Beatrice Theories?

[inordinate]

In one of the books (I can't remember which one now), Snicket says something about how he was going to marry Beatrice but she changed her mind and married someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio. Any idea what it could have been, and/or why she believed it?

[csc]

She read his obituary.

[Dante]

That's one theory, although it's not clear why Beatrice would write Lemony a two hundred page letter explaining why she couldn't marry him if she thought he was dead. The other conclusion we've come to is that she read a libellous account of falsely attributed crimes - the Snicket fires - for which he was supposedly responsible, and believed them, believing also that the Punctilio was still a volunteer-endorsed source of news. By the time she found out the truth, it was too late for her and Lemony.

[Hermes]

The problem with the 'falsely attributed crimes' theory is that Lemony's letter to Beatrice in TBL, written after the breakup, doesn't read as if she sees him as an enemy - what would be the point of writing 'Are you certain your co-star is one of us?', for instance, if she didn't think the writer was himself one of us?

Could there have been two separate events, one which caused her to break up with Lemony and another which caused her to marry someone else?

[Leanora Crowe]

I believe she knew he was alive even when she read his obituary. I think the "Snicket fires" theory is a much more plausible one, though I personally tend to think she married Bertrand because he (Bertrand) threatened her/Lemony. I'm not sure how likely that is, but it just seems to fit to me.

[Hermes]

Well, if Violet had been a boy she would have been called Lemony, which, given the Baudelaire custom in naming, seems to mean that Beatrice thought Lemony was dead.

I have found the passage - it's in TVV - and it does say specifically that she married someone else because of something she read in the Punctilio. So a possible reading is that she broke up with Lemony for some other reason, (unspecified, though in some way connected with Olaf, according to TBL), then later read that Lemony was dead, and only then felt able to marry Bertrand.

[Christmas Chief]

That's a clever idea to use as a method for reconciling timelines. I think the question, then, is why she believed TDP. Could it be that she already suspected his death from other sources, so was more willing to accept the confirmation in print? Or perhaps the author was a volunteer, but a misinformed/recently corrupted one?

[B.]

Perhaps there is something more to Bertrand, who we know so little about.

[csc]

In "A Series of Unfortunate Events", you know, the book in TE, Bertrand seemed really sweet with Beatrice, so if what you are suggesting is that there's a dark side of him we don't know about, that seems kind of unlikely to me.
But if that's not what you meant and I am making lots of stuff up, I apologize.

[Christmas Chief]

I don't think it unlikely Bertrand might be less noble than we imagine him (Beatrice's dealings with Lemony may have sparked jealousy, for example). But since we do know so little about him, it's easy to conjure or deny any speculations about his character.

[Dante]

I do think, though, that we have to accept that Bertrand and Beatrice's love was real. They were married for fourteen years, had three children, and in every memory of them the Baudelaires have they seem to be very close to one another. Nobody's perfect in ASoUE, but people can be imperfect together.

[B.]

Yes, there is no denying that Beatrice and Bertrand were really in love, and he does seem like a very nice person from what we know of him (I still feel sorry for Lemony of course ) The Baudelaire children also remember their father very fondly.
But since there isn't much about him we have to ask ourselves- did Handler/Snicket not write much because he just wasn't that significant or perhaps more will be revealed of him in the new series.

[Dante]

One thing worth bearing in mind is that, if you count her independently of all references to Beatrice, there's not much information in the books about the Baudelaire mother, either - only about as much as there is to the Baudelaire father. So I think the answer is that he's not especially important, or if he is, it's in ways Handler only conceived of later on.

[csc]

I think we know little about them on purpose. So we can imagine them any way we wish and to keep a mysterious feel to them, that worked oh so well in TBL.

[B.]

YES ^^ that's one of the many fantastic things about ASoUE, not all mysteries are solved so we can speculate at communtites like this one about them.