My sugar bowl theory

[TheAsh]

Considering that Daniel Handler claims that there is a solution to the Sugar Bowl mystery, and it isn't one that most people expect, I wanted to share my solution here and see what people think:

First of all, the one thing we know is that there's a reason why people drink their tea as bitter as wormwood:

“No,” Ishmael said with another frown. “There was some argument about his name, actually, as he appeared to use several names depending on what he was wearing. In any case, the student in my class began to be very suspicious about the tea her guardian would pour for her when she got home from school. Rather than drink it, she would dump it into a houseplant that had been used to decorate a well-known stylish restaurant with a fish theme.”
“Café Salmonella,” Violet said
“No,” Ishmael said, and frowned once more. “The Bistro Smelt. Of course, my student realized she couldn’t keep feeding tea to the houseplant, particularly after it withered away and the houseplant’s owner was whisked off to Peru aboard a mysterious ship.”
“The Prospero,” Klaus said.
Ishmael offered the youngsters yet another frown. “Yes,” he said, “although at the time the ship was called the Pericles. But my student didn’t know that. She only wanted to avoid being poisoned, and I had an idea that an antidote might be hidden—”
“Yaw,” Sunny interrupted, and her siblings nodded in agreement. By “yaw,” the youngest Baudelaire meant “Ishmael’s story is tangential,” a word which here means “answering questions other than the ones the Baudelaires had asked.”
“We want to know what’s going on here on the island, at this very moment,” Violet said, “not what happened in a classroom many years ago.”
“But what is happening now and what happened then are part of the same story,” Ishmael said. “If I don’t tell you how I came to prefer tea that’s as bitter as wormwood, then you won’t know how I came to have a very important conversation with a waiter in a lakeside town. 

So, the reason why people drink tea that's bitter as wormwood, has something to do with poison.  But we don't know how, or what the poison is. But we learn something very crucial about this posion: That it isn't really poisonous! This student had been drinking the tea for quite some time, and had never died! Rather, this poison must be some sort of sedative, or controlling agent. But it's not a real poison. 

So what is that poison? That's the wrong question (for now at least)! Rather, the right question is, why was the guardian serving this girl (we'll call her D, based on Snicket Sleuth's interpretation of the family tree) tea every afternoon?

Well, we find someone else who was given tea, though not in the afternoon: The Snickets. In TUA we find:

My mother asked the same question when she returned home that fateful day and found waiting for her not three young children but one worried husband and two half-full cups of tea. 

And the song points out:

The siblings two were drinking tea.

Now, note that this was a consensual "kidnapping". The children were taken with their parents consent (though the mother wishes they would've waited one more day). Also, note the emphasis on tea, (both in the song and Lemony's notes), and Jacques' insistence that he was allowed to finish his tea. (We'll return to that particular point later in the theory.) 

For some reason, when the Snickets joined VFD, they were given tea to drink. This unknown woman gave D tea to drink, which she suspected was poisoned. And there's at least one other family who was given tea to drink when they joined VFD:

“I also brought you some tea,” he said, revealing a tray containing a teapot and three cups. “I thought it might fortify you for the trial.”
By “fortify,” the manager meant that a few sips of tea might give the children some much-needed strength for their ordeal, and the children thought it must be Frank who was doing them such a favor. “You’re very kind,” Violet said.

I suspect drinking the tea makes you join VFD. But what does the sugar have to do with it?

I'll save that for my next post, as I need to organize my writing on it.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I'm really enjoying this. But please keep in mind that there is no quote about tea in the infrequent questions about VFD in LSTUA.

[TheAsh]

Ok. So what could be in the sugar bowl? And what does it have to do with poison?

I want to point out two of the weirdest quotes in the books, which, when explained, will help unravel the mystery of the sugar bowl.

"“Yes!” Esmé cried. “There’s always important work to do before a cocktail party, particularly if you want it to be the innest in the world! We need to put slipcovers on the couches, and hide our associates beneath them! We need to put vases of flowers on the piano and electric eels in the fountain! We need to hang streamers and volunteers from the ceiling! We need to play music, so people can dance, and block the exits, so they can’t leave! And most of all, we have to cook in food and prepare in cocktails! Food and drink are the most important aspect of every social occasion, and our in recipes—”

“The most important aspect of every social occasion isn’t food and drink!” Dewey interrupted indignantly. “It’s conversation!”

Why would Dewey interrupt Esme's rant? Why is this so important to him? (We'll get back to this later.)

Also:

I can see her now, sitting on a small couch she used to keep in the corner of her bedroom, adjusting the straps of her sandals with one hand and munching on an apple with the other, telling me not to worry about the party that was beginning downstairs. “People love to talk about themselves, Mr. Snicket,” she said to me, between bites of apple. “If you find yourself wondering what to say to any of the guests, ask them which secret code they prefer, or find out whom they’ve been spying on lately.” Violet, too, could almost hear her mother’s voice as she gazed down at this young girl, and decided to ask her something about herself.

Why would any guest reveal those type of secrets? That's like a spy revealing who he's spying for. And why is Beatrice chilling in her bedroom when she's hosting a party? Shouldn't she be entertaining the guests? And is that apple important?

We know that this conversation takes place after her departure from the island, as she calls Lemony "Mr. Snicket" which is very formal, and from TBL we know Lemony called her Mrs. Baudelaire after she got married to Bertrand. Hence, this conversation has to have taken place AFTER the island. Thus, it won't shock you that I assume that the apple she was eating was from the island.

So does this apple have any properties not mentioned explicitly in the books? Yes it does!

First, remember that Ishmael said that there seems to be something in the tea that is poisonous, but it's a slow-acting poison, and there's an antidote hidden somewhere. We know Daniel Handler likes putting things in patterns, so is there another poison like this in the books?
Why, yes there is, the cordial!:

"I didn’t force them,” Ishmael said, “but, of course, the coconut cordial helped. The fermented beverage is so strong that it serves as a sort of opiate for the people here.”
“Lethe?” Sunny asked.
“An opiate is something that makes people drowsy and inactive,” Klaus said, “or even forgetful.”
“The more cordial the islanders drank,” Ishmael explained, “the less they thought about the past, or complained about the things they were missing.

Now, there's something very interesting about this cordial: Ishmael isn't affected by it. Why not? The book doesn't make it clear, but it's heavily implied it's because of the apples that Ishmael constantly eats. TE keeps pointing out Ishmael's constant apple-eating and that he always has one on him at all times. This only makes sense if the apple affects the cordial.
A further proof to this is that thematically, it makes far more sense that the apples counteract the cordial over the mushrooms. Why? The cordial is supposed to represent religion, the "opiate f the masses" (which is how the cordial is explicitly described.) The apple tree clearly represents the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in the Bible. (Ink is the Biblical snake.) In the Bible, eating the apple represents Adam's break with God and Religion. Thus, in ASOUE as well, it is only appropriate that the apple counteracts the cordial of religion, and frees one's mind up to think clearly.
All this is hinted at in the island's customs:

Then anyone who wishes to leave our colony indicates their decision by taking a bite of bitter apple and spitting it onto the ground before boarding the outrigger and bidding us farewell.”
By biting the apple they show they are free of the cordial's influence.

So it makes sense that the apple tree counteracts the poison of the cordial.

Now, I want to point something out: The apples on this tree are NOT exactly the same as the ones on Lousy Lane. On Lousy Lane, the apple trees are described as "scraggly" and "super-sour"

Lousy Lane runs through fields that are a sickly gray color, in which a handful of scraggly trees produce apples so sour that one only has to look at them to feel ill.

However, the apples on the island are, in contrast, refreshingly bitter:

But even this anarchic little girl—the word “anarchic” here means “apple-loving”—never tasted a bite as wonderful as the Baudelaire orphans’ first bite of the apple from the tree their parents had hybridized with horseradish. The apple was not as bitter as the Baudelaire orphans would have guessed, and the horseradish gave the juice of the apple a slight, sharp edge, like the air on a winter morning.

And the tree is  large.

"All that grows in the island’s arboretum is one enormous apple tree,”

So there's something different about this apple tree, that makes it stronger, (or perhaps the lousy lane ones are different in a way that makes them weaker,) that despite both trees being apple-horseradish hybrids, there's a significant difference between them. What's the difference? Since we know the apple isn't as bitter as apple-horseradish hybrids should be, I suspect there's also a hybrid with a different plant as well.

‘Ishmael’s fearmongering has stopped work on the passageway, even though we have a plethora of horseradish in case of any emergency.’”
Violet started to speak, but then choked on the fungus and coughed for a long while. “What does ‘fearmongering’ mean?” she said finally.
“‘Plethora’?” Sunny’s voice was little more than a mushroom-choked whisper.
“‘Fearmongering’ means ‘making people afraid,’” said Klaus, whose vocabulary was unaffected by the poison, “and ‘plethora’ means ‘more than enough.’” He gave a large, shuddering wheeze, and continued to read. “‘’”

Now, since Klaus has a pretty good track record of misinterpreting things, I suspect this is another example to add to the list. If there was an ample amount of horseradish, why would they need a hybrid? Furthermore, just plant the horseradish itself! And the weirdest part: "In case we are banished, Beatrice is hiding a small amount in a vess-" This makes no sense! Theyre digging a tunnel to a facility that is still standing and no accident has happened yet! And there is no tunnel, so there is no danger of being poisoned with mushrooms! There's no need to hide some horseradish for a danger they have no chance of facing until they reach the mainland! 
Thus, I suspect, Ishmael's fearmongering did not have to do with the dangers of the tunnel per se. It had to do with the Baudelaire's experiments on the island with the tree. In order to avoid fearmongering, they also added horseradish -later on - to the hybrid. But, I suspect that this hybrid in the book is with a different plant. Again, read what the book says without Klaus's interpretation:

Ishmael’s fearmongering has stopped work on the passageway, even though we have a plethora of horseradish in case of any emergency. We’re attempting a botanical hybrid through the tuberous canopy, which should bring safety to fruition despite its dangers to our associates in utero. Of course, in case we are banished, Beatrice is hiding a small amount in a vess—

Does that sound like the hybrid is talking about the horseradish? No, it sound like there's a hybrid that has something to do with Beatrice's project on the island. Part of their project was building a tunnel, and another part was attempting a hybrid with some other plant, all part of some bigger project. And that project (or plant) ended up in the Vessel for Dissacharides. 

And Kit Snicket more or less tells us this explicitly!

“The apples will harm the baby,” Kit said. “There’s something in the hybrid that’s bad for people who haven’t been born yet. That’s why your mother never tasted one of her own bitter apples. She was pregnant with you, Violet.”

There's something in the hybrid which is dangerous for pregnant woman! Now what is it? Apples aren't dangerous, and neither is horseradish! There must be an additional ingredient - a something - in the hybrid!
What was that plant, what does it do, and what does it have to do with Gregor Anwhistle's experiment? That's the subject of the next post.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I really, really, really liked that. So, the conclusion is that there are additional ingredients in the apple. The apple probably protects against the effects of cordial opium. I want to add some interesting botanical information: Seeds of hybrid plants generally do not produce the same type of fruit from which they were taken. Hybrid fruit seeds are either sterile or produce fruits with different characteristics.

[TheAsh]

Feb 10, 2020 17:06:27 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

I really, really, really liked that. So, the conclusion is that there are additional ingredients in the apple. The apple probably protects against the effects of cordial opium. I want to add some interesting botanical information: Seeds of hybrid plants generally do not produce the same type of fruit from which they were taken. Hybrid fruit seeds are either sterile or produce fruits with different characteristics.

Thanks! I appreciate the compliment! It's fun tying together all the mysteries.

[TheAsh]

I just want to add that based on my previous post, we can explain something weird in the books:

Ishmael shook his head, and fingered the wild strands of his woolly beard. “No one is going to die,” he said. “This outrigger can take us to a beach near Lousy Lane, where we can travel to a horseradish factory.”

Why is Ishmael insisting on going to a horseradish factory on Lousy Lane? Is he really a murderer? Besides, he thinks he can keep the islanders safe from the world, so why is he going to the world? Also, what's wrong with the apples that he's so insistent that the Islanders don't eat any at all, preferring them to eat horseradish? Ishmael makes no sense here!



The answer is that this apple has another ingredient, one that makes you think clearly and opens your mind. It counteracts not only the effects of the Mushrooms, but also the cordial. Hence, Ishmael would rather them use horseradish, which merely counteracts the mushrooms, leaving the islanders under his control.

Now the new post:
All right, what is that other ingredient? I'll get to it, but that's the wrong question. The right question is: What does the Medusoid Mycelium actually do, and why did Fiona think it could be used as a good medicine?

“Proud?” the hook-handed man said. “It was the worst day of my life. That plume of smoke was the saddest thing I ever saw.” He speared the newspaper with his other hook and ripped the article into shreds. “The Punctilio got everything wrong,” he said. “Captain Widdershins isn’t my father. Widdershins isn’t my last name. And there’s much more to the fire than that. You should know that the Daily Punctilio doesn’t tell the whole story, Baudelaires. Just as the poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines, someone like Jacques Snicket can do something villainous, and someone like Count Olaf can do something noble. Even your parents—”

And

Most fungal poisons have cures,” Fiona said. “The poison of a deadly fungus can be the source of some wonderful medicines. I’ve been working on a few myself. But this book says it’s lucky the grotto acts as quarantine.”

There are presumably some wonderful medicines that can come out of the Medusoid Mycelium. And we know that Gregor Anwhistle was working to use it to stop the schism:

“Everybody chose sides,” Violet recalled, “and now the organization is in chaos. Which side was Gregor on?”
“I don’t know,” Fiona said, frowning. “Some of this letter is in code, and some of it was in water. I can’t understand all of it, but it sounds like Gregor was involved with something called Volatile Fungus Deportation.”
“‘Volatile’ means ‘unstable,’ or ‘likely to cause trouble,’” Klaus said. “‘Fungus,’ of course, means ‘mushrooms,’ and ‘deportation’ means ‘moving something from one place to another.’ Who was moving unstable mushrooms?”
“V.F.D.,” Fiona replied. “During the schism, Gregor thought the Medusoid Mycelium might be useful.”
“The Medusoid Mycelium?” Violet said, looking nervously at the silent, gray mushrooms that still lined the entrance to the small, tiled room, their black splotches looking particularly eerie in the dim light. “I can’t imagine thinking that such deadly things could be useful.”
“Listen to what Kit wrote about it,” Fiona said. “‘The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy Lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium’s destructive respiratory capabilities, and you assure me that the mycelium grows best in small, enclosed spaces, but this is of little comfort. One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire.’

Klaus later assumes Gregor wanted to poison their enemies; however, I have a hard time buying that. I suspect that Klaus is wrong again here, and the mycelium here is being grown for a medicinal purpose, just like Fiona and Ferdinand strongly imply. However, Kit felt it to be too dangerous to use (more on that later). What is the medicine's possible purpose? Why, as Lemony Snicket clearly tells us: to stop schisms, of course!

Everyone breathed in the spores of the deadly fungus as Count Olaf toppled backward onto the sand, still laughing even as he gasped himself, and in an instant the schism of the island was over, because everyone in this place—including, of course, the Baudelaire orphans—was suddenly part of the same unfortunate event.

Now, that is very weird, because, fire, harpoon murders, and hurricanes are all unfortunate events! But none of them ever stop schisms! The Medusoid Mycellium must have some special property to it!

“But you were ready to mutiny,” Violet said. “You didn’t want to take Ishmael’s suggestions.”
“That was before the Medusoid Mycelium arrived,” Finn said hoarsely.

It's explicit: The Medusoid Mycelium stops schisms! I suspect that the MM has some sort of medicinal property to it that in of itself stops schisms. However, it also has a very unfortunate side effect - death. If one can somehow get rid of the side effect without getting rid of the Mushrooms, one would be able to take control of schisms, and use the MM for a good purpose - stopping the schism. That's what Gregor Anwhistle was working on - and later on, Fiona. Now, one can ask, why is a medicine needed, just use MM and then make everybody eat horseradish? I can think of two possibilities:
1)because Horseradish completely dilutes the MM, thus negating the positive effect
2) because using the MM is just too dangerous. It's guaranteed to choke everyone, and counting that everyone having horseradish is too unlikely. Thus, one needs to develop a version of MM that doesn't kill: Perhaps MM hybridized with horseradish?

Furthermore, there's an additional problem: Which side wins the schism? We know that MM stops the schism, but it doesn't tell you which side wins! (By Ishmael, something very weird happened: They both won! Some islanders wanted to sail off, and they won, some Islanders want Ishmael to stop being the island's faciliator, and they won - he stopped, and some islanders wanted to stay under his control - and they won, while Ishmael wanted to keep leading them without them eating apples - and he won (while the ones who wanted to eat apples ended up winning too, when ink brought them some). But overall, the biggest winner was Ishmael, because the islanders kept following him.)

Now, here is what I think is in the sugar bowl: Something that makes schisms stop with the sugar bowl possessor winning. (I have something specific in mind, but I'll say what it is in a future post.)

Thus, we can now understand a few weird things in TGG and TPP:
What was the cocktail party plot in TPP? And who was behind it?
The plot as it was made no sense. What are the chances of the crows dying, and then dropping the bowl, into the chute? Almost zero. And how in the world did Esme figure out that the sugar bowl is arriving by crow, and how did the crows get the sugar bowl in the first place? Furthermore, how did Dewey ever think the trial would succeed? He checked out the whole history of the Sinister Duo! Surely he knew what they did nowadays! And what in the world was Colette's mission?

The answer, as Dewey Denouement says, is "Decoy."
I think Dewey was the mastermind behind the plot. He convinced Esme and Olaf to make a party to poison everyone with the Medusoid Mycelium. And he invited everyone, or told Esme to invite everyone who ever had anything to do with VFD and the schism. And he told Esme (as Ernest) that the sugar bowl is arriving by crow. And he most certainly knew that WWHBNB and MWBBNH were members of the high court - he interviewed their math teachers and visited their childhood homes! He knew exactly what they were up to! So what was the plan? He was going to plant a decoy sugar bowl in the laundry room. One that looked like the original. But without the thing that was put inside the sugar bowl, rather, one that looked similar but was ineffective. Thus, now we can understand why he kept insisting that they wouldn't release the MM until they received the SB. Esme's whole cocktail party was based on the fact that they had the Medusoid Mycelium and the sugar bowl. By possessing both, they could end the schism with them in charge (and as Olaf put it, finally destroy VFD!) but if they released the MM, they may have ended the schism, but not with them in charge! Compare these two statements about the sugar bowl:

“It doesn’t matter, Baudelaires,” Jerome said. “Olaf won’t dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium unless he gets his hands on the sugar bowl, and he’ll never find it.”

And

“You won’t dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium,” Dewey said. “Not while I have the sugar bowl."

Note that Dewey slightly changes it: Not while "you don't have the sugar bowl", but rather, "while I have the sugar bowl". Jerome isn't in on the plot, and has no clue what's in the sugar bowl. But Dewey is! Olaf won't release the MM, because if he does, and VFD or Dewey have the sugar bowl, THEY win the schism, ending it how they want, and everything else! And then they get to bring everyone to justice!

Now we can explain Dewey's plan: 
1) Poison the Baudelaire's helmets so that Esme and Olaf get a hold of Medusoid Mycelium. 
2) Leave the submarine empty, without horseradish. 
3) Force the Baudelaires to go to Olaf's submarine with the MM, in order to get horseradish. Olaf gets the MM. Most Volunteers have horseradish on them thanks to the factory, and Olaf is certainly familiar with MM. The most  logical solution is for the Baudelaires to go to Olaf.
4) Baudelaires trade MM for Horseradish.
5) Olaf gets MM, heads to hotel.
6) Tell Justice Strauss about the "trial" so she tells the fellow judges, who are the sinister duo. This ensures they will be there.
7) Get Jerome Squalor to hint to Esme about the sugar bowl arriving via crow, (as a way to make up?)
8) Convince Esme and Olaf through the Sinister Duo to make a cocktail party with secret ingredients in the hors de vors. Suggest they should literally eat crow.
9) Plant a fake sugar bowl in the Laundry room (this did not end up happening, as Dewey died, or someone took it before the door was opened (Lemony). More on this later.
10) Get Esme and Olaf to release the MM, because they think they have the sugar bowl.
11) Use the real sugar bowl to end the schism and win.
12) If all else fails, burn down hotel.
(I'm sure Dewey would have no compunction poisoning a Baudelaire if it was necessary for the greater good. He basically told them to burn down the hotel.)

Interestingly, this is the same exact plot as Olaf's! 

(Esme Squalor knew there was a chance of not getting the SB, and thus, she told Colette to become a chemist. The same way the sugar bowl contains something organic that stops schisms and lets you win. Esme thought that there was a chance of it not working, and thus tried getting Colette to synthesize it.)

Now we can explain this quote:

The captain fingered his mustache in astonishment. “You and your mushrooms and molds!” the captain said. “I thought I’d never live to see your mycological studies be put to good use,” and I’m sorry to say he was right.

Because the mycological studies never ended up being used for good, as the hotel burned down.

And once we see that someone took the fake sugar bowl from the laundry room, we can assume that's what happened before, a la Esme's infamous tea party. That's the subject of the next post.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Ash, I can say that your teroia has, in my view, positive and negative points. The good thing is that you noticed that Beatrice and Bertrand used MM in the apple. This explains why they needed horseradish so much while they were on the island. That's because they were working with MM. This explains why the apple is harmful to babies in the womb. This explains what Kit said, that there was something in the apple that could kill babies in the womb. It is a pity to think how they discovered this side effect while they were on the island. (Did they use human guinea pigs? I hope they did tests on animals). I also agree that Ish knew that apples would remove the effects of Cordial. And so as not to lose his "sheep", he prevented them from starting with the apple and remaining in ignorance. It makes a lot of sense. However, I believe that Cisma ended up on the island due to the fact that everyone realized that they had been staged and that there was no longer any point in fighting over anything, since in a short time everyone would be dead if nothing effective was done to prevent this. This is a side effect of any situation in which individuals know they are going to die. You may have heard of theories that claim that if there was an alien invasion and that these aliens attacked all countries, all human wars would end because everyone would unite to fight a common mortal enemy. I think this is the case with the event involving the release of MM on the island. The schism ended not because of a chemical property, but because of human piscicology in the face of the certainty of the proximity of death. Furthermore, I can't find evidence to support the use of a replica of the SB in the Hotel D plan. To begin with, after talking to Dante a few times, I came to the conclusion that Dewey never included the SB in his plan. The arrival of the SB was an inconvenience. Dewey's plan to deal with the SB's arrival appears to have been rushed. Similarly, the fact that the Baudelaires went to submarine Q was something that was not planned. Dewey had to deal with this on the fly. If Klaus had not ended up in the submarine, no one would have deduced that the SB had gone to GG. In that case, the MM would not have ended up in Olaf's hands. Thus, both SB and MM were complicating to Dewey's plan, and he had to adapt at the last minute to these new situations. About the use of MM to kill people in Hotel D, this seems to have been Esmé's idea, since as soon as she saw MM she told Olaf that they could use MM for some better purpose than simply killing the Baudelaires. Besides, it doesn't look like anyone opened the door to the laundry room that was locked until Olaf did it with Klaus's help. According to Dewey, only he knew the words to open the door. I see no reason for Dewey to lie about it. About Vest being a Chemistry, it seems quite evident to me that she was just disguised as chemistry.

[Dante]

It's genuinely impressive to me how many sugar bowl theories require beloved characters to secretly be depraved psychopaths. Fortunately, the very fact that multiple such theories can be crafted without complementing each other is a clear indication of the ambiguity of the evidence. Contrast to the solutions to the V.F.D. and Beatrice mysteries; there were always people who desperately wanted those obvious solutions not to be the correct ones, too, but they were fated to be disappointed. We forget that now, with the series is complete; but those obvious solutions too indicate that the truth was neither meant to be complicated nor possible to dispute. It’s a clear sign that something went wrong in the writing process for any mystery without such an easy solution. Had I the time at present, I would outline my analysis of how the development of the sugar bowl mystery indicates that Handler never had a clear idea of what the solution was going to be, and every time he had a chance to narrow it down he instead broadened the scope…

But I digress. Let's take a look.

Feb 9, 2020 15:35:47 GMT -5 TheAsh said:

First of all, the one thing we know is that there's a reason why people drink their tea as bitter as wormwood:

“No,” Ishmael said with another frown. “There was some argument about his name, actually, as he appeared to use several names depending on what he was wearing. In any case, the student in my class began to be very suspicious about the tea her guardian would pour for her when she got home from school. Rather than drink it, she would dump it into a houseplant that had been used to decorate a well-known stylish restaurant with a fish theme.”
“Café Salmonella,” Violet said
“No,” Ishmael said, and frowned once more. “The Bistro Smelt. Of course, my student realized she couldn’t keep feeding tea to the houseplant, particularly after it withered away and the houseplant’s owner was whisked off to Peru aboard a mysterious ship.”
“The Prospero,” Klaus said.
Ishmael offered the youngsters yet another frown. “Yes,” he said, “although at the time the ship was called the Pericles. But my student didn’t know that. She only wanted to avoid being poisoned, and I had an idea that an antidote might be hidden—”
“Yaw,” Sunny interrupted, and her siblings nodded in agreement. By “yaw,” the youngest Baudelaire meant “Ishmael’s story is tangential,” a word which here means “answering questions other than the ones the Baudelaires had asked.”
“We want to know what’s going on here on the island, at this very moment,” Violet said, “not what happened in a classroom many years ago.”
“But what is happening now and what happened then are part of the same story,” Ishmael said. “If I don’t tell you how I came to prefer tea that’s as bitter as wormwood, then you won’t know how I came to have a very important conversation with a waiter in a lakeside town. 

So, the reason why people drink tea that's bitter as wormwood, has something to do with poison.  But we don't know how, or what the poison is. But we learn something very crucial about this posion: That it isn't really poisonous! This student had been drinking the tea for quite some time, and had never died! Rather, this poison must be some sort of sedative, or controlling agent. But it's not a real poison. 

This story's implications regarding bitter tea are not confirmed to apply to anyone other than Ishmael. Furthermore, there is no confirmation of the period of time during which the student had been drinking the poisoned tea, if any; it is possible the tea was originally harmless in order to lull the student into a false sense of security, but she guessed the truth before the poisonous element was introduced. The withering of the plant is clearly meant to indicate that the poison is physically deleterious. Furthermore, the poison could have been something principally effective by means of long-term exposure; consider the characteristic use of arsenic in fiction, for instance, which is probably what inspired the passage.

So what is that poison? That's the wrong question (for now at least)! Rather, the right question is, why was the guardian serving this girl (we'll call her D, based on Snicket Sleuth's interpretation of the family tree) tea every afternoon?

Well, we find someone else who was given tea, though not in the afternoon: The Snickets. In TUA we find:

My mother asked the same question when she returned home that fateful day and found waiting for her not three young children but one worried husband and two half-full cups of tea. 

And the song points out:

The siblings two were drinking tea.

Now, note that this was a consensual "kidnapping". The children were taken with their parents consent (though the mother wishes they would've waited one more day). Also, note the emphasis on tea, (both in the song and Lemony's notes), and Jacques' insistence that he was allowed to finish his tea. (We'll return to that particular point later in the theory.) 

For some reason, when the Snickets joined VFD, they were given tea to drink. This unknown woman gave D tea to drink, which she suspected was poisoned. And there's at least one other family who was given tea to drink when they joined VFD:

“I also brought you some tea,” he said, revealing a tray containing a teapot and three cups. “I thought it might fortify you for the trial.”
By “fortify,” the manager meant that a few sips of tea might give the children some much-needed strength for their ordeal, and the children thought it must be Frank who was doing them such a favor. “You’re very kind,” Violet said.

I suspect drinking the tea makes you join VFD. But what does the sugar have to do with it?

Tea is one of the most popular and commonplace beverages in the world. There is absolutely nothing remarkable about any of these instances. Indeed, the student's guardian's plan can only have depended on tea ordinarily being innocuous. Additionally, your identification of the point at which the Baudelaires "join" V.F.D. is arbitrarily selected; they've been undertaking V.F.D. missions for two books by this point. Why is it sitting in a closet waiting to be put on trial for murder that constitutes joining V.F.D., rather than any of the previous occasions on which they've agreed to complete missions for confirmed volunteers?

Feb 10, 2020 7:50:15 GMT -5 TheAsh said:

I want to point out two of the weirdest quotes in the books, which, when explained, will help unravel the mystery of the sugar bowl.

"“Yes!” Esmé cried. “There’s always important work to do before a cocktail party, particularly if you want it to be the innest in the world! We need to put slipcovers on the couches, and hide our associates beneath them! We need to put vases of flowers on the piano and electric eels in the fountain! We need to hang streamers and volunteers from the ceiling! We need to play music, so people can dance, and block the exits, so they can’t leave! And most of all, we have to cook in food and prepare in cocktails! Food and drink are the most important aspect of every social occasion, and our in recipes—”

“The most important aspect of every social occasion isn’t food and drink!” Dewey interrupted indignantly. “It’s conversation!”

Why would Dewey interrupt Esme's rant? Why is this so important to him? (We'll get back to this later.)

Dewey's outburst is based on a philosophical objection to the idea of physical gratification being more important than mental enlightenment. The importance of knowledge over mere safety and self-gratification is one of the major themes of the final books.

I can see her now, sitting on a small couch she used to keep in the corner of her bedroom, adjusting the straps of her sandals with one hand and munching on an apple with the other, telling me not to worry about the party that was beginning downstairs. “People love to talk about themselves, Mr. Snicket,” she said to me, between bites of apple. “If you find yourself wondering what to say to any of the guests, ask them which secret code they prefer, or find out whom they’ve been spying on lately.” Violet, too, could almost hear her mother’s voice as she gazed down at this young girl, and decided to ask her something about herself.

Why would any guest reveal those type of secrets? That's like a spy revealing who he's spying for. And why is Beatrice chilling in her bedroom when she's hosting a party? Shouldn't she be entertaining the guests? And is that apple important?

The party is clearly one for volunteers, and so asking them about their occupations for the organisation would clearly be unremarkable. The apple is just an apple, but it's employed here by the author as a recurring motif of the sort that every ASoUE book uses; consider the imagery of smoke and mirrors in TPP, the water cycle and the idea of the tables turning in TGG, or more explicitly, the repetition of "the belly of the beast" in TCC. By introducing an image early, we are prepared for that image to be important later, and the book as a whole becomes more cohesive as a result. As for Beatrice, perhaps she's comforting a socially awkard friend?

We know that this conversation takes place after her departure from the island, as she calls Lemony "Mr. Snicket" which is very formal, and from TBL we know Lemony called her Mrs. Baudelaire after she got married to Bertrand. Hence, this conversation has to have taken place AFTER the island. Thus, it won't shock you that I assume that the apple she was eating was from the island.

It's a good chronological analysis, but does nothing to indicate why the apple would have been one of those from the island. Indeed, you later quote a line from Kit indicating that Beatrice never ate any of the hybrid apples. We don't know how Kit would know this, of course, but she wouldn't say such a thing without having a source she believed was credible.

So does this apple have any properties not mentioned explicitly in the books? Yes it does!

First, remember that Ishmael said that there seems to be something in the tea that is poisonous, but it's a slow-acting poison, and there's an antidote hidden somewhere. We know Daniel Handler likes putting things in patterns, so is there another poison like this in the books?
Why, yes there is, the cordial!:

"I didn’t force them,” Ishmael said, “but, of course, the coconut cordial helped. The fermented beverage is so strong that it serves as a sort of opiate for the people here.”
“Lethe?” Sunny asked.
“An opiate is something that makes people drowsy and inactive,” Klaus said, “or even forgetful.”
“The more cordial the islanders drank,” Ishmael explained, “the less they thought about the past, or complained about the things they were missing.

Now, there's something very interesting about this cordial: Ishmael isn't affected by it. Why not? The book doesn't make it clear, but it's heavily implied it's because of the apples that Ishmael constantly eats.

How do we know Ishmael's drinking it at all? He has ready access to alternative food sources in the arboretum and isn't shy about eating them in secret, so why shouldn't we presume that he's also been topping up his cordial shell with something different?

TE keeps pointing out Ishmael's constant apple-eating and that he always has one on him at all times.

Not especially. The apple core that Ishmael drops during the confrontation on the coastal shelf is simply used as evidence that Ishmael isn't being honest about his activities; and it's the readiest foodstuff in the arboretum, and portable without being easily detectable, so it's natural for it to be a regular snack for him. Ishmael later states that preventing Medusoid Mycelium from reaching the island has been his life's work (The End, p. 260), so we can reasonably surmise that he might have been scoffing hybrid apples this whole time just in case.

This only makes sense if the apple affects the cordial.
A further proof to this is that thematically, it makes far more sense that the apples counteract the cordial over the mushrooms. Why? The cordial is supposed to represent religion, the "opiate f the masses" (which is how the cordial is explicitly described.) The apple tree clearly represents the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in the Bible. (Ink is the Biblical snake.) In the Bible, eating the apple represents Adam's break with God and Religion. Thus, in ASOUE as well, it is only appropriate that the apple counteracts the cordial of religion, and frees one's mind up to think clearly.
All this is hinted at in the island's customs:

Then anyone who wishes to leave our colony indicates their decision by taking a bite of bitter apple and spitting it onto the ground before boarding the outrigger and bidding us farewell.”

By biting the apple they show they are free of the cordial's influence. So it makes sense that the apple tree counteracts the poison of the cordial.

This is a good thematic argument, but not evidence. There is no evidence that the cordial has any long-term effects; hence it has to be repeatedly imbibed in order for control to be kept. The Baudelaires think perfectly well for themselves even having taken the cordial for several days after their arrival on the island; this is why, as in the Genesis story, the act of wilfully taking the apple as well as having eaten it is important. The Baudelaires survive because they have the will to take the redemptive apple, and must already be free of the cordial's effects in order to do such a thing - as you acknowledge in your discussion of the departure custom.

Incidentally, the reason for the regurgitative aspect of the custom probably stems from the danger it poses to unborn children; perhaps Ishmael introduced this idea in case any pregnant women wanted to leave the island, or alternatively it was inspired by Beatrice openly doing such a thing during a public departure from the island.

Now, I want to point something out: The apples on this tree are NOT exactly the same as the ones on Lousy Lane. On Lousy Lane, the apple trees are described as "scraggly" and "super-sour"

Lousy Lane runs through fields that are a sickly gray color, in which a handful of scraggly trees produce apples so sour that one only has to look at them to feel ill.

However, the apples on the island are, in contrast, refreshingly bitter:

But even this anarchic little girl—the word “anarchic” here means “apple-loving”—never tasted a bite as wonderful as the Baudelaire orphans’ first bite of the apple from the tree their parents had hybridized with horseradish. The apple was not as bitter as the Baudelaire orphans would have guessed, and the horseradish gave the juice of the apple a slight, sharp edge, like the air on a winter morning.

And the tree is  large.

"All that grows in the island’s arboretum is one enormous apple tree,”

So there's something different about this apple tree, that makes it stronger, (or perhaps the lousy lane ones are different in a way that makes them weaker,) that despite both trees being apple-horseradish hybrids, there's a significant difference between them. What's the difference?

There is no evidence that the apple trees on Lousy Lane are a horseradish hybrid. There is reason to speculate that they might be, but as it is outright retroactive continuity then an inconsistency is to be expected. I would suggest, if we accept the conclusion that the Lousy Lane trees are hybrids (which we are not obliged to), that they differ because their cross-pollination is accidental rather than deliberate.

Since we know the apple isn't as bitter as apple-horseradish hybrids should be, I suspect there's also a hybrid with a different plant as well.

There is no evidence as to what a proper apple-horseradish hybrid should taste like.

‘Ishmael’s fearmongering has stopped work on the passageway, even though we have a plethora of horseradish in case of any emergency.’”
Violet started to speak, but then choked on the fungus and coughed for a long while. “What does ‘fearmongering’ mean?” she said finally.
“‘Plethora’?” Sunny’s voice was little more than a mushroom-choked whisper.
“‘Fearmongering’ means ‘making people afraid,’” said Klaus, whose vocabulary was unaffected by the poison, “and ‘plethora’ means ‘more than enough.’” He gave a large, shuddering wheeze, and continued to read. “‘’”

Now, since Klaus has a pretty good track record of misinterpreting things, I suspect this is another example to add to the list. If there was an ample amount of horseradish, why would they need a hybrid? Furthermore, just plant the horseradish itself! And the weirdest part: "In case we are banished, Beatrice is hiding a small amount in a vess-" This makes no sense! Theyre digging a tunnel to a facility that is still standing and no accident has happened yet! And there is no tunnel, so there is no danger of being poisoned with mushrooms! There's no need to hide some horseradish for a danger they have no chance of facing until they reach the mainland! 

It is conceivable that the horseradish is in a prepared form which cannot be planted, or the island’s soil is unsuitable for growing horseradish. So far as the mysterious quantity hidden in a “vess-” is concerned, consider the unlikelihood of Bertrand and Beatrice being permitted to haul off vast stores of horseradish, not least by Ishmael, who in an unguarded moment confesses his absolute horror of Medusoid Mycelium; wouldn’t it be necessary for them to hide a small quantity which they could smuggle away with them? I don’t mean in the sugar bowl, of course; the sealed clay pot found aboard their boat (The End, pp. 8-9) could easily have concealed any number of apples beneath a layer of beans.

Ishmael’s fearmongering has stopped work on the passageway, even though we have a plethora of horseradish in case of any emergency. We’re attempting a botanical hybrid through the tuberous canopy, which should bring safety to fruition despite its dangers to our associates in utero. Of course, in case we are banished, Beatrice is hiding a small amount in a vess—

Does that sound like the hybrid is talking about the horseradish? No, it sound like there's a hybrid that has something to do with Beatrice's project on the island. Part of their project was building a tunnel, and another part was attempting a hybrid with some other plant, all part of some bigger project.

You add a very definitive “No” to what is not, in fact, an obvious conclusion; indeed, the seamless transition from discussion of the passageway and horseradish to discussion of the botanical hybrid makes it clear that they are part of a continuous subject, not separate ones.

And that project (or plant) ended up in the Vessel for Dissacharides. 

And Kit Snicket more or less tells us this explicitly!

“The apples will harm the baby,” Kit said. “There’s something in the hybrid that’s bad for people who haven’t been born yet. That’s why your mother never tasted one of her own bitter apples. She was pregnant with you, Violet.”

There's something in the hybrid which is dangerous for pregnant woman! Now what is it? Apples aren't dangerous, and neither is horseradish! There must be an additional ingredient - a something - in the hybrid!

If Kit’s statement on the subject of the apples was scientifically suspect, this would have been raised by the extremely well-read Klaus, or indeed by Kit on first learning this information. It’s far from unreasonable for a hasty botanical experiment to have unintended side-effects not exhibited by either of the original organisms, in much the same way that hybrid animals are infertile despite both parents being fertile.

Feb 12, 2020 7:49:37 GMT -5 TheAsh said:

I just want to add that based on my previous post, we can explain something weird in the books:

Ishmael shook his head, and fingered the wild strands of his woolly beard. “No one is going to die,” he said. “This outrigger can take us to a beach near Lousy Lane, where we can travel to a horseradish factory.”

Why is Ishmael insisting on going to a horseradish factory on Lousy Lane? Is he really a murderer? Besides, he thinks he can keep the islanders safe from the world, so why is he going to the world? Also, what's wrong with the apples that he's so insistent that the Islanders don't eat any at all, preferring them to eat horseradish? Ishmael makes no sense here!

Ishmael is a tyrant whose interest has only ever been in unquestioned control, which he will tell any lie and commit any act of hypocrisy to achieve. It’s perfectly consistent for him to refuse all aid offered by the Baudelaires because to do so would weaken his authority; and similarly, he’s never considered the islanders his equals or dignified them with the same luxuries he enjoys, so it’s consistent for him to be willing to risk all of their lives in order to remain in charge. As for contradicting his avowed opinions, he does nothing but this all book; consider that this problem arose, for instance, because he abandoned his vow of pacifism to shoot Count Olaf with a harpoon gun.

All right, what is that other ingredient? I'll get to it, but that's the wrong question. The right question is: What does the Medusoid Mycelium actually do, and why did Fiona think it could be used as a good medicine?

The idea that it “actually” does anything is dubious, given that we see its effects at their worst multiple times through the series. So far as its possible medicinal uses are concerned, consider the analogy of foxgloves, a toxic plant from which medication to treat heart conditions can also be extracted.

And we know that Gregor Anwhistle was working to use it to stop the schism:

“Everybody chose sides,” Violet recalled, “and now the organization is in chaos. Which side was Gregor on?”
“I don’t know,” Fiona said, frowning. “Some of this letter is in code, and some of it was in water. I can’t understand all of it, but it sounds like Gregor was involved with something called Volatile Fungus Deportation.”
“‘Volatile’ means ‘unstable,’ or ‘likely to cause trouble,’” Klaus said. “‘Fungus,’ of course, means ‘mushrooms,’ and ‘deportation’ means ‘moving something from one place to another.’ Who was moving unstable mushrooms?”
“V.F.D.,” Fiona replied. “During the schism, Gregor thought the Medusoid Mycelium might be useful.”
“The Medusoid Mycelium?” Violet said, looking nervously at the silent, gray mushrooms that still lined the entrance to the small, tiled room, their black splotches looking particularly eerie in the dim light. “I can’t imagine thinking that such deadly things could be useful.”
“Listen to what Kit wrote about it,” Fiona said. “‘The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy Lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium’s destructive respiratory capabilities, and you assure me that the mycelium grows best in small, enclosed spaces, but this is of little comfort. One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire.’

Klaus later assumes Gregor wanted to poison their enemies; however, I have a hard time buying that.

Why so, given that this is exactly what Olaf plans to use it for, twice? Your own proposals involve Dewey Denouement masterminding a similar massacre as a failsafe. Kit’s letter emphasises the poisonous and destructive qualities of the Medusoid Mycelium without once indicating any possible philanthropic effect. Indeed, a deployment as poison is entirely consistent with the logic of the letter: Kit complains that Gregor is developing a poison; indicates that their side of the schism has easy access to large quantities of antidote; reflects on the growth conditions of the fungus in terms which imply that an uncontrolled disaster is unlikely; but concludes that Anwhistle Aquatics is vulnerable.

I suspect that Klaus is wrong again here, and the mycelium here is being grown for a medicinal purpose, just like Fiona and Ferdinand strongly imply.

They don’t “strongly imply” that it was grown for a medicinal purpose, merely that it hypothetically has an incidental medicinal purpose.

What is the medicine's possible purpose? Why, as Lemony Snicket clearly tells us: to stop schisms, of course!

Everyone breathed in the spores of the deadly fungus as Count Olaf toppled backward onto the sand, still laughing even as he gasped himself, and in an instant the schism of the island was over, because everyone in this place—including, of course, the Baudelaire orphans—was suddenly part of the same unfortunate event.

Now, that is very weird, because, fire, harpoon murders, and hurricanes are all unfortunate events! But none of them ever stop schisms! The Medusoid Mycellium must have some special property to it!

“But you were ready to mutiny,” Violet said. “You didn’t want to take Ishmael’s suggestions.”
“That was before the Medusoid Mycelium arrived,” Finn said hoarsely.

It's explicit: The Medusoid Mycelium stops schisms! I suspect that the MM has some sort of medicinal property to it that in of itself stops schisms.

Oh dear. I do try hard not to be harsh, but this is simply absurd; absurd in itself, but also absurd as a misreading of a fundamentally natural point of human psychology. I must doff my hat to Jean Lucio for fielding this one; it’s rare for us to agree, but he’s quite correct in identifying the conclusion of these schisms as being a result of the imminent threat of death to each member of the populace. Terrified, the populace panicked and were quickly drawn back under the familiar control of the one person who responded calmly and authoritatively with a clear plan and a clear enemy to blame. Consider by analogy to religion the threat of Hell posed as an alternative to God’s order; or to strongman politicians whipping up the fears of the electorate against outsiders.

Furthermore, there's an additional problem: Which side wins the schism? We know that MM stops the schism, but it doesn't tell you which side wins! (By Ishmael, something very weird happened: They both won! Some islanders wanted to sail off, and they won, some Islanders want Ishmael to stop being the island's faciliator, and they won - he stopped, and some islanders wanted to stay under his control - and they won, while Ishmael wanted to keep leading them without them eating apples - and he won (while the ones who wanted to eat apples ended up winning too, when ink brought them some). But overall, the biggest winner was Ishmael, because the islanders kept following him.)

At this point we’re in the realms of absolute fantasy, but it’s equally worth pointing out that, in fact, everyone except Ishmael lost. Those who wanted to leave the island were forced to continue under his rule, while those who wanted to continue under his rule were forced to leave; and quite possibly everyone died regardless.

Thus, we can now understand a few weird things in TGG and TPP:
What was the cocktail party plot in TPP? And who was behind it?
The plot as it was made no sense. What are the chances of the crows dying, and then dropping the bowl, into the chute? Almost zero. And how in the world did Esme figure out that the sugar bowl is arriving by crow, and how did the crows get the sugar bowl in the first place?

What makes you think that Esmé figured it out, or gave you the idea that the crows picked up the sugar bowl of their own accord? Clearly the delivery was arranged by whichever volunteers the sugar bowl ended up in the hands of, and the villains simply intercepted a communication explaining this. And although you complain that the plot made no sense, in actual fact, two-thirds of it went off without a hitch and was observed to do so, indicating that, in fact, it was a reasonable course of events to expect within the logic of this fictional universe; even the failure of the sugar bowl to land in the laundry’s steam funnel was actually planned rather than an accident. I fail to see how this is less likely than a poisonous medicine which magically stops schisms.

Furthermore, how did Dewey ever think the trial would succeed? He checked out the whole history of the Sinister Duo! Surely he knew what they did nowadays!

You’ve failed to understand the significance of the law passed by the High Court ruling that the principle of “Justice is blind” should be interpreted as requiring the blindfolding of everyone except the judges. This is clearly a measure to protect the sinister duo’s public identities.

The answer, as Dewey Denouement says, is "Decoy."
I think Dewey was the mastermind behind the plot. He convinced Esme and Olaf to make a party to poison everyone with the Medusoid Mycelium. And he invited everyone, or told Esme to invite everyone who ever had anything to do with VFD and the schism. And he told Esme (as Ernest) that the sugar bowl is arriving by crow.

Convenient that they never mention any of this.

Compare these two statements about the sugar bowl:

“It doesn’t matter, Baudelaires,” Jerome said. “Olaf won’t dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium unless he gets his hands on the sugar bowl, and he’ll never find it.”

And

“You won’t dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium,” Dewey said. “Not while I have the sugar bowl."

Note that Dewey slightly changes it: Not while "you don't have the sugar bowl", but rather, "while I have the sugar bowl". Jerome isn't in on the plot, and has no clue what's in the sugar bowl. But Dewey is! Olaf won't release the MM, because if he does, and VFD or Dewey have the sugar bowl, THEY win the schism, ending it how they want, and everything else! And then they get to bring everyone to justice!

The two statements are not mutually exclusive, and for that matter, I think Jerome’s deserves further interrogation. Why would he believe Olaf wouldn’t unleash the Medusoid Mycelium without the sugar bowl? Surely Olaf could simply comb the corpse-filled hotel for it. It’s also worth noting that Dewey does not, in fact, physically possess the sugar bowl at that moment, which indicates that he is not necessarily referring to some unique neutralising advantage; had Olaf unleashed the Medusoid Mycelium at that very moment, there was nothing Dewey could have done about it, even under the terms of your theory.

Now we can explain Dewey's plan: 
1) Poison the Baudelaire's helmets so that Esme and Olaf get a hold of Medusoid Mycelium. 
2) Leave the submarine empty, without horseradish. 
3) Force the Baudelaires to go to Olaf's submarine with the MM, in order to get horseradish. Olaf gets the MM. Most Volunteers have horseradish on them thanks to the factory, and Olaf is certainly familiar with MM. The most  logical solution is for the Baudelaires to go to Olaf.
4) Baudelaires trade MM for Horseradish.
5) Olaf gets MM, heads to hotel.
6) Tell Justice Strauss about the "trial" so she tells the fellow judges, who are the sinister duo. This ensures they will be there.
7) Get Jerome Squalor to hint to Esme about the sugar bowl arriving via crow, (as a way to make up?)
8) Convince Esme and Olaf through the Sinister Duo to make a cocktail party with secret ingredients in the hors de vors. Suggest they should literally eat crow.
9) Plant a fake sugar bowl in the Laundry room (this did not end up happening, as Dewey died, or someone took it before the door was opened (Lemony). More on this later.
10) Get Esme and Olaf to release the MM, because they think they have the sugar bowl.
11) Use the real sugar bowl to end the schism and win.
12) If all else fails, burn down hotel.
(I'm sure Dewey would have no compunction poisoning a Baudelaire if it was necessary for the greater good. He basically told them to burn down the hotel.)

Interestingly, this is the same exact plot as Olaf's! 

You seem to have left out a considerable amount of explanatory context for this stage of your theory. Are you seriously suggesting that Dewey orchestrated the entire plot of TGG? You make some enormous assumptions about what was both reasonable and possible. Your characterisation of Dewey as Machiavellian mastermind also crumbles in the face of the fact that this plan went wrong at just about every stage. Violet and Klaus’s helmets weren’t poisoned, and it’s clear that Sunny’s was poisoned in the grotto, not outside of it; the Baudelaires weren’t forced to turn to Olaf for help, he captured them; and the very idea that they were in a position to trade anything with Olaf, much less horseradish which there’s no indication he possesses, is ludicrous. The idea to burn down the hotel certainly didn’t come from Dewey, and he ended up dead and without the schism having ended. This all speaks very little for the idea that he was a master of ingenious plans within plans who casually risked the lives of hundreds. Contrast to the canon version of events, in which Dewey’s plan went off perfectly.

(Esme Squalor knew there was a chance of not getting the SB, and thus, she told Colette to become a chemist. The same way the sugar bowl contains something organic that stops schisms and lets you win. Esme thought that there was a chance of it not working, and thus tried getting Colette to synthesize it.)

This is silly. Wearing a chemist’s outfit, as a disguise, does not make one a chemist; and when was Colette supposed to learn and practice advanced biochemistry with unbelievably rare ingredients in the space of a couple of days, during at least part of which she was running about the Hotel Denouement spying on people? She certainly makes no mention of this herself, and there’s nothing to indicate her role was any different than that of her fellow freaks; she was simply disguised in a manner which concealed her facial features and unique physical attributes. Consider the gift Colette was given by Esmé in TCC; not unlike the chemist’s “long, white coat” (TPP p. 115), is it?

Olaf’s girlfriend reached into the ack and pulled out the long, black robe that they had seen in the trunk of the automobile. “It’s so baggy,” Esmé explained, “that you can twist your body any which way, and no one will notice that you’re a contortionist.”

-TCC, p. 185

[TheAsh]

Dante - thanks a million for your lengthy post constructive criticism! This is exactly what I needed! I will reanalyze the evidence and your criticism and reconstruct my theory accordingly.

One point - I think that Dante had the sugar bowl the whole time. I don't think the crows brought the actual sugar bowl. If the "good side of schism" had the sugar bowl from TGG, there's no reason they wouldn't transport it in a safe matter (I.e, with Kit or some other volunteer). I also don't think that the Medusoid Mycelium has a "magical" or even "medicinal" property that stops schisms, merely that unleashing it stops a schism if everyone needs to follow you (and that's the good benefit a la medicinal properties. Not that they actually planned to murder people). Which whatever's in the sugar bowl ensures that it happens. Also, re Dewey's plan failing: That's quite thematic, no? And in regards to Klaus: If there's one theme that I always feel defines the book it's this: Klaus's conclusions are nearly always wrong. 

JeanLucio10 - Thank you so much for your criticism. To paraphrease Dante, If even you don't agree with me, I'm on the wrong path . There's one thing that bothers me: Kit tried telling them that the apple has a cure. Why would the islanders trust Ishmael over Kit if he has just conclusively been proven to be a liar? Human psychology tries to save one's life in any means possible. In real life, the most likely result in such a case would be a mass riot, not everyone following a leader blindly. Also, I don't think the hybrid has mycelium, but rather a different plant, because we see Kit breathing mycelium in and it not affecting the baby. Thus, there must be some other poison in the hybrid which does harm the baby.

I'll restate my theory, with both your criticism in mind in a future post. Thank you both so much for your help!

[Hermes]

Feb 13, 2020 16:38:27 GMT -5 Dante said:

Contrast to the solutions to the V.F.D. and Beatrice mysteries; there were always people who desperately wanted those obvious solutions not to be the correct ones, too, but they were fated to be disappointed. We forget that now, with the series is complete; but those obvious solutions too indicate that the truth was neither meant to be complicated nor possible to dispute. It’s a clear sign that something went wrong in the writing process for any mystery without such an easy solution.

I'm not sure I agree. Yes, there are clear answers for VFD and Beatrice, and I would add, possibly to your displeasure, the survivor of the fire (where something did go wrong, but not in such a way as to obscure the intended answer) and JS. But I would take it that the SB is meant from the start to be mysterious, and crafted for that purpose.

In THH, the sugar bowl is just something Lemony once stole from Esme; the event was important (and at that point, we should remember, the fact that L knew E is a revelation), but there's no suggestion the bowl as an ongoing object is. In TCC, the bowl is only mentioned once, as something that may arouse painful memories. In TUA it seems to be a widely-used piece of VFD equipment. It first leaps to prominence as a single object of great importance in TSS, the book in which the theme of how mysterious everything is first foregrounded. And the next book, TGG, effectively tells us that we will never find out what is in it; the captain says that some things are too terrible for young people to know, and Lemony says he was right.

I think the SB was added with a deliberate aim of creating a mystery, because DH did not want to end the series with everything answered; that would produce a depressing feeling of 'is that all?'. The questions we started out with are answered, but as they are answered new mysteries appear, because we can never know everything.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Currently, I will appreciate theoretical answers about what is in the SB that fits with what is written, even if that was not Daniel Handler's intention. So far, I liked the whistle that controls the TGU, and I liked the poison.

My feelings about SB are completely different from my feelings about Beatrice's mystery. I believe that Daniel Handler did in fact plan that Beatrice survived for many years after the fire in her house and that Daniel Handler intentionally left clues to it throughout the different works.

[TheAsh]

Feb 9, 2020 15:35:47 GMT -5 TheAsh said:

Considering that Daniel Handler claims that there is a solution to the Sugar Bowl mystery, and it isn't one that most people expect, I wanted to share my solution here and see what people think:

First of all, the one thing we know is that there's a reason why people drink their tea as bitter as wormwood:

“No,” Ishmael said with another frown. “There was some argument about his name, actually, as he appeared to use several names depending on what he was wearing. In any case, the student in my class began to be very suspicious about the tea her guardian would pour for her when she got home from school. Rather than drink it, she would dump it into a houseplant that had been used to decorate a well-known stylish restaurant with a fish theme.”
“Café Salmonella,” Violet said
“No,” Ishmael said, and frowned once more. “The Bistro Smelt. Of course, my student realized she couldn’t keep feeding tea to the houseplant, particularly after it withered away and the houseplant’s owner was whisked off to Peru aboard a mysterious ship.”
“The Prospero,” Klaus said.
Ishmael offered the youngsters yet another frown. “Yes,” he said, “although at the time the ship was called the Pericles. But my student didn’t know that. She only wanted to avoid being poisoned, and I had an idea that an antidote might be hidden—”
“Yaw,” Sunny interrupted, and her siblings nodded in agreement. By “yaw,” the youngest Baudelaire meant “Ishmael’s story is tangential,” a word which here means “answering questions other than the ones the Baudelaires had asked.”
“We want to know what’s going on here on the island, at this very moment,” Violet said, “not what happened in a classroom many years ago.”
“But what is happening now and what happened then are part of the same story,” Ishmael said. “If I don’t tell you how I came to prefer tea that’s as bitter as wormwood, then you won’t know how I came to have a very important conversation with a waiter in a lakeside town. 

So, the reason why people drink tea that's bitter as wormwood, has something to do with poison.  But we don't know how, or what the poison is. But we learn something very crucial about this posion: That it isn't really poisonous! This student had been drinking the tea for quite some time, and had never died! Rather, this poison must be some sort of sedative, or controlling agent. But it's not a real poison. 

So what is that poison? That's the wrong question (for now at least)! Rather, the right question is, why was the guardian serving this girl (we'll call her D, based on Snicket Sleuth's interpretation of the family tree) tea every afternoon?

Well, we find someone else who was given tea, though not in the afternoon: The Snickets. In TUA we find:

My mother asked the same question when she returned home that fateful day and found waiting for her not three young children but one worried husband and two half-full cups of tea. 

And the song points out:

The siblings two were drinking tea.

Now, note that this was a consensual "kidnapping". The children were taken with their parents consent (though the mother wishes they would've waited one more day). Also, note the emphasis on tea, (both in the song and Lemony's notes), and Jacques' insistence that he was allowed to finish his tea. (We'll return to that particular point later in the theory.) 

For some reason, when the Snickets joined VFD, they were given tea to drink. This unknown woman gave D tea to drink, which she suspected was poisoned. And there's at least one other family who was given tea to drink when they joined VFD:

“I also brought you some tea,” he said, revealing a tray containing a teapot and three cups. “I thought it might fortify you for the trial.”
By “fortify,” the manager meant that a few sips of tea might give the children some much-needed strength for their ordeal, and the children thought it must be Frank who was doing them such a favor. “You’re very kind,” Violet said.

I suspect drinking the tea makes you join VFD. But what does the sugar have to do with it?

I'll save that for my next post, as I need to organize my writing on it.

Just rereading this, and the opening of Who Could That Be at This Hour?, and it's made explicitly clear there that drinking the tea makes you join one of the sides of VFD. It's also written there that the tea contains  a poison or a draught, confirming one of my theories. While it's possible that Daniel handler only thought of this after finishing ASOUE, it's possible he always had this in mind.


Also, I find it interesting that there's a number of references to opera, and especially The Tryptich, in which Hemlock is used as poison, though I don't know what to make of it, as I've never seen them.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

A moment The Ash ... I think I need a cup of tea now ... Could you elaborate your conclusion about this in a specific thread so that  Dante (and Hermes) and anyone else (me) can discuss calmly about it?