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Post by Foxy on Jun 1, 2019 7:08:16 GMT -5
I was just thinking the other day about how in TAA, two of the characters are Nero and Genghis. Both of those names are names of emperors. Does this happen in other places in the series, where two or more names are historically related?
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Post by Skelly Craig on Jun 1, 2019 11:54:10 GMT -5
Upon first glance at a list of ASoUE characters, I can only find a couple minor characters of the castaways in TE being named after historical people: - Jonah and Sadie Bellamy - Named after Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, an 18th-century pirate who was shipwrecked off Cape Cod. - Sherman - An Islander who assists Robinson into rinsing out the seaweed. He is named after General William Tecumseh Sherman, who survived two shipwrecks (or from William Pène du Bois's The Twenty-One Balloons). |
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Post by bear on Jun 1, 2019 12:09:20 GMT -5
klaus and sunny
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Post by Skelly Craig on Jun 1, 2019 12:19:35 GMT -5
Oh true (Claus and Sunny von Bülow), and Isadora & Duncan Quagmire are a reference to acclaimed dancer Isadora Duncan, who famously died because her long scarf got caught in a wheel of the car she was driving.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 1, 2019 13:15:12 GMT -5
The castaways also include Bligh and Fletcher, from the Bounty mutiny. (Apparently Byam is from as fictional version of this, but Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian were real. It's also possible that Thursday is an allusion to this, as Fletcher Christian had a son called Thursday, though the more obvious explanation is just the link with Friday: and Friday, of course, is fictional, from Robinson Crusoe.)
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Post by counto on Aug 14, 2020 2:27:30 GMT -5
Lemony Snicket is an allusion name towards Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio's conscience.
The Baudealires last name is based off of author Charles Baudelaire who is most famous for his story The Flowers of Evil.
Another reference to the Baudelaire parents Beatrice and Bertrand share the same main couple's first name from Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing.
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Post by Dante on Aug 14, 2020 3:04:38 GMT -5
Those aren't quite accurate statements, counto. Daniel Handler hasn't given an open explanation of the precise influences on the Snicket name (though he has recounted several, somewhat conflicting, origin stories), Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal is a volume of poetry, and the Shakespeare character is Benedick, not Bertrand.
In general, this thread is talking about characters named after historical individuals, though; not historical fictional characters. Although, properly, Baudelaire and Poe do fall under that mantle, so it's a little surprising that their names weren't raised already; perhaps the organising principle is specifically non-literary figures. With that said, ASoUE is so stuffed with literary and historical allusions that perhaps it's best for this thread to remain specifically devoted to instances of multiple allusions which appear to have some connection; like Nero and Genghis, who appear in the same volume, both being historical emperors, or the castaways on the island generally being named after real castaways or others associated with castaway literature.
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