Who's dumber: Mr. Poe or the Officers Mitchum?
Jun 16, 2020 18:42:54 GMT -5
Optimism is my Phil-osophy likes this
Post by Marlowe on Jun 16, 2020 18:42:54 GMT -5
In a fictional universe full of unhelpful, foolish adults, Arthur Poe and Harvey & Mimi Mitchum in particular stand out among the bunch as being the most unhelpful and foolish. Poe, book after book, has proved his incompetence at landing the Baudelaires out of Count Olaf's clutches; while Harvey and Mimi provoke sighs and eye-rolls with their endless bickering, doting over their problem child, and failure to get anything done, ever.
So the question is: which of these characters are the most unhelpful and foolish? Who - counting Harvey/Mimi as a singular entity, which they basically are anyway - embodies the "dumb, unhelpful adult authority figure" archetype that Snicket's been skewering since 1999?
Of course, we must take heed of the various differences between ASoUE and ATWQ. Poe and the Mitchums have different expectations from the reader. In ASoUE, the misery experienced by the children are often caused by the guardians he takes them to - starting with his decision to take him to Olaf, the closest geographical relative (?) rather than the closest blood relative. The Mitchums, meanwhile, are the "law", the establishment, more overtly of a cold authority figure than a banker/family friend who should know better. In the noir stories ATWQ pay homage to, the cops rarely get along with the private eye figure (Lemony, in this case) and so them being useless is expected as a genre convention. They patrol a town that's been largely abandoned, and thus have less to do.
Look at the villains they fail to foil. Olaf is an actively involved force that Poe encounters and fails to recognize time and time again. Hangfire prefers to pull the strings from the shadows, and one probably wouldn't notice how everything traces back to him unless they're paying close attention like LS. Someone like Stew is not a total idiot, he clearly knows how to emotionally manipulate adults to his advantage. Not to mention as the Mitchums' own son, the officers would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt more often. Poe seems to refuse to believe the kids as a result of his stupidity and perhaps a strong belief that adults are smarter than children no matter what. In p. 100 of ?2, Snicket muses on how the Mitchums are not good cops, but good people who try to do the right thing in a dying town. Their marriage is basically dead, so all they have to cling to at this point is their son and their job. Poe on the other hand treats being the Baudelaire's quasi-social worker as more of a chore as the series goes on (he straight-up says so in TVV). So the officers' situation is more understandable, while there's little excuse for Poe to be so continually dim.
But Poe does show is moments of rationality. He actually believes the kids' innocence in TVV. Similar to the officers, he is not evil but well-meaning (bringing to mind the old adage about what roads paved with them lead to). There are passages like this in Ch. 13 of TWW: “I said that’s enough,” Mr. Poe growled. Count Olaf, the Baudelaire orphans, and even the massive creature looked surprised that Mr. Poe had spoken so sternly which suggest that Poe does indeed care about the youngsters more than he lets on. That he even goes out of his way to meet the kids again at the end of TGG long after they've grown sick of him shows... not exactly character development, but a step in the right track. Compare this to the Mitchums, who STILL deludes themselves into believing Stew is a perfect angel after all that goes down in ?4. They've seriously regressed. The cops would prefer to stick to a comforting lie rather than wake up to the reality that may force them to re-adjust their entire life and priorities. When Poe walks the kids back to the lobby in TPP - this may be me overreaching - it seems to come from a place of disappointment in them for having rejected his growth, even if he still may think that he knows better than them.
But this examines the characters in terms of competence and personality, not intelligence. In terms of the cartoonish, comic-relief idiocy that both the banker and the cops display in each series, one side's lack of intelligence seems more pronounced than the other.
- Poe misdials the number for the police, which must be a simple triple-digit number (911 if it's the US, 999 if it's the UK, etc.).
- He thinks that the J.S. in TPP stands for Geraldine Julienne.
- "Omar" replaces the name "Olaf" in Poe's vocabulary after the Punctilio publishes the Count's name that way.
- The pie case in FU:13, the single most obvious mystery of all time, eludes the Mitchums
- The whole file cabinet business in ?2 (one of the funniest things LS has ever written) which in addition to the obvious problem suggests that Harvey may not even know how to count
- I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but from here the Mitchums are shown as both being incompetent cops and stupid people, while we're at least meant to assume Poe is a stupid person but a competent banker.
Speaking of comic relief, I may simply prefer Mr. Poe on that front. His cough is more amusingly irritating to me than the Mitchums' arguments, which quickly turned just irritating and seemed to be aiming at a screwball tone that I don't think DH ever quite pulled off. (Tim Curry's performance in the audiobooks may be informing a lot of my opinion here.)
Poe also actually believes the kids each time they're proven to be right and is more outspoken about finding Olaf to be a villain (he actually tries to put a citizen's arrest on him at the end of TBB) - unlike the Mitchums who, again, still doesn't want to give up dear ol' Stew by the end. And despite the aforementioned "good people" scene, it's a characterization of the officers that Handler never really returned to. We're told that they're good people, but we don't see it, if that makes sense. I refer back to the ?4 conclusion above.
It's quite the tough call... my final verdict is that the Mitchums are dumber people, but Poe may be more useless and disappointing. He is given every chance to believe the Bauds and fails. The former's stupidity is more pronounced, but it is more excusable compared to Poe's frustrating ignorance.
But I'm always all ears for other opinions. Who is truly the dumbest: Mr. Poe or the Officers Mitchum?
So the question is: which of these characters are the most unhelpful and foolish? Who - counting Harvey/Mimi as a singular entity, which they basically are anyway - embodies the "dumb, unhelpful adult authority figure" archetype that Snicket's been skewering since 1999?
Of course, we must take heed of the various differences between ASoUE and ATWQ. Poe and the Mitchums have different expectations from the reader. In ASoUE, the misery experienced by the children are often caused by the guardians he takes them to - starting with his decision to take him to Olaf, the closest geographical relative (?) rather than the closest blood relative. The Mitchums, meanwhile, are the "law", the establishment, more overtly of a cold authority figure than a banker/family friend who should know better. In the noir stories ATWQ pay homage to, the cops rarely get along with the private eye figure (Lemony, in this case) and so them being useless is expected as a genre convention. They patrol a town that's been largely abandoned, and thus have less to do.
Look at the villains they fail to foil. Olaf is an actively involved force that Poe encounters and fails to recognize time and time again. Hangfire prefers to pull the strings from the shadows, and one probably wouldn't notice how everything traces back to him unless they're paying close attention like LS. Someone like Stew is not a total idiot, he clearly knows how to emotionally manipulate adults to his advantage. Not to mention as the Mitchums' own son, the officers would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt more often. Poe seems to refuse to believe the kids as a result of his stupidity and perhaps a strong belief that adults are smarter than children no matter what. In p. 100 of ?2, Snicket muses on how the Mitchums are not good cops, but good people who try to do the right thing in a dying town. Their marriage is basically dead, so all they have to cling to at this point is their son and their job. Poe on the other hand treats being the Baudelaire's quasi-social worker as more of a chore as the series goes on (he straight-up says so in TVV). So the officers' situation is more understandable, while there's little excuse for Poe to be so continually dim.
But Poe does show is moments of rationality. He actually believes the kids' innocence in TVV. Similar to the officers, he is not evil but well-meaning (bringing to mind the old adage about what roads paved with them lead to). There are passages like this in Ch. 13 of TWW: “I said that’s enough,” Mr. Poe growled. Count Olaf, the Baudelaire orphans, and even the massive creature looked surprised that Mr. Poe had spoken so sternly which suggest that Poe does indeed care about the youngsters more than he lets on. That he even goes out of his way to meet the kids again at the end of TGG long after they've grown sick of him shows... not exactly character development, but a step in the right track. Compare this to the Mitchums, who STILL deludes themselves into believing Stew is a perfect angel after all that goes down in ?4. They've seriously regressed. The cops would prefer to stick to a comforting lie rather than wake up to the reality that may force them to re-adjust their entire life and priorities. When Poe walks the kids back to the lobby in TPP - this may be me overreaching - it seems to come from a place of disappointment in them for having rejected his growth, even if he still may think that he knows better than them.
But this examines the characters in terms of competence and personality, not intelligence. In terms of the cartoonish, comic-relief idiocy that both the banker and the cops display in each series, one side's lack of intelligence seems more pronounced than the other.
- Poe misdials the number for the police, which must be a simple triple-digit number (911 if it's the US, 999 if it's the UK, etc.).
- He thinks that the J.S. in TPP stands for Geraldine Julienne.
- "Omar" replaces the name "Olaf" in Poe's vocabulary after the Punctilio publishes the Count's name that way.
- The pie case in FU:13, the single most obvious mystery of all time, eludes the Mitchums
- The whole file cabinet business in ?2 (one of the funniest things LS has ever written) which in addition to the obvious problem suggests that Harvey may not even know how to count
- I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but from here the Mitchums are shown as both being incompetent cops and stupid people, while we're at least meant to assume Poe is a stupid person but a competent banker.
Speaking of comic relief, I may simply prefer Mr. Poe on that front. His cough is more amusingly irritating to me than the Mitchums' arguments, which quickly turned just irritating and seemed to be aiming at a screwball tone that I don't think DH ever quite pulled off. (Tim Curry's performance in the audiobooks may be informing a lot of my opinion here.)
Poe also actually believes the kids each time they're proven to be right and is more outspoken about finding Olaf to be a villain (he actually tries to put a citizen's arrest on him at the end of TBB) - unlike the Mitchums who, again, still doesn't want to give up dear ol' Stew by the end. And despite the aforementioned "good people" scene, it's a characterization of the officers that Handler never really returned to. We're told that they're good people, but we don't see it, if that makes sense. I refer back to the ?4 conclusion above.
It's quite the tough call... my final verdict is that the Mitchums are dumber people, but Poe may be more useless and disappointing. He is given every chance to believe the Bauds and fails. The former's stupidity is more pronounced, but it is more excusable compared to Poe's frustrating ignorance.
But I'm always all ears for other opinions. Who is truly the dumbest: Mr. Poe or the Officers Mitchum?
