Post by mrwidefield on Mar 19, 2017 19:21:17 GMT -5
Having recently started to reread (or well, relisten, since I'm giving the wonderful Tim Curry-audiobooks a shot) aSoUE, I wanted to make the journey as complete as possible for myself, since I wanted to try and immerse myself as best I could. Therefore, while listening to TBB, I read the Rare Edition-notes and found this website whilst trying to make sense of it all. Moderator Dante had some very intriguing notes on the notes which helped a lot, and I felt compelled to add my notes on the notes on the notes and try and add to the discussion, hopefully maybe even clarifying one or two things.
To make the whole thing as clear as possible, I will add all the notes I felt compelled to add something to; if I continued on the work of Dante, I will have quoted him in cursive.
Not very good with hyperlinks yet, or I would link more prettily to PJ's collection of the notes somewhere on this site, and Dante's commentary on them. As it stands, I'll simply add links: asoue.proboards.com/thread/25174 (PJ's writing down of the notes), and asoue.proboards.com/thread/27681/great-667-read-week-beginning?page=5 (Dante's commentary on them).
Let's get started!
p.6 Mr. Poe took off his top hat…
The height of a top hat provides a good-sized hollow space over the head of the wearer, which can be used as a hiding place. If one is using a top hat for such purposes, it is important to remember that one must remove it very carefully.
Also, an earlier draft of The Bad Beginning uses this phrase instead: Mr. Poe took off his top hat carefully.
Dante: A plotline which seems to have been dropped. In The End, we learn that Sadie Bellamy and Olaf are aware of adoption papers hidden under the top hat of a banker called Mr. Poe who had been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs and who is better known under his stage name. Mr. Poe was not promoted to VPiCoOA until TEE, and at no time has there been any indication that he works on the stage in any capacity. I suggest that Sadie and Olaf are referring to an entirely different Mr. Poe, and that it is for this reason that this line was “redrafted” by Lemony before publication: He learnt that the Mr. Poe with something concealed under his hat was not the Mr. Poe associated with the Baudelaires, and thus the information was not relevant. However, the U.A. does reveal that Mr. Poe and Eleanora Poe are in contact with a mysterious “you-know-who,” and I suggest this would have been linked to the something-under-his-hat plotline. I will go further and hypothesize a connection to the poisonous plant, but more on that later.
Me: The scene in The End which references the hat-hiding is pretty convoluted on its own, with Olaf rattling off several key points of information that sound like they might be interesting, but in the end (pun intended), get no real conclusion. Oh hey, what a familiar feeling. A metaphor for all the ‘dropped’ plotlines, both in the main books, and the BBRE? Probably, Snicket was always quite tongue-in-cheek.
Personally, I don’t think there’s a second Poe, since the Poe we’re all familiar with is proven to be, even if only as an unwitting pawn, connected with sóme V.F.D. shenanigans, as per the U.A. Hell, in TWW, Poe bids Olaf silent when he insinuates he burned down the Baudelaire mansion. Clearly, Mr. Poe is aware that there is more beneath the surface in the world around him. Then why consistently fail to be of any help to the Baudelaires, or learn from his mistakes? Purely personal conjecture, but those types of people dó exist, and are what the series is warning readers about from page one. Being an adult is realizing the world is much darker, damper, and morally grayer than you would like to realize. To keep from going insane, we should all lock ourselves in the kitchen cupboard and hope nobody ever finds us. Failing that, pretending the world consists only of those things you choose to see might make everything more bearable. It’s like a drug, really. Mr. Poe opted for that option, and whenever the traumatized orphans he needs to help tell him they see right through the veil he so carefully constructed for himself, he needs to do whatever he can to prove to himself and to them that no, the world isn’t that bad and everything is really all right. Poe is a lotus eater, if you will (another literary reference also used in The End). Sometimes, Poe will, to help others, do some shady things or take a few risks, if only because as an adult, it’s his job.
It’s why I tend to fall back on the idea that Poe had adoption papers under his hat (given to him by the bank, so it’s would literally bé his job in this case). For whom? The Baudelaires, I would say, and since the will had been messed with (why else would the Baudelaires ever be sent to live with Count Olaf?), whoever gave Poe his assignment would benefit from the will being concealed. The Snicket Sleuth has an interesting theory positing that Mr. Poe has forged the will himself (‘Did Mr. Poe Forge The Baudelaire Parents’ Last Will And Testament?’ snicketsleuth.tumblr.com/post/152175527620/did-mr-poe-forge-the-baudelaire-parents-last ), and while I don’t Poe did thát, it certainly shows how skewed the will is, and how it seems to put Poe in situations regarding the Baudelaire orphans where his only option, if he wants to follow the rules, or at least be as apathetic as possible (and whoever gave Poe the fake will would benefit from his apathy, as it ensures he won’t start asking questions), is to do the wrong thing, or more accurately, choose the wrong guardian. Who gave Poe the will? We’ll get to that. We’ll come to the poisonous plant later, and why I don’t believe Poe had a hand (or hat) in it.
p.8 “The fire department arrived, of course,” Mr. Poe said…
This was an official fire department, which despite hundreds of years of existence has not managed to stamp out fire completely. Just recently I was forced to stamp out a fire completely, when I became so immersed in reading a philosophical work entitled Nobody’s Family Is Going To Change that I completely forgot about some Gruyere cheese fondue I was reheating...
Me: More of a fun fact than anything else, but this is probably the same Gruyere cheese Snicket traded his tires for in the introduction to the notes. Something about the image of Snicket sitting in a field somewhere, next to a car without tires, melting cheese above a campfire and forgetting about it because he was reading a book, even though he should be working on these notes(!), then having to stop the field from burning down, never fails to put a smile on my face. Bit soured by the fact that fire is definitely not a laughing matter in ASOUE, though. You’d think a top agent of V.F.D. would be less careless.
p.14 …a well-respected member of the banking community.
For more information on respected members of the monetary community, interested parties might turn to my studies of Esmé Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor.
Dante: Suggesting that respected members of the monetary community are not to be trusted, which goes along with the previous dark hint about Mr. Poe’s doings – although, as has been discussed, we can’t really plausibly imagine that Mr. Poe’s a secret villain. My theory was that he was being manipulated by someone he in turn trusted – just like Justice Strauss was being used by the other judges of the High Court.
Me: Esmé Squalor, married to Jerome, stopped him from adopting the Baudelaires any sooner, because orphans were ‘out’. I’d posit that Esmé, who is later revealed to have had a connection with Count Olaf for quite a while, knew that Olaf was trying to get his hands on the Baudelaires and their fortune, and either wanted to stay out of the way so as not to become collateral damage, or, because she’s not the sharpest bulb in the tree, was not going to be of much use anyway and was left out. More on this later. Eventually, Esmé did become part of the whole ordeal, and proved herself to such an extent to Count Olaf that he took her with him. Seeing as how she’s a financial advisor, and finances are all Mr. Poe cares about, it might very well be her who, perhaps a middle (wo)man, passed on the doctored will to Mr. Poe. If Olaf was to one to concoct the whole ‘fake will’ plan, he probably didn’t realize that Poe would be such a stick in the mud when it came to forking over the money, as he doesn’t formulate a plan to get the Baudelaire fortune until his trying to get the Baudelaires to get Poe to give them the cash is proven to be a no-go, seen in Klaus’ outburst which ended up with him being struck across the face.
p.23 …to the bowl of apple cores…
Please see my note to page 25.
Me: The reference to Snicket’s note on page 25 doesn’t add much more detail to the apple cores, expect again stating that they’re there. We know from The End that certain apples, horrible to the taste because they’ve been mixed with horseradish, help to fight against a certain poisonous fungus. Not a plant, but hey, it’s pretty damn close. A horseradish factory surrounded by terrible-tasting apples is mentioned several times in TRR, so it wouldn’t be that long a trip from the city to get some apples, perhaps/probably also fused with the horseradish, to make sure that when one is experimenting with a certain fungus, when things go wrong, there’s a solution at hand. Apparently things did go wrong, and plenty wrong, too, as all that’s left is an entire bowl of eaten apples. Maybe the apples weren’t quite potent enough yet, not necessarily being the product of crossbreeding, or maybe things just really got out of hand. Perhaps the Medusoid was disposed of and/or contained (see later notes), until a better plan of action could be devised.
p.29 …cardboard box that had once held a refrigerator…
I have not been able to find this refrigerator, to my great dismay. Interested parties would be advised to contact me through my publishers if they see a refrigerator at any time.
Dante: Lemony’s interest in this subject suggested to some people that the refrigerator in question may have been that from TSS, which was lost after the Stricken Stream was unleashed. Illustrations suggest it wound up on the coastal shelf in The End, incidentally.
Me: The fridge in question from TSS contained a message, using Verbal Fridge Dialogue, that later would be implied to have been meant for Justice Strauss. If it’s not the same fridge, it's very possible that Snicket was interested in this fridge, because he has reason to believe it contained another secret message (or maybe even a certain fungus that grows best in dark, enclosed spaces, and that Olaf needed to store somewhere (more on this later)? It would explain why Snicket is so anxious to find this particular fridge, and also why it’s so unfindable. Something that dangerous needs to be hidden well). If the fridge contains another message, who could it be for? Strauss? Perhaps to inform her that a poisonous plant has fallen into the wrong hands, and she needs to sort it out? She is working on a case regarding a poisonous plant, as discussed later. But then why does Count Olaf hold the refrigerator box? Surely he, or any of his troupe didn’t send the message? Three theories: 1) It isn't Olaf's fridge, and Olaf wanted to find it to make sure that Strauss was never brought up to speed regarding his nefarious dealings with the plant, but found only the box, 2) Olaf was infiltrated and somebody sent the message when his back was turned (see my notes to the notes to pages 55 and 134), or 3) Something very lethal and fungusy was kept in the fridge, so it was disposed of, and the fridge found a new purpose in TSS. Farfetched? We’ll get to the evidence later on.
p.35 “…I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone’s credit card.”
Despite Geraldine Julienne’s article in The Daily Punctilio “No Poisonous Plants Were Removed from Royal Gardens Prior to Destruction, Official Fire Department Reports,” I have reason to believe that the poisonous plant Justice Strauss referred to was removed from the Royal Gardens prior to its destruction.
Dante: Referring back to my earlier speculation, it would seem that the ill-mannered individual who visited the Royal Gardens there stole a poisonous plant, or perhaps bought it with a stolen credit card. The Royal Gardens may then have been destroyed to hide this fact, with the O.F.D. covering up the arson. The fate of the plant? A poisonous plant might be the right sort of size to hide carefully under a top hat, and Mr. Poe’s children’s room smells of “some sort of ghastly flower”… there’s other evidence to suggest that the plant turns up later in TBB.
Me: Except the ‘some sort of ghastly flower’ quote was never noted by Snicket himself, and if he knew the plant ended up under Mr. Poe’s hat, surely he’d know that it ended up in the room of Poe’s children, if he even knows what it smelled like? Also, even Mr. Poe wouldn’t put a highly lethal plant in the room of his children, beastly though they may be. Horseradish might smell pretty strong as well, so maybe that’s a more likely conclusion… or maybe his house is just gross. See also my note to Dante’s note to Snicket’s note to page 6.
p.55 …if anyone had looked into the Baudelaire orphans’ bedroom…
Two people did, of course.
Me: Snicket mentions that Olaf’s house is nearly impossible to enter, yet he has intimate knowledge of what it looks like inside and knows exactly what the Baudelaire’s room contained. He has even seen the tower, which is impossible to enter even if you’re ín the house! Was Snicket perhaps in Olaf’s house as some point, or did he at least have a way of gaining entrance to Olaf’s grounds? I think so, and we will discuss this in the final chapter’s notes. I, at least, think it was Lemony Snicket and Count Olaf who were looking into the Baudelaire room at this point; Olaf because he wanted to keep an eye on the children/see if they weren’t lying about the money/watch Violet during her more intimate moments, because apparently he shares a fetish with Hitchcock of spying on his actresses while they're changing their clothes (his lust for her has been thoroughly discussed over the years); Snicket because at this point he is undercover (again, see the final chapter) and because it explains how he knows the things he writes. In other books Snicket of course knows plenty intimate details as well, but all those locations were at least inspectable, plus there are witnesses to interview, as he does in TBB as well, if we look at the interview-notes. Olaf’s mansion is one of the few places where Snicket’s only option would be to actually have been there.
p.62 …the Fountain of Victorious Finance…
Readers of Book the Seventh will remember that fountains are like top hats in that they provide hollow spaces in which things can be hidden (please see my note to page 6), and I imagine the damp surroundings of a fountain’s innards would be comforting if the person hiding inside had recently survived a fire.
Me: Note that there are 2 (two) references to fountains that lead to this note: the Fickle Fountain, and the Fountain of Victorious Finance. Two fountains means two hiding places, which means two people hiding, possibly because they are survivors of two different fires. Since the two fountains are both separately and explicitly mentioned, I’d say we really need to account for two different survivors. At no point is there any indication when people were hiding in these fountains, so the two situations could be a long time apart/need not both have taken place during TBB.
p.98 But Count Olaf just sat there as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.
Certain kinds of weather -severe rainstorms, for instance- have a dampening effect on fires, which is displeasing to arsonists. There have been reports of alleged arsonists so reportedly displeased with the weather that they have been rumoured to pound their beverages on an unprotected wooden table.
Me: As good a time to lay forward my theory as any. A theory regarding the Baudelaire Villa Fire Destruction, the mysterious and ill-mannered visitor, and Fountain the First.
If I may refer to the Dismal Dinner, the arguably canon storyline that came with an American invention called ‘Lunchables’ to promote the 2004 film (which I thought was a Very Fine Distraction, but that’s another story). There we can read that the Baudelaires had a dinner party ‘quite some time’ before the fire, and that Olaf was spying on this party. The dinner seems to have had been infiltrated by several personages, so there were some secret goings on, and therefore the mentioning of a sugar bowl is suspicious. The V.F.D. sugar bowl was stolen from Esmé (likely by Snicket) at a tea party where Beatrice was a guest (see TSS and TGG). This led to Esmé deducing, probably incorrectly, that Beatrice was the thief. Beatrice and Snicket were probably responsible for the death of Olaf’s parents, so Olaf had two reasons to look inside the mansion when its inhabitants were otherwise occupied with entertaining guests: 1) to ‘case the joint’, a phrase which here means: find out how best to exact revenge, and 2) to see if the sugar bowl was indeed in Beatrice’s possession.
Later, Olaf would enter the Baudelaire mansion and confront Beatrice and Baudelaire about either or both of these subjects. Perhaps this was even set up by both parties, as the parents had time to send their kids to the beach, and so were aware that something was going to happen, (see the very first note) if this something was of course not something different, such as making sure the right will is available to Mr. Poe in case of their deaths. In any case, the conversation was cut short, as the house burned down. Esmé’s residence had a tunnel that led to the Baudelaire mansion, and she was mad about the sugar bowl theft, so she is a likely suspect. Olaf managed to escape, perhaps with help from Esmé, and hid in the Fickle Fountain as the fire roared. Speculation-time: Perhaps Esmé ruined his chance for proper revenge, perhaps the Baudelaire parents were trying to make amends/peace/a truce with Olaf and failed, perhaps the whole conversation just got interrupted at the worst possible time in true Snickensian fashion, perhaps Olaf was unpersuadable in the first place; whatever the case, Olaf decided to exact revenge in a different way, by pestering the Baudelaire orphans and trying to take their money. Stealing inheritance fortunes is alluded to be a standard way of V.F.D. schism fighting.
p.104 The pile of logs…was still lying there untouched, as if Count Olaf had merely made them chop logs for his own amusement, rather than for any purpose.
The purpose for these logs was not discovered for quite some time, when I interviewed the former students at Prufrock Preparatory School concerning their orphaned classmates.
Please see also my note to page 18.
Dante: Another one that had us stumped! TGG saw the return of some Prufrock Prep. classmates, captured and forced to work aboard Olaf’s submarine, but chopped logs were not in evidence – I rather fancy they wouldn’t have made good tentacle-oars. A link is made to a page 18 note; there are three of these, and in true Snicket fashion, we’ve no idea which is meant. Probably not the allusion to The Phantom Toll-Booth, and I’m not sure where we’d get linking it to the Fickle Fountain and fountain-hidden fire survivors, so let’s turn to the remaining one: The one which refers to the destruction of the Royal Gardens and to the fate of a certain bench. This does not help to make things clearer as the Royal Gardens was destroyed long before the logs had been chopped, and there’s no apparent link to Prufrock Prep.!
However, I may have made a breakthrough just now. Who says that the chopped logs were meant to be used in anything at all? What if the secret to this note is the fact that the logs were chopped at all? What I suggest is: What if the logs were in fact some form of evidence that Olaf was having the Baudelaires unwittingly get rid of? Unchopped logs might conceivably have some form of link to the Royal Gardens… but what would Prufrock Prep students know of this? Aha. Perhaps some of the kidnapped students who later served aboard the Carmelita had previously been forced also to chop such logs, and during this task had become aware of the logs’ secret. Things become clearer, but the logs remain mysterious… perhaps there is a link to all the telegraph poles that the villains had chopped down. I can’t think of anything else it might be, so let’s call it that: They’re chopped-down telegraph poles, the poles having also been removed entirely so as to make it harder to put them back up, and then chopped up into pieces to hide the evidence. Well, I’ve just made more progress on this subject in ten minutes than I had in the previous five years or so. A link to the Royal Gardens, though, remains elusive. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong area. Perhaps instead the significance lies in the fact that Jacques’s exposé on the Royal Gardens arson was foiled… or perhaps it really is something to do with fountains and fire survivors. Of course, I may be completely wrong in this, as Lemony says “please see also” – underlining mine. The page 18 issue might be unrelated to the Prufrock Prep. students, and instead related to purposeless activities or doing things for someone else’s amusement.
Me: I love Dante and the great notes he’s made, but here I must disagree vehemently. If I may start from the beginning and put forward another theory involving a second survivor, a second fire, a second fountain:
Page 18 does indeed contain three notes. We’ll go through all three of them, although it is of course very possible that not all three are important in this particular case. Note 1: The reference to The Phantom Tollbooth has always struck me as odd. Why specifically mention a literary work, even more specifically referring to one of its chapters, when so many literary references in the entire SoUE remain undiscussed genius bonuses? Briny Beach is not clarified to mean the beach from Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass. It almost seems as if Snicket is alluding to the Doldrums as if it is a real location (alleged allegory), which even in his world is a stretch. Maybe, since the Doldrums is a place where thinking is forbidden, Snicket simply wants to draw attention to the fact that one should never take anything at face value, which, when you’re reading the BBRE, is indeed a very useful tip, especially if you’re making connections and theories like we’re doing right now. A few quotes from The Phantom Tollbooth, Chapter Two, to elucidate: What had started as make-believe was now very real. […] This game is much more serious than I thought, [the main character said…] INFORMATION, PREDICTIONS, AND ADVICE CHEERFULLY OFFERED, But, since he didn't understand the little man at all, he decided that he might as well move on—at least until he met someone whose sentences didn't always sound as if they would make as much sense backwards as forwards. […] "It looks as though I'm getting nowhere," yawned Milo. […] That's why you're here. You weren't thinking, and you weren't paying attention either. People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums. (ed. If the Fickle Fountain is located on Doldrum Drive, whoever is stuck in that fountain might be stuck there because certain misconceptions led to certain inadvisable actions (see my note to page 98)) […] "Help you! You must help yourself," [was the advice…] it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking, [was the advice…] Milo continued to think of all sorts of things; of the many detours and wrong turns that were so easy to take, of how fine it was to be moving along, and, most of all, of how much could be accomplished with just a little thought.
Note 2: The fountain reference again. I’ve already discussed who I think was hiding in the Fickle Fountain, but the Fountain of Victorious Finance remains unoccupied. Since there is an explicit reference made to orphaned classmates from Prufrock, I believe this is in reference to the Quagmire triplets, whose house would be burned down sometime after/during TRR. Chopped logs would fit that plan perfectly. The survivor of that fire would be Quigley, who afterwards survived a second fire when Uncle Monty’s house was burned down as he was hiding in it. A fountain would seem a preferable hiding spot at that point, and it wouldn’t be strange to imagine him imagining such a thing, as his siblings also hide in a fountain in TVV.
Note 3: I’m assuming the Royal Gardens fire is mentioned to make sure we connect arson with the logs, and the Royal Gardens would contain a lot of trees, aka ‘unchopped logs’ that burn very well.
pp.116-117 A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century…
Tomorrow afternoon, the semiretired amateur geologist has promised to put me in touch with current members of the F.F.P. so I can determine if there is any truth to the rumour that Violet Baudelaire came into contact with them on her way to Briny Beach for the third time. Interested parties might turn to Book the Thirteenth, assuming I live to write such a book.
Dante: Oh, BBRE. This is one of the book’s most conspicuous dropped plotlines – although Handler would later describe them as “groundwork.” But this is pretty direct foreshadowing for the plot of Book the Thirteenth, and given that the second visit went off without contradiction to the BBRE, it seemed like a dead cert. And yet, in The End, the long-awaited appearance of the F.F.P. never happened. Indeed, Violet’s third visit to Briny Beach never happened. So the explanation we employ is to suggest that these events instead would happen after Chapter Fourteen. Even if the F.F.P. rumour was just a rumour, Lemony seems pretty certain about Violet heading to Briny Beach for a third time.
Me: Personally, I always liked this. You could figure out what happened to the Baudelaires by reading the BBRE and TBL, and then connecting the dots, before the main series was even concluded. One of the very few times a mystery is actually (sorta) explained to us.
p.124 In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.
The songs include the following:
“Dreary, Dreary”
“The Butcher Boy”
“Vide le Cercueil, Vide Mon Cœur”...
Dante: French. “Empty the Coffin, Empty My Heart.” Incidentally, the truck that appears on the final pages of the U.A. is there “to carry a coffin.”
Me: From Edward Gorey’s The Blue Aspic. Gorey was a big inspiration for Handler; in unrelated news, cool actress Christina Ricci has a drawing of Gorey as a tattoo.
p. 123 ctnd: “Place Daturas on My Grave”
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
“Dry Bones”...
Dante: Apparently the “Leg bone connected to the knee bone” (and so on) song, also known as Dem Bones or Dem Dry Bones. Presumably used here as yet another reference to Beatrice’s death.
Me: Dry Bones is a song whose lyrics are inspired by Ezekiel 37:1-14, The Valley Of Dry Bones: The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” The passage references the resurrection of Israel, so the song can be seen as a reference by Snicket to Jewish culture; something Handler is known for.
p.134 The two white-faced women were arranging flowers in a vase that from away appeared to be marble, but close up looked more like cardboard.
The Victorian art of flower arranging is a coded system in which each flower in an arrangement conveys a certain message. Below are some flowers and their Victorian symbolism:
Aster: Cheerfulness in old age
Chrysanthemum: truthful
Datura: “I dream of thee”
Peppermint: cordiality, warmth of feeling
Fennel: worthy of praise
Nasturtium: heroism, patriotism
None of these are flowers believed to have been used that evening.
Please see also my notes to pages 6, 18 and 62.
Dante: The fact that datura is on that list scotches my new theory that the poisonous plant is datura, but it’s probably best that the poisonous plant would be fictional. The notes to 6, 18 and 62 are as follows: 6 refers to the Baudelaire dinner table and to Mr. Poe’s top hat, 18 refers to Doldrum Drive, Fickle Fountain, and the Royal Gardens fire, and 62 refers to the Fountain of Victorious Finance; please reread them. Linking all these together, the implication would seem to be that the flowers the white-faced women were arranging are the poisonous plant, and that this may indeed have been what was hidden under Mr. Poe’s hat. See also my note to Lemony’s note to page 35.
Me: Back to the poisonous plant we are, and I believe this plant was at this point in the story contained in the fake vase during the play. The note on page 6 references the unsightly ring of a bottle placed on wood, as does the note at page 18, placing Olaf at the Royal Gardens fire, so all I need to my theory watertight is to find a way to link it to page 62, explicitly mentioned here and referencing hiding in a fountain. It says hiding things in a fountain, and a certain poisonous, well, it isn’t a plant, but I’ve made my piece with that, as Snicket didn’t have all the information here yet, fungus grows well in dark, damp, enclosed spaces. Perhaps Olaf stashed it there. The fountain is mentioned as occasionally spitting water… perhaps something was clogging up the drains. Why bring it to the play? What better way of getting rid of all your witnesses in one go? It would explain why Olaf behaves like a Bond-villain and explains his dastardly plot, and even has Sunny brought back in, no questions asked, when he could just as easily have gone home and made sure to get all the money he needed before making himself known. We know he had the antidote-apples at the ready, so there was no risk to him or anybody else he might need alive. But, since he thought he was going to win, he couldn’t resist bragging about it.
A sidenote: Olaf’s wartfaced accomplice is never mentioned again, but here helps him escape by turning off the lights. In TMM, Snicket mentions receiving wart removal cream as a gift. The connection I’m trying to make should be obvious. I like the darker implication that Snicket was at some point an accomplice to Olaf, but later either got on Olaf’s bad side or mended his ways; it would explain why he feels compelled to make amends of some kind by documenting the lives of the Baudelaires and trying to find out if they are all right. Perhaps he had to join up with Olaf in a kind of disguise (warts are distracting enough that in Snicket’s world, they might function as camouflage) because he was on the run from the law, perhaps it was a kind of revenge against Beatrice for spurning him (he does seem cowardly enough to turn into the kind of stalker with a crush who begrudges his object of affection for refusing him). However, maybe Snicket was undercover and turned off the lights to get a certain lethal plant out of the room. If he didn’t do it, it’s possible that certain V.F.D. members took it upon themselves to take any evidence into custody and to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands, such as with Monty’s reptile collection (TRR).
Well, there we are. Personally I'm very content with my theories regarding the fountains and the poisonous plant, but of course, I would love to hear what other amateur Snicket detectives think about my theories. I hope this will stimulate intriguing discussions!
To make the whole thing as clear as possible, I will add all the notes I felt compelled to add something to; if I continued on the work of Dante, I will have quoted him in cursive.
Not very good with hyperlinks yet, or I would link more prettily to PJ's collection of the notes somewhere on this site, and Dante's commentary on them. As it stands, I'll simply add links: asoue.proboards.com/thread/25174 (PJ's writing down of the notes), and asoue.proboards.com/thread/27681/great-667-read-week-beginning?page=5 (Dante's commentary on them).
Let's get started!
p.6 Mr. Poe took off his top hat…
The height of a top hat provides a good-sized hollow space over the head of the wearer, which can be used as a hiding place. If one is using a top hat for such purposes, it is important to remember that one must remove it very carefully.
Also, an earlier draft of The Bad Beginning uses this phrase instead: Mr. Poe took off his top hat carefully.
Dante: A plotline which seems to have been dropped. In The End, we learn that Sadie Bellamy and Olaf are aware of adoption papers hidden under the top hat of a banker called Mr. Poe who had been promoted to Vice President in Charge of Orphan Affairs and who is better known under his stage name. Mr. Poe was not promoted to VPiCoOA until TEE, and at no time has there been any indication that he works on the stage in any capacity. I suggest that Sadie and Olaf are referring to an entirely different Mr. Poe, and that it is for this reason that this line was “redrafted” by Lemony before publication: He learnt that the Mr. Poe with something concealed under his hat was not the Mr. Poe associated with the Baudelaires, and thus the information was not relevant. However, the U.A. does reveal that Mr. Poe and Eleanora Poe are in contact with a mysterious “you-know-who,” and I suggest this would have been linked to the something-under-his-hat plotline. I will go further and hypothesize a connection to the poisonous plant, but more on that later.
Me: The scene in The End which references the hat-hiding is pretty convoluted on its own, with Olaf rattling off several key points of information that sound like they might be interesting, but in the end (pun intended), get no real conclusion. Oh hey, what a familiar feeling. A metaphor for all the ‘dropped’ plotlines, both in the main books, and the BBRE? Probably, Snicket was always quite tongue-in-cheek.
Personally, I don’t think there’s a second Poe, since the Poe we’re all familiar with is proven to be, even if only as an unwitting pawn, connected with sóme V.F.D. shenanigans, as per the U.A. Hell, in TWW, Poe bids Olaf silent when he insinuates he burned down the Baudelaire mansion. Clearly, Mr. Poe is aware that there is more beneath the surface in the world around him. Then why consistently fail to be of any help to the Baudelaires, or learn from his mistakes? Purely personal conjecture, but those types of people dó exist, and are what the series is warning readers about from page one. Being an adult is realizing the world is much darker, damper, and morally grayer than you would like to realize. To keep from going insane, we should all lock ourselves in the kitchen cupboard and hope nobody ever finds us. Failing that, pretending the world consists only of those things you choose to see might make everything more bearable. It’s like a drug, really. Mr. Poe opted for that option, and whenever the traumatized orphans he needs to help tell him they see right through the veil he so carefully constructed for himself, he needs to do whatever he can to prove to himself and to them that no, the world isn’t that bad and everything is really all right. Poe is a lotus eater, if you will (another literary reference also used in The End). Sometimes, Poe will, to help others, do some shady things or take a few risks, if only because as an adult, it’s his job.
It’s why I tend to fall back on the idea that Poe had adoption papers under his hat (given to him by the bank, so it’s would literally bé his job in this case). For whom? The Baudelaires, I would say, and since the will had been messed with (why else would the Baudelaires ever be sent to live with Count Olaf?), whoever gave Poe his assignment would benefit from the will being concealed. The Snicket Sleuth has an interesting theory positing that Mr. Poe has forged the will himself (‘Did Mr. Poe Forge The Baudelaire Parents’ Last Will And Testament?’ snicketsleuth.tumblr.com/post/152175527620/did-mr-poe-forge-the-baudelaire-parents-last ), and while I don’t Poe did thát, it certainly shows how skewed the will is, and how it seems to put Poe in situations regarding the Baudelaire orphans where his only option, if he wants to follow the rules, or at least be as apathetic as possible (and whoever gave Poe the fake will would benefit from his apathy, as it ensures he won’t start asking questions), is to do the wrong thing, or more accurately, choose the wrong guardian. Who gave Poe the will? We’ll get to that. We’ll come to the poisonous plant later, and why I don’t believe Poe had a hand (or hat) in it.
p.8 “The fire department arrived, of course,” Mr. Poe said…
This was an official fire department, which despite hundreds of years of existence has not managed to stamp out fire completely. Just recently I was forced to stamp out a fire completely, when I became so immersed in reading a philosophical work entitled Nobody’s Family Is Going To Change that I completely forgot about some Gruyere cheese fondue I was reheating...
Me: More of a fun fact than anything else, but this is probably the same Gruyere cheese Snicket traded his tires for in the introduction to the notes. Something about the image of Snicket sitting in a field somewhere, next to a car without tires, melting cheese above a campfire and forgetting about it because he was reading a book, even though he should be working on these notes(!), then having to stop the field from burning down, never fails to put a smile on my face. Bit soured by the fact that fire is definitely not a laughing matter in ASOUE, though. You’d think a top agent of V.F.D. would be less careless.
p.14 …a well-respected member of the banking community.
For more information on respected members of the monetary community, interested parties might turn to my studies of Esmé Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor.
Dante: Suggesting that respected members of the monetary community are not to be trusted, which goes along with the previous dark hint about Mr. Poe’s doings – although, as has been discussed, we can’t really plausibly imagine that Mr. Poe’s a secret villain. My theory was that he was being manipulated by someone he in turn trusted – just like Justice Strauss was being used by the other judges of the High Court.
Me: Esmé Squalor, married to Jerome, stopped him from adopting the Baudelaires any sooner, because orphans were ‘out’. I’d posit that Esmé, who is later revealed to have had a connection with Count Olaf for quite a while, knew that Olaf was trying to get his hands on the Baudelaires and their fortune, and either wanted to stay out of the way so as not to become collateral damage, or, because she’s not the sharpest bulb in the tree, was not going to be of much use anyway and was left out. More on this later. Eventually, Esmé did become part of the whole ordeal, and proved herself to such an extent to Count Olaf that he took her with him. Seeing as how she’s a financial advisor, and finances are all Mr. Poe cares about, it might very well be her who, perhaps a middle (wo)man, passed on the doctored will to Mr. Poe. If Olaf was to one to concoct the whole ‘fake will’ plan, he probably didn’t realize that Poe would be such a stick in the mud when it came to forking over the money, as he doesn’t formulate a plan to get the Baudelaire fortune until his trying to get the Baudelaires to get Poe to give them the cash is proven to be a no-go, seen in Klaus’ outburst which ended up with him being struck across the face.
p.23 …to the bowl of apple cores…
Please see my note to page 25.
Me: The reference to Snicket’s note on page 25 doesn’t add much more detail to the apple cores, expect again stating that they’re there. We know from The End that certain apples, horrible to the taste because they’ve been mixed with horseradish, help to fight against a certain poisonous fungus. Not a plant, but hey, it’s pretty damn close. A horseradish factory surrounded by terrible-tasting apples is mentioned several times in TRR, so it wouldn’t be that long a trip from the city to get some apples, perhaps/probably also fused with the horseradish, to make sure that when one is experimenting with a certain fungus, when things go wrong, there’s a solution at hand. Apparently things did go wrong, and plenty wrong, too, as all that’s left is an entire bowl of eaten apples. Maybe the apples weren’t quite potent enough yet, not necessarily being the product of crossbreeding, or maybe things just really got out of hand. Perhaps the Medusoid was disposed of and/or contained (see later notes), until a better plan of action could be devised.
p.29 …cardboard box that had once held a refrigerator…
I have not been able to find this refrigerator, to my great dismay. Interested parties would be advised to contact me through my publishers if they see a refrigerator at any time.
Dante: Lemony’s interest in this subject suggested to some people that the refrigerator in question may have been that from TSS, which was lost after the Stricken Stream was unleashed. Illustrations suggest it wound up on the coastal shelf in The End, incidentally.
Me: The fridge in question from TSS contained a message, using Verbal Fridge Dialogue, that later would be implied to have been meant for Justice Strauss. If it’s not the same fridge, it's very possible that Snicket was interested in this fridge, because he has reason to believe it contained another secret message (or maybe even a certain fungus that grows best in dark, enclosed spaces, and that Olaf needed to store somewhere (more on this later)? It would explain why Snicket is so anxious to find this particular fridge, and also why it’s so unfindable. Something that dangerous needs to be hidden well). If the fridge contains another message, who could it be for? Strauss? Perhaps to inform her that a poisonous plant has fallen into the wrong hands, and she needs to sort it out? She is working on a case regarding a poisonous plant, as discussed later. But then why does Count Olaf hold the refrigerator box? Surely he, or any of his troupe didn’t send the message? Three theories: 1) It isn't Olaf's fridge, and Olaf wanted to find it to make sure that Strauss was never brought up to speed regarding his nefarious dealings with the plant, but found only the box, 2) Olaf was infiltrated and somebody sent the message when his back was turned (see my notes to the notes to pages 55 and 134), or 3) Something very lethal and fungusy was kept in the fridge, so it was disposed of, and the fridge found a new purpose in TSS. Farfetched? We’ll get to the evidence later on.
p.35 “…I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone’s credit card.”
Despite Geraldine Julienne’s article in The Daily Punctilio “No Poisonous Plants Were Removed from Royal Gardens Prior to Destruction, Official Fire Department Reports,” I have reason to believe that the poisonous plant Justice Strauss referred to was removed from the Royal Gardens prior to its destruction.
Dante: Referring back to my earlier speculation, it would seem that the ill-mannered individual who visited the Royal Gardens there stole a poisonous plant, or perhaps bought it with a stolen credit card. The Royal Gardens may then have been destroyed to hide this fact, with the O.F.D. covering up the arson. The fate of the plant? A poisonous plant might be the right sort of size to hide carefully under a top hat, and Mr. Poe’s children’s room smells of “some sort of ghastly flower”… there’s other evidence to suggest that the plant turns up later in TBB.
Me: Except the ‘some sort of ghastly flower’ quote was never noted by Snicket himself, and if he knew the plant ended up under Mr. Poe’s hat, surely he’d know that it ended up in the room of Poe’s children, if he even knows what it smelled like? Also, even Mr. Poe wouldn’t put a highly lethal plant in the room of his children, beastly though they may be. Horseradish might smell pretty strong as well, so maybe that’s a more likely conclusion… or maybe his house is just gross. See also my note to Dante’s note to Snicket’s note to page 6.
p.55 …if anyone had looked into the Baudelaire orphans’ bedroom…
Two people did, of course.
Me: Snicket mentions that Olaf’s house is nearly impossible to enter, yet he has intimate knowledge of what it looks like inside and knows exactly what the Baudelaire’s room contained. He has even seen the tower, which is impossible to enter even if you’re ín the house! Was Snicket perhaps in Olaf’s house as some point, or did he at least have a way of gaining entrance to Olaf’s grounds? I think so, and we will discuss this in the final chapter’s notes. I, at least, think it was Lemony Snicket and Count Olaf who were looking into the Baudelaire room at this point; Olaf because he wanted to keep an eye on the children/see if they weren’t lying about the money/watch Violet during her more intimate moments, because apparently he shares a fetish with Hitchcock of spying on his actresses while they're changing their clothes (his lust for her has been thoroughly discussed over the years); Snicket because at this point he is undercover (again, see the final chapter) and because it explains how he knows the things he writes. In other books Snicket of course knows plenty intimate details as well, but all those locations were at least inspectable, plus there are witnesses to interview, as he does in TBB as well, if we look at the interview-notes. Olaf’s mansion is one of the few places where Snicket’s only option would be to actually have been there.
p.62 …the Fountain of Victorious Finance…
Readers of Book the Seventh will remember that fountains are like top hats in that they provide hollow spaces in which things can be hidden (please see my note to page 6), and I imagine the damp surroundings of a fountain’s innards would be comforting if the person hiding inside had recently survived a fire.
Me: Note that there are 2 (two) references to fountains that lead to this note: the Fickle Fountain, and the Fountain of Victorious Finance. Two fountains means two hiding places, which means two people hiding, possibly because they are survivors of two different fires. Since the two fountains are both separately and explicitly mentioned, I’d say we really need to account for two different survivors. At no point is there any indication when people were hiding in these fountains, so the two situations could be a long time apart/need not both have taken place during TBB.
p.98 But Count Olaf just sat there as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.
Certain kinds of weather -severe rainstorms, for instance- have a dampening effect on fires, which is displeasing to arsonists. There have been reports of alleged arsonists so reportedly displeased with the weather that they have been rumoured to pound their beverages on an unprotected wooden table.
Me: As good a time to lay forward my theory as any. A theory regarding the Baudelaire Villa Fire Destruction, the mysterious and ill-mannered visitor, and Fountain the First.
If I may refer to the Dismal Dinner, the arguably canon storyline that came with an American invention called ‘Lunchables’ to promote the 2004 film (which I thought was a Very Fine Distraction, but that’s another story). There we can read that the Baudelaires had a dinner party ‘quite some time’ before the fire, and that Olaf was spying on this party. The dinner seems to have had been infiltrated by several personages, so there were some secret goings on, and therefore the mentioning of a sugar bowl is suspicious. The V.F.D. sugar bowl was stolen from Esmé (likely by Snicket) at a tea party where Beatrice was a guest (see TSS and TGG). This led to Esmé deducing, probably incorrectly, that Beatrice was the thief. Beatrice and Snicket were probably responsible for the death of Olaf’s parents, so Olaf had two reasons to look inside the mansion when its inhabitants were otherwise occupied with entertaining guests: 1) to ‘case the joint’, a phrase which here means: find out how best to exact revenge, and 2) to see if the sugar bowl was indeed in Beatrice’s possession.
Later, Olaf would enter the Baudelaire mansion and confront Beatrice and Baudelaire about either or both of these subjects. Perhaps this was even set up by both parties, as the parents had time to send their kids to the beach, and so were aware that something was going to happen, (see the very first note) if this something was of course not something different, such as making sure the right will is available to Mr. Poe in case of their deaths. In any case, the conversation was cut short, as the house burned down. Esmé’s residence had a tunnel that led to the Baudelaire mansion, and she was mad about the sugar bowl theft, so she is a likely suspect. Olaf managed to escape, perhaps with help from Esmé, and hid in the Fickle Fountain as the fire roared. Speculation-time: Perhaps Esmé ruined his chance for proper revenge, perhaps the Baudelaire parents were trying to make amends/peace/a truce with Olaf and failed, perhaps the whole conversation just got interrupted at the worst possible time in true Snickensian fashion, perhaps Olaf was unpersuadable in the first place; whatever the case, Olaf decided to exact revenge in a different way, by pestering the Baudelaire orphans and trying to take their money. Stealing inheritance fortunes is alluded to be a standard way of V.F.D. schism fighting.
p.104 The pile of logs…was still lying there untouched, as if Count Olaf had merely made them chop logs for his own amusement, rather than for any purpose.
The purpose for these logs was not discovered for quite some time, when I interviewed the former students at Prufrock Preparatory School concerning their orphaned classmates.
Please see also my note to page 18.
Dante: Another one that had us stumped! TGG saw the return of some Prufrock Prep. classmates, captured and forced to work aboard Olaf’s submarine, but chopped logs were not in evidence – I rather fancy they wouldn’t have made good tentacle-oars. A link is made to a page 18 note; there are three of these, and in true Snicket fashion, we’ve no idea which is meant. Probably not the allusion to The Phantom Toll-Booth, and I’m not sure where we’d get linking it to the Fickle Fountain and fountain-hidden fire survivors, so let’s turn to the remaining one: The one which refers to the destruction of the Royal Gardens and to the fate of a certain bench. This does not help to make things clearer as the Royal Gardens was destroyed long before the logs had been chopped, and there’s no apparent link to Prufrock Prep.!
However, I may have made a breakthrough just now. Who says that the chopped logs were meant to be used in anything at all? What if the secret to this note is the fact that the logs were chopped at all? What I suggest is: What if the logs were in fact some form of evidence that Olaf was having the Baudelaires unwittingly get rid of? Unchopped logs might conceivably have some form of link to the Royal Gardens… but what would Prufrock Prep students know of this? Aha. Perhaps some of the kidnapped students who later served aboard the Carmelita had previously been forced also to chop such logs, and during this task had become aware of the logs’ secret. Things become clearer, but the logs remain mysterious… perhaps there is a link to all the telegraph poles that the villains had chopped down. I can’t think of anything else it might be, so let’s call it that: They’re chopped-down telegraph poles, the poles having also been removed entirely so as to make it harder to put them back up, and then chopped up into pieces to hide the evidence. Well, I’ve just made more progress on this subject in ten minutes than I had in the previous five years or so. A link to the Royal Gardens, though, remains elusive. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong area. Perhaps instead the significance lies in the fact that Jacques’s exposé on the Royal Gardens arson was foiled… or perhaps it really is something to do with fountains and fire survivors. Of course, I may be completely wrong in this, as Lemony says “please see also” – underlining mine. The page 18 issue might be unrelated to the Prufrock Prep. students, and instead related to purposeless activities or doing things for someone else’s amusement.
Me: I love Dante and the great notes he’s made, but here I must disagree vehemently. If I may start from the beginning and put forward another theory involving a second survivor, a second fire, a second fountain:
Page 18 does indeed contain three notes. We’ll go through all three of them, although it is of course very possible that not all three are important in this particular case. Note 1: The reference to The Phantom Tollbooth has always struck me as odd. Why specifically mention a literary work, even more specifically referring to one of its chapters, when so many literary references in the entire SoUE remain undiscussed genius bonuses? Briny Beach is not clarified to mean the beach from Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass. It almost seems as if Snicket is alluding to the Doldrums as if it is a real location (alleged allegory), which even in his world is a stretch. Maybe, since the Doldrums is a place where thinking is forbidden, Snicket simply wants to draw attention to the fact that one should never take anything at face value, which, when you’re reading the BBRE, is indeed a very useful tip, especially if you’re making connections and theories like we’re doing right now. A few quotes from The Phantom Tollbooth, Chapter Two, to elucidate: What had started as make-believe was now very real. […] This game is much more serious than I thought, [the main character said…] INFORMATION, PREDICTIONS, AND ADVICE CHEERFULLY OFFERED, But, since he didn't understand the little man at all, he decided that he might as well move on—at least until he met someone whose sentences didn't always sound as if they would make as much sense backwards as forwards. […] "It looks as though I'm getting nowhere," yawned Milo. […] That's why you're here. You weren't thinking, and you weren't paying attention either. People who don't pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums. (ed. If the Fickle Fountain is located on Doldrum Drive, whoever is stuck in that fountain might be stuck there because certain misconceptions led to certain inadvisable actions (see my note to page 98)) […] "Help you! You must help yourself," [was the advice…] it seems reasonable to expect that, in order to get out, you must start thinking, [was the advice…] Milo continued to think of all sorts of things; of the many detours and wrong turns that were so easy to take, of how fine it was to be moving along, and, most of all, of how much could be accomplished with just a little thought.
Note 2: The fountain reference again. I’ve already discussed who I think was hiding in the Fickle Fountain, but the Fountain of Victorious Finance remains unoccupied. Since there is an explicit reference made to orphaned classmates from Prufrock, I believe this is in reference to the Quagmire triplets, whose house would be burned down sometime after/during TRR. Chopped logs would fit that plan perfectly. The survivor of that fire would be Quigley, who afterwards survived a second fire when Uncle Monty’s house was burned down as he was hiding in it. A fountain would seem a preferable hiding spot at that point, and it wouldn’t be strange to imagine him imagining such a thing, as his siblings also hide in a fountain in TVV.
Note 3: I’m assuming the Royal Gardens fire is mentioned to make sure we connect arson with the logs, and the Royal Gardens would contain a lot of trees, aka ‘unchopped logs’ that burn very well.
pp.116-117 A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century…
Tomorrow afternoon, the semiretired amateur geologist has promised to put me in touch with current members of the F.F.P. so I can determine if there is any truth to the rumour that Violet Baudelaire came into contact with them on her way to Briny Beach for the third time. Interested parties might turn to Book the Thirteenth, assuming I live to write such a book.
Dante: Oh, BBRE. This is one of the book’s most conspicuous dropped plotlines – although Handler would later describe them as “groundwork.” But this is pretty direct foreshadowing for the plot of Book the Thirteenth, and given that the second visit went off without contradiction to the BBRE, it seemed like a dead cert. And yet, in The End, the long-awaited appearance of the F.F.P. never happened. Indeed, Violet’s third visit to Briny Beach never happened. So the explanation we employ is to suggest that these events instead would happen after Chapter Fourteen. Even if the F.F.P. rumour was just a rumour, Lemony seems pretty certain about Violet heading to Briny Beach for a third time.
Me: Personally, I always liked this. You could figure out what happened to the Baudelaires by reading the BBRE and TBL, and then connecting the dots, before the main series was even concluded. One of the very few times a mystery is actually (sorta) explained to us.
p.124 In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.
The songs include the following:
“Dreary, Dreary”
“The Butcher Boy”
“Vide le Cercueil, Vide Mon Cœur”...
Dante: French. “Empty the Coffin, Empty My Heart.” Incidentally, the truck that appears on the final pages of the U.A. is there “to carry a coffin.”
Me: From Edward Gorey’s The Blue Aspic. Gorey was a big inspiration for Handler; in unrelated news, cool actress Christina Ricci has a drawing of Gorey as a tattoo.
p. 123 ctnd: “Place Daturas on My Grave”
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
“Dry Bones”...
Dante: Apparently the “Leg bone connected to the knee bone” (and so on) song, also known as Dem Bones or Dem Dry Bones. Presumably used here as yet another reference to Beatrice’s death.
Me: Dry Bones is a song whose lyrics are inspired by Ezekiel 37:1-14, The Valley Of Dry Bones: The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” The passage references the resurrection of Israel, so the song can be seen as a reference by Snicket to Jewish culture; something Handler is known for.
p.134 The two white-faced women were arranging flowers in a vase that from away appeared to be marble, but close up looked more like cardboard.
The Victorian art of flower arranging is a coded system in which each flower in an arrangement conveys a certain message. Below are some flowers and their Victorian symbolism:
Aster: Cheerfulness in old age
Chrysanthemum: truthful
Datura: “I dream of thee”
Peppermint: cordiality, warmth of feeling
Fennel: worthy of praise
Nasturtium: heroism, patriotism
None of these are flowers believed to have been used that evening.
Please see also my notes to pages 6, 18 and 62.
Dante: The fact that datura is on that list scotches my new theory that the poisonous plant is datura, but it’s probably best that the poisonous plant would be fictional. The notes to 6, 18 and 62 are as follows: 6 refers to the Baudelaire dinner table and to Mr. Poe’s top hat, 18 refers to Doldrum Drive, Fickle Fountain, and the Royal Gardens fire, and 62 refers to the Fountain of Victorious Finance; please reread them. Linking all these together, the implication would seem to be that the flowers the white-faced women were arranging are the poisonous plant, and that this may indeed have been what was hidden under Mr. Poe’s hat. See also my note to Lemony’s note to page 35.
Me: Back to the poisonous plant we are, and I believe this plant was at this point in the story contained in the fake vase during the play. The note on page 6 references the unsightly ring of a bottle placed on wood, as does the note at page 18, placing Olaf at the Royal Gardens fire, so all I need to my theory watertight is to find a way to link it to page 62, explicitly mentioned here and referencing hiding in a fountain. It says hiding things in a fountain, and a certain poisonous, well, it isn’t a plant, but I’ve made my piece with that, as Snicket didn’t have all the information here yet, fungus grows well in dark, damp, enclosed spaces. Perhaps Olaf stashed it there. The fountain is mentioned as occasionally spitting water… perhaps something was clogging up the drains. Why bring it to the play? What better way of getting rid of all your witnesses in one go? It would explain why Olaf behaves like a Bond-villain and explains his dastardly plot, and even has Sunny brought back in, no questions asked, when he could just as easily have gone home and made sure to get all the money he needed before making himself known. We know he had the antidote-apples at the ready, so there was no risk to him or anybody else he might need alive. But, since he thought he was going to win, he couldn’t resist bragging about it.
A sidenote: Olaf’s wartfaced accomplice is never mentioned again, but here helps him escape by turning off the lights. In TMM, Snicket mentions receiving wart removal cream as a gift. The connection I’m trying to make should be obvious. I like the darker implication that Snicket was at some point an accomplice to Olaf, but later either got on Olaf’s bad side or mended his ways; it would explain why he feels compelled to make amends of some kind by documenting the lives of the Baudelaires and trying to find out if they are all right. Perhaps he had to join up with Olaf in a kind of disguise (warts are distracting enough that in Snicket’s world, they might function as camouflage) because he was on the run from the law, perhaps it was a kind of revenge against Beatrice for spurning him (he does seem cowardly enough to turn into the kind of stalker with a crush who begrudges his object of affection for refusing him). However, maybe Snicket was undercover and turned off the lights to get a certain lethal plant out of the room. If he didn’t do it, it’s possible that certain V.F.D. members took it upon themselves to take any evidence into custody and to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands, such as with Monty’s reptile collection (TRR).
Well, there we are. Personally I'm very content with my theories regarding the fountains and the poisonous plant, but of course, I would love to hear what other amateur Snicket detectives think about my theories. I hope this will stimulate intriguing discussions!
