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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 24, 2019 8:12:57 GMT -5
Do you think it was written before Lemony at the secret base of VFD? (If so, how did he know about the Baudelaires' climb using the least traveled path?) Or do you think it was written while Lemony was at the base of VFD?( If so, why does he state in the letter that he will still arrive?) Do you think Lemony before arriving at VFD Base wrote the letter and then planned to have Kit buy the book and reserve a room for the same week? How would that work, since it takes a long time before a book is published? And why does Lemony claim that she expects the books to stay in bookstores for a while until his sister finds the book? Or do you think the letter was written many years later, after Lemony planned to revisit the site of the old VFD base? and then research in more detail what happened to the Baudelaires while they were there? In this case, do you think it's possible that Hotel D was rebuilt in the meantime between the narration of the events and publishing the final version of ASOUE's books? Do you think it would be possible that the sugar bowl Lemony references in the TSS secret letter could be another sugar bowl, since considerable time had passed between the events narrated and the writing of that letter? Do you think it possible then that Lemony could have written that letter believing that Kit was still alive? Or could he have written that letter to someone he calls a sister?
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Post by Foxy on Sept 24, 2019 11:11:17 GMT -5
Do you think it was written before Lemony at the secret base of VFD? I think he wrote it before he discovered the headquarters had been burnt down, although he may have been at the headquarters when it was burning down. He saw their footprints? This is where I like to remember ASOUE is fiction, so anything is possible. Because he puts big warnings on all his books for people not to read them. No, I think he wrote it when he was originally writing TSS. Would it be possible to make the argument that he wrote all the books, and they were published long after he wrote them? No. I think he really planned to go to the Hotel D with Kit, but she ended up having to go out to find Widdershins instead, which was why she sent the Baudelaires into the hotel without her. And she may not have been getting her brother's messages. I think there is only one sugar bowl in all of ASOUE land. That's why everyone fights over it, because sugar is so addictive, and there's only one source in all the books. I think she either was alive, or he believed she was still alive. No. |
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 24, 2019 11:49:39 GMT -5
Foxy, please, look the letter...
"My dear sister, I am taking a great risk in hiding a letter to you inside one of my books, but I am certain that even the most melancholy and well-read people in the world have found my account of the lives of the three Baudelaire children even more wretched than I had promised, and
so this book will stay on the shelves of libraries, utterly ignored, waiting for you to open it and find this message. As an additional precaution, I placed a warning that the rest of this chapter contains a description of the Baudelaires' miserable journey up the Vertical Flame Diversion, so anyone who has the courage to read such a description is probably brave enough to read my letter to you... I am on my way now to he Valley of Four Drafts, in order to continue my research on the Baudelaire case. I hope also to retrieve the aforementioned evidence at last. "
Please pay attention to this detail ... Lemony had not yet gone to Valley of Four Drafts when he wrote the letter, as you said very well. Still, by the time he wrote the letter, he already knew about the Baudelaires climbing the secret tunnel. How could he know that if he hadn't even been there at the time he wrote the letter?
...
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Post by Dante on Sept 24, 2019 14:19:54 GMT -5
Let's break this down. Do you think it was written before Lemony at the secret base of VFD? (If so, how did he know about the Baudelaires' climb using the least traveled path?) It is trivial to invent explanations to counter your objection. A report of the Baudelaires' activities might have circulated via Quigley. Escapees from the Snow Scout troupe (Bruce, perhaps) might have recalled the actions of the Scouts subsequently revealed to be the Baudelaires and Quigley, and Snicket inferred their travel through the secret passage. There may have been hidden observers or secret cameras we never knew about. It's not difficult for a creative mind to account for this. Consider the possibility that, after the waterfall was thawed, the remains of the headquarters were temporarily flooded and it became impossible to open the door in the Vertical Flame Diversion, creating a delay between Lemony investigating the passage and then reaching the Valley of Four Drafts itself. The malfunctioning Vernacularly Fastened Door might also have prevented access. Jerome Squalor wrote and had printed up a comprehensive history of injustice in less than a fortnight. The possibility exists that the publishing process in the Averse is extremely rapid. Alternatively, the author wished to place certain items of foreshadowing for a future volume at this point in the book and elected to do so in a whimsical and entertaining way, and to criticise the logic of this narrative device is not only to miss the point but to mistake the exaggerated and larger-than-life laws of the Averse for a realism which is never adhered to. Alternatively, both of the above are true and feed into each other. Not viable given subsequent plot developments, but it's perhaps more important that it was a viable line of thought for readers at the time of TSS's publication. To be honest, that's absolutely ridiculous, and not in the sense of being funny. ASoUE does not require the construction of castles in the sky in order to explain single offhand statements. The existence of multiple sugar bowls resolves multiple plot holes and I regard it personally as a best-fit explanation, without necessarily regarding it as being the intended explanation. The construction of the letter does not address the possibile individuality or infamy of the container for the evidence Snicket alludes to, and thus it is possible to interpret it as one sugar bowl among many. (Strictly speaking, the letter doesn't directly refer to a sugar bowl at all, though to suggest anything else was intended would be to be wilfully obtuse.) However, my interpretation of this theory presents the multiple sugar bowls as existing simultaneously as a point of absolute necessity, which potentially further points to the letter as having been produced not long after the events narrated in TSS. I am not aware of any evidence in canon of Snicket knowingly referring to anyone other than his literal biological sister as his sister, or indeed of anyone doing so outside of the Volunteers Fighting Disease, who are presented as exceptional in this practice. |
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Post by Hermes on Sept 24, 2019 17:13:42 GMT -5
This letter is possibly the most paradoxical thing in the whole of ASOUE. It implies that the Sugar Bowl contains the evidence that will exonerate Lemony, although this does not seem to fit what we hear of its significance anywhere else. It suggests that L has just now realised the significance of sugar bowls, although we know that he stole one from Esme at least fifteen years earlier. And while there is evidence both earlier and later in the same book that L is researching the events long after they happened, here he is apparently writing to Kit as if she is still alive.
Now, if we are looking for a real world explanation I think there is a fairly straightforward answer; this passage represents some intentions by Handler that were not wholly fulfilled. Setting aside sugar bowls for the time being, we can say that we are indeed to imagine L writing this long after the events, and that DH had not yet decided that Kit would die or that the Hotel Denouement would be destroyed. (I agree that L was in the valley about the time of the events, but this would refer to a different visit, much later.)
If, though, we are to work out a reading that makes everything consistent, we will have to stretch something somewhere. The possibility that 'my dear sister' is not Kit is certainly one avenue you could take - perhaps, for instance, she is a half-sister. (Though there is an equally puzzling passage in the next book which refers to Kit by name, and seems to imply that she and Lemony are together.) But whatever line we take it's going to be an imaginative reinterpretation, so there will not be one right answer.
(It's worth noting, by the way, that the passage does not actually include the phrase 'sugar bowl' - that's clearly what DH had in mind, but it can be read in other ways.)
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 24, 2019 22:13:27 GMT -5
Hermes, it's good to realize that you have an open mind on the subject. bear, I challenge you to give your honest opinion on this subject without any jokes. |
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Post by bear on Sept 25, 2019 10:58:48 GMT -5
I have no idea what the secret letter is, my dude
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Sept 25, 2019 11:13:55 GMT -5
I really suspected that you would not give a direct answer ...
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Oct 16, 2020 13:32:42 GMT -5
I'm glad to be able to comment on this thread more than a year later, and to be able to talk about the self of the past. In this one year I was able to understand better about ASOUE, and how to make theories. And most importantly, I was able to look outside the box that I created to think outside the box. (I loved that phrase that I wrote somewhere). I was also able to appreciate methods of making theories in addition to having contact with Daniel Handler. I also strengthened my certainty that Daniel Handler intended to make the ASOUE narrator be in the future regarding the main story. Still, for a long time I avoided thinking about the secret letter in TSS. The existence of this letter in this place seems to contradict the logic. And any way I thought about trying to reconcile this letter with logic made me twist the story to my own desire. (Maybe I'm still doing something like this, but I haven't yet realized it ... maybe a year from now). But I will try to answer my own questions, and comment on this letter according to my current beliefs. The subject became relevant to me while I was writing my latest theory, asoue.proboards.com/thread/36462/talk-again-sugar-bowlsSo let's start. Here is the letter in full. Answer: This letter was written by Lemony years after the main events narrated in ASOUE, as well as all ASOUE. Lemony was about to visit the physical site where the VFD base was located when he wrote this letter. As indicated in the book TAA, Lemony was revisiting the places where the Baudelaires were in order to improve the accuracy of the story he was telling. Lemony wrote in this letter: "I am on my way now to the Valley of Four Drafts". Ideas involving covert cameras are fanfic or headcanons. Canonically, Lemony was talking about the past when narrating the main events of ASOUE. Any denial to this statement is based on misunderstandings caused by the form to Daniel Handler included elements in ASOUE's books in order to confuse the reader about ASOUE's chronology. But these elements can generally be explained without violating the canonicality of Lemony's claims that he published the story after a few years of major events have occurred. Second, although this letter was addressed to Kit, Kit was already dead and Lemony did not know it yet when he wrote this letter. (Most likely not even Daniel Handler knew that Kit would die, so that literally corresponds to reality). It is true that in TGG Lemony refers to Kit by name. We don't know what is involved in that quote. But the fact is that in TGG Lemony believed that Kit was still alive and that he could save her. But Lemony was wrong. It is possible. Lemony is a narrator who is not trying to deceive the reader, but he may be mistaken about some facts related to his own life or that of his siblings. We can illustrate this with Kit Snicket itself. Kit believed that Lemony was dead in TE. But she was wrong. In reverse, when Lemony wrote TSS and TGG, Lemony believed Kit was alive, but he was wrong. This letter fulfills its purpose in a phenomenal way: to be a big red herring. It has become a larger red herring than initially expected. In order to be able to kill Kit in TE, Daniel Handler had to say to himself "well, Lemony was wrong to think Kit was alive. But okay, he's a character narrator, so he can be wrong from time to time". I just want to say that this letter written to Kit does not violate the laws of logic. This letter written to Kit is only one possible use of a character narrator. Thus, Lemony's expectations for Kit's receipt of this letter were exactly what he described they would be. Lemony, believing that Kit was alive, wrote a secret letter and inserted it into the book to be published. There is a time involved in this: as Lemony himself indicated in TSS, the writing of this book took months. After that there would be time to publish and distribute books in bookstores around the world. Lemony believed Kit would buy one of these books and read the letter in time for him to meet her at the Hotel Denouement. I believed in the possibility that the Hotel Denouement was rebuilt over the years that passed between the main events narrated in ASOUE and the publication of TSS. I believed that a few decades had passed between these events. But, after analysis, I realized that I was wrong. In fact, all the evidence points out that 10 years have passed between the birth of Beatrice Jr and the publication of TPP. Furthermore, there is no canonical evidence of this reconstruction. But there is evidence that when Lemony was in the region of the Hotel Denouement the hotel remained destroyed. I went so far as to claim that the hotel had been rebuilt and destroyed again. But I recognize that I was using a lot of my imagination here. If there is no canonical evidence, the theory cannot be sustained, and it loses the status of theory and becomes a headcanon. But I can say that canonically, from the point of view of Dewey and his supporters, the real Hotel Denouement was never really destroyed. Note TPP Chapter 8: "Exactly," Dewey said. "The truth has been right under everyone's noses, if anyone cared to look past the surface. Volunteers and villains alike know that the last safe place is the Hotel Denouement, but no one has ever questioned why the sign is written backward. They're staying in the TNEMEUONED LETOH, while the real last safe place-the catalog-is hidden safely at the bottom of the pond, in underwater rooms organized in a mirror image of the hotel itself. Our enemies could burn the entire building to the ground, but the most important secrets would be safe. In other words, what was destroyed was TNEMEUONED LETOH and not the Hotel Denouement. "Hotel Denouement" was the name that was written on the entrance to the underwater library. The library, that is, the real Hotel Denouement, has remained intact during all the years that have passed between the main events narrated in TPP and the publication of TSS, TGG and TPP. I don't think Daniel Handler thought about it all while he was writing the secret letter in TSS. He must have been thinking about it when he was writing the TPP plot. He thought something like "I want the Baudelaires to burn this hotel. But how can I do that if I already said that Lemony is going to the hotel years later? Oh, I know, I'm going to create a fake hotel that will be destroyed while the real Hotel Denouement will be safe. " This in the worst case. At best, he planned all this before ... But let's put that aside. The most important thing is that there is here a clear indication of the author's intention about the existence of a real Hotel Denouement and a fake Hotel Denouement, the fake Hotel Denouement being destroyed, making it possible for Lemony to go in the real years later, where he thought who would find Kit. And yes .. The underground hotel must also have curtains. And probably blinds too, in order to reflect the blinds of the fake hotel. Do you think it would be possible that the sugar bowl Lemony references in the TSS secret letter could be another sugar bowl, since considerable time had passed between the events narrated and the writing of that letter? [/quote] Considering all of this, the answer to that question is yes. In LSTUA Daniel Handler had already established the information transport function that SB's can have. Here he makes use of it. Remember that TSS was written after LSTUA. In TPP Kit and Dewey claim that the SB that belonged to Esme contains something almost as dangerous as the deadly fungus MM itself. Lemony's innocence was not that dangerous, especially since Kit believed that Lemony was dead. What could Olaf do with proof of Lemony's innocence that could match what he could do with the MM fungus? It is so evident that Lemony is talking about another SB in the letter ... Just think: Lemony says she already knew where the SB was, which contained the proof of his innocence. But where would that be? The logical conclusion is that it would be at Hotel D because Lemony said she was going there. If you consider that Lemony was writing this letter at the time of the main events narrated in TSS and that in this letter he was referring to the SB that belonged to Esme, it would make no sense. On the one hand, the SB that belonged to Esme at that time was still at GG, at the bottom of the sea. Nobody knew it yet, as it was Klaus who discovered it when he was on submarine Q. So how could Lemony write about it? So, Lemony was in fact writing years after the events narrated, just as he explicitly states. Lemony discovered the location of another SB (or something similar) that contained the information that would clear him. The location was the real Hotel D, as the real Hotel D was still intact and operational (Hotel D still had blank papers with VFD and hotel logos, used by Lemony to write several letters to the editor.) He wrote this letter to Kit, who he mistakenly believed was still alive. |
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Post by Dante on Oct 16, 2020 15:46:48 GMT -5
A couple of points. You aren't being sufficiently exact with your canonical information. In TPP Kit and Dewey claim that the SB that belonged to Esme contains something almost as dangerous as the deadly fungus MM itself. Lemony's innocence was not that dangerous, especially since Kit believed that Lemony was dead. What could Olaf do with proof of Lemony's innocence that could match what he could do with the MM fungus? The Kit and Dewey quotes you're talking about are as follows: -Kit Snicket, TPP p. 36 -Dewey Denouement, TPP p. 215 Neither of these statements indicate that the contents of the sugar bowl pose a direct physical danger in themselves; merely that using them would have wide-ranging repercussions. If the villains can't get their hands on the sugar bowl, the risk is always that those repercussions will come to pass; consequently, if the villains can get their hands on the sugar bowl, they'll be able to act with impunity. This is a valid interpretation. Lemony's hint in TSS is as follows: -Lemony Snicket, TSS p. 101 The evidence in question does not only prove Lemony innocent; it proves Olaf guilty - apparently unambiguously and elegantly. It is easy to see why Count Olaf would find this evidence desirable. (The exact nature of the evidence is unclear and seems narrow in scope, which is perhaps one reason why it ultimately could not be revealed.) Also, the use of the present tense when talking about Olaf - "it is Count Olaf", rather than "it was Count Olaf" - indicates that Lemony also believes Olaf to be alive at the time of writing. |
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Oct 16, 2020 16:19:31 GMT -5
Our enemies capturing the sugar bowl would be as troubling as their capture of the Medusoid Mycelium. - Dewey, chapter 8 TPP. Chapter 9 - Esmé: "Then you know all about the sugar bowl," Esmé said, "and what's inside. You know how important that thing was, and how many lives were lost in the quest to find it. You know how difficult it was to find a container that could hold it safely, securely, and attractively. You know what it means to the Baudelaires and what it means to the Snickets." She took one sandaled step closer to Dewey, and stretched out one silver fingernail-the one shaped like an S-until it was almost poking him in the eye. "And you know," she said in a terrible voice, "that it is mine. " And do you really think Esmé would be so seriously concerned about finding something that incriminates Olaf, more worried than Olaf himself? Esmé implies that the content of her SB was obtained through a "Quest" where people died. In addition, she suggests that it was difficult to find a safe and beautiful container for that component. Taking into account what was said by Lemony, the idea of putting important information in SB came from Kit Snicket and not from Esmé. The phraseology used in the letter indicates that Kit's idea was useful on more than one occasion. On the other hand, the phraseology used by Esmé gives the impression that it was her idea to use a SB to put that. The phraseology used seems to indicate that it was something she thought of herself, a new idea that would be unusual. So Esme's use of the SB was not the common use of the SB. And I repeat, the way everything is placed here does not indicate that we are talking about something that incriminates Olaf. Esmé talks about things that incriminate Olaf in a related but yet distinctive way when she says: "Tell me where the sugar bowl is, or-" "Dewey," Sunny said. Esmé blinked at the youngest Baudelaire, who noticed that the villainous woman's eyelashes had also been painted silver. "What?" she asked. "It's true," Olaf said. "He's the real sub-sub. It turns out he's not legendary, like Verdi." "Is that so?" Esmé Squalor said. "So someone has really been cataloging everything that has happened between us?" "It's been my life's work," Dewey said. "Eventually, every crucial secret ends up in my catalog." "Then you know all about the sugar bowl," Esmé said, "and what's inside. The only thing that would make me accept Esmé's interest in SB if it contained information would be if Lemony was wrong, and Esmé herself and not Olaf were the ones who caused the fires. This could explain why she wanted SB so badly, and why she would own SB. She could end up getting poor and being arrested. In this case maybe. But something that incriminates Olaf, no. It makes no sense. And about Olaf's death, I think Lemony should already know about it. But he also knew that almost no one else did. In any case, I think the phrase 'Count Olaf is responsible for the fires "does not necessarily mean that Lemony believes that Olaf is alive. Even dead, Olaf may be responsible for fires because of his legacy. Edit 1 - Dante , I have to admit that this "is" bothered me more than I would like. The principles I am adopting now push me towards the simple fact: Lemony, in writing this letter, did not know that Olaf had died. I need to accept and deal with this. And the best way to deal with it is this: Obviously Lemony did not know about Olaf's death in the same way that he did not know about Kit's death. Both died on the same day and under very similar circumstances with only the Baudelaires as witnesses. So I can conclude that just as the Baudelaires did not report Kit's death in the island's book, they also did not report Olaf's death in the island's book. And the result of this is that the words spoken by Lemony to an alleged Beatrice on the night of the ball could not have been "Count Olaf is dead" because although he was indeed dead, Lemony still did not know it. Information about Kit and Olaf's death must have reached Lemony through Beatrice Jr. |
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Post by Dante on Oct 17, 2020 16:04:35 GMT -5
Esmé's long monologue on the sugar bowl in Chapter Nine indicates that Esmé's primary concern is not the contents of the sugar bowl but the sugar bowl itself, the container; her search is motivated by pure, frustrated pride, anger, betrayal. That's why her monologue wends its way through the bowl's contents but culminates in the bowl itself and her ownership of it. Securing the sugar bowl benefits both her and Olaf, even though they both desire a different element of it.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Oct 17, 2020 19:53:03 GMT -5
Esmé's long monologue on the sugar bowl in Chapter Nine indicates that Esmé's primary concern is not the contents of the sugar bowl but the sugar bowl itself, the container; her search is motivated by pure, frustrated pride, anger, betrayal. That's why her monologue wends its way through the bowl's contents but culminates in the bowl itself and her ownership of it. Securing the sugar bowl benefits both her and Olaf, even though they both desire a different element of it. Okay ... Concluding that the SB contains information also seems consistent with what Captain W says about the SB. He said that if someone found out what's on SB, Olaf could get really violent. And Olaf's lack of interest in SB (or Olaf's less interest in SB) is fully justified when he realizes that the sinister duo will protect him from the legal difficulties he would face. In fact, everything fits perfectly. So perfectly that I think I'm missing something. Still, the point here is: even though the SB that belonged to Esmé contained information, that same SB could be searched by Lemony years later in the same place to acquit Lemony again. After all, according to LSTUA, some time after Lemony published ASOUE's first books he was again accused of being an arsonist. He needed SB's content again to clear his name. How about this solution? But going back to the SB content, is it possible that some people were murdered in order to recover this type of recorder? And furthermore, if the SB's content was so compromising for Olaf, why didn't they destroy the SB's content when the SB was under Esmé's control? It still doesn't make sense. I think it makes even more sense to believe that the content of the SB is something that actually has some danger in it, something like that mysterious item in a box. Something that Esmé could use to force others to do what she wants. Something that needed to be stolen and protected by Beatrice and Lemony. Why, after all, once Lemony and Beatrice had been robbed, they couldn't have turned Olaf over to the authorities right away? But as I said, regardless of the content of the SB that was from Esmé, what do you think of my proposed solution that Lemony went back to the real hotel D at the time of ASOUE's writing to try to find an item that contained proof of his innocence ( whether this evidence is found in the same SB as before or not?) |
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