How did the Baudelaires not see through Fernald's disguises?

[doetwin]

When Fernald imposed as Dr. Lucafont and, later, the doorman, he made some major slip-ups that should have given him away but that the Baudelaires, despite their intellect, seemed to think nothing of.

In TRR, he claimed that the Mambu Du Mal killed Monty by unlocking its cage, biting him, then locking itself back up, possibly with the help of other snakes. Although Violet admitted how ridiculous this sounded, it didn't seem to occur to her that he might not be a qualified doctor. Later, as Olaf was about to claim he was an expert on snakes, Fernald, presumably in at attempt to remind Olaf that he wasn't supposed to know anything about snakes, addressed him as "boss" in front of Klaus and Sunny. When Klaus explained that the Mamba Du Mal couldn't have bitten Monty because it would have left bruises, Fernald claimed that the Mamba Du Mal hadn't felt like bruising its victim that one time, another sign that he was an unqualified doctor. And finally, he made an obvious attempt to stop Mr. Poe from rubbing Olaf's ankle to reveal his tattoo by saying that they might as well forget the whole thing.

In TEE, he did a much better job posing. His main slip-up was towards the end. After he bought the Red Herring, he said he had to put it in his boss's trunk, and upon seeing the Baudelaires at Veblen Hall when he believed them to be in the penthouse, let Olaf know this by, once again, calling him "boss". Olaf was pretending to be auctioneer, not the doorman's boss. Not only should this have indicated that the doorman was one of Olaf's associates, but it should have also indicated that the Quagmires were in the Red Herring instead of V.F.D. He said he had to put it in his boss's truck, he then revealed that his boss was Gunther, and the Baudelaires knew that Gunther was kidnapping the Quagmires.

[Dante]

Just on a note of professionalism, the behaviour of Dr. Lucafont in TRR isn't really all that out of line with other adult professionals in the Averse; if we examine him in comparison to Mr. Poe, for instance, he suddenly looks a lot more credible. As to all the hints associated with the TEE doorman, on a number of occasions in TEE the doorman appears to do or say things which run contrary to the plan, and he has to be corrected by Esmé, which might have alleviated any fetal suspicions gestating in the Baudelaires. In general, though, the Baudelaires' attention tends to be elsewhere when it comes to detecting the troupe.

The bigger question seems to be how the Baudelaires simply didn't recognise his face, since he didn't bother to conceal it in TRR, although it is easy to forget that his doorman hat covered much of his face in TEE. Excepting Kevin's brief performance as a washerwoman in TPP, every successful disguise used by Olaf's associate has involved hiding their faces, but in the hook-handed man's case, it seems he must not have a particularly memorable face, just a particularly memorable lack of hands. Presumably none of them have especially memorable voices either, though the mask worn by the bald man in TMM presumably muffled his voice somewhat, and the white-faced women didn't speak a word in all of TAA, disguised or otherwise. So the Baudelaires just don't have a good memory for the troupe, I think.

[Grace]

Dec 18, 2017 2:48:15 GMT -5 Dante said:

So the Baudelaires just don't have a good memory for the troupe, I think.

It's possible that he gets lost in the shuffle, especially as someone who's less facially memorable than, say, the white faced women or Orlando. And the Baudelaires haven't seen him since very briefly in TRR. That said, I always thought that TEE disguise was a little flimsy (not being able to see a person's hands in general arouses suspicion). Besides, the Baudelaires do pick up on Olaf's patterns even though no one else does, including that one. So they should be on the lookout for suspicious characters and they miss out on him. They even notice how friendly he is (wonder if Handler had anticipated his TGG moments at this point).

[Dante]

I agree that there is an inconsistency between how the Baudelaires respond to Olaf and how they respond to the troupe. The troupe they just appear to mentally boil down to their distinguishing features - bald head, hook hands, white faces, no gender - but even though the same can be done for Olaf (and often is, by the lkes of Mr. Poe), his face is so burned into their memory that they recognise him no matter what. It's as if the troupe haven't left an impression. Perhaps we can speculate that the Baudelaires' terror of Olaf is so overwhelming that the troupe, to them, are just extensions of Olaf, like tools, and the children have a hard time responding to the troupe as actual individuals so much as facets of Olaf's greater evil? Well, really it's just for dramatic purposes, of course, but one can have a go at justifying it psychologically.

[MisterM]

Someone needs to write a fic where olaf makes his henchpeople into horcruxes

[Hermes]

This changes, of course, in the Netflix series, where the Baudelaires do recognise the henchpeople, and even Mr Poe manages to work out who they are once Olaf has been unmasked.

[Dante]

Such are the practicalities involved when actual humans perform - although, for the movie at least, people have sometimes commented that Olaf's disguises have made him too unrecognisable, so the problem is almost reversed.

[gothicarchiesfan]

As someone who saw the movie before I read the books, the first time I watched it I never actually caught on that Dr. Lucafont was the hook-handed man.

Hell I didn't even know that the hook-handed man WAS hook handed until the fight with Klaus during the climax. None of the acting troupe ever got any actual screen-time and if you weren't looking for his hooks in the first act at Olaf's house, chances are you wouldn't notice them. They were never highlighted in any significant way and were in fact covered by his fake "Lucafont" prosthetics in some scenes. 



An interesting bit of foreshadowing which unfortunately causes more confusion than it ultimately resolves. 

[Dante]

In that same screenshot, the white-faced women don't look especially heavily powdered, and if that's the bald man in the back then he's wearing a hat. For an audience unfamiliar with the books, it must be very difficult to approach them as anything other than Olaf's weird shabbily-dressed friends.

[gothicarchiesfan]

The bald man really is given nothing to do in the movie, even when compared to the rest of the Troupe. The Hook Handed Man gets to disguise himself as a random doctor (he's never actually called Dr. Lucafont in the film) and fights Klaus at the end.

The Two White Faced women appear at Damocles Dock working in a shop. They don't actually do anything or have any bearing on the plot but the Baudelaires do notice them, which is something.

Even the HOIG gets to walk Violet down the aisle during the Marvelous Marriage.

But the bald man never has any bearing on the plot. He's just there. I don't even think he has any lines. It's particularly odd because the actor portraying him is acclaimed character actor Luis Guzman who had won multiple awards for his work in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Traffic only a couple of years before doing the film. 

:Edit: I seem to recall reading somewhere that all the troupe members originally had much bigger roles but that they were heavily cut down in the editing process in favor of fitting in more of Jim Carrey's stuff. In fact, Brad Silberling (the director) said in one of the DVD's special features that they actually had so much cut material that they couldn't fit it all on a single Disc so most of the deleted stuff on the DVD/Bluray ended up being most of Carrey's cut footage with a few excised bits from the Marvelous Marriage thrown in. I do hope some of that other deleted footage surfaces someday. Though it seems quite unlikely.

[coolcat667]

Dec 18, 2017 12:50:57 GMT -5 MisterM said:

Someone needs to write a fic where Olaf makes his henchpeople into Horcruxes

Interesting idea, but I don't think you can make people into Horcruxes.

[bear]

harry potter is a horcrux you idiot

[Dante]

I suppose at best you might say that the circumstances in which Harry became a Horcrux are unique and almost certainly didn't follow whatever the normal process for creating a Horcrux is - but that's a discussion for the Horrible Harry Potter board. Bear, please try to refrain from being quite so abrasive in these circumstances.

[coolcat667]

Jan 3, 2018 3:09:43 GMT -5 Dante said:

I suppose at best you might say that the circumstances in which Harry became a Horcrux are unique and almost certainly didn't follow whatever the normal process for creating a Horcrux is - but that's a discussion for the Horrible Harry Potter board. Bear, please try to refrain from being quite so abrasive in these circumstances.

Thank you Dante.

[doetwin]

Jan 2, 2018 23:53:29 GMT -5 coolcat667 said:

Dec 18, 2017 12:50:57 GMT -5 MisterM said:

Someone needs to write a fic where Olaf makes his henchpeople into Horcruxes

Interesting idea, but I don't think you can make people into Horcruxes.

I don't know if that would suit the ASOUE world though. There are a lot of things that heppen in ASOUE that could never in real life, but there's never any outright magic.