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Post by counto on Jan 14, 2021 3:26:48 GMT -5
Many fans of ASOUE are curious about the true nature behind VFD (Volunteer Fire Department). One thing for is that noble or wicked, they appear to act as a sort cult.
Cult, a word which here means a group of followers who follow under a common goal. Sometimes religious, sometimes by popularity.
We know that VFD is a secret society that works to put out fires (both literally and figuratively speaking) but at some point an event known as the Schism broke out two separate groups. The ones who put out fires and the ones who start them.
The result is two groups killing each other off until the remaining group conquers the fallen one.
However some ex-Volunteers who have been affected by the Schism or VFD have either fled or gone into hiding. A prime example of this is the Island when BB and BB created a safe sanctuary for ex-VFD's before Ishmael took over through fear mongering and created a sort of cult status for the Islanders.
One that eventually collapses during the events of The End.
If you really think about, VFD is really responsible for the misery and misfortune in the characters of ASOUE universe. I can probably imagine that the world would've been a better place without VFD existing.
In my opinion VFD is indeed a cult.
(Note: maybe, I'll make an AU timeline about that).
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 14, 2021 3:36:29 GMT -5
I don't think VFD is a cult. Ish created a cult based on his own interpretation of the VFD motto. According to Captain W, it all started with a real attempt to protect people from literal fires. Let us be aware that volunteer fire departments really exist in our universe, and they were more frequent in the past than today. But they fight literal fires. Captain W said that VFD in the ASOUE universe started out that way. So it is to be assumed that a conventional VFD decided to fight figurative fires as well. And from there the problems started.
The first question is how to define what is a figurative fire? The second question is how do you fight a figurative fire effectively? The answers to these questions are subjective and can lead to different results.
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Post by twigz on Jan 14, 2021 5:56:18 GMT -5
Any group, (religous, literary, or otherwise) can become a cult if the leaders and followers are extremists. But extremists are such a minority of our population.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Jan 14, 2021 7:51:35 GMT -5
I agree with Optimism is my Phil-osophy, but for different reasons; there seems to be too much variation in the mindsets/outlooks of the V.F.D. members for it to classify as a cult. Almost every active V.F.D. member we meet in the series has a different motive for volunteering — there’s not really a single philosophy (no, “the world is quiet here” and “tea should be as bitter as wormwood” don’t count) that drives V.F.D, and I consider a strong central philosophy to be one of the defining features of a cult. As twigz said, the not-so-secret ingredient in most cults is an extremist or extremists, and there are almost none in ASoUE, at least on the firefighting side.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 14, 2021 8:03:53 GMT -5
VFD has a great lack of centralized leadership.
While centralized leadership tends to lead to a situation similar to what happened on the island, the lack of leadership tends to lead to what happened in VFD as a whole. Each doing what he thinks is the best, people being offended in the process, forming sects, etc. There is apparently no explicit VFD procedure for expelling members who do not meet the organization's standards. In fact, there is a big vacuum as to what these standards are, as apparently VFD follows principles rather than clear laws. The lack of expulsion and punishment laws made Dewey's plan necessary, that is, to rely on the country's laws and the country's judicial system. But when these laws are interpreted by people who have been corrupted, Dewey's plan becomes not only unnecessarily complex but extremely useless. Dewey should be more concerned with promoting major reforms both in VFD and in the region where he lives. I believe that young Lemony realized this, but his youth did not allow him to see what the best mechanism would be to achieve this end. And as he got older he forgot his ideals, gave himself up to a dangerous and unsatisfying passion, and then to a life goal that in practice does not cause any positive change in his universe. He has become a useless coward for society.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Jan 14, 2021 8:41:21 GMT -5
Woah... that got bleak fast. But you are entirely correct, Optimism is my Phil-osophy. I’ve always been interested in the idea of the Baudelaires returning to V.F.D. after CHAPTER FOURTEEN and basically rebuilding it from the ground up because so many volunteers have died or been otherwise scattered to the winds. What would they fix, if anything? How would they do it? Would they try to recruit children in the traditional way, or would they make the methods of entry into the organization a bit more traditional? (having people seek out the organization rather than the other way round)
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 14, 2021 9:04:59 GMT -5
Secret organizations cannot do anything really effective against the evils of the world without violating important rules. I believe that the primary mistake of VFD was trying to reach where the arms simply cannot reach, however much you stretch. It's like I said ... If VFD focused on fighting literal fires, or providing humanitarian aid in situations of famine or natural disaster, or finding cures for illnesses, that could work. So I would suggest making a very clear text about the organization's concrete goals. Nothing to use subjective terms. If this were done well, it would not be necessary for the organization to be secret. Secret organizations cannot be watched by regulatory bodies or even by their own members. In addition, the money could be in the name of the organization rather than in the name of individuals, which would make disputes over large fortunes rarer.
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Post by R. on Jan 14, 2021 11:54:59 GMT -5
the panopticountolaf is right in everything he said. VFD is undeniably pure evil, but they are not a cult. They are too disorganised for that.
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Post by Marlowe on Jan 15, 2021 0:35:47 GMT -5
Shouldn't this be in Sardonic Series?
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 15, 2021 1:38:38 GMT -5
Shouldn't this be in Sardonic Series? Moved
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Post by Dante on Jan 15, 2021 4:22:49 GMT -5
VFD has a great lack of centralized leadership. This is a really important point. Cults generally are organised around a powerful central figure who either directs all operations or at the very least inspires them; but there is no equivalent figure for V.F.D., and indeed throughout all the books we never hear anything about how the organisation is led or directed. The closest we ever get is Theodora's allusion to "a plan I can't even imagine" in ?3 (p. 285), but even this might be a metaphor. It is also worth noting that V.F.D. is ultimately non-destructive; while the fire-starting side of the schism comprised individuals who were originally a part of V.F.D., since the schism not one of them identifies themselves as such, and figures like Olaf and the sinister duo specifically refer to volunteers as their enemies. Calling them a "secret society" or a conspiracy would be closer to the mark; but, counto, you don't actually set out any definition of a "cult" for V.F.D. to meet, you just describe their negative actions and then conclude quite out of the blue that they're a cult. Where is the religious underpinning?
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 15, 2021 6:29:18 GMT -5
The feeling I have on VFD is that there are several cells of the organization spread around the world and the tutors / teachers of each cell set the tone for how that cell will be managed. There are committee formations, and these committees are chaired by someone who is considered a figure of experience, not necessarily an authority.
I think Ish took on the ideas of VFD and made his own interpretation of what the cell he created should be like.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Feb 6, 2021 13:11:41 GMT -5
Bumping this thread to note that there is a "Code of V.F.D." (THE UNAUTHORIZED AUTOBIOGRAPHY, page 33) Whether the volunteers are following it at the time of ASOUE (or if there is anything to actually follow in the Code) is up to discussion.
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Post by Dante on Feb 6, 2021 16:08:26 GMT -5
Good point, although it is the only place in the series in which it is ever mentioned, which suggests its importance, at least in the present moment, is not enormous.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Feb 6, 2021 16:41:49 GMT -5
Oh ... Very well observed !!! So there is a code, and in this code there are specific instructions on how meetings should be recorded ... It is possible to imagine that if the code even contains details like these, it can contain more things ... Anyway, I believe that the cell of VFD that we are following in LSTUA actually tried to be something more organized. After all in ATWQ, LSTUA and TBL we see that there is an organization focused on training children. The VFD cell that we are monitoring is formed by the tutor's ideology: I believe that people who called themselves tutors decided that they would form recruitment classes, and that they would recruit children. They decided to create an organization in which they would be evaluated in a Rank themselves. They followed the idea that "children are the future" and invested in it. I don't think Ish was part of that.
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