The identity of Charles and JS

[TheAsh]

It's not often in VFD-land when you solve a mystery and you're  100%  sure you're correct, but i think I've done it.

One of the most mysterious characters in TPP is this Charles:

“I’m sorry this is so disorganized,” she said. “I haven’t had time to update my commonplace book. My brother used to say that if only one had a little more time to do some important reading, all the secrets in the world would become clear. I’ve scarcely looked at these maps, poems, and blueprints that Charles sent me, or chosen wallpaper for the baby’s room. Wait one moment, Baudelaires. I’ll find it.”

Who is this Charles? Neither "The" Charles (Sir's partner) nor Charles Snicket make any sense.  I think this is a third Charles, a previously unknown member of VFD, who was invented by Daniel Handler for a specific purpose.

The biggest unsolved mystery in TPP is the identity(s) of J.S. If you look at the letters J.S. sends, (as opposed to the spoken messages) they all have something in common: They all are inviting specific people to Esme's and Olaf's cock tail party, with one exception:

“I didn’t,” Sir said, “until now. You’re not the only one who gets notes from this fellow J. S. I’m invited to a party he’s hosting on Thursday night, and he said I should bring all my valuables. That must mean plenty of rich people will be there—rich people who might want to buy some lumber.”

and

“I’m very excited about my recital,” Vice Principal Nero said, as the small elevator began its journey to the ninth story. “I’m sure all of the music critics at the cocktail party will love my performance. As soon as I’m recognized as a genius, I can finally quit my job at Prufrock Prep!”
“How do you know there will be music critics at the party?” Mr. Remora asked. “My invitation just said there’d be an all-you-can-eat banana buffet.”
“Mine didn’t say anything about music critics, either,” Mrs. Bass said. “It just says that there’s a party in celebration of the metric system, and that I should bring as many valuables as possible so they could be measured. As a teacher, I don’t earn enough money to purchase any valuables, so I had to resort to a life of crime.

There's one exception: Charles' letter. Charles letter makes no sense at all!

 “You’re the one who said enemies might be lurking in this hotel!”
“That’s what I was told in the letter I received,” Charles said. “According to J. S., we must be very cautious if we want to find the Baudelaires.”
Klaus was grateful that his amazed expression was hidden in the steam. The middle Baudelaire could not imagine why the mysterious impostor J. S was helping Charles find him and his sisters, and if it had not been so hot in the sauna he would have broken out in a cold sweat, a phrase which here means “felt very nervous about the conversation he was observing.”
“I don’t want to find the Baudelaires!” Sir said. “Those orphans were nothing but trouble for the lumbermill!”
“They weren’t the cause of the trouble,” Charles said. “Count Olaf was. Don’t you remember?”
“Of course I remember!” Sir cried. “I’m not an idiot! Count Olaf disguised himself as a rather attractive young lady, and worked with that sinister hypnotist to cause accidents in my mill! If the Baudelaires didn’t have that fortune waiting for them in the bank, Olaf never would have done all that mischief! It’s the orphans’ fault!”
“I suppose you’re right,” Charles said, “but I still would like to find them. According to The Daily Punctilio, the Baudelaires are in a heap of trouble.”
“According to The Daily Punctilio,” Sir said, “the Baudelaires are murderers! For all we know, that bookworm with the eyeglasses could sneak up on us right here in the hotel and kill us to death!”
“The children aren’t going to murder us,” Charles said, “although after their experiences at Lucky Smells I could hardly blame them. In fact, if I manage to find them, the first thing I’ll do is give them my sincere apologies. Perhaps I can ask one of the concierges for a pair of binoculars. J. S. said they might be arriving by submarine, so I could watch for a periscope rising from the sea.”
“I wish our room had a view of the pond instead,” Sir said. “When I’m done with a cigar, I like to drop the butt into a calm body of water and watch the pretty ripples."
“I’m not sure that would be good for the pond,” Charles said.
“What do I care about the pond?” Sir demanded. “I have better things to do than worry about the environment. The Finite Forest is running low on trees, so business is bad for the lumbermill. The last big order we had was for building that horseradish factory, and that was a very long time ago. I’m hoping Thursday’s cocktail party will be an excellent opportunity to do some business. After all, if it weren’t for my lumber, this hotel wouldn’t even exist!”
“I remember,” Charles said. “We had to deliver the lumber in the middle of the night. But Sir, you told me you never heard from that organization again.”
“I didn’t,” Sir said, “until now. You’re not the only one who gets notes from this fellow J. S. I’m invited to a party he’s hosting on Thursday night, and he said I should bring all my valuables. That must mean plenty of rich people will be there—rich people who might want to buy some lumber.”
“Perhaps if the lumbermill becomes more successful,” Charles said, “we could pay our employees with money, instead of just gum and coupons.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Sir said. “Gum and coupons is a fair deal! If you spent less time reading and more time thinking about lumber, you’d care more about money and less about people!”
“There’s nothing wrong with caring about people,” Charles said quietly. “I care about you, Sir. And I care about the Baudelaires. If what J. S. wrote is true, then their parents—”

When read in context, it's clear that Charles letter was never meant to go to him at all! Charles has accidentally intercepted a secret VFD message meant for the other Charles! This Charles is clueless about VFD and has no clue about the secrecy of the letter! Daniel Handler invented the other Charles to "tell" the reader that Charles' letter from JS is not addressed to him at all, and is not the same J.S. as the other letters, and is in fact a secret VFD communication from the real J.S. 

[Dante]

Yes, the identity of Charles's J.S. has long been mysterious, and indeed there was another thread on the subject not long ago - and I'm sure I recall discussing the subject extensively with Jean Lucio at some point. There being an additional Charles is certainly a novel idea, though I don't find it particularly favourable myself; the idea of Charles working with Kit in this capacity is curious, but not entirely unbelievable - and your reasoning for the introduction of the new Charles appears circular: Handler invented a second Charles to indicate that Charles's letter was actually meant for... a second Charles? The existence of a "spare", unexplained J.S. has been inferred by all and sundry over the years anyway, so a spare Charles to point the way to this person seems unnecessary; it merely duplicates the problem rather than resolving anything. My own answer to the problem is that there are probably many more J.S.s than we ever encounter, and any unexplained references are merely yet more figures from other stories briefly intersecting with that of ASoUE. (Alternatively, since Daniel Handler's plotting has a distinct tendency towards the "loose", the unexplained J.S. may even be an outright error...)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Ash, I'm happy whenever I read your text.

My opinion at the moment is to refuse any hypothesis related to duplicating things and characters without strong canonical indication. This is because duplicating things hypothetically is an easy way out for solving the problems presented in ASOUE. This is like duplicating Gustav's.

I have already resorted to this method, but now I see that it is not a favorable method, unless there is canonical evidence. For example, there is canonical evidence of JS's duplication (triplication and perhaps quadruplication).

The subtle enigma proposed in TPP always was: identify which JS sent the letters. And the hint of the puzzle (which Kit gave) was: "there may be an imposter". These are the premises, and any solution presented outside these premises is breaking the rules of the game.

In my case, I present the solution, that there are 4 JS's involved in TPP.Jerome, Justice Strauss, Jacques Snicket, and an "imposter" supporter on the fire extinguishing side. So I reject hypotheses that indicate that the telegrams are intercepted by the wrong machines. Although this is a possibility, there is no canonical evidence for this.
The CC indication on the telegrams from Quigley to submarine Q indicates that the telegrams are sent to specific devices.


The message is not lost just because there are several people with the same name. The only way for the telegrams to end up in the hands of different people is if someone else is in front of the machine, since that is what happened in the case of the telegrams sent to submarine Q. I believe a letter was sent by Jacques Snicket to Charles before Jacques died. Evidence of this for me is Quigley's monologue on TSS. Whereas Quigley didn't lie about talking about Jacques seeing someone in Paltryville. This letter was about the Baudelaires' parents. Another letter was sent by the benevolent impostor, who asked Charles to protect the Baudelaires. Charles didn't think they were letters from different people, after all the impostor was pretending to be Jacques Snciket. This letter was sent when the imposter was informed by Captain W that the Baudelaires were on the submarine. A telegram was sent by that same imposter to Mr Poe, when the imposter learned through Quigley's telegram that the Baudelaires were arriving on a specific beach. (You may believe he was a different imposter, but this is unnecessary in this context, as the basic purpose in both cases was to protect the Baudelaires from what was going to happen at the hotel). So this impostor was also responsible for attracting the villains to the hotel. Nothing better than attracting wealthy people so that greedy people are also attracted. Parallel to this, Esme had the idea of ​​attracting wealthy people to the hotel in order to threaten them with MM, and by Olaf and Esme they also sent letters.

Considering that the imposter was on the incendiary side leads to strange conclusions, conclusions that I have already covered and I regret. Dewey when talking about JS with Hall, was probably talking about Justice Strauss. Esme, when talking about someone doing sometinhg in laundry, she should be talking about Jerome S. And Charles was talking about Jacques Snicket, but he didn't know that one of the letters was from an impostor pretending to be Jacques Snciket. Sir was talking about the same imposter. I have already suggested that this imposter was Beatrice, but unfortunately there is no canonical evidence for this. So, I need to refuse one more appreciated hypothesis of mine. But I have already replaced it with another hypothesis, which seems to make more sense and has canonical support. According to Sally Sebald, siblings must take on each other's responsibilities when one of them dies. Thus, Lemony Snicket must have taken responsibility for Jacques Snciket in the plan that was taking place at Hotel D. Lemony Snicket would also have an interest in keeping the Baudelaires away from Hotel D, as he wanted to protect them from danger. Lemony Snicket was apparently seen in the vicinity of the hotel, disguised as a smoking taxi driver. This same taxi driver was responsible for taking a wet item away from the hotel, probably the SB. So the message left hastily on the refrigerator was addressed to JS, actually Lemony Snicket. Lemony Snicket may have received the message about the last safe location, so he might be able to help with the plan. Lemony Snicket understood the message, as indicated in TSS, which indicates that he had to decode the message at some point. In addition, we have textual evidence that two of the three Snickets viewed Charles as a person of trust. So it would not be surprising that the third Snicket (Lemony) would also view Charles as someone who was so trustworthy as to ask him to look after the Baudelaires at the hotel. So, after thinking a lot, I come to the conclusion that Lemony Snicket was the benevolent impostor in TPP.

[TheAsh]

May 4, 2020 16:05:00 GMT -5 Dante said:

Yes, the identity of Charles's J.S. has long been mysterious, and indeed there was another thread on the subject not long ago - and I'm sure I recall discussing the subject extensively with Jean Lucio at some point. There being an additional Charles is certainly a novel idea, though I don't find it particularly favourable myself; the idea of Charles working with Kit in this capacity is curious, but not entirely unbelievable - and your reasoning for the introduction of the new Charles appears circular: Handler invented a second Charles to indicate that Charles's letter was actually meant for... a second Charles? The existence of a "spare", unexplained J.S. has been inferred by all and sundry over the years anyway, so a spare Charles to point the way to this person seems unnecessary; it merely duplicates the problem rather than resolving anything. My own answer to the problem is that there are probably many more J.S.s than we ever encounter, and any unexplained references are merely yet more figures from other stories briefly intersecting with that of ASoUE. (Alternatively, since Daniel Handler's plotting has a distinct tendency towards the "loose", the unexplained J.S. may even be an outright error...)

From Daniel Handler's repeated insistence in TPP that "If only one had enough time to do enough reading, all the world's mysteries would be solved", I conclude that he does have a clear logical solution to the events in TPP. The second Charles is merely a clue - a clue that JS is not who you think he is, and Charles intercepted an official VFD letter. The identity of the other Charles is insignificant and just a way for DH to show yoy that he did plot the JS's carefully and he does have a solution to that problem.

[TheAsh]

May 4, 2020 18:23:09 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

Ash, I'm happy whenever I read your text.

My opinion at the moment is to refuse any hypothesis related to duplicating things and characters without strong canonical indication. This is because duplicating things hypothetically is an easy way out for solving the problems presented in ASOUE. This is like duplicating Gustav's.

I have already resorted to this method, but now I see that it is not a favorable method, unless there is canonical evidence. For example, there is canonical evidence of JS's duplication (triplication and perhaps quadruplication).

The subtle enigma proposed in TPP always was: identify which JS sent the letters. And the hint of the puzzle (which Kit gave) was: "there may be an imposter". These are the premises, and any solution presented outside these premises is breaking the rules of the game.

In my case, I present the solution, that there are 4 JS's involved in TPP.Jerome, Justice Strauss, Jacques Snicket, and an "imposter" supporter on the fire extinguishing side. So I reject hypotheses that indicate that the telegrams are intercepted by the wrong machines. Although this is a possibility, there is no canonical evidence for this.
The CC indication on the telegrams from Quigley to submarine Q indicates that the telegrams are sent to specific devices.


The message is not lost just because there are several people with the same name. The only way for the telegrams to end up in the hands of different people is if someone else is in front of the machine, since that is what happened in the case of the telegrams sent to submarine Q. I believe a letter was sent by Jacques Snicket to Charles before Jacques died. Evidence of this for me is Quigley's monologue on TSS. Whereas Quigley didn't lie about talking about Jacques seeing someone in Paltryville. This letter was about the Baudelaires' parents. Another letter was sent by the benevolent impostor, who asked Charles to protect the Baudelaires. Charles didn't think they were letters from different people, after all the impostor was pretending to be Jacques Snciket. This letter was sent when the imposter was informed by Captain W that the Baudelaires were on the submarine. A telegram was sent by that same imposter to Mr Poe, when the imposter learned through Quigley's telegram that the Baudelaires were arriving on a specific beach. (You may believe he was a different imposter, but this is unnecessary in this context, as the basic purpose in both cases was to protect the Baudelaires from what was going to happen at the hotel). So this impostor was also responsible for attracting the villains to the hotel. Nothing better than attracting wealthy people so that greedy people are also attracted. Parallel to this, Esme had the idea of ​​attracting wealthy people to the hotel in order to threaten them with MM, and by Olaf and Esme they also sent letters.

Considering that the imposter was on the incendiary side leads to strange conclusions, conclusions that I have already covered and I regret. Dewey when talking about JS with Hall, was probably talking about Justice Strauss. Esme, when talking about someone doing sometinhg in laundry, she should be talking about Jerome S. And Charles was talking about Jacques Snicket, but he didn't know that one of the letters was from an impostor pretending to be Jacques Snciket. Sir was talking about the same imposter. I have already suggested that this imposter was Beatrice, but unfortunately there is no canonical evidence for this. So, I need to refuse one more appreciated hypothesis of mine. But I have already replaced it with another hypothesis, which seems to make more sense and has canonical support. According to Sally Sebald, siblings must take on each other's responsibilities when one of them dies. Thus, Lemony Snicket must have taken responsibility for Jacques Snciket in the plan that was taking place at Hotel D. Lemony Snicket would also have an interest in keeping the Baudelaires away from Hotel D, as he wanted to protect them from danger. Lemony Snicket was apparently seen in the vicinity of the hotel, disguised as a smoking taxi driver. This same taxi driver was responsible for taking a wet item away from the hotel, probably the SB. So the message left hastily on the refrigerator was addressed to JS, actually Lemony Snicket. Lemony Snicket may have received the message about the last safe location, so he might be able to help with the plan. Lemony Snicket understood the message, as indicated in TSS, which indicates that he had to decode the message at some point. In addition, we have textual evidence that two of the three Snickets viewed Charles as a person of trust. So it would not be surprising that the third Snicket (Lemony) would also view Charles as someone who was so trustworthy as to ask him to look after the Baudelaires at the hotel. So, after thinking a lot, I come to the conclusion that Lemony Snicket was the benevolent impostor in TPP.

I don't agree Charles got two letters. There's no evidence for this. I agree with you that Lemony may have sent those letters. I suspect that Mr. Poe was not supposed to receive the JS letter addressed to him either, but I have only slight evidence for this. (My headcanon says that letter was addressed to Eleanora Poe from someone working in The Daily Punctillio. I assume that because Poe illogically associates JS with Geraldine Juleinne, and Geraldine Julienne seems to know who JS is in TPP, which makes sense if you assume JS is Jacques Snicket, and Lemony took over his job after he died.)

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

May 5, 2020 1:48:03 GMT -5 TheAsh said:

May 4, 2020 18:23:09 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

Ash, I'm happy whenever I read your text.

My opinion at the moment is to refuse any hypothesis related to duplicating things and characters without strong canonical indication. This is because duplicating things hypothetically is an easy way out for solving the problems presented in ASOUE. This is like duplicating Gustav's.

I have already resorted to this method, but now I see that it is not a favorable method, unless there is canonical evidence. For example, there is canonical evidence of JS's duplication (triplication and perhaps quadruplication).

The subtle enigma proposed in TPP always was: identify which JS sent the letters. And the hint of the puzzle (which Kit gave) was: "there may be an imposter". These are the premises, and any solution presented outside these premises is breaking the rules of the game.

In my case, I present the solution, that there are 4 JS's involved in TPP.Jerome, Justice Strauss, Jacques Snicket, and an "imposter" supporter on the fire extinguishing side. So I reject hypotheses that indicate that the telegrams are intercepted by the wrong machines. Although this is a possibility, there is no canonical evidence for this.
The CC indication on the telegrams from Quigley to submarine Q indicates that the telegrams are sent to specific devices.


The message is not lost just because there are several people with the same name. The only way for the telegrams to end up in the hands of different people is if someone else is in front of the machine, since that is what happened in the case of the telegrams sent to submarine Q. I believe a letter was sent by Jacques Snicket to Charles before Jacques died. Evidence of this for me is Quigley's monologue on TSS. Whereas Quigley didn't lie about talking about Jacques seeing someone in Paltryville. This letter was about the Baudelaires' parents. Another letter was sent by the benevolent impostor, who asked Charles to protect the Baudelaires. Charles didn't think they were letters from different people, after all the impostor was pretending to be Jacques Snciket. This letter was sent when the imposter was informed by Captain W that the Baudelaires were on the submarine. A telegram was sent by that same imposter to Mr Poe, when the imposter learned through Quigley's telegram that the Baudelaires were arriving on a specific beach. (You may believe he was a different imposter, but this is unnecessary in this context, as the basic purpose in both cases was to protect the Baudelaires from what was going to happen at the hotel). So this impostor was also responsible for attracting the villains to the hotel. Nothing better than attracting wealthy people so that greedy people are also attracted. Parallel to this, Esme had the idea of ​​attracting wealthy people to the hotel in order to threaten them with MM, and by Olaf and Esme they also sent letters.

Considering that the imposter was on the incendiary side leads to strange conclusions, conclusions that I have already covered and I regret. Dewey when talking about JS with Hall, was probably talking about Justice Strauss. Esme, when talking about someone doing sometinhg in laundry, she should be talking about Jerome S. And Charles was talking about Jacques Snicket, but he didn't know that one of the letters was from an impostor pretending to be Jacques Snciket. Sir was talking about the same imposter. I have already suggested that this imposter was Beatrice, but unfortunately there is no canonical evidence for this. So, I need to refuse one more appreciated hypothesis of mine. But I have already replaced it with another hypothesis, which seems to make more sense and has canonical support. According to Sally Sebald, siblings must take on each other's responsibilities when one of them dies. Thus, Lemony Snicket must have taken responsibility for Jacques Snciket in the plan that was taking place at Hotel D. Lemony Snicket would also have an interest in keeping the Baudelaires away from Hotel D, as he wanted to protect them from danger. Lemony Snicket was apparently seen in the vicinity of the hotel, disguised as a smoking taxi driver. This same taxi driver was responsible for taking a wet item away from the hotel, probably the SB. So the message left hastily on the refrigerator was addressed to JS, actually Lemony Snicket. Lemony Snicket may have received the message about the last safe location, so he might be able to help with the plan. Lemony Snicket understood the message, as indicated in TSS, which indicates that he had to decode the message at some point. In addition, we have textual evidence that two of the three Snickets viewed Charles as a person of trust. So it would not be surprising that the third Snicket (Lemony) would also view Charles as someone who was so trustworthy as to ask him to look after the Baudelaires at the hotel. So, after thinking a lot, I come to the conclusion that Lemony Snicket was the benevolent impostor in TPP.

I don't agree Charles got two letters. There's no evidence for this. I agree with you that Lemony may have sent those letters. I suspect that Mr. Poe was not supposed to receive the JS letter addressed to him either, but I have only slight evidence for this. (My headcanon says that letter was addressed to Eleanora Poe from someone working in The Daily Punctillio. I assume that because Poe illogically associates JS with Geraldine Juleinne, and Geraldine Julienne seems to know who JS is in TPP, which makes sense if you assume JS is Jacques Snicket, and Lemony took over his job after he died.)

If Lemony, in a single letter, wrote about the parents of the Baudelaires and about the Baudelaires being protected, that also makes sense ... It actually makes even more sense. Lemony may also have taken over Jacques 'research on the Baudelaires' parents.