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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Feb 18, 2020 16:39:27 GMT -5
This letter is very controversial. When was it written? I defended the idea that the letter was written a few years after the events described in ASOUE, at the time of the publication of the books. I also defended the idea that Dr. Sebald mentioned in the letter is actually Sally Sebald. But now I do a rectification. The letter may have been written at the time of the events recorded in TRR. As indicated by the draft that Babs had stored, Lemony began to write the initial sketches of ASOUE at the time of the recorded events. So it is quite possible that Lemony tried to meet Gustav Sebald to return the script for Zombies in the Snow. Gustav may not have attended this meeting because he was killed by Count Olaf. Now it is necessary to adjust some things. First, the secret code contained in the Zombie in the Snow script did not refer to the Baudelaires. The film was not recorded at the time of the main events recorded in ASOUE. The film was shot many years earlier, as indicated in Sally Sebald's letter to Lemony Snicket. The survivor in question was neither Beatrice nor Quigley, but he was the boy in the photo with a question mark. This was some old case. Lemony quotes in the letter that the subject of a biography of him could be "Lemony Snicket the story of three siblings, at least one of them is dead." I believed that this meant that the letter had been written after Jacque Snicket's death. However, talking to Snicket Sleuth he gave me a good alternative. He said that Lemony was probably referring to himself, considering that if someone else published his biography, he would be dead and so he would not be able to publish his own autobiography as he would have liked to do in life. It makes a lot of sense.
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Post by Hermes on Feb 20, 2020 12:27:10 GMT -5
Many interesting questions here.
a. When was the letter written? I agree that it was during the events of ASOUE. It seems most likely that Dr Sebald was killed by Olaf, which necessarily puts it before his death. (It is probable that DH intended Gustav Sebald to be the same person as Gustav the assistant, which clearly puts this at the beginning of TRR, an interpretation which is also followed by the show; however, it's impossible to make chronological sense of this, at least if the secret message was indeed directed to Monty and refereed to Stefano; so it's better to suppose they are both named after the same dead person, and their death in Swarthy Swamp is just one of the strange parallels to which this universe is prone.) Sally's letter, on the other hand, comes some years later.
b. When was the film made? It certainly looks as if it was made during the action of ASOUE: it's hard to see why Lemony would want to interview Dr Sebald about a film made long before, and the line about Monty not learning Sebald code would make little sense if the message was not addressed to him. The main problem is the reference to 'Omar'. Here, I think, we have to say that Sally is confused. Perhaps Zombies in the Snow is a remake of an old film, as ATWQ suggests, and Olaf took part in the original; or perhaps he played Young Rolf in other films of Sebald's (since we know from one of the fragments we have - either in TNNovel or in TPPuzzles - that the character appeared in them). Or of course perhaps 'Omar' isn't Olaf after all.
c. Who is the survivor of the fire? I think that when DH wrote this he intended it to be Quigley. The chapter is headed 'Where are the Quagmire Triplets now?', and it includes a picture of three children, siblings of about the same age, two of whom were sent to Prufrock Prep. However, when we meet Quigley his story is quite different, and we never after this get any suggestion that he is lying. So from a Watsonian point of view, I accept Dante's proposal that the two children sent to Prufrock Prep are the two orphans later recruited by Kit (or by Ms K, if you insist), and that the survivor is their brother. (I believe Dante and I came up indpendently with the idea that one of the three might be Violet's friend Ben: but that's headcanon, of course, not theorising.) In any case the survivor is a child, and not Beatrice, and those - both Lemony and the Baudelaires - who interpreted it as referring to Beatrice were deceiving themselves.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Feb 20, 2020 13:31:39 GMT -5
Hermes, there is a hidden, nameless hand that participated in the writing of LSTUA (actually within the universe of Lemony Snicket). That hidden hand wrote the original chapter titles. This hidden hand exists in the editors of LSTUA. They received several documents that had been collected by Lemony Snicket himself. Then they created the titles for each of the 13 sections. These titles were created according to the interpretation that the editors give to that set of documents. After they finished the job, the editors sent LSTUA back to Lemony Snicket. Lemony disapproved of all those titles for each section, and gave each section a more appropriate title. Thus, the original title represents the careless interpretation of the editors, while the handwritten title represents the interpretation intended by Lemony Snicket.
With respect to the idea of Remake. I can say that it is an interesting solution, but it involves resorting to a non-canonical device unnecessarily. We need to remember something important about the taxi driver theory. If we believe that Lemony Snicket is that mysterious taxi driver in TPP and at the same time we believe that Lemony Snicket had already started writing sketches of the Baudelaires' history while the events recorded in the books were in progress, we need to believe that Lemony Snicket during the events narrated in ASOUE in addition to researching the Baudelaires, he was also carrying out missions for VFD that were not necessarily directly related to the Baudelaires. When Daniel Handler wrote LSTUA he already had in mind the concept that the ASOUE universe does not revolve around the Baudelaires. At no point in this letter, Lemony states that his interest in the film Zombies in the Snow is directly related to his interest in the Baudelaires or his interest in the Quaquimire.
In fact, Lemony's goal in ordering the script apparently was to know whether Uncle Monty knew the Sebald code or not. Lemony states this explicitly in the letter. He wrote: "I was to return these pages 19 hours ago - now that I know that Dr. Montgomery never learned the Sebald code."
Maybe Lemony wanted to know if it was viable or not to send a message to Uncle Monty via Sebald code. If this was the case, the answer is no. Coincidentally, after Sebald's death, and after the children arrived, Uncle Monty watched this same film together with the Baudelaires. But no one was trying to get a message through to him through this film.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Feb 23, 2020 21:03:27 GMT -5
Another great piece of evidence that I forgot to highlight that indicates that Lemony started writing TBB during the recorded events, but was unable to publish it to the general public immediately is what Lemony wrote just before the signing.
Lemony wrote:
This proves that Lemony had already written something about the Baudelaires at the time that preceded the events recorded in TRR, but he had not yet managed to publish any book. I need to recognize that the word "finally" here seems strange because the Baudelaires were still at the beginning of their misfortunes. I have come to imagine that Lemony At that time when referring to Baudelaire orphans, he could refer to Bertrand and another brother or sister, and that Lemony was originally writing about them. Or about Beatrice and some brother or sister, and that Lemony would be writing about them. But I cannot guarantee this without using a non-canonical device.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 4, 2020 16:30:17 GMT -5
Sorry for the long delay in responding to this. Also, my comments on ASOUE-related matters will be a bit vague now, as most of my books are locked in my office, where I cannot go.
So, about the questions in TUA. I think it's clear that there is a connection between these questions and the chapters, because in several cases the question is indeed answered in the chapter; this is true at least of 'Why has LS devoted his life to the Baudelaire case?', 'Why is Mr Poe not as helpful as he ought to be?', and 'Is there anything a concerened citizen can do if they want to help the Baudelaires?'. In other cases the chapter contains a clue to the answer, e.g, in 'Who is Beatrice?' we get a reference to her whistling abilities, which links her with the Baudelaires' mother.
So why does Lemony say these are the wrong questions? I suspect because they are too obvious and give too much away. The substituted questions are more cryptic, generally not making sense unless one is already familiar with the chapter; they will confuse villains, and serve as a challenge for volunteers.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 5, 2020 0:21:52 GMT -5
I believe it is true that the chapters contain content that matches the original title of each chapter. This indicates that the book's editors read the content and deduced what snickets were looking for. This deduction was wrong, as they missed the target audience of the book. See the title of chapter 3: "Why does Count Olaf have a tattoo on his ankle?" This is a question that could interest the general public. But snickets already knew that answer. They were not collecting documents to answer that. in some cases. I believe the title "Where are the Quaquimre triplets now?" was chosen by someone who mistakenly deduced that the photo referred to the Q triplets.
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Post by Hermes on Apr 5, 2020 6:06:25 GMT -5
I accept that as an in-story explanation of what happened. But out of story, I think DH wanted the chapters to help us answer these questions, so that it makes sense to look in the chapters for clues to the answers. (Except 'How many associates has Count Olaf?', which is an odd question anyway, and where the editor seems clearly to be misreading the clues.)
One thing that has just struck me is that this links up with the retconning of the date of the Quagmire fire. There's lots of evidence that this was orginally meant to come before the Baudelaire fire; the 'three semesters' thing, Brett (in TUA itself) saying he never believed the accusations against L over 'the Quagmire affair', perhaps also Lulu's 'You said that about Quagmire fortune'. But later it seems to be settled that it came after the Baudelaire fire, as is shown by Quigley's story, and also possibly by a passage about chopped wood in BBRE. Now if the Quagmire fire happened after Monty's death, clearly Quigley cannot be the survivor who Dr Sebald refers to in a message to Monty. So in the light of that we have to reinterpret TUA, and say that the editor misunderstood. But in the original context, it makes sense for the surivor to be Quigley, and I still think that's what DH inended.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 5, 2020 8:23:22 GMT -5
Ok ... Let's assume your premises for a moment, and see how far they take us ... 1 - During the writing of LSTUA, Daniel Handler thought about making the fire of mansion Q happen before the fire of mansion B.
2 - When Daniel Handler wrote the secret message of the movie Zombies in the Snow, he thought about making this message apply to Quigley.
3 - During the writing of LSTUA, Daniel Handler had already thought of making Quigley a survivor of the fire. In this context, Quigley was hidden inside a snowman that was part of the film Zombies in the Snow.
I have to admit that these are possible scenarios. But from there, we faced some difficulties.
If these assumptions are right, Daniel Handler wanted the photos of the three children to actually represent the triplets Q. This seems strange, since Isadora and Ducan's descriptions are very different from the photos. But even so, it is possible due to the discussions regarding the credibility of the photos in LSTUA that are still in progress.
The second difficulty is the fact that someone Sally thinks is possible to be "Omar" participated in the recording of the film. This difficulty can be overcome if we believe that it is not Olaf after all, or if we believe that the fire was so long before Olaf was still a VFD actor ... well that is possible.
Furthermore, it is Gustav who would have recorded this film after being informed of Poe's decision to take the Baudelaires to Monty's house and before he was murdered. This is possible, due to the fact that the time between the events described in TBB and the events described in TRR is not revealed.
But what bothers me most is how Gustav would know about Olaf's intentions to go undercover as Monty's new assistant. Even considering that there are two Gustavs, the whole situation is very confusing. Considering all these premises, we have information about when the film would have been recorded. It would have to have been after the death of Monty's original assistant, because only then would it be possible to know that Count Olaf would replace the original assistant. In addition, we would have the moment when the film director was killed. The moment of the director's death was when Lemony wrote the letter to the Cheesemakers or a little earlier. However, according to Sally, the film director left the snowman for several days after he realized that the message was not received. It is important to note that the director remained in the city where the film was recorded during these days. I will not say that these possibilities are not real. I think all this is possible, even if there are two Gustavs ... But I think this is unlikely ...
And if we associate this with Mimi's quote about watching a zombie movie in the winter ... It seems more likely and simpler, that Daniel Handler never intended to create another Gustav, and that he always thought of Zombies in the Snow as being a very old film with a very old message. It seems to me much more likely that the original title of the chapter is and always has been a Red Haring. (The Quaquimires have always been involved with Red Harings, after all).
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Post by Marlowe on Jul 1, 2020 17:48:27 GMT -5
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Post by Dante on Jul 3, 2020 6:18:23 GMT -5
Interesting thread; not sure why I haven't made any contributions to it in the past, though perhaps it's because I don't see anything especially significant in the major discussion to draw attention to. I do just want to drop in a few points, though. b. When was the film made? It certainly looks as if it was made during the action of ASOUE: it's hard to see why Lemony would want to interview Dr Sebald about a film made long before, and the line about Monty not learning Sebald code would make little sense if the message was not addressed to him. The main problem is the reference to 'Omar'. Here, I think, we have to say that Sally is confused. Perhaps Zombies in the Snow is a remake of an old film, as ATWQ suggests, and Olaf took part in the original; or perhaps he played Young Rolf in other films of Sebald's (since we know from one of the fragments we have - either in TNNovel or in TPPuzzles - that the character appeared in them). Or of course perhaps 'Omar' isn't Olaf after all. For what it's worth, I'm not convinced that File Under (p. 156) is attempting to make a literal statement that the Mitchums saw Zombies in the Snow. It's definitely a reference to that film - well, homage might be closer to the mark - but in a book packed with sometimes dubious ASoUE allusions, I suspect that this was an in-joke for the fans rather than a clue for the theorists. In retrospect, the possibility exists that the question as to who the three photographed children in the Sebald letter are does not have or is not intended to have a definitive answer. The U.A.'s agenda is ambiguity and the multiplication of possible readings, usually regardless of whether or not they make any sense, and it would be just like the book to make sure there were at least two answers to any possible question. In fact, Lemony's goal in ordering the script apparently was to know whether Uncle Monty knew the Sebald code or not. Lemony states this explicitly in the letter. He wrote: "I was to return these pages 19 hours ago - now that I know that Dr. Montgomery never learned the Sebald code." Maybe Lemony wanted to know if it was viable or not to send a message to Uncle Monty via Sebald code. If this was the case, the answer is no. Coincidentally, after Sebald's death, and after the children arrived, Uncle Monty watched this same film together with the Baudelaires. But no one was trying to get a message through to him through this film. Good reading. I don't think I've seen this point given the same degree of attention in the past, but this makes a lot of sense. So, about the questions in TUA. I think it's clear that there is a connection between these questions and the chapters, because in several cases the question is indeed answered in the chapter; this is true at least of 'Why has LS devoted his life to the Baudelaire case?', 'Why is Mr Poe not as helpful as he ought to be?', and 'Is there anything a concerened citizen can do if they want to help the Baudelaires?'. In other cases the chapter contains a clue to the answer, e.g, in 'Who is Beatrice?' we get a reference to her whistling abilities, which links her with the Baudelaires' mother. So why does Lemony say these are the wrong questions? I suspect because they are too obvious and give too much away. The substituted questions are more cryptic, generally not making sense unless one is already familiar with the chapter; they will confuse villains, and serve as a challenge for volunteers. I think it's important, in this regard, not to forget the real reason why the chapters are titled and then retitled: Humour. Dangling before us the chance to have all of our pressing questions answered and then yanking it away is a vital element in the Snicket style, and it's quite plain that this is exactly what is going on with these massive questions about the mysteries of the series being contrasted with obscure and seemingly inconsequential replacements; and I feel that at times in this discussion this simple fact may have been overlooked. This is significant because I firmly believe that the humour consideration inspired and indeed overrode all rational in-story justifications for this particular decision; consequently, the possibility exists that the in-story explanation may be a rather shaky one. (It's even possible that Handler didn't actually come up with an in-story explanation.) If these assumptions are right, Daniel Handler wanted the photos of the three children to actually represent the triplets Q. This seems strange, since Isadora and Ducan's descriptions are very different from the photos. I'm curious if you could clarify which descriptions you mean by this. Character description is extremely thin on the ground in Snicket's work. Personally, I always think of it as Beatrice who is the most associated with red herrings; though perhaps it would be more accurate to say she is more associated with Ned H. Rirgers. But it's true that, as far as we know, she was never shipped about in a giant red herring statue (though at some point she may also have been shipped around in a container on the back of a wildly-driven truck).
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jul 6, 2020 16:29:29 GMT -5
In fact, Lemony's goal in ordering the script apparently was to know whether Uncle Monty knew the Sebald code or not. Lemony states this explicitly in the letter. He wrote: "I was to return these pages 19 hours ago - now that I know that Dr. Montgomery never learned the Sebald code." Maybe Lemony wanted to know if it was viable or not to send a message to Uncle Monty via Sebald code. If this was the case, the answer is no. Coincidentally, after Sebald's death, and after the children arrived, Uncle Monty watched this same film together with the Baudelaires. But no one was trying to get a message through to him through this film. Good reading. I don't think I've seen this point given the same degree of attention in the past, but this makes a lot of sense. Thanks!! You know that words like that from you have a great meaning for me. If these assumptions are right, Daniel Handler wanted the photos of the three children to actually represent the triplets Q. This seems strange, since Isadora and Ducan's descriptions are very different from the photos. I'm curious if you could clarify which descriptions you mean by this. Character description is extremely thin on the ground in Snicket's work. TAA chapter 3: "Oh, leave them alone, Carmelita!" a voice cried over the chanting. The Baudelaires turned around and saw a boy with very dark hair and very wide eyes. He looked a little older than Klaus and a little younger than Violet and had a dark green notebook tucked into the pocket of his thick wool sweater. "You're the cakesniffer, and nobody in their right mind would want to eat with you anyway. Come on," the boy said, turning to the Baudelaires. "There's room at our table." "Thank you very much," Violet said in relief and followed the boy to a table that had plenty of room. He sat down next to a girl who looked absolutely identical to the boy. She looked about the same age, and also had very dark hair, very wide eyes, and a notebook tucked into the pocket of her thick wool sweater. The only difference seemed to be that the girl's notebook was pitch black. Seeing two people who look so much alike is a little bit eerie, but it was better than looking at Carmelita Spats, so the Baudelaires sat down across from them and introduced themselves. "I'm Violet Baudelaire," said Violet Baudelaire, "and this is my brother, Klaus, and our baby sister, Sunny." "It's nice to meet you," said the boy. "My name is Duncan Quagmire, and this is my sister, Isadora. And the girl who was yelling at you, I'm sorry to say, was Carmelita Spats." In the photo sent by Sally Sebald, the children have blonde hair.
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Post by Dante on Jul 7, 2020 6:34:40 GMT -5
TAA chapter 3: "Oh, leave them alone, Carmelita!" a voice cried over the chanting. The Baudelaires turned around and saw a boy with very dark hair and very wide eyes. He looked a little older than Klaus and a little younger than Violet and had a dark green notebook tucked into the pocket of his thick wool sweater. "You're the cakesniffer, and nobody in their right mind would want to eat with you anyway. Come on," the boy said, turning to the Baudelaires. "There's room at our table." "Thank you very much," Violet said in relief and followed the boy to a table that had plenty of room. He sat down next to a girl who looked absolutely identical to the boy. She looked about the same age, and also had very dark hair, very wide eyes, and a notebook tucked into the pocket of her thick wool sweater. The only difference seemed to be that the girl's notebook was pitch black. Seeing two people who look so much alike is a little bit eerie, but it was better than looking at Carmelita Spats, so the Baudelaires sat down across from them and introduced themselves. "I'm Violet Baudelaire," said Violet Baudelaire, "and this is my brother, Klaus, and our baby sister, Sunny." "It's nice to meet you," said the boy. "My name is Duncan Quagmire, and this is my sister, Isadora. And the girl who was yelling at you, I'm sorry to say, was Carmelita Spats." In the photo sent by Sally Sebald, the children have blonde hair. Very astute of you. To be honest, I'm disinclined to place that much emphasis on the consistency of the photographs with the text when it comes to physical description - but at the same time, given that I've never thought that photograph was of the Quagmires anyway, I am equally disinclined to belabour the point.
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