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Post by Dante on Jul 20, 2019 10:47:14 GMT -5
But why would the eggs sizzle in the rain? Not many things sizzle in the rain. I have a feeling that this is more to establish that there is something strange and disturbing about this particular substance; something dangerous. (Unless it's a real property of caviar that I'm not aware of, though that seems unlikely.) A paradox I'm not quite sure ATWQ does enough to resolve, though certainly Lemony leaves town a different person from when he entered; one who perhaps asks more questions of himself than he used to. I took a slightly different approach in The Stain'd Myth Murders when attempting to destroy him.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 20, 2019 11:38:15 GMT -5
Sorry I haven't been able to keep pace with this. A few thoughts.
Hangfire: There is an ongoing problem here, in that DH, asked in an interview (possibly with 667?) who Ellington's father was, said 'a prisoner'. Now, at the time there was a way of interpreting this consistent with his being Hangfire: now, as we speak, he is a prisoner, because he was brought to justice for his crimes. But in WITNDFAON we find that he was not imprisoned, but killed by a Beast. So this statement remains a mystery.
Chronology: Lemony's final account of what happened in ?4 seems definitely to put the explosion at the town hall before the draining of the sea - though we might claim he does not actually know this, as his sense of the relation of events always remains vague. But I think it fits: as you say, the explosion seems to have come before Ellington was born, whereas she remembers the floods at Killdeer Fields, which were caused by the draining.
This raises questions about Hangfire's motivation. You might well suppose that the flood, which directly impacted him and the animals he cared for, was what motivated his plan of revenge. But if this chronology is right, it must go back much further than that. You could reconcile this by saying that the Inhumane Society was formed in protest against the statue, but Mr Feint was not part of it at the start, but was drawn into it after the flood. You could even argue that he actually was initially a prisoner, thus making sense of that line, but came to share the motives of his captors, like Patty Hearst (see also Operation Pax, by Michael Innes). But Lemony at the end is insistent that he was in control from the start. Of course, you could ask 'how does he know?', but I think in general we are meant to see him as right, even when his guesses are not well-supported by evidence. I still think my reconstruction is more coherent, but...
I think there is definitely a 'fighting fire with fire' and 'the abyss looks into you' theme at work here: the original motives of the Inhumane Society do seem to have been noble ones, sympathetic to someone who sees 'a wet viper perm' as an obscene anagram. But they adopted villainous methods, and were corrupted by them. Indeed you may well think that 'fight fire with fire' would make more sense here than in ASOUE: there the villains are motivated either by personal gain (Olaf) or by sheer love of villainy (the sinister duo); here there really is a kind of fire they are combating. It's also interesting that the IS was originally an open body before going underground - another parallel with VFD.
More later, perhaps.
EDIT. Foxy: remember the 'put your fear on one side' thing. Later in life Lemony may be catching up on all the fear he set aside when he was young. (Hector and Josephine have more extreme versions of this syndrome.)
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Post by Dante on Jul 20, 2019 14:09:50 GMT -5
What I have to believe that Handler was going for with that "prisoner" line is that perhaps Armstrong Feint was, in a way, a prisoner of instincts and ambitions he did not wholly identify with. Armstrong Feint was in many regards a kind and gentle man who loved his daughter earnestly, and there's an argument to be made that he wasn't wholly committed or certain about the terrible acts he was committing; and I think we do see, in the presentation of Hangfire across the series, that his wickedness is taking a terrible toll on him, a physical toll. (I should have quoted the part about "Colonel Colophon"'s posture, p. 227; it's repeated in ?4.) He was a prisoner of the image he constructed for himself, perhaps; visited by a fatal temptation which destroyed him. In a different world, or a world in which he had never read a particular book, he might never have done anything like what he did.
More broadly, though, I agree about disagreeing with some of the conclusions Snicket draws about Hangfire's motives in ?4; and I had already planned out my own version and started putting it to paper. So an alternative is provided, and it ties in to the themes Hermes has identified. I saw a parallel between the heroes and the villains, too.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 20, 2019 16:20:57 GMT -5
Thanks, Dante. Are you thinking that L might actually be unreliable in his final speech? I'd like to believe it was so, and DH has said he is unreliable to some degree in ASOUE: but in ATWQ he is given to making rather wild deductions that nevertheless turn out to be right. On the other hand, it's after that speech that he sees Kit and so realises that he has no idea what is going on in VFD, so I dunno....
More notes.
Jacques: This may be the only reference to him in the actual books, but it's worth noting that he has a card as a member of the Association of Associates, and one of the terms it applies to him is 'nearby'. This suggests he is in fact present in the story in some cryptic way. I have wondered whether he might be the Figure in Fog in FU13. (Seth draws the figure as female, but L explicitly says that he could not tell.) Another, not incompatible, possibility is that he is Qwerty's apprentice. (Though he is not my first choice for Qwerty's apprentice. Qwerty is a sub-librarian, so what would his apprentice be?)
Zada and Zora/White Faced Women: It seems likely to me, from the way it is described in TPP, that Olaf burnt the WFW's house down when they were children, which implies that they are significantly younger than him, and so younger than Lemony and associates. So no, I don't think this can be them.
Black Cat Coffee: I think it's clear that if a lot of people went there its secrets would be discovered quickly; it can only work as a hiding place if only a few people know it is there. Remember it is on an otherwise deserted street, and does not have its name outside, so if you weren't already looking for it you might not realise what it was. There remain many questions about how it works, who runs it etc. - there are many mysteries in Stain'd which are not solved, some of which seem to be connected with VFD (the Delivery in Stain'd is Very Fast).
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Post by Foxy on Jul 21, 2019 7:47:42 GMT -5
Hangfire: There is an ongoing problem here, in that DH, asked in an interview (possibly with 667?) who Ellington's father was, said 'a prisoner'. Now, at the time there was a way of interpreting this consistent with his being Hangfire: now, as we speak, he is a prisoner, because he was brought to justice for his crimes. But in WITNDFAON we find that he was not imprisoned, but killed by a Beast. So this statement remains a mystery. Jumping to conclusions (a dangerous thing to do, I know), say the BB is also TGU. Maybe Hangfire is a prisoner inside the belly of the beast? Ah, yes. He certainly got scared later.
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Post by catastrophist on Jul 21, 2019 17:41:49 GMT -5
Hello all, Joe Tracz here. I've been following this re-read since the beginning, though it seemed like cheating to comment on ASoUE, given my connection with the Netflix show. But I wanted to jump in for ATWQ, because that series hasn’t been discussed as much, and because I first read it while lurking on the forums here. I've been loving these discussions, and with the show over, the time seemed right to un-lurk.
I hope to join the conversation when I can, and the end of ?2 seemed like a good time to talk about Hangfire.
Dante mentioned the lack of red herrings for Hangfire's identity, but I think that the absence of any plausible alternatives is actually one of the series' strengths. With each book, it becomes increasingly obvious that Hangfire can ONLY be Armstrong Feint -- not just because the clues all point to him, but because we're in a noir. In noir, the truth is always painful, and Hangfire being Ellington’s father is the solution that brings the most pain, for Ellington and for Lemony. Once you start to suspect this twist, you realize the story can't go any other way. It's tragic and it's inevitable.
As people re-read, I'm curious if they can pinpoint when they figured it out. I recall speculation in this forum that Hangfire was Ellington's father as early as ?1 (and maybe even as early as the preview chapters being released). But I have to admit that it wasn't until the end of ?2 when I realized that's where we were headed. That's because I was expecting ATWQ to play by the same rules as ASoUE. In ASoUE, our series villain operated in the open, and when he impersonated other people, the Baudelaires and the readers always knew exactly who he was. Even with the awareness that ATWQ was a mystery series, I read ?1 assuming that the solution to Hangfire's identity was as simple as "the guy posing as a butler." It wasn't until ?2 when it became apparent (to me, at least) that it was more complicated than that.
In that regard, I think Hangfire actually has a lot in common with the way the Beatrice twist is handled in ASOUE. How soon you figure out their identity depends on how closely you're reading the text -- and casual readers might make it to the final book without even realizing there was something to figure out at all!
Even beyond the mystery of his identity, I find Hangfire to be a fascinating antagonist. Daniel talks about how the Snicket books take place in the world of childhood. And the idea that a naturalist's talent for bird calls would also let him flawlessly mimic people is a perfect example of child logic. It's just so Snickety.
Finally, with every re-read, I find the contrast between Ellington's memories of her father and the Hangfire we meet on the page to be deeply unsettling. Was Armstrong Feint a loving father or an Inhumane villain? I think the text wants us to see that he was both. It's the most upsetting example of the Chef's Salad metaphor we get across both series. Equally unsettling is the fact that we never hear Hangfire justify in his own words why he did what he did and abandoned his daughter. We're left to grapple with that for ourselves -- and as any ASoUE fan knows, grappling with potentially unanswerable questions is the most Snickety thing of all.
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Post by Dante on Jul 22, 2019 14:31:49 GMT -5
Thank you for joining us, Joe. ATWQ is certainly under-considered for a series which I think is intriguingly different to ASoUE, and that is an unfortunate reflection on changing times and tastes. It deserved a wider audience; in some respects, I think it deserved the audience ASoUE had, which pursued it relentlessly as a mystery when in fact it wasn't that sort of mystery; and indeed some still do. (Ironically, the one mystery which I firmly believed would never be resolved - well, that's still a sore spot.)
Hangfire's identity and the lack of ambiguity surrounding it I hadn't considered as being a function of the genre; I'm less familiar with noir, and will always approach anything which looks like a mystery from the perspective of a mystery. (It doesn't take a detective to look at my three novel-length ATWQ mystery fanfics and conclude that I'm something of a lost cause in this regard.) But I don't think I'm wrong in considering red herrings as being gestured at elsewhere in ATWQ; we see in ?3 that Lemony had been sizing Prosper Lost up as a potential member of V.F.D., for instance, and I don't think it would have hurt the tragedy to have crossed out other possibilities for Hangfire's identity in a similar way. And so far as the genre goes, Lemony nods to ATWQ as mystery on page 167 of this book...
Mind you, by all accounts I cottoned to Hangfire's identity unusually early; or rather, became certain of it where other people with exactly the same information suspended judgement. Perhaps they enjoyed the series better for it, and if I hadn't been so certain from early on, I might have had a different experience with this subplot; I cannot say. I definitely think a younger reader would have a different response in all cases - or else one without the same experience; I've always wanted to hear the impressions of somebody who's read ATWQ without having consumed ASoUE first, but no such person has yet appeared.
This is perhaps an apposite (if suspicious) time to mention that I had been considering, albeit chiefly in regard to File Under, introducing "how would you go about adapting this for a hypothetical television series" as a topic; and given that ASoUE's adaptation on Netflix gave us slightly more of a glimpse into the adult world, I wonder if something like that might be achievable with ATWQ as well. Mind you, the challenge there is that off-screen and plot-relevant activity among the adults is largely confined to the villains of the series; I think they could use the development, but would it lose the mystery? I think it's a little bit of a pity that any ATWQ adaptation would these days have to be quite a lavishly-produced one, since that's why I don't imagine it will happen. Displace it a couple of decades earlier, and I could have seen it as more of a possibility; I'm picturing the sort of adaptations I saw in my childhood, like the 1990s BBC version of The Demon Headmaster, one series of which featured a ferocious animal which emitted a buzzing sound and had been raised to enormous size by forbidden science.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 27, 2019 11:41:18 GMT -5
Good heavens! This may be the most significant event in 667's history. Welcome, Mr Tracz, it's good to have you here.
More notes:
The really puzzling thing about Nurse Dander is that she knows Cleo, so must be immediately aware that Ellington is not her. It looks as if what is happening is basically a plot to immobilise Ellington. This links up with the strange story of the Bombinating Beast (the statue); although it becomes clear at the end that Hangfire did indeed want it, he could have had it easily at several points, and does not take it: again I think he was using it to immobilise people, sometimes E, sometimes L and Theodora.
The set-up at the Aquarium is rather puzzling. Presumably Armstrong lived there before Colonel Colophon was killed, so before the clinic was available? It's totally in character for him to 'rescue' a tadpole, but if the tadpoles are young Beasts, as seems the case from what we hear later, presumably he was responsible for their being there in the first place. And why were a bunch of tadpoles left behind in the Aquarium, and one in the upstairs apartment, when the operation moved to the Colophon Clinic? (Other than to provide a clue, of course.)
I'm doubtful of the idea of the colonel being eaten by a Beast; for one, thing, I don't think the Beasts have yet reached the size when they can eat people; for another, would not the colonel have to be dead before the operation could be set up in the clinic on a large scale?
L does indeed seem likely, on present form, to cause a schism in VFD, but I take it that this is subverted when it later turns out that the leadership is not opposed to his plan in the way he thought. Of course, he may still have reason to complain about not being told - like Dewey later complaining about the smoke and mirrors.
So, Solitude. Dante, you said in the other thread that it was not sufficiently clued. My immediate thought was that any other possible name for Theodora must be even less clued. But in fact, I think there is a running clue, in the repeated references to this tune, whose name L does not know. At the end of book 4 he explicitly links this with Theodora's name, as two things he does not know, and then goes on to reflect on the concept of solitude.
That does leave it a bit puzzling what the significance of Theodora's name might be - 'solitude' does not describe her particularly. I wonder if DH was really just setting up a red herring with 'Sunny', and needed something to fill the gap when 'Sunny' turned out to be wrong.
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Post by Dante on Jul 27, 2019 16:10:35 GMT -5
I'm doubtful of the idea of the colonel being eaten by a Beast; for one, thing, I don't think the Beasts have yet reached the size when they can eat people; for another, would not the colonel have to be dead before the operation could be set up in the clinic on a large scale? I was more thinking that there would be a good number in the pool, of slightly larger than tadpole size; piranhas might be a good analogy. It doesn't seem that there was anyone at the Colophon Clinic by this point other than Colonel Colophon and Dr. Flammarion, the former explicitly stated to spend all his time in his tower room, and so I imagine it would not have been terribly difficult to subvert the operation and deal with him at one's leisure.
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Post by Hermes on Jul 27, 2019 16:40:18 GMT -5
That's certainly possible, but I feel it makes the set-up at the aquarium more puzzling: my assumption was that they started the operation there before the clinic became available, and if they could move into the clinic even while the colonel was alive, it's not clear what delayed them.
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Post by Carrie E. Abelabudite on Aug 13, 2019 15:02:55 GMT -5
General Notes
I feel like each book in this series improves on the previous one, and I find myself enjoying them more each time I read them.
I don't like the cover illustration here as much as ?1, but I like the purple-tinted interior illustrations, especially the Chapter One illustration.
Chapter One
I like how the second paragraph mirrors the first one.
'The morning breakfast was a fried egg, which Theodora served to me on a towel from the bathroom.' I don't see how Theodora could have made fried eggs without some kind of pan.
'I had not seen that smile for some time.' How long has it been since the end of ?1? A few weeks, maybe?
'She looked displeased at having her photograph taken, and also like she used her displeased expression quite frequently.' This makes it sound like Cleo is kind of bratty, which makes for a real contrast when we actually meet the character.
Chapter Two
Is there some significance to Theodora always ringing the doorbell six times?
'Silence' does sound like it could be one of those Puritan virtue names.
In these books, it's hard to guess Hangfire's entire scheme, but certain individual details - like Dr Flammarion drugging the Knights - are made very obvious. It's not set up like a mystery, or even a situation where there's any room for ambiguity. It's harder to guess why Lemony recognises the smell, through a sharp-eyed reader should probably be able to. Of course, it's then revealed later in the chapter.
'The cinnamon rolls were the sort that is all curled up like a snail in its shell,' Isn't that what all cinnamon rolls are like? If they aren't curled up, they aren't exactly a roll.
Interesting that Dr Flammarion asks for tea.
Dr Flammarion couldn't have come up with a more realistic sounding fake medicine?
Chapter Three
Why was Theodora tapping Lemony's knee?
This has probably been brought up before, but I'm guessing Partial Foods is meant to be a play on Whole Foods.
'"Off with you," [Polly] said.' A parallel to TPP, where one of the Denouement brothers says this to the Baudelaires, and then Lemony writes about what a rude thing it is to say. Maybe this is why he dislikes the expression so much.
I like Lemony's argument with himself.
Interesting that Cleo, too, drinks tea to help her think (I think this is also established to be true of Violet in TE).
Chapter Four
Something that surprised me about ATWQ the first time I read it is the continuity from book to book. I guess, when I first picked up this book, I was expecting it to be set in a different location. Then, this book and the subsequent ones in the series introduce new characters, as is the case in ASOUE, but unlike ASOUE, also keeps old characters beyond just the core few. The first time I read the book, I was surprised that Moxie made a reappearance.
The illustration of Lemony's haircut always makes me laugh.
I wonder why Cleo doesn't have a first name beginning with 'I' and a middle name beginning with 'N' like the rest of her family.
I like Lemony's analysis about good and evil people.
Chapter Five
'I was thinking, is this the world? Is this really the place in which you've ended up, Snicket?' A very relatable sentiment,
Chapter Six
'"A few books have gone missing," [Qwerty] said, "and there have been some threats."' Well, Lemony took some books and maybe Hangfire took more. Presumably he's the one making the threats. But why Qwerty thinks setting up a sprinkler system in a library is anyone's guess.
The sentence starting 'Chemistry is a branch of science...' reads very much like one of the water cycle passages in TGG.
The hiking memory is an odd one. It's one of the few actual stories we get about the Snicket parents, and as anecdotes go, it's strange that that's the one Lemony would jump to.
Strange of Lemony to interrupt Qwerty when he does. He must realise what he was going to say. Why Qwerty is choosing this moment to out himself as a VFD member is unclear.
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Post by Foxy on Aug 14, 2019 11:22:45 GMT -5
I don't like the cover illustration here as much as ?1, but I like the purple-tinted interior illustrations, especially the Chapter One illustration. Oh, yes. My favorite is the one of Moxie upset on the stairs. I think Cleo might be one of the most complicated characters in all of Snicketdom. We get a fair amount of information about her, and so much of it seems contradictory, or, at least, doesn't shine her in the best of light. I think the only significance is she is somewhat annoying. Haha, yes, I agree. That's so funny! I never caught that before. They seem to have a few similarities between them. They are both strong female characters who are brilliant in their field. I wonder how I missed all of these things upon reading. Nice observation!
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Post by Dante on Aug 17, 2019 8:07:12 GMT -5
'The cinnamon rolls were the sort that is all curled up like a snail in its shell,' Isn't that what all cinnamon rolls are like? If they aren't curled up, they aren't exactly a roll. Perhaps this is for the benefit of people who've never seen a cinnamon roll. I remember a certain amount of debate after ?1 as to whether the following books would continue to take place in Stain'd-by-the-Sea or whether they would move to a new location. I thought it was fairly evident, myself, but your expectations were not unusual. Perhaps her parents didn't envisage her as playing much of a role in Ink Inc. Ignatius Nettle Knight doesn't sound like the type to be sentimental about the family business.
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Post by Carrie E. Abelabudite on Sept 13, 2019 22:24:45 GMT -5
Sorry for not posting in so long, though hopefully it shouldn't take me too long to catch up.
Chapter Seven
'over the course of an entire school year, I learned fascinating secrets about complete strangers I followed for hours on end. It made me wonder who knew my secrets, on the days I thought I was walking with no one behind me.' This feels very reminiscent of the pretzel vendor/photographer who followed the Baudelaires in the flashback scene in TE. Also, I find any insight into the VFD training process fascinating.
Lemony's musings on the meaning of the word 'asinine' make him seem very childlike. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how young he is, but this makes the darker aspects of the story all the more disturbing.
Chapter Eight
'The world is a puzzle, and we cannot solve it alone.' Very different to Lemony's attitude in ?1. Of course, if he is writing down what happened some time later, he might have become wiser about the need to rely on other people, although he still seems very alone in ASOUE.
'"She was trying to get the machine to make her a cup of tea to help her think. I convinced her to try coffee instead,"' This feels significant, but of what I don't know.
This exchange between Lemony and Ellington makes it seem like she is just as suspicious of him as he is of her. A version of this series narrated from Ellington's perspective would be very interesting - sometimes, it's hard to figure out how much she knows, but I think assuming she doesn't know much makes her more complex as a character.
'I did not not ask her how she left a message for Hangfire.' How did she? Through Nurse Dander, presumably.
Odd that Ellington too mentions hiking with her parents (or her father, anyway).
Does the presence of lettuce meaning anything in Verbal Fridge Dialogue?
'There was a sweet smell, the smell of something I didn't like.' Laudanum? Or honeydew melons? I would guess the latter based on context, but until I saw the following line, I was assuming the former. Do melons really have a smell?
'Your sister is older now. A branch of a tree would no longer hurt her.' I think a falling branch of a tree would hurt anyone at any age if it were big enough.
Chapter Nine
'"Perhaps soon your father and Cleo Knight will be working side by side to stop this town from disappearing completely."' I like how this line seems innocent enough on a first read, but if you reread the book, the irony really hits you.
'"They can teach you anything. that doesn't mean you learn it. It doesn't mean you believe it."' One of my favourite quotes from the series.
'It seemed to me that every adult did something terrible sooner or later. And every child, I thought, sooner or later becomes an adult.' A very dark sentiment, but one that resonates throughout both this series and ASOUE.
'"Remember that time I told a story at that tea party"' - Huh. I'm trying to collect any quotes that could be relevant to the sugar bowl, and the mention of a tea party seems like it could be, though it's definitely tenuous if so. The Mitchums are certainly not members of VFD, but I guess they could have accidentally stumbled across a VFD gathering.
Why is Cleo referred to as 'Miss Knight', but Ellington is "Ms Feint'?
Chapter Ten
I love Lemony's musings about being on probation.
Interesting that Moxie's mother is, like Dr Orwell, known for saying 'you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'. It seems like Dr Orwell is supposed to be around the same age as Lemony/Olaf/etc in ASOUE, so I don't think she can be Mrs Mallahan. I don't think Moxie can be her, either. But maybe there's some connection?
Interesting that Lemony tells Moxie that 'snuck' is correct. I know it's not, but it sounds better to me.
I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of the term 'sweetheart'. I don't know, it just sounds overly quaint/affected to me.
'I'd seen [tumbleweeds] once on a trip to the mountains with my parents.' Interesting. I hadn't noticed this extra parent anecdote before. A trip to the mountains sounds kind of like the VFD hiking expedition mentioned in TBL, though that must have occurred later. Still, I can't help but wonder if this trip involved some kind of VFD business.
'an enormous, dark place that looked like it was going to swallow us up.' Sounds like the Great Unknown, though less literally, Kit and Lemony are both heading off into unknown situations.
Chapter Eleven
'"Who else is going to do it?"' is reminiscent of 'What else can I do?' from TPP, but also seems to be taking the opposite stance. 'What else can I do?' is said by characters who feel they had no choice but to go with the flow, even if this led to acts of villainy, while this is much more proactive.
It feels like there's some significance in both Moxie and Squeak having watches belonging to their fathers.
'Nobody was here yet, but everything was ready for children to arrive at the Colophon Clinic and be prisoners of the Inhumane Society.' I guess the shackles and such must be small, but I'm still not sure how Lemony made this intuitive leap.
'"Ellington?" It was a man's voice.' I think before this, there aren't many clues as to Hangfire's identity, but this makes it fairly obvious.
Chapter Twelve
'Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has clearly not been stabbed with both.' Ha!
So, Stain'd-by-the-Sea has a Coast Guard, but I thought it wasn't on the coast anymore?
'"I love them, but my parents have given up on making things better."' This also seems to be true for many adults in ASOUE.
Chapter Thirteen
The description of Lemony crying here is another childlike moment that is particularly heart-wrenching.
More about the item Kit stole later.
I think this is the first overt clue we get that Lemony wants to reform VFD. We'll see how this plays out over the remainder of the series.
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Post by Dante on Sept 14, 2019 12:10:00 GMT -5
'"She was trying to get the machine to make her a cup of tea to help her think. I convinced her to try coffee instead,"' This feels significant, but of what I don't know. Duplicity and cynicism over genteel passivity, perhaps. An unsubtle metaphor, but that's how it seems to work. Much, much more of this in ?3. Hmm, I wouldn't have thought so, given that pursuing Nurse Dander appeared to be her back-up plan; but the chronology of when she left the message is unclear. Interesting. I suppose it's because, up until we meet her, everyone addresses Cleo as like a child, whereas Lemony approaches Ellington like an adult. The effect of sounding better is probably why it's become commonplace. Lemony doesn't usually correct people on their grammar, but I can see why he might feel strongly about an unofficial construction working better than the official one. I agree, but that's probably exactly why it's used. It's a sort of historical marker to make the story sound like it takes place vaguely in the past. Hmm. More useful in their absence; or rather, these are symbols of when their fathers were useful. I suppose the logic is that they wouldn't necessarily have just disbanded - although in all likelihood, they actually did.
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