Great 667 Re-Read 2019 - The Bad Beginning

[tonyvfd]

Mar 3, 2019 10:05:45 GMT -5 Carrie E. Abelabudite said:

Mar 3, 2019 7:17:05 GMT -5 tonyvfd said:

If Olaf is close enough to touch/talk to Violet, why doesn't he try to kidnap her? Maybe he wants to stay just within the bounds of the law at this point in the series. Later, he doesn't care so much about the legality of his schemes.

But at this point olaf already broke the law he was going to be arrested for child endangerment or kidnapping perhaps he thought he could not escape if he had to drag a struggling violet.

[Foxy]

Mar 2, 2019 5:21:43 GMT -5 veryferociousdrama said:

Klaus was a bit stupid telling Olaf what he'd found out, or if he had done, the three should have confronted him together. Shows how much they mature through the series.

At that point, Sunny had already been kidnapped, so I am not sure it would have mattered.

[Carrie E. Abelabudite]

But at this point olaf already broke the law he was going to be arrested for child endangerment or kidnapping perhaps he thought he could not escape if he had to drag a struggling violet.

He seems sort of surprised when Justice Strauss points out that dangling Sunny out of the tower is illegal, so I don't think he wanted to break the law at this point. But you're right, trying to drag Violet out of the theatre with him would probably have drawn too much attention to his escape.

[tonyvfd]

Mar 4, 2019 7:31:15 GMT -5 Foxy said:

Mar 2, 2019 5:21:43 GMT -5 veryferociousdrama said:

Klaus was a bit stupid telling Olaf what he'd found out, or if he had done, the three should have confronted him together. Shows how much they mature through the series.

At that point, Sunny had already been kidnapped, so I am not sure it would have mattered.

He should have gone directly with Justice Strauss

[Onder]

Hey Foxy,

I noticed your commonplace section for The Bad Beginning doesn't feature a "Foodology" section, so I went ahead and tried my hand at it:

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Foodology


boiled chicken, boiled potatoes, string beans (2)


oatmeal, toast, olives, capers, anchovies, garlic, parsley, tomatoes, spaghetti, puttanesca sauce (3)


noodles, [envelopes of] pudding mix, chocolate pudding, roast beef (lol), wine (4)


raspberries* (6)


bread, fruit, cake (13)



*Interestingly, Olaf tells the Baudelaires raspberries were his favorite berry when he was young.
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With your permission, I'd even be willing to compile your entries for each book into a Google Doc and maybe even share it with the ASOUE subreddit. I think it'd make for a cool ASOUE Encyclopedia. Totally your call though! Thanks for putting so much effort into them, it's been lots of fun to follow along!

[Uncle Algernon]

Jun 11, 2019 9:39:27 GMT -5 Onder said:

Interestingly, Olaf tells the Baudelaires raspberries were his favorite berry when he was young.

I wonder if that's a sneaky pun about Olaf's lack of good manners.

[Dante]

That's a clever idea. Of course, I suppose it's always possible that raspberries being Olaf's favourite childhood berry is simply a lie, one he told to attempt to seem more relatable to the children while he was trying to trick them.

[Uncle Algernon]

…or he could just be telling the truth. (But where's the fun in that?)

[Foxy]

Hi, Onder! Nice job with the foodology! I didn't start doing that until TRR. I have only used Google docs maybe once, and I don't know anything about subreddit, so you go for it! Maybe someone will find it interesting. I don't know how complete my work really is, though - I just did it for fun, and I was not super-meticulous.

[Onder]

Jun 11, 2019 20:15:04 GMT -5 Foxy said:

Hi, Onder! Nice job with the foodology! I didn't start doing that until TRR. I have only used Google docs maybe once, and I don't know anything about subreddit, so you go for it! Maybe someone will find it interesting. I don't know how complete my work really is, though - I just did it for fun, and I was not super-meticulous.

Thanks! In hindsight, I foolishly forgot about the Wiki which features much of the same information so there’d be a fair bit of overlap. I guess I jumped the gun a tad. My mistake.

Jun 11, 2019 15:19:51 GMT -5 Dante said:

That's a clever idea. Of course, I suppose it's always possible that raspberries being Olaf's favourite childhood berry is simply a lie, one he told to attempt to seem more relatable to the children while he was trying to trick them.

One of my favorite details from the book. On the surface, it appears to be a harmless factoid, but there’s something hilarious about Olaf serving what he considers to be the *worst* tasting berry to the Baudelaires. I prefer to think he’s being truthful here, though

I wonder if Handler ever flirted with revealing more information about Olaf’s childhood. Outside of this confession and some stuff from TPP we really don’t know much about it.

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I love the colorized illustration of the breakfast found in the wiki.
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