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Post by Dante on Mar 30, 2014 12:12:00 GMT -5
So, members of VFD are not detectives - though they may be disguised as such (witness Jacques in TUA). Theodora seems to have been called upon to act as a detective in Stain'd - twice now - but presumably that is part of her cover. And they poke around because if they don't no one else will. It is rather a strange justification. But much about VFD is strange. I personally really appreciated that as an articulation of V.F.D.'s purpose, and a lot clearer a one than we ever get in ASoUE. Hmm. I don't recall one ever being mentioned, but you could infer it if she ever refers to what time it happens to be, which I don't think she does... In regards to this, I thought it was quite significant that the "tadpole" Lemony rescued gave him a vicious enough bite to draw blood. I took the set-up as an industrial-scale bleeding operation to provide nourishment for the creatures. In other words, I think they're something more like leeches than tadpoles. I've no idea what the ultimate point is, though... P. 171: "Every night, my father would get home from his fieldwork and leave his boots on the porch. It was during the floods, and his boots got so muddy there was no use washing them. He'd cook dinner in hos socks, and then I'd do the dishes, and he'd pour himself a glass of wine and read me a chapter of something before we put the lights out."PP. 226-227: There was a large window closed up in curtains, and two tables, one on either side of the bed. One was crowded with a small plate with some bread crumbs and a napkin and a candle and a glass of wine and the bottle it came from. [...] But instead of shoes he was wearing a pair of curvy slippers [...] Armstrong Feint has somebody to wash dishes for him, and Hangfire has dirty dishes beside him with nobody to wash them. Armstrong Feint likes a glass of wine in the evenings, and so does Hangfire. Attention is also drawn in both cases to room lighting and means of extinguishing - Armstrong Feint has an evening ritual with his daughter before they put the lights out, and Hangfire has a candle which equally can be put out whenever you choose - and I'd also say that their choice of footwear is a parallel, with both Armstrong Feint and Hangfire apparently not in the habit of wearing shoes inside when at ease; we're prompted to picture Armstrong Feint in his socked feet, and Hangfire is suggested to lose a slipper when he escapes. Incidentally, Hangfire's apartment, like the aquarium one Ellington occupies and believes he was present in, are conspicuously replete with added bedclothes; there was a sofa piled with lumpy pillows and ugly blankets, p. 139, and there was a big brass bed, all aflow with quilts and blankets and a pile of pillows that made me comfortable just looking at them - but it is also suggested, p. 173, that Armstrong Feint could have been present in the aquarium apartment. It's the little things that add up. I think that would be dramatically unsatisfying, personally. Well, there's always the possibility, and it would be an interesting one, that "Hangfire" is a bit of a red herring - that the shadowy crime lord behind everything doesn't really exist, at least in the way we're tempted to think of him as existing, and is instead played by various individuals to create a particular effect. But I like the idea of Hangfire as a single villain too much. I think the listening was more to provide a (deliberately mocking) ostensible reason to shove Snicket nearer to the window. If he's meant to be listening to anything, it's the sound of his own demise. Or something that might become one... |
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Post by Hermes on Mar 30, 2014 13:08:18 GMT -5
Well, that looks convincing. The question is what to make of it. I don't think Mr Feint can be the actual instigator of the plot, because the Inhumane Society goes back quite a long way, and has always been in Stain'd, whereas Mr Feint lived until recently in Killdeer fields, and would have had no reason to be concerned with Stain'd until the recent flood (supposing that's where the water went). So I think he really was kidnapped, as Cleo was, to make him do some kind of scientific work for the conspirators, and was indeed kept prisoner in the Aquarium apartment. The question would be what happened then. Did he actually adopt the values of his kidnappers, like Patti Hearst? After all, they were originally based on environmentalist ideals which he would sympathise with, and it's not unreasonable to be upset with what the Knights have done both to Stain'd and to Killdeer Fields. Or was he intimidated into playing a part - with Ellington being well placed to be used in the intimidation?
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Post by Dante on Mar 30, 2014 13:52:24 GMT -5
Well, that looks convincing. The question is what to make of it. I don't think Mr Feint can be the actual instigator of the plot, because the Inhumane Society goes back quite a long way, and has always been in Stain'd, whereas Mr Feint lived until recently in Killdeer fields, and would have had no reason to be concerned with Stain'd until the recent flood (supposing that's where the water went). Well, I wondered how the length of time since the Inhumane Society's inception corresponded to Ellington's age. It's pure fanfiction at this point, of course, but bearing in mind that Ellington appears to have no mother to speak of, it occurred to me that Mr. Feint might have broken ranks to raise his daughter after her mother was no longer able to do so (whether through death, departure, or any other reason you might choose to invent). Why everything changed just recently is a question which stands regardless of Hangfire's true identity. I expect that ?3 will shed some light on the history of I.S. |
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Post by Hermes on Apr 11, 2014 16:01:07 GMT -5
I thought I had better finish this before my copy of FU13 (and 29MOTSP) arrives, so:
Chapter 12.
When Jake arrives he finds the door locked, and sees people moving about inside. So, P and S have entered, as promised, but then, I guess, got into a fight with Nurse Dander, who locks them in (although they get the better of her in the end). I don't see they would have a reason to lock the door themselves.
'Even on a rug the Bombinating Beast was something horrible.' Has it really been presented as horrible before, or is it acquiring that aspect in the light of the tadpoles etc.?
Are we meant to suppose that the hatch is hard to move just because it is so heavy? The idea that L and J must be able to move it because Hangfire moved it is a bit odd, if it can be locked from inside. This, of course, also bears on the other hatch to which this one is parallel.
There are electronic boxes in Cleo's lab - one wonders whether the electrical equipment L saw at Black Cat Coffee was marked 'CK'. Though it might have been 'IS'.
Cleo is the first character in this series who I would say is definitely a Gryffindor. Though Jake may be one as well.
We've already commented on the story of the expedition to the woods, and on L's friend who caught a bat. Clearly this must be Beatrice - but we've been stung on this before. L's reaction, not to spend more time outdoors than is absolutely necessary, because a wild beast may turn and defend itself, seems a bit excessive.
Notice that Lemony thinks of a rabbi as a natural part of a wedding.
'My finger was entirely healed the next time I saw Ellington Feint, though I had other troubles.' Perhaps he was in prison for burning the library down? I think we are meant to be in some doubt over whether E has in fact escaped.
I've already commented, in the 'questions for DH' thread, on Lemony's action in sending Pip and Squeak up the tower of a collapsing building. No doubt this shows his obsession with Ellington. Note Moxie watching him carefully. Fortunately we know from FU13 that P and S survived, and don't seem to have had any hard feelings about it. One might also ask how he knew about the record player - apparently, seeing the empty table, he thought 'That looks like a table from which someone has just removed an old-fashioned record-player'. Or does he know more than he is letting on?
Chemistry is of course historically linked with medicine - as is shown by the fact that pharmacists can still be called chemists - but I'm a bit doubtful about whether being a chemist really gives you the ability to treat wounds.
Cleo thinks the masks are just a superstition; this is the fourth theory we have heard about them, I think. (Theodora thought they were to protect against water pressure, despite the absence of water, Moxie that they were to protect against Salt Lung, and didn't Ellington suggest that they had something to do with the Beast itself, being worn when it was on the prowl?) The question who rings the bell is again raised - I sense an ongoing mystery here.
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Post by MisterM on Apr 11, 2014 16:06:22 GMT -5
i think it was one of the mitchums who said about the masks protecting from the BB when it was 'on the prowl'. But maybe i'm incorrect.
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Post by Dante on Apr 11, 2014 16:30:53 GMT -5
'Even on a rug the Bombinating Beast was something horrible.' Has it really been presented as horrible before, or is it acquiring that aspect in the light of the tadpoles etc.? I certainly don't remember Lemony particularly liking it. "Horrible" in this context may simply mean something like "not pretty," which is hard to dispute. At the time, I thought it might have been I.I., although at this point I.S. does seem more likely. Say, did your reread cover that allusion in an earlier chapter to botanical extraction equipment and blank books being stored in the attic of Black Cat Coffee? It was probably in the chapter where Lemony met Ellington there, so... Chapter Nine, maybe? I'd rather rely on fallible memory than walk across the room and look it up. A bit of both, I think - a table which perhaps obviously had something on it recently, and what might Hangfire have around to hide? We know that Nurse Dander brought Ellington's papers from the apartment, at least as I recall it, so it's logical to deduce that she might have taken the record player as well, which there's otherwise no sign of... though of course, all that is a considerable leap of logic if not accompanied by a separate deduction. I think it was Stain'd Myths, and implicitly the Mitchums, who raised such a proposal in ?1. Given that the bell is located on the same island as a school, I suspect that we will be delving right into that mystery later this year. |
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Post by Hermes on Apr 12, 2014 9:51:57 GMT -5
Yes, the Mitchums. That makes a lot more sense. Thanks, Dante and Mister M.
So we have:
- The Mitchums: sheer superstition (even if the BB is real it doesn't regularly prowl around).
- Theodora: trying to give a scientific explanation but coming up with an absurd one.
- Moxie: giving the best explanation she can, but perhaps not a terribly well founded one. (Has anyone ever actually caught Salt Lung? See how effective these masks are!)
- Cleo: perhaps too ready to dismiss what doesn't fit her world view.
I think the truth is yet to be revealed.
No, I didn't comment on the blank books and botanical equipment earlier - it seems likely they are for the IS, since Cleo seems to have been new to the place when Ellington met her. The question L raises, who delivers them (Very Fast?), is another matter, of course. The IS presumably wouldn't be delivering mail to itself.
Chapter 13.
'He always had a philosophy that you should not hesitate' - this allows us, if we are alert, to identify Lemony's visitor, who is not named for some time (in fact, not until he leaves, though there have been lots of clues by then). This time, at least it is someone we already know to be a VFD member. He calls Lemony 'Snicket', which means L can call him 'Widdershins', and does not need to reveal his first name. One wonders how old he is - I would have thought quite a lot older than L, from what we see in TGG (certainly if he was close in age to Fernald's mother, though I suppose he doesn't need to be); this adds to the mystery of how apprenticeship works.
'the Officers Mitchum were arguing about whose fault it was that Ellington had slipped out of the cell' - does this mean she has indeed escaped, or does it just record what L thought at the time? If she has escaped there is an interesting contrast with Kit - unless she might escape too. But her captors seem more efficient.
I like the idea of a Museum of Items. Once upon a time a lot of museums were museums of items; more recently the idea has grown up that every museum has to be a museum of something in particular, archaeology or botany or herpetology or whatever. It does mean we have little clue about the item Kit was stealing, though.
Kit could not open the hatch because it was too heavy, which throws light on the Inhumane Society's hatch. But I'm not clear on why she needed to open a hatch to leave the museum, when she was able to enter the museum without doing so.
Widdershins' position is a bit mysterious. He has a submarine - and it is his submarine, not just in the sense of 'the one he is on', but in that he has some control over it, given the reference to it being confiscated. He doesn't seem to be alone on it, either; there is also Gustav. Yet he also has a chaperone. (I think, by the way, that this is Gustav the assistant rather than Gustav Sebald, given the implication in FU13 that Zombies in the Snow had already been made. This confirms the view that they are two people. Though that requires logic on Mr Snicket's part, something he has not always followed in the past.)
The muddy stuff on the shoe is clearly important to the mystery, though it's a bit odd that it was left lying around outside the tower.
The final picture - along with what we hear of Lemony's speech - prompts some thoughts about the schism, but I will come back to them later.
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ryntern
Bewildered Beginner
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Post by ryntern on Apr 14, 2014 5:54:20 GMT -5
The muddy stuff on the shoe is clearly important to the mystery, though it's a bit odd that it was left lying around outside the tower. The final picture - along with what we hear of Lemony's speech - prompts some thoughts about the schism, but I will come back to them later. I am super interested to see what the shoe stuff turns out to be...I wonder if the mud is maybe a clue the sea is coming back? I may be reaching there, but perhaps the water table is rising or...something? Idk it's 6am here lol. And yeah I'm curious to get some clarification on that final pic...I'm still kinda confused as to where that picture actually takes place. We know she couldn't open the hatch (which was marked "VFD"), so I wonder if it was opened FOR HER by the members behind it...and then she was captured. Are we seeing the start of the schism? |
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Post by Dante on Apr 14, 2014 11:39:56 GMT -5
The muddy stuff on the shoe is clearly important to the mystery, though it's a bit odd that it was left lying around outside the tower. What makes you think it was lying around, rather than growing? |
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Post by Hermes on Apr 14, 2014 14:25:45 GMT -5
Well, it seems to be animal rather than vegetable matter, so it's a bit odd that it should be growing on a flight of steps. But if you prefer, why was it growing outside?
OK, the schism. There does seem to be a schism of some sort brewing. Now this should not be the schism, since we know from TPP that this happened when Kit was four. It is true, of course, that DH has retconned it before now, and he may retcon it again. Supposing, though, that this is not so, I can see a number of possibilities:
a. The schism has happened but is so far secret, with the villains still working within VFD; the events of ATWQ are going to bring it out into the open.
b. The schism has happened, but there is currently a truce between the factions. Lemony and Kit are disturbing the truce by rescuing an important item from the villainous side; the leaders of the good side are afraid this may lead to war.
c. The schism has happened, but Lemony and Kit have been recruited to the bad side; it isn't yet overtly bad, being still officially devoted to good causes, but promoting them in an unscrupulous way. In the course of the story, they will discover the good side and be recruited to it - which may explain why L seems to be back at school after this.
This may also explain the figure of Qwerty, who is clearly connected with VFD, yet seems to be helping L and K in their endeavours, of which the VFD establishment does not approve. Might he represent another faction in VFD?
It's also interesting how the Inhumane Society seems to be following a similar path to VFD - it began as a high-minded organisation, and seems to have been provoked into action by Ink Inc's destruction of the town, but it is now fighting fire with fire, and has become corrupted by doing so. Might the IS also have suffered a schism?
Finally, it's worth noticing that Kit's item looks - while wrapped up, at least - rather like the Bombinating Beast.
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Post by Dante on Apr 15, 2014 2:15:04 GMT -5
Well, it seems to be animal rather than vegetable matter, so it's a bit odd that it should be growing on a flight of steps. But if you prefer, why was it growing outside? Because it's being cultivatd? I think it's relevant to remember that there's also another place in Stain'd where a previously aquatic lifeform is growing comfortably on the surface. I think I'm going to go with option d), which is another vague retconning of the schism. Whatever happened when Kit was four precipitated V.F.D.'s fall from grace and descent into secrecy, and maybe was a schism, but we can always cheat that with something she says in TPP, that "the schism grows worse with every generation." So we can have multiple schisms, if we like. In that regard, I would suggest that the Snickets are trying to spearhead a more active, less laissez-faire V.F.D., but that their noble ideals will ultimately be hijacked by terrible people with initials like O. Possibly while Lemony's tucked away in Stain'd and Kit in prison? Interesting interpretation, and that would blow things wide open. I think others of us, though, were irresistibly, foolishly tempted to see in it something bowl-shaped. Will we never learn? |
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Post by Hermes on Apr 15, 2014 7:44:23 GMT -5
I think I'm going to go with option d), which is another vague retconning of the schism. Whatever happened when Kit was four precipitated V.F.D.'s fall from grace and descent into secrecy, and maybe was a schism, but we can always cheat that with something she says in TPP, that "the schism grows worse with every generation." So we can have multiple schisms, if we like. In that regard, I would suggest that the Snickets are trying to spearhead a more active, less laissez-faire V.F.D., but that their noble ideals will ultimately be hijacked by terrible people with initials like O. Possibly while Lemony's tucked away in Stain'd and Kit in prison? Well, I think that would fit in with my option b - the authorities on what is officially the good side are, as you say, laissez faire, and L and K are prompting a schism over this. I've always believed that there were sub-schisms, and that this can explain references in ASOUE to more recent schisms. And if you're right, there is the making of a third schism here, when O and others take 'fighting fire with fire' too far, which fits the 'every generation' theme (though literally, of course, only one generation has passed). I'm not suggesting it is a BB - the similarity is presumably due to the wrappings. I just think it's a thematic parallel. EDIT: A couple of things I missed earlier: In Ch. 10, the bit about the papers blowing around like tumbleweeds (hi, Terry!) recalls the papers seen blowing around in the mountains in TGG. It is also a rare reference to L's parents, with whom he apparently went to the mountains. (And similar papers appear in the illustration to the last section of FU13.) In Ch. 12 'Hangfire couldn't hide a screaming girl unnoticed under a table any more than my sister could hide her diary unnoticed under her pillow' - this recalls the bit in TCC about discovering your sister is running away with an archduke (though there it was letters that L was looking at, not a diary). |
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tfrisch
Reptile Researcher
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Post by tfrisch on Jun 6, 2014 10:12:51 GMT -5
Not sure if anyone pointed this out yet, but did you guys notice whats next to one of the trees on the illustration on page 65 of WDYSHL?
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Post by Hermes on Jun 6, 2014 10:26:06 GMT -5
No.
Oo. Well well well.
This confirms my view that Seth (unlike Helquist, most of the time) is deeply involved in the story and mysteries.
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tfrisch
Reptile Researcher
Posts: 13
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Post by tfrisch on Jun 6, 2014 10:36:27 GMT -5
Agreed. I really like how seth contributes to the series.
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