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Post by Mr. Dent on Aug 26, 2019 7:24:37 GMT -5
One would think someone as clueless as him couldn't ignore an enormous bruise over Klaus's face, and yet time and time again Mr. Poe proves to be completely useless.
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Post by Mr. Dent on Aug 26, 2019 7:57:04 GMT -5
I feel like Mr. Poe would shrug it off as the school's policy, and imply the children were being immature for wishing the school would break their own policy to accommodate them.
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Post by Foxy on Aug 26, 2019 11:48:20 GMT -5
I think I might be with Mr. Dent on this one - VP Nero would have said "This is the school's policy, blah blah blah," (literally, he would have said "blah, blah, blah") and Mr. Poe would have probably cowered in fear and said "Okay, then." Although maybe not - didn't he make some kind of comment about the shack at the end of the book when he showed up with all the bags of candy?
Either that or he would have been too busy at the bank to actually check things out, or he would have said something like, "I know the dormitories are nothing like the mansion you used to live in, but there's no need to call them a shack" etc., etc.
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Post by Mr. Dent on Aug 26, 2019 17:16:29 GMT -5
Bold of you to assume the public would side with the children, even if it were the obvious and moral thing to do. I, for one, imagine a very different headline- "Entitled, spoiled brats demand their historic academy break tradition to accommodate them!" Wait until the readers of the Daily Punctilio hear about this!
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Post by Mr. Dent on Aug 26, 2019 18:53:37 GMT -5
Yes, they have. The trip to visit Mr. Poe during TBB was a day trip they had to plan in advance, and he didn't take their side at all, instead calling them entitled for wanting Olaf not to drink, or make them work or physically abuse them, and said that it was within Olaf's right to raise them as he was, because he was acting "in loco parentis."
Mr. Poe is not on the side of compassion or decency or justice. He is on the side of bureaucracy and procedure, and as The Orphans' Shack and Prufrock Prep's mistreatment of the children is rooted in procedure and tradition, I don't believe Mr. Poe would fight against it in any capacity. Perhaps he may find it unsightly, but I do not believe he'd make any effort to change the Baudelaire's living situation.
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Post by Mr. Dent on Aug 26, 2019 21:48:18 GMT -5
I never said it was. I simply said that Mr. Poe is a person who puts bureaucracy over the three children's wellbeing.
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Post by Foxy on Aug 27, 2019 7:45:34 GMT -5
I think at this point the kids also feel like talking to Mr. Poe is like banging their heads against a wall. Do you know anyone where you know it is completely pointless to argue with them about anything because whether they are right or wrong they are not going to listen to reason and always insist they are right anyway? I think that is maybe the scenario going on here, the kids feel talking to Mr. Poe is futile, so instead of wasting their energy attempting to talk to him, they just don't bother.
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Post by Dante on Sept 1, 2019 4:56:31 GMT -5
Mr. Poe does actually raise objections at the end of TAA when he finds that the Baudelaires are living in a shack and that Sunny is working as an administrative assistant; he's even the one who orders Coach Genghis to remove his running shoes! (pp. 202, 204. 206) He's not always completely useless; but I do think that the Baudelaires have largely given up on him by this point. Frankly, it also strikes me as credible that they would have had a difficult time even contacting Mr. Poe from Prufrock Prep.; sneaking into the administrative building to use the telephone, for instance, strikes me as the sort of activity which Nero would use as grounds for expulsion, and for all that Prufrock Prep. is a lousy place the Baudelaires don't actually want to leave.
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