|
|
Post by cwm on Jul 22, 2009 9:37:19 GMT -5
Reads to me like Widdershins accidentally giving away a detail of the ?'s nature.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 22, 2009 10:13:10 GMT -5
Me too, but I don't know if we know if Widdershins knows what the Question Mark is, or if he's just guessing. ...That said, though, even if it does end up being a metaphor, it's obviously meant to be a submarine when it's introduced.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hermes on Jul 22, 2009 13:22:22 GMT -5
So: each of the title-page illustrations shows the Baudelaires in some form, though in the case of TGG it's not very obvious. I always did think TPP, showing the burining hotel, was anomalous - now I know why. Yes, why are the reread regulars all from the UK? Chapter 4. I think the bit about the Baudelaires as part of a gathering of volunteers is quite affecting - it confirms their now being part of VFD. When V asks F to look out for Quigley I don't think she's thinking of his drowned body - the idea is he may still be floating on the surface, holding on to a piece of wood or whatever he had grapsed when they last saw him. Note she says F should use the periscope. 'The volunteers lost track of him a long time ago...' - this paints a picture of volunteers as a group tracking people, and often knowing where they are, which doesn't quite fit in with the picture of Jacques's solitary search for the Baudelaires we got from Q. When the captain starts his speech by ringing a bell, one might wonder if we are getting a message in Sebald code. If so, though, it begins 'Attention! Report what's not off... and then becomes completely meaningless. So probably not. 'Procto', meaning 'The other end' - hm. One definitely gets the impression that Handler is confused about the cutting down of the wires, though if you like you can ascribe the confusion to Violet (and Quigley). Another puzzle is how many wires you would need to cut down to disrupt the entire network - previously we were told only about the wires along Rarely Ridden Road. But perhaps there is a transmitter there, or something. 'from Sontag shore in a northeasterly direction' - this rather suggests we are on the east coast, not the west as the TUA map suggests. (Unless, perhaps, the whole series is set on a large island, and we're now on the other side of it.) Earlier Mr Poe swore by Nathaniel Hawthorne - the captain's collection of oaths is even stranger. One might wonder how O managed to get to the sea so quickly. I think Plato is rather misrepresented here; his cave is not an image for the whole of life, but for a particular state of mind or kind of society. Chapter 5. I wonder who Madam di Lustro turned out to be? Not necessarily someone bad. It occurs to me she might be R - in hiding after the destruction of he mansion - since we do seem to have our attention drawn to R in this book. When the Captain proposed a marriage between Klaus and Fiona, I initially took it as evidence there would not be anything between them. But clearly I was wrong, so perhaps he has spotted something - as Nero did with Violet and Duncan. Meanwhile, has Violet/Fernald become popular at all as a pairing? 'You've grown up so nicely...' - well, Phil, it's a few months at most since you last saw them. It's the time-dilation effect again. I agree with Dante that this passage supports the view that VFD stands for Volunteer Fire Department; that's what it originally was, so that's what the initials stand for, even though it has expanded into other activities. I wonder, though; is the name of VFD meant to be a secret? Jacques wouldn't tell Quigley; on the other hand he seemed to be prepared to say it quite openly in TVV. I take a rather different view of the Snicket Snickersnee from Dante. The Cafe Salmonella clearly has VFD links, as is shown by the inclusion of 'salmon suit' in the disguise kit in TUA, and the presence of a waiter from there in TPP. So I think that - the manager having joined the villainous side - they were deliberately disrupting the programme. Since this happened after Fiona was born, this is also evidence of Lemony being back in the country and in good standing with VFD after One Last Warning and related events. If we connect Kit's helping to build the submarine with the removal of the pole from the Mortmain Mountains HQ, this implies the HQ began to be downsized a long time ago - which I suppose is quite probable. The captain insists no one would write to Jacques, because he is dead. Presumably news of his death managed to get through before the wires were cut. Still, it seems an odd claim - someone could easily not have known. Sunny's response points to Justice Strauss. I think it very unlikely that the message was deliberately meant for Justice Strauss, since as I said before it really has to be for a volunteer in good standing - but it might perhaps just have been meant for 'the person who leaves messages signed JS', who was in fact (at least partly) Justice Strauss. Mushroom Minutiae is clearly a VFD book, and its style resembles that of other VFD books we have seen - perhaps intended to discourage unlearned people from reading it? The speech about noble uniforms is interesting - although this book presents VFD as a slightly more coherent body than one would have guessed up to this point, this emphasises very clearly that it's a shadow of its former self - something to be borne in mind, I think, when reflecting on how ineffective it is. And so the Baudelaires go to bed - a rare event in their lives nowadays. It will be the only time they do so in this book. “I thought I’d never live to see your mycological studies be put to good use,” and I’m sorry to say he was right.” This implies Widdershins dies before Fiona can use her mycological skills for good, but it’s a little problematic as it seems he’s largely just absent… he doesn’t die for another couple of books yet, and even then he may not have died. However, it’s true that Fiona doesn’t really get to do much good with her mycological knowledge. I'm not sure it has to be read as the captain dying - it can just mean that Fiona's mycological studies will never do good. (And since she, too, is 'dead', or at least gone without return by the end of the series, we can be sure they never will.) Well, as I've said before, I disagree on this - characters named 'Gorgon' and 'Quisling' would have been too much of a giveaway. Either they are intended as generic - and they can be capitalised when used that way - or, as has now struck me, they may be deliberately unspoken names of characters. Might they be the sinister duo? It seems possible that the captain (who I take to be older than the Snickets, the Baudelaire parents etc.) was at school with the woman. Yes, I think it's unlikely that only a child could get in; I take him to mean that a person would have to go, and only the children are available. (The captain shouldn't leave his vessel, and he seems to have a low opinion of Phil's abilities.)On the other hand the swimming woman was coming down to the place where the submarine was, not to the narrower part of the grotto - and as for the earlier history of the grotto, there was a pumping mechanism at that time, and it was presumably also possible to enter the dry part from above. |
|
|
|
Post by cwm on Jul 22, 2009 14:20:14 GMT -5
In the course of about a day, maybe even less, he has gone from the top of the Mortmain Mountains, to the Hotel D, then to the sea.
Presuming he had a spare tyre, and my theory about the hotel having a V.F.D. dock of some kind around the back is correct, it is, perhaps, *just about* plausible.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 22, 2009 16:25:13 GMT -5
So: each of the title-page illustrations shows the Baudelaires in some form, though in the case of TGG it's not very obvious. I always did think TPP, showing the burining hotel, was anomalous - now I know why. Well, the Baudelaires are in the hotel, I suppose - but it's a recycle from U.S. art, so it doesn't have to make sense. Also worth noting: It's kinda sad that they started recycling as from about TVV on the pictures got much more creative; previously they'd been fairly generic. Maybe the series has more of a lasting appeal to people from the U.K. than the U.S.? *shrug* Ah, but Fiona started off talking about taking looks through the porthole. Yeah, attempts have been made, but without success. It's a little baffling... maybe editing messed it up, as with instances in the U.A. and TPP? More severely than those instances, though - because the U.A. has the code marked, we miss the fact that in one extract there's a gap of eleven rather than ten, and TPP just manages to exchange one word for another... although that's interesting in itself for reasons I'll come onto when we get to TPP. I wonder if we could try to decipher what a pre-edited Sebald Code message would've been from this scene - wait, no, that's insane. Of course we shouldn't do that. I think we can take the Rarely Ridden Road incident as being representative of many such incidents. A whole sheaf of letters referring to telephone poles being chopped down would be rather overkill. Yeah, I had a hard time fixing that on my map. I'm not a great follower of shipping and fanfiction, but I only remember one rather grisly fic for this pairing. And it's not weird enough for the old "Weird Ships Week" 667 used to hold. ...I kinda wish that'd come back; I want to write something for it now. I remember that at one point it was theorised that the organisation's official name was simply "V.F.D.," representing the many uses of those initials within the organisation. This would've grown out of Volunteer Fire Department, but if you'll forgive the pun, the organisation had rather grown out of that period of its life. It's hard to say, really. I guess Jacques's life was in danger in TVV, but if he did say the organisation's name, would anyone understand what he meant? And not be suspicious, given V.F.D.'s now-shady public reputation as indicated in a couple of places? Hmm, good point; I'd forgotten about the disguise. However, the disguise could've been created during the Snicket Snickersnee to aid in infiltration of Café Salmonella. It's more that I find the entire situation... a little... oh, I don't know. There's just something I don't like about the villains malevolently manoeuvring a popular café into seizing fire-fighting fish for their own yummy purposes. It's a little underwhelming. Because for it to work as a more military anti-V.F.D. effort I think would require some of the civilian staff of the café to wake up and smell the salmon-flavoured coffee. Yeah, V.F.D. has basically lost by the end of TPP - but in a sense it's more mythic than that. The past days of V.F.D. are a lost golden age, receding ever farther into the mist and the Great Unknown with every step we take; now it's a constant struggle to preserve what's good and right against the forces of greed and ignorance. In that sense, it's very real. They can't have slept since TCC. The poor kids must be burnt out, and I don't recall them getting a proper sleep either. Hmm, I think the emphasis is on death more than anything else in that particular moment of foreshadowing. I recall an allusion in TPP to the home of one of the teachers of one of the sinister duo. I think I'd rather their names be a bit more similar to each other; if I were to craft names for them, I'd do something like that. However! One must settle for what one can find. It's not like I'd ever reveal the sinister duo's names myself. Misses the point. So, it's not a scenario that's exactly pressing. In the course of about a day, maybe even less, he has gone from the top of the Mortmain Mountains, to the Hotel D, then to the sea. Presuming he had a spare tyre, and my theory about the hotel having a V.F.D. dock of some kind around the back is correct, it is, perhaps, *just about* plausible. Yes, I was going to remark on this for a later chapter - when Olaf actually appears he talks about making his way down the mountain and finding the wreckage of the Baudelaires' toboggan. And the rest! The man shouldn't have any means of propulsion at this point, but it's at precisely this point his car is forgotten, never to be mentioned again, and he suddenly magics up a submarine out of who-knows-where. We're not even sure when he got that. Maybe the Mortmain Mountains headquarters had its own submarine dock with the octopus left behind? Enormously contrived and raises a couple of questions, but on the other hand, it might solve some of our timing issues here. I think that the octopus actually arrives at the Hotel D during TGG at some point, which would imply a submarine dock... or, you know, they just park a little way down the shore and clamber out. |
|
|
|
Post by cwm on Jul 22, 2009 21:05:04 GMT -5
It's possible that Handler changed his mind once TSS was published, I suppose, and Violet not mentioning the punctured tyre is his way of retconning it away.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 23, 2009 5:19:39 GMT -5
I agree that that's the most likely explanation. Possibly Olaf originally only turned up in Chapters Eight/Nine of TGG, but it was all too much at once, so the confrontation in Chapter Four was added.
~Chapter Seven~
Snicket starts by hammering “Volunteer Fire Department” into our heads yet more. At this point, for V.F.D. to stand for something else would be a twist for the sake of twists.
The “lousy” sequence, while admirably-written, causes “lousy” to stop sounding like a real word.
The tunnel above the cavern: “But someone must use that passageway… Otherwise it wouldn’t have been built.” But I imagine there would once have been an elevator there instead, not just an unassailable shaft.
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is mentioned again, with Violet adding that she hates the part about life being but a dream. Bad news, Violet…
The part here where the Baudelaires and Fiona discuss their families illuminates the fact that it isn’t all mythic significance and melodrama; the way their families behaved were very normal, although that’s bathetic in relation to their secret duties.
“It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect, or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable.” I sometimes wondered if Lemony was also thinking of Beatrice here – well, she and the Baudelaire mother are the same person. I get the feeling he’d find it even harder than the Baudelaires to admit that Beatrice wasn’t perfect.
“My brother used to get angry, too… Before he disappeared, he would have awful fights with my stepfather—late at night, when they thought I was asleep.” I wonder what they argued about? One might well guess that it involves the activities of Anwhistle Aquatics, given what we later learn, but it could just be that they didn’t get on with each other at all. Again, this seems a bit more normal – not normal, exactly, but not in the securely mysterious and fictional vein that the rest of the series occupies. The thought of Fiona lying awake at night listening to her brother and stepfather argue is a bit too hard.
“Maybe he only remembers the charming parts… Maybe he doesn’t want to remember everything. Maybe he wants to keep those parts secret.” It’s parts of TGG like this that are the reason it’s probably my favourite book. I think it has a better grip on what I find interesting about emotion and people.
Notice that the Baudelaires, when searching once again, each discover a legendary treasure – Violet’s “odd, square stone with messages carved in three languages” resembles the Rosetta Stone, Klaus’s “ring made of dull metal” is presumably an allusion to the One Ring (or some other legendary ring – there must be several), and Sunny’s “fancy wineglass filled with holes” is a terrible pun which I had to have pointed out – it’s the Hol(e)y Grail.
Also, I sometimes wonder if we should be deducing anything from the other items of detritus that the Baudelaires find.
Versed Furtive Disclosure presumably yielded more codes than Verse Fluctuation Declaration alone, although it’s a shame that the latter is only used in this book – it has a lot of potential.
Since “Duchess R” is so isolated a reference, I assume it’s mainly an allusion for the fans to get. We don’t know if the next page would’ve continued this message, elaborated on it, or if this is a message in isolation – if it’s just an example, it probably doesn’t mean anything. R. might have written the book, for example.
Fiona doesn’t know what a schism is. Is the schism itself something Widdershins kept from her? Widdershins’s secrecy is a fairly crippling plot device. In some places Fiona knows even less than the Baudelaires.
“The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for us all.” Medusoid Mycelium in situ in Gorgonian Grotto before Anwhistle Aquatics was destroyed, which accords with what we learned earlier. It seems a bit too secret to be written about here, though, but perhaps the distinction is in what Gregor’s doing with it – it might previously have been an investigation into the production of medicine from the mushrooms, but by now Gregor’s just growing it to use as weaponry. There’s a definite sense of progression, though – Gorgonian Grotto was evidently once some kind of V.F.D. meeting-place or even shrine, but you can’t use it both for that and for growing toxic fungi.
“One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned.” But it wasn’t just abandoned – it was burnt to the ground. Bear this in mind. I’ll be trying to piece together bits of the backstory later.
“And now the center is gone… and the mycelium remains. Something went very wrong, right here where we’re sitting.” But we can’t identify any real instances. It seems likely that the Medusoid Mycelium accidentally spread outside the grotto, but there may be other possibilities. It seems like there should’ve been more of an “event” to it, the way they’re talking.
“…or journeying through a dark cave filled with a poisonous fungus in order to search for an object that was taken away quite some time before…” This suggests that the sugar bowl had already been removed, deliberately, from Gorgonian Grotto quite a while before the Baudelaires came there. Not the swimming woman, then, but also not someone who’s been publicising their actions. We don’t know where the sugar bowl was between being in Gorgonian Grotto and being delivered to the Hotel Denouement, but presumably another volunteer identified Gorgonian Grotto as its likely resting-place first and retrieved it for safe-keeping – and to await the trial?
“My brother always had a deck of cards with him… in case he was stuck in a boring situation. He invented this card game called Fernald’s Folly, and we used to play it together whenever we had a long wait.” The hook-handed man mentioned in TSS that he usually kept a pack of cards with him. “Fernald’s Folly,” out-of-universe, also implies that Fernald didn’t disappear for good reasons – he made an error, or something went wrong.
“…the Baudelaire children felt as if Fiona fit them like a glove—as a friend, or possibly something more.”
The end of this chapter reveals that one of the Baudelaires’ diving helmets contains a Medusoid Mycelium spore, and this combined with earlier foreshadowing should, if the reader remembers it well, allow Sunny to be predicted as the sufferer. Not too long until we find out anyway, though.
Presumably, Violet fears that if Fiona finds out her brother defected to the villainous side of V.F.D., she’ll join him, or at least go looking? It could be troublesome, but it’s also unfair to keep that information from her. She’s waited so long, and even her stepfather must have been keeping it secret from her.
~Chapter Eight~
V.F.D. balloons aren’t terribly sinister, but they do add a sort of poignancy to the abandonment of the submarine.
…Also, it’s just occurred to me that, considering how vital Widdershins’s abandonment of the submarine is to the plot of TGG and therefore the remainder of the series, it’s annoying that we don’t ever find out why. Not even the vaguest hint.
“And a small, ceramic bowl, with a tight-fitting lid to keep something important inside, might be difficult to find in the laundry room of an enormous hotel, particularly if there were a terrible villain nearby, making you feel nervous and distracted.” A detailed and quite accurate look into the next book. Well, sort of; in the event the Baudelaires don’t personally search for the sugar bowl, the villain in question does.
“I am the captain!” It’s interesting that Fiona sees not just the role of captain but the aspects of Widdershins’s personality to be transferrable; one can imagine Widdershins being… actually, I think he’d be a lot more flustered in this situation, and wouldn’t know what to do.
“She’s wrong!” Uh, not really, Violet. It only takes one person to do the research to find out how to cure Sunny, which Fiona’s very reasonably doing herself, and she’s entrusting them with the task of solving the other crippling hindrance they’re suffering right now and get them out of the grotto and onto Widdershins’s trail. I don’t see how Fiona’s going wrong here. Violet just doesn’t like her.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hermes on Jul 23, 2009 11:07:57 GMT -5
Chapter 6. When the captain says they may get a chance to remove their helmets, it's clear in retrospect that he knows more than he is letting on. Likewise, I guess, when he says they won't need flashlights - he must know that the interior of the cave is lit. (Though if he knows that one might think he would also know that the SB might have been removed.) Why is he keeping quiet about this? It may just be his natural instinct to keep as quiet as he can about everything. But things later on will suggest that the grotto is associated with a shameful moment in his past. 'high up in the air' - yes, we never see this; though of course we do hear of events happening high up in the air, which do indeed have a disastrous conclusion. Did Handler originally intend the Baudelaires to be present at these events? The 'secrets too terrible' theme is repeated; clearly it is being rubbed in (more on this later). Can we work out from what is said here what is in the sugar bowl? I think it might either be something capable of causing a terrible calamity, or something that could be used as a preservative against a terrible calamity (in which case, if the villains get it, they can stop it being used). The way it's spoken of here doesn't fit too well with the idea of its being evidence - though it might also be evidence, if, say, Olaf has used it to cause a disaster, and it has his fingerprints on it. This chapter includes a discussion of the water cycle, and in particular of evaporation, the first of three phenomena which make up what is called 'the water cycle'. The VFD connection with the Gorgonian Grotto would not have been suspected from what we have heard before (though that's because of the captain's secretiveness). The reference to famous people who had inspired the organisations members rather confirms the 'honorary member' theory; while the refernce to chefs shows how important food is to the organisation, giving significance to Sunny's skills. So who is the swimming woman? Possibly R - to whom attention will be drawn in the next chapter? While, as Dante says, she needn't be someone bad, she has come to lead the captain away - which has a bad result, and thus makes her at least partly bad by what seems to be the prevailing moral code of the Snicketverse. And when it says 'for the last time', does that mean it's the last time anyone will come down one of these passageways into the grotto, or just the last time she will? 'Someone must come to change the lightbulbs' - so, though no longer a centre of activity, the place hasn't been completely abandoned. Why not? Perhaps people still come looking for things that have washed up there - and the lights are kept working to help them do that. I'm worried about the physics of this chapter. Doesn't water rise to the same level everywhere? In which case there shouldn't be a dry cave many miles below the surface of the sea. Chapter 7. It may possibly help, or hinder, those constructing timelines to note that Fiona's mother was still around at a time when F was old enough to clean up her room. (By the way, does she have a room of her own on the Queequeg? If not, they must have had a house at one time.) The recognition that their parents were not perfect brings the story to a more human level, as Dante says, but it also leads us back - in a mild way, to start with - to the theme of moral ambiguity. Kit warns Gregor against playing with fire; for her it is wrong to use villainous methods even for a good end. Yet later (presumably) she will do the same, in the incident with the poyzon darts. No one is immune to corruption. (Ishmael tried to be, by withdrawing from the conflict altogether, and look where that got him.) The timing of these events is hard to keep track of. So far as I can see, the Queequeg entered the grotto on Saturday night. So the Baudelaires and F set off on Sunday morning, spend Sunday exploring, are trapped in the grotto on Sunday night, and return on Monday morning. Chapter 8. Here Lemony continues his discussion of the water cycle, focusing on precipitation, the second of the three phenomena which make up 'the water cycle'. It's amazing that at this deeply disturbing moment Handler gives us one of his funniest passages, with glasses of water ten miles in diameter, and women disguised as mailboxes. We also get a foreshadowing of the next book. (In fact, of course, the sugar bowl is not in the laundry room; but as someone pointed out, it is indeed hard to find a sugar bowl in a laundry room if it isn't there.) If the couplet is accurate, the next three chapters cannot take more than an hour. Presumably we're meant to feel the sense of urgency running through them as we listen to Fernald's ruminations, Carmelita's singing etc. And we have another argument between K and V! I've missed them. Is F in fact right in trying to get out of the cave? True, they need to find the captain, but since they have no idea where he has gone, it's not clear starting up the engines will help. I would have thought having more than one person do the research might in fact be more helpful - there is, after all, more than one mycological book on board. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is mentioned again, with Violet adding that she hates the part about life being but a dream. Bad news, Violet… Life is but a dream? The ring of the Nibelungs, of course. And yes, I'm sure there are many others - including, now, the ring in which the Resurrection Stone was set. But why of dull metal? I think it's an instance of the 'more things in heaven and earth' theme which will be developed over the next couple of books. Let me just check I've got this - Kit is referring to it as something secret, while the author of Mushroom Minutiae treated it as something well-known? And your suggestion for reconciling these is that it was known that it was there, but not that it was being developed for use as a weapon? I'm inclined to think, simply, that Mushroom Minutiae was written after the fire - 'Anwhistle Aquatics' just serves to identify the spot, rather than being the name of a working business. I had supposed that what went wrong was simply the destruction of AA, leaving the mycelium with no one to manage it. Well, it may have been the same person, but not on the same occasion. This is rather weird, actually; at the end of TGG we still have no idea where the SB is, and think it's lost. In TPP we are told, cheerfully 'crows are bringing it to the hotel', as if there were no problem about it. No incoherence, just things we don't know; but still surprising. His interest in large rocks presumably developed after he changed sides. Well, it's a mystery! Is any mystery started at this point or later ever solved? I suppose 'Who is JS?' is, to an extent, at least, but that started in TSS.
|
|
|
|
Post by cwm on Jul 23, 2009 12:11:42 GMT -5
If the couplet is accurate, the next three chapters cannot take more than an hour. Presumably we're meant to feel the sense of urgency running through them as we listen to Fernald's ruminations, Carmelita's singing etc. It qualifies with 'may' - the Medusoid Mycelium will not take the exact same amount of time to kill each and every single one of its victims. There's presumably some margin of error on either side, so it could be a little more than an hour. Widdershins' disappearance - would a volunteer really abandon the Baudelaires in a highly dangerous place? Could it be that the person who came to collect him threatened Widdershins, and that's 'what he heard' from her? He is apparently free by the time of TPP. |
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 23, 2009 14:18:48 GMT -5
(Though if he knows that one might think he would also know that the SB might have been removed.) Hm, I disagree. He can know that people still come to replace the lights in the grotto, but we don't know when or how often, whether they'd have been there before or after the sugar bowl got there, how long it took for the sugar bowl to reach the grotto in the first place... it squares, I think. Such is my theory... although whether that fits with one thing we definitely know was in a draft of TPP, I'm unsure. Trouble is, it's all a bit magical for a relatively reality-based series. Nonsense physics, sure, but mysterious pocket-sized Armageddon devices? Also, some have speculated that the sugar bowl contained either Medusoid Mycelium or horseradish - I shouldn't need to explain why the latter's false, and the former wouldn't make much sense either. I think the swimming woman takes a bit too much genuine action to be R., whose duties appear to be limited to holding masked balls and such. Not as though I haven't speculated the same myself in the past, though, on the grounds that it "kills two birds with one stone." And "for the last time" I think refers specifically to the woman's passageway-using. Perhaps she's the one who changes the lights? Fair enough - same principle seems to apply to the island, where its detritus is seen as worthy of cataloguing. Hence my thoughts on the locked default state of the pumping machine, or the possible sealed quality of the cave. I did write that down, didn't I? Possibly Fiona's room is one of the many flooded rooms aboard the submarine. Hmm, the timeline I've got written down says the following: "Saturday (picked up), Sunday (grotto), Monday (travelling), Tuesday (Briny Beach)." So your interpretation sounds right, yes. Quite so. She's not real. I can't help but see the reference as metafictional. I considered citing the ring of the Nibelungs before deciding not to talk about something I didn't actually know much about - and the One Ring was the one people jumped to before on the forums. I honour the memory of the past... even if it was never very likely. I don't think Gregor would exactly be publicising the fact that he was growing Medusoid Mycelium to use as a weapon against the enemies of V.F.D. - not to the extent that it'd be written about in books without comment, anyway. However, Mushroom Minutiae does read better as being after the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics, but I think if that were the case there would be a reference to the fact that the building no longer exists. But they know that that happened. It also doesn't explain why it happened. As an event, the destruction of Anwhistle Aquatics requires a cause - the something that went very wrong. True, but I'm inclined to think not mainly as it seems a little repetitive. Avoiding this one feels rather lazier, though. And it's not as if people don't talk about the contents of the sugar bowl and drop impossible hints. Widdershins' disappearance - would a volunteer really abandon the Baudelaires in a highly dangerous place? Could it be that the person who came to collect him threatened Widdershins, and that's 'what he heard' from her? He is apparently free by the time of TPP. How high an opinion does Widdershins have of Fiona and the Baudelaires? For all his patronising behaviour, I'd say he trusts them enough to leave them like this, although he wouldn't have thought about it beyond that. |
|
|
|
Post by cwm on Jul 23, 2009 14:26:38 GMT -5
He seems reluctant to let Fiona go in chapter 5. Perhaps what he heard was a promise that the Baudelaires + Fiona would come to no harm? Maybe some kind of help was being sent to the grotto as well, but they left too early to meet it?
|
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 23, 2009 15:07:13 GMT -5
He seems reluctant to let Fiona go in chapter 5. Perhaps what he heard was a promise that the Baudelaires + Fiona would come to no harm? Maybe some kind of help was being sent to the grotto as well, but they left too early to meet it? That's one of the better ideas I've heard, actually. |
|
|
|
Post by Hermes on Jul 23, 2009 16:04:10 GMT -5
Trouble is, it's all a bit magical for a relatively reality-based series. Nonsense physics, sure, but mysterious pocket-sized Armageddon devices? Well, I was trying to be as handwavy as possible - I didn't specify how it might cause or prevent a disaster. The former, I think, is positively ruled out by Kit's remark in TPP, on the lines of 'The one thing worse than O getting the sugar bowl is if he were to get the medusoid mycelium'. The latter - well, I think TUA shows that there is more than one sugar bowl, so it's quite possible that a sugar bowl contains horseradish, but obviously not this one - given that horseradish is readily obtainable from Lousy Lane, so a sugar bowl containing it wouldn't be terribly special. Um. The pumping machine would have to be turned on, wouldn't it, to have that effect - in which case wouldn't they notice it? I suppose it might be sealed, though - with hatches at the top of the shafts? In which case the answer to 'Are we in a submarine?' would in a way be 'Yes'. Oh gosh - and not even her dream. but the Red King's. (Was the swimming woman the same person who removed the SB?) Well, if there's a person who regularly visits the grotto to change the bulbs, check for detritus etc, one would expect it to be repetitive. He seems reluctant to let Fiona go in chapter 5. Perhaps what he heard was a promise that the Baudelaires + Fiona would come to no harm? Maybe some kind of help was being sent to the grotto as well, but they left too early to meet it? That's one of the better ideas I've heard, actually. Yes, I like it too. (Though Lemony still insists he was wrong to leave - that may be a general 'a captain never leaves his post' thing, though.) |
|
|
|
Post by Dante on Jul 23, 2009 16:34:48 GMT -5
Well, I was trying to be as handwavy as possible - I didn't specify how it might cause or prevent a disaster. I abhor a handwave as nature abhors a vacuum. State your plot device! Is it uranium? Have all those carrying the sugar bowl been horribly poisoned without ever realising that the blasted thing was hidden away for a good reason? Also, Medusoid Mycelium is believed to be extinct until TGG (as quotations later will show), so the villains wouldn't be lusting after horseradish in TSS unless they suddenly had a craving for its bitter flavour. Medusoid Mycelium itself would render either the sugar bowl or TGG redundant, since there'd be another small enclosed object full of fungus kicking around. Almost a shame, as Medusoid Mycelium could precipitate a world-spanning disaster. Save for the fact that it grows best in small, enclosed spaces, not in vast open ones. A million mushrooms fill the field / Where marchers' bodies lately fell...I was supposing it could've broken down in a state that left the water/air balance in a certain distribution in the cavern, but it depends on a) how the machine is powered, and b) whether or not the cavern is sealed. The shafts and passageways and such make the latter somewhat unlikely, but as you say, trapdoors or hatches. Either that or Gorgonion Grotto is actually just below sea level. Why doesn't anyone in aSoUE have a pet? The only one I can think of is Fernald and his favourite salmon. Fanart please. Well, he'd still be a jerk for leaving the kids in the lurch even if he was assured that they'd be fine. Because they weren't. |
|
|
|
Post by cwm on Jul 23, 2009 17:55:53 GMT -5
Yes - even if not their legal guardian, the Baudelaires had entrusted themselves to him. Presuming my theory is correct, Phil would probably have been optimistic enough that they'd have been reunited with the Baudelaires soon enough.
|
|
