how did olaf become a count

[lorelai]

Edit: Well, there's Carmeleita's "County", but seeing as he doesn't like her or the petname, I doubt we're supposed to read much into that.

[Seymour Glass]

May 19, 2017 21:54:05 GMT -5 lorelai said:

May 19, 2017 18:42:30 GMT -5 Seymour Glass said:

I have a theory that Count might actually be his first name. Some people have titles as first names, such as Duke or Earl or Queen. Michael Jackson's sons' are both named Prince.

Way too many people, both his enimies and allies including Esme and the villainous duo (who are his equal and superiors respectively) call him Olaf for that to work for me. No one ever just calls him Count.

Olaf can be a last name, though. Lots of people go by their last names.

[lorelai]

I'm not saying that can't be the case, I'm just not convinced it is for this character based on what we get in the books.

[Charlie]

I keep misreading the title :/

I wonder how he did become one tho

[Seymour Glass]

May 20, 2017 1:42:59 GMT -5 jim said:

I know that we're only talking about books, but if we're counting the netflix adaptation as evidence of authorial intent, there's the exchange between Jacquelyn and Olaf aboard the Prospero. I don't remember it verbatim, but something like:

"I have a telegram for a Mr. 'Count Olaf' ?"

to which Olaf responds with something like:

"It's not Mr., it's just Count. Count is my honorific. Calling me Mr. is an insult to my station."

That exchange, written at least in part by Handler, makes it clear that Count is intended to be a title and not a first name. Again, though, this only matters if we're counting evidence from the show / evidence of authorial intent.

You may be correct. What I said was just a thought.

I don't think he earned the title, though.

[Dante]

The unsmoking gun for Olaf's first name being "Count" is really that no volunteer ever calls him C.

However, I believe there is some precedent for people effectively just making up aristocratic titles by adopting one as their first name, without actually having such a title (in which case Olaf really would be Mr. Count Olaf), but this is only permitted so long as you don't use the implied title for any fraudulent purpose, which of course Olaf would. Still, I prefer to think Olaf inherited his title, since other volunteers use it and thus appear to accept its legitimacy.

[lemonmeringue]

Well, under normal circumstances, you don't "become a Count," you are born one. By the way - a young Count holds his title, even if his father is alive.

Since Olaf as a surname would be even stranger than Count as a first name, I suppose Olaf simply is a Count. I don't know why that should be an issue - why should he not be a Count, after all?

[Hermes]

Obviously someone must have been the first person in the family to become a Count. But it's unlikely that was Olaf. For one thing, 'Count' isn't a regular title in English-speaking countries, so it's unlikely Snicketland would have them as part of its system; more probably it's a title his family inherited from its European ancestors.

I think it differs from one country to another whether only the head of the family is a Count, or other members as well. In some places the head is 'The Count of X' but his children might be 'Count John' and so on.

[Gregor Anwhistle]

I used to entertain the theory that Olaf just added the title "Count" as a stage name for his acting career. Just to make himself seem more prestigious in the eyes of the public.

But yeah, I think it could also just be inherited.

[Liam R. Findlay]

On a few occasions, the Netflix show suggests that Olaf had a wealthy family before; I can't remember them specifically but one example is that his house is called a mansion at some point, I think. Either way, his parents were killed at the opera, which isn't really a place for poor people, and many prominent V.F.D. families seem to be wealthy. I would suppose that his title is reflective of the family he once had- he was born a Count and has lost all his wealth but still feels entitled to the lifestyle. Although initially, it was probably used because it was a cool name for a villain.

In 2005ish, I used to think Olaf was his surname and there was a track in the movie soundtrack called Chez Olaf, so I thought Chez was his forename.

[Uncle Algernon]

I would agree that him really being a Count makes the most sense. It's also possible, however, that he neither is a count, nor has any rights (con-based or otherwise) to call himself one, but goes by Count precisely because, since it's a foreign title that doesn't exist as such in any English system, no one is going to be asking about it, for the same reason people didn't question the specifics of "Gunther the please foreigner from, please, very far away" in TEE. Goes well with the very much foreign name "Olaf", too.

The real question, assuming hs *is* a count, is what his family name is. It's pretty clear Olaf is his first name, so shouldn't be be Olaf von/de/of Something? I have a pet theory, expanding on the "he squandered the family money", that he lost the family domain his title was named after, but not technically the title, and so he kept going by "Count" but lost the family name.

An alternate (albeit unlikely) idea would be that he's a Baudelaire by birth (with Count as a bastardization of an originally French title), genuinely a relative of the children, and as a result chose to forsake that name once it became associated with Beatrice and Bertrand.

[Hermes]

We do know that someone called Olaf attended Wade Academy, a school which included children of dukes and counts.

EDIT: In my headcanon his family name is Mett: this is in honour of Count Molfetta, a character in The Bears Famous Invasion of Sicily.

[A comet crashing into Earth]

Apr 4, 2018 11:34:55 GMT -5 Hermes said:

In my headcanon his family name is Mett: this is in honour of Count Molfetta, a character in The Bears Famous Invasion of Sicily.

That's brilliant!