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Post by friendofvfd on Sept 18, 2012 4:41:18 GMT -5
If I remember correctly, in the series it said that the Quagmire's all looked very much alike, but I can't be sure. And I apologize if this has already been discussed on here. This is just a bit of fun speculation. How do you think the triplets were formed? Do you think they are all fraternal? Or do you think Duncan and Quigley are an identical pair? Obviously either way, Isadora will always be fraternal since she's the only female of the trio, but when it comes to the boys, how do you think they formed? Of course they are going to look similar in the sense that they are siblings, and siblings often do look very much alike; but for some reason I always imagined the boys to be fraternal. I don't know why. I imagined that they looked alike like any other brother/sister would but I always thought they were fraternal.
How did anyone else imagine the triplets while reading the series?
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Post by Hermes on Sept 18, 2012 8:00:59 GMT -5
We are actually told that Duncan and Isadora look absolutely identical, which is of course absurd: how would the Baudelaires know that Isadora is a girl, if that were true? But Quigley is just said to look very similar. I'd agree that he is fraternal: nobody e er seems to mistake him for Duncan, as they might if they were identical.
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Post by Dante on Sept 18, 2012 9:03:14 GMT -5
I agree that, for "identical," we should read "very similar," because it's true that nobody ever has any difficulty telling them apart, including the Baudelaires on their very first meeting. We see Duncan and Isadora illustrated in the endpiece of TAA, and Isadora has slightly longer hair than Duncan. We can't judge for Quigley - the one illustration we have of him is the TSS endpiece, in which he's soaked, and also far away. I guess they like their identity as triplets (especially once their parents and one of their siblings have seemingly died), so they style themselves very similarly to one another, in addition to their natural similarities as siblings.
Edit: Also, we can question whether Handler knew or cared about how twins and triplets work in real life relative to how they work in fiction, too.
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Post by friendofvfd on Sept 18, 2012 13:29:20 GMT -5
"Also, we can question whether Handler knew or cared about how twins and triplets work in real life relative to how they work in fiction, too."
Yeah, I kind of thought about that, since Hermes actually just reminded me about Duncan and Isadora being "identical" which I completely forgot about until now. And I agree that would be absurd since identical twins/triplets, etc. of the opposite sex is illogical.
And I thought of this thread while reading an article about triplets where sometimes after two eggs have been fertilized, one of them will split, and the other just stays the same. It's kind of funny that after reading about that I almost immediately thought of the Quagmire's; and wondered if it was the same for them, or if they were all just three separate eggs in the beginning.
Oh and one more thing; in what order were the triplets age? I also cannot remember if this was stated in the books specifically, probably not, but this is also something I kind of thought about. It seems like whenever the triplets were presented it was always as "Duncan, Isadora and Quigley Quagmire"; and I always sort of imagined that this was Handler's way of also giving us the order of when they were born. As in, Duncan was first, then Isadora followed, and then Quigley is the youngest of them.
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Post by Hermes on Sept 18, 2012 13:37:03 GMT -5
I think I've mentioned before now David Lodge's identical twins of opposite sexes.
On the other hand, there is a contrast with the Denouements. who are mistaken for one another, and this would support the view that the Quagmires are fraternal.
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Post by Anka on Sept 18, 2012 14:39:59 GMT -5
Of course they are not mistaken for one another because one of the boys is never where anyone would expect the other one to be.
But I don't think the boys are identical because they would be more like each other than like Isadora, it would be as if they were twins and Isadora is a third sibling who happens to be born on the same day. And I don't think Isadora is more different than her brothers. If one of the triplets is different than the others it is Quigley, not only because he isseparated from them. I know this is not logical, but I often think things about characters that are not logical.
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Post by Christmas Chief on Sept 18, 2012 14:41:22 GMT -5
Well, we have to remember Duncan and Isadora plus a sack of flour were enough to fool Olaf into thinking they were the Baudelaires. Granted, it was dark, but even so. Certainly, liberties are taken with appearances elsewhere, but I think Handler is much more fond of the verbal opportunities afforded by the nature of triplet characters ("the fact our brother died doesn't change our birth identity"/ "there may be only two of us, but that doesn't make us twins").
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Post by Dante on Sept 19, 2012 10:47:45 GMT -5
Oh and one more thing; in what order were the triplets age? I also cannot remember if this was stated in the books specifically, probably not, but this is also something I kind of thought about. It seems like whenever the triplets were presented it was always as "Duncan, Isadora and Quigley Quagmire"; and I always sort of imagined that this was Handler's way of also giving us the order of when they were born. As in, Duncan was first, then Isadora followed, and then Quigley is the youngest of them. Their relative ages are never stated; the order in which their names are given is not only alphabetical but that in which we are introduced to them. You can probably therefore form whatever opinion you like on the subject, although personally I think it doesn't matter. |
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