Why did Fernald team up with Count Olaf?

[Be actress Beatrice]

He said something about VFD disappointing him or something, didn't he? Does this have to do with the medusoid mycelium? But why was he one of the people who delivered the medusoid mycelium to Olaf? Or was his betrayal motivated by what the Baudelaire parents did when using poison darts?

[Dante]

We don't have any reason to connect Fernald and the poison darts incident. It makes sense to confine the details of Fernald's defection to the backstory events introduced in TGG, involving Gregor Anwhistle, Anwhistle Aquatics, and Medusoid Mycelium, which I suggest you reread, since you seem vague on the events involved - though it is also true that nothing is ever stated explicitly. With that said, none of those events are necessarily relevant to Fernald joining Count Olaf; it may simply be, and probably is, that Olaf was the only one who was willing to accept him after he was calumnied in The Daily Punctilio, and shared his grudge against V.F.D. To put it another way, you are presenting the question of Fernald joining Olaf as being one and the same as the question of why he left V.F.D., but I would regard them as separate.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

It makes a lot of sense Dante. I believe Fernald left VFD for and destroyed AA because of the deadly fungus MM. He disagreed with that. And I believe that he gave the MM to Olaf to try to buy time and somewhat distracting Olaf during TGG events.

[Be actress Beatrice]

So he cheated on VFD because of the fungus. Did he kill Gregor on purpose or was it an accident?

[Dante]

No evidence has been presented on the subject.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Thanks, Dante. I had recently written that Fernald killed Gregor to prevent the Mortal Fungus MM from being grown elsewhere. But this is only a hypothesis. It may have been an accident, which Fernald seems to blame a lot for. Although I would say that Fernald's view on the value of human life is distorted. He claimed that Olaf had committed more murders than he would have liked. (Or something) So, for Fernald there is a limit on the number of murders that are acceptable. I would say that this type of reasoning is more common in people who believe that a greater cause justifies violent acts. And apparently Fernald is that kind of person.

[counto]

Fernald was framed for this by Jacques Snicket who was still working at the Daily Punctilio at that time. His stepfather Captain Widdershins who contributed to burning down Anwhistle Aquatics is never mentioned.

I think that Captain Widdershins most likely was responsible for framing his stepson, giving Fernald the reason to left VFD and to join Count Olaf.
Fiona mentions that CW and F would have terrible arguments with each other when she was younger.

[Dante]

The possibility of Jacques Snicket abusing his journalistic position to frame people has been mooted before; Fernald hints at a crime committed by Jacques Snicket in TGG, of course (p. 222), and Jacques's report on an incident at Lucky Smells Lumbermill in the U.A. (p. 117) has never lined up with what actually occurs in TMM. With that said, I think Fernald was unquestionably involved in the Anwhistle Aquatics fire in some capacity. My view, though this is not evidenced as such, was that he and Widdershins collaborated to destroy the building to prevent an actual or possible outbreak of the Medusoid Mycelium.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Regarding the accident reported in TMM, I believe that the repositioning described there happened at some time different than the events reported in TMM. I think the report reports Firstein's death. This would be similar to Gustav's death. Olaf killed someone in order to implant an accomplice.

[Dante]

That's the rational alternative to the Jacques frame-up theory, but it would have to either happen after TMM, or have been buried with considerable efficiency as a story; the lumbermill workers in TMM don't know what happened to Foreman Firstein.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Aug 21, 2020 2:54:22 GMT -5 Dante said:

the lumbermill workers in TMM don't know what happened to Foreman Firstein.

They don't know ... So he may be dead. Perhaps they did not even recognize the body, just as it would be difficult to recognize the body of the other person who died there. After all, factory accidents are often very disastrous.

[Dante]

They don't know what happened to Firstein, but I wouldn't rate them as so completely incompetent that a mangled body showing up shortly after his disappearance would be viewed as a total coincidence.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Aug 21, 2020 16:29:57 GMT -5 Dante said:

They don't know what happened to Firstein, but I wouldn't rate them as so completely incompetent that a mangled body showing up shortly after his disappearance would be viewed as a total coincidence.

I think you're expecting too much from people who accept gum as payment.

More than that. In Jacques' letter to Jerome, we noticed that Oalf was disguising himself as someone whose initial was S. This fits exactly while Olaf pretended to be a receptionist. In other words, the murder took place between the events recorded after the end of TWW and the events recorded at the end of TMM.

[Dante]

Aug 21, 2020 16:33:02 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

More than that. In Jacques' letter to Jerome, we noticed that Oalf was disguising himself as someone whose initial was S. This fits exactly while Olaf pretended to be a receptionist. In other words, the murder took place between the events recorded after the end of TWW and the events recorded at the end of TMM.

Thank you, Jean Lucio; with this information, we can prove that Jacques wasn't writing about TMM. You're talking about Jacques's letter to Jerome on the U.A. pages 122-124, in which he mentions that O. is currently going by the name S., and describes investigating the Lucky Smells Lumbermill incident from the newspaper. However, the context of this letter is such that a major schism has happened recently; and furthermore, that he is trying to discourage Jerome's marriage to Esmé. But in TEE, Jerome states that he wanted to adopt the Baudelaires from the moment he heard about the Baudelaire fire - but could not because, at the time, orphans were out; and, as he explains, what is in or out is something Esmé cares about, not him (TEE, pp. 27-28). This means that Jerome and Esmé had already been married since the start of the series, and thus Jacques's letter, and the incident described in the newspaper, must have occurred before the series took place. (The only other time we know Jacques was in Paltryville, incidentally, was after TMM, per Quigley's story in TSS (p. 173).

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Well, excellent reasoning. I need to think better before I respond you properly. But, I can only say that the expression "recently there was a schism" according to your own explanations previous to me, does not indicate that the great schism has just happened even Olaf's schism. According to your explanations to me, at the time of Jerome's wedding, Geraldine Juliene already considered her journalistic column about secret organizations as an old column. And the column started at the time of Olaf's schism. And besides, Jerome's wedding took place abruptly, after one night. By the time Jacques heard about the wedding, it was too late.


Edit 1 - we are informed in the letter that the murder recently took place. At the same time, in the letter that Jerome sent to Jacques, he showed interest in adopting children. We need to think about Jerome's honeymoon period that must have lasted quite a while. Apparently the letter that Jacques sent to Jerome did not reach Jerome because of the doorman, who should already be one of Olaf's supporters. This indicates that Jerome's letter to Jacques was written between the events recorded at the end of TMM and the beginning of TEE. I think it is likely that Jerome is referring to the possibility of adopting orphans as making sense after Poe stops leaving children with relatives. After all, in TMM they didn't stay with a relative and then it would be normal for someone to ask: why didn't Jerome adopt them at that time? and the answer was what Jerome said: the orphans were out at the time. Similarly, Jerome adopted neither the Baudelaires nor the Quagmires, even though Esme was economically related to the Quagmires. They did not adopt them because orphans were out. So it is easy to see that Jerome was informed about the Baudelaire fire after his return from the honeymoon, which must have happened after the events recorded in TWW.