence? Some might contend that the bald man was eaten by lions in front of a crowd of witnesses, but of course that's just what he wants you to think...
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Post by Grace on Aug 25, 2018 6:45:26 GMT -5
Eh, I like it. I'm going with it.
edit: I was also, specifically, talking about the phrasing in that chapter and, because Handler is so particular with his phrasing, whether or not it was a coincidence (i.e., mistake on his part) that he uses that phrasing there or he wanted the connection to be made. He knows we analyze the sh!t out of his books, someone was going to notice.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Aug 25, 2018 12:20:10 GMT -5
I'm not going to take your counterargument seriously. If you honestly believe that these two characters have the potential to be the same individual, despite behaving completely differently in every single one of their appearances and having as their only common characteristic that they are both women who possess hair, it's difficult to see what wild theory your credulity would not permit. Perhaps the bald man is actually the man with a beard but no hair. After all, they're both bald, though Snicket is suspiciously evasive about describing the man with a beard but no hair as such; and the man with a beard but no hair only enters the narrative after, and immediately after, the bald man exits. Coincidence? Some might contend that the bald man was eaten by lions in front of a crowd of witnesses, but of course that's just what he wants you to think... I'm not saying I particularly believe the connection (I just think it's a fun idea for an alternate look at the series, kind of like "Mr Poe is a straight-up villain" or "the Island is on Lake Lachrymose"), but, unlike the Bald Man/MWBBNH connection, the theory outlined above makes it possible without going directly against anything Snicket has said.
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Post by Agathological on Aug 25, 2018 17:21:06 GMT -5
Lemony is scared of the Woman with Hair but no Beard and never mentions her name of that reason. He mentions Theodora's with ease; I don't believe that they are the same.
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Post by Hermes on Aug 26, 2018 10:23:29 GMT -5
I agree that the phrasing is reminiscent and likely to be deliberate, but it could be a red herring. It leads us to think that Theodora might be a villain, but she remains innocent and incompetent to the end.
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Post by Grace on Aug 27, 2018 8:50:43 GMT -5
Lemony is scared of the Woman with Hair but no Beard and never mentions her name of that reason. He mentions Theodora's with ease; I don't believe that they are the same. This is a fair point. Although of course the presumption is that much has changed in the span of time between ATWQ and ASOUE, as much as could possibly change. You're probably right... I will always be baffled by Handler's choice for Theodora's hair, though.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Sept 3, 2018 13:36:14 GMT -5
I will always be baffled by Handler's choice for Theodora's hair, though. In what sense?
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 7, 2019 19:22:09 GMT -5
My calculations now indicate that the sinister duo participated in the Great Schism that happened when Lemony was a baby or a small child. Thus, at the time of ATWQ, the woman with hair but without beard would have already separated of VFD.
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Post by Foxy on Jun 7, 2019 19:43:05 GMT -5
That's a good point, Jean Lucio. STM could have been the woman in the gift caravan. Maybe the figurine she was rescuing was the bombinating beast statue.
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Post by counto on Aug 15, 2020 22:04:54 GMT -5
Nobody knows for sure who the Sinister Duo's real identities are, but we do know that they responsible for starting the schism and training Olaf to start fires. At some point they mentioned the two had an infant servant in the Slippery Slope, it's likely they killed the child.
Olaf doesn't seem evil enough to want to kill a child, except when he orders someone to do it. While the Duo have no problem killing a baby.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Aug 15, 2020 23:30:40 GMT -5
So in TBB the threats were not real?
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