Great 667 Re-Read: Part 12 - The Penultimate Peril

[Dante]

Welcome to the not-quite-penultimate part of 667 Dark Avenue's Great Re-Read project, in which we obsessively analyse every ingredient in each increment of A Series of Unfortunate Events. In this inauspicious twelfth part, The Penultimate Peril, the Baudelaire orphans encounter three hotels, three managers, three spies, three judges, and far more than a total of twelve miserable circumstances.

But The Penultimate Peril isn't the whole story on its own, for there is also the story of how we first came to know about The Penultimate Peril. Originally it was The Nameless Novel. Here is our story.

---

As you all know, the twelfth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events was the first not to have its title revealed in the preceding book. This is not unusual for most series of books, but it was unusual for aSoUE, and fans began to speculate furiously as to what the title could be, based on what scraps of knowledge we had gleaned from that eleventh volume. What we couldn't have known at the time was that HarperCollins did not plan to release the title at all until the day of publication...

It began, as so many things do, with a news article. The original has long since expired, but this would seem to be a copy of the text that first revealed to us the existence of TheNamelessNovel.com.
emol.org/books/titles/lemonysnicket/

Warning: Lemony Snicket to Release 12th Book in A Series of Unfortunate Events on October 18, 2005
Book Reportedly So Startling Author Refuses to Reveal Title
Please stop what you are doing, especially if what you are doing is reading this press release. It has just been discovered that Lemony Snicket has completed Book the Twelfth in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the depressing and mysterious chronicles of three unlucky orphans who are plagued by villainy, conspiracy, and itchy clothing.

The book is currently scheduled to go on sale Tuesday, October 18, 2005, with an initial 2.5 million print run, and reports suggest that this will be Mr. Snicket's most dreadful volume yet. It's so terrible that the author himself refuses to reveal the book's title, fearing that it will cause panic, chaos, or both. In fact, executives at HarperCollins Children's Books, which is publishing the book, have been instructed to refer to it only by its ISBN number, 0-06-441015-3. Fans who insist on knowing more can visit www.thenamelessnovel.com, where they can participate in an uneasy investigation that may eventually reveal the missing title.

In response to prying questions from a public relations firm, HarperCollins issued the following statement.

"Please remain calm. We believe that Mr. Snicket's books cannot possibly get worse, although we have been wrong in the past. However, in the interests of safety, we ask that terrible villains, small pets, and extremely nervous young persons refrain from looking forward to 0-06-441015-3." Little else is known about Book the Twelfth except that Count Olaf is still evil and the Baudelaire orphans do not win a contest.

Like unrefrigerated butter or fungus, Lemony Snicket's popularity continues to spread. His books, which feature illustrations by Brett Helquist, have inexplicably already spent more than a combined 762 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers List and sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.

In December 2004, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, and Nickelodeon Movies released a major motion picture based on the first three books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, starring Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep. It was a dismal success, grossing more than $100 million in a matter of weeks. A DVD of the film was released in April 2005.

A Series of Unfortunate Events has shocked and engrossed millions of readers worldwide since the release of the first book in 1999. Each of the books in the series -- including The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, The Carnivorous Carnival, The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto and Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography -- has been a national best-seller.

Literary and irreverent, hilarious and deftly crafted, A Series of Unfortunate Events offers an exquisitely dark comedy in the tradition of Edward Gorey and Roald Dahl. Lemony Snicket's uproariously unhappy books continue to win readers everywhere, despite the author's continued warnings.

Lemony Snicket published his first book in 1999 and has not had a good night's sleep since. Once the recipient of several distinguished awards, he is now an escapee of several indistinguishable prisons. You can visit him online at www.lemonysnicket.com.

Brett Helquist was born in Gonado, AZ, grew up in Orem, UT, and now lives in Brooklyn. He earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Brigham Young University and has been illustrating ever since. He studied hard to become an illustrator, but can't help wondering if he might have chosen to be something safer, like a pirate or a skydiver.

HarperCollins Children's Books is one of the leading publishers of children's books. Respected worldwide for its tradition of publishing quality, award-winning books for young readers, HarperCollins is home to many children's classics -- Charlotte's Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goodnight Moon, Where the Sidewalk Ends and Where the Wild Things Are; and popular series -- A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Princess Diaries. HarperCollins Children's Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers, one of the leading English language publishers in the world and a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS.A) . Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. You can visit HarperCollins Children's Books on the Internet at www.harperchildrens.com/.

Source: HarperCollins Children's Books
LOS ANGELES, June 1, 2005 /PRNewswire/ --

The site, at first, was a placeholder, advertised to open on July 12th. Just black text on a white background. But as the day grew closer, a quotation appeared:
Within that awful volume lies
The mystery, of mysteries!
-Sir Walter Scott, The Monastery.
The tension grew as the date arrived... and passed; the site was a couple of days late in opening, leaving frenzied fans to speculate wildly over a typo for pages and pages. But when it did open...

TheNamelessNovel.com itself is almost impossible to describe, except as a daily-updated resource of quotations, historical references, and cryptic tasks revealing fragments of arbitrary information about Book the Twelfth. Every day we would get up - or some would stay up late - and discover what new piece of information had been left for us. Some was fragmentary and trivial. Others seemed to hint darkly at a menacing plotline. Three pieces of information directly from the book were gradually revealed, in numerous parts each: A heavily-redacted copy of page 130, the chapter illustration from page 75, and finally the book's cover. The title was only officially revealed on the day the cover was completed - the book's publication date. Okay, in practice it was leaked a little earlier, by a resentful Borders employee and a public library website, but for most of us it was a surprise. That's what matters.

To experience a little of what it was like to participate in this investigation yourself, you may consult this somewhat unstable mirror site - the original having disappeared long ago. (No need to sign in or anything, just click through. Originally you could change months and such - like I said, this copy doesn't work very well. But it's the best we're likely to get now.)
demos.rtm.com/private/LemonySnicket/default.html

And a complete transcript of every piece of text on the website has been compiled, by me, here:
asoue.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=documents&action=display&thread=25181
If you're very interested, I also have saved pictures of each Mystery at every stage of completion, during which we endlessly speculated as to what the missing pieces would contain. The first two were revealed in vertical slices; the last, in sixteen rectangular pieces.

My personal commentary on the website: It was the best thing ever, in any fandom, and set the stage for website-based novel marketing today in such series as The 39 Clues and Goosebumps HorrorLand. Mysteriously enough, it was that same year that the penultimate Harry Potter book was also having small fragments of information released through puzzles on J.K. Rowling's website... But, ultimately, what did we learn from it? For the fact is, that website led us up the garden path. A great number of clues, not to mention that complete red herring of a chapter illustration - not even the one in the correct chronological order - led us to believe that some elevator-based accident would be crucial to the novel's plot. No such thing. Well, it was a Lemony Snicket promotion. I wouldn't trade it for anything else. Consider the clues and mysteries for yourself, and see what conclusions you would have come to. There's also some interesting fanonical information regarding Sebald movies and The Littlest Elf, too. I'm pretty sure Snicket himself wasn't involved much with the construction of the website and its clues, but it's more than good enough. This was the fandom's greatest moment, the moment when we became volunteers and employed our investigative skills for real. We never had it so good before or after. HarperCollins hid as much information about the book as possible from us, and yet, paradoxically, we were spoiled.

---

Discuss.

[cwm]

I might have a look at the Nameless Novel stuff later. It looks awesome. Right now though I'll go through the book:

Chapter One
How far apart the market and 667 Dark Avenue are is never specified - it seems curious that a building of such physical presence wouldn't be mentioned in TBB, perhaps. Was it described as 'shiny' in TEE?

Kit has her seat belt on until when she clips it off and the Baudelaires see for the first time that she is pregnant, which might explain why they don't notice at first. Also, her pregnancy seems to hyper-accelerate between books; here her baby bump is a 'slight but definite curve', but by the time she reappears in The End, a matter of days later, her belly is 'round and full', and there's no mention of the baby being premature. Possibly she's one of those people who just don't show very much.

Chapter Two
Apparently there were points were the Baudelaires' father did indeed tie his hair up with a ribbon when solving a problem.

Opium dens are not known for being the most noble of places, are they?

"You may even recognise some volunteers who have been observing you during your travels" - it's not made clear who, if anyone, is a volunteer who observed the Baudelaires at some point in the last 11 books. Charles is in contact with Kit, as shown earlier in this chapter... unless it's a different Charles, of course.

Chapter Three
The number 128 bench covered with rings from drinking glasses refers back to TBB:RE.

The Sebald code message here is inaccurate by one word - "I can't tell if you are in or enemies please respond" should have 'associates' instead of 'in', probably. 'In' could still be correct, but seems unlikely. I realise you probably already know all this, but if I don't say it somebody else will.

Chapter Four
Hugo is pictured, albeit incognito, in the chapter picture - a rarity for Helquist.

Violet notices the extra lettuce leaves on Esme's back straight away. VIOLET/ESME SHIPPING A-GO-GO.

Chapter Five
Judging by captalisation, Klaus does accidentally call Sir by his 'name'.

Lemony's examples of a 'Busman's holiday' aren't really very good. I always thought of a 'busman's holiday' as continuing to actually do work on holiday.

The Finite Forest was packed with trees in TMM, wasn't it? It seems unlikely they've cut down so many so quickly.

"I care about you, Sir" - first reference to Sir/Charles pairing, which would be followed up on in TBL.

Chapter Six
Going by the illustration, Mulctuary Money Management keeps its bags of money locked. Its bags of money made from sackcloth. Somebody can ignore the lock and cut the thing open with a knife. Brilliant.

Chapter Seven
Woman deep in the ocean at the beginning of the chapter - plausibly the same woman who collects Widdershins and Phil from the Queequeg in TGG. As people have mentioned before.

Chapter Eight
I think this is strong competition for the most tenously related chapter illustration ever.

So Hal was *not* a volunteer at the time of THH. At least that's what's implied.

This is another late introduction of Olaf into the plot. In TBB-TWW, TAA-TEE and TCC-TSS he's introduced very early on into the plot or is already present as a result of the action picking up where the last book left off; this, THH (where he only actually appears in one scene), TGG and TMM are the books where he takes a long time plot-wise to get into the plot.

Chapter Nine

And another tenous chapter image!

Presumably either Olaf's new laugh was tedious to write out and think of new ideas for, doesn't fit the tone of this book very well (although it's hardly any better in TGG), or Handler just listened to his fans.

Fernald and Fiona stole the submarine from Olaf - presumably right after he docked at the Hotel Denouement, since there's no mention of them kicking him off the submarine and leaving him to swim or something.

The carnival freaks' disguises are the first disguises apart from the Baudelaires since the doctor disguises in THH.

Sunny is the only Baudelaire who actually did what she was meant to - Violet wasn't meant to give out the harpoon gun, and Klaus wasn't meant to dangle the birdpaper. Although in the end it doesn't make much difference to the contents of this book, since Dewey is deceiving everyone with regards to the resting place of the sugar bowl, the harpoon gun is a major plot point in -- oh, you all know this already.

Filing your fingernails into shapes like that sounds painful. Is it meant to be the entire nail that's filed, or just the tip - so either the nail is cut into shapes, or the nail ends in the letter?

Making even one of the phrases something which Olaf knows seems somewhat baffling, as to a lesser extent does making the first phrase something that could easily be found out from the Baudelaires - why not just make all three phrases complete unknowns to everyone except Dewey? It makes no difference, of course, but isn't the whole point of a decoy that it's convincing?

Olaf's one hint of any shred of nobility in twelve books - "What can I do?". Even then that's not much.

Will finish tomorrow...

[Dante]

I'll be starting my own reread tomorrow... Hermes is away this week, so I don't feel in much of a hurry. I'll be away in two weeks, however.

Aug 8, 2009 8:48:24 GMT -5 cwm said:

Was it described as 'shiny' in TEE?

I doubt it; the one time the exterior is seen by the Baudelaires in TEE is when dark is in, so they can't actually see anything of it.

Kit has her seat belt on until when she clips it off and the Baudelaires see for the first time that she is pregnant, which might explain why they don't notice at first. Also, her pregnancy seems to hyper-accelerate between books; here her baby bump is a 'slight but definite curve', but by the time she reappears in The End, a matter of days later, her belly is 'round and full', and there's no mention of the baby being premature. Possibly she's one of those people who just don't show very much.

Hmm... it seems likely that Handler knew Kit would give birth in The End, may have known for quite a while, but there's a feeling I get that it's being amped up quite rapidly between books... well, perhaps it's just for dramatic tension - we get a reveal in TPP, but we don't think that it's a Chekhov's Gun for that particular book, say.

Apparently there were points were the Baudelaires' father did indeed tie his hair up with a ribbon when solving a problem.

Possibly in a youthful phase he wore his hair long?

Opium dens are not known for being the most noble of places, are they?

Well, I suppose there's Sherlock Holmes, and the apparent drug addictions of various literary figures of certain time periods.

"You may even recognise some volunteers who have been observing you during your travels" - it's not made clear who, if anyone, is a volunteer who observed the Baudelaires at some point in the last 11 books. Charles is in contact with Kit, as shown earlier in this chapter... unless it's a different Charles, of course.

A true point. I can't think of any returning volunteers, really... perhaps the Café Salmonella and Anxious Clown waiters, betrayed by their patterned nightclothes?

The Sebald code message here is inaccurate by one word - "I can't tell if you are in or enemies please respond" should have 'associates' instead of 'in', probably. 'In' could still be correct, but seems unlikely. I realise you probably already know all this, but if I don't say it somebody else will.

An interesting note: One word away from "enemies" is "out," so the message could plausibly have also read "in or out" instead of "in or enemies." There's a suggestion that the coded message has been intentionally left erroneous so as to create ambiguity as to whether Frank ("associates or enemies") or Ernest ("in or out") is speaking.

Hugo is pictured, albeit incognito, in the chapter picture - a rarity for Helquist.

The worst bit is, Helquist almost certainly has piles of draft art somewhere - and art that was going to be used in the future paperbacks before their indefinite postponement.

Judging by captalisation, Klaus does accidentally call Sir by his 'name'.

That's what I was thinking, yes.

Woman deep in the ocean at the beginning of the chapter - plausibly the same woman who collects Widdershins and Phil from the Queequeg in TGG. As people have mentioned before.

Mainly me! I also think she appears elsewhere in the book - in the boot of a certain taxi. For who else would've been in a better position to retrieve the sugar bowl from the pond?

I think this is strong competition for the most tenously related chapter illustration ever.

That's another thing Helquist started doing more and more - there are also the suspicious ballerinas from The End, for example. Brett Helquist, you can do beautiful character art! Please do more, not less!

Presumably either Olaf's new laugh was tedious to write out and think of new ideas for, doesn't fit the tone of this book very well (although it's hardly any better in TGG), or Handler just listened to his fans.

A bit of all of them, I think, although I remember an interview in which Handler poured scorn on a review which had criticised, among other things, Olaf's laugh. It seems that, like the water cycle, it was quite meant to be annoying.

Fernald and Fiona stole the submarine from Olaf - presumably right after he docked at the Hotel Denouement, since there's no mention of them kicking him off the submarine and leaving him to swim or something.

That's when I would place it, too. The real question is why they did it - a question which has less, not more, light shed on it given a baffling allusion to Fernald in Chapter Eight which places him on the side of the eagles battling against the SSHAMH. The turnaround from there to their position in The End is so odd, and the idea that he would or could team up with the eagles to attack the SSHAMH so inexplicable, that I might have to put that one down to important information being lost or garbled in communication.

Sunny is the only Baudelaire who actually did what she was meant to - Violet wasn't meant to give out the harpoon gun, and Klaus wasn't meant to dangle the birdpaper. Although in the end it doesn't make much difference to the contents of this book, since Dewey is deceiving everyone with regards to the resting place of the sugar bowl, the harpoon gun is a major plot point in -- oh, you all know this already.

Of course, hanging the birdpaper needn't have been villainous either - it just provides a signal, it doesn't benefit either side.

Filing your fingernails into shapes like that sounds painful. Is it meant to be the entire nail that's filed, or just the tip - so either the nail is cut into shapes, or the nail ends in the letter?

Just the tips, which are presumably extremely long.

Making even one of the phrases something which Olaf knows seems somewhat baffling, as to a lesser extent does making the first phrase something that could easily be found out from the Baudelaires - why not just make all three phrases complete unknowns to everyone except Dewey? It makes no difference, of course, but isn't the whole point of a decoy that it's convincing?

Well, one has to reveal more tantalising hints about the backstory, and it's just not dramatic if - I suppose there is always the fact that one might someday require another volunteer to enter that laundry room and retrieve the precious contents, whether they're there or not.

[cwm]

Chapter Ten
Mr. Poe seems to have become a lot less bumbling and a lot more unkind since his return in TGG.

The implication that the taxi driver is Lemony could be difficult to reconcile with the letter in TSS saying he's heading for the Hotel. Or not.

Here's a summary of characters who do NOT return in this book (discounted are characters who already reappeared elsewhere, recurring characters like the theater troupe even if they departed before this point, will reappear elsewhere or are dead):

- TBB: Mrs. Poe and the Poe sons

- TRR: None available. I suppose we could have had a return appearance from the Herpotological Society members (? - lost my copy) who remove Monty's collection at the end.

- TWW: Larry specifically, perhaps?

- TMM: There's no real reason for them to be there and we already had Phil, so I suppose there's no reason for the Lucky Smells employees to show up, really.

- TAA: No others available

- TEE: Nobody I can think of - residents of 667 Dark Avenue?

- TVV: Not really necessary, since the characters apart from Mrs Morrow and Mr Lesko are basically just uninteresting villagers like the Verhoogens... the bus driver?

- THH: The Last Chance General Store shopkeeper and newspaper deliveryman. It might have been neat to see Babs return and make a running joke about how she was never actually seen, but she's disqualified by the fact that she's probably dead.

- TCC: The carnival visitors? The woman who runs the gift shop, but she was only seen offscreen.

- TSS: The Snow Scout slaves - but they were already in TGG.

- TGG: Nobody who fits the criteria. Apart from Kit, of course, but she's a recurring character.

Mr. Remora remembers them as pretty good students, and pleads this to be the case in chapter 12, so he may be one of the more reasonable people present (he was briefly reasonable in TAA, as was Mrs Bass, but she seems to have lost that here).

Chapter Eleven
The second page of this chapter implies that the underwater catalogue is still being updated by someone, as it apparently contains an account of what happened during this trial.

Geraldine is just as excited by the concept that the Baudelaires are guilty as they are innocent because of headlines, which should be sufficent proof that she's on nobody's side except TDP.

Where did the harpoon gun go between Dewey's death and now? Clearly somewhere where Olaf can easily access it - I think it beggars belief that anyone would just leave a potentially fatal weapon lying about.

Chapter Twelve
Surely if Olaf announces to everyone where the Baudelaires are he'll give away his position too?

Why is 'allergic to peppermints' acceptable? What about 'peppermint allergy'? 'Allergy to peppermints'? 'Peppermint allergic'? Can the Vernacularly Fastened Door accept multiple values? That seems a bit of a security risk.

Chapter Thirteen
This is the first time we actually see Olaf starting a fire. See also my comments about the wooden logs in TBB.

[Dante]

Postponing my start until tomorrow... other things came up.

Aug 9, 2009 9:48:50 GMT -5 cwm said:

Mr. Poe seems to have become a lot less bumbling and a lot more unkind since his return in TGG.

Perhaps we just don't see enough of him in TGG - or perhaps TGG demonstrated to him that the Baudelaires would actively disobey him and the law on a matter of such importance, whereas everything else he heard second-hand.

The implication that the taxi driver is Lemony could be difficult to reconcile with the letter in TSS saying he's heading for the Hotel. Or not.

I'd have thought that was one of the less problematic aspects of conflating the two. However, the letter in TSS is problematic enough on its own. He was Justice Strauss's taxi driver. Heading to the hotel is something that he definitely does in TPP.

- TBB: Mrs. Poe and the Poe sons

I would suggest that many of the returning characters are in some way "representative" of larger groups. As such, other Poes don't need to return, just the primary one.

- TRR: None available. I suppose we could have had a return appearance from the Herpotological Society members (? - lost my copy) who remove Monty's collection at the end.

I think the other people with Bruce are just removal men who don't speak. Bruce, however, is a difficult issue; he's named, I think twice, in this book, but he never actually appears, and the implication is more that he's staying at the hotel than that he'd been captured, as he was at the end of TSS.

- TWW: Larry specifically, perhaps?

Hmm, what was the gender of the person in clown-print pyjamas... oh, a woman. I think we can omit Larry, though. He's not... really a character, per se.

- TVV: Not really necessary, since the characters apart from Mrs Morrow and Mr Lesko are basically just uninteresting villagers like the Verhoogens... the bus driver?

Also, I can't remember if any Verhoogens ever appear on-screen.

- THH: The Last Chance General Store shopkeeper and newspaper deliveryman. It might have been neat to see Babs return and make a running joke about how she was never actually seen, but she's disqualified by the fact that she's probably dead.

I think the absence of Milt and Lou is the only really notable one; Milt I should think certainly counts as a character if someone like Mr. Lesko does, and I feel a little aggrieved that he wasn't at least named offhand in a crowd scene. Perhaps the one Volunteer Fighting Disease was a sufficient envoy from THH.

Mr. Remora remembers them as pretty good students, and pleads this to be the case in chapter 12, so he may be one of the more reasonable people present (he was briefly reasonable in TAA, as was Mrs Bass, but she seems to have lost that here).

Mrs. Bass's behaviour in this book is sufficiently duplicitous that I think it's more that she's covering her back. It may be that she wants to speak up for the Baudelaires as Mr. Remora does, but to throw suspicion off herself she has to make comments about how criminals should be punished instead.

The second page of this chapter implies that the underwater catalogue is still being updated by someone, as it apparently contains an account of what happened during this trial.

Was it identified as the same, or a similar, account as that appearing in the rest of the book? The update in this case might take the form of a copy of TPP... recursive though that may be. Lemony could well be updating the catalogue, since he shows awareness of its location and contents.

Where did the harpoon gun go between Dewey's death and now? Clearly somewhere where Olaf can easily access it - I think it beggars belief that anyone would just leave a potentially fatal weapon lying about.

Hmm. At that, it seems odd that it shouldn't have been on the evidence heap. Maybe the sinister duo requisitioned it and passed it to Olaf later?

Surely if Olaf announces to everyone where the Baudelaires are he'll give away his position too?

The root of their stalemate, I think.

Why is 'allergic to peppermints' acceptable? What about 'peppermint allergy'? 'Allergy to peppermints'? 'Peppermint allergic'? Can the Vernacularly Fastened Door accept multiple values? That seems a bit of a security risk.

Same goes for the central theme of Anna Karenina, probably. I dare say that it's intelligent enough to accept multiple grammatically-similar values, although correct spelling would be a must.

[cwm]

It just says 'that account is also contained in the remaining chapters of this book'. Unclear if it's the exact same account or somebody else's account.

And there's a Verhoogen who takes off Olaf's plastic shoe at the end of TVV, although they're just called 'one of the Verhoogens'.

[Dante]

Eh, insufficient. I'm happy to leave them out, then.

[Gregor Anwhistle]

ok, a few notes of mine from chapters 1 and 2.

Opening illustration: I think its been suggested by some people that the man with the cigarette is the same one from chapter 10. Notice he has an envelope addressed to JS.

Also, I wonder if that burger restaurant in the back with a clown head is meant to be a branch of the Anxious Clown? I know its not important to the story, but its just one of those interesting (and random) details I picked up. Anyways.....


Chapter One

Klaus mentions that his parents took a taxi to the opera one evening when their car wouldn't start. Kit remembers the evening in question, and briefly alludes that she slipped them a box of poison darts during intermission before Esme could catch her.

A few pages later: "The poster," Klaus said, as his sister's voice trailed off. "I remember it, too. Mother said she purchased it during intermission, as a souvenir. She said it was the most interesting time she'd ever had at the opera, and she never wanted to forget it." It's unclear exactly when this incident happened. But more about that later.

p.17: We are given a dark hint about Dewey's fate in chapter 9.

"But they wondered-- just as I wondered, on that fateful evening long ago, as I hurried out of the opera house before a certain woman could spot me...." Confirming that Lemony was there as well.


Chapter Two

"I've scarcely looked at these maps, poems, and blueprints that Charles sent me...." If she's not referring to Charles from TMM, the only other person i can think of is Charles Snicket, who is featured on the Snicket Family tree in TUA.

Kit refers to the sugar bowl as "Vessel for Disaccharides."




Well, that's all I have time for now. More notes to come...

Oh, one quick point about the book cover: the woman with the pencils in her hair resembles Kit's description/illustrations, except that we know she was never in the hotel at the same time as the Baudelaires. Now, this could easily be a Helquist blunder. But if it isn't, could the woman be someone posing as Kit? In chapter 2 Kit tells the children that many VFD enemies in the hotel may be pretending to be noble people. Is this the case with the Kit-look-a-like?

[Dante]

Aug 10, 2009 16:58:55 GMT -5 Gregor Anwhistle said:

"I've scarcely looked at these maps, poems, and blueprints that Charles sent me...." If she's not referring to Charles from TMM, the only other person i can think of is Charles Snicket, who is featured on the Snicket Family tree in TUA.

If it really is a family tree, Chas. Snicket should probably be dead by now... he'd be the equivalent of the Baudelaires great-grandfather, if not older.

Oh, one quick point about the book cover: the woman with the pencils in her hair resembles Kit's description/illustrations, except that we know she was never in the hotel at the same time as the Baudelaires. Now, this could easily be a Helquist blunder. But if it isn't, could the woman be someone posing as Kit? In chapter 2 Kit tells the children that many VFD enemies in the hotel may be pretending to be noble people. Is this the case with the Kit-look-a-like?

That's the best explanation I've heard yet. If anyone can think of any suitable candidates, no matter how improbable - Monday, Gorgon, whoever - I'd be interested.

~Chapter Two~

Here we have one of the best chapter illustrations in the series. Please do character art more often, Mr. Helquist!

Also, getting this mirror text right must’ve been Hell on the typesetters.

“.tnemom yrev taht ta meht gnihctaw ydaerla saw ohw gnilbis nwonknu ylsuoiverp a sa hcus…” This, combined with a typo made later, led some to conclude that the Baudelaires had an unknown sibling, who they later identified as the second Beatrice in TBL. The reference is probably, in fact, to Dewey, although describing him as “previously unknown” when the Baudelaires and the readers haven’t even heard of the Denouements is somewhat questionable practice.

Also worth noting is that the signs on the real Hotel Denouement must be written not only in mirror text, but upside-down, for the Baudelaires to be able to read them from the far side of the pond. Also, if the underwater catalogue corresponds to the reflection hotel, shouldn’t it be built into the far wall of the pond, upside-down and directly beneath the original hotel, rather than being at the bottom of the pond? I guess that there’s also a small stretch of lawn or drive in front of the hotel which is reflected in the pond and built into the far wall, perhaps.

A monogrammed napkin will appear later on. It is established that Kit possesses one. If all three Baudelaire siblings are given one, does it not then follow that…

The “perpetual struggle for room and food” is T.R. Malthus, an economist apparently reputed for some degree of pessimism. He is here identified as a foe of V.F.D… or someone who likes to quote him is, anyway. It’s hard to tell the difference, right?

It’s a good thing the Baudelaires are eating well, as this is pretty much the last time they eat anything for two days, right?

[Insert request for Teh Perlious Preludio spin-off here.]

Kit’s discussion of pre-schism life, the schism now being established as when she was four, brings into play the new metaphor that V.F.D. and the schism here stand for. Pre-schism stands for some sort of societal golden age where knowledge was valued most highly, but in the world we’ve grown up in, villainy and greed dominate. As such, V.F.D.’s conflicts form a kind of satire on society and growing up.

“There was a large scientific laboratory, but the volunteer who owned the place was murdered. There was an enormous cavern, but a treacherous team of realtors claimed it for themselves.” Occasionally identified as Anwhistle Aquatics and Curdled Cave, respectively, although Curdled Cave wasn’t that big. Nor, for that matter, was Gorgonian Grotto.

“Because of the schism, I haven’t seen either of my brothers for years” – seems unlikely given that Jacques was, we were told in TSS, working closely with his siblings at a post-TRR time on an important file; how closely could they work without meeting? Also contradicted by The End, which has Kit believe that Lemony is dead. You’d have thought Dewey would put her straight, although it suggests Lemony’s messages to Kit in TCC and TSS never got through – or she thought he’d died literally in the past few days.

Verbal Fridge Dialogue is an interesting code if it requires you to break into your friends’ homes and rearrange the contents of their refrigerator.

Quigley Quagmire here identified as a volunteer; the language suggests he’s officially one, rather than the sort of honourary figure that the Baudelaires are. This would allow for pre-Quagmire-fire recruitment, which would solve some problems with Duncan and Isadora’s alleged membership, but also turns Quigley into a motiveless liar again.

“They had almost forgotten about Geraldine Julienne, a journalist who had caused them much inadvertent trouble,” even though she’s never been named in the series proper, just the U.A. More on this in Chapter Four.

“Quigley Quagmire… managed to contact me when you were separated from him.” Suggests that Quigley knew how to contact Kit quickly and reliably – but not too improbable, considering he’d spent time hanging around with Jacques; Jacques may have given him that information. Like her phone number or something. Where Quigley would’ve found the means to contact Kit I don’t know; presumably the Stricken Stream washed him somewhere convenient rather than, you know, isolated miles and miles from any living person. How long would he have had to contact and meet up with Kit? I’m checking and it looks like maybe a day or two?

Established that Duncan and Isadora can communicate from the SSHAMH. Whether through hooking up to telegraph lines somehow, or maybe carrier pigeon/crow, we don’t know. If the crows, maybe they somehow acquired the sugar bowl and passed it on… but that seems unlikely. We just don’t know enough about their capabilities or the sugar bowl’s journey to speculate on such a thing.

“…it sounded as if they were being attacked in midair while flying over the sea.” I wonder what they were doing there. Perhaps they’d also gotten word of the Baudelaires sub-marine quest? Anyway, this is consistent with what TSS told us, that the sinister duo were going after them with the eagles… but not consistent with TGG, where we learnt that the sinister duo were at the hotel. And then a reference to Fernald later on muddies the waters yet further – but I mentioned that above.

“Quigley went to help them immediately in a helicopter we stole from a nearby botanist.” Apparently casual theft of enormously expensive and powerful vehicles is okay if you’re a volunteer. If Count Olaf did this, it would’ve been classed as being wicked in the extreme.

“The last safe place may not be safe after all… If that’s the case, you Baudelaires will need to send V.F.D. a signal that Thursday’s gathering is cancelled.” What kind of a signal? And isn’t it already a bad sign that villains not only know the location of the last safe place and can enter and leave it as they please, but that one of them is a manager there?

“My brother used to say that if only one had a little more time to do some important reading, all the secrets in the world would become clear.” Which brother, I wonder? This sounds more like one of Lemony’s.

“I’ve scarcely looked at these maps, poems, and blueprints that Charles sent me…” Woah woah woah. Same Charles from TMM? One must assume so, and if he’s passing her this sort of information, that would very probably indicate V.F.D. membership, but that’s not even consistent with his portrayal in the rest of the book. Lemony and Beatrice are identified as at least knowing of Charles and Sir in TBL at the time of their break-up. Let’s say, perhaps, that it’s Charles, but he doesn’t know the purpose of the material he’s gathering – a favour for an old friend, perhaps?

“J.S. has checked in… and requested tea with sugar. My brother sends his regards. Sincerely, Frank.” Frank’s brother sending his regards should be a clue already, even before Ernest is introduced, that there’s more to the Denouement siblings than we’ve been told. However, I’m struck by the poor communication here. On the basis of this message alone, Kit seems to be presuming that someone is posing as her brother, but the message only says J.S. In fact, J.S. throughout TPP is rather strange, because – well, we’ll come to it. But no J.S. in TPP is ever identified as doing anything remotely like posing as Jacques, although conceivably Olaf might, just as he mocked up the real Jacques as himself. Also, one has to wonder which of the many J.S.s this would be, and why Frank would consider it important… well, maybe any one of them would be important.

“…there are plenty of villains who are all too eager to be impostors. Those two villains in the mountains, for example.” “Or Hugo, Colette, and Kevin.” I’m going to qualify this as… well, not foreshadowing, but dramatic irony – Hugo, Colette, and Kevin do impersonate various professions in this book, and to a certain extent the sinister duo do as well, in the sense that they appear in a role which nobody would have expected them to occupy.

“But this J.S. isn’t necessarily a wicked person…” Even though he’s impersonating your brother, Kit?

“Plenty of noble people would check into the Hotel Denouement and order sugar in their tea. Not to sweeten it, of course—tea should be as bitter as wormwood, my brother used to say, and as sharp as a two-edged sword—but as a signal.” No no no, just as I refuse to believe any fanon about V.F.D. having a three-child policy, so too I am not going to have it that volunteers institutionally shun having sugar with their tea. The reference is Biblical, anyway; Proverbs 5: “For the lips of a strange woman drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but her end is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.” Interpret this as you will.

Count Olaf getting his hands on the Medusoid Mycelium is identified as being potentially worse than him obtaining the sugar bowl. Possibly because the Medusoid Mycelium can be used to directly murder people, or threaten to murder them. Also, this throwaway claim makes it sound like obtaining Medusoid Mycelium would be easier than everyone thought, but I suppose Kit would have a keen interest in the location and obtaining of Medusoid Mycelium.

“The sugar bowl is on its way to the hotel even as we speak.” How do you know, Kit? It wouldn’t hurt to share this information with the Baudelaires, since it might clue them in as to the exact transportation method being used, or the date of arrival.

“The three of you must infiltrate the Hotel Denouement and observe J.S. If J.S. is a noble person, then you must make sure that the sugar bowl falls into his or her hands, but if J.S. is a villainous person, you must make sure that it does not.” Argh, this whole plotline is basically forgotten and – Kit, couldn’t you just tell the Baudelaires about Dewey, and have them work with him from the start to obtain the sugar bowl? Hell, he seemingly knew all along where it was going to end up! And he’s a more relevant person to obtain the sugar bowl than the random possibly noble J.S.!

““And I’m sad to say that this won’t be as easy as it sounds.” “It doesn’t sound easy at all,” Klaus said. “That’s the spirit,” Kit said, popping a grape into her mouth.” Kit comes across as a bit uncaring here, I think.

“But you may also recognise some of your enemies, as they will be posing as noble people by showing up early as well.” Most of the Baudelaires’ enemies – the ones who they meet again, anyway – would have no idea that they were turning up early to anything, let alone that they would be imitating noble people in doing so.

“The schism has turned many brothers into enemies. Under no circumstances should you reveal your true selves to Frank’s treacherous identical brother Ernest.” I may just have hit on something. It’s just occurred to me that, while Frank is identified as being in a position to hire the Baudelaires, it’s never said that Ernest is also a manager of the hotel. What if he’d been split from his brother for years, only learnt in the past few days along with the other villains that Hotel Denouement was a V.F.D. sanctuary, and is now impersonating his brother for wicked gain, rather than being a legitimate manager of the hotel? If this is true, it’s so obvious that I don’t know why we didn’t see it before. On the other hand, there may be later references indicating that Ernest is a legitimate manager of the hotel; the Baudelaires certainly don’t behave like he’s someone who’s not meant to be at the hotel, since they freely ask of the managers they meet whether he’s Frank or Ernest.

Established that Violet kept the stone she picked up on Briny Beach in TGG… for some reason. Well, I dare say this is of thematic importance, or at least better than them picking up some random rock or twig.

“…I must go to a coral formation of dubious quality where an inflatable raft should be waiting. But if… I manage to contact Captain Widdershins and have him meet me at a certain clump of seaweed, we’ll be here on Thursday. Hector should manage to land his self-sustaining hot air mobile home on the roof, even with all of us aboard.” In turn: The coral formation is the Mediocre Barrier Reef, in all likelihood. The certain clump of seaweed is, I think, unidentifiable. Kit’s purpose seems to be to meet up with Widdershins (and Phil, hey, he exists too) to bring them to the hotel for the trial, and thanks for telling the Baudelaires about that too, Kit.

“Hector? …He’s safe?” Violet… he’s in the same place as Duncan and Isadora. Why would this question be distinguishable from asking about them?

“One of my comrades has volunteered to clean up after our picnic. He’s a wonderful gentleman.”

“These are dark days, as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night.” Metaphor, or Kit referring to the transportation means of the sugar bowl? Again, if she knows, she really should’ve told the Baudelaires about this.

“Any code you devise… We’ll be watching the skies.” How helpful. Really, it’s like they were expecting the Baudelaires to torch the hotel.

[cwm]

Re. the Baudelaires not eating anything: post-Chapter Six, before the Baudelaires go to bed, a lot of time passes without us being told what exactly they're doing. Since it's unlikely the hotel does not offer its employees food, it's possible they had something then; but yes, their next definite food of any kind is the beans on the boat followed by the island meals.

[JTB]

I find Kit, after reading your notes, Dante, to be extremely annoying in this chapter. She says things indicating she knows a very great deal, and fails to inform the Baudelaires of something even remotely helpful.

Perhaps Snicket was giving us a subtle hint that even the adults who are friendly to the Baudelaires and have great importance to them aren't as helpful as they should be.

[Dante]

cwm, you're probably right. The Baudelaires were probably given a break, and used it to get food from one of the hotel's cafés, as that would also be a good place to perform observations. But because it would break the book's structure, no such scene would've been included... but it's the sort of thing we can assume happens off-screen, perhaps.

JTB, since most of the adults in aSoUE are useless, I think you're probably right. Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor end up being unhelpful, Dewey gets himself killed and conceals vital secrets - why should Kit be different? So, let's say that she was too complacent about the Baudelaires' abilities, and too secretive.

[cwm]

This might not be entirely on-topic, but all the same: has anyone ever seen The Prisoner (British cult sci-fi show from late 1960's), and if so, do you find any similarities between it and ASoUE? I mention it because of the discussion of people not stopping to explain what's going on.

[Dante]

I've never seen it, but I'm familiar with it. I get the impression that it fulfils a number of ending tropes that aSoUE also does, such as a greater emphasis on thematic fulfilment than literal explanation of the plot. (Possibly because the writer was given about twenty-four hours to script the last episode.)

[cwm]

Okay, if you don't want to be majorly spoiled about The Prisoner, look away NOW because I'm going to be discussing Fall Out (the final episode) and its major revelation a lot. Firstly, I will explain the premise briefly for those of you unfamilar with it:

There's this guy. We never find out his real name. He's a spy. He resigns from his job, but before he can go on holiday, he's drugged, abducted and wakes up in a mysterious village. He discovers that the village is a prison for people with access to high-security information, and his captors' aims are to find out that information - they want to know why he resigned. The leader of the village is the mysterious Number One, who is never seen until the final episode. Number One communicates through Number Two, an individual who serves as the village's facilitator, but changes every single week - across 17 episodes there were, I think, 14 different Number Twos. Our unnamed hero becomes renamed as Number Six - every person in the Village has a number for identification. Number Six's aims are to escape the village, return with backup to destroy it, subvert the Village's plans and find out who Number One is. He also has to avoid losing his individuality in an enviroment that prizes conformity - as he famously says, "I am not a number! I am a person!"



I definitely think Fall Out as a whole is meant to be an allegory - that, or it just doesn't make sense. The previous fifteen episodes were basically spy action that mostly made sense whilst still having an ASoUE-style air of mystery, or perhaps it's more appropiate to say that ASoUE has a Prisoner-style air of mystery (mostly later on).

But the last two episodes - Once Upon a Time and Fall Out - just lose the plot completely, the latter especially. One of Number Six's goals is to find out who Number One is, and when he finally does, it turns out to be - himself. Because much of the episode has no dialogue at all, this is never actually explained - Number One is the mirror image of Number Six.

This doesn't really make any kind of sense, and it's left ambigous what it means. Once it's emerged that Number One is Number Six and vice-versa, Number One runs into an escape pod, which Number Six then fires into space (as you do). This is clearly meant to be an allegory (although I'm not sure where Number Six effectively marooning himself in space without any way of surviving fits in), although it is foreshadowed in the opening narration of each episode:

"Who are you?"
"The new number two."
"Who is number one?"
"You are number six."

The last line is actually intoned to disguise it, but is actually (or so fandom believes): "YOU are, number six."

Either Number One is meant to be Patrick McGoohan, the man who created the show and played Number Six, and this is indicative of McGoohan being in control of the show, or Number One is really meant to be Number Six and this is indicative of us all being in control of our destinies. (There are many other explanations of it that do not involve it being an allegory, such as the episode being a psychotic drug-trip or that #6 has gone insane as a result of the mental battle in the previous episode). I think these multiple different explanations that the program never actually explores properly, leaving the viewer to make up their own mind about it, is very much like ASoUE.

Another point is the ending. It appears that #6, along with a small band of rebels, has escaped the village. However, the closing moments exactly mimic the opening shots of the first episode, and a door opens and closes automatically in the same manner of doors in the Village. This is probably also meant to be an allegory, in that #6 has just traded one Village for another and that we are never truely in control of our lives, but other theories - that the entire episode was all an elaborate trap to fool #6 into believing he had escaped, for example - exist.

So I think the two share the common link of offering many different explanations for what's going on, in both cases particularly near the end, but never actually indicates which route, if any, is more likely.

...That was more or less completely off-topic, wasn't it?