Theories, by the books

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Recently, I had the idea that the best way to theorize would be to go about it book by book, tracing threads as the appear and reappear throughout. Hence... Theories, By The Book: A new experience by Tiran O'Saurus. We will start at the beginning. The Bad Beginning.

TBB has very little in the way of things to theorize in the text itself. Fortunately, a bunch of cryptic clues were provided in the Rare Edition, which can be found here. Examining these, we can trace the path of a poisonous plant, which was removed from the Royal Gardens before it was burnt down. Somehow, it was placed under the top hat of Mr. Poe, who hid it in his children's bedroom. A few days later, a case involving the plant was brought before the High Court. What was this plant? Why did Poe have it? What happened to it after this? Those are the questions I'll now answer.

What this plant is seems obvious. It's a plant, and it's poisonous. However, there would have to be several poisonous plants in the Poisonous Pavilion for it to have that name. Why this one? I'll point out these two notes.

Also, I have reason to believe that the O that appears on the official fire department insignia stands instead for a person’s name.

and

For more information on the destruction of the Royal Gardens, interested parties might turn to the following articles in The Daily Punctilio, the city’s newspaper: “Arson suspected in Destruction of Royal Gardens,” by Jacques Snicket, and “Absolutely No Arson or Any Other Suspicious Thing Associated with the Royal Gardens, which Simply Burned to the Ground and Then Were Covered in Dirt Due to Wind, Says Official Fire Department,” by Geraldine Julienne.

Aha! It seems as though some villain whose name starts with O set the gardens on fire. Presumably this is Olaf. I'm now going to break a fundamental premise of this series and look forward a bit. In TPP, it becomes clear Olaf's parents were killed by poison darts. Now, what if this "poison" in the darts comes from this "poison"ous plant. Now we have a motive for Olaf rescuing the plant from the fire, it's evidence in his parents death! Hmmm... evidence. Remember what Justice Strauss said?

“I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone’s credit card.”

Credit cards, as you probably know, are linked to banks. Bankers, as you know, are linked to smuggling poisonous plants. Hence we start our next section.

Arthur Poe: Conniving Cougher

So, tracing Mr. Poe's steps through TBB, we first see him at Briny Beach. However, we hear that he attended many dinner parties with the Baudelaires, and was a friend of their parents. I find this odd. Poe, as seen in the series, is a blithering id1ot. However, what if this was an act? Or, he may at least know more than he lets on. He very well may know of VFD, but perhaps not where people are on the sides of the schism. So Olaf may have come to him and asked him to use a credit card from Mulctuary Money Management to purchase the plant and smuggle it to him, but he was stopped by the authorities. The MWaBBNH and the WWHBNB would absolve him of his crimes once he was brought before the High Court, and Olaf would get the plant.  I have changed my mind on this one. Please note this quote from the notes.

p.14 …a well-respected member of the banking community.



For more information on respected members of the monetary community, interested parties might turn to my studies of Esmé Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor.

This originally links to a passage about Mr. Poe. The note I was using for my theory is this one

p.6 Mr. Poe took off his top hat…



The height of a top hat provides a good-sized hollow space over the head of the wearer, which can be used as a hiding place. If one is using a top hat for such purposes, it is important to remember that one must remove it very carefully.

Also, an earlier draft of The Bad Beginning uses this phrase instead: Mr. Poe took off his top hat carefully.

An earlier draft. As in, Snicket used to think this, but changed his mind. I think it is more likely that Esme (I don't know how to make the little accent on her name) was the one who committed credit card fraud to bring Olaf the poisonous plant.
Next time: TRR.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

May 17, 2022 8:33:49 GMT -5 Semblance said:

I don't understand, why would Olaf burn down the Royal Garden if he was getting Mr. Poe to get the plant for him? If Mr. Poe did agree to buy the plant, which wouldn't make much sense for a garden, why would he get arrested?

He was arrested for using someone else's credit card, not for buying the plant.

[Glittery666]

I doubt he'd do anything illegal. He cares more about his and the bank's reputation than anything else.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

I have changed my theory based on feedback.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I'm really very happy!! A theorist has emerged!! As for the theory, I can say that the actual garden fire as well as the use of poison has always been something that has left me stunned. (May I ask if you've read my Untie My Silence Knot fanfic? I make an interesting suggestion to solve the mystery. Despite being fanfic and not theory, Dante said that my fanfics looked like theories and my theories looked like fanfic.)


So what baffles me is the fact that Jacques wanted to publicize the destruction of the royal gardens as arson, while GJ wanted to make it look like an accident. It is assumed that the fire was caused by Olaf's supporters. However, why were the royal gardens the target of arson? I don't think Olaf was looking for evidence, as that's not like him. Olaf would kill someone just for correcting a grammatical error of his, let alone if he really was someone's enemy... He doesn't need proof. He doesn't need to take someone to prison. In general, Olaf likes to destroy evidence against him, but I've never seen him looking for evidence against anyone else. So it seems likely to me that Olaf tried to steal the poisonous plant from the royal garden, and then destroy the evidence of the theft in the process, or perhaps just enjoy himself by burning the royal gardens. But how did Olaf use this poison? In what context?

Well, I'm theorizing while I'm writing this while traveling, so maybe I'm wrong in a lot of ways. However, I think we could review some views that have long been accepted by many people. First of all, maybe the folks at Netflix nailed one detail: the OFD might be named after Olaf's family, which is probably Olaf. After all, our Count Olaf is the son of an Count, as he studied in a school that received children of counts and duchesses. And besides, "Count" is a title that can be passed from father to son. So OFD in fact may have been a tribute to Olaf's father, who may have been a part of OFD, as shown on Netflix. And this father, put his son to be part of VFD.

Now, let's talk about some strange behavior on the part of Kit Snicket as recorded in TPP. Kit smiled as she talked about the night she was part of a plan involving delivering and/or receiving poison darts, a plan involving Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire. Kit is logically someone who doesn't take pride in using violence, according to a master's degree in TE. If she had been part of an execution plan, I highly doubt she would have spoken of it smilingly and so casually, especially to the Baudelaire children.

As demonstrated by Kit's and Dewey's TPP attitudes, they are people who (unlike Olaf) like to look for evidence against criminals in order to help authorities get criminals to pay for their crimes. So, it's much more logical to believe that the poison darts Kit and Bestrice took care of during the opera night weren't meant to be used as weapons by them, but rather were evidence of a murder they were investigating. That being said, let's turn our attention to Olaf's attitude in TPP. Olaf knew which weapon had orphaned him. However, at no time during the entire asoue does Olaf show any kind of remorse for the death of his parents, nor does he show any kind of feeling of revenge towards the Baudelaires... And if we think that everything indicates that he stole and burned the gardens We can come to a logical conclusion: Olaf killed his own father, (or perhaps he killed both his father and mother) using the poison darts. After all, Olaf's father was certainly a noble enough person to have wanted his son to be a part of VFD since before the Great Schism, when, according to Dewey, VFD's ideas were indeed noble.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Jeh Anh, I respectfully disagree. I find it a bit odd that you say that Olaf never sought revenge on the Baudelaires, since I'd always thought that was entirely what Asoue was about. Olaf continued chasing the Baudelaires even after he starts dating Esme and would be able to ask her for money. Also, he'd have no motive to kill his parents. When we meet O. in TBB he's dirt poor, so it couldn't have been for money, and you said yourself his parents were probably good, so I doubt it was revenge. I also really don't think he did it for no reason, because in TSS there is a very interesting scene where he speaks with the sinister duo about the snow scouts. The judges say they'll burn down all the scouts homes, and Olaf says something like "just so we get their money, of course." This shows that he doesn't kill people for no reason. I agree that OFD is named after O.'s father, though.

P.S. I haven't finished the Netflix series yet, although I already knew that plot point.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Oh, this topic is really getting deliciously complex. I am fully aware that many people believe that Olaf's motivations are revenge against the Baudelaires, or that it is a quest for money only. I, on the other hand, espouse the idea (albeit undogmatic) that Olaf is using guerrilla tactics against VFD.

As is indicated in TE, Olaf was living his life when the Baudelaires entered his life. He didn't take the cue to plan revenge, and that's somewhat evident in TBB. Olaf became the children's guardian only because Mister Poe decided it would be best for the children. An important detail about Olaf's attitudes is that he doesn't just want to steal the children's money: he wants to steal the children's inheritance. This is something important when we understand that VFD is a secret organization, so the organization's money cannot be held in the name of legal entities, but needs to be held in the name of individuals. 

If Olaf simply robbed a bank, as Ms. Bass did, that would not take the money out of the VFD, as money held in banks is insured. Olaf wants to take money from VFD, so he can destroy VFD. His motivations are very clear in TGG, when he finally gets Submarine C, in which he claims he would finally get the power to destroy the secret VFD bases and VFD planes. So Olaf wants to destroy VFD, and get rich in the process. The Baudelaire family was evidently one of those responsible for keeping a good deal of the VFD money, and a good deal of the VFD books. (Both books and money are viewed as wealth in VFD). Olaf sometimes expressed doubt which Baudelaire he would kill. If he only wanted money, the answer would be obvious: kill Klaus and Sunny and keep Violet because she would receive the inheritance at 18. But Olaf decided to kill Violet and Klaus in TCC and keep Sunny: that's because until Sunny turned 18 , the money would not be locked in the bank. It wouldn't be Olaf's, but it wouldn't be VFD's either (After all, Olaf wants to destroy VFD). If Olaf's parents were involved not only with OFD but also with VFD, killing the parents would be the first step to destroying VFD. (An interesting note: VFD real estate is also valuable assets, which is why Esmé married Jerome, why real estate agents were involved in the schism, and why Olaf being an arsonist is such a problematic thing for VFD. Olaf is even more evident in LSTUA: he and his supporters threatened building committee members, started a smear campaign against VFD, arranged for VFD animals (which are also valuable assets) to be captured, destroyed the Duchess of Winnipeg's mansion, and planned to kill Lemony Snicket. At no point is there anything to indicate a desire for revenge on Olaf's behalf for his parents. His actions are primarily against a secret organization. As Fernald said, they ended up committing more murders than they should have in the process. attention turned to the SB, another item of value to VFD, Olaf focused on finding the item.Again, this isn't about revenge.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Is he, though? The Quagmire sapphires are probably just as valuable as the Baudelaire fortune, but he targeted the Baudelaires even though his girlfriend controls the sapphires. His plan for the Quagmires is just to dump them on an island until they grow up, so that he can focus his attention on the Baudelaires.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Well, that just reinforces my point. The fortune the Quagmires have has been turned into gems. Still, it's protected by some bank insurance, so to steal the inheritance (and not just steal the sapphires themselves) you have to wait until they turn 18 (something similar to the Baudelaires). They managed to kidnap the Quagmires. It's basically the same thing Olaf would do to Sunny in TCC and TSS, if everything went according to plan for him. After getting Sunny, the plan would soon scale to multiple VFD families. All this shows that the Baudelaires are not unique to Olaf's plan, demonstrating that his main motivation was not revenge against the Baudelaires.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

About the TCC incident, Violet and Klaus were disguised as one person, so Olaf would have no choice but to kill them at once. Sunny was his only option, not a choice.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I don't understand... Do you think Olaf didn't see through their disguises? He could have loved a violent attitude, revealing their identities and threatening Sunny. He would have the elders at his disposal, as in TRR, to do with them as he pleased as in TRR, with the difference that there would be no Mr. Poe to limit his movements. He had many choices, and he chose to kill Klaus and Violet.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Yeah, OK, that's a good point. But I will ask why he'd keep Sunny then. Surely he'd want VFD to lose money quickly, so he'd keep Violet. The arrangement with the caravan struck me as a way to kill the Baudelaires without them knowing they'd been discovered until too late.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

By the time Olaf had any of the Baudelaires in hand, VFD would virtually have lost his money. VFD simply wouldn't be able to withdraw money from the bank until Sunny turned 18, as long as she was alive. Preventing VFD from gaining access to the money was more important than Olaf himself having the money. (It's the idea behind arson: whoever starts a fire on a property does not keep the property, but prevents the enemy from taking the property.)

Despite Olaf wanting to kill the Baudelaires, he doesn't seem to have a murderous hatred for them. This is evident at the end of TPP. (Olaf even seems to feel a little proud that Sunny suggested the fire.)

Also, in TGG, instead of Olaf personally killing them (as you would expect if he had a murderous hatred) he simply let Fernald and Fiona handle it. For Olaf, the death of the Baudelaires could be something fun, but it wasn't the main goal... As I said, at no time was he motivated by revenge.

[Glittery666]

OK, so why did Olaf want to decapitate Violet in THH?

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

May 20, 2022 19:07:39 GMT -5 Glittery666 said:

OK, so why did Olaf want to decapitate Violet in THH?

Olaf's purpose at Hospital H had nothing to do with the Baudelaires. At that moment, he had already put a target on their backs and let the police and the public deal with them. Olaf went to Hospital H to find and destroy documents (The Snicket File) that he believed might be evidence against him. Esmé was unsuccessful in finding the document, but Klaus hinted to Esmé that the document was in the children's possession. When Violet was captured, Olaf and his supporters realized that the document was not with her. They deduced that the document was with Klaus. So, instead of Olaf arranging for Violet to be stealthily killed and her body easily mixed with the bodies of unsucceeded patients from the hospital, Olaf provided a complex plan that involved, in effect, announcing that Violet would be murdered in public. . Evidently, the goal was to lure Klaus and Sunny into a trap so he could retrieve and destroy the document. He had no murderous, vengeful hatred. He eventually decided to start an arson attack throughout the hospital to destroy the document. He didn't mind killing the Baudelaires, and he'd like to know they died, but that doesn't mean killing them specifically was his main motivation.

LSTUA shows that Olaf had feelings of Deadly Hatred against Lemony Snicket, and Lemony had to flee abroad to escape this deadly hatred. However, Beatrice Baudelaire did not need to flee. Olaf didn't make Bestrice a target... He would even kill her at the wedding too, but without Lemony's presence, there was no purpose in Bestrice's death.