Revolting Reading: TBB

[Sophie Baudelaire]

mr poe is soooo stupid?

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Chapter One notes:

This particular morning it was gray and cloudy...

So they came to the beach in the morning. This cuts down on the time that events can transpire at the Baudelaire mansion.

One thing Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn't send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table.

Obviously they can't have done VFD business during these dinner parties.

"The fire department arrived, of course," Mr. Poe said...

Are we doing the Rare Edition notes now or in TSS? Because this line is much more important for those notes than this book proper.

"I was sent to retrieve you here...

Who sent him?

[Glittery666]

Chapter 1:
I love how the intro ties in the title.
I also love how the siblings are introduced at the beginning of each book in case someone reads the books out of order.
I remember the first time I read this book and I thought the figure in the fog was the same as the one on the cover.It’s
actually kind of funny that it turns out to be Mr Poe.
Who sent Mr Poe to the beach?
I really like how the last sentence of the chapter foreshadows how their lives are about to change.

[J. S.]

I’m sorry I may have missed it, but is there an official schedule for this reread?

[Glittery666]

Just do it on your own time. Here's a rough schedule for me:
TBB:January 1-January 6
TRR:January 7-January 12
TWW:January 13-January 20
TMM:January 21-January 30
TAA:January 31-February 5
TEE:February 6-February 14
TVV:February 15-February 24
THH:February 25-March 7
TCC:March 8-March 16
TSS:March 17-March 24
TGG:March 25-March 31
TPP:April 1-April 8
TE:April 9-April 15
TUA:April 16-April 24
TBL:April 25-April 30

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Chapter two:
Everyone talks about how Polly Poe never shows that up again, but at least Mr. Poe mentions her in TRR and TEE. Edgar and Albert get nothing.

"He's an actor by trade, and often travels around the world with various theater companies."

"Various" here is interesting. Olaf always seemed like he just had his troupe.

Before too long, Mr. Poe drove his car down a narrow alley lined with houses made of pale brick...

I have to wonder, in what sort of neighborhood do you find poverty-struck actors living next to extremely powerful judges?

"Yes, I heard about the accident," the woman said...

As far as the general public cares, the mansion fire was an accident.

"It is my title," she explained, "not my first name. I serve as a judge on the High Court."

Does Klaus really not know who his equivalent of Supreme Court justices are? On the other hand, I suppose the "justice is blind" law would stop anyone knowing.

"Hello hello hello," Count Olaf said in a wheezy whisper. (There was a king description of what he looks like here.) "Hello, my children...

From the Baudelaire's perspective, Olaf said "Hello hello hello hello, my children."

[J. S.]

Ch. 3:

"...most of the orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside..."

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed at length, but it is still bewildering to me that none of the Baudelaire parents' noble friends were successful in reaching the children. In any case, why didn't the kids try to get ahold of them? Surely they had a phone number?


Ch. 4:

"At a pasta store, they selected interestingly shaped noodles..."

This makes me think of Snicket's comment in PFB where he says that he likes shops that sell only one thing.

"Justice Strauss smiled at the three children, but her eyes were sad."

Why were her eyes sad? Did she suspect something or was she sad she couldn't, in fact, adopt them herself?

"...too scared to even try to bite the hand that held her."

Clever twist on the famous idiom.


Ch. 9: 

"...he was very smart after all. He wasn't merely an unsavory drunken brute, but an unsavory, clever drunken brute."

This is something that I think was missed in the Netflix adaptation. He is often portrayed as an bear, rather than the terrifying villain that this, and the subsequent books, really emphasize.

...his voice faking- a word which here means 'feigning'- kindness."

I love this because most young readers are probably more familiar with the word "faking" so the decision to swap the obvious word with the potentially lesser known one was a fun choice.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Chapter 3:
Snicket claiming that you may eat nothing but Gorgonzola cheese when you grow up is hilarious.

the only decoration on the peeling walls was a large and ugly painting of an eye, matching the one on Count Olaf's ankle and all over the house.

Why did VFD make so many paintings of its logo? Or did Olaf paint them himself?

Have dinner ready for all ten of them.

This bit is confusing, but Dante already made an analysis of this in an earlier reread so I won't bother.

Their parents, smelling smoke, had run downstairs to see what the matter was.

This is the only line in the book that actually seems to foreshadow VFD.

"Recently I have been fascinated by the subject of wild animals of North America."

Implies they aren't in North America.

Chapter 4:
God, Baldy is creepy.
Olaf hitting Klaus is one of very few times the children get injured.

Chapter 5:

Klaus was reluctant to see Mr. Poe because he was afraid of getting more bad news.

He already lost his parents and his house, what worse news is there to hear?

He led them into a large office with many filing cabinets and no windows.

I forgot how accurate the Netflix set was to the book, although they added a big vault.

Chapter 6:

"It's a very important role," he said... "although you have no lines other than 'I do'"

How do you make a play about a marriage where the bride only has one line?

Chapter 7:
Fernald is also really creepy here. I think all the henchpeople were terrifying in TBB, which makes their comedy in later books jarring.

Chapter 8:

"It is true that she is very pretty, but a man like myself can acquire any number of beautiful women."

Was Olaf already dating Esme when he said this? Optimism is my Phil-osophy, you're good at the timeline, do you know?

Chapter 9:

Violet imagined sleeping beside Count Olaf...

Ugh, this book is creepy.

"I may be a terrible man," Count Olaf said, "but I have been able to concoct a foolproof way of getting your fortune, which is more than you've been able to do."

The sad thing is, he's right.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

I'm so late... I need to finish soon ?4. But I invested my free time in my fanfic. But based on my memory, Olaf and Esmé had been a couple since Lemony's near marriage. She married Jerome while she was Olaf's girlfriend, and only after the death of her Baudelaire parents. Beatrice and Bertrand's deaths set gears in motion that had been on pause for about 14 years. We can see that around the time of the salmon fight, Olaf and Esmé crashed the building committee meeting together, indicating that they were already a couple.

[MisterM]

Just to generally add to a few points - This book definitley has a darker tone than others in the series, particularlyin the first half of the run. This is no bad thing, and it helps to set up the threat of Olaf well, but it is also easy to forgot. And as has been mentioned, the Baudelaires also become much more physically injured in this book - Klaus is slapped, and I think Violet cuts herself on the grappling hook - and this does not happen as often in later books, if at all.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

The snow gnats bite them in TSS, and in TGG and TE there's the Medusoid Mycelium. Other than that, nothing.

[Glittery666]

And Violet almost gets her head cut off in THH.

[Tiran O'Saurus]

Jan 4, 2023 12:17:09 GMT -5 Glittery666 said:

And Violet almost gets her head cut off in THH.

Yes, but she isn't actually hurt at any point.

[Optimism is my Phil-osophy]

Okay, I'm going to cheat and start TBB soon, so I can keep up with you. 

Chapter 1 -

So let's begin our research on the Baudelaire case. To start, we have our amazing narrator Lemony Snicket. Looking back over the entire work, we have the privilege of rereading history knowing everything that has ever been written on the subject. My analysis is that Lemony started writing TBB during the time of the main events narrated in ASOUE, but his goals were still unclear. I conclude this based on LSTUA which has a written draft of possible introductions for TBB. This draft was sent by one of the Snickets to the Heimlich Hospital Library. However, Lemony was only able to publish TBB a few years after the main events described in ASOUE. This explains why Kit believed that Lemony might be dead.

Another interesting thing: Lemony was accused of being the arsonist of the Baudelaire mansion. At the same time, many thought he was dead. According to LSTUA, while the mansion was still on fire, Lemony already knew that he would likely be blamed for the burning of the Baudelaire mansion, which indeed happened. This is probably explained by the fact that Lemony had sent some letter or telegram, which indicated that he would have a face-to-face meeting with the Baudelaire parents. But Lemony, as usual, was late for an appointment. The mansion went up in flames, and he knew that if they found the letter he sent, they would suspect he was the arsonist. This explains the note on TBB:RE:

1. The three Baudelaire children lived with their parents in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley—the word "rickety," you probably know, here means "unsteady" or "likely to collapse"—alone to the seashore . . .

On that particular occasion, the Baudelaire parents not only gave their children permission but encouraged them to leave the house, as the adults had some pressing business to attend to. This business was delayed indefinitely due to death. Also note that the trolley has since collapsed, and its remains were recycled into the foundation of a hotel.

Lemony knew about the urgent business because it involved a meeting with himself. "This business was delayed indefinitely due to death" it is a phrase that practically indicates that he knows about the subject that would be treated. 

I believe this charmingly satisfies who is the possible survivor of the Baudelaire mansion fire, and why there is a photo of Lemony Snicket with the Baudelaire parents on the Snicket File page that deals with the subject. The possible survivor is the possible arsonist himself, in the Lemony Snicket case [wrongly accused of being at the crime scene].

Of course, this is all a big retcom. But I think it's a good retcom.

Also in chapter 1: It is explained that the Baudelaire parents had a mansion and a really big library. No servants are mentioned at any time, which indicates that domestic services were carried out by the Baudelaire parents themselves. Now that we understand about VFD and how precious libraries are to the organization, I believe that the Baudelaire fathers were custodians of the organization's resources, in other words: money, mansion, and books. As VFD is a secret organization, it cannot be recognized as a legal entity. This means that the organization's money, property, and books must be officially owned by natural persons. This explains why there were no servants in the Baudelaire household: they weren't really rich, they looked after the resources of the organization they were part of.

Chapter 1 TBB:RE - 7. . . . Violet had to drop the stone she was holding.


Dropping a stone you had been thinking about throwing at someone might mean that you believe violence to be an immoral and ineffective way of solving problems, which instead increases the amount of strife, turmoil, and bruises in the world, which in turn only encourages other people to pick up stones.


It is interesting that Lemony felt it important to report this as a note. He has himself demonstrated that he believes violence is sometimes necessary to eliminate evil. That's the big question that fuels VFD's schisms: when enemies threaten large numbers of innocent people, should we act violently to contain them, or rely on non-violent means to try to prevent their actions? It's interesting that, through retcom, this theme was brought up so early in TBB through TBB:RE.

[Glittery666]

Chapter 2:
I don’t think that’s what “closest relative” generally means.
Who are these various theatre companies?Usually we just see Count Olaf with his troop.
As much as I like Justice Strauss and her house, it’s better that the Baudelaires never end up living with her.
Not only is she too close to Olaf in proximity, but apparently works alongside the Sinister Duo.
A single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling is never a good sign.