When was Dairy destroyed?

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I believe Dairy was destroyed after the publication of ASOUE Book 2. But than that. I believe Dairy was destroyed after the release of TRR as it presents itself to us today. 

Valorous Farms Dairy was spotted by the villain disguised as a cow, as indicated in chapter 9 of LSTUA. The villain had previously read information about the reptiles that had survived Uncle Monty's collection in a copy of the TRR book, which was in a Prufrock Prep library.

I know there are some people who believe that Daniel Handler planned to write the ASOUE books as if it were a union of several records that have been revised over the years. 

But I want to write one reason why I don't believe it.
I just can't see that something like that crossed Daniel Handler's mind when he wrote ASOUE, at no time, even when he was improvising his writing.

In chapter 10 of LSTUA begins with a letter from Lemony Snicket to Valorous Farms Dairy. We found on page 166 a copy of one of the pages of the TRR book. According to the description, this page is page 169 of TRR. This page contains the same layout, and the lines are in the same place as the original English version of TRR that we have accessible in our universe. The same is true of the TBB pages on page 161 of the LSTUA. Even page transitions happen at the same point as the original English version of TBB. If Daniel Handler planned to make us believe that ASOUE's books were changing over time, it would be exactly in this part of LSTUA that we would have proof of that. The hypothesis that the books that preceded the villain search are different from the books that proceeded the villain search does not seem to hold much to it.
When LSTUA was published, Daniel Handler was already publishing the final part of his books. As Dante said, ASOUE's mysteries were intended to be easy enough for a child to deduce. If Daniel Handler wanted his young readers to deduce that the books had changed over time, that was exactly where he would make that explicit.

I know there will be people who will say that LSTUA has been tampered with. Especially chapter 10 of LSTUA is very controversial in this regard. There is the note on page 159 that says: "For various reasons, portions of this chapter have been changed or made entirely, including this sentence." But any change that existed obviously preceded sending the letter to Dear Dairy. If this note was handwritten, I might even believe it would be a written note after the letter was sent, and the letter recovered. But it's not the case.

[Hermes]

Sept 26, 2019 18:19:03 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

I know there are some people who believe that Daniel Handler planned to write the ASOUE books as if it were a union of several records that have been revised over the years. 

If you mean me, that is not what I think. I think that we, in trying to produce a coherent in-story account of what happened, can make use of the hypothesis that the books were revised over the years. But that is not the actual real-world explanation of the discrepancies; the explanation is that passages, perfectly coherent in themselves, don't fit together perfectly because DH changed his plans as he went along.

As Dante said, ASOUE's mysteries were intended to be easy enough for a child to deduce. If Daniel Handler wanted his young readers to deduce that the books had changed over time, that was exactly where he would make that explicit.

But Jean Lucio, you are arguing that there is a complicated mystery in the books which hasn't been deciphered in thirteen years. I agree that the actual mysteries we are clearly intended to think about - who is Beatrice, what is VFD, who is the survivor of the fire - are easy to solve. The sugar bowl, not so much, but I think that's because DH's plans for it changed, so not all the clues we get are still relevant: it would be easy to find the right answer if we knew which bits of evidence to ignore. But people who insist on pushing at bits that don't quite fit produce more mysteries where there don't need to be any.

Now as to the actual puzzle you raise: I agree that the material in TUA 10 was compiled after TBB and TRR as we know them were published - hence, quite some time after the unfortunate events. It was probably compiled either just before or just after Lemony's false death, and so not very long before the autobiography was published. That the dairy was still standing around this time is confirmed by the doorman in the introduction writing to 'Dear Dairy'. How do we reconcile this with the story of the dairy's being destroyed about the time of the cow's search? Simple; the dairy was not really destroyed. We have a very dubious report of its destruction which says no one was actually allowed to see it, and a deceptive picture which is actually of the Baudelaire mansion; then we have a picture of the dairy, still standing, taken the morning after the thunderstorm. DH may not have been thinking of chronological mysteries, but I think he really intended the report of the dairy's destruction to be seen as false.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Sept 28, 2019 13:02:58 GMT -5 Hermes said:

Sept 26, 2019 18:19:03 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

I know there are some people who believe that Daniel Handler planned to write the ASOUE books as if it were a union of several records that have been revised over the years. 

If you mean me, that is not what I think. I think that we, in trying to produce a coherent in-story account of what happened, can make use of the hypothesis that the books were revised over the years. But that is not the actual real-world explanation of the discrepancies; the explanation is that passages, perfectly coherent in themselves, don't fit together perfectly because DH changed his plans as he went along.

Hi Hermes I didn't specifically refer to you. I spent many hours talking to Snicket Sleuth, and thought primarily of him when I wrote this. In fact, my private conversation with him was the real reason I had thrown all those questions. As we stopped talking before I was satisfied, I had to release that text with all those questions around here ... Sorry if I threw all my frustrations at all of you.

[Foxy]

I think the dairy burned down after TRR, because all of Uncle Monty's reptiles seemed to have been released into the wild, like that toad that was croaking at the guy who wrote to Genius. Except that is kind of confusing to me because it also seems that Esme Squalor had all the reptiles beside Ink killed and stuffed so she could auction them off to her wealthy compatriots.