paisley
Formidable Foreman
every boat has it's own sail
Posts: 116
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Post by paisley on Oct 16, 2015 14:37:26 GMT -5
The orphans first two guardians after Olaf seem extremely ignorant of who Count Olaf is, but since they were members of VFD wouldn't they have known him and his treachery? Maybe they were pretending so that they wouldn't have to answer awkward questions, and to shield the children from knowing too much about the volunteers/schism. I've always wondered this.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 15:07:55 GMT -5
In the first 3 books there were no VFD references, y'know? Snicket started putting VFD references in in TMM. That is an alright theory though, pailsey.
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Post by bear on Oct 16, 2015 16:04:49 GMT -5
we can't be sure VFD existed in Handler's head before TAA, no, but that doesn't change the fact that Monty and Josephine are later revealed to be in VFD. I write it up as an unretconnable discrepancy.
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Post by J-Bird on Oct 16, 2015 21:00:41 GMT -5
Dang it with Snicket and these unretconnable discrepancies!
I personally think that if Monty and Josephine were in VFD, they couldn't possibly not know who Olaf is. Perhaps other factors led [Josephine] to not be suspicious. Let us remember how Monty's thought did mirror the Baudelaire's in the time before he died.
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Post by Esmé's meme is meh on Oct 17, 2015 16:10:55 GMT -5
I think they knew who he was, but they decided to pretend they didn't. I prefer to believe they knew who he was even when he had costumes just to keep the children safe and VFD covered. Maybe they wanted to believe Olaf wasn't a bad guy after all. We still don't know what the positions of the VFD members are completely, and if Snicket made something clear in ASOUE is that no one is completely good or bad. Who knows what Monty and Josephine histories are and what they had to do with Olaf in the past.
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Post by Agathological on Oct 17, 2015 18:53:33 GMT -5
It is quite a discrepancy when you look back on it. The way Monty and Josephine talk about him is as if they have never heard of him up until when the Baudelaire's tell them about him.
Books 1 to 5 in my eyes need to be 'retconned' so to speak. Monty, Josephine and Dr. Orwell's office need to be in line with V.F.D.
In my eyes, if V.F.D was integrated in the story from the start; I feel Monty would take the children in, thinking that "I haven't seen Olaf in years, he won't find us in Tedia," but would still fall for his Stephano disguise all the same.
Josephine would be a helluva lot more wary for taking the children in any case, let alone having Olaf be after them. But I guess, her loneliness just tip the scale from her paranoia and she would take them in. I don't think Captain Sham would work on her, she would see Olaf all the same, agreeing with the children. So I feel that book would play out differently from how it went.
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Post by gliquey on Oct 18, 2015 12:34:38 GMT -5
I find it hard to believe that Monty wouldn't see through Stephano's disguise and I also find it hard to think of a reason why he would lie to the children about not recognising him. As for Josephine, I can believe that she doesn't recognise Captain Sham, but perhaps more importantly I think it plausible that she might recognise Olaf but pretend not to out of fear. So I think we have a problem with TRR but can retcon TWW.
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Post by bear on Oct 18, 2015 12:46:49 GMT -5
i also forgot until now that Count Olaf actually reveals himself to Aunt Josephine, and ends up killing her without bothering for a disguise, so i'm not sure Josephine would have been much help even if she did agree with the Baudelaires from the get-go. it's still curious that she doesn't/pretends not to recognize him from her younger days though.
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paisley
Formidable Foreman
every boat has it's own sail
Posts: 116
Likes: 1
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Post by paisley on Oct 18, 2015 13:28:07 GMT -5
I've loved reading everyone's thoughts! It could be that LS did not plan on VFD being in the story, even in the first few books he is more removed from the story as a narrator than he is later on. Makes you wonder where he may have originally planned on have the story go..
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Post by Dante on Oct 18, 2015 14:04:21 GMT -5
V.F.D. is a large organisation, so it's not implausible that they might never have met Count Olaf - although I agree that they must have heard of him. Nonetheless, even if they ever had, I think it's quite likely that they hadn't met Olaf for a very long time, and wouldn't have recognised him even if he wasn't in disguise. As to how they didn't see through his disguise, there are a couple of possibilities: One is that they mistook his disguise use for a sign that he was on their side, and another is that Monty and Josephine are somewhat lapsed in their duties (remember, Monty never even learned the Sebald Code) and didn't realise that Stephano and Captain Sham were in disguise at all.
...Yet another thing to remember, of course, is that children are pretty much objectively more competent than adults in the Averse, so even if you ignore all my previous suggestions, it would still be entirely in-character for the universe of the series for Monty and Josephine to flat-out not know that anything was wrong.
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Post by veryfakedonkey on Oct 19, 2015 18:43:46 GMT -5
In ?4 it explains how all of the volunteers are doing their job. Monty, Josephine, and Olaf are all volunteers in VFD so they probably knew who he was.
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Post by Strangely on Oct 21, 2015 14:37:24 GMT -5
I find it hard to believe that Monty wouldn't see through Stephano's disguise and I also find it hard to think of a reason why he would lie to the children about not recognising him. As for Josephine, I can believe that she doesn't recognise Captain Sham, but perhaps more importantly I think it plausible that she might recognise Olaf but pretend not to out of fear. So I think we have a problem with TRR but can retcon TWW. There's plenty of reasons either could lie. In Uncle Monty's situation they were all in an isolated location with a known criminal constantly threatening each of them. Would Monty really be able to overpower Olaf in a physical confrontation that would certainly ensue the second he tried to out Olaf? It's unlikely he could, so feigning ignorance may have served to protect himself and the children. Monty may have felt that even telling the children would result in Olaf realizing that he knew and thus would cause Olaf to resort to drastic measures. By pretending not to recognize Olaf he bought himself and the children some time. He may have truly believed that he could have left Olaf behind as they departed for Peru without incident. Consider too that if either Monty or Josephine had admitted to recognizing Olaf the children would have wondered how that was possible and thus the VFD secret may have come up so much earlier and as a result propelled the Baudelaire's into that dangerous world even quicker. |
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Post by gliquey on Oct 21, 2015 15:07:27 GMT -5
There's plenty of reasons either could lie. In Uncle Monty's situation they were all in an isolated location with a known criminal constantly threatening each of them. Would Monty really be able to overpower Olaf in a physical confrontation that would certainly ensue the second he tried to out Olaf? It's unlikely he could, so feigning ignorance may have served to protect himself and the children. Monty may have felt that even telling the children would result in Olaf realizing that he knew and thus would cause Olaf to resort to drastic measures. By pretending not to recognize Olaf he bought himself and the children some time. He may have truly believed that he could have left Olaf behind as they departed for Peru without incident. Consider too that if either Monty or Josephine had admitted to recognizing Olaf the children would have wondered how that was possible and thus the VFD secret may have come up so much earlier and as a result propelled the Baudelaire's into that dangerous world even quicker. Monty didn't necessarily need to overpower Olaf - he could have even used the hidden tunnel to escape with the Baudelaires if necessary, or more simply just have phoned the police discreetly. If his plan was to go to Peru with the children before Olaf could do anything, what did he think Olaf would do afterwards? Olaf knew where the children were and could simply have waited for them to get back before killing Monty. Just ignoring the fact that a dangerous criminal is in his house is not a viable plan. And while the guardians might not have wanted to reveal V.F.D. to the children, they could have made up any number of excuses about how they knew Olaf, if necessary, or simply believed the Baudelaires when they said that Stephano/Sham was Olaf. |
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Post by Strangely on Oct 21, 2015 15:35:57 GMT -5
Monty didn't necessarily need to overpower Olaf - he could have even used the hidden tunnel to escape with the Baudelaires if necessary, or more simply just have phoned the police discreetly. If his plan was to go to Peru with the children before Olaf could do anything, what did he think Olaf would do afterwards? Olaf knew where the children were and could simply have waited for them to get back before killing Monty. Just ignoring the fact that a dangerous criminal is in his house is not a viable plan. And while the guardians might not have wanted to reveal V.F.D. to the children, they could have made up any number of excuses about how they knew Olaf, if necessary, or simply believed the Baudelaires when they said that Stephano/Sham was Olaf. Olaf made a point to be near either Monty or the Baudelaires, when exactly could they have sneaked away? The one time they did get alone with Uncle Monty a lamp was dropped on him. What chance was there really to use that tunnel without being seen? Olaf was always watching. Running off or calling the police is easy in theory, but in practice it's quite difficult when a knife wielding villain is never more than a few steps away and is watching even when you're sleeping in your bed. Even if the police were to be called what would stop Olaf from grabbing a child and using them as a hostage to escape the authorities? He's ruthless, Monty wouldn't take a chance of the children being harmed. To me it seemed that Monty saw the danger and was biding his time for the right moment to get away. He didn't want to risk the children getting hurt so he played along and worked slowly to accomplish his goal. Once they escaped to Peru they could have disappeared and never come back. It's a big world and Olaf may have never been able to find them if they hid well enough. Unfortunately it would seem Olaf even overheard his plan to rip up the ticket too, resulting in Olaf murdering him. |
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Post by lorelai on Oct 25, 2015 0:18:09 GMT -5
Your thoughts make sense to me, strangely. Also in the scene you refer to, when Monty reveals his plan to leave Olaf behind, it's not at all implausible that Olaf could have overheard him. The lamp is thrown moments after Monty explains his intentions, which reads to me as both Olaf trying to do some harm, and expressing anger at what he heard through the open window.
It will be interesting to see if/how Handler provides an answer to this question in theNetflix series. Given how self-contained the first four books are, and that the 13-book contract wasn't a go until TAA, I always thought, no matter when VFD was thought up, that he was being careful in case the series was cut short.
Sadly for Josephine, whether she knew Olaf on sight or not is moot, he's clearly learned from Monty to act quickly and she says herself she's too scared to face him while her other fears prevent her from acting at all responsibly. Whatever she might have told the Baudelaires, if they'd stayed in the cave, for instance, wouldn't have done them any good in the current predicament.
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