Chapter Fourteen dedication

[rebecca]

For Beatrice--
We are like boats passing in the night--
particularly you.

Since the Baudelaire mansion fire was during the day, do you think this could be a hint that Beatrice didn't die then?

[Dante]

Not necessarily; I think the usual interpretation is that that dedication specifically is to the second Beatrice, who Lemony might conceivably have literally passed in a boat while on his way to investigate the island, although he spends a lot of TBL just missing her. I think that if Beatrice had survived the fire and died later, that would be a big enough deal that we'd have more hints towards it in the books. It's also a little bit redundant, I think, to save her from one off-screen murder event, have her exist solely off-screen, and then die in another off-screen event, without the reader hearing anything about it. But I'm sure other people disagree.

[rebecca]

Well, there were those heavy hints in TBB:RE about survivors of a fire, unless you think those were just total red herrings. But good point, you're probably right.

[csc]

I don't have the Rare Edition, but isn't Quigley Quagmire the survivor of the fire?

[Dante]

That's a matter of dispute, for which you might want to start another thread (I'm sure we've got one on the subject, but I looked about and couldn't find one, so it might be lying dormant). The simple answer is that the BBRE's reference to a purely hypothetical survivor of a fire is unlikely to refer to the Quagmire fire on the grounds that there's no link to the Quagmires in the BBRE notes at all, while there is to the Baudelaire fire. Quigley's supposed status as survivor of the fire owes itself to an interpretation of the Snicket file which is probably a retcon. I don't want that subject to take over this thread, so if anyone does want to discuss it further, I suggest they start a new one.