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Post by gliquey on Jan 7, 2016 11:21:51 GMT -5
One of the white-faced women says on TSS page 304, "We don't want to participate in your schemes anymore. [...] For a while, it was fun to fight fire with fire, but we've seen enough flames and smoke to last our whole lives." This indicates that they probably joined Olaf voluntarily. One could also say that the carnival henchpeople joined Olaf voluntarily, and that quote sounds like it could have easily come from any of them had they been in the troupe for several years, but they were still forced to join Olaf because of their situation, and because of a fire he started. The white-faced woman's quote does indicate that they were never kidnapped or forced into the troupe, but they may still have only joined because of an unfortunate predicament they were in. They may think they joined voluntarily, when in fact they essentially had a Hobson's choice. Nevertheless, this is all mere speculation, and there's nothing to say the women's accusations about the fire couldn't have been wrong. |
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Jan 7, 2016 11:31:46 GMT -5
I always thought the WFW had 'voluntarily' joined Olaf because he had carefully robbed them of any other meaningful future they might have had, just as he does to the snow scouts later in the same book. It invites the reader to think there can be different degrees of 'volunteer', which puts both sides of VFD in a more questionable light.
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Post by lorelai on Jan 7, 2016 14:23:43 GMT -5
One of the white-faced women says on TSS page 304, "We don't want to participate in your schemes anymore. [...] For a while, it was fun to fight fire with fire, but we've seen enough flames and smoke to last our whole lives." This indicates that they probably joined Olaf voluntarily. One could also say that the carnival henchpeople joined Olaf voluntarily, and that quote sounds like it could have easily come from any of them had they been in the troupe for several years, but they were still forced to join Olaf because of their situation, and because of a fire he started. The white-faced woman's quote does indicate that they were never kidnapped or forced into the troupe, but they may still have only joined because of an unfortunate predicament they were in. They may think they joined voluntarily, when in fact they essentially had a Hobson's choice. Nevertheless, this is all mere speculation, and there's nothing to say the women's accusations about the fire couldn't have been wrong. The carnival workers did have a choice--they could have left. Olaf let's the gift/figurine seller leave. They are still manipulated, because they fall for Olaf's threat, and the implication that they don't have a choice since their workplace has burnt down. |
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Post by Dante on Jan 8, 2016 8:15:31 GMT -5
Thank you; I agree with these three expansions. Nobody was overtly forced to join Olaf, but, as becomes increasingly significant in the following books, they were left without a meaningful alternative, without any other choice that they could possibly contemplate. "What else could I do?" One might add, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
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Post by bear on Jan 8, 2016 17:40:15 GMT -5
wtmi
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Post by Dante on Jan 9, 2016 9:09:02 GMT -5
Maybe so, but I'd appreciate a bit more substance to your posts in future, bear.
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Post by thedoctororwell on Mar 2, 2016 16:00:34 GMT -5
The white powder covers up their herpes and syphilis scars.
No, seriously.
From the 18th century (and beyond) women who applied white powder over their whole faces were exclusively actresses and prostitutes (and, most of the time, these two professions overlapped). Pale skin was a feature of the aristocracy (because noble women never worked outdoors) and was therefore a requirement to get classier, richer clients. But mostly this white powder was used to hide the scars and blemishes which they almost always got from small pox, syphilis, herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases.
I think that the white-powdered women were forced into a life a prostitution alongside their acting career. This is why they're so dismissive of Fernald and the other "freaks": their physical defaults are socially acceptable because they were born with it by chance. But when you have syphilis people start making horrible assumptions about you and your lifestyle, and avoid you at all costs. There are a lot of "adult" risqué jokes in ASOUE and I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of them.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Mar 2, 2016 16:16:50 GMT -5
That was enlightening. I knew about the use of white powder, but I'd never made the connection that this would be why they could say in earnest - so tempted to make a joke here about the proper spelling of 'earnest', but that would just be weird without the proper context - that their white faces were a worse disfigurements than the freaks'. I like this interpretation better, too - before, it was just funny because it was absurd, but now there's a whole different layer. Fernald's protest that they apply it voluntarily is suddenly a pretty direct reference to readers like me who don't get the joke. It's all so meta, I'm getting all excited now!
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Post by gliquey on Mar 2, 2016 17:31:41 GMT -5
That's very interesting historical knowledge; I would love it to be true because (a) it's very clever, (b) it definitely seems like Handler's style and (c) it would add yet another element to the timeless / anachronistic feel of the series.
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Post by lorelai on Mar 2, 2016 22:57:43 GMT -5
How interesting and sad and fitting. Now I'm torn, because I like it, since along with what has already been said it fleshes out these two characters and makes their seemingly abrupt kindness less abrupt (they're surviving awful circumstances but haven't grown so cynical they don't have a villainy breaking point), but I like the absurdity too.
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L Lawliet
Reptile Researcher
Occupation: Snicketologist
Posts: 23 
Likes: 5
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Post by L Lawliet on Mar 13, 2016 10:12:08 GMT -5
That makes far more sense then my original theory! I must say you likely did quite a lot of research and I thank you for the effort.  |
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jacqueslsnicket
Reptile Researcher
"Her eyebrows were curved like question marks. . .she smiled a smile that could have meant anything"
Posts: 27
Likes: 2
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Post by jacqueslsnicket on Mar 28, 2017 13:24:19 GMT -5
Makes sense. When I was reading ATWQ WDYSHL the twin sisters that worked for the knight family (their names have slipped my mind) reminded me very much of the 2 white faced women. However, the White Faced Women said that they had a sibling... |
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Post by Agathological on Mar 29, 2017 14:23:43 GMT -5
Well it was nice of Colette not to point out their scarring when she mentions their application of the power in Slippery Slope.
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