The return to hypothesis JS. Kit attitude analysis.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

"Since Kit had no idea who JS was, why did she and Quigley send a message to the Submarine Q with a copy to JS, using codes that only VFD members could decipher?"

In TPP chapter 2, Kit stated that she was with Quigley when they sent the message, with a copy to JS for Submarine Q. Then she hinted that she did not know who had assumed the JS identity.

How to resolve this apparent contradiction?

The first idea that comes to mind is that Kit was trying to fool the Baudelaires. She'd be secretly working with JS, and she had no way of knowing that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny read the message on the Q submarine. But that doesn't seem to make sense, because Kit doesn't seem to have reason to work with JS.

But the other alternative seems to be more interesting and seems to make more sense. In this alternative, Kit spoke the truth to the Baudelaires. As such, Kit and Quigley didn't really know who had assumed the identity of JS, but they still knew he was a trained member of VFD, since they sent a message using very specific code. Kit and Quigley wanted to pass a message to JS: "A person in a cab will pick up the Baudelaires from the beach." But why give someone a specific message if you don't know who that person is? This question shows that this reasoning, though interesting, is not complete.

Well, there is a third alternative. Which is the alternative I like the most. The alternative is that Kit really knew who JS was. In this case, Kit misled the Baudelaires by implying that she didn't know who JS was. That's because the truth about JS was too harsh for the Baudelaires. That's the reason. Secondly, Kit and Quigley weren't working alongside JS, and yet they really wanted to give JS a specific message: "The Baudelaires will be at Hotel D." They knew that JS had the necessary books to decode the secret message and that JS knew how to decode. This indicates that Kit and Quigley knew who had actually assumed the identity of JS. And if they weren't working together, Kit and Quigley wanted to thwart JS's plan. The message in would be a way to thwart this plan.

The following events indicate that the message actually reached JS and soon JS took action. First of all JS sent Mr Poe to try to take the Baudelaires. Secondly JS contacted Charles to convince him to save the Baudelaires from the upcoming events at Hotel D. That is, there are two recorded events that indicate that the message from Quigley and Kit had an effect on JS. The effect was to summon a person related to VFD (Charles and Poe) but not members of VFD. However, they were people who showed benevolent behavior with the Baudelaires.

This conclusion seems to exclude the possibility that the person who sent Poe to the beach was someone other than JS. What Daniel Handler wanted to show twice was that JS received the message of the Baudelaires arriving on a submarine, and acted by sending people to protect the Baudelaires.

I even thought about the possibility that Kit and Quigley sent the message before Kit was informed of Jacques's death. However, Quigley knew that Jacques had died, as Violet talked about it with Quigley in chapter 11 of TSS. If Kit and Quigley sent the message together, as Kit claims to have done, it indicates that Quigley did not send the message believing a copy would go to Jacques Snicket. Kit and Quigley sent a copy of the message to JS with a purpose and with one person in mind.
And after looking into it, I can say that I believe this person is Beatrice, who was pretending to be Jacques Snicket after Jacques's death. I know there are other characters with the initials JS, but none of them sent Mr. Poe or Charles to fetch the Baudelaires. Kit and Quigley didn't send the message to one of the characters whose initials start with JS, because there would be no need for Kit to lie about it. Kit and Quigley were not working together with JS. The scenario in which JS is Beatrice, and Beatrice has a secret plan to use the sugar bowl to destroy all enemies at once, seems to be the closest thing from my point of view. A scenario in which Gregor's plan to kill enemies is to be put into practice does not seem to escape the theme of the TGG and TPP books. People going unnoticed after a presumed death is also a recurring theme in ASOUE. Kit coming to interfere with a mass murder plan is also a subject we read about in TGG. Beatrice's secret plan also explains why she didn't go looking for her own children: she had a bigger cause.

[Dante]

There is a flaw in your reasoning, jeanlucio: The principle of "Many individuals have the same initials, which can lead to much injustice." This was a secret message delivered via the official website between TSS and TGG, and reminds us not simply to assume that traces of a pair of initials necessarily point to the same person. Thus it is not necessarily the case that the J.S. who Quigley copied into his Volunteer Factual Dispatch may not be the J.S. who received it, if the message was misdirected because of this same principle; who may not be the J.S. who contacted Mr. Poe; who may not be the J.S. who checked into the Hotel Denouement; who may not be the J.S. who contacted Charles; who may not be the J.S. who contacted Sir.

Indeed, I am personally of the view that Quigley's Dispatch was delivered to multiple recipients with the appropriate initials, explaining the flatly contradictory approaches appointed to secure the Baudelaires: Mr. Poe, who would take them to the police, and Charles, who would protect them in a more general sense. What's especially interesting about Charles's contact is that he was informed that the Baudelaires would be arriving by submarine - but not where. In other words, Charles's J.S. probably doesn't know Verse Fluctuation Declaration! Charles's J.S. could only infer that the three additional volunteers aboard the submarine being contacted were the Baudelaires, and that they like everyone else were heading to Hotel Denouement - but couldn't decipher the rendezvous. By contrast, Mr. Poe's J.S. did correctly decipher the rendezvous and dispatched somebody who outright interfered in the Baudelaires' mission.

You do, however, raise a valid point with regards to the contradiction between the contents of Quigley's Volunteer Factual Dispatch and Kit's statement in TPP. How indeed do we resolve this? Well, on a Doylist level, it seems reasonably obvious to me that Handler simply hadn't anticipated that Kit would have had any input on the Dispatch or indeed the exact direction he would take with J.S. in TPP (and in fact we know that TPP changed significantly in the writing process). But on a Watsonian level, I would suggest it is significant that the Dispatch is signed by Quigley alone and indeed begins in the first-person singular: "It is my understanding..." (TGG p. 260) (You will doubtless appreciate the fact that the very next sentence switches to "We". This in itself is interesting but I would suggest not important to analyse at this moment.) I would propose that, while sending the Dispatch may have been a team effort, Quigley was given the responsibility of drafting the exact wording of the Dispatch on his own. This allows for the possibility that Quigley acted independently from Kit in copying the message to J.S., having come to the conclusion that the message left in Verbal Fridge Dialogue would not have been directed to either Jacques Snicket or to a villainous person. (This is roughly along the same lines as your second alternative presented.) Kit herself may have had a different opinion which she had yet to voice to Quigley or which he disagreed with.

Alternatively, Kit's opinion on J.S. may have swung towards the negative after that person's arrival in the Hotel Denouement, at which point she makes the rather bizarre assertion that J.S. can only be impersonating her brother. I would suggest that she either had earlier correspondence with Frank which shed more light on the subject, or believed that Frank would not have written out only a pair of initials if the person's identity was unambiguous; and the fact that Frank was ambiguous made her newly suspicious of J.S., which then influenced her response to the Baudelaires. (I'm not going to thrash out the exact details of the chronology at this point, but I believe it is provable that the Dispatch was sent before Kit received Frank's message.)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Dante, I just reread Charles's excerpt in TPP. It is clear to me that what JS asked Charles to look for Baudelaires in the hotel itself. I believe this is not evidence that JS who wrote for Charles is different from JS who wrote for Mr. Poe. In fact, I believe this is evidence that JS wrote the letter to Charles before receiving Quigley's message. As I said some time ago, there is evidence that Captain W was communicating with people outside the submarine through the telegraph. Captain W probably did it while the kids slept. Captain W didn't know he should dock at Brinny Beach, as Quigley's telegram arrived only after the captain left his submarine. I deduced that Captain W had already written to JS about the fact that the Baudelaires were on the submarine. This is not something I took out from the blue. If you stop to think, Quigley was informed that the Baudelaires were on the submarine. This information must come from within the submarine itself. If Captain W followed Quigley's procedure, Captain also sent copies to JS. Another possibility is that Captain W sent messages directly to JS. In any case, it can be accepted as fact that Captain W reported about the presence of the Baudelaires to someone outside the submarine. How this information got to JS is just a detail. It is likely that JS had already been informed that the Baudelaires intended to go to Hotel D. So JS first asked Charles to find the Baudelaires at the hotel.It is significant that JS sent a letter to Charles. Letters take longer to reach recipients than telegrams. On the other hand, JS sent a telegram to Mr. Poe. (He must have realized the importance of reading telegrams after what happened to his sister.) When JS received the information that the Baudelaires were in Queequeg, he had time to send a letter to Charles, saying that they were going to the hotel. JS told Charles to meet the kids there, and they would probably arrive on a submarine. But when JS got word that they would be arriving at Brinny Beach, JS needed a faster means of communication. JS sent a telegram to Mr. Poe. That is, the same person behaved similarly. But the information Charles received was older than the information Mr. Poe received. But JS's actions were motivated by a desire to protect the Baudelaires. And their mother is my prime suspect in identifying this JS, who sent Mr. Poe and Charles. Of course, there were other JS's, as you said: Jerome Squalor and Justice Straus. But I am not referring to them. I am referring to the person who sent Mr Poe and Charles.

[Dante]

There's less that's debateable here. Regarding Captain Widdershins communicating outside the Queequeg, this is likely, though it's not necessary that he would have done it covertly (but he does appear to have done many things covertly which it would have been better had he not done); we learn on page 38 that the crew have been attempting to repair their telegram device because they stopped receiving Volunteer Factual Dispatches, but once it's explained on pages 72-73 that the device isn't broken on their end, suddenly it becomes worth it to start sending telegrams again in the hope that somebody will receive it on a functioning device (or, as we readers know, through a functioning line).

However. This especially indicates that Widdershins would have disseminated any information he wished to communicate quite widely, suggesting, even without the potential for initial confusion, that it's very reasonable that his messages might have passed into the hands of multiple individuals with (or merely using) the initials J.S. I also continue to dispute your conclusion that anyone who had the remotest idea what was going on would rely on both Charles and Mr. Poe. I don't accept your conclusion that Mr. Poe is linked to V.F.D., and indeed his own close friends, the Baudelaires, very obviously told him nothing whatsoever about the organisation - which is quite understandable, given his personal bias to the publications of his sister Eleanora Poe. Charles, meanwhile, has literally worked with V.F.D. before in his capacity as Sir's partner in Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and is also indicated to be a personal friend of Kit. The conclusion to be drawn is that Charles understands the big picture and could be trusted to try and protect the Baudelaires, while Mr. Poe simply couldn't; and this is borne out by their actions. Your theory on the timing of events is clever and thoughtful, I concede; but it has a significant flaw: Why couldn't J.S. have at any time also sent a telegram to Charles directing him to Briny Beach? (Or, for that matter, sent a letter to Mr. Poe, who ended up at Hotel Denouement on a separate matter?)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I believe Charles is related to VFD in a similar way to Poe. I don't think Charles is a member of VFD. Poe is not a member of VFD either. And that is one of the reasons that leads me to conclude that JS wanted someone outside the secret organization to take care of the 3 Baudelaires. Having ensured that Charles would be in the hotel looking for the kids, getting him out after receiving new directions would be a strategic mistake. After JS receives new information about where the Baudelaires would arrive, a much better idea is to send a second person to meet the Baudelaires on the beach.
I find it very interesting that Beatrice never really wanted her children to go into VFD. Besides obviously never telling them about the secret organization, Bertrand and Beatrice always said that the noise outside was wind, even on windless nights. They never answered "nothing". If they answered like that, they would be giving permission for VFD to take their children. This contributes to the fact that JS (whom I believe to be Beatrice in disguise) sent non-VFD people to protect their children.