Proof Beatrice Survived The Fire

[TheAsh]

I want to point out two very interesting passages from the books that may prove that Beatrice survived the fire:

One of my most prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word which here means “some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time when the Baudelaire orphans lived in it.” The map has every single detail of the city written down in dark blue ink, with measurements of buildings and sketches of costumes and charts of changes in the weather all added in the margins by the map’s twelve previous owners, all of whom are now dead. I have spent more hours than I can ever count going over every inch of this map as carefully as possible, so that everything that can be learned from it can be copied into my files (cont.)

(BTW, that is clearly the content of the Snicket File)

and then into books such as this one, in the hopes that the general public will finally learn every detail of the treacherous conspiracy I have spent my life trying to escape. The map contains thousands of fascinating things that have been discovered by all sorts of explorers, criminal investigators, and circus performers over the years, but the most fascinating thing that the map contains was discovered just at this moment by the three Baudelaire children. Sometimes, in the dead of night when I cannot sleep, I rise from my bed and work the code on the small wooden box to retrieve the silver key that opens the slightly larger wooden box so I can sit at my desk and look once again, by candlelight, at the two dotted lines indicating the underground hallway that begins at the bottom of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue and ends at the trapdoor that the Baudelaires managed to open with their ersatz crowbars. I stare and stare at the part of the city where the orphans climbed out of that ghastly corridor, but no matter how much I stare I can scarcely believe my own eyes, any more than the youngsters could believe theirs.

And

“This ring,” he said, “once belonged to the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, who was also the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, and so on and so on and so on. Eventually, the last Duchess of Winnipeg joined V.F.D., and gave it to Kit Snicket’s brother. He gave it to your mother. For reasons I still don’t understand, she gave it back to him, and he gave it to Kit, and Kit gave it to your father, who gave it to your mother when they were married. She kept it locked in a wooden box that could only be opened by a key that was kept in a wooden box that could only be opened by a code that Kit Snicket learned from her grandfather. The wooden box turned to ashes in the fire that destroyed the Baudelaire mansion, and Captain Widdershins found the ring in the wreckage only to lose it in a storm at sea, which eventually washed it onto our shores.”

Now, this is not true. The wooden box did survive the fire, as in the first passage Lemony still has it many years later! This means that someone had to have survived the fire with the box, took the box, and left the ring behind. Lemony says the box was given to him by a "woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about." Presumably this is Beatrice, though it may be someone else. (Mrs. Widdershins?)

Assuming it is Beatrice, there are two possibilities: That she survived the fire, taking the box, but not the ring. The only possible reason for that is being an engagement ring, she did not want it! This is exactly Mr Jean Lucio's theory! 

The other possibility is that Beatrice met Lemony before the fire and gave him the box for some reason.

However, there is one more place where this box possibly shows up - and this is where it gets crazy:

Finally, the two white-faced women stepped forward, holding a small wooden box with a hole in the top. 

If that is the same box, that means Beatrice was spying on the kids the whole time, perhaps to make sure they were ok. (Search for all the white-faced women's comments and you'll see they are very protective of Sunny.) But most likely it's not.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Thanks! That was really good. I will need to digest this in order to comment better later, but I am very happy that my theory has finally been quoted in a positive way.

[Dante]

Firstly, this is strictly speaking proof of nothing, because as you yourself admit then there are multiple possible explanations for the parallel presented here. Secondly, you commit the major fallacy of assuming that there can only be one of each of these wooden boxes in the world, which assumption is entirely unfounded, not least by the fact that each anecdote already features two almost-identical wooden boxes to begin with. You're correct to draw a parallel between the two sets of boxes, because the latter is an allusion to the former, but there is no indication that they are the same. The simple wooden box (with a feature not present on the other boxes!) used by the white-faced women in TCC for the freak-sacrifice lottery is in no way indicated as having any relation to the others and is clearly an entirely generic item, which is why it is given no emphasis whatsoever. The white-faced women are protective of Sunny as part of their character development in TSS which ultimately results in them departing from Olaf's side, at which point they can do nothing to assist the Baudelaires whatsoever.

(Furthermore, a map with annotations by twelve owners is not the same as a thirteen-page file compiled by three siblings; although the Snicket File is said to contain maps, and as we do not know the ultimate fate of any of the pages of the Snicket File, conceivably the map could have been entered into the file and then later retrieved... if for some unaccountable reason Olaf and the sinister duo did not destroy the file entirely.)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Jan 30, 2020 14:14:38 GMT -5 TheAsh said:

I want to point out two very interesting passages from the books that may prove that Beatrice survived the fire:

One of my most prized possessions is a small wooden box with a special lock on it that is more than five hundred years old and works according to a secret code that my grandfather taught me. My grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and his grandfather learned it from his grandfather, and I would teach it to my grandchild if I thought that I would ever have a family of my own instead of living out the remainder of my days all alone in this world. The small wooden box is one of my most prized possessions, because when the lock is opened according to the code, a small silver key may be found inside, and this key fits the lock on one of my other most prized possessions, which is a slightly larger wooden box given to me by a woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about. Inside this slightly larger wooden box is a roll of parchment, a word which here means “some very old paper printed with a map of the city at the time when the Baudelaire orphans lived in it.” The map has every single detail of the city written down in dark blue ink, with measurements of buildings and sketches of costumes and charts of changes in the weather all added in the margins by the map’s twelve previous owners, all of whom are now dead. I have spent more hours than I can ever count going over every inch of this map as carefully as possible, so that everything that can be learned from it can be copied into my files (cont.)

(BTW, that is clearly the content of the Snicket File)

and then into books such as this one, in the hopes that the general public will finally learn every detail of the treacherous conspiracy I have spent my life trying to escape. The map contains thousands of fascinating things that have been discovered by all sorts of explorers, criminal investigators, and circus performers over the years, but the most fascinating thing that the map contains was discovered just at this moment by the three Baudelaire children. Sometimes, in the dead of night when I cannot sleep, I rise from my bed and work the code on the small wooden box to retrieve the silver key that opens the slightly larger wooden box so I can sit at my desk and look once again, by candlelight, at the two dotted lines indicating the underground hallway that begins at the bottom of the elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue and ends at the trapdoor that the Baudelaires managed to open with their ersatz crowbars. I stare and stare at the part of the city where the orphans climbed out of that ghastly corridor, but no matter how much I stare I can scarcely believe my own eyes, any more than the youngsters could believe theirs.

And

“This ring,” he said, “once belonged to the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, who was also the Duchess of Winnipeg, who gave it to her daughter, and so on and so on and so on. Eventually, the last Duchess of Winnipeg joined V.F.D., and gave it to Kit Snicket’s brother. He gave it to your mother. For reasons I still don’t understand, she gave it back to him, and he gave it to Kit, and Kit gave it to your father, who gave it to your mother when they were married. She kept it locked in a wooden box that could only be opened by a key that was kept in a wooden box that could only be opened by a code that Kit Snicket learned from her grandfather. The wooden box turned to ashes in the fire that destroyed the Baudelaire mansion, and Captain Widdershins found the ring in the wreckage only to lose it in a storm at sea, which eventually washed it onto our shores.”

Now, this is not true. The wooden box did survive the fire, as in the first passage Lemony still has it many years later! This means that someone had to have survived the fire with the box, took the box, and left the ring behind. Lemony says the box was given to him by a "woman whom my grandfather always refused to speak about." Presumably this is Beatrice, though it may be someone else. (Mrs. Widdershins?)

Assuming it is Beatrice, there are two possibilities: That she survived the fire, taking the box, but not the ring. The only possible reason for that is being an engagement ring, she did not want it! This is exactly Mr Jean Lucio's theory! 

The other possibility is that Beatrice met Lemony before the fire and gave him the box for some reason.

However, there is one more place where this box possibly shows up - and this is where it gets crazy:

Finally, the two white-faced women stepped forward, holding a small wooden box with a hole in the top. 

If that is the same box, that means Beatrice was spying on the kids the whole time, perhaps to make sure they were ok. (Search for all the white-faced women's comments and you'll see they are very protective of Sunny.) But most likely it's not.

Hi. Don't be bothered by the slightly harsh way of talking that Dante has, okay? I realized that what you wanted to write was about a good hypothesis about Beatrice surviving. I accept your hypothesis as very welcome! Although it is not possible to prove that the box sets are the same, there is a possibility that they are the same. After all, Kit Snicket's grandfather is the same grandfather as Lemony Snicket. Much less does Dante himself believe that the money stolen by Mrs. Bass is the Baudelaire fortune, and no one complains to Dante about it. More than that, your hypothesis led to another conclusion, making it one of the levels of a beautiful house of cards, (a type of construction that Dante hates but that I like a lot!) But I really can't see evidence some that the white-faced women's box is the same box. I also found no evidence that the Snicket File was inside the box. But it is good that you agree with me that Lemony Snicket wrote about the box many years after the main events recorded in the books. Something in those tunnels made Lemony very sad, and I believe it was the realization that Beatrice survived the fire inside those tunnels. In fact, the realization that Beatrice planned the fire. But those are just my beliefs, and I'm very happy that someone else agrees with me. This kind of feeling is strange.

[TheAsh]

Mr Jean-Lucio claims that the letter to Kit Snicket is actually meant for Beatrice. There is a good proof he is correct:

I have at last learned the whereabouts of the evidence that will exonerate me, a phrase which here means “prove to the authorities that it is Count Olaf, and not me, who has started so many fires.” Your suggestion, so many years ago at that picnic, that a tea set would be a handy place to hide anything important and small in the event of a dark day, has turned out to be correct. (Incidentally, your other picnic suggestion, that a simple combination of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil would make a delicious chilled salad also turned out to be correct.)

That recipe is none other than Beatrice's.

They had both been busy in the kitchen—Sunny’s mother was busy preparing for a fancy luncheon, and Sunny was busy dropping a fork on the floor over and over again to see what sort of sound it made. The luncheon was due to start any minute, and Sunny’s mother was quickly mixing up a salad of sliced mango, black beans, and chopped celery mixed with black pepper, lime juice, and olive oil. “This isn’t a very complicated recipe, Sunny,” her mother had said, “but if I arrange the salad very nicely on fancy plates, people will think I’ve been cooking all day. Often, when cooking, the presentation of the food can be as important as the food itself.”

From this, plus the fact that the sugar bowl as a hiding place was most likely Beatrice's idea, and not Kit's, heavily implies that the actual intended recipient of the letter was Beatrice herself.

[Dante]

A straightforward red herring, one of several, written for the era when we didn't know that Mrs. Baudelaire was Beatrice and K. Snicket (as she then was) was a widely-proposed alternative. The original recipe isn't attributed to Beatrice in the latter quote; she merely uses it. For that matter, it's not indicated that the recipe is a definite invention of Kit's in the former quote, either.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Recalling my text on the subject, I pointed out as evidence the fact that the salad was identical, the fact that Kit was already dead at the time the letter was written, the fact that THH shows that brothers and sisters can be people who defend the same cause.

However, Foxy argued that Lemony Snicket could have written to Kit without knowing that she was dead. Although I don't like that way of thinking, I couldn't deny it. I previously denied this way of thinking by stating that Lemony Snicket obtained information from the island book, and so Lemony theoretically knew about Kit's death since he canonically published TRR (where there is the claim that Klaus was unable to sleep for many years. after the death of Uncle Monty, and presumably since the publication of TBB since he was researching TBB Lemony already had information about events witnessed only by the Baudelaires). I assumed that the information in the island book also involved Kit's death. However, according to Lemony's letter to the editor at TBL, Lemony was unaware of Beatrice JR's existence until he received some of her letters. Beatrice JR sent letters after Lemony began his research on the Baudelaires, and at least one of her letters was written after Lemony published at least some of ASOUE's books. This indicates that the book on the island did not contain information about the identity of Kit's daughter, and therefore perhaps did not contain information about what was the name of the woman who arrived on the island in an improvised vessel. So even though Lemony had access to the island book, she might not have known that Kit was dead when she wrote TSS. This makes it possible that the recipient of the secret letter in TSS is actually Kit.

I could no longer disagree with Foxy's point of view, as Foxy respects the principles behind my theory. Some of them are that Lemony Snicket is an unreliable narrator, so he can be wrong (or lie intentionally) in some places. And the other principle is the main facts recorded in ASOUE were published by Lemony many years after the recorded events themselves, although at the time of recorded events Lemony was probably already researching the Baudelaires and planning to write one or more books on the subject, the canonically departing from TRR it had been a few years since the recorded events and the writing of the books.

While it is possible that the recipient of the letter is Kit, I still believe that the recipient is Beatrice. The salad tip, Beatrice's birthday, is enough for me to believe it, but I can no longer claim that this is the only possible explanation. It should be noted that Foxy argued that Lemony might not have known about Kit's death even though he disagreed with the principle that Lemony was writing TSS many years after the events. She set an example that you can momentarily accept someone's theory principles just to help develop the person's ideas, even if you disagree with that person's theory principles. (How I miss Foxy).
I also have to say that even though I prefer to believe that the letter is addressed to Beatrice and that Lemony knew it, Foxy's argument gains weight when analyzing TGG. Lemony said she could save Kit's life while he wrote TGG. I have already defended the idea that Lemony was trying to hide the fact that Beatrice was pretending to be Kit. It is more likely that someone actually assumed Kit's identity and that Lemony believed that person really was Kit. It was only after meeting Beatrice JR that he discovered that Kit was dead.
I also argued for the fact that the letter was written years after the main events recorded in TSS showing that the letter itself states that Lemony had not yet arrived at VFD headquarters. That way, Lemony could not know what had happened there. According to Lemony, TSS was written during the months when he was looking for the fallen Caravana. Thus, I reaffirm that canonically using evidence written only in TSS this letter was written at least a few months after the main events recorded in TSS. Considering all ASOUE books, this letter canonically was written many years after the main events recorded in TSS. I like to highlight this to lessen the strength of the arguments that say Daniel Handler made big chronological mistakes in ASOUE. These arguments are generally very strong because they are simply generally impossible to deny. (It is the type of argument that Dante uses frequently). These arguments gain strength when they are exemplified by some probable and obvious chronological errors such as those that involve when the Quaquimire mansion fire occurred. Although it is possible to explain the chronological problems of the Quaquimire mansion fire without resorting to Daniel Handler's mistakes, to explain this it is necessary to resort to so many hypothetical devices that defending the idea that Daniel Handler actually thought of all this seems implausible. Furthermore, Daniel Handler did nothing with this contradiction about when the Quaquimire fire occurred. So, it is more likely to be a chronological error. But an example that there is an error is not proof that any apparent contradiction is also an error. Unlike the Quaquimire fire, where the contradiction exists when analyzing two books with many years separating their publication, accepting that the secret letter in TSS comes from a chronological error by Daniel Handler is to say that he made a grotesque chronological error within a same book. This is inconsistent with the personality of Daniel Handler described by himself in some interviews. He claims to be a meticulous person, and although he overlooked some minor chronological errors, I believe there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Daniel Handler would not make grotesque chronological errors.

With respect to Dante's claim that the card is a Red Herring, I need to agree. A Red Herring aims to deceive the reader. I am just saying that the reader who believes that this letter was written at the time of the main events recorded in TSS was misled by this Red Herring. This reader will believe that the container containing information that could clear Lemony is the same SB that belonged to Esme. But that is not the case.

[Dante]

There is another possibility, Jean Lucio; that, rather than Daniel Handler making a chronological error within TSS (not that I'm incapable of making an argument, with evidence, for him making chronological errors within a single book!), he made a chronological error with respect to books he had not yet written - and had not yet fully decided on the contents of.

(I also think that, metafictionally, the later books see Snicket unduly bracketing himself with the reader's real-world chronology - writing unknowingly of future events that were years ahead of author and reader but should have long passed for him as a character, and treating past intervals of days as if they had been those real-world years. Could Jerome really have written a comprehensive history of injustice in only a fortnight?)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Feb 5, 2020 17:53:07 GMT -5 Dante said:

There is another possibility, Jean Lucio; that, rather than Daniel Handler making a chronological error within TSS (not that I'm incapable of making an argument, with evidence, for him making chronological errors within a single book!), he made a chronological error with respect to books he had not yet written - and had not yet fully decided on the contents of.

(I also think that, metafictionally, the later books see Snicket unduly bracketing himself with the reader's real-world chronology - writing unknowingly of future events that were years ahead of author and reader but should have long passed for him as a character, and treating past intervals of days as if they had been those real-world years. Could Jerome really have written a comprehensive history of injustice in only a fortnight?)

Excuse me, but why two weeks? Is there any textual evidence of when Jerome started writing his book? (It's not a counter-argument, I just don't remember). And yes, if possible, could you exemplify chronological errors in a single book?

[Hermes]

Two weeks is the time from TVV to TPP, which it is possible to count, since very day is mentioned. It's true that J could have started his book a bit earlier than that - it must have happened after TEE, but there may be a bit of a gap between TEE and TVV, while Mr Poe searches for relatives and so on.

I'm actually happy to accept Jerome's book being completed in two weeks as one of the weirdnesses of the world; but it is true that Lemony does get confused about time in places, notably when he says that 'over the last few months' Sunny had learned to cook, etc., when these things had certainly happened in the last two weeks. DH does seem to be confusing the very short time covered by the events with the longer time taken to write the books. (Lemony may be doing likewise.)

[Dante]

Hermes has nicely covered the point regarding the two-week span from TVV to TPP, but I will just note that Jerome strongly implies he only started writing his book after TVV, or at the most, during: "As soon as I heard about all the troubles that befell you in the Village of Fowl Devotees, I began my own Baudelaire search." (TPP p. 193) "Wherever I looked for you, Baudelaires, I found selfish plots to steal your fortune. I read books on injustice in all the libraries you left behind and eventually wrote a book myself." (p. 194)

Feb 5, 2020 18:12:18 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

And yes, if possible, could you exemplify chronological errors in a single book?

I'm thinking of points I'm sure you'll be familiar with by now; the logic of TEE's plot requiring Jerome to walk out of the door of his apartment without noticing a rope of his own neckties leading from the doorknob through an open elevator door and down the shaft; the impossibility of the Quagmires' first couplet in TVV; the non-existent Sunday in TGG... The plot of ?4 is riddled with errors which might be classed as chronological - Stew Mitchum must either be in two places at the same time, or be zig-zagging back and forth at lightning speed while invisible - but which tie into a wider pattern of incompatibility. I think these are all documented in the most recent reread threads.

[TheAsh]

When's the next reread? I'd love to participate in one.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

We need an organizer. 

[Hermes]

Jean Lucio, have you ever commented on the passage in TGG which refers to Kit, by name, as still alive? (L is looking for a piece of herbed toast that will save her.) I think this supports the view that the references to L's sister in TCC and TSS are indeed to Kit; at least is shows we cannot resolve the problem by taking them to be references to someone else. Since I agree with you that we are meant to think of L writing this long after the events, the most likely explanation seems to be that DH had not yet decided that Kit would die. In story, we can only suppose that bits of earlier drafts, written when K was alive, have been carried over into the final form (something which, as I mentioned before, also happens, explicitly, in The Basic Eight).

Regarding the boxes, I've always supposed that there wre two of them, and it's likely that Jacques had a third - the grandfather leaving a box to each of his grandchildren. (Remember that The End is full of parallels.)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Hermes, I can accept that Daniel Handler had not yet decided what he was going to do with Kit when he wrote TSS. Still, I believe Daniel Handler knows that by killing her in TE, he did not create an impossible to resolve contradiction. The simplest solution, (which is the most acceptable) is that Lemony Snicket did not know that Kit was dead when he wrote TSS. This reflects the reality: Daniel Handler did not know that Kit was dead when he wrote TSS, because he had not yet thought it through. But the fact is that when Lemony wrote TGG, Lemony Snicket believed that Kit was alive and that he could save her in some way. But that was also not true. This is the simplest solution. I accept it.