The Swimming Lady

[Dante]

Is she really all that well-defined? She's a woman. She swims. She's the swimming woman. That's really all we know.

[Hermes]

I think it is important that by this point in the series Snicket is emphasising the theme of mystery, and we should expect lots of things to happen whose details we won't ever find out There is a whole story going on in VFD which the Baudelaires don't know about - this becomes more explicit in The End, but the bit about the Great Unknown in TGG already points to it. The Swimming Woman is part of that story. Whether Handler had an answer in mind as to who she was and why she came, I don't know, but he won't be telling us.

Just as a suggestion, though, might she have been Mrs Widdershins -since there's some evidence she is not dead? Meeting her might startle the captain enough to make him desert his post. I'm sure this has been suggested before, but not in this thread as far as I can see.

As for R - another way in which she might be relevant is that she could be the person who removed the sugar bowl (and later sent it to Dewey by crow).

[Christmas Chief]

Jan 9, 2010 14:37:22 GMT -5 Dante said:

Is she really all that well-defined? She's a woman. She swims. She's the swimming woman. That's really all we know.

Well, he could have said "a person who traveled to the Queequeg, transportation methods unknown..." I didn't mean well defined. Just defined enough to be important.

Jan 9, 2010 14:43:00 GMT -5 Hermes said:

Just as a suggestion, though, might she have been Mrs Widdershins -since there's some evidence she is not dead? Meeting her might startle the captain enough to make him desert his post. I'm sure this has been suggested before, but not in this thread as far as I can see.

That seems like it could work. It wouldn't have been hard for Captain Widdershins to convince Phil to come along, but wouldn't there be some sense of familiarity between the two (Mr. and Mrs. Widdershins)?

[looneylad]

The only reason I didn't think it was Mrs. Widdershins is because while Lemony is describing things that Captain Widdershins got wrong, he mentions both those things separately. I'll paraphrase: "Captain Widdershins was wrong when he told Fiona her mother died in a manatee accident, and he was wrong to believe that article in the Daily Punctilio... and he was wrong to leave the Queequeg no matter what the woman who came to fetch him had said..."

I feel like if the swimming lady, and Mrs. Widdershins were the same person, then Snicket would have mentioned it in that passage, or at least hinted towards it. Instead it seems they are two separate people.

[Hermes]

Well, Lemony by this stage in the series is trying to be mysterious. You could argue that mentioning them in the same paragraph is a clue; he probably wouldn't want to give us a clearer one.

[Christmas Chief]

I'm starting to think the swimming woman was more hypothetical than anything else- a bit like the woman in TSS, where Lemony describes the instant in which he asked what the snow gnats were, and "a woman replied by quickly putting or motorcycle helmet on her head and wrapping her body in a red silk cape." I think Lemony used the woman to help fill in gaps; it would sound odd if Widdershins and Phil seemingly disappeared for no reason.

[allegedly bryan]

I just read the thread, and i was wondering, before the split, was there a leader of VFD? Or after the split, was there a leader for each side? I would think count olaf would be one leader, but would the leader of the good side be R? Is she actually the duchess of winnipeg, or is that name just used to show her high status in the organization. This is a stretch and probably can't be proved in anyway, but was she controlling "the great unknown". i say most of this because of what most of you have already said, that she seems to have a large role in the story, but not one we ever really see.
I haven't read the book in a while, so most of this may be able to be disproved.

[Christmas Chief]

There was never only one person controlling an entire side of V.F.D., but you're right in saying that some members are more significant--or more widely known--than others. R really is the Duchess of Winnipeg, yes, and the idea that her title is correlated with her rank in the organization is not a new one. I don't think there's any evidence for her controlling the Great Unknown, though, especially with her busy duties as Duchess and work for V.F.D.

[allegedly bryan]

Like i said, I haven't read the books for a while and only thought this because it seems she is somehow related to the story in ways that aren't completely explained to us.

[Hermes]

If there is a leader of the bad side, it's the Man with Beard but no Hair and the Woman with Hair but no Beard. Obviously, though, they don't direct everything the villains do - part of being a villain is being in it for your own advantage - but they do have some sort of influence over all of them.

On the good side; the building comittee meeting in TUA shows, I think, that there's not one leader; decisions are made in a participatory way; but the duchess (probably) is there called the Vice-Chancellor, which implies she has some formal special position. (You might think there ought to be a Chancellor above her - but perhaps, as in British universities, that's an honorary position.)

[allegedly bryan]

oh yeah I remember the conversation in TUA now