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Post by Foxy on Jul 13, 2019 12:52:20 GMT -5
“A few books have gone missing […] and there have been some threats.” “In any case, I’m completely reorganizing the shelves, and in a few days a sprinkler system will be installed so we don’t have to worry about fire.” (p. 108) As will subsequently be demonstrated, the missing books are the ones Lemony purloined when hiding the Bombinating Beast in the library in ?1, and which constitute a kind of loose end in not having been mentioned since Hangfire got his hands on them (?1 pp. 200, 210, 215). The sprinkler system, as was always obvious, is foreshadowing for ?3; though not quite the dramatic irony we expected. I’m curious as to exactly what the threats were, and why the Inhumane Society (who else?) thought they might be effective; but presumably they simply want to prevent access to any books which might help an investigator to understand their plans. Qwerty surely would have known the sprinkler system would ruin the books, right? And he probably couldn't predict the future and guess what was going to happen to the books, so I wonder why he wasn't worried about the books getting ruined. Speaking of those three books by the same author, was this an allusion to Harriet the Spy? Or something else? I'm afraid I really don't know too much about fiction. I LOVE this story! Snicket's mother sounds like a fierce and formidable woman. On page 122, do you think Qwerty was about to say "The world (is quiet here.")? Kind of random, but since "colonel" is pronounced "kernel," does that mean "Colophon" is pronounced "Kerphon"? "Kernal Kerphon?"
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Post by Dante on Jul 14, 2019 2:01:03 GMT -5
Qwerty surely would have known the sprinkler system would ruin the books, right? And he probably couldn't predict the future and guess what was going to happen to the books, so I wonder why he wasn't worried about the books getting ruined. This is strange to me as well. I'm not sure what to make of it, though I suppose we should probably put this question on hold until ?3. It's possible that the sprinkler twist is a retcon and not what was originally planned, but at the same time Handler does occasionally have some unusual ideas about physical interactions and so the idea could have come along at any time. There's enough information to deduce that they are the Harriet the Spy novels, yes, the publication dates of which in the 60s and 70s should give pause to anyone who claims that the chronology of the series matches up to real life. You can make a good argument for ASoUE not even having taken place yet when the first book was published in 1999. It's a strong possibility. At the very least, it's a hint for readers of ASoUE. Chapter Seven‘Diceys Department Store’ (p. 125) was first mentioned, but not named, in ?1 (p. 100); it’s not clear if the allusion to it here was meant to be written as if we should know the name already, but it establishes it ready for ?4 either way. ‘I should have taken a better look at the photograph Moxie showed me.’ (p. 127) I wonder what he missed, though it’s presumably less ‘what’ and more ‘who’. ‘Her shoes look like she stepped in something wet and dirty.’ (p. 127) An important clue, as we’ll realise later. Hangfire’s just spilling the stuff everywhere. ‘The floor was wet and dirty’ (p. 129) But not just any wet and dirty. ‘A few cracked tanks sat dirty on shelves, but most had been taken away.’ (p. 130) The uncracked ones, to the Colophon Clinic. ‘a solitary bowl […] Inside were a handful of what looked like tiny black tadpoles’ (p. 130) Yes, they’re quite small when they’ve first hatched. ‘The voice felt a bit wrong. I couldn’t exactly say how. It was a high voice, except on certain words when it was suddenly quite low. Some of the words came out almost too clearly and some were all muttery’ (pp. 132-133) Ellington has not inherited her father’s talent. “He’ll expect results. And quickly! […] And the next time he’s back here, he’ll expect you to have what you promised.” (p. 133) Hangfire would never come by. With the real Cleo at the Colophon Clinic, he must have realised who was really here. But he couldn’t tell Nurse Dander that; or if he could, he couldn’t tell Ellington that. “You are here on your honor, Cleo Knight. Do not cross us. We are not a Society that tolerates treachery. We’ve given you everything you asked for. It’s time for you to uphold your promise as well.” (p. 135) Lest we forget that the villains, too, have their rules, in this text. “I told you never to mention his name” (p. 135) It’s not clear why, since the whole point of the pseudonym is to disguise his actual name. But at the same time, Ellington is the principal character to use Hangfire’s pseudonym, as I recall it; and most other uses are picked up from her.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 14, 2019 10:43:23 GMT -5
‘The voice felt a bit wrong. I couldn’t exactly say how. It was a high voice, except on certain words when it was suddenly quite low. Some of the words came out almost too clearly and some were all muttery’ (pp. 132-133) Ellington has not inherited her father’s talent. Or maybe she's still learning her father's craft...
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Post by Dante on Jul 15, 2019 8:23:51 GMT -5
Chapter Eight‘There are people like this wherever you go. They are part of the same mystery as you are, but you can’t quite tell how you fit together. The world is a puzzle, and we cannot solve it alone.’ (p. 142) This might just as well apply to late ASoUE and TPP; where the Baudelaires were indeed alone. “I only met here a few weeks ago, at Black Cat Coffee.” (p. 143) The chronology of Ellington and Cleo’s bluff isn’t entirely clear, but from this we can divine at least that it’s been in the works for quite some time. It looks at first glance as if this meeting had already occurred by the time of ?1; but please see my note to page 150. “she’s almost perfected a new formula, with a secret ingredient she discovered herself.” (p. 144) I don’t think canon touches on the nature of this secret ingredient again (or indeed invisible ink generally), but I made something of it in The Stain’d Myth Murders. “They could even put the sea back where it belongs, all because of Cleo Knight’s formula.” (p. 144) There are a couple of readings of this line. Is the drained sea a place where the sea belongs? Or is the sea currently someplace where it doesn’t belong? This is, naturally, relevant to Killdeer Fields. It’s conceivable that one motive for Ellington to support Cleo’s work is to return her own town to normal, so she can return to her old life with her father. “Her parents had been very supportive of her experiments, but then suddenly they began acting strangely and insisted on leaving town.” (p. 145) This is curious in that it implies that Dr. Flammarion’s interference with the Knights also included an interest in putting a stop to Cleo’s invisible ink research. I would suggest that the Inhumane Society do not care to see Stain’d-by-the-Sea recover; so at first they wanted merely to obstruct Cleo’s experiments, and then, when that showed little signs of succeeding, to exploit them for their own ends. “Someone destroyed the note and kept Mr. and Mrs. Knight in a state of unhurried delirium, thanks to regular injections of laudanum.” (p. 146) But the chronology implied here suggests that the drugging of the Knight parents is a later development designed wholly around managing Cleo’s kidnapping. “Someone she trusted—the family’s private apothecary, Dr. Flammarion.” (pp. 146-147) You’re kidding – we’re expected to believe that Cleo trusted him? Please see my note to pages 25-26: “It made Miss Knight very lonely […] It is a lonely feeling when someone you care about becomes a stranger.” (pp. 25-26) So Cleo, at least, cares about her parents, though it’s not clear that the reverse is true. Such is sometimes the case. “Now Hangfire has Dr. Flammarion doing his dirty work. He has Nurse Dander helping him. And he has you too, Ms. Feint.” (p. 147) “You’re helping Hangfire with his treachery, and you don’t even know it!” (p. 148) This passage rather strangely appears to suggest that of course Hangfire knows that he has Ellington-Cleo under his thumb. Is she still intended to be a red herring Cleo Knight, so anyone who comes looking for her will only find a fake? What of quite how menacingly Nurse Dander is managing her, though? Is Nurse Dander out of the loop, or only playing a role all too well? “I thought you were a member, Mr. Snicket.” (p. 149) Why would Ellington think that Snicket is a member of the Inhumane Society? She’s canny enough to have picked up that his presence and activities in town are unusual, I think, but wouldn’t ?1 have made it clear enough that he and Hangfire are on opposite sides? Please see my note to page 150. “There’s a cupboard […] that’s larger than it looks.” (p. 149) More on this (extremely and inconvenient plot device) in ?3. “In any case, it wasn’t you who picked up the package. It was Nurse Dander. […] But when I met Cleo Knight and we cooked up our plan, I knew I had my chance. […] Nurse Dander answered, and I introduced myself as Cleo Knight. I promised a formula for invisible ink that actually worked, in exchange for a meeting with Hangfire.” (p. 150) So, Cleo and Ellington definitely didn’t meet until after ?1 (or else it would have been impossible for Ellington to think that Snicket might have picked up the package for Armstrong Feint). And Ellington immediately made the connection between the Inhumane Society and Hangfire because Armstrong Feint appeared to be in the clutches of both. This only makes it stranger that Ellington could possibly have thought, or still think, that Snicket is a member of I.S. “I went to all that trouble of getting the Bombinating Beast, but when I left [Hangfire] a message telling him I had it, he never answered.” (p. 151) The most important clue. “But the real Cleo Knight is in Hangfire’s clutches […] He will tell Dr. Flammarion, and Dr. Flammarion will tell his nurse.” (pp. 152-153) But Snicket, only six or seven pages ago you thought Dr. Flammarion had been the one to take Cleo to Hangfire. Why would Hangfire need to tell Dr. Flammarion anything? However, this does clear up that Snicket believes that Nurse Dander’s been so busy with Ellington that she hasn’t had time to check in with her coworkers. “I tell stories too […] when I’m nervous.” (p. 154) It has been suggested here that Snicket is using the word “stories” in the sense of “fabrications”, or “lies”. I see no reason why that should be the case. “Leave everything behind, particularly the library books on chemistry. They’re boring.” (p. 154) Snicket continues to be less reliable about returning library books than Hangfire. “The sun is going down” (p. 154) I wouldn’t have thought the story up until this point had taken all day. Everything must have taken longer than it feels like, particularly the off-screen walking and taxi rides. ‘I leaned over the fishbowl. There was a sweet smell, the smell of something I didn’t like. Forget it, Snicket. You do not see the point of honeydew melons.’ (pp. 160-162) Later to be established as an acceptable foodstuff of certain animals, at an immature stage in their lifecycle. ‘I looked at my finger. It was bleeding, just a tiny bit. Bit. I had been bitten. I glared down at the tadpole. I was trying to save you, and you bite me, you ungrateful tiny thing?’ (p. 163) But they will accept other foodstuffs, and perhaps it’s more important that they do.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 15, 2019 13:28:00 GMT -5
I think the comments about Cleo's parents supporting her research really negates any negative perceptions of them from before. I know it sounds before this point that they may have been ignoring her or spoiling her, but I've always had the gut feeling they really are good parents.
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Post by Dante on Jul 16, 2019 4:29:33 GMT -5
Chapter Nine‘I don’t care […] who delivered the boxes of books filled with blank pages or gears used in botanical extraction.’ (p. 168) The blank books will be relevant in ?3; the gears used in botanical extraction are more mysterious and seem more like Cleo Knight’s sort of thing. Please see my note to ?1 page 197: “There was a small box marked MEDICAL SUPPLIES addressed to a Dr. Flammarion. There was a long tube marked ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT addressed to nothing more than a pair of initials that were unfamiliar.” (p. 197) More foreshadowing, though it’s not clear what the electrical equipment is foreshadowing for – although it must be. What were the initials? A.F., I.S.? Something else entirely? “Every night, my father would get home from his fieldwork and leave his boots on the porch. It was during the floods, and his boots got so muddy there was no use washing them. He’d cook dinner in his socks, and then I’d do the dishes, and he’d pour himself a glass of wine and read me a chapter of something before we put the lights out.” (p. 171) I’ll be referring back to this later. “My father is a naturalist, so our house was always filled with wildflowers from nearby meadows, or baby animals he had rescued, recuperating in old shoe boxes until they were healthy enough to be set free. And he was a lover of music, so he would wind up the record player first thing in the morning so we’d have music with our breakfast.” (pp. 171-172) Please see my note to ?1 pp. 45-46: “The butler was standing on the lawn, facing away from us with a bowl of seeds he was throwing to some noisy birds. They whistled to him, and he whistled back, mimicking their calls exactly.” (pp. 45-46) Another clue, though I wonder if it’s consistent with Hangfire’s apparent motivation as of ?4. “My father always carried this music box […] so he could have music with him no matter how far into the wilderness he went. He left it behind on the day he disappeared, so I’ve been taking care of it.” (p. 172) Armstrong Feint left a great deal behind. “I saw the rescued tadpole […] in the bowl on the bathroom sink. Do you think your father was there?” “I don’t know. But rescuing a little animal like that is definitely something he would do.” “It might be little, but it’s fierce.” (p. 173) No comment necessary. “Mr. Snicket, my father is such a gentle man. He must be very frightened, wherever he is.” (p. 176) People can repress a great deal. “Perhaps soon your father and Cleo Knight will be working side by side to stop this town from disappearing completely.” (p. 174) “If we find Cleo Knight […] I think we’ll find your father.” (p. 176) I wonder how much Lemony suspects, and how much he’s saying to be kind. ‘It seemed to me that every adult did something terrible sooner or later. And every child, I thought, sooner or later becomes an adult.’ (p. 176) This is an important theme in The Stain’d Myth Murders. “The Knights have left Stain’d-by-the-Sea. The entire Ink Inc. building is boarded up, like almost every other building in town.” (p. 180) Dr. Flammarion worked quickly once Snicket came onto the case. It’s strange to me that the Knights never return, though they must regain their senses without Dr. Flammarion’s regular injections of laudanum. Presumably Cleo sends them a message to guarantee her safety. “And I have a friend […] who is good with a knife.” (p. 184) Character development is one of the great pleasures of a series with a consistent cast. Stew is a stereotype in ?1; but he becomes something more.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 16, 2019 9:42:32 GMT -5
“And I have a friend […] who is good with a knife.” (p. 184) Character development is one of the great pleasures of a series with a consistent cast. Stew is a stereotype in ?1; but he becomes something more. You know, for all the emphasis on "people are neither good nor bad" in ASOUE, I really do think most of the characters in the book are either good or bad. Stew seems like just a bully in book 1, but there isn't any doubt in my mind, even at that point - he's a bad guy! Not just a nuisance. There is nothing good about him. He is a liar. He tricks his parents. Then in book two he is shown to be working with Hangfire, and this doesn't surprise me one iota.
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Post by Dante on Jul 17, 2019 3:33:16 GMT -5
Chapter Ten“Dashiell Qwerty stopped by to check on me, and he just happened to leave a book on the table that turned out to be important. Isn’t that a strange coincidence?” (p. 197) When just dropping hints isn’t enough, Qwerty drops books. “There were people who thought that the war was nothing to celebrate and that Colonel Colophon shouldn’t be honoured for so much bloodshed. The tree that was uprooted was home to the Farnsworth Pulpeater Moths, and people were angry that no one had thought of what would happen to those rare and endangered creatures. At first there were only a few people who thought this way, and they began to make trouble. They even formed a sort of troublemaking society.” (p. 199) Please see my note to page 176: ‘It seemed to me that every adult did something terrible sooner or later. And every child, I thought, sooner or later becomes an adult.’ (p. 176) This is an important theme in The Stain’d Myth Murders. “Mr. and Mrs. Knight put up such a fuss that Cleo and I had to keep things secret.” (p. 204) Another piece of evidence which can be interpreted either way when you’re trying to decide what sort of people the Knight parents are. “I’ll take the Dilemma […] It’ll only take me a second to change the tire.” (p. 207) It actually ends up being a little while before Jake arrives at the Colophon Clinic. It’s not clear how far Partial Foods is from the rest of the major locations in the book – the Lost Arms, the library and police station, and Hungry’s are all on the same street, by contrast – so maybe Jake just had a way to walk, though in that case our heroes might have wanted to give him a lift there. Still, taking the Dilemma turns out to be a very good idea in the end. ‘the gates closed behind us with a deep clang as soon as we drove through’ (p. 210) Are these automated? Operated remotely from somewhere? Why did the Inhumane Society make it so easy for Snicket and company to get in? Maybe Hangfire was watching from the tower with a remote control, and pressed the button to close the gates just a moment too late.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 17, 2019 6:39:49 GMT -5
“Mr. and Mrs. Knight put up such a fuss that Cleo and I had to keep things secret.” (p. 204) Another piece of evidence which can be interpreted either way when you’re trying to decide what sort of people the Knight parents are. Maybe they are just overprotective parents who want what's best for their daughter? I bet if they really got to know Jake, they would like him. I think every town has this kind of drama. How funny was the "out of your hair" joke from Moxie in this chapter? I loved that she had a hard time keeping a straight face. Moxie would be a perfect V.F.D. candidate with her polite voice.
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Post by Dante on Jul 18, 2019 4:03:21 GMT -5
Chapter Eleven‘a set of broken stairs growing slick black moss in the cracks’ (p. 211) Please see my note to page 216. “I’m not a detective at all […] It looks like I’m solving mysteries, but I’m not. I’m just poking around. What we do, my associates and I, is like wandering the stacks of a library. We don’t really know what we’ll find. We just hope it will be helpful. […] Admittedly, it’s sometimes hard to find volunteers. […] Who else is going to do it?” (pp. 213-214) A clearer statement of V.F.D.’s principles and purpose than any line in ASoUE, barring perhaps U.A. p. 39: “in order to make sure the world remains, as we say, quiet. […] And extinguished.” “It’s precisely three minutes until eight o’ clock” (p. 215) Back on page 154, the sun was going down. ?2, at least, must take place during the darker months of the year. ‘One of my feet slid in a path of slick moss, leaving a muddy smell on my shoe. A drop of rain hit the moss and sizzled. I had not seen rain sizzle on moss.’ (p. 216) I’d never noticed this before, but ‘path’ there was probably meant to be ‘patch’. At any rate, we later learn that this was not black moss, after all, but something rather more unusual that Hangfire was evidently being either very careless with, or farming prolifically. ‘They were Ellington Feint’s papers, the written record of her search for her father.’ (p. 219) Ellington’s belongings, left behind at the aquarium, were not simply abandoned by the Inhumane Society. Either Nurse Dander took them away with her as clues to the disappearance of her Cleo Knight, or this is more evidence that the Inhumane Society had some idea who they were dealing with all along. One wonders what Nurse Dander expected to find in them, since it seems unlikely they were just lying around on the front desk she was observing for no reason. ‘I didn’t know how long this one was. I didn’t even know what it was called. But I knew it by heart, from hearing it on Ellington’s old-fashioned record player and from the music box her father had left behind. I liked the tune. It made for good company.’ (pp. 220-221) If I can step back to Chapter Nine for a moment: ‘It was a tune that was sad but not weepy, as if it were trying to say there was no point in bursting into tears when there was so much work to be done. […] There are some secrets you want to keep to yourself, even if they don’t matter.’ (p. 173) I should have paid more attention to this before. ‘It made for good company’ leads me to believe that this is a piece I’ve seen Hermes allude to recently, Duke Ellington’s Solitude. ‘It was an ordinary hospital room, but the bed was too small. I could fit in it, but I wouldn’t be comfortable. There was nothing else in the room but something metal on the floor. […] It was a chain, thick and cold in my hands. One end was attached to the bed, and the rest curled on the floor, ending in a curved metal shape. […] A device like this is called a shackle.’ (pp. 221-222) The final chapters of ?2 provide plenty of evidence of roughly what Hangfire was planning, and in ?3 he goes about the same strategy from a different angle. ‘The room had three very long tables, banked by very long benches. On the tables were long glass rectangles. […] Fish tanks, from the aquarium. And placed at regular intervals were the same chains, with the same heavy shapes and hinges, that I had seen attached to the small beds. […] Nobody was here yet, but everything was ready for children to arrive at the Colophon Clinic and be prisoners of the Inhumane Society.’ (pp. 223-224) Not so much prisoners, I think. More like food. Please see my notes to pages 160-162 and 163: ‘I leaned over the fishbowl. There was a sweet smell, the smell of something I didn’t like. Forget it, Snicket. You do not see the point of honeydew melons.’ (pp. 160-162) Later to be established as an acceptable foodstuff of certain animals, at an immature stage in their lifecycle. ‘I looked at my finger. It was bleeding, just a tiny bit. Bit. I had been bitten. I glared down at the tadpole. I was trying to save you, and you bite me, you ungrateful tiny thing?’ (p. 163) But they will accept other foodstuffs, and perhaps it’s more important that they do. ‘I kept whistling. Why not? If there was anyone there, they knew I was coming. / Then there was a voice at the top, calling something. I stopped short. / “Ellington?” It was a man’s voice. “Mr. Feint?” I called. “Armstrong Feint?”’ (p. 224) Hangfire gave himself away here. ‘But it was not Armstrong Feint in the room at the top of the stairs. I was wrong again.’ (p. 225) Consider how much less ambiguous this passage would be if reordered thus: ‘But I was wrong again. It was not Armstrong Feint in the room at the top of the stairs.’ However, in the order presented, there’s an alternative reading that’s possible. Of course, there’s an argument that Hangfire isn’t Armstrong Feint, not quite. Not anymore. ‘There was a large window closed up in curtains, and two tables, one on either side of the bed. One was crowded with a small plate with some bread crumbs and a napkin and a candle and a glass of wine and the bottle it came from. The other had nothing on it, which seemed odd.’ (p. 226) ‘But instead of shoes he was wearing a pair of curvy slippers’ (p. 227) Please see my notes to pages 171 and 258: “Every night, my father would get home from his fieldwork and leave his boots on the porch. It was during the floods, and his boots got so muddy there was no use washing them. He’d cook dinner in his socks, and then I’d do the dishes, and he’d pour himself a glass of wine and read me a chapter of something before we put the lights out.” (p. 171) I’ll be referring back to this later. “As you probably know […] the man who runs this clinic has been trying for a very long time to restore me to health. He’s employed all sorts of scientists to help him over the years.” “This clinic used to be a bustling place […] but now I’m the only patient left and Dr. Flammarion had to take a job as someone’s private apothecary.” (p. 228) “She would come here from time to time to study chemistry with Dr. Flammarion. Sometimes she would help as he tried a new treatment on my burns.” (p. 229) I wonder how much of this is true. “She told me she was tired of chemistry and was running away to join the circus.” (pp. 229-230) I wonder when exactly Hangfire learnt that this was the story Ellington was peddling. Perhaps he learnt it from Cleo herself; or from Nurse Dander after one of her grocery expeditions. “You heard the tune […] and you thought you knew who was whistling it. You were afraid that a certain girl had found you at last. You were afraid that she was bringing you the item you asked her to steal, and you’d have to let her father go free.” (p. 231) I wonder how much Snicket understood at this point. Just putting it into words might have made it obvious. ‘The window had been broken—not shattered, but there was a big, jagged hole in the middle of the pane, roughly the shape of a man. “Defenestration” is a word which means throwing someone out a window. It had clearly happened recently. Hangfire hooked his bandaged fingers around my neck and dragged me to peer out through the jagged hole at the rain and the trees and the dark waters of the swimming pool, where the real Colonel Colophon had fallen.’ (p. 232) I expect Hangfire had been waiting for a long time to do that. ‘“Listen […] Listen carefully, Snicket.” / Through the sound of rain and the wind in the trees, I heard another sound. It was a sort of rumbling, or a sort of hum.’ (p. 232) ‘“Do you hear it?” he hissed.’ (p. 234) Only now do I understand. Hangfire expected the pair of them to hear a quite different sound. ‘It knocked the villain to the floor. / I stood up, freed from Hangfire’s grasp. There he is, I thought, and here you are. The villain got to his feet and backed away from me, toward the broken and chilly window.’ (p. 235) Well, this is some pretty transparent foreshadowing, in retrospect. ‘The water splashed, like one of his shoes had fallen in, or perhaps something had splashed out of the water.’ (p. 236) I was right to participate in this reread. Now I know how Colonel Colophon really died.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 18, 2019 12:35:14 GMT -5
“It’s precisely three minutes until eight o’ clock” (p. 215) Back on page 154, the sun was going down. ?2, at least, must take place during the darker months of the year. It could also be a place fairly close to the equator. I got to visit an island once where the sun sets at about 8:00 pm every night. I'm really not sure Hangfire was going to feed the children to the baby beasts or the big beast. At the very least, you would think Hangfire was working with Ellington, even if you didn't deduce who Hangfire was at this point. I'm not quite sure how Snicket deduced this instead of Hangfire and Ellington working together. Question 1: Is it possible the real Colonel Colophon survived? Question 2: Does Hangfire unraveling the bandages and escaping remind anyone else of Dewey Denouement? Oh, like he got eaten, not drowned?
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Post by Dante on Jul 19, 2019 7:42:21 GMT -5
I'm really not sure Hangfire was going to feed the children to the baby beasts or the big beast. I think it would have been more like bleeding, at first, as with leeches. Indeed. It's the sort of detail I might not have anticipated when the book first came out, although I had a rough idea of where things were going. Chapter Twelve‘The rug was very large, and we had to move all the furniture to the walls, quickly.’ (p. 241) Every single time I.S. wants to check on Cleo Knight, they have to do this, move all the tables and the fish tanks to the walls and then roll up the rug. Every time. Even just to shut Dr. Flammarion up with Cleo off-screen before we get there. Perhaps there’s a secret passage. ‘I understood why you’d want to push things around without caring if you caused any damage.’ (p. 241) Remember this line when we get to ?4. ‘Over the ring there were two initials etched into the metal. It takes a long time to etch letters into metal […] The hatch was the problem, the hatch with the initials I.S. etched into it, for “Inhumane Society”’ (p. 242) The Inhumane Society sure went to a lot of trouble to fit a metal hatch declaring their identity in the floor of somebody else’s building. Makes one wonder how long they’ve had their hands on this place; even back when it was first built, perhaps, if Dr. Flammarion’s always been attending. ‘The ring was big enough for both of our hands, and then all four of our hands, tugging together. It was like tugging on the world. It did not move.’ [p. 243] So the hatch is locked not by having an actual catch, but just by being heavy, so children can’t operate it. But it sounds so heavy it would be difficult for a lot of adults, too. ‘through the hatch and down a short metal ladder into a room with a low ceiling and someone screaming in it.’ (p. 245) Even harder to open from the inside, though Dr. Flammarion must have consented to being shut in there. Perhaps the hypothetical secret passage I’m talking about has an actual lock. ‘It was Dr. Flammarion, quivering and stumbling with fear at the girl who was frowning her way toward him.’ (p. 246) Presumably, Flammarion must have had help from Nurse Dander and perhaps Hangfire to chain Cleo up, if he’s physically afraid of her; but how ever did he manage to dupe her into going to the Colophon Clinic in the first place? Please see my note to pages 146-147: “Someone she trusted—the family’s private apothecary, Dr. Flammarion.” (pp. 146-147) You’re kidding – we’re expected to believe that Cleo trusted him? Please see my note to pages 25-26: “It made Miss Knight very lonely […] It is a lonely feeling when someone you care about becomes a stranger.” (pp. 25-26) So Cleo, at least, cares about her parents, though it’s not clear that the reverse is true. Such is sometimes the case. “But of course I needed you to come, Jake. I needed someone to open that hatch.” (p. 248) You’re not helping me out with my secret passage theory, Cleo. Maybe the idea was that she’d have a guard down there long-term, and he’d communicate with the rooms above via walkie-talkie or telephone? “You locked me down here and made me work on invisible ink so you could fill this clinic with children and continue your treachery.” (p. 249) How exactly would invisible ink help the Inhumane Society to fill the clinic with children? We never learn exactly what Hangfire planned to use it for. I propose a kind of indirect solution in The Stain’d Myth Murders, relating to Cleo’s secret ingredient. ‘“This story isn’t over,” he said, and then for some reason he sneered at my muddy shoe. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten into. You call me a monster, but you have no idea what monsters are coming. You’ll never get your hands on Armstrong Feint. You’ll never get your hands on Hangfire. And before long we will get our vengeance on your puny, careless town.”’ (p. 251) Dr. Flammarion spells out the entire plot here, although, again, I question whether Hangfire’s motives as explained in ?4 quite line up with what’s implied here. ‘They dragged him up the ladder’ (p. 251) Good luck with that. ‘It felt something like a very strange wedding ceremony, and the reception was held in the wrecked dining room, with the wind and rain as guests, the Officers Mitchum as the rabbi, and Stew Mitchum as a sneering flower girl, following his parents through the broken window to behold us.’ (pp. 251-252) ‘We hurried back through the empty halls of the clinic to the front door.’ (p. 253) So wait – which way did the Mitchums get in, again? Did they park out front and then walk all the way around to the broken window at the back? It’s true that the front door was locked per Jake’s report on page 238. By the way, who called the police? ‘I ran to the girl lying on the floor. Her hat had come off and she was pale, with her eyes closed. There was a long red line down her arm, and it took me a moment to realize that it had been made with Nurse Dander’s knife.’ (p. 255) One of the differences between ASoUE and ATWQ is that the protagonists actually suffer the consequences of violence sometimes. In TBB, Klaus gets struck on the face and Violet cut her arm while using her grappling hook, and then they both get bitten by snow gnats in TSS, and that’s it. “The question is, can you save me?” (p. 255) Don’t get mushy on me, Moxie. “At the top is a room with a broken window, and somewhere in that room is an old-fashioned record player. It was on a bed stand, but Hangfire hid it right before I came in.” (p. 258) Please see my note to page 226: ‘There was a large window closed up in curtains, and two tables, one on either side of the bed. One was crowded with a small plate with some bread crumbs and a napkin and a candle and a glass of wine and the bottle it came from. The other had nothing on it, which seemed odd.’ (p. 226) ‘But instead of shoes he was wearing a pair of curvy slippers’ (p. 227) Please see my notes to pages 171 and 258: “Every night, my father would get home from his fieldwork and leave his boots on the porch. It was during the floods, and his boots got so muddy there was no use washing them. He’d cook dinner in his socks, and then I’d do the dishes, and he’d pour himself a glass of wine and read me a chapter of something before we put the lights out.” (p. 171) I’ll be referring back to this later. “I’ve set up a laboratory in a small cottage right where the sea used to be. […] Some of the ingredients I need can be found near Offshore Island, just a short hike from the cottage.” (p. 260) Please see my notes to pages 35 and 61: ‘The first was the scent of the sea, a strong and briny smell that still came from the seaweed of the Clusterous Forest when the wind was blowing in the direction of Stain’d-by-the-Sea.’ (p. 35) This smell is consistently associated with Hangfire. In this case, though, it seems to be because Cleo’s ingredients come from the drained valley – from “near Offshore Island, just a short hike from [Handkerchief Heights]” (p. 260). “Going to see your friend again, in Handkerchief Heights?” (p. 61) As it later transpires, Pip and Squeak had already given Ellington Feint a taxi ride somewhere completely different; and we also learn that the hideout Cleo’s set up is in fact in Handkerchief Heights. Pip and Squeak shouldn’t have said this, and Jake shouldn’t have let it slide. ‘“I love them, but my parents have given up on making things better.” / “So have mine,” Jake said, and the Bellerophon Brothers nodded too. Even Moxie nodded in agreement.’ (p. 262) This, on the other hand, does have shades of ?4 about it.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 19, 2019 13:01:35 GMT -5
“You locked me down here and made me work on invisible ink so you could fill this clinic with children and continue your treachery.” (p. 249) How exactly would invisible ink help the Inhumane Society to fill the clinic with children? We never learn exactly what Hangfire planned to use it for. I propose a kind of indirect solution in The Stain’d Myth Murders, relating to Cleo’s secret ingredient. I am not sure why Flammarion would have had Cleo keep working on the ink, but maybe he kidnapped her so if she did figure out what he was up to, she would be able to tell the police and foil his plan. What were they getting vengeance about? Was it the draining of the sea and other crimes against nature? Maybe there is a car phone in the taxi She totally likes him! And he totally ignores her. It's like 007 and Miss Moneypenny. The thing that stands out to me most in this chapter is when Snicket mentions Kit having a diary, one of his friends (maybe Beatrice?) catching her first bat, and Jacques finding out wasps can get mad fast. What is all that about?
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Post by Dante on Jul 20, 2019 1:57:26 GMT -5
What were they getting vengeance about? Was it the draining of the sea and other crimes against nature? That sounds to be the case. Lemony thinks a lot about the people he's missing by staying where he is in this chapter. When did he see them last? Chapter Thirteen“You have a young visitor waiting for you in the lobby” (p. 268) At past midnight (p. 265), no less; but Prosper would have seen Lemony come in only a minute before, and Widdershins would know Lemony would need this information no matter what the time. ‘He’d always had a philosophy that you should not hesitate.’ (p. 269) I wonder how Handler chooses which ASoUE characters to use in these slots. Hector’s appearance finally confirmed that he was a volunteer; and Widdershins is probably here for the expertise he shows on page 272. ‘while Dr. Flammarion and Nurse Dander sat, handcuffed and forced to listen.’ (p. 270) When they’re finally shipped off to the city for trial, it’s off-screen. “If we don’t get the item now, we won’t have another opportunity in our lifetimes.” / “She got the item, but she got arrested too.” […] “Where is the item now?” / “Nobody knows.” / “We’ve got to find out.” (p. 271) This is the last we hear of the mysterious item in ATWQ. Handler claims that the sugar bowl problem is solvable in ASoUE, but not only do I sincerely disbelieve him, I genuinely think that this item is him introducing a new solution that actually fits the evidence. “Caviar. Fish eggs. Gustav loves the stuff.” (p. 272) The invocation of Gustav here is fairly arbitrary, but knowing that the black moss growing everywhere Hangfire’s been is actually fish eggs – and the connection you can draw to the strange blood-sucking tadpoles in the tanks – is the final piece of the puzzle explaining what Hangfire was attempting to do in this book. “You said we could make our organization greater than ever, but only if we stopped listening to our instructors and found new ways to fix the world. It was quite a speech you gave. It almost got you thrown out for good.” (p. 274) It almost sounds like Lemony was planning to start a schism in V.F.D., or that his actions would inevitably have led to one. It’s clear that the theft of the item, apparently unauthorised by V.F.D. or at least by its upper echelons, must have played a part in his ambitions. Remaining in Stain’d-by-the-Sea caused all of those ambitions to be thrown in the bin, or out of the window, fragile as a fish bowl. It’s significant that the initials on the shoulders of Kit’s captors are V.F.D. (p. 279) They won’t be by next volume. I wonder how much of this is Seth’s inference of what’s going on.
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Post by Foxy on Jul 20, 2019 9:15:12 GMT -5
‘He’d always had a philosophy that you should not hesitate.’ (p. 269) I wonder how Handler chooses which ASoUE characters to use in these slots. Hector’s appearance finally confirmed that he was a volunteer; and Widdershins is probably here for the expertise he shows on page 272. And thankfully he hasn't developed his habit of rambling on and on about nothing. But why would the eggs sizzle in the rain? I find it strange how Snicket is a kind of rebellious person in ATWQ, but in ASOUE he seems broken and cowardly.
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