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Post by Sophie Baudelaire on Oct 26, 2016 18:05:43 GMT -5
well if we're bumping this i might as well do it. i should probably reread the series because this was hard to remember
Favorite book: Slippery Slope (honorable mentions to TEE, TRR and TPP)
Least favorite book: Miserable Mill? default answer i guess.
Favorite character: the orphans? i never really thought about it. maybe dewey?
Least favorite character: Sir probably?
Favorite guardian: Monty probably
Least favorite guardian: Nero, what a jerk
Favorite Baudelaire: Violet I guess
Least favorite Baudelaire: nah
Favorite Quagmire: Isadora
Least favorite Quagmire: none
Favorite Associate: fernald
Least favorite Associate: baldie
Favorite freak: Kevin
Least favorite freak: colette?
Favorite couple: Quiglet, duh
Least favorite couple: violet and olaf or sunny and anyone
Favorite place: caligari carnival
Least favorite place: lucky smells/hospital
Favorite Olaf disguise: Dupin
Least favorite Olaf disguise: Stephano (that was his name right?) or gunther
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Post by Linda Rhaldeen on Oct 26, 2016 19:46:51 GMT -5
Cathegories
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Post by bear on Oct 27, 2016 10:23:15 GMT -5
Favorite book: The Ersatz Elevator, because it has a little bit of the second half and a little bit of the first half of the series combined, and it features a lot of The City. Least favorite book: The Reptile Room, because it scared me so much when I was little. I was afraid of snakes, TRR has the first murder, and Olaf says "damn" which made me very uneasy at 6-ish years old. Favorite character: Beatrice, if only because we never actually meet her but it still feels like she's always sort of lingering around, the essence of every scene throughout the series. Least favorite character: Carmelita, because she's so annoying. In school at the time of reading there was a kid who used to call everyone buttsniffers, and she was just an extension of that into my books. Favorite guardian: Sir and Charles. No reason. Least favorite guardian: Hector, because his unhelpfulness, although not as extreme as that of some other guardians, has always frustrated me the most. Favorite Baudelaire: Violet, because I had a bit of a crush on her when first reading. Least favorite Baudelaire: Klaus, because he's too rude-ish. "I know what [blank] means" and all that. Favorite Quagmire: Isadora, because I enjoy her couplets in TAA a whole lot, and she proves to be much more tactful in TVV than Duncan. Least favorite Quagmire: Quigley, 'cause he stole my girl Favorite Associate: The white-faced women, because they come to their senses (in a satisfactory way, unlike Fernald). Least favorite Associate: The bald man, mainly because of my first impression of him in TBB; when Olaf's troupe is meeting the Baudelaires, he stays behind and talks about "wrecking Violet's pretty little face" or whatever like a total creeper. Favorite freak: Kevin, because the idea of an ambidextrous person being put on display as a freak is very funny to me. Least favorite freak: Hugo, because I hate the name Hugo. Favorite couple: Esmé and Jerome, but the letters about their wedding in TUA makes it so much better. "Married after only one day", priceless. Least favorite couple: Beatrice and Bertrand. Lemony is certainly a whiner, but Bertrand is just sloppy seconds and the apparent spontaneity of their marriage is frustrating to me (in the sense of plot holes). Favorite place: 667 Dark Avenue, because I like to imagine all the people that live there besides Esmé and Jerome. It was always interesting to read all the snippets of conversations and stuff that the Baudelaires hear while climbing the stairs. Least favorite place: Aunt Josephine's home, because it's both terrifying and slightly ridiculous. stfu nerd |
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Post by Esmé's meme is meh on Oct 27, 2016 13:03:57 GMT -5
Least favorite book: The Reptile Room, because it scared me so much when I was little. I was afraid of snakes, TRR has the first murder, and Olaf says "damn" which made me very uneasy at 6-ish years old. You're the cutest. |
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Post by lorelai on Oct 28, 2016 21:32:13 GMT -5
Favorite book The Ersatz Elevator, for more reasons than I can list
Least favorite book: The Wide Window; I found Josephine's death really upsetting on first read, and some of that always lingers
Favorite Character: Beatrice (didn't my first fic give that away?)
Least favorite character: Ishmael
Favorite guardian: Dewey, though if we're being technical Monty
Least favorite guardian: Olaf
Favorite Baudelaire: all
Least favorite Baudelaire: none
Favorite Quagmire: Isadora, for the cleverness of those couplets in TVV
Least favorite Quagmire: Duncan
Favorite associate: the white faced women, for how they left
Least favorite associate: Fiona
Favorite freak: Collette
Least favorite freak: none
Favorite couple: Lemony and Beatrice
Least favorite couple: Kit and Olaf within the series; as far as a couple that's given page time, Klaus and Fiona
Favorite place: tied between the Hotel Denouement and the mountain VFD headquarters in the past (that place had an icecream parlor!)
Least favorite place: tie between the mill and the village
Favorite Olaf disguise: Mattathias maybe
Least favorite Olaf disguise: Kit Snicket, especially when the unconscious, truly pregnant Kit isn't that far away and that's obviously where he got the idea (an insult to everyone, including Olaf, though it works for the character/plot)
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Post by Teleram on Oct 29, 2016 0:00:40 GMT -5
People really tend to hate the lumbermill for some reason
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Post by Esmé's meme is meh on Oct 29, 2016 1:16:37 GMT -5
Because it's the worst book of the series, maybe.
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Post by Teleram on Oct 29, 2016 1:57:15 GMT -5
Alright, but *why* do people consider it to be the worst book of the series? While I would never say it's the most well-written book Snicket has published, I certainly think it's one of the funniest and I personally find the idea of a dilapidated, depressed town like Paltryville to be fascinating.
I should also note that I don't think LS has ever published a really bad book and that I like/love pretty much everything.
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Post by Dante on Oct 29, 2016 3:08:23 GMT -5
Lucky Smells (often followed by the village of V.F.D.) is widely disliked, but I don't think anyone's ever definitively put their finger on why. I think it's possibly because for most of the settings there is something either redeemable or interesting about it for people to take away - and for Lucky Smells (and possibly the Village of Fowl Devotees) it's harder to find anything attractive there; it lacks a kind of sparkle, an animating factor. Instead, it's kind of grubby; unpleasant, but in too normal a sort of way. I also find that there's perhaps a lack of conceptual unity in the setting and story's construction; Lucky Smells is a lumbermill with hard work and crowded dormitories and a tycoon boss, but there's also hypnotism thrown in for some reason, and it doesn't really come together. I'm aware that you've just said that you find Paltryville fascinating and I'm sure it would be easy to question the points I've just written, but I'm trying to articulate why it doesn't quite work for me, and I think the outlined suggestions are a factor.
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Post by Teleram on Oct 29, 2016 3:39:42 GMT -5
I call it fascinating mainly because, if it weren't for the fact that the book was published in 2000, it would make for an interesting Post-Katrina/Post-9/11 allegory which I'm eventually going to have to elaborate on at some point. And on a slightly more superficial leverl, it features a few of my favourite Snicket digressions ("Where is Count Olaf?", "if you know what I mean", the whole opening sentence business) and when I was re-reading it recently I had lots of fun trying to suss out all the mini-blueprints Handler will go on to use in ATWQ (they're prevalent throughout the entire series of course but it's particularly common in this one IMO).
And I completely disagree on Paltryville being "too normal" to be interesting. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it really feels like the "embodiment" (for lack of a better term) of what the series's tone is like for me- it's grim, it's bleak, and it would be so funny if it weren't so damn sad. I've always been found the concept of a decaying ghost town whose best days are long behind them to be oddly bittersweet, even somewhat devastating in a way. All the little "quirks" Handler puts in like the newspapers and the gum first seemed to me as just that: quirks, but the more I think I about it the more heartbreaking those details make Paltryville feel.
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Post by Dante on Oct 29, 2016 4:06:16 GMT -5
It's not that I don't see where you're coming from; you're outlining a lot of the reasons why I like Stain'd-by-the-Sea. I enjoyed all the Snicket digressions you pointed out, too. But nonetheless, I can't get excited about Paltryville, and the same apparently goes for many other people. The glumness, the decay - they don't really feel real to me in the same way they do in ATWQ. I think a large part of that is the fact that we don't really see anywhere outside the boundary of the lumbermill itself, except for the optometrist's office, which is perfectly fine and ordinary aside from its shape, which is purely external and glimpsed exactly once. To me, Paltryville is a boring lumbermill with a few arbitrary quirks situated in the middle of a town which we see too little of to draw any conclusions about. It's one of the reasons why TMM would have benefited from being much longer (rather than being the first book in the series to be shorter than its predecessor).
You're definitely going to have to elaborate on the post-Katrina/9/11 allegory, though.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Oct 30, 2016 17:09:29 GMT -5
You're definitely going to have to elaborate on the post-Katrina/9/11 allegory, though. I agree, you can't just say something like that and then not elaborate. |
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Post by Teleram on Oct 31, 2016 0:41:07 GMT -5
i'm too busy (read: too lazy) to elaborate, but suffice it to say that i think DH really captured the feeling of a "wounded" place
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Post by Dante on Oct 31, 2016 1:46:15 GMT -5
Well, I'll certainly say that it was neither the first nor the last time he attempted to do so. I think there are early hints of Stain'd-by-the-Sea in our first glimpse of the town of Lake Lachrymose, empty and desolate outside of the tourist season; for a brief period in the very early days of ATWQ awareness we wondered if that might be the series's setting, as it fitted the sparse hints we then had about the series.
Back to categories, then. Please feel free to add or remove categories if you can think of another suitable un/favourite pair.
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Post by Mr. Dent on Nov 20, 2016 0:31:29 GMT -5
Favorite book: The Penultimate Peril
Least favorite book: The Reptile Room (I don't dislike it at all, though!)
Favorite characters: The siblings, Esmé, Lemony.
Least favorite character: Bruce.
Favorite guardian: Aunt Josephine, although I'd never want to live with her.
Least favorite guardian: The Village of Fowl Devotees, sans Hector.
Favorite Baudelaire: Klaus.
Least favorite Baudelaire: I don't dislike any of them? I guess Bertrand? (but i dont even dislike him)
Favorite Quagmire: Quigley
Least favorite Quagmire: what a ghastly question
Favorite Associate: The white-faced women.
Least favorite Associate: The wart-faced man.
Favorite couple: In canon? Violet and Quigley.
Least favorite couple: In canon? Esmé and Jerome.
Favorite place: Aunt Josephine's home, though I would hate to live there.
Least favorite place: The Anxious Clown. Reminds me a bit of the equally garish real life restaurant chain, Red Robin.
Favorite Disguise: Shirley, or Detective Dupin.
Least favorite Disguise: Stephano. It's just kind of a bland disguise, compared to the ones that came after.
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