Who do you think Esmé really is?

[R.]

I always thought Esmé wasn’t all that she seemed, and here are some of the theories I have come up with/heard regarding her true identity. What do you think? I personally think she is Ellington and Bertrand’s cousin.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

If we are talking about opinion, I really believe that she is not someone special. She was involved with the peaceful side of VFD. I think she was associated with Olaf at the time of the theater. I think she is much younger than Olaf. I think ATWQ is an intentional attempt by DH to get away from ASOUE as much as possible, making special appearances by ASOUE characters really rare (with the exception of Lemony Snicket). I think the original ATWQ characters never met Lemony Snicket again, which is sad, but I think Daniel Handler likes sad things in his writing (which is in contrast to his personality). I think Esmé is a very cool and unique character, with an independent existence. And I also consider Eligton the same way.

[Dante]

Esmé Squalor is Esmé Squalor, no more and no less. A character doesn't have to have a secret backstory, double life, or hidden significance in order to be important and meaningful to the plot. When all's said and done, Esmé is really quite a shallow person; which is precisely why she is dangerous.

Dec 12, 2020 16:20:03 GMT -5 Optimism is my Phil-osophy said:

I think ATWQ is an intentional attempt by DH to get away from ASOUE as much as possible, making special appearances by ASOUE characters really rare (with the exception of Lemony Snicket).

I think this is very true. ATWQ feels broadly inspired by just a couple of plot points in ASoUE but isn't really interested in engaging with the minutiae (which it isn't a great fit for). Poison for Breakfast will probably be the same.

[Hermes]

In fairness, there is something of a mystery made in TUA about Esme's previous surname: also, DH in an interview with 667 suggested that she may have had a previous husband. But this seems to be a 'large and mysterious world' thing rather than a puzzle with a definite answer.

Are we perhaps to suppose that she is Esme from 'For Esme with Love and Squalor', and her first marriage is the one described in that story?

[Seymour Glass]

I think Esme is Charles' sister.

[Hermes]

I think I was the first to imagine this. (It is of course because Charles is Esme's brother in FEWLAS, which means it harmonises with my other theory.)

[Uncle Algernon]

I do not think she is closely related to anybody we know — but I do, however, think that Esmé's maiden name would be very recognisable to us. I unambiguously think of her as being a child of one of the old ”V.F.D. families”, quite like the Quagmires, the Baudelaires, and, naturally, the Snickets; and, of course, it seems to me those must all be related to one extent or another, through intermarriage.

What name, then? I am inclined to theorise that she is a Caliban, purely because the name "Esmé Caliban" rolls off the tongue quite nicely, and woulf fit the loose naming pattern of Olivia and Miranda Caliban quite well. Even moreso if we assume that "Esmé" is here short for "Esméralda" ("Esmeralda Caliban") rather than being derivative of the French Esmée/Esmee, which has a different etymology or history altogether.

I suppose, if we favoured the French connection instead, that it would count as weak evidence towards her being a Baudelaire offshoot, albeit likely on her mother's side. But I like the Caliban idea better; it gets the point across of Esmé indeed being related to somebody we know, and part of a broader generation-spanning history of V.F.D. — without her having any kind of personal, meaningful blood connection to Violet, Klaus and Sunny.

[Hermes]

Interesting thoughts. Her relation to VFD is another mystery, of course - there's one line in TSS that suggests she was in it quite recently, if she read Anna Karenina the same summer that Beatrice did, and we know she once tried to tell the volunteers that being noble wasn't in, or words to that effect: on the other hand she seems to have been an assciate of Olaf's for more than fifteen years, judging by her part in One Last Warning, so it's hard to make everything fit together.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Everything leads me to believe that Olaf and Esmé stayed in a truce with the fire-extinguishing side until the death of the Baudelaires. That's why Jacques referred to Olaf's recent actions as a Schism in the letter he sent to Jerome.

[Hermes]

A truce, very possibly. But the Anna Karenina clue suggests a closer relationship than that, as if Esme was integrated into VFD activities. I find it very hard to believe that Olaf was treated as a member in good standing after One Last Warning, a play whose villainous nature must surely have been obvious to all, not just to Lemony, even if it was thought unwise for L to complain about it so publicly. And if E was already an associate of Olaf, it's likewise improbable that she would have been accepted as one.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Oh yeah. I believe that Olaf's interest in theater followed his theoretical training. He did not train to be an actor as Beatrice had been trained since childhood. Olaf was Lemony's colleague at the VFD technical training school. But after the theoretical training, I think, Olaf became interested in theater. At about that time Esmé must have finished her theoretical training, and she joined Olaf in an attempt to be an actress. Esmé most likely does not have a tattoo, (since she displays much of her body in TPP without any shame). So, I believe she entered VFD after the Great Schism. She must have been trained by VFD as a child, and it must have been around this time that she was forced to read several novels, including Ana Karenina.

[Hermes]

Ah - I think we may be at cross-purposes here. The point about Anna Karenina is that Beatrice read it after V and K were born, and so there was speculation that Esme was made to read it at the same time. If we don't accept that, is there a reason to think E was in VFD at all?

Also, does not O tell us somewhere how he became an actor?

[Uncle Algernon]

Dec 19, 2020 16:47:51 GMT -5 Hermes said:

(…) There was speculation that Esme was made to read it at the same time. If we don't accept that, is there a reason to think E was in VFD at all?

Well, because Beatrice having read it for V.F.D. purposes proves that Anna Karenina was a book whom Volunteers were made to read, in the general case. Come now, people in the Averse simply don't make other people read V.F.D.-relevant novels if they're not part of V.F.D. themselves.

The only scenario I could see where Esmé's being made to read Anna Karenina would have been wholly unrelated to V.F.D. would be as an expectations-defying meta-joke about fans trying to unify a world that is always going to be more complicated and arbitrary than a neatly-trimmed master-theory. And the evidence to show that Esmé wasn't in V.F.D. is so thin and circumstantial that no one would get the punchline to such a joke. So I am assigning very low probability to that having been Handler's intent.

And then, there is her involvement with the Sugar Bowl. It is not impossible to construct a scenarion whereby which she only learned of it through her association with Olaf, but it is far-fetched and convoluted.

[Christmas Chief]

Dec 19, 2020 20:20:29 GMT -5 Uncle Algernon said:

the evidence to show that Esmé wasn't in V.F.D. is so thin and circumstantial ...

This position seems extreme. The burden of proof is on the positive claim; if it weren't, we would have to assume every character is in V.F.D. until proven otherwise. As Hermes pointed out, it's not clear that Esme could have been a member of V.F.D. given the amount of time she worked for Olaf. She clearly had connections to people in the organization, but the evidence she was a member herself is more scarce. To use your example, her association with the sugar bowl proves she knew Beatrice and that she had something V.F.D. wanted. If we knew the contents of the sugar bowl, that might establish a deeper connection with V.F.D. Given that we never learn the contents of the sugar bowl, however, why do you see Esme's involvement with it as surefire evidence of her membership? 

I agree with you that there are clues. I'm just not convinced that we can be so certain.

[Uncle Algernon]

Dec 20, 2020 13:00:21 GMT -5 Christmas Chief said:

This position seems extreme. The burden of proof is on the positive claim; if it weren't, we would have to assume every character is in V.F.D. until proven otherwise.

It seems to me there is a clear divide throughout ASoUE between "active" characters who are involved with VFD and know what's going on, and "passive" characters who are evidently clueless as to how the world beyond their tiny bubble ticks. Esmé is evidently one of the "active" group, and therefore a V.F.D member until proven otherwise. Esmé also has an interest in the theatre (or at least she did when her association with the Count began), and the literary world and VFD have been shown time and time again to be basically one and the same in Asoueland.

To be less general, I am comfortable with biting the bullet and assuming that every character who displays knowledge of VFD, has long-standing associations with members (or former members) of VFD, and knows about VFD secrets to the extent of being a key player in the Sugar Bowl feud, is presumably a former member of VFD. Hermes's reasonings, besides, only make it difficult to prove that Esmé was still a member of the Fire-Fighting Side at the time Beatrice read Anna Karenina for the same — I don't think any reason she couldn't have been inducted into V.F.D. has a child like everybody else has yet been called up.