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Post by violetbaudelaire51 on Jun 18, 2011 15:00:10 GMT -5
I'm not sure if there's already a thread on this but i've always wondered a lot about what Count Olaf's past might have been like. I know about Kit Snicket and Lemony gives us some clues. And we also learn that there must have been a time when Count Olaf was on the good side. But we still don't know very much since we usually hear it from Lemony's perspective or another volunteer's. Maybe he grew up being one of those bullies but never actually a true villain until later.
In my opinion, i think something might have happened that changed his position. i know the fact that the Baudelaires parents and the Snickets killing his parents might have contributed but i'm pretty sure it was more recent (Am i right?) and it mostly led to him wanting to kill the Baudelaire's and the Snickets even more. What do you think made him a villain? Maybe it was how he was raised or maybe he lost someone he cared about? Perspectives of villainous characters always interest me and i think, although Olaf did some awful things, maybe it can all be explained.
Also i found it interesting about some things Count Olaf says in the books like in the Penultimate Peril when Olaf is aiming the gun at Dewey and the Baudelaire's try to stop him:
"What else can i do?" the villain (Count Olaf) asked, so quietly the children could not be sure they had heard him correctly.
So maybe it's like the saying 'once you go black, you never go back.' i know it's cliché but maybe Count Olaf just got stuck doing villainous things and couldn't find a way out.
So what are your ideas?
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Post by Hermes on Jun 18, 2011 16:17:30 GMT -5
And we also learn that there must have been a time when Count Olaf was on the good side. But we still don't know very much since we usually hear it from Lemony's perspective or another volunteer's. Maybe he grew up being one of those bullies but never actually a true villain until later. Yes - he was at school with Lemony and Beatrice, and it was a VFD school, which implies he was on the good side, though he doesn't seem to have been a very good student - he spent his time wrting obscene anagrams, it seems. Yes - it seems to have happened when Violet and Klaus were already alive and old enough to remember; but he was already a villain before they were born, when Lemony was engaged to Beatrice. The only thing I can think of is that it has to do with Kit - if he is upset with her for breaking up with him. Yes, I think that's true - he is quite a wretched figure in the last few books. |
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Post by Dante on Jun 21, 2011 11:52:28 GMT -5
It seems as if Olaf was always somewhat disaffected from his V.F.D. colleagues even as a child. Perhaps ostracisation, whether justified or not, pushed him into bad company - and he became less and less interested in doing the right thing for others, and more concerned with doing the right thing for him. But I agree that his is a tragic life, and there are glimpses of an alternative life he could have lived, a man he could have been, if only his path weren't already set. If he set down his harpoon gun, where would he go and what would he do?
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Post by violetbaudelaire51 on Jun 21, 2011 16:07:55 GMT -5
I agree that it must have affected his decision to switch sides but there had to be more to it than that. Maybe Lemony did something to Olaf that upset him since they appear to be rivals. I always suspected Lemony had something to do with Olaf's decision to switch sides. Maybe Lemony was part of the reason why Kit broke up with Olaf.
Count Olaf and Kit were probably criticized by their peers for being a couple which is why they ran away together. And maybe Lemony told Kit something to make her understand that Olaf was a bad person. Olaf probably found out and decided to take it to another level by setting a fire and blaming Lemony for it as revenge. That's probably the reason why he kidnapped Beatrice and used her as a hostage at the play that one evening. He knew Lemony loved her so he used that to get revenge. Maybe he was part of convincing Beatrice not to marry him. She might have thought he was a villain but Olaf can be convincing when he needs to be.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 21, 2011 17:35:16 GMT -5
I agree that it must have affected his decision to switch sides but there had to be more to it than that. Maybe Lemony did something to Olaf that upset him since they appear to be rivals. I always suspected Lemony had something to do with Olaf's decision to switch sides. Maybe Lemony was part of the reason why Kit broke up with Olaf. Actually, that sounds very likely. We know that Olaf was upset with Lemony for writing a bad review of his play, but the quarrel may not have begun there - part of the reason for the bad review was that Olaf had forced Beatrice out of her part (not sure about the kidnapping - where did you find that out?), so perhaps he was already looking to hurt Lemony before that. If Lemony had contributed to the breakup with Kit that would give him a reason. |
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Post by colette on Jun 22, 2011 7:07:19 GMT -5
In my ficverse Olaf and Kit broke up because of Ernest's love affairs.( In my ficverse Ernest is Esme's former boyfriend and he tried to do everything to return her.) And Jacques and Lemony were just responsible for aolaf's mom death. But I have no idea about canon.
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amyj999
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 4
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Post by amyj999 on Aug 9, 2011 6:35:37 GMT -5
I can't understand why Count olaf was fond of Kit- and decided to die together.
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Post by lizzy2darcy on May 8, 2012 5:05:13 GMT -5
Theres not much to say. There is a lot of light shedded on Olaf's past in The Unauthorised Autobiography. You just have to read it carefully, right. Or maybe I got it wrong.
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Post by Dante on May 8, 2012 7:10:26 GMT -5
With any luck, All the Wrong Questions will shed some more light on Olaf's childhood, so that's something to hope for for the next three and a half years or less.
As a more insightful point, comments made by the white-faced women and Fernald in TSS and TGG seem to indicate that they thought joining Olaf's troupe would be the scene of romantic adventures and escapades, so there's also a possibility that Olaf slipped from being merely reckless and someone who doesn't play by the rules, to somebody who opposed the rules altogether. I like to think of his teenage self and his early troupe driving around the countryside in their long black car solving mysteries. Wow what a dumb idea.
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Post by B. on May 8, 2012 11:35:53 GMT -5
It's also implied that he knew Fiona when she was a child- presumably through Fernald?
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Post by thedoctororwell on May 8, 2012 17:19:26 GMT -5
Unrelated, but I think I just figured out something about Olaf's so-called "obscene" anagrams.
First, we see that he made the following anagram :
A WET VIPER PERM
PRE-EMPTIVE WAR
Lemony wants to tell him there's no such thing as "a wet viper perm," which means his anagram is not that great. Later on he says Olaf writes "obscene" anagrams. Well, that's a bit strong of a word, don't you think ?
Waht we forget is that, according to TPP, Olaf sucks at spelling. He forgot to add an "S." What he really wanted to write was :
A WET VIPER SPERM
PRE-EMPTIVE WARS
Okay, now THAT's an obscene anagram ! And it makes much more sense as a phrase. Could it be that Handler subtly introduced disguised obscenities in his book ? There's also the possibility that he tried to write it as "a wet viper's perm" so that the obscenity would only come up in pronunciation. Maybe the "s" got lost in printing mistakes ; maybe the publisher caught it and had the "s" removed. Thoughts ?
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Post by Christmas Chief on May 8, 2012 18:48:17 GMT -5
It's also implied that he knew Fiona when she was a child- presumably through Fernald? Perhaps, depending on when Fernald joined the troupe. He also could have known them from V.F.D. - Fiona's parents, or at least Widdershins for sure, seemed to have been involved in the fire-stopping exploits Unrelated, but I think I just figured out something about Olaf's so-called "obscene" anagrams. First, we see that he made the following anagram : A WET VIPER PERM PRE-EMPTIVE WAR Lemony wants to tell him there's no such thing as "a wet viper perm," which means his anagram is not that great. Later on he says Olaf writes "obscene" anagrams. Well, that's a bit strong of a word, don't you think ? Waht we forget is that, according to TPP, Olaf sucks at spelling. He forgot to add an "S." What he really wanted to write was : A WET VIPER SPERM PRE-EMPTIVE WARS Okay, now THAT's an obscene anagram ! And it makes much more sense as a phrase. Could it be that Handler subtly introduced disguised obscenities in his book ? There's also the possibility that he tried to write it as "a wet viper's perm" so that the obscenity would only come up in pronunciation. Maybe the "s" got lost in printing mistakes ; maybe the publisher caught it and had the "s" removed. Thoughts ? That's an adjustment slight enough to be plausible and sensible enough to be probable. It's also a good point about Olaf's spelling trouble to keep in mind elsewhere, though I can't see that necessarily applied here. Forgetting a letter in an anagram could have rather extreme consequences, and I doubt Olaf would omit the obscene part of his work, either accidentally or purposefully. On the other hand, disguising an obscenity by omitting an S is perfectly Handler-esque. There's actually a mention of a sperm whale in Lemony's "I will love you" letter (whether the two are related or not, of course, is a different matter). |
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Post by Dante on May 9, 2012 2:11:40 GMT -5
I think the wet viper perm is an example of out-of-universe context slightly undercutting the textual meaning; pre-emptive war is something that Handler (and for that matter Lemony) might reasonably object to in the strongest terms, and while it's not obscene per se, because it's reflective of outside context then it doesn't necessarily indicate the in-universe tone of the anagrams. In other words, I think it's a joke.
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Post by colette on May 9, 2012 7:48:39 GMT -5
I can't understand why Count olaf was fond of Kit- and decided to die together.  Because Kit was beautiful, lovely, charming, adorable, kind, clever, nice, intelligent, noble, tender, brave, and gorgeous every day, every night, and every hour. I think Kit is best ASoUE lady after Colette(Colette is the best in my opinion, although she is not really intelligent and definitely not very nice but what a great beautiful name!)! |
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Because Kit was beautiful, lovely, charming, adorable, kind, clever, nice, intelligent, noble, tender, brave, and gorgeous every day, every night, and every hour. 