Post by TheAsh on Feb 4, 2020 5:21:02 GMT -5
There's something very strange in the books: Count Olaf's disguises always fool everybody, but when he get to the island, they stop working. Why is that so?
It seems to me that Count Olaf is making fun of VFD. VFD is known for using disguises as part of their work. Quite a lot of their disguises have to be excellent to fool anybody (for example, we find VFD members disguising themselves as animals.) It's implied that anyone and anything could be in disguise. (In UA, a henchmen thinks a building might be a toad. Lemony Snicket describes a woman disguised as a mailbox.) Thus, when one is constantly involved in VFD, one learns never to take anything at face value. Because of this, often the simplest thing is to accept that things are they way they look. Since a building might be a person, and one never knows due to VFD's excellent disguises, it is easier to assume that what looks like something is that something, because there's no way anyone can tell. Their cognitive bias is simply that things are not what they seem, but they have no way to tell when something is the way they seem!
What Count Olaf does is take advantage of this. Since everybody involved in the organization has long learned not to trust their eyes or instincts, he can just dump stuff on his head or print business cards, because people have long ago learned that disguises are so good there's no way to tell! So Olaf makes fun of VFD with his awful disguises, because VFD has so "muddied the waters" no one knows what's real and what's not! Thus, a poor disguise is as good as a good disguise, as no one knows how to recognize anything! Only a kid, who didn't grow up involved in VFD, and never learned to ignore the plain look of things, will always see through the bad disguises. So too Ishmael, on the island, where has been for at least fifteen years, also isn't biased cognitively as he has effectively been uninvolved with VFD disguises for years, so he judges what his eyes tell him.
It seems to me that Count Olaf is making fun of VFD. VFD is known for using disguises as part of their work. Quite a lot of their disguises have to be excellent to fool anybody (for example, we find VFD members disguising themselves as animals.) It's implied that anyone and anything could be in disguise. (In UA, a henchmen thinks a building might be a toad. Lemony Snicket describes a woman disguised as a mailbox.) Thus, when one is constantly involved in VFD, one learns never to take anything at face value. Because of this, often the simplest thing is to accept that things are they way they look. Since a building might be a person, and one never knows due to VFD's excellent disguises, it is easier to assume that what looks like something is that something, because there's no way anyone can tell. Their cognitive bias is simply that things are not what they seem, but they have no way to tell when something is the way they seem!
What Count Olaf does is take advantage of this. Since everybody involved in the organization has long learned not to trust their eyes or instincts, he can just dump stuff on his head or print business cards, because people have long ago learned that disguises are so good there's no way to tell! So Olaf makes fun of VFD with his awful disguises, because VFD has so "muddied the waters" no one knows what's real and what's not! Thus, a poor disguise is as good as a good disguise, as no one knows how to recognize anything! Only a kid, who didn't grow up involved in VFD, and never learned to ignore the plain look of things, will always see through the bad disguises. So too Ishmael, on the island, where has been for at least fifteen years, also isn't biased cognitively as he has effectively been uninvolved with VFD disguises for years, so he judges what his eyes tell him.
