Why the secret letter from TSS bothered me so much

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

The problem was not with the letter, but with how the asoue fans I came into contact with interpreted it. Now that I have written the Litory intelligences, I can say without a shadow of a doubt what I like most about asoue. I got seriously attached to the way the story is told. Lemony Snicket as narrator was what hooked me in asoue, and it's still the one I reread the most from time to time asoue.

Let me be clearer. Lemony Snicket is a character narrator. That in itself pleases me a lot. Storytellers who are characters first are limited in themselves. Seeing these limits pleases me a lot. I really love the fact that the author has set limits on what the narrator knows and what he can't possibly know. In other words, Lemony Snicket is not a unicient narrator. This opened up space for my imagination as I read asoue. And I believe that when the reader can imagine not only what he is reading, but also what he is not reading, the reader enters a very powerful state of immersion. ("the reader" is an expression which here means "I"). Despite not being a detective story, asoue has its little mysteries and its big mysteries, which allow me to immerse myself in this world with just my imagination, even today. Few things allow me to have a moment of escapism with just the force of my imagination any time I want. I don't even need to have the books in front of me for that. And the fact that Lemony Snicket is a limited narrator is what allows me to allow myself to enter that world without barriers. (I said I wanted to be clearer, but I think I ended up being less clear).

Of course, books with character narrators abound, as well as books with limited and unreliable narrators as well. But associated with that, ASOUE has two other important aspects to captivate me. The first of these for the vast majority of the time, Lemony Snicket isn't narrating a story he's witnessed himself, though that story affects him in some way. That was amazing for me. Associated with this is the third factor (which is where the title of this thread relates): Lemony Snicket is narrating about events from a past that took place several years ago. Look guys, it's hard to explain my feelings regarding this detail, but just thinking about these three things together as I write this right now, my heart somehow beats faster and my hands start to get colder.

I know this is all just fiction for kids, but the act of delving into your family's past and getting substantial results from that research and then presenting a report to people interested in this is something I've always wanted to do in my real life. I don't know much about my paternal grandparents' life history. Most of that history is gone along with them. At my grandfather's funeral, I remember the funeral speech, which mentioned several things he did throughout his life that I hadn't even heard of. I met people that day, who I had no idea who they were, but they were grateful to my grandfather. The few details I discovered with a distant aunt about 2 years ago (memories she had from her childhood) are fascinating. I wanted to have the power to know all this history that is part of my past. My maternal grandfather is still alive, but he doesn't have a good memory anymore, unfortunately. But he once told something about one of his grandfathers, which I had no idea: how his grandfather came to Brazil from Africa (and not as a slave), how he met a woman of indigenous origin. I mean, all of that history is lost, and I have no idea about the origins of my recent ancestors. In fact, not even my parents have any idea about it. I know the decisions they made and what they lived through affect who I am today. So, this detail of a series of books replicating research on the past, I really like it. In my subconscious I really need Lemony not to have witnessed most of the things he recorded.

Having said that, I don't think I need to say much more. The secret letter on TSS has led many asoue fans to believe that Lemony Snicket was watching over the Baudelaires while writing asoue's main story. Anyone who thinks like that is wrong. I could go on to write all the arguments here to prove this, but I think I've already done that in a few places around here. But now I understand why proving it to others was so important to me. In fact, I wanted to prove it to myself. So now I realize that feeling is meaningless, purposeless and unimportant. After all, people have the right to imagine their escapist universes the way they please, because each escapist universe was created by each of us, and only induced by the written word by the author of the work we admire. Trying to convince someone who loves a work of literature (who like me has some obscure and most of the time unknown reason for loving it) that the way I understand a fictional work is right is simply immoral. I regret having tried to do this with Foxy and sometimes I wonder if the reason she left this forum was my attitude. I don't know her story, I don't know why she likes asoue even though she's an adult. I don't know why for her Lemony being someone who was actually watching the kids was so important to her. What I do know is that maybe I was insensitive. I did not attack her dignity or intelligence. But maybe I was trying to destroy her escapist universe, in which a responsible, kind, noble adult was always around children in danger. And who am I to try to destroy a universe I didn't build?

I miss you Foxy. I'm sorry.

[Glittery666]

Wow, I never thought of that.