What was happening every twelve weeks?

[urban-letter-opener]

I was rereading THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL when I came across this line, from Chapter Five:

”Violet...turned her attention to another piece of paper. “This page isn’t ripped at all, but all it has on it is a long list of dates. It looks like something was going on every twelve weeks or so.” -THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL, page 76

We’re never told what exactly happened every twelve weeks, but it’s interesting to consider. Was Olaf setting fires? (Does this fit into what we know about the Quagmires’ time a Prufrock Prep?) V.F.D. kidnappings? Something else entirely?

[Dante]

This is one of the more intriguing obscure mysteries in the series because we can't really give even an educated guess, merely make a few plausible suggestions. V.F.D. meetings is the best suggestion I've heard, given the consistent intervals; that regular schedule wouldn't line up with arson attacks or child recruitments.

[El Juanico Diez]

Well ... we know that Ducan and Isadora are connected to Prufrock Prep. Their notes, including on Lemony Snicket, are for me evidence that these triplets are members of VFD (or at least very closely related to VFD.) And that has been going on for a long time. At the construction committee meeting in LSTUA there is information that there were spies (in the plural, I think, I am quoting from memory) within Prufrocl Prep. Thus, it is already an old practice of VFD to insert members into that school. I think those triplets are the informants of the time at the time of the main events narrated in ASOUE. And I think that every 12 weeks there was a meeting precisely because 12 weeks more or less is equivalent to a quarter, which I believe is the unit of time used in schools to make student assessments.
As they were in boarding school, I think it was possible that each quarter they should pass on information to the members of VFD, or maybe it was around these dates that they return home. The question of when the Quagmires actually entered Prufrock Prep and the extent to which they are reliable narrators has yet to be settled, after all.

[urban-letter-opener]

Feb 2, 2021 10:51:57 GMT -5 El Juanico Diez said:

Well ... we know that Ducan and Isadora are connected to Prufrock Prep. Their notes, including on Lemony Snicket, are for me evidence that these triplets are members of VFD (or at least very closely related to VFD.) And that has been going on for a long time. At the construction committee meeting in LSTUA there is information that there were spies (in the plural, I think, I am quoting from memory) within Prufrocl Prep. Thus, it is already an old practice of VFD to insert members into that school. I think those triplets are the informants of the time at the time of the main events narrated in ASOUE. And I think that every 12 weeks there was a meeting precisely because 12 weeks more or less is equivalent to a quarter, which I believe is the unit of time used in schools to make student assessments.
As they were in boarding school, I think it was possible that each quarter they should pass on information to the members of VFD, or maybe it was around these dates that they return home. The question of when the Quagmires actually entered Prufrock Prep and the extent to which they are reliable narrators has yet to be settled, after all.

Aha! Now we’ve struck something interesting here! I’ve heard theories about Quigley not being a very reliable person, but never any on Duncan and Isadora... 

Question: If they were in V.F.D, then why would they act like they had just discovered something big at the end of THE AUSTERE ACADEMY? If they are V.F.D. operatives, they surely must have heard of the Baudelaires and probably wouldn’t waste any time with initiating them into V.F.D...

You’re entirely correct, Dante; Olaf is too disorganized to be setting fires on a regular schedule, and Judges Gorgon and Quisling are too clever to make it obvious that they’re being set on a regular basis. Perhaps V.F.D. recruits kids from Prufrock every three months?

[El Juanico Diez]

Ducan and Isadora's attitude can be compared to the attitude of Hector and Quigley himself. They do not want to inform the Baudelaires of more information about VFD than is crucial, and they do not want to make it clear that they are members of VFD (or enlightened supporters). After all, VFD is a secret organization. But for me it was very much understood that the Quagmires had training in various VFD techniques. Especially Quigley, when his face was covered he tried to pass the password "I didn't know it was a sad occasion" to the Baudelaires. As he did not get the correct answer, he soon realized that he needed to deal with them in a more subtle way. He could not reveal that he was a member if VFD, and so he hinted that the information obtained by him was obtained exclusively by individual research.

In TPP, Kit claims that Quigley was a volunteer, and it is evident in TGG that Quigley had a reputation as a cartographer (Fiona says it somewhere).

Although "volunteer" here means "an enlightened member who supports the organization" instead of "someone kidnapped as a child" I think you get the point. During the main events of ASOUE, the method of kidnapping children was not the only method of recruitment. In fact, there is nothing to suggest that Fiona has been kidnapped. Still, she can be called "voluntary" because she is a person who consciously supports the organization. The difference is that the person who recruited Fiona, Captain W, is not known to be a naturally subtle person. The way he does not reveal information is usually not through half truths. Captain W just says, "you can't know that". So Fiona was not trained in how to deceive others ... Although she apparently learns quickly about how to do that. But she did not try to deceive the Baudelaires about who she was.

Anyway, I think Ducan, Isadora, Quigley, and finally Hall and the Baudelaires themselves could be called "Volunteers" in the sense of being enlightened VFD supporters even though they may not have had conventional VFD training.

[urban-letter-opener]

Feb 3, 2021 8:31:45 GMT -5 El Juanico Diez said:

Ducan and Isadora's attitude can be compared to the attitude of Hector and Quigley himself. They do not want to inform the Baudelaires of more information about VFD than is crucial, and they do not want to make it clear that they are members of VFD (or enlightened supporters). After all, VFD is a secret organization. But for me it was very much understood that the Quagmires had training in various VFD techniques. Especially Quigley, when his face was covered he tried to pass the password "I didn't know it was a sad occasion" to the Baudelaires. As he did not get the correct answer, he soon realized that he needed to deal with them in a more subtle way. He could not reveal that he was a member if VFD, and so he hinted that the information obtained by him was obtained exclusively by individual research.

In TPP, Kit claims that Quigley was a volunteer, and it is evident in TGG that Quigley had a reputation as a cartographer (Fiona says it somewhere).

Although "volunteer" here means "an enlightened member who supports the organization" instead of "someone kidnapped as a child" I think you get the point. During the main events of ASOUE, the method of kidnapping children was not the only method of recruitment. In fact, there is nothing to suggest that Fiona has been kidnapped. Still, she can be called "voluntary" because she is a person who consciously supports the organization. The difference is that the person who recruited Fiona, Captain W, is not known to be a naturally subtle person. The way he does not reveal information is usually not through half truths. Captain W just says, "you can't know that". So Fiona was not trained in how to deceive others ... Although she apparently learns quickly about how to do that. But she did not try to deceive the Baudelaires about who she was.

Anyway, I think Ducan, Isadora, Quigley, and finally Hall and the Baudelaires themselves could be called "Volunteers" in the sense of being enlightened VFD supporters even though they may not have had conventional VFD training.

This is a really good point I hadn’t considered... It’s hinted at throughout the series that the Baudelaire parents wanted their children to have a normal life, away from V.F.D... We don’t know much about the Quagmire parents, but the idea that they would teach their children a few things before sending them away is quite plausible given the texts you’ve cited. If Beatrice and Bertrand had planned on letting their children join V.F.D, would Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have been reasonably well-versed in V.F.D. codes and lore before THE AUSTERE ACADEMY?

[El Juanico Diez]

I really believe that what Beatrice and Bertrand wanted for their children was a happy medium, that is, they would not even be members of VFD but would be able to use what they learned at home in VFD if they ever decided to join the organization. In other words, I believe that Bertrand and Beatrice were not averse to the idea of ​​their children entering VFD. They had an aversion to the idea that they would receive common VFD training, which involved kidnapping children. (After all, the mechanism for asking permission from the child himself was confusing. The child could ask "what was that noise outside" simply because he heard a strange noise, a fact that occurred with the Baudelaires for what is described in TE). The children had not read the infrequent questions about VFD to understand what was going on. In addition, the children were children ... were they really ready to make a decision that would affect the rest of their lives, including serving an organization with members of questionable morals and they might end up dying or engaging in missions related to murders?

On the other hand, they apparently believed in VFD as being as good as possible. They taught their children the values ​​of VFD and never left the organization. So, they wanted their children to make a decision when they were ready for it, and if they decided to become Volunteers, they would already have the essential skills to be volunteers. After all, a volunteer must have the will to do something and must have the ability to do it. Beatrice and Bertrand defended the older strand of VFD, which Dewey explained briefly how it worked. (I respect them as parents.) I present as evidence of this conclusion the fact that Beatrice insisted on teaching the children what the secret code was to enter the secret VFD base. Three sentences were needed. Two of them you could discover through research. But the last one was a very specific password. The central theme of the book Anna Karenina could be written using different words. But Beatrice insisted that her children memorize the exact words. This is an indication that Klaus, Sunny and Violet could one day, if they so decided, enter the secret base of VFD and then introduce themselves as children of Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire and state that they wanted to volunteer for the organization. When asked about the lack of technical knowledge, they could say that they were trained by their parents in a form of advanced home education and could show off their skills. I believe that this was a plan, and that this plan was in progress, until the fire happened.

Apparently a similar plot played out with Beatrice Jr years later. She states in one of the letters she wrote to Lemony, that she had to give her name at a VFD training school, and that the act of giving her name has generated some kind of discomfort and disbelief. The name Baudelair however was important for her to be accepted into the training school. She entered VFD because she wanted to enter, without needing to be kidnapped. So, in a way the original plan if Bertrand and Beatrice was fulfilled with Beatrice Jr.

[Dante]

It's also worth remembering that the U.A. strongly suggests that the Prufrock Preparatory School librarian was a member of V.F.D.; it's a valid view that it was either not possible or not preferable to formally induct Duncan and Isadora into the organisation, but he may have taught them some things nonetheless. Similarly, Quigley could have picked up a few points from Jacques. (People overread Fiona being aware of his work; his survival and abilities would probably have been noted in Volunteer Factual Dispatches.) Fiona for her part didn't need to be recruited because she was, in a sense, raised within the organisation; she appears to have spent essentially her entire life aboard the Queequeg, a V.F.D. submarine crewed by V.F.D. members undertaking V.F.D. missions. She's been a volunteer from birth, and presumably learned on the job - even if her stepfather, like the Baudelaire parents, didn't tell her everything. Well, it's reasonable to propose that there are official as well as unofficial degrees of secrecy, with matters like the contents of the sugar bowl being shared on a strictly need-to-know basis.

Broadly speaking, though, I agree that the twelve weeks figure in particular seems like the smoking gun proving that Duncan and Isadora had learnt far more than they let on; and having initially been fairly cagey with the Baudelaires, they then attempted to be far more revealing whilst being stuffed into Olaf's car, with limited success. Probably in their initial researches they believed Count Olaf simply to be an ordinary criminal, but then they realised he was intimately associated with V.F.D.'s history in the worst and most dangerous way.