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Post by liquidladylemony on May 4, 2009 21:01:11 GMT -5
I have no idea. Sorry for the inconvinience.
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Post by Hermes on May 5, 2009 8:57:29 GMT -5
I'm fairly sure that TSS massively retconned the intended direction of the Snicket file subplot in favour of the sugar bowl. I'll come back to this. Of course, in a way there are two Snicket File subplots. On the one hand there is the 'survivor of the fire' thing, which I think is resolved. And while we seem to disagree on whether the survivor was originally meant to be Quigley, I think we're agreed that it wasn't a Baudelaire parent, so the general tendency of that plot would have been the same - sooner or later the orphans would have found out who the survivor really was, and been disappointed. But on the other hand there's the original reason Olaf wanted the file, because it contained the crucial evidence against him. This I find very puzzling indeed. It's certainly inconsistent with things that come later. But it's also inconsistent with things that come earlier. The police have evidence against him; that's why they've been pursuing him since book 1. The Quagmire notebooks contained evidence against him; they have been destroyed, but they were compiled from published sources. The idea of one file on which everything turns is hard to fit it in any case. Awfully consistent fires. You'd think the villainous side wouldn't really care *when* they set the fire. Perhaps it takes that amount of time to spy out the scene, get materials, etc. In any case it's approximate - every twelve weeks or so. But I don't know; Handler may not have had any specific answer in mind.
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Post by Dante on May 5, 2009 10:34:39 GMT -5
Of course, in a way there are two Snicket File subplots. On the one hand there is the 'survivor of the fire' thing, which I think is resolved. And while we seem to disagree on whether the survivor was originally meant to be Quigley, I think we're agreed that it wasn't a Baudelaire parent, so the general tendency of that plot would have been the same - sooner or later the orphans would have found out who the survivor really was, and been disappointed. But on the other hand there's the original reason Olaf wanted the file, because it contained the crucial evidence against him. This I find very puzzling indeed. It's certainly inconsistent with things that come later. But it's also inconsistent with things that come earlier. The police have evidence against him; that's why they've been pursuing him since book 1. The Quagmire notebooks contained evidence against him; they have been destroyed, but they were compiled from published sources. The idea of one file on which everything turns is hard to fit it in any case. I think the sugar bowl suffers from the same kind of problem; however, attempting to fix this by raising it to almost mystical levels of significance somewhat destroyed its plausibility. At least the Snicket File was something that couldn't plausibly be revealed on-screen. I still default to V.F.D. meetings, in the absence of - well, any explanation. For some reason, though, before I reread that part, I had the strangest memory that money was somehow involved... That it was a sum of money being transferred every twelve weeks or so. But occasionally I do remember things that never happened, so...
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Post by cwm on May 6, 2009 15:29:07 GMT -5
If I remember, the telephone wires are cut while the Baudelaires are on the phone at the beginning of TCC - the telephone was working when they picked it up. So this can't be the explanation of Mr Poe not answering (which doesn't mean Handler at some point didn't think it was). Hang about. Ideally this should wait until next week but I'll probably have forgotten by then: there's still a dialtone on the phone when the Baudelaires hang up in TCC, so the telephone poles being chopped down as per TUA can't possibly be the explanation for the operator not continuing the conversation. If that is what had happened there'd be no sound at all.
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Post by Dante on May 6, 2009 15:45:30 GMT -5
We'll look at it more closely when we get to TCC, aye? Upon closer study, we may want to default to "Don't think about it too hard" on something like that, i.e. where there's a good explanation held up by a technicality.
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Post by Very Funky Disco on May 6, 2009 16:29:50 GMT -5
Upon closer study, we may want to default to "Don't think about it too hard" on something like that, i.e. where there's a good explanation held up by a technicality. Actually, that's called the Bellisario's Maxim: "Don't examine this too closely." As fun as it might be to discuss stuff like this - sometimes, I guess it is better to not over-think it.
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Post by cwm on May 6, 2009 23:27:39 GMT -5
Good point.
The letter about the telephone poles being chopped down could be a red herring, and I have one or two theories -- no, we'll wait until TCC.
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Post by cwm on May 14, 2009 15:37:13 GMT -5
Are we going to start TCC soon...? Or TUA?
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Post by Very Funky Disco on May 14, 2009 15:40:50 GMT -5
I'm ready for either or. Preferably, TUA - but TCC also works.
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Post by Hermes on May 14, 2009 16:05:12 GMT -5
I really think we need the combined wisdom of 667 to do TUA justice, so we shouldn't do it unless we all have the time. I have a lot more free time from next week - but I don't know how busy Dante is. (And I'm still worried about Sora - has anyone heard from him?)
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Post by Dante on May 15, 2009 3:24:55 GMT -5
My classes have all ended, so I'll be largely free from now on. If nobody has any objections, I'll move onto the U.A. on Saturday, unless anyone has any objections.
As for Sora, he doesn't seem to have logged in for a couple of weeks. Probably busy "IRL," as it were.
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Post by Sora on May 15, 2009 5:12:36 GMT -5
Hello re-readers! Dante - thank you for taking over in my absence- I've had some drama in Real Life World, and haven't really had time to post for ages. But I'm back! And sooo keen to talk about TUA as of tomorrow. Great job everyone who's stuck round all the time.
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Post by Dante on May 15, 2009 8:07:06 GMT -5
Good to see you back, Sora. Let's look forward to the U.A., then - I'll get out my copy in advance. (Which copy? I have three different ones. Heh, the one that's most manageable, then.)
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Post by Hermes on May 15, 2009 11:24:32 GMT -5
Welcome back, Sora! I look forward to TUA.
By the way, I have quite a lot of thoughts about THH, as yet unexpressed - either scribbled on paper or in my head. I hope it will be OK if I post them at some point.
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Post by Dante on May 15, 2009 12:08:10 GMT -5
Go right ahead. I've been wondering why THH seems to have been a little dry for what I'd have thought was a fairly important book.
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