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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2009 8:05:20 GMT -5
Ah, I see I hope you do join in when we reach the later books~
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Post by masterviolet456 on Feb 25, 2009 10:34:40 GMT -5
I'm starting today after school.
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2009 11:05:18 GMT -5
I have over a page of notes just for Chapter One, so I'd best post those now. I'll try and cut it down to plot-relevant materials later on. I'll be addressing the issue of Count Olaf and his troupe, by the way, but rest assured that ten troupe members are identified, not including Count Olaf.
---
Artwork notes: On the U.S. cover, the tall, grey-blue building in the background appears similar to the one that appears in the frontispiece for the book (that is, the Chapter One illustration). However, in Helquist’s colour plate for the Special Edition, this building is more of a yellow-brown stone colour, so they can’t be the same.
Notice also how Mr. Poe never appears in illustrations even when he should logically be right there – for example, the cover of any edition of TBB. Of course, this is because he’s really a side-character; on the first book in the series, you can’t really illustrate anyone besides the Baudelaires and Olaf.
Regarding the aforementioned Chapter One illustration: Much was later made of how the fireman – presumably of the Official Fire Department – nearest to the Baudelaires apparently has a question mark on his helmet. I’m pretty sure this is just the shaded edge of a “shield” emblem, and the Special Edition colour artwork confirms this, with no such question mark.
In addition, in the Chapter One full-page illustration in Orphans!, Mr. Poe looks extraordinarily sinister compared to the situationally-identical Chapter Thirteen illustration of TGG; however, you can make out a hint of round glasses, and what is probably a handkerchief pressed to his mouth to suppress his coughs.
Dear Reader thoughts: Consider the “ingredients list” – “a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.” The first four sound very much your usual gothic orphans tale, with the last one being instead quite parodic – adding insult to injury, if you like. “Cold porridge for breakfast” is a cliché in itself. In addition, I’m not sure the book itself actually uses the term “porridge,” preferring instead “oatmeal.”
Chapter One opens right off with a very biographical way of talking about the Baudelaires; reading page one, I don’t think you’d have the impression that the Baudelaires were still alive. This helps to a degree to disguise the fact that the Baudelaire parents are themselves no longer alive at the time of the events narrated, e.g. in examples such as “The Baudelaire parents had an enormous library in their mansion” – we’d put down the heavy use of past tense to the events having happened long ago, rather than to the fact that they’re already gone.
Notice that Violet’s right-handedness is highlighted on the very second page.
Sunny is established as having a few ordinary words in her vocabulary, whereas later on, when she starts using actual English, this is taken as character development. Of course, her “unintelligible shrieks” soon turned into in-jokes in practice.
Fog, mysterious figures, children feeling threatened enough to throw stones at them – there’s an almost supernatural feel to the first chapter.
The Baudelaire children are allowed to join their parents at the table at dinner parties – there’s something that’ll cause problems for later continuity, as the children should probably have been overhearing things they shouldn’t. Then again, clearly these weren’t exactly V.F.D. dinner parties, since Mr. Poe was in attendance.
Mr. Poe’s coughing is explained as being due to always having a cold, but I’m not sure this is ever mentioned again – he just coughs all the time. I fancy even Handler forgets this, and just remembers that he coughs.
Typographically, it’s extremely nice that we go from ordinary, peaceful events at the bottom of page seven to “Your parents have perished in a terrible fire” at the top of page eight. I hope that was intentional. The effect is lost in the new paperback version.
Everything’s very fragmented when the children are told about their parents’ deaths; they see only a few glimpses of things at a time.
Edit: Chapter Two:
“Klaus’s favourite pen” – why would Klaus have a favourite pen, when he’s a reader rather than a writer? This is probably because Handler doesn’t want to make Klaus more important; as the reader, he’s always going to be at something of an advantage when every book features a library, and he’s also going to be especially devastated now that what was effectively his own library is gone. The pen is just to create a link to books without having to identify a specific one.
Mr. Poe is barely at home because he’s busy attending to the Baudelaire affairs – which suggests this is a weighty task and normally he’d be rather less busy.
“Edgar” and “Albert” Poe – one might assume these are allusions to the full name of the poet Poe, but then it should be Edgar Allan. Following TGG, it was pointed out that a certain poet is named in full “Edgar Albert Guest,” so possibly it’s a double allusion – or more likely, it’s a coincidence and Handler just didn’t want to really hammer the allusion in. Same reason there’s no character called Charles Baudelaire.
“a tiny room that smelled of some sort of ghastly flower” – remember this for the BBRE notes.
“He’s an actor by trade, and often travels around the world with various theater companies.” This is quite interesting, as even in TBB itself it seems like Olaf largely does his own things; we don’t imagine him being contracted to various other theatrical troupes and having to trudge around with them. Of course, from a perspective later on in the series, we can probably view this as being a cover story for Olaf’s adventures and schemes involving V.F.D.
Mrs. Poe is a hugely flat character. She gets one line and no characterisation. She barely even exists.
Mr. Poe drives an automobile, but the city streets are cobblestone and they pass horse-drawn carriages – this suggests to me that automobiles are not as commonplace as they might later appear, and that it’s probably just a luxury of his banking profession that Mr. Poe possesses one. Note that it’s only hinted at in this book that Olaf, too, possesses a car; it’s left ambiguous whether the long black car at the end of the book contains Olaf and his associates or not.
Justice Strauss knows that Count Olaf is adopting some children. But how? “I don’t actually know him that well” says Justice Strauss – what I get from this is that they chat when they see each other, in a neighbourly way. This would also, I imagine, be the relationship in which Count Olaf approaches her with a view to casting her in his play. There’s untapped fanfic potential here, I feel.
In fandom, it’s often popular to think of Olaf’s house as being another mansion, since everyone else has them – and the movie reinforced what I think could really be called fanon, since Olaf has a gorgeous enormous mansion there, even if it has fallen on hard times. However, in the book it seems as if Olaf’s house must actually be quite ordinary-looking, tower notwithstanding. Imagining Olaf’s house as being quite an ordinary building rather reduces Olaf’s glamour; I think for the first book it’s important not to look at things with too epic a scope.
Olaf’s first appearance is a little anticlimactic; there’s not much tension, the door just swings open and he’s there. He’s also wearing a grey suit – except when he’s wearing some outlandish disguise, Olaf’s usual clothes are never specified, and it’s certainly not what he wears in all Helquist’s illustrations. Untapped fanart potential?
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Post by Hermes on Feb 25, 2009 11:47:50 GMT -5
Were these people apart of VFD once or were they simply evil people like Olaf? I think it's the latter... I suspect it's a mix. We know Fernald was in VFD once, but it doesn't follow that all the others were. The wart-faced man isn't mentioned when they come to dinner. Of course, he may have been one of those hiding in the shadows, but given that he never comes back later, I suspect he's not a regular associate of Count Olaf's, but an independent villain who's cooperating with him (like Dr Orwell later on). He's called 'important-looking'; perhaps he's the manager of the theatre. A few other things I noticed: It's odd that the bald man has a long black robe - is he a monk? Or a wizard? I thought it nice that, early in the book, we are told a couple of times that Violet ('like most fourteen year-olds') is right-handed. Although he isn't at this point planning for the whole series, this is the same foreshadowing technique, with something said casually becoming important later on, that he's later to use on a larger scale. There were a couple of things that might have been clues but weren't - like the case of the credit card and the poisonous plant, and the woman who left her fortune to a weasel. On the other hand, a couple of things are introduced which are taken up later - the Royal Gardens fire, and (in a way) the island where people are forbidden to take the fruit (though by the time they get there, it turns out not to be a law, strictly speaking). By the way, are we meant to be reading the BBRE notes at this point? I'm not sure what was decided.
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Post by cwm on Feb 25, 2009 11:52:20 GMT -5
Is that image in the first post a real cover, a library edition or something, or a mock-up?
Notes on Dante's notes:
The 'favourite pen' could foreshadow his note-taking, specifically the commonplace book he has in TSS through to The End.
Count Olaf would have had to sign some paperwork or contact Social Services or something to adopt the Baudelaires. It's possible that these would have gone through Justice Strauss' court.
Mrs. Poe, and indeed the sons, are never mentioned again. Not even in The Penultimate Peril, which would probably have been the best opportunity to bring them back.
(Let me know if we should be sticking to the book at hand and I'll remove the references to later books in later discussion.)
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2009 11:52:44 GMT -5
By the way, are we meant to be reading the BBRE notes at this point? I'm not sure what was decided. Sora decided we should read them with this book. For people not familiar with the BBRE, I've scanned a few images that I'll put up when I get to that part myself, although the notes themselves are typed up on 667.
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Post by Hermes on Feb 25, 2009 13:03:43 GMT -5
Some comments on Dante's comments. Chapter One opens right off with a very biographical way of talking about the Baudelaires; reading page one, I don’t think you’d have the impression that the Baudelaires were still alive. This helps to a degree to disguise the fact that the Baudelaire parents are themselves no longer alive at the time of the events narrated, e.g. in examples such as “ The Baudelaire parents had an enormous library in their mansion” – we’d put down the heavy use of past tense to the events having happened long ago, rather than to the fact that they’re already gone. . I don't actually have the text with me, so can't check it, but isn't this normal in fiction? Books generally begin 'There was a boy..', or the like even when, if the book were read as factual, it's obvious that the boy would still be alive. Perhaps what this shows is that Lemony has not yet fully written himself into the fictional world; in later books he inhabits the same world as the characters and so says things like 'I don't know where they are now'. Snap! (Hadn't read this when I made my own comment). I think she always knows a few English words (the one which leaps to mind is 'shark' in TAA). It is possible to have cobbled streets with cars driving on them - indeed, there are some near my house. But I agree with the general point. One other thought of my own; it's sometimes suggested that Mr Poe must really be villainous, on the ground that no one could be that incompetent. But it seems clear to me that he isn't; if he were the plot wouldn't get started. Olaf has to resort to cunning plots because of Mr Poe's refusal to hand over the fortune; if Mr Poe were a villain they could just do a deal, and Olaf would get the money without marriages, kidnappings or whatever.
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2009 13:12:50 GMT -5
I don't actually have the text with me, so can't check it, but isn't this normal in fiction? Books generally begin 'There was a boy..', or the like even when, if the book were read as factual, it's obvious that the boy would still be alive. Perhaps what this shows is that Lemony has not yet fully written himself into the fictional world; in later books he inhabits the same world as the characters and so says things like 'I don't know where they are now'. I agree with your assessment. One expects the past tense in fiction, of course, but there's just something about TBB's opening that screams "this is about people who are no longer around" in a way which the later books don't. I don't know why people suggest this, given that there are plenty of scenes in the early books where the Baudelaires are alone with Olaf and Mr. Poe, sometimes one of Olaf's assistants too; a lot of TRR is spent like this. If Mr. Poe's a villain, it must be so important to cover up his role in events that it actually takes precedence over the whole point of their villainous plots. There is evidence here and there that Mr. Poe is perhaps in some way "up to something" - I'll address this with regards to the BBRE and the U.A. But if Mr. Poe is a villain, then not only is he not working for/with Olaf, he's the best actor in the entire series. Chapters Three and Four: Appearance of normality notwithstanding, Olaf’s house is “quite large.” The chapter also opens quite formulaically; it’s just a list of miseries the Baudelaires must go through. “ My theater troupe will be coming for dinner before tonight’s performance. Have dinner ready for all ten of them…” The wording here rules out Olaf being one of the ten in his theatre troupe. If he was, it’d say “ all ten of us.” Count Olaf is nice enough to leave the Baudelaires some oatmeal, at least. This again goes along with my belief that Olaf and things associated with Olaf start off relatively normal. Klaus’s temper tantrum page 32: Klaus is often quite reactionary and childish in the early books, to my recollection; it’s up to Violet to take charge. Olaf’s house has no books. Take from this what you will. “ In the time since the Baudelaire parents’ death, most of the Baudelaire orphans’ friends had fallen by the wayside, an expression which here means “they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of the Baudelaires, making them very lonely.”” One of the very, very rare times we ever hear of the Baudelaires’ social life pre-fire; I can only think of one other. I sometimes wonder what the Baudelaires’ old friends must have thought as rumours and scandalous newspaper stories about the orphans reached them. “ there is no way that Sunny could understand what was being said” “She led them through an elegant hallway smelling of flowers” – interesting in contrast to the Poe children’s room. ~~~ “ the proper amount for thirteen people – the ten people Count Olaf mentioned, and the three of them.” I suspect that Olaf’s visiting theatre troupe only has ten people so that this gratuitous thirteen reference could be shoehorned in, but it’s somewhat bizarre that the Baudelaires assume that Count Olaf won’t require dinner. He’s ruled out of being one of the ten people, but on the other hand, his note doesn’t say that he’ll need dinner. Perhaps the Baudelaires assume he’ll get his own? Chapter Four is the first time we see how Count Olaf interacts with the Baudelaires in the normal course of events; it’s strange that an important event is presented without us getting a “feel” for, well, a normal exchange between Olaf and the Baudelaires. “My troupe is right behind me and they are very hungry.” Again, Olaf doesn’t seem to count himself. However, shortly after: ”I demand that you serve roast beef to myself and my guests.” So Olaf is joining the meal, after all. It’s a strange ongoing discrepancy. “ There was a bald man with a very long nose, dressed in a long black robe.” It’s often forgotten that the bald man’s long nose is of equal importance to his baldness; his disguise in TMM specifically conceals his nose, I think. That he wears a robe is, as has been remarked, a little odd, but it just adds to his strangeness, as people who are bald and have long noses are hardly freakish. “ an assortment of people the children could not see but who promised to be just as frightening” – the troupe should number ten in total, not including Olaf, meaning that there should be five more individuals here, but the U.A. later ups the figure to a potential seven. Five other troupe members are identified in Chapter Twelve. I quite like the dynamic within Olaf’s troupe in TBB; while later on they’re all blunderers who he treats as servants and idiots, they seem on a much more equal footing. They aren’t just Olaf’s “assistants.” I can’t picture the white-faced women saying later on in the series, “Here you are, Olaf. What in the world are you doing?”The bald man has rough hands and a high-pitched giggle, also. He’s one of the creepiest troupe members – Violet identifies him as the scariest in TWW. Anyway, since Olaf evidently does eat dinner with his troupe, that should mean that there’s one too few meals to go around. I was going to suggest that the white-faced women share, but if that’s plausible, it’s equally plausible that the enormous androgynous assistant eats two meals. So I suggest that the Baudelaires shared two portions, leaving one spare for Count Olaf – the Baudelaires are young and Sunny’s a baby, so they wouldn’t eat as much. Well, that’s more thought put into this issue than there is in the book itself. Another highlighting of Violet’s right-handedness on page 51: Violet’s right hand ached from holding the heavy ladle. She thought of switching to her left hand, but because she was right-handed she was afraid she might spill the sauce with her left hand, which would enrage Count Olaf again.Also, Violet fantasises about poisoning Count Olaf. Hmm. The theater troupe laughed, and a few of them applauded as if Count Olaf had done something very brave instead of something despicable. …“Come on, friends,” Count Olaf said to his comrades. As I’ve said before – I really like the way Olaf and his troupe interact here. It feels more human. Of course, they’re soon relegated to the role of servants, hanging around guarding doors in Olaf’s house, but there are signs of difference.
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Post by cwm on Feb 25, 2009 13:35:55 GMT -5
Violet's fantasy about poisoning Olaf is another disrepcancy: in The End, when the Baudelaires are debating whether or not they should push Olaf overboard, it is stated that when they first met him they would never have dreamed of getting rid of him. Granted the examples provided do not include poison, and it does specifically say when they 'first met him' and at this point they've been staying with him for a while, but still.
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Post by Xandy on Feb 25, 2009 13:41:52 GMT -5
can I come in?
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2009 14:39:47 GMT -5
Violet's fantasy about poisoning Olaf is another disrepcancy: in The End, when the Baudelaires are debating whether or not they should push Olaf overboard, it is stated that when they first met him they would never have dreamed of getting rid of him. Granted the examples provided do not include poison, and it does specifically say when they 'first met him' and at this point they've been staying with him for a while, but still. I more considered it an interesting reflection on various events in The End, in which the Baudelaires do consider again murdering Olaf, and Olaf does indeed get poisoned, although the two events aren't related. Disclaimer: I doubt any such link was intended. can I come in? Please do. Reflections on Five through Nine (don't worry, I'm finding less now): --- Chapter Five: Klaus fantasises a good deal more here – his imaginings clearly aren’t taking place in reality. He talks about living on the streets, about using their parents’ money, that Justice Strauss might adopt them… further to my earlier comments, it must be said that in TBB, Klaus is very clearly younger than Violet. His behaviour is more childish. “ Fountain of Victorious Finance” strikes me as a strange name, but I suppose in the banking district they would celebrate money in such a fashion. I wonder how Mr. Poe’s handling the credit crunch. In addition, Mr. Poe’s bank is the only one with a negative name – trustworthy, faithful, subservient, and then Mr. Poe’s bank’s name, “Mulctuary” Money Management, refers to the taking of money as a punishment, I understand. Why do Mr. Poe’s telephones have lights on them? I suppose that since he has so many, he needs a way of knowing which one is ringing at any one time. “ His face was kind, but it didn’t look like he really believed what the Baudelaire orphans were saying.” This is the essence of Mr. Poe, I feel. Is it odd that Klaus’s talent – reading – is apparently always the most important one? Chapter Five ends with all three Baudelaires reading, and it seems great. Reading and literature become more and more important as the series progresses. But Klaus reads anyway. So is Klaus redundant here, or are his sisters redundant? ~~~ Obtaining raspberries – don’t let it be said that Count Olaf is unwilling to go the extra mile. Similarly, the lie that he has lately “been very nervous about my performances with the theater troupe” seems distant from Olaf’s all-consuming arrogance later on, but possibly my memory of such events is imperfect. Worth noting that, while “Al Funcoot” was always, of course, an anagram of “Count Olaf,” the book itself never points this out, and the Baudelaires don’t realise until THH. For timeline purposes, I should point out that “ Friday, the day of the performance, was only a few days off.” ~~~ Justice Strauss: “I’ve always wanted to perform onstage, ever since I was a little girl.”The hook-handed man has a croaky voice. And the hook-handed man is much more sinister here than in later books, when he seems like he might even be the most buffoonish of Olaf’s troupe members (not including TGG, of course). He’s also the first to explicitly state what had previously been unrealistic: That Olaf’s a bloodthirsty maniac just waiting to murder three children. I think he’s bluffing, personally. Also, the hook-handed man talks to Justice Strauss. I wonder what that’s like. Much like Olaf and Justice Strauss, it’s hard to imagine the hook-handed man and Justice Strauss having a conversation without one party becoming distinctly wary of the other. ~~~ Olaf seems a bit more subtle in Chapter Eight. That’s all I have to note. He’s theatrical, but not so melodramatic, I feel. ~~~ “While you were busy reading books and making accusations… I had one of my quietest, sneakiest assistants skulk into your bedroom and steal little Sunny away.” So by now, the troupe are demoted from “comrades” to “assistants.” But strangely, the question is raised of when Sunny was snatched. Obviously Count Olaf couldn’t have anyone do anything while Klaus was explaining his plan in the kitchen, but before then it’s hard to see why Olaf would have had Sunny taken, even assuming one of Olaf’s assistants had the gall to walk right behind Klaus’s back and steal a sleeping baby – but they could have; even in Chapter Eight Sunny is indistinguishable from the pile of curtains. “You’re such a lovely girl, after the marriage I wouldn’t dispose of you like your brother and sister.” Lust for underage girls aside, Olaf’s offer here isn’t a great deal: Either Sunny dies now, or Sunny dies… later! Perhaps by “dispose” Olaf merely means he’ll pack Klaus and Sunny off to faraway orphanages rather than just killing them. Friday is “ tomorrow night.” One day has passed since it was “ a few days off.”
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Post by cwm on Feb 25, 2009 14:57:29 GMT -5
'Mulctary' does indeed refer to a paid fine of some kind. I think the implication is that Mr. Poe's bank works mainly in debt collection.
Is it true that the Baudelaires don't realise Al Funcoot = Count Olaf until THH? It's the first time it's *explicitly said*, yes, but they may have worked it out beforehand and simply not voiced it on-screen.
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2009 15:08:12 GMT -5
Is it true that the Baudelaires don't realise Al Funcoot = Count Olaf until THH? It's the first time it's *explicitly said*, yes, but they may have worked it out beforehand and simply not voiced it on-screen. THH p76 (revisited around 152 or so); the Baudelaires haven't figured it out, or at least, if they have, I would not expect them to speak as they do on the referenced pages. However, I doubt it's something they ever thought particularly hard about.
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Post by cwm on Feb 25, 2009 15:42:46 GMT -5
Ah, good point. I was simply thinking of the bit in the supply closet.
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Post by Dante on Feb 25, 2009 16:19:27 GMT -5
And Chapters Ten through Thirteen. I'll save the BBRE for tomorrow.
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The enormous androgynous assistant has “blank white eyes” and is apparently mute. All along, the enormous one has seemed barely human. One wonders what exactly its relation is to Olaf or the other troupe members, how it communicates with them. I suspect it mainly fills the role of the “monster” assistant – the one which is big and strong but little else. Every villainous team has to have one.
In the great tradition of literary home-made inventions, the creation of Violet’s grappling hook is dull and quite incomprehensible.
“Using her right hand” – honestly, the significance of Violet’s right-handedness is so obvious in retrospect. “Violet used her right hand to throw the hook again” – and so on, and so on.
“At this point in the proceedings, if I were Violet, I would have given up…” Is this the first of many, many signs to come that Snicket isn’t a patch on the Baudelaires in terms of courage?
~~~
In an extremely nice touch, the Chapter Eleven full-page illustration in the paperback preserves almost all the eye paintings from the original Chapter Eleven illustration – but adds the V.F.D. insignia. Also, Violet and Klaus are wearing quite different clothing to usual; quite aside from that, according to the text, Violet should be wearing a nightgown torn at the shoulder from her grappling hook falling on her (with another sleeve torn off for a bandage).
How exactly does the hook-handed man manage to grab Violet and hoist her into the tower? Illustrations suggest his hooks aren’t bladed, just pointed at the end, so I guess conceivably he loops them around things.
In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. Later canon suggests Lemony would have difficulty holding down a room, and would also suggest that he should probably have more than just one blurry photograph of Beatrice; I suggest these are the few precious items he’s managed to hold onto or pull together after so long on the run.
The tower room held objects that were very dear and precious to Count Olaf, and they were terrible things. There were scraps of paper on which he had written his evil ideas in an illegible scrawl, lying in messy piles on top of the copy of Nuptial Law he had taken away from Klaus. Etc. But most of all were the drawings and paintings and carvings of eyes, big and small, all over the room. It’s almost strange to think of Olaf having things that are dear and precious to him, and many of the things named seem rather banal – chairs, food, scraps of paper. Maybe he has a picture of Esmé in a secret drawer somewhere. As for the paintings of eyes: Firstly, “most of all” – most what of all? But anyway. I remember Handler saying that originally all of Olaf’s troupe was going to be obsessed with eyes, but then he changed it just to Olaf. I do wonder where Handler got the idea. It supports the later books, in which Olaf always seems to know where the Baudelaires are, is always following him. But other than visually, it seems odd, as it’s not like he goes around making eye puns or anything. From the perspective of later canon, it shows that Olaf’s off the deep end, really.
I give all credit to Handler for not using the term “unfortunate events” in the “Everything was all wrong” passage.
Klaus read through Count Olaf’s papers and books. For one thing, the description itself never mentions books, besides the confiscated copy of Nuptial Law; I wonder what books exactly they were. But there’s an important anecdote here: Originally, the twelfth book was going to feature the Baudelaires returning to Olaf’s house, and discovering certain information they instead ended up discovering in the arboretum in The End. However, because of the quoted line, according to Handler, the plot had to be changed. Doesn’t ring entirely true to me – couldn’t Olaf have had hidden chests or compartments? But it’s true that Klaus should have found rather more interesting things in said papers and books than just nothing.
Behind him stood the hook-handed man, who smiled and waved a hook at the youngsters. I find it too hard to read this as sinister.
Violet was feeling the same way, until she reached out with her RIGHT HAND to grasp the banister, for balance. She looked at her RIGHT HAND for a second, and began to think.
~~~
Members of Count Olaf’s theater troupe hurried this way and that, too busy to even glance at the children. Three very short men were carrying a large flat piece of wood, painted to look like a living room. […] An important-looking man with warts all over his face was adjusting enormous light fixtures. […] …the curtain came down, controlled by a woman with very short hair who was pulling on a long rope, attached to a pulley. 3 short men + 1 important-looking man with warts + 1 woman with short hair = 5, and we have our full complement of ten troupe members. There are more issues associated with this lot, but I’ll get onto them later.
Of note is that Olaf’s theatre troupe apparently aren’t the only ones participating in this production, as the changing room is full of actors – and of course, Justice Strauss is also involved.
“Oh my word! I get to wear makeup.” Justice Strauss’s character sure went downhill fast.
Polly Poe barely puts in an appearance, the one time where we hear her first name, I think. She’s barely even there. She never says anything. She’s never described.
Strangely, The Marvelous Marriage is described as being a tedious play and the audience are bored. And yet just a few pages ago Act Two closed to rapturous applause for Count Olaf!
…the way the wart-faced man had arranged the lights… Just pointing out that the wart-faced man is highlighted; by contrast, I don’t think the three short men or the short-haired woman are ever mentioned again (well, the three short men get a brief and random mention in The End, the line they appeared in being quoted directly).
~~~
Regarding the full-page illustration in the Orphans! paperback: Everyone on-stage is a known character… except the Viking at the far left. Who’s he meant to be? Still, at least we found out what Justice Strauss was meant to look like. There’s also a vague figure with a top hat. Surprisingly, Helquist remains completely accurate to the only picture he’d ever done of the enormous androgynous assistant, which would’ve been about four years old at the time. Oh wait, except it probably also appeared on The Loathsome Library box set.
“…some of the actors looked at one another in shock. Not everyone, apparently, had known about Olaf’s plan.” So here we have an excuse to write out the three short men and the short-haired woman, whose sole appearances were in Chapter Twelve. But not so the wart-faced man, as devotees will know.
“Count Olaf will take care of you and your sisters later. He doesn’t want to do it in front of all these people.” A bit of an understatement. If you’ve just seized a fortune by tenuous but entirely legal means, the last thing you want to do is murder three children in public. I guess they were more trouble than they were worth after all.
Apparently it only takes about five minutes for the hook-handed man to take Sunny from her cage and bring her right into the theatre, so the building must not be far from Olaf’s house. Also, Sunny is described as having “tottered onstage,” indicating unsteady walking, which rather diminishes the impact of her official “first steps” in TVV.
“…the important-looking man with all the warts on his face was sneaking toward the controls for the lighting of the theater.” I suppose if an existing troupe member had served the role of the wart-faced man here, it would’ve been slightly less of a surprise final twist when Olaf and his comrades are sprung from a sticky situation. The wart-faced man and his lighting powers certainly get appropriate foreshadowing. But – well, I’ll move onto him in a minute.
“…not only had Count Olaf vanished, but his accomplices – the wart-faced man, the hook-handed man, the bald man with the long nose, the enormous person who looked like neither a man nor a woman, and the two white-faced women – had vanished along with him.” So there we have it – the three short men and the short-haired woman weren’t in on it, but the wart-faced man was, and even escaped with Olaf at the end. Except… he’s never mentioned again. Not in TRR. Not ever. Given that he was only introduced at pretty much the eleventh hour, maybe Handler just scrapped him and decided he could manage fine with the five assistants who’d already appeared in most of the story and had something approaching character established.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, children, but I cannot allow you to be raised by someone who is not a relative.” I guess Justice Strauss was busy at the time of TMM, TEE, and TVV.
~~~
“I am writing to you from the London branch of the Herpetological Society, where I am trying to find out what happened to the reptile collection of Dr. Montgomery Montgomery following the tragic events that occurred…” Convenient for Handler that he wrote it that way, since he later established a little subplot with the fate of the reptile collection… again, not that it went anywhere.
“I have also managed to track down one of the few photographs of Dr. Lucafont, in order to help Mr. Helquist with his illustrations.” The irony being, of course, that Dr. Lucafont was never illustrated (even the brief glimpse in Murder! depicted nothing in the way of facial features). And given that there shouldn’t be any photographs of Dr. Lucafont anyway, as he’s just an alias of the hook-handed man, perhaps we should read “Dr. Lucafont” as Lemony just referring to the hook-handed man in-character for the sake of keeping the next book’s plot secret. Except for the people who figured out that “Lucafont,” like “Al Funcoot,” is an anagram of “Count Olaf.” Except, of course, “Lucafont” is missing an O – and hence was amended to “O. Lucafont” in THH.
“Remember, you are my last hope that the tales of the Baudelaire orphans can finally be told to the general public.” There’s just something so different here… the impression I get here is that the Baudelaires are merely unknown, rather than being so widely misunderstood. It’s an obscure and tragic tale and one that Lemony thinks deserves to be told.
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