A third sibling?

[colette]

I don't know if it is so important but look... In the Baudelaire family there were three children, in Quagmire family there were three children, in Snicket there three children, in Denouement family there three children, in the white-faced women's family( I called them Brownings in my ficverse) there were three children.
But... In Widdershins family there were only two children, Fernald and Fiona, but it also possible that they have a third sibling. It is possible, isn't it? But is it a character who we know or it is a character who he have never in the series.
What do you think?

[Very Funky Disco]

My theory is that Friday is Fiona and Fernald's half-sister. The names all start with F, and both also give similar stories about their other parents and a matinee accident. I think they share the same father.

[colette]

I don't think so.
1st reason:
Fiona is 16 or 17. Fernald is 30. So, Miranda is 50 or even older. But I can't imagine Miranda as a middle-age woman. I always imagine her in late twenties or in early thirties. I think Miranda's age could be 27-35. I know I look stupid.
2nd reason:
If Fernald's and Fiona's sibling is female, it must be older than Fernald but I thought that Friday is only 6. If the sibling is younger, it must be a boy. You see:
Violet(F), Klaus (M), Sunny(F).
Jacques(M), Kit(F), Lemony(M).
If theory about first letters is correct, it means that Klaus, Kit and Kevin from TCC are siblings, too, because their names all start with K. And Hal, Hector are brothers. And Colette, Charles and Carmelita are siblings, and Esme and Ernest, and Jerome and Jacques. And maybe Sunny and Sir, too? LOL!
And the similar situation in which their parents died can't mean they are siblings. For example, there were people whose parents died in the fire. There are many fires. And can't be there two different manatee accidents.
Forgive me, I didn't have any bad intentions. I think your theory is possible but...

[Very Funky Disco]

I really don't think the gender thing makes any difference, and I didn't say that Miranda was Fernald and Fiona's sister. I said that the three of them shared a father. Men can generally have children well into old age.

Of course, I didn't base my theory just on their initial - but it was that combined with the matinee that led me to draw that theory.

[Dante]

We have been through this so many times. Here's the previous iteration:
asoue.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=end&action=display&thread=29760
My position remains that Friday's situation is unrelated to Fernald and Fiona's.

[Seymour Glass]

Feb 27, 2011 2:41:22 GMT -5 Very Funky Disco said:

My theory is that Friday is Fiona and Fernald's half-sister. The names all start with F, and both also give similar stories about their other parents and a matinee accident. I think they share the same father.

Since Miranda and Captain Widdershins are both inventors of the manatee accident story, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be siblings than for Thursday to be married to Mrs. Widdershins?

[colette]

I agree with you, Dante, but this thread is not about possibility of Friday being related to Widdershins family. My theory is that Fernald and Fiona could have a brother or a sister in general. I agree that Friday is not their half-sister but someone else could be Fiona and Fernald's sibling.

[Dante]

Which is why I didn't lock this thread, colette. If the subject of this thread overlapped entirely with the one I linked, I'd have closed this one. As it is, I'm merely fatigued to see Friday dragged out again. As to the possibility of a third sibling to Fernald and Fiona in general - I doubt it. A younger sibling would only be a half-sibling, presumably, since Mrs. Widdershins only married the captain when Fiona was an extremely small baby, and I strongly suspect Fiona would've mentioned any other missing siblings she had, since her family is so important to everything she does and since Fernald is specifically mentioned a couple of times. Any older sibling would have to be... well, for the same reason, they'd probably have to be hidden from Fiona's knowledge, otherwise they'd be a big deal to her.

Edit: In other words, I'm saying that you shouldn't take any supposed "patterns" in the series seriously. The End went out of its way to break a lot of them. And as for the three-sibling rule, bear in mind that the Poes only had two children, and there are an awful lot of characters about whom we never hear anything of their family situation. I'm pretty confident that most families of three siblings in the series number three either to parallel the Baudelaires in some way, or because they need three members in order to be interesting.

[Hermes]

There is one slight piece of evidence which might support a third sibling; in the picture of the 'Widdershins' family, baby Fiona is pointing at whoever took the picture, but this person is never identified. We know from TUA that the question 'who took this?' is sometimes important. Might it have been the third sibling? But if so we hear nothing more of him/her.

I do think the three-child pattern was common in VFD; the family tree in TUA suggests this. The Poes, so far as we know, aren't a VFD family. However, there is a reference in TPP to a family of four children, so clearly the pattern was being broken at that point.

I think the parallels with Friday are just that - parallels - in line with a theme of the later books, especially The End, that similar stories often happen to different people. I rather like the idea of Miranda as Captain Widdershins' sister, though.

(And it's good to see you, VFDisco! How are things?)

[Very Funky Disco]

Okay, I'm sorry I brought up Friday. I hope you guys aren't mad at me.

Hermes, things are going pretty good. It's nice to be back. I just hope I didn't get off on the wrong foot in this topic.

[Dante]

Don't worry about it, VFDisco. You have the right to hold whichever opinions you want. I just don't want another Friday topic when there's one not much farther down the page, so I'd prefer we steer clear of her for the purposes of this thread.

[Very Funky Disco]

Okay, got it! I understand.

[colette]

Feb 27, 2011 14:15:30 GMT -5 Dante said:

Don't worry about it, VFDisco. You have the right to hold whichever opinions you want. I just don't want another Friday topic when there's one not much farther down the page, so I'd prefer we steer clear of her for the purposes of this thread.

Friday topic? You mean you don't want another topic about Friday and Widdershins. But what would you do if I will find other ideas about this character?

[Dante]

The previous topic is still open, and I would absolutely welcome other new ideas on the subject. But for now, are there any other thoughts on a possible hypothetical third sibling for Fernald and Fiona? It's worth noting that there would have been plenty of time for their father to have had another child of Violet's age or younger, since we don't know anything about him except that he left their family.

[colette]

It could be a woman who is older than Fernald and she could be from the fire-starting part of V.F.D. She could leave family before Fiona was born. Let's think about all women from the fire-starting part of V.F.D. and think who of them could be their sibling.