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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 21, 2020 9:38:14 GMT -5
If there is anything that producing my fanfic "Untie My Silence Knot" helped me it was to look with affection at possibilities of denial of my theory, as long as they make sense. So I decided to return the letter from R to Lemony in LSTUA and re-analyze my conclusions. (Read Chapter 2 from LSTUA) To update you, I had deduced that this letter was written after the publication of TWW and before the publication of TMM. (Because R claims to have seen the arrival of what appears to be the original TMM manuscript, including the papers gum cited by Lemony in the letter to the editor regarding TMM). When you combine that with what is in chapter 9 of LSTUA, that Lemony received the invitation to the ball at which he ended up being captured after the publication of TRR in the ASOUE universe, it makes even more sense. I also deduced that most likely R's letter must have been written by R, due to the intimate details that only a private friend would know about Lemony. (Of course, there is the possibility that another close friend / enemy of Lemony's wrote the letter pretending to be R, but this is unlikely.) But still, I allow myself to think about the possibility that an enemy of Lemony is trying to deceive him. But I came to an impasse: if it was an enemy of Lemony trying to trick him into writing this letter, naturally the letter would contain some sort of strategy to harm Lemony in some way, maybe even scheduling a date with Lemony, or asking him to go to a certain place or act in some dangerous way. However, the letter contains only a request from R: "Study these photographs, my friend". This isn't dangerous at all, and I can't think of how an enemy of Lemony could possibly harm Lemony by asking Lemony to study some photographs. Lemony, in his personal notes, gave two possibilities for the meaning of the letter and the errors he noted in the letter. Either the author of the letter was not R (which I discarded for the reasons already explained) or R was trying to say something. (He still mentions the possibility that R is talking about another car, but I didn't find any logical sense in this hypothesis raised by Lemony.) So I deduce that R was trying to say something. However, she needed to be very subtle. Apparently there were arsonists disguised nearby as she wrote the letter. (We know this thanks to the insertion of the word "crickets" in the letter. According to Uncle Monty, crickets are trained to pass on information about the proximity of enemies that are likely to be disguised. (LSTUA chapter 10 page 167)) Most likely R feared that the letter might fall into the wrong hands, or perhaps she was under the watch of an enemy who allowed her to write to Lemony, as long as she did not reveal any important information. In this case, when R purposely missed the car color, R would be inserting a Duress code. But now we have reached the point of drastic change in my point of view. Thanks to the chronology and content of the letter, I had defended the idea that Beatrice survived the fire in her house, and in the Masked Ball in which Lemony was captured (which happened a few years after the main events recorded in ASOUE) Beatrice was indeed over there. However, this conclusion did not please Hermes for a simple and very logical reason. If Beatrice had survived, she would have looked for and found her own children, because Beatrice loved her children. I tried to deny Beatrice's love for her children, but the more I looked for sources for my fanfic, the more I became convinced that Beatrice really loved her children. So, everything leads us to believe that Beatrice did indeed die on the day of her house fire. To try to reconcile this with that, many readers try to find ways to change the chronology, putting that ball to happen in the past, before the main events narrated in ASOUE, or during the main events recorded in ASOUE. This does not please me at all, because that is not what the evidence indicates. Others resort to the idea of Lemony published the books several times in his universe, although the only canonical republication in the ASOUE universe was TBB: The Rare Edition. And book after book has evidences that Lemony published ASOUE years after the main events recorded in it, despite having started writing at the time of the events is true. As I have already written, until the publication of LSTUA all the evidence pointed to this, in TSS and TGG we have some contradictory evidence of this, and in TE we have again evidence of this. It will be a pleasure to write about it again in the light of my new point of view. But what do I really think at the moment about what happened at the Masked Ball? At the moment, the most likely thing for me is that Lemony was deceived by some enemy. After the publication of TWW, this enemy made Lemony believe that Beatrice was alive. This enemy made Lemony believe that it would be a good idea to try to get to the Masked Ball, even though Lemony knew it would be dangerous. And this enemy's plan worked. Lemony was actually captured at that Ball, because he exposed himself unnecessarily.
Strangely, I have evidence of this.
Let's go to the description of the Ball in TAA chapter 11:
"I was disguised as a bullfighter and slipped into the party while being pursued by the palace guards, who were disguised as scorpions. "
Note that the palace guards were already waiting for Lemony, and having disguised himself as a bullfighter did not help him pass invisibly through the guards, even though it was a ball in which everyone was disguised. In other words, even though Lemony had informed him that he was going to attend the Ball using a Sebald code as shown in LSTUA chapter 9, the information that he would be at the ball was leaked. Or they already expected that it would appear, because they put a very appetizing cheese in the mousetrap. Someone pretending to be Beatrice.
Let's continue: "Because I felt like a different person, I dared to approach a woman I had been forbidden to approach for the rest of my life. She was alone on the veranda ... and costumed as a dragonfly, with a glittering green mask and enormous silvery wings. "
Note that this supposed Beatrice was wearing a mask. The obvious question is "could Lemony be sure that this woman was really Beatrice"?
"As my pursuers scurried around the party, trying to guess which guest was me, I slipped out to the veranda and gave her the message I'd been trying to give her for fifteen long and lonely years." Beatrice, "I cried, just as the scorpions spotted me, "Count Olaf is--".
Note that everything indicates that the time that the supposed Beatrice and Lemony spent together at that party were few moments. Lemony probably didn't even hear her voice.
Now let's get back the letter from R to Lemony. Note some things that R tries to say to Lemony in a subtle way (LSTUA chapter 2):
"Beatrice, OF COURSE, is far past complaining about lost possessions."
About the children, R wrote: "Are they gone, TOO?" It gets mixed up in the middle of things that were also gone. But, with care, you could deduce that she was saying that Beatrice was indeed dead.
Now, note R's request for Lemony to study the photos. She described the photos in a subtle way.
1- "The portrait of your sister and me".
2 - "The portrait we told everyone that it was your sister and me but it really wasn't". Why did R want Lemony to study these photos? I believe she wanted Lemony to get the following message: "Don't always believe in the identity that someone claims to have, since we ourselves have lied about our own identity several times already."
3 - The portrait of the Second Annual Codebreaking Picnic. What could that mean? This is simple: "You, Lemony, will have to figure out what information I'm trying to give you in a similar way to how we did it in these annual picnics, because I can't use any known VFD code, because our enemies know the same codes that us. "
4 and 5 - "Two images of our meeting room, the first empty, and the second with a solitary figure, waiting patiently for the seassion to begin in that enormous room of green wood. How content this young woman looks, isn't it? How content and so flammable. "
Note that R does not say the name of this young woman. But evidently Lemony could recognize the person in the photo. R claims that the young woman is flammable. I believe that this is evidence that the young woman is really Beatrice. R is saying to Lemony: "Beatrice died in the fire at her house". But R needs to say it in a subtle way, so that enemies who are trying to trick Lemony can still use the trap of trying to attract Lemony through Beatrice's false survival story again.
Ah, that helps us understand why Lemony was running away from someone named Beatrice Baudelaire on TBL. He feared being cheated again.
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Post by Dante on Jun 24, 2020 5:22:41 GMT -5
If we're honest, a lot of the heavy lifting for this theory is done by a piece of evidence you brush over only very briefly, that being Lemony's answer to the masked ball invitation which mentions his enemies "searching furiously for the survivors of Dr. Montgomery's collection" (U.A. p. 144) - for which at least two other (and in my opinion better) explanations exist beyond the surface explanation putting the masked ball after TRR. Much, much debate on this in the past. But we'll set that aside, because that's not actually what your thread is about today, I'm merely expanding on your groundwork. (Incidentally, something I've come to appreciate more about the letter over the years is that it brazenly gives the game away on Beatrice's true identity - but obviously, there was much, much debate over this in the past, too.)
The actual thrust of your question is a good one, that being: Taken that R. really did write this letter, what is the explanation for her errors? And the idea that it is the classic device of introducing errors into a message to make it obvious you are writing under duress is a good one. It also handily addresses a lot of its own counter-arguments, because it allows you to define any further inconsistencies in this theory as merely more evidence that R. was lying (for instance, whether you're reading too much into the use of four photographs which R. claims to have been looking at anyway, rather than having specifically selected to send to him).
I do think your theory has one major oversights, though. You take it for granted that this letter isn't written by an enemy because you don't understand what they would be trying to achieve. But your final explanation, that R.'s correspondence is effectively being controlled by her enemies either directly or indirectly, suffers from the same flaw. Why would Lemony's enemies permit such a piece of correspondence to reach him, if they had the power and the desire to hinder a more explicit admission? What are they hoping to achieve by letting R. write to Lemony at all? I would like to hear the answer to this question which does not equally satisfy the question, "Why are Lemony's enemies forging a letter from R.?"
There are other problems. A lot of theories like this use tiny, offhand statements with multiple interpretations to deduce vast canon-shattering plot twists. In this case, the narrative you present is that Lemony correctly believed Beatrice to be dead, but was then successfully convinced that she was alive. Wow! How on earth could they do it? After all, surely it would have taken a lot for Lemony to believe that Beatrice was dead in the first place, if it was possible for later then to be convinced that she was actually alive, right? If he wanted her that badly to secretly be alive, what could have convinced him that she was dead in such a definitive way that he began writing ASoUE - and what even more powerful impetus could then have overcome that strength of feeling? Your theory isn't interested in answering these problems. You simply take a gargantuan premise, and you dance around on the periphery.
My final objection is rather simpler. Let us assume that your interpretation of the letter is correct; let us assume, too, that the backstory you infer is correct. My question, then, is this: Having been fooled once by stories of Beatrice's survival, do you seriously propose that Lemony would be fooled twice? Indeed, given that either R. herself or an impostor would have to have been neck-deep in any plan to dangle a false Beatrice in front of Lemony at one of her own masked balls, why would Lemony then trust R. again? Your answer to this may be that Lemony did not on this occasion discover the truth of the impostor Beatrice, and thus continued to believe she was still alive; but this then circles back to the problem I describe above, and in any case doesn't answer the question of why he would continue to trust R.
So, broadly speaking, I think the premise of "R. did write the letter, and her mistakes were deliberate" has potential; but there are serious obstacles between you and your conclusion.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 24, 2020 6:56:58 GMT -5
Yes this is true. Any answer I give will be based on speculation.
But I believe that Lemony's enemies did indeed want Lemony and R's relationship to continue to exist. The reason for this is evident: few people in the world knew how to contact Lemony. The emphasis is on the word "search". If the enemies looked for Lemony and didn't find it, then they decided to look for Lemony's friends, and use them to lure him into a trap. This was an advantage they did not want to lose. I imagine the following situation: R receives Lemony's letter. She is under constant observation. The enemies see her, and she says "I need to answer this letter, otherwise he will think I am dead". The enemies say: "You can write, but we will analyze the letter later".
About Lemony changing his mind about Beatrice's death, we see in the letter that illustrator BH sent to Lemony that Lemony already believed in the possibility of a survivor of the fire. Then in TBB, the Rare Edition, we see that Lemony researched a fountain (during the writing of TBB) where a fire survivor could have been hiding. Then, during the initial research to write TRR, Lemony researched the possibility of a fire survivor hiding in a snowman. We also see in LSTUA that Lemony searched and did not find the bodies of Beatrice and Bertrand.
Despite Lemony's clear statements in TBB about Beatrice's death, I believe that Daniel Handler in writing LSTUA and TBB the Rare Edition, created a sub plot in which Lemony for a moment believed that Beatrice could be alive. He made information about Beatrice's death in TBB and TRR possible to question (through LSTUA). In other words, Lemony wrote in TBB that Beatrice was dead even though she believed she could be alive. But this must have crossed Daniel Handler's mind when he was writing LSTUA, as he took advantage of the accusations made at the time that Lemony Snicket was an unreliable narrator. (He talks about it before the introduction of LSTUA). This was all a great Red Hearing about Beatrice surviving.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Jun 24, 2020 6:59:50 GMT -5
In this case, the narrative you present is that Lemony correctly believed Beatrice to be dead, but was then successfully convinced that she was alive. Wow! How on earth could they do it? After all, surely it would have taken a lot for Lemony to believe that Beatrice was dead in the first place, if it was possible for later then to be convinced that she was actually alive, right? If he wanted her that badly to secretly be alive, what could have convinced him that she was dead in such a definitive way that he began writing ASoUE - and what even more powerful impetus could then have overcome that strength of feeling? That sort of argument, in either direction, seems a little shaky to me. It's based on a lot of assumptions about the biases and neuroses which govern the actions of Lemony. The Baudelaires were in a similar situation of having taken it as read that their parents were dead from TBB onwards, then temporarily came to hope/believe otherwise in THH. If Lemony had been fed much more conclusive-looking evidence than even the Snicket File, it is not absurd that he would simply be rational about this — have assumed at first that she was dead because there was no reason to think otherwise, then completely rationally updated his priors when he was shown such evidence. Your rebuttal of the idea seems to stem from a belief that Lemony would "hope against hope" that Beatrice was alive unless and until he was put face-to-face with a still-smoking skeleton. I beg to disagree. Lemony is gloomy and pessimistic. I say he would have reacted to the news of Beatrice's death by immediately plummeting into a depressive episode to last a lifetime, and locking himself up with his accordion for several weeks, singing Dreary, Dreary on a loop. Defiance doesn't seem his style, nor requiring extraordinarily convincing evidence to believe that something terrible happened. When something terrible happens, Lemony says "I knew it". When someone suggests the terrible thing might not have happened, Lemony says "It just made me even more bitter to hear you say that, because I expect you're wrong, and it's even more painful that you got my hopes up for a microsecond".
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 24, 2020 7:07:03 GMT -5
The enemies could bet that Lemony would still believe Beatrice was alive. Furthermore, Beatrice's (lying) justification for not going to look for the children must have had to do with Count Olaf. Something like: "I did not look for the children because I am afraid of the Olaf Contract. If he knows that I am alive, there is no reason to keep my children alive." That is why the message was so important: "Count Olaf is dead."
And that Lemony had hopes that Beatrice was alive, is shown in LSTUA, as I have already explained. Love changes people.
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Post by Dante on Jun 24, 2020 7:25:42 GMT -5
In this case, the narrative you present is that Lemony correctly believed Beatrice to be dead, but was then successfully convinced that she was alive. Wow! How on earth could they do it? After all, surely it would have taken a lot for Lemony to believe that Beatrice was dead in the first place, if it was possible for later then to be convinced that she was actually alive, right? If he wanted her that badly to secretly be alive, what could have convinced him that she was dead in such a definitive way that he began writing ASoUE - and what even more powerful impetus could then have overcome that strength of feeling? That sort of argument, in either direction, seems a little shaky to me. It's based on a lot of assumptions about the biases and neuroses which govern the actions of Lemony. The Baudelaires were in a similar situation of having taken it as read that their parents were dead from TBB onwards, then temporarily came to hope/believe otherwise in THH. If Lemony had been fed much more conclusive-looking evidence than even the Snicket File, it is not absurd that he would simply be rational about this — have assumed at first that she was dead because there was no reason to think otherwise, then completely rationally updated his priors when he was shown such evidence. Your rebuttal of the idea seems to stem from a belief that Lemony would "hope against hope" that Beatrice was alive unless and until he was put face-to-face with a still-smoking skeleton. I beg to disagree. Lemony is gloomy and pessimistic. I say he would have reacted to the news of Beatrice's death by immediately plummeting into a depressive episode to last a lifetime, and locking himself up with his accordion for several weeks, singing Dreary, Dreary on a loop. Defiance doesn't seem his style, nor requiring extraordinarily convincing evidence to believe that something terrible happened. When something terrible happens, Lemony says "I knew it". When someone suggests the terrible thing might not have happened, Lemony says "It just made me even more bitter to hear you say that, because I expect you're wrong, and it's even more painful that you got my hopes up for a microsecond". It seems to me that you're more or less reiterating my own point here. Jean Lucio's argument is that Lemony sincerely believed that Beatrice was dead, and then, sincerely believed that she was alive. I'm trying to rationalise that set of beliefs in any way I can, and coming to the conclusion that actually they cannot be rationalised. Like you said - in either direction, it's a shaky argument... unless we posit hypothetical super-evidence of a completely convincing but entirely fabricated nature. I'm not willing to accept it as a given that this undefined evidence could exist, when the mere fact of its existence is only an assumption, a gigantic implication of a theory not directly about it. Further, I'm not convinced that the Baudelaires are really relevant to this situation because they literally don't know how far out of their depth they are; their faith in the Snicket File is an implicit faith in the unknown capabilities of the unknown compilers of that file - and what they experience is hope, not belief, that one of their parents is alive, a hope they repeatedly question. Snicket, by contrast, is a V.F.D. insider who knows exactly what they're capable of. He is also the victim of a literal conspiracy within V.F.D. What is it going to take to deceive him so completely? The enemies could bet that Lemony would still believe Beatrice was alive. Could they, Jean Lucio? Could they really? If you're arguing this not on evidence but on faith in your interpretation of Lemony's character, then the rebuttal is simple: I disagree. I don't see that you've explained it here at all.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 24, 2020 7:42:40 GMT -5
I don't see that you've explained it here at all. About Lemony changing his mind about Beatrice's death, we see in the letter that illustrator BH sent to Lemony that Lemony already believed in the possibility of a survivor of the fire. Then in TBB, the Rare Edition, we see that Lemony researched a fountain (during the writing of TBB) where a fire survivor could have been hiding. Then, during the initial research to write TRR, Lemony researched the possibility of a fire survivor hiding in a snowman. We also see in LSTUA that Lemony searched and did not find the bodies of Beatrice and Bertrand. Despite Lemony's clear statements in TBB about Beatrice's death, I believe that Daniel Handler in writing LSTUA and TBB the Rare Edition, created a sub plot in which Lemony for a moment believed that Beatrice could be alive. He made information about Beatrice's death in TBB and TRR possible to question (through LSTUA). In other words, Lemony wrote in TBB that Beatrice was dead even though she believed she could be alive. But this must have crossed Daniel Handler's mind when he was writing LSTUA, as he took advantage of the accusations made at the time that Lemony Snicket was an unreliable narrator. (He talks about it before the introduction of LSTUA). This was all a great Red Hearing about Beatrice surviving. I said it.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Jun 24, 2020 9:09:08 GMT -5
It seems to me that you're more or less reiterating my own point here. Jean Lucio's argument is that Lemony sincerely believed that Beatrice was dead, and then, sincerely believed that she was alive. I'm trying to rationalise that set of beliefs in any way I can, and coming to the conclusion that actually they cannot be rationalised. Like you said - in either direction, it's a shaky argument... unless we posit hypothetical super-evidence of a completely convincing but entirely fabricated nature. I'm not willing to accept it as a given that this undefined evidence could exist, when the mere fact of its existence is only an assumption, a gigantic implication of a theory not directly about it. Further, I'm not convinced that the Baudelaires are really relevant to this situation because they literally don't know how far out of their depth they are; their faith in the Snicket File is an implicit faith in the unknown capabilities of the unknown compilers of that file - and what they experience is hope, not belief, that one of their parents is alive, a hope they repeatedly question. Snicket, by contrast, is a V.F.D. insider who knows exactly what they're capable of. He is also the victim of a literal conspiracy within V.F.D. What is it going to take to deceive him so completely? The fact that the Baudelaires have a set of assumptions about how reliable V.F.D. is that Lemony does not. However, Lemony could be relying on his faith into specific individuals, their skill and their trustworthiness, only to be betrayed. R, for one. If R is forced to send false information to Lemony, or if her correspondence is convincingly fabricated, then all that would be needed would be R describing the fact that she has found incontrovertible evidence of Beatrice's survival — not this evidence itself being successfully fabricated. All in all the point I was trying to make was twofold — firstly, if Lemony is simply working on rational princoples and we posit sufficiently convincing false evidence, then it's perfectly possible for him to be working on the assumption that Beatrice is dead in the absence of evidence otherwise, then temporarily change his mind when presented with plausible evidence; secondly, I disputed your apparent argument that Lemony would have had to have incontrovertible evidence of Beatrice's death to have believed so in the first place. Tell me if I'm wrong, I think your idea might have been that if Lemony is willing to buy the fake evidence now, then he would have been hoping against hope for Beatrice's survival then, unless there was literally no room for doubt. This is what I was trying to refute by recalling Lemony's pessimistic disposition. I can buy that he'd fixate on the tragedt of her death as soon as he heard the news, not even thinking to look for evidence of survival, but be willing to accept such evidence if it is presented on a silver platter to him. …Of course, this is all rather far-fetched, as you say. But if we forbid ourselves from constructing far-fetched theories, this will become a very dull forum indeed, as I fear that as far as book-based theories go, most of the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 24, 2020 10:30:47 GMT -5
It seems to me that L does at one point hope that Beatrice is alive: in THH, when introducing the evidence from the Snicket File about a survivor of a fire, he says that this had an impact not only on the Baudelaires but on the author - it made him cry himself to sleep, or something like that (sorry, book not to hand). So it looks as if he at one point read this as at least possibly referring to Beatrice.
Now, you may ask, how can he have misinterpreted this evidence, if he wrote it? Well, the Doylist answer is no doubt that DH didn't orginally mean to imply that he wrote it; the Snicket File was originally a file about a Snicket, though it later became a file by the Snickets. But on a Watsonian level, one can say that it was not the actual page in the file that he misinterpreted, but the evidence which led him to write that page - i.e., in my view, Sebald's script for Zombies in the Snow.
However, most of the evidence that Jean Lucio refers to simply relates to a survivor of a fire, with no suggestion that it has to be Beatrice. And in BBRE, which contains some of thiis evidence, there is also a reference to B as 'a woman who is no longer alive'.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 24, 2020 13:58:38 GMT -5
It seems to me that L does at one point hope that Beatrice is alive: in THH, when introducing the evidence from the Snicket File about a survivor of a fire, he says that this had an impact not only on the Baudelaires but on the author - it made him cry himself to sleep, or something like that (sorry, book not to hand). So it looks as if he at one point read this as at least possibly referring to Beatrice. Now, you may ask, how can he have misinterpreted this evidence, if he wrote it? Well, the Doylist answer is no doubt that DH didn't orginally mean to imply that he wrote it; the Snicket File was originally a file about a Snicket, though it later became a file by the Snickets. But on a Watsonian level, one can say that it was not the actual page in the file that he misinterpreted, but the evidence which led him to write that page - i.e., in my view, Sebald's script for Zombies in the Snow. However, most of the evidence that Jean Lucio refers to simply relates to a survivor of a fire, with no suggestion that it has to be Beatrice. And in BBRE, which contains some of thiis evidence, there is also a reference to B as 'a woman who is no longer alive'. About TBB the Rare Edition, I need to clarify a few things. Note that Lemony was republishing TBB after some years had passed since the initial publication of TBB. He had even published TCC. Thus, the notes were inserted in order to be published at that time. However, Lemony originally wrote some of these notes at the time when he was researching the events that were recorded at TBB. He made it clear when he writes some things. Note that this is the case by reading the following: "It has been some time since I have written The Bad Beginning, and as far as I know the story has not changed one iota, a word which here means “tiny detail, which may or may not be significant, a word which here means ‘important to the story.’” In the years since the book’s publication, many people who have read the book have besieged me with questions concerning the iotas of the story, exactly how I came to know these iotas, and if I cared to add anything to my report..." (...) p.6 Mr. Poe took off his top hat… (...) Also, an earlier draft of The Bad Beginning uses this phrase instead: Mr. Poe took off his top hat carefully. pp.41-42 From a street vendor, they purchased olives after tasting several varieties and choosing their favorites. My commonplace book contains following interview: LS: On the day in question, did three children-a fourteen-year-old girl, a boy a bit older than twelve who was wearing glasses, and a young baby with somewhat peculiar teeth-purchase from you some olives, after tasting several varieties and choosing their favorites? Vendor: Yes. (Note that this is a description of what was written in Lemony's commonplace book, and so it was originally written at the time of Lemony's research for TBB publication) (...) p.142 No one seemed to notice that he held a walkie-talkie the entire time. My commonplace book contains the following interview: LS: On the night in question, during the performance of Funcoot’s play The Marvellous Marriage, did you notice that Count Olaf, the production’s start, was holding a walkie-talkie the entire time? Audience member: No. LS: How about you? Another audience member: No. LS: You? Another audience member: No. LS: You? Another audience member: No. etc. p.146 “But Violet is only a child!” one of the actors said. “She’s not old enough to marry.” My commonplace book contains the following interview: LS: On the night in question, did you say, “But Violet is only a child!” one of the actors said. “She’s not old enough to marry.” Actor: I think so. p.153 A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. Please see my not to pages 116-117. P.157 In the darkness, Violet looked like a ghost, her quite wedding gown moving slowly across the stage. My commonplace book contains at least seventeen interviews with people who remarked that due to the facial resemblance, the white dress, and the dim lighting, Violet Baudelaire looked quite a bit like a woman who is no longer alive. Please see also my note to page 124. So, Lemony's quote about the dead woman refers to something he had written at the time that he was researching the information from the original TBB, when he believed Beatrice was indeed dead. He published TBBRE after publishing TCC. At that time he wrote about the possibility of a survivor of a recent fire.
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Post by Dante on Jun 24, 2020 15:22:50 GMT -5
Oh, excuse me; that was a genuine mistake on my part, and I simply didn't see that post of yours at all. Allow me to address that now. But I believe that Lemony's enemies did indeed want Lemony and R's relationship to continue to exist. The reason for this is evident: few people in the world knew how to contact Lemony. The emphasis is on the word "search". If the enemies looked for Lemony and didn't find it, then they decided to look for Lemony's friends, and use them to lure him into a trap. This was an advantage they did not want to lose. I imagine the following situation: R receives Lemony's letter. She is under constant observation. The enemies see her, and she says "I need to answer this letter, otherwise he will think I am dead". The enemies say: "You can write, but we will analyze the letter later". As I suspected, the rationale you present equally well substantiates the impostor theory. Lemony's enemies intercept, by one means or another, a note intended for R.; they write their own reply in an attempt to control Lemony and R.'s relationship. Without knowing more about the situation of the actual R. at this time, we can't say what the exact end in mind would be, though it's not hard to come up with ideas; but the fact that Lemony considered the possibility of forgery means that he believed it was plausible. Happily, this does not disprove your theory on R.'s motives, which up to a certain point I quite like; what it does mean is that you cannot discount the alternative. A definitive truth has not been established. Interesting. So, I'm sure you understand the issue with the Helquist letter, that being that it was written in the immediate aftermath of the Baudelaire fire; suspiciously immediate, actually! Lemony would have had to have posted it through Helquist's letterbox perhaps even while the house was still ablaze. At this point, no details about the event are established, but Lemony surely knows about the underground passageway. So this letter in and of itself doesn't prove that Lemony believed that Beatrice was dead and then changed his mind; it proves that, for at least a couple of hours after the fire, he thought that the existence of survivors was possible - in other words, he had yet to believe that anyone was dead, and was using any agent he could think of to research what was still an extremely recent situation. This is actually quite interesting; I don't recall it being pointed out before just how recent that letter had to have been, though really it is quite obvious. The BBRE remark is interesting but hypothetical, like most of the other notes in that section which sadly have no payoff - although I'm sure you can make some use of the fact that the introductory lines explain that TBB was published years ago while the notes themselves acknowledge that Book the Thirteenth has yet to be written (though of course, this was quite true in the real world as well). The snowman research is ambiguous, and ultimately has no payoff either, so it is difficult to utilise it in any service to any survivor in particular - though there is evidence in the U.A. index (see "overboard") that Lemony was aware of the Quigley situation, and there is the intriguing photograph of the three children enclosed with Sally Sebald's letter (who I have never been certain are the Quagmires, though I now suspect this was just one more point left deliberately open-ended). I like your interpretation of the photographs showing where the Baudelaire parents are not buried, though it's not the only one. This much I can broadly believe, though. Certainly I think there was a period of time where Daniel Handler was doing his best to provide a variety of possible answers to the Beatrice conundrum, and I even think it's possible he wobbled on the subject of who Beatrice was and when she died. You haven't convinced me that R.'s letter has anything to do with it, however, or that Lemony's belief in Beatrice's death wavered while writing TBB. It may be a relevant question to ask what Lemony might do if the work he began because of Beatrice's death was interrupted by a suspicion that she was not dead. I think there's room for an interesting discussion there. The fact that the Baudelaires have a set of assumptions about how reliable V.F.D. is that Lemony does not. However, Lemony could be relying on his faith into specific individuals, their skill and their trustworthiness, only to be betrayed. R, for one. If R is forced to send false information to Lemony, or if her correspondence is convincingly fabricated, then all that would be needed would be R describing the fact that she has found incontrovertible evidence of Beatrice's survival — not this evidence itself being successfully fabricated. All in all the point I was trying to make was twofold — firstly, if Lemony is simply working on rational princoples and we posit sufficiently convincing false evidence, then it's perfectly possible for him to be working on the assumption that Beatrice is dead in the absence of evidence otherwise, then temporarily change his mind when presented with plausible evidence; secondly, I disputed your apparent argument that Lemony would have had to have incontrovertible evidence of Beatrice's death to have believed so in the first place. Tell me if I'm wrong, I think your idea might have been that if Lemony is willing to buy the fake evidence now, then he would have been hoping against hope for Beatrice's survival then, unless there was literally no room for doubt. This is what I was trying to refute by recalling Lemony's pessimistic disposition. I can buy that he'd fixate on the tragedt of her death as soon as he heard the news, not even thinking to look for evidence of survival, but be willing to accept such evidence if it is presented on a silver platter to him. So I think there are two questions here. One is about how many assumptions we are permitted to make to prop up a theory. The other is about Lemony's psychology; or, arguably, about what Jean Lucio thinks about Lemony's psychology. As you rightly note, the first question stems from the second. My argument, at I hope its clearest and most succinct, is thus: If it were possible for Lemony to have been convinced of Beatrice's survival, he would never have been convinced of her death; and conversely, if he had been convinced of her death, it was not possible for him to be convinced of her survival. Your argument in relation to these, as I understand it, is that Lemony may have been willing to jump to conclusions; either that he may have been eager to assume that she was alive after all, or that he was too eager to assume that she had been dead in the first place. As it happens, Jean Lucio's helpful citation of Brett Helquist's letter proves that, at the time of the fire and its immediate aftermath, Lemony was in fact willing to consider the possibility of survival; and so his subsequent belief in Beatrice's death must be based on actual research. This just leaves us with the idea that Lemony proved to his own satisfaction that Beatrice was dead, and so we come to the second question, that of how he could have been made to believe that she was actually alive; and thus, to the hypothetical, undefined, sufficiently convincing false evidence. I refuse to posit this sufficiently convincing false evidence without secondary evidence of what that convincing false evidence is or that it exists. But even beyond that, I deny the very possibility of such convincing false evidence existing; I don't consider it to have been established that Lemony would believe in such evidence without it being of too high a standard to have been brought into being. To which the necessary response is that there may be a reason why these fruit were low-hanging, and why they have been plucked. The tree grows no taller. If you are looking for an undiscovered truth, starve and die. It seems to me that L does at one point hope that Beatrice is alive: in THH, when introducing the evidence from the Snicket File about a survivor of a fire, he says that this had an impact not only on the Baudelaires but on the author - it made him cry himself to sleep, or something like that (sorry, book not to hand). So it looks as if he at one point read this as at least possibly referring to Beatrice. Now, you may ask, how can he have misinterpreted this evidence, if he wrote it? Well, the Doylist answer is no doubt that DH didn't orginally mean to imply that he wrote it; the Snicket File was originally a file about a Snicket, though it later became a file by the Snickets. But on a Watsonian level, one can say that it was not the actual page in the file that he misinterpreted, but the evidence which led him to write that page - i.e., in my view, Sebald's script for Zombies in the Snow. THH, p. 107: "But sometimes it takes only a photograph and a sentence to make an author cry himself to sleep even years after the photograph was taken, or to make three siblings sit and stare at a page for a long time, as if an entire book were printed on one sheet of paper." The idea that, at the time of (both Handler and Snicket's) writing, Lemony was unfamiliar with the contents of the Snicket/Baudelaire file, or the file on the Snicket fires, is possible; though I think it unlikely. But certainly I do not think that the only possible interpretation of the page is that Lemony believed exactly what the Baudelaires believed. What we are given is the statement that the contents of this page upset him enormously. Exactly why this would be the case I think is very deliberately mysterious, but I do not see that this is a natural response to the sudden appearance of a suggestion that Beatrice is still alive. Conversely, it strikes me instead as a natural response to a suggestion which he knows is untrue but wishes were not. It is hurtful to him, this suggestion. Edit: Note: This post written without having seen Jean Lucio's most recent post above, though I don't wish to add anything to his ideas as presented there.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Jun 24, 2020 20:43:05 GMT -5
Your argument in relation to these, as I understand it, is that Lemony may have been willing to jump to conclusions; either that he may have been eager to assume that she was alive after all, or that he was too eager to assume that she had been dead in the first place. As it happens, Jean Lucio's helpful citation of Brett Helquist's letter proves that, at the time of the fire and its immediate aftermath, Lemony was in fact willing to consider the possibility of survival; and so his subsequent belief in Beatrice's death must be based on actual research. Now see, this is where our intellectual disagreement lies. I only posited the "jumping to conclusions" scenario as a secondary resort; my first and most straightforward idea would be that Lemony is simply being rational. It seems to me that between the Baudelaire fire and receiving the counterfeit(?) intelligence, Lemony could easily have been in a sort of agnostic state on the matter of Beatrice's survival. It is easy to suppose a Lemony whose research had turned up nothing conclusive either in favour of the theory "she died" (no body) or of the theory "she survived" (no sign of her anywhere that VFD can reach), a Lemony, then, who couldn't be sure, caving in after a while and deciding to live his life on the assumption that Beatrice had died. This would be the rational thing to do even for an neutral, emotionless player, weighing the evidence for and against; it is even more in-character for Lemony, who is a glass-half-empty sort of guy. But again, this would be an assumption, fully reserving the right to revise his opinion if new evidence comes to light and changes the balance. I'm not sure why you seem to think that it would be necessary for Lemony to find proof positive of Beatrice's death for him to decide that she had most likely died, and write accordingly. How would you expect him to behave if a scenario such as I propose — that is to say, he tries and fails to find evidence either way, and is left with dead ends — actually came to pass, regardless of whether you buy that this is what happened in the canonical timeline? To which the necessary response is that there may be a reason why these fruit were low-hanging, and why they have been plucked. The tree grows no taller. If you are looking for an undiscovered truth, starve and die. Well, thematically and esoterically appropriate though it might be, I'd rather the forum not starve to death. I don't know about Jean, but I make no such bold claim as to be looking for an undiscovered truth; at this point, I merely concern myself with undiscovered possibilities. It is not likely that anything like this whole elaborate Beatrice/R./charade was "really" happening behind the scenes, but with sufficient intellectual agility, we can construct a form of this theory where it would have been possible for it to be the case. That is what I take us to be trying to do here — and as for the "why" of it: what else is there to do? And also — it's fun, isn't it? More fun than watching the forum freeze, gather dust, and rust away, to be sure.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 25, 2020 7:34:42 GMT -5
Uncle Algernon
Thanks for the support (I think). In any case, I think the letter itself contains more than enough evidence to conclude that there is an improvised duress code by R. In TGG we realize that the current members of VFD are encouraged to create their own codes. R cited crickets making noises during the winter, knowing that Lemony would notice the inconsistency. This is a typical way to create duress code. You know, in spy movies they quote dead agents in messages so they can show they are under duress. Something like "give my regards to James", and it is known to everyone in the agency that James was eaten by ants 5 years ago. It is the same case here. The crickets section is unnecessary and added information to cause Lemony's strangeness. If Lemony had been smarter, he would have remembered what messages the crickets are trained to send. As I said, the reasons why one or more enemies would allow R to send this letter are speculative, but there is enough evidence to conclude that this is exactly what happened. For some unknown reason the enemies allowed R to communicate with Lemony as long as she did not send information that could harm their plan. In my view, the request for Lemony to study the photos is a genuine one, which could go unnoticed in the eyes of the enemy. And it's very interesting that R doesn't say the girl's name in the photo. But it was someone Lemony would recognize. And after that she claims that the little girl is flammable. That would be rude, if it weren't for the information that R wants to pass to Lemony. Something like: "Lemony, I sent this picture of Beatrice as a child because I know that you will remember what she looked like when she was a child, whereas our enemies don't know what she looked like when she was a child. Beatrice is flammable, one word which here means "killed in a fire". And as you said, it's easy to see that Lemony concluded that Beatrice was dead because he couldn't find any evidence that she was alive. That was how all of us (except me for many years) came to the conclusion that Beatrice was dead. A letter from a friend saying: "Beatrice has been hiding here at home in the guest room all this time because she is afraid that Count Olaf will have no reason to keep at least one of her children alive if he finds out that she survived the fire "is something that could lead Lemony to deduce that she was really alive. That was the reasoning that could even make me answer the question: why didn't Beatrice look for her children when she loved her children? But it was this letter from R that led me to the conclusion that the woman Lemony saw was an imposter. R wanted to say, "The real Beatrice is dead." I deduce that this information needed to be passed on subtly because the enemies wanted to use an imposter again to lure Lemony into another trap in the future. In TBL we realize that Lemony is afraid of anyone who claims to be Beatrice Baudelaire, even thinking that the imposter may be E (probably Esmé). This fear is not irrational. He must have realized at some point that he was deceived, and that Beatrice was in fact dead, since in ASOUE's books he continued to make dedications to dead Beatrice. Note that this theory only makes sense considering a chronology in which the publication of books in the ASOUE universe took place over several years.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 25, 2020 11:45:56 GMT -5
As a fan of Gene Wolfe, I can testify that there are sometimes hidden truths in fiction which people do not find for a long time, because they are looking in the wrong direction.
But often, as Algernon says, we are looking for hidden possibilities. This is expecially true in TUA, where it seems likely there is often not meant to be a single right answer, and yet clearly we are meant to speculate, not just give up and say 'it's all made up anyway'.
Sometimes we are able to come up with a theory to make sense of things, which was almost certainly not intended by the author, but still makes the story more coherent than it would otherwise be. I think, for instance, that my 'tea set' theory is an example of this, making sense of an anomalous statement about the sugar bowl which does not fit anything else Lemony says about it.
I recently rewatched the Netflix version of TPP, and I was struck by how much it seems to reflect discussion at 667, incorporating insights by both me and Dante. Whether this was because we had rightly divined Handler's intention, or because the writers found them at 667, or just because great minds think alike, I don't know. But it shows we can come up with ideas which help to make sense of the story.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jun 26, 2020 7:30:34 GMT -5
I just realized why Dante didn't agree that Lemony's enemies could bet that Lemony would still believe that Beatrice survived.
I want to stress again that I believe Daniel Handler thought of everything only when he was writing LSTUA, and on purpose he expanded the mythology involving Lemony Snicket and VFD.
When R sent the letter, the book TMM had not yet been published, as the manuscript had just arrived in the hands of the editor. Thus, the general public, including Lemony's enemies, did not realize that Lemony had again dedicated the book to a dead Beatrice. Lemony Snicket discovered that Beatrice had died by other means, not through that letter. But there was no way for R or Lemony's enemies to know this before the publication of TMM. However, Lemony may have come to the wrong conclusion that Beatrice died in another time or place, not in the fire at her house. When Lemony wrote TAA, Lemony believed that the woman he had seen at R's mansion was in fact Beatrice. And when Lemony wrote THH, Lemony implied that the woman he loved had died on afternoon, while the Baudelaire mansion fire broke out in the morning. Daniel Handler must have made a chronological mistake here, I know. But when Daniel Handler wrote LSTUA, he must have come up with a way to adjust all of this: a plot in which Lemony believed he saw Beatrice alive after the publication of TRR and in which he believed Beatrice died at some later time. At the same time R tries to clarify that Beatrice had indeed died in the fire at the Baudelaire mansion, but Lemony fails to decode R.'s message.
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