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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 19, 2021 7:33:17 GMT -5
Since we have at least two Esmé fans here, I think it's good to see everyone's views on the subject. Let's try to do a real character study, okay? Esmé was conceived by Daniel Handler after Olaf. But would she be a better villain on her own? Would she be a greater danger from the start? If she were the main antagonist, would the chances of the Baudelaiires be even less?
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Post by twigz on Jan 19, 2021 8:12:35 GMT -5
I think she was cunning enough to do whatever she wanted, i'm kind of glad that she was with Olaf who had smaller-scale plans and often failed. She would certainly be a better and more efficient villian solo or accompanied by someone more extreme.
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Post by R. on Jan 19, 2021 9:51:29 GMT -5
I definitely agree that Olaf was nothing more than a burden to her, and I could say that I’m glad that she was working with him as opposed to, say, Georgina. However, I like her so much I also kind of wish she was working alone, that way she would be able to get what she wanted.
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Post by misstastrophe on Jan 19, 2021 14:05:36 GMT -5
I think she was cunning enough to do whatever she wanted, i'm kind of glad that she was with Olaf who had smaller-scale plans and often failed. She would certainly be a better and more efficient villian solo or accompanied by someone more extreme. Agreed. After finishing the series for the first time (including LSTUA) I think she is a character with a great deal of cunning, motivation, scorn, and intelligence. However, inside of the ASOUE-verse, it seems as if her main motivation (at least to start) is money more than revenge or inherent evil. I think a lot of the schemes and plans she was involved in with Olaf helped to fuel her desire for all the money, and also gave her an outlet for her malicious creativity. The fact that she felt motherly toward Carmelita & took over her care puts her on a different level of evil than Olaf. Basically, to me, Esme is extremely smart, greedy and learned to see past the end of her nose, while Olaf was stuck in his own tunnel vision until The End.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jan 19, 2021 14:42:49 GMT -5
I find your point of view very interesting. I have just one thing to add. I don't think Esmé's motivation was to have money. I always understood that her motivation is to have power. If I were to analyze Esmé I would say that she has inferiority syndrome (within my concepts of inferiority syndrome, which may be wrong).
Let me conceptualize what I am calling "inferiority syndrome": for me, someone like that has the characteristic of needing to be aggrandized all the time, because in the core the view that she has about herself is that she is inferior. But this particular view is never said out loud to yourself at any time. I mean, the person doesn't even admit to himself that he feels inferior. So to deal with it (without realizing that this is what he is actually dealing with) the person takes on the role of denying that feeling all the time. The person lives bragging to be able to convince himself that he is not inferior to others. The person lives in a personal search for self-aggrandizement and humiliation for others.
Esmé needs to point out that she is the sixth best in what she does, because this is seen as something of pride. She doesn't like Olaf that much, but losing him to Olivia would be a humiliation that she wouldn't accept. She needs to humiliate freaks, and she is the one who has the idea of using the deadly fungus MM to force others to do what she wants. Because having power, in its most different forms, is what makes it great. She wants to be famous, she wants to be rich and she wants to control others. When she gets a fan, she acts with an air of superiority ... That's because inside she feels (without realizing it) that she is exactly the opposite of that. In other words, Esmé would be able to kill you just to feel better. And I'm afraid of people like that.
Edit: Even her relationship with Carmelita ... When Esmé realized that she was feeling good being a mother, she became a mother. Inwardly she needed to prove to herself that she could be a good mother if she wanted to. It was not the love for Carmelita that made her a "mother". No one can really feel so attached to a child so quickly. What motivated her to act as a "mother" was the very feeling of inferiority that she had within herself, without realizing that she had. Somewhere in her mind, a silent thought formed: "you would be a terrible mother". And from then on she started screaming inside her mind: "This is not true! This is not true !! I will prove that this is not true!" And that kind of thing I call inferiority syndrome.
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