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Post by Hermes on Apr 8, 2009 15:40:18 GMT -5
I wrote some comments on chapters 10-13, and the system logged me out just as I was about to post them. No time to write them again just now, so they'll have to wait until next week.
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Post by cwm on Apr 9, 2009 4:57:12 GMT -5
Copy found! Ten chapters to annotate! Go go go!
(I haven't had the time to properly read over this thread so I might repeat a few things.)
Chapter Four
Charles in TMM also seriously considers that the children might be telling the truth. TRR also has Uncle Monty believe that Stephano is out to do something bad but he gets it so wrong he doesn't believe there's any real threat. The good or non-evil guardians at least believe that Olaf is not who he claims to be, except Aunt Josephine but how good a guardian she is is challengeable.
Chapter Five
The Cafe Salmonella waiters will make a very brief reappearance in TPP, and they're also mentioned briefly in TGG. Not particularly relevant except to state outside of TUA that the cafe had a connection to V.F.D.
The children don't seem to have been to the Fish District before. The fact that the city the Baudelaires grew up in has several districts based on what is sold there is the first real information we have about it.
Salmonella is a type of bacteria related to improperly prepared food, of course. Heh.
Once Esme forces him, of course, Jerome refuses to take the Baudelaires' suspicions seriously. He's too much of a pushover, but he is kindhearted.
Jerome using a mountain lion as an example. He seriously couldn't think of anything better?
"But the doorman didn't spot him," Violet said
He did spot him, probably, of course.
The doorman opening the cab door with a hook covered in cloth is again questionable. I suppose the fake hands wouldn't work a second time.
Esme's surprise at Klaus asking if Gunther took an elevator is the first clue she's working for Count Olaf.
Chapter Six
Jerome starts to argue with Esme but then shuts up quickly. It's a shame that such a pushover purchased the penthouse.
The doorman not sleeping and just drinking coffee is probably an exaggeration to stop the Baudelaires asking too many questions.
Chapter Seven
There appears to be some kind of problem of communication between the villains. Gunther and Esme didn't want the orphans and Jerome in the apartment whilst they were scheming, and told Fernald as such, but of course forgot to tell him when they could come up. Why he lets them up when they get back without waiting for communication is curious, since he takes his instructions very seriously and literally the next day.
'Anything with chocolate sprinkles on it?' So if you covered a tool with chocolate sprinkles would it suddenly be in?
My personal theory about the elevator - there WAS some kind of way up and down it installed in the past, and it was always an empty shaft servicing the secret passageway (given how much effort it would be to safely remove it). It was removed at some point, and that could indeed have been to ensure the Baudelaire parents could not escape; Gunther must be getting up and down some way, so it could be temporarily reinstalled. This method of transport could also be how the secret floor above the penthouse is accessed.
Break now. Finish tomorrow.
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Post by Very Funky Disco on Apr 9, 2009 5:38:17 GMT -5
A thought about Fernald's fake hands: If they work so well, as a disguise - then why doesn't he just wear them all the time?
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Post by cwm on Apr 9, 2009 6:41:53 GMT -5
Aside from the fact that they lost the pair they had in TRR, as I said above, they'd probably only work once. He wouldn't be able to fool the Baudelaires with them again since they know what they look like.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 9, 2009 8:01:21 GMT -5
Jerome using a mountain lion as an example. He seriously couldn't think of anything better? Well, to suit Sunny's interests it had to be something with sharp teeth - and anything with sharp teeth is liable to be frightening. A thought about Fernald's fake hands: If they work so well, as a disguise - then why doesn't he just wear them all the time? From what he says in TGG, it seems likely he wants people to see his hooks, as evidence of the cruelty of VFD, or something like that. |
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Post by Dante on Apr 10, 2009 3:09:16 GMT -5
Meant to post this yesterday, but of course there were those server problems. Chapters Six through Nine!
~~~
The Squalor penthouse has eight hundred and forty-nine windows, and if we ignore the wall that adjoins the stars and elevators, that’s two hundred and eighty-three windows per the remaining three walls, but since that’s ridiculous, I suggest that they have internal windows between some of their many rooms.
Violet’s suggestion that Olaf might try and auction off the Baudelaires is startlingly silly – would people just sit there and let this happen? However, it’s also ironically similar to what genuinely happens to the Quagmires. So near and yet so far, Violet!
Violet rightly identifies that money can’t be the reason why the Squalors would be working with Olaf. It’s Esmé’s twisted love – although Esmé would never say no to more money, it’s true. This probably helps explain a certain scene in TSS where Olaf and Esmé bicker about whether the fortune or the sugar bowl is more important – Olaf doesn’t have either money or the sugar bowl, but Esmé is probably already wealthy enough that the Baudelaire fortune isn’t that important.
Notice that Jerome makes a distinction between sitting rooms and living rooms, just another sign of how immense the apartment is. Did anyone hear about that enormous mansion being sold off the other day? It had a wine tasting room.
Sometimes it seems like Esmé is actually going out of her way to make the Baudelaires’ lives more unpleasant… which isn’t actually implausible, to tell the truth.
Gunther hiding in the penthouse, it’s true, would make a lot more sense than him hiding in the elevator. The penthouse is so huge that there’s probably a “villainous hideout room.” It’s a reasonable suggestion, but Klaus should know that Olaf’s plans are usually a bit more elaborate than simply snatching them up – although I guess that’s what he did to the Quagmires, but it seems he had to think on his feet with them.
“finding out the secret of V.F.D.” makes it sound like V.F.D. has or is a secret rather than being an element of a secret. All are true, though. We must continue to wonder how much the Quagmires learned just doing research in the library.
Olaf and his henchmen aren’t rich enough to rent or buy apartments in 667 Dark Avenue – if they were, they wouldn’t need the Baudelaire fortune – so Sunny’s suggestion (that Gunther tricked another resident into letting him in and then tied them up and took over) is the most sensible.
Listening at doors, though? Less sensible. Think how huge the penthouse apartment is. If Gunther were hiding there, would they be able to hear him through the door?
Klaus thinks of sturdy shoes and socks, Violet thinks of water, and Sunny mentions a snack – an early shadow of her eventual destiny as a cook, or just coincidence? Probably the latter.
It’s ironic that the Baudelaires “walked past the sliding elevator doors” – the only set of doors they really needed to listen at. Although this particular description doesn’t mention that there are two sets on the top floor. You could fail to notice, but the title and cover art would still have already given away that the elevator is Olaf’s hiding place. And, as I think I noted before – did there really need to be an extra elevator?
“Sticking out of his sleeves were a small starfish carved out of wood, and a bottle of glue” – most egregious example of Fernald’s magic hooks yet. He could probably spear the glue, but the starfish?
Is Fernald just playing with the Baudelaires, or does he genuinely not know about Olaf’s hideout in the ersatz elevator? Thinking about it, he’d stick to Esmé’s rules even if he knew they were ridiculous. He doesn’t exactly have much concern for the welfare of the Baudelaire orphans, and if they’re stuck in the lobby, it also means he can keep an eye on them. And of course, since Gunther’s hiding out in the ersatz elevator, Fernald can’t be sure when he’s seeing Esmé and when he isn’t.
Ah-ha! “The doorman… opened the bottle of glue” Now there you have it. The Baudelaires really should have seen his hooks as he opened the bottle, unless he was fumbling about with his sleeves. Quite possibly it just slipped Snicket’s mind that this should be the case?
~~~
“Actually, I’m an actor” – as noted, this should give the game away about Fernald, but most people probably wouldn’t immediately think “actor” when thinking of the troupe members, or even of Olaf, for that matter. So it can come across as just another wacky biographical detail, as some characters and places in Snicket’s world sometimes have. I’m trying to justify the truth about things like Fernald and the ersatz elevator not being guessed until the last possible moment, as I think it would be more fun that way.
One also wonders if one should ask whether Esmé knows that Fernald is the doorman.
“very fancy doilies” is a very sly way of making it so the true contents of Lot #50 don’t come out of nowhere. I’ve also wondered, in the past, if “garbage cans with letters of the alphabet stencilled all over them” might have been a corruption of Lot #50 being a cardboard box with the letters “V.F.D.” on it, but cardboard boxes aren’t garbage cans, nor are the letters all over it. Which is a real shame, as it would yet again be very cunning.
The Baudelaires only have lunch, and no evening meal. And they crumbled up the toast from their breakfast.
I get the feeling I’ll be referring to this multiple times, so: “Yellow paper clips are in, Jerome, so as soon as the sun rises, you’ll have to go right to the Stationery District and get some.”
Given that there are various indications that the regular elevator is not just out but has actually been put out of use, I continue to wonder if there could’ve been a TEE draft where there was no second elevator shaft… The elevator mechanism could be climbed on, perhaps? Heh, the Quagmires could even be shut up in the decommissioned elevator.
Elevator visit 1: It’s evening, the Squalors are in bed or at least not going out.
“Why would you need an Up button… if you were already on the top floor?” I said this earlier, but I’ll repeat it anyway: To get to the floor above the penthouse. And even if the floor above the penthouse didn’t exist, an empty shaft wouldn’t have been much use – there needed to be some way of getting from top to bottom. So I think there was once a genuine extra elevator here.
Elevator visit 2: Apparently still evening, the Squalors are presumably still in bed. The Baudelaires tie their ersatz rope to the Squalor penthouse’s doorknob – exterior, presumably, not that it makes much difference… but we’ll get to this. Also, the elevator doors remain open all this time.
They climb for more than three hours.
~~~
“a tiny, filthy room” – filthy with what? Just dust, I imagine, and whatever miscellaneous particles float down a fake elevator shaft. And a burnt-out mansion.
“Every second we spend with him, all he does is brag about his horrible plans, and when he’s not looking, I write down everything he tells us so I don’t forget it.”
“Gunther wants to smuggle us out of the city” – and yet he had no trouble smuggling them into the city, or even smuggling them into the secret room at all, which should’ve been the hardest possible thing – perhaps they dived down the Baudelaire hatch at night-time? Notably, though, the Quagmires say that even though they don’t know where they are, so presumably they were in some kind of covered container.
“…and hide us away on some island where the police won’t find us. He’ll keep us on the island until we come of age and we can steal the Quagmire sapphires.” I wonder if this is an early incarnation of the island from The End? It clearly went through some modifications from the version alluded to in TBB.
“He’s told us so many horrible things. I can’t stand to hear them again.” This is actually a really sinister set of passages. The dirty Quagmires trapped in a rusty cage, traumatised, with Olaf spending all his free time bragging about his wicked schemes… It’s almost strange that he told them so much – “all the treachery he has done in the past, and all he’s planning to do in the future” – when in TSS he holds off on even telling his new recruits what V.F.D. stands for, possibly so that Sunny doesn’t hear.
“It’s all here in this notebook—from V.F.D. all the way to this terrible auction plan.” Which makes V.F.D. sound more like a single flashpoint, rather than most of Olaf’s life…
Why didn’t the Baudelaires ask the Quagmires to keep talking to them, about V.F.D. and so on, as they climb back up the elevator shaft?
The Baudelaires climb back up the elevator shaft, which presumably takes another more than three hours.
The Baudelaires go back down the elevator shaft – again, it seems like it’s still night-time, as there’s no comment to the contrary. We assume that the elevator doors are still open, and that the rope is still tied to the Squalor penthouse door. Can you see where I’m going with this?
~~~
This chapter seems to set the elevator climb as lasting three hours.
So the Baudelaires go down, and then back up again – that’s six hours, for a total of twelve hours climbing so far. Therefore, it is now daytime.
The Baudelaires decide to untie the rope and shut the ersatz elevator door, but…
The note on Violet’s pillow proves that Jerome has already left the penthouse – therefore, your challenge for the day is working out how he left the penthouse without seeing the Baudelaires’ ersatz rope leading into the ersatz elevator!
I guess the quickest fix would be that Jerome was still in when the Baudelaires returned, but they took a long route back to their bedrooms whereas Jerome went straight out after having left the note on Violet’s bed, so they just missed each other.
However! Violet soon after says that it’s just past ten o’ clock, and ten o’ clock doesn’t sound like an early time to leave to go and buy paper clips, especially when the timing was earlier associated with sunrise. I’m just going to call this one an error.
Again, great use of foreshadowing in the mention of auction Lot #48.
~~~
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Post by rosalieg on Apr 10, 2009 22:57:33 GMT -5
I finally have time to make some comments. Since a lot of things have already been brought up, I'll mention things that haven't. Let's see...
Chapter 1
One wonders if the Quagmires would have been better off if Mr. Poe had not been put in charge of their case. It probably wouldn't have made much difference, but it could have helped.
Quigley is mentioned once again when the Quagmires are described. In the last discussion, I remember someone asking if fans thought from the beginning the Quigley might come back, since he was mentioned so much. I didn’t go to this site at the time, but I do remember finding the fact that Snicket always mentioned Quigley, even though he was dead, to be a little suspicious.
About the doorman… I was completely fooled by him the first time I read this book. I seem to remember thinking that he was nice, since he’s somewhat helpful and he gave the Baudelaire’s advice a few times. I might be misinterpreting Handler’s intentions, but reading these scenes again, the doorman still strikes me as friendly. The Baudelaires don’t seem to find him unpleasant, either. I wonder if Handler was trying to establish a little bit of Fernald’s good side in preparation for TGG.
Mr. Poe seems to get worse and worse as the books go on. There’s something supremely insensitive about leaving three children to climb forty-eight or eighty-four stairs all alone. I know he has to catch a helicopter, but still.
Chapter 2
There have been some questions as to whether anyone was fooled by Esme the first time they read this. I recall that I actually was. She seemed like a typical bad guardian to me. I don’t think I was even suspicious about her. Up to this point there had never been a guardian who’d actually been bad enough to be in cahoots with Olaf.
Chapter 3
“there were a number of living rooms, dining rooms, breakfast rooms, snack rooms…” Handler certainly likes to list things. He creates lists like this throughout the series, the one in the first chapter of TSS being an extreme example. I’ve always wondered if the lists are somehow significant. A type of code, perhaps?
Chapter 4
What are Olaf and Esme actually doing when they insist that they need private time? Working out the details of their evil plan? Having a date?
Chapter 6
Good place to mention this. This book is absolutely full of sixes. It’s the sixth book, the Squalor’s live at 667, Esme is the city’s sixth most important financial advisor, and now we find out that the Squalor’s live on the 66th floor. Did Handler do this because of the whole “number of the beast” association? I wonder because he didn’t do anything like this with other numbers (as I recall) in any of the other books.
Chapter 9
Skipping ahead a little… I guess it’s not really worth mentioning the reference to The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, since it’s easy to catch. I’ve never read the novel, but I find it interesting that it’s is also about a conflict between two opposing organizations.
Chapter 10
Esme’s comment about Beatrice makes a lot more sense in retrospect then it did the first time I read it. Before, it seemed like a random comment for her to make. I suppose that, like Olaf, she’s getting revenge on the Baudelaire parents through their children.
Sunny’s question, “Glaucus?”, is a reference to the merman ‘Glaucus’ in Greek mythology. He was in love with Scylla before she was turned into a monster by Circe.
More indication of Sunny’s budding personality. It’s interesting how adversity has made her tougher, and possibly braver, than her older siblings.
Chapter 11
No one has mentioned Lemony Snicket’s grandfather’s box yet. I’m not sure what to say about it, other then that it’s intriguing
There’s something really poignant about the way the Baudelaires find themselves at their destroyed home. Bringing them back here was a good idea on Handler’s part.
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Post by Dante on Apr 11, 2009 3:40:07 GMT -5
Chapters Ten through Thirteen:
I’d be really interested in reading an alternate TEE that spins off after page 179 and in which Esmé wasn’t a villain.
The two pitch-black pages were an excellent idea, and you wouldn’t get that in most other books – just one more unique quality of aSoUE.
The net strung across the elevator shaft raises questions. When did Olaf install it? How did he know to do so? And how is Olaf getting up and down the elevator shaft, anyway? I think it’s possible that Olaf returned in time to see the Baudelaires’ ersatz rope, maybe called up Esmé to sort out how to deal with them now that they’d discovered his hiding-place, and strung up the net then. I’ve no idea how he’s getting up and down, though. Grappling hook gun? Modified elevator mechanism stored above the penthouse which the Baudelaires didn’t spot?
“My former acting teacher” – a shame that this never gets mentioned again. We have very few examples of Esmé even acting professionally.
“I want to steal from you the way Beatrice stole from me.” “What are you talking about? …You’re already unbelievably wealthy. Why do you want even more money?” I remember we used to discuss whether Klaus’s reaction here makes more sense if he knows who Beatrice is, or if he doesn’t. I think my conclusion was that it doesn’t make sense either way.
Sunny climbing up the elevator shaft with her teeth is on a par with her swordfighting with her teeth in TMM, but because of that incident, we’re sort of prepared for this and aren’t tempted to throw the book across the room.
“But what was she talking about when she said—” We can guess what Violet was going to say here, but it’s one of a number of examples in the series of extremely insightful sentences being cut off midway through.
~~~
I wonder if this chapter illustration spoils the chapter twist? I’m not sure. Once you know what you’re looking at, it’s obvious it’s the Baudelaire mansion ruins, complete with elegant brandy bottle (and bizarre-looking family portrait), but I don’t know if you’d guess if you didn’t know.
If the Baudelaires can hear so much through the ceiling of the passageway, the roof must be worryingly thin.
“It’s as silent as a tomb up there.” Nice. In fact, this whole sequence has so much dramatic irony when rereading.
“The solution was right on the tip of their tongs!” – proof that Handler writes these books very carefully. The written style is flawless, even when we have complaints about the plot.
Lemony’s wooden box – or rather, a wooden box identical to this – is mentioned in The End. Permit me to quote from Chapter Ten: “This ring… once belonged to the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, who was also the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, and so on and so on and so on. Eventually, the last Duchess of Winnipeg joined V.F.D., and gave it to Kit Snicket’s brother. He gave it to your mother. For reasons I still don’t understand, she gave it back to him, and he gave it to Kit, and Kit gave it to your father, who gave it to your mother when they were married. She kept it locked in a wooden box that could only be opened by a key that was kept in a wooden box that could only be opened by a code that Kit Snicket learned from her grandfather.”
Lemony is the thirteenth owner of the city map.
“Ghost always say that… but then they hurt you anyway.” I really like this line.
“People have always said it’s haunted here on the empty lot where the Baudelaire mansion burned down, and now I know it’s true.” This suggests that people may have seen Gunther climbing around here… but perhaps there were others before him?
~~~
Some people think that the Chapter Twelve illustration depicts Jerome, but I think that’s wide of the mark; it could be anyone. I think Jerome would be taller.
The man wearing large sunglasses, who calls Jerome “Jerry,” may reappear in TPP… at least, there’s someone there who’s looking for a “Jerry.”
“I now know for certain that the Quagmires are being forced to work at a glue factory nearby” – I wonder if this is genuinely mistaken information, as there often is in such cases in real life, or if somebody’s feeding Mr. Poe false information, perhaps through The Daily Punctilio.
“Big enough to sleep inside this fish” – TEE’s packed full of plot holes, but I can’t fault the dramatic irony.
“Five hundred is too much to pay for a big herring statue.”
Once again, the solution is right in front of the Baudelaires’ noses, in the case of Olaf’s assistants – the doorman’s only just left, and the Baudelaires get suspicious of the man in the large sunglasses.
Considering how fabulously wealthy Esmé is, I’m surprised how pleased she is at a bid of a mere thousand… but then again, we don’t know what currency they use in this setting.
“Gunther and Esmé are trying to smuggle them out of the country.” Not just out of the city, now? I guess this scheme might make a bit more sense if they were trying to get them out of the country and not just out of the city… perhaps.
~~~
“But the red herring was Lot #48”
Gunther’s offer to take in the orphans seems like it could be a sort of back-up plan, and certainly it resembles Olaf’s plots in the previous two books; one can easily imagine a TEE variant in which this was Olaf’s plan all along. I’d really like to see some draft versions of this book.
“Soon the Quagmire sapphires will be mine” – how? He was proposing to leave the Quagmires on an island for about five years.
“Your mother always said I wasn’t brave enough, and I guess she was right.” You say that now, Jerome, but in a week or so you’ll be adventuring around the countryside writing a book on injustice.
Lemony’s Kind Editor letter seems to have been written from inside Fowl Fountain? I also wonder if the dampness is another spoiler. But these letters aren’t always completely accurate about the next book, as we’ll see when dealing with TVV and THH.
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Post by Sora on Apr 12, 2009 23:05:03 GMT -5
Finally I have found my copy of TEE. I new that discount fair would come in handy one day.
Chapter 1 Notes (sorry for any repeats)
- I find it interestng that the novel only now introduces the differences between anxious and nervous considering the words have been used multiple times previous.
- I hold very little credit in little asides like 'the author's execution has (not) been canceled' as they are entirely uncanonical. It's much to difficult working your brain into chronologically fitting these lines in when they are more than likely just mood-setting one-offs.
- Mr Poe's character just seems really too stupid to be true. In any sense. " I know some of your guardians have caused you a little trouble' - These children have been beaten, sacrificed, nearly murdered multiple times, hypnotised, and generally scared sh*tless.
- No, of course Count Olaf won't find you here. In this apartment block five minutes from your old house. In the city where Olaf lives. In a community where orphans are fashionable and openly discussed. Of course not.
- The reference to Quigley being as nice as Ducan and Isadora is clearly an attempt at foreshadowing his arrival in TSS.
- How does one accumulate an enormous fortune of sapphires? Were the Quagmire parents owners of a sapphire mine in Africa or something? *Gasp* - did they run a blood sapphire trade?
- Three-week helicopter ride? Baudelaires please think with your brains. Please.
- Why do the associates always have better costumes than Olaf?
- The clothing issue bothers me here. Esme is meant to buy the Baudelaires an entire new wardrobe - yet she only buys them one outfit. And I know she plans on like, killing them somewhere down the line. But do they just alterante between two pairs of clothes for their entire stay there? And then like, what do they wear afterwards? And who washes their clothes? Who could find their dirty laundry in a penthouse as big as their's?
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Post by Very Funky Disco on Apr 12, 2009 23:34:40 GMT -5
"I know some of your guardians have caused you a little trouble..."
Yeah, talk about an understatement of the century. That's a lot like saying "Hitler wasn't a very nice man."
As for Lemony's own personal anecdotes, I have mixed feelings on that. On one hand, it is strongly implied that the ASOUE books also exist in the ASOUE Universe. On the other hand, how was Lemony able to get every action and every line of dialogue exactly correct? Multiple layers of canonicity, perhaps?
Also, yeah, for Esme being "in" - I don't think she'd be too keen on the Baudelaires ever wearing the clothes they arrived in.
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Post by cwm on Apr 13, 2009 15:16:10 GMT -5
I don't really have time now for a complete annotation of the remainder of the book, and I suspect that much of anything I said would be quite similar to what's already been said.
I will comment on this though:
I like the idea of some kind of elevator mechanism present in the shaft. I probably can't express what I'm thinking of clearly, but perhaps there's another way into the elevator from the floor above the penthouse, and there's a very basic sort of platform of some kind to disguise the fact that the way above is there - the lift shaft seems the most likely way of getting to the floor above the penthouse, given it appears to be meant to be secret. Gunther could be using this platform to get up and down the elevator shaft.
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Post by Dante on Apr 13, 2009 16:07:33 GMT -5
I like the idea of some kind of elevator mechanism present in the shaft. I probably can't express what I'm thinking of clearly, but perhaps there's another way into the elevator from the floor above the penthouse, and there's a very basic sort of platform of some kind to disguise the fact that the way above is there - the lift shaft seems the most likely way of getting to the floor above the penthouse, given it appears to be meant to be secret. Gunther could be using this platform to get up and down the elevator shaft. I get exactly what you mean, and I've had similar sorts of thoughts myself. I've considered that possibly an elevator that was originally in the ersatz (or rather, secret) elevator shaft is now permanently stuck on the top floor, and there's a hatch in the floor which Olaf is using to tether ropes to, for example. (Or just using the elevator, although the Baudelaires can't see any elevator mechanisms - it'd have to be entirely rigged up so as to be out of sight if the elevator was on the top, secret, top-secret above-the-penthouse floor.) |
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Post by Hermes on Apr 15, 2009 8:19:41 GMT -5
Violet’s suggestion that Olaf might try and auction off the Baudelaires is startlingly silly – would people just sit there and let this happen? However, it’s also ironically similar to what genuinely happens to the Quagmires. So near and yet so far, Violet! Well, it's good to know that auctioning off children is illegal in Snicketland, but given their relaxed laws on child marriage, child labour and education, I wouldn't have assumed that in advance. Good thinking - but the sugar bowl does seem to be especially important to Esme, who was its original owner. Not to mention standing rooms (which are different from the rooms with no purpose at all). In retrospect, I guess it can't be the same island (even if Handler originally intended it to be) - unless, perhaps, Olaf knew of it (as he clearly does) but had a confused idea of what it was like. Saying 'Before I kill you, I will explain my dastardly plan' is of course a well-known practice of evil overlords. Perhaps by TSS he had realised that telling the Quagmires everything had not been such a good idea. Well, it looks as if for the most part the bad side of VFD don't operate as a group - at one point Olaf calls himself an independent operator. So it may be that he is only publicly associated with VFD because of one particular dramatic act which the bad side did at some point in the past. - The reference to Quigley being as nice as Ducan and Isadora is clearly an attempt at foreshadowing his arrival in TSS. I agree - I think he was always meant to come back. Some might not accept this, though. Distances are often a problem in ASOUE. I intend to comment on this when we reach the next book. One sees why young Beatrice said 'you have a lousy sense of direction'. On the other hand, how was Lemony able to get every action and every line of dialogue exactly correct? Multiple layers of canonicity, perhaps? This is fairly normal in stories which have a narrator - he tells us exactly what people said and did, when it's clear that if the story were true he couldn't know it in such detail. In any case, later young Beatrice is going to suggest Lemony isn't always accurate - though Dante and I have an ongoing dispute about what this signifies. OK: my own comments on chapters 10-13. The black page is probably inspired by the one in Tristram Shandy, though I can't remember what that was meant to signify. 'I want to steal from you the way Beatrice stole from me.' This makes a lot of sense if Beatrice is the Baudelaires' mother; but Klaus's reply 'Why do you want even more money?' is puzzling in this case. I think, though, it's possible to see Klaus as meaning not 'What is your motivation?' but 'What possible advantage would it give you?' Then Violet asks 'What was she talking about when she said - ' and Sunny interrupts. As Dante said, it would often be good to hear the speeches which are cut off by interruptions. Lemony says he has a map - apparently very old - of the city 'at the time when the Baudelaire orphans lived in it'. This makes it sound as if the Baudelaires' story happened long before Lemony wrote it - not last week, as TUA seems to suggest, nor in the last ten years,, as TBL suggests. Also, why does Lemony find the contents of the map so amazing? He, as a member of VFD, ought to know why there was a secret passage between the Baudelaire mansion and 667. Olaf and Esme escape holding hands. This is the only real indication we get in this book that their connection is romantic; it doesn't become explicit until TVV. Edited to add responses to Rosalieg's post, which I'm ashamed to say I hadn't noticed earlier. Quigley is mentioned once again when the Quagmires are described. In the last discussion, I remember someone asking if fans thought from the beginning the Quigley might come back, since he was mentioned so much. I didn’t go to this site at the time, but I do remember finding the fact that Snicket always mentioned Quigley, even though he was dead, to be a little suspicious. There have been some questions as to whether anyone was fooled by Esme the first time they read this. I recall that I actually was. She seemed like a typical bad guardian to me. I don’t think I was even suspicious about her. Up to this point there had never been a guardian who’d actually been bad enough to be in cahoots with Olaf. Thanks for both of these; they're very helpful. Oh, interesting idea! Was it one of the thirteen shocking secrets that said Lemony's books were full of secret messages to his associates? I'm afraid if this is a code, only members of VFD should be able to decode it. Probably both. The insistence that no one come in makes most sense if their plans are romantic, I guess. And it's about postage stamps. Yes, that is very obvious, isn't it? And I never noticed it. (Is stupid.) I don't think the story about Hercules actually fits the myth as we know it, by the way. |
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Post by Sora on Apr 17, 2009 21:41:44 GMT -5
Violet’s suggestion that Olaf might try and auction off the Baudelaires is startlingly silly – would people just sit there and let this happen? However, it’s also ironically similar to what genuinely happens to the Quagmires. So near and yet so far, Violet! Well, it's good to know that auctioning off children is illegal in Snicketland, but given their relaxed laws on child marriage, child labour and education, I wouldn't have assumed that in advance. Eh, its not that unusual. Arkansas senators passed a law saying as long as a girl was pregnant, she could get married at any age. But why is it especially important to Esme? Because of her reputation? The materials were never leaked to the public - she's never been explicitly connected to Olaf outside of VFD circles so why is she still so angry with Beatrice? I really doubt it is the same island. Just like how I really doubt Hotel Denoument is really the same Hotel Denoument we first hear about in TSS. Yeah, but why would he tell the Quagmires explicit and in depth details of VFD? Did he want them to understand the reasoning behind his plans? And why, during all the many times the Baudelaires have been alone with Olaf for extended periods of time - for example in TRR before Poe turns up - does he not mention anything to him of his plans or his hand in killing the Baudelaire parents? I think that some people don't accept this because the Quagmires role was oddly diminished following TAA - almost as if Lemony was retconning the introduction of genuinely good friends of the Baudelaires. However I think that prior to TGG Quigley would have had a larger role to play (perhaps even in Duncan/Violet/Quigley angst) in the overall scope of things, and Snicket always intended for him to come back. I will discuss this further when we examine TUA where his survival is blatently suggested. I have a large theory on this which I will delve deeper into once we reach The End, but if we take the final image of The End (before Chapter 14) - of Snicket rowing away from the island- to be a tip off from Handler - Lemony has always been closer to the Baudelaires than he lets on. As in, he is within helping distance of the Baudelaires, but chooses not to help them out of cowardice or a distinct inability to intrude. Herein my friends, lies the wub. I will further my theory when we reach what I feel is the first distinct evince of this theory in TSS. It makes no sense regardless. Why does Violet never ever bring up again the fact that Esme seems to have a grudge against their mother? And why would Klaus ask such a question anyway? If you didn't know Beatrice was your mother - wouldn't you ask 'What does that have to do with us?' or something along those lines. Why does he say 'Klaus would regret this for many many years...' in TRR? Lemony is either in a temporal shift or lying to disguise his cowardice and I firmly believe the latter. And also, the map itself could have been from when Lemony worked in VFD - which to further mystify the timeline and the whole 'fifteen years' that did or did not happen in his relationship with Beatrice may be described as 'old'. Well yes that is true - but for the purposes of hiding Olaf's identity from Jerome, I'm sure she wouldn't be falling all over him. |
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Post by Dante on Apr 18, 2009 3:46:56 GMT -5
The TEE reread is over now, but I want to respond to a few points: I agree - I think [Quigley] was always meant to come back. Some might not accept this, though. I'd be dubious about it, but I'd also be dubious about saying Handler pulled him out of a hat for TSS. It's not like he does anything outside of TSS, after all. But then again, I get the feeling several characters didn't quite get the finale they were intended to. I do wonder if the former map owners didn't just write notes on the map but also updated it. The tunnel beneath 667 Dark Avenue doesn't necessarily need to be very new, anyway. Only about as old as 667 Dark Avenue itself, in fact. However, the early books definitely have a "This happened a very long time ago" vibe about them; it's scrapped later on because Lemony's more involved with the story; because Handler wanted to do something different. I don't think TBL is meant to be set in the same time-frame as the actual writing of the books. Although your concern is obviously that TBL is too early, not too late. Beacuse it's a surprising and unfortunate way of things turning out? Lemony may have known about the tunnel all the time he was in the Baudelaire mansion - alternatively, it could've been something only the owners at either end were meant to know, to protect the innocent. Either way, Lemony's free to be surprised at how things turned out - that the Baudelaires escaped down the tunnel, but the wrong way from what was intended. Instead of Beatrice fleeing down the passageway from her burning home, her children emerge into its ashes. I really doubt it is the same island. Just like how I really doubt Hotel Denoument is really the same Hotel Denoument we first hear about in TSS. I think we're working under different definitions of "same." The details of the island mentioned in TBB don't quite match those of The End, but they're similar enough that we can say that the former "evolved" or "developed" into the latter. They were intended to be the same island, even if the features were different. What's not clear if the island mentioned in TEE is also meant to be that island - again, even if the details about it are different, what matters is Handler's intent. Handler says he always knew how the series would end, and while I think that was probably only in a general sense, I'm content to suggest that this includes the fact that the last book would be set on an island - this island. The Quagmires may already be members of V.F.D. - he knows they at least know about it, from the end of TAA - in which case Olaf might feel free to boast also about all his triumphs over the organisation. The Baudelaires don't know anything - and they've never been quite so much in Olaf's clutches as to be literally in a cage (not all of them at once). Speaking of which, are we doing the U.A. between THH and TCC? I'll be interested to hear your full theory, although I am rather afraid that I'll disagree. |
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