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Post by doetwin on Nov 29, 2018 1:46:44 GMT -5
Prior to THH, it's implied that at-least a few days passed between any 2 consecutive books. The logical explanation is that the Baudelaires were staying with the Poes during these uneventful days. But what I don't understand is why these days were uneventful.
Count Olaf's plans usually involved driving all the way out into the hinterlands to find out where the Baudelaires' new home was, and then trying to get the Baudelares' current guardian to lose custody of them so that he could regain custody of them. But the thing is, it would have been so much easier for him to re-adopt the Baudelaires during the times they were staying with the Poes, as he wouldn't have had to concoct a plan to get them out of the care of said guardian. He also wouldn't have had to go all the way to Olivia for help, as the Baudelaires would have been a lot easier to track down while staying with the Poes. Even if Count Olaf didn't know where Mr. Poe lived, he still knew that he worked at MMM. He could have hidden outside the bank, followed Mr. Poe home, and kidnapped the Baudelaires while they were asleep. If he wanted to be more deceitful about it, he could have visited Mr. Poe at the bank in one of his disguises, claimed to be Bertrand's long-lost brother or some other made-up relative of the Baudelaires, and convinced Mr. Poe to put the Baudelaires in his care.
And even if there was some reason he wanted to wait until the Baudelaires were moved into a new home before coming after them, there was no need for him to go to Caligari Carnival to find out. He could have hidden outside Mr. Poe's house all night, then followed the Baudelaires to their new home the next morning.
Since netflix changed it so that the Baudelaires always went immediately to their next destination, it's possible that Handler himself acknowledged that this was a plot-hole and wanted to avoid having the same plot-hole in the show. I definitely consider this to be an improvement from the books(although there's no way I'm going to believe Lemony Snicket if he says an entire year passed at the end of the series), but I would still be interested to know if you had any theories as to why book-Olaf never took this course of action.
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Post by Dante on Nov 29, 2018 5:45:19 GMT -5
The common factor in Count Olaf's ploys from TWW-TAA is that he wanted to gain legal guardianship of the Baudelaires in his current persona; from this we can infer that he wanted to repeat the marriage ploy or through some other underhand legal trick gain legitimate access to the Baudelaire fortune, and so just kidnapping them doesn't accomplish his goals at all. Getting the Baudelaires passed onto him from their present legal guardian is presumably easier than fitting himself up as a genuine relative, but you have to remember we have no evidence on this situation and no claim can be made regarding how easy it would be. Olaf only changes tack once the orphans become fugitives from justice; at this point Esmé states that Olaf intends to use one of them "to force Mr. Poe to give us the fortune" (THH, p. 175), presumably through some form of blackmail or threat to the remaining child's life. The exceptions in the first half of the series are as follows: - In TRR, it's not entirely clear what Olaf's plan is, only that he wants to take the Baudelaires to Peru because it's a place "where crimes are more difficult to trace" (p. 77); and what happens in that novel once Uncle Monty dies more or less amounts to kidnapping anyway.
- In TEE, Olaf isn't interested in the Baudelaires at all, probably because one of their present legal guardians, Esmé, is his accomplice; and so he might later have used her to get access to the fortune, once he was done moving the Quagmires.
- In TVV Olaf's pretty much just out to thin the ranks. It's conceivable he might have employed a more conventional plan had Jacques never turned up.
It's worth noting, incidentally, that while Olaf did simply kidnap the Quagmires, his plan was to abandon them on an island until they were eighteen and gained legitimate access to the Quagmire Sapphires, at which point he would appropriate the jewels (TEE, p. 144). So far as lurking outside Mr. Poe's home to follow the Baudelaires to a new home goes, we have to remember that Olaf and his troupe are wanted fugitives from justice and so this isn't necessarily a practical plan; hiding out in the Hinterlands and using magical divination to follow the Baudelaires is actually much safer. |
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Post by Foxy on Nov 29, 2018 9:23:26 GMT -5
Excellent points, Dante. I never realized either of the two things you mentioned about TEE. Is this reference by the Quagmires to the island in TE? And if so, what does that implicate? That Olaf was somehow on good terms with the island and its facilitator at that time, that they would be willing to keep the Quagmires prisoner? Or that somehow he would keep them secretly on the island without the islanders knowledge?
From a practical, out of book standpoint, you would not have a very interesting book series if Count Olaf was constantly trying to kidnap the Baudelaires from the Poe residence. You would have to read about a lot of boiled vegetables and ugly clothes, neither of which are very intriguing. At some point, I have to tell myself this is a fictional children's book series meant for entertainment. If I start questioning everything, I would have to stop reading when Count Olaf uses a sword to cut a hole in the porthole in TGG, because that seems pretty impossible to me.
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Post by Dante on Nov 29, 2018 15:14:32 GMT -5
Regarding the island, there's more infamously an allusion to it in TBB: "A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit" (TBB, p. 153). Are this and the island from TEE supposed to be the same as the island from The End? I think it's more likely that Handler knew, a long time in advance, that he wanted to feature an island in the series at some point; and that what we hear of it beforehand amounts to a set of preliminary thoughts and ideas, not unlike the material contained in The Bad Beginning Rare Edition.
And yes indeed - the real reason why anything in the books happens the way it does is because it makes the story more interesting; and while it's nice to try and resolve it logically, the vast majority of these questions are not really ones which occur while you're reading the books themselves, and thus it's hard to say that they spoil the story. You just have to accept that the characters and indeed the writer make different decisions from the ones you might make.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Nov 29, 2018 15:24:08 GMT -5
- In TRR, it's not entirely clear what Olaf's plan is, only that he wants to take the Baudelaires to Peru because it's a place "where crimes are more difficult to trace" (p. 77); and what happens in that novel once Uncle Monty dies more or less amounts to kidnapping anyway.
I think the Netflix series' "extremely lax guardianship laws" line is extremely useful for this particular question. |
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Post by Dante on Nov 29, 2018 15:52:04 GMT -5
Yes, I did recall something of that nature, though I thought it was from the movie; perhaps both? It neatly resolves the problem.
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Post by ryantrimble457 on Nov 30, 2018 14:19:24 GMT -5
Yes, I did recall something of that nature, though I thought it was from the movie; perhaps both? It neatly resolves the problem. I just Googled that phrase and the first two results are the show and the movie. Movie says "relaxed" and show says "lax." |
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Post by gothicarchiesfan on Nov 30, 2018 16:05:51 GMT -5
Yes, I did recall something of that nature, though I thought it was from the movie; perhaps both? It neatly resolves the problem. I just Googled that phrase and the first two results are the show and the movie. Movie says "relaxed" and show says "lax." It's probably something from one of Daniel Handler's original rejected scripts for the movie that made its way into both Robert Gordon's final credited script and the show; much like the V.F.D.'s spyglasses. |
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Nov 30, 2018 19:20:17 GMT -5
The question is, of course, does real-life Peru have interestingly-relaxed guardianship laws? Are Peruvian ASOUE fans upset that their country is shamelessly slandered?
Indeed, a more serious question — assuming there are translated versions of the books, and a dubbed version of the movie, available in Peru — do they still mention Peru as the planned destination, at the risk of confusing younger readers who would unthinkingly assume the Baudelaires were the same nationality as themselves? Or was it swapped out for some other exotic-to-Peruvian-ears location?
Are there any Peruvian fans here on 667 to answer these questions?
The world must know!!
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vfds321s
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Post by vfds321s on Dec 10, 2018 20:15:48 GMT -5
Excellent points, Dante. I never realized either of the two things you mentioned about TEE. Is this reference by the Quagmires to the island in TE? And if so, what does that implicate? That Olaf was somehow on good terms with the island and its facilitator at that time, that they would be willing to keep the Quagmires prisoner? Or that somehow he would keep them secretly on the island without the islanders knowledge? There are plenty of islands out there. |
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Post by Foxy on Dec 14, 2018 7:39:58 GMT -5
The question is, of course, does real-life Peru have interestingly-relaxed guardianship laws? Are Peruvian ASOUE fans upset that their country is shamelessly slandered? Indeed, a more serious question — assuming there are translated versions of the books, and a dubbed version of the movie, available in Peru — do they still mention Peru as the planned destination, at the risk of confusing younger readers who would unthinkingly assume the Baudelaires were the same nationality as themselves? Or was it swapped out for some other exotic-to-Peruvian-ears location? Are there any Peruvian fans here on 667 to answer these questions? The world must know!!I did look into this, but I was waiting to see if someone with more knowledge than me would chime in. So I did a Google search, and the first thing which came up was an eight second or so video clip of the TRR TV show with the kids in the jeep with Count Olaf. Then I saw what I think were a bunch of political articles? I don't recall really seeing anything that suggested there were lax guardianship laws in Peru. And then I looked up their primary language as a country, which is Spanish. So I would guess the books were translated once into Spanish for all Spanish speaking countries, which would mean they probably just left Peru in the book. But I know there are different dialects of Spanish, so maybe the books were translated more than once? Are there any significant differences in the books among the countries who speak English? |
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Dec 14, 2018 9:01:00 GMT -5
But I know there are different dialects of Spanish, so maybe the books were translated more than once? Are there any significant differences in the books among the countries who speak English? Such things definitely happen. The differences between Canadian French and regular French are small, but the French-speaking Canadian community identifies strongly as an independant entity and has always demanded their own dubs of American movies, for example. I know for a fact that Brazilian and Portuguese translations and dubs are often different, even though both speak Portuguese. And it's relatively minor, but I think most everyone knows about Harry Potter and its Americanized American-kids-don't-know-what-a-Philosopher's-stone-is versions, for an English-speaking example. Don't know if it happened for ASoUEE in any way, however. |
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