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Post by Tiran O'Saurus on Nov 12, 2024 22:13:17 GMT -5
Ah, good to hear from you! A great discovery, yes. And am I understanding you correctly that all along you envisioned transportation-by-tame-Bombinating-Beast as involving a voluntary Jonah situation? I must say from prior descriptions of the theory I'd pictured it as something more along the lines of being carried on a dolphin's back.
I wonder, too, if there is such a thing as a question-mark-shaped submarine for which Olaf and Widdershins might be mistaking the real beastie(s). If Hangfire(?) had an octopus-shaped submarine constructed, why shouldn't he create a fake Bombinating Beast? It would have been good insurance, a means to keep the mystique alive with controlled sightings if something befell his biological creation.
Sorry for butting in, but are you suggesting that Hangfire built the Carmelita? I don't think I've heard that before. Where in the world would he get the capability to do that? We see what the Inhumane Society's building capability is, and it amounts to rooms full of mismatched furniture and stickers saying that learning is fun. And what would be the point of a submarine in a sealess valley? I suppose you could argue he wants to put the water back, but I don't think that's actually true. He seems to view the seaweed and Beast evolving to not need water as a good thing, and he opposes Cleo's plan that would put the water back. (Also, since I don't think I've ever actually gotten the chance to talk to you before, I just want to say that your theory about The Dismal Dinner is probably one of my favorite pieces of Snicketology ever.) |
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Nov 12, 2024 23:28:25 GMT -5
In fact, I don't think the person who built the Carmelita was any member of Hangfire's secret organization. I think the builder is some kind of "Captain Nemo", but who enslaved the crew to serve as propulsion power. We know that there was a First and a Second World War in the Asoue universe, (Lemony mentions the First World War by name, and it wouldn't make sense for this war to be called "First World War" if there hadn't been at least a "Second World War".) Perhaps the submarines were weapons of war. According to Olaf, the Carmelita submarine has its own means of destroying even aircraft.
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Nov 12, 2024 23:49:39 GMT -5
Sorry for butting in, but are you suggesting that Hangfire built the Carmelita? I'm not suggesting it, particularly, but it was one of the points raised at some length in the Snicket Sleuth post I linked, where he offers several suggestions viz. the usefulness of such a submarine to Hangfire and his Society — such as investigating the flooded Killdeer Fields, or tracking down live Bombinating Beast eggs somewhere in the depths. This aside, his argument, to summarise, is that the submarine had to belong to someone known by Volunteers to be wicked (someone who cultivated an interest in such crimes as arson and child-enslavement), but does not appear to belong to either side of the Schism: it doesn't resemble a Volunteer sub, but if it belonged to the Sinister Duo's faction then Olaf would have had no need to steal it, as he claims he did. The Carmelita's technology seeming a little out of his budget is a good point, though… Again, I'm agnostic on the matter in terms of my broader view, but I was working within the parameters of that post primarily.
There could of course be a hybrid of the Sleuth and Optimism is my Phil-osophy interpretations, whereby the Carmelita would be an older construction which had been appropriated and remodeled by Hangfire (who stocked it with matches, wine, etc.), only to be stolen from his heirs by Olaf in TGG. Though this loses you the point that the machine seems to have been designed to require child slaves to operate, pointing at a fire-starting gleefully-villainous type as its darkly whimsical inventor, moreso than to a standard war-machine model.
Whatever the case, Olaf does seem to display a knowledge of the previous owner and their habits which cut against the notion that the sub has just been sitting in storage since before Olaf was even born, IMO. The Carmelita's Previous Owner about whom we hear these tidbits sounds more like someone of, perhaps, Widdershins's generation, someone who's still very much within the living memory of VFD old-timers — as per the Sleuth's sensible interpretation of Widdershins's reaction to the sub's appearance on the sonar screen as that of someone who knows of the octopus-shaped submarine as a tool of villains, even before he learns it's Olaf in command just now.
(Also, since I don't think I've ever actually gotten the chance to talk to you before, I just want to say that your theory about The Dismal Dinner is probably one of my favorite pieces of Snicketology ever.) Shucks! |
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Nov 14, 2024 3:22:16 GMT -5
I had never seriously thought about these two points: 1 - Olaf knows at least a little about the habits of the former owner of the Carmelita, and 2 - Captain W associates the Carmelita with danger. Something makes me believe that there is some kind of secret organization in which the use of submarines with strange shapes is a Modus Operandi. Unfortunately, all of this happens off camera. But in ATWQ, if I'm not mistaken, Hector and W mentioned that they were looking for something at sea, and there is information that ships had been shot down by something monstrous in the ocean. I always believed that they were older versions of the BB, but thinking about it now, they may actually be submarines in the shape of mythical sea beasts created by this other unknown organization. Olaf, according to his speech in TE, was involved in several dangerous businesses before the three Baudelaires came into his life. Who knows, maybe involvement with a part of this submarine organization isn't one of the things he's referring to?
In fact, the theft of the Carmelita submarine must have happened thanks to some kind of betrayal on Olaf's part towards his former allies. Olaf knew about submarine navigation somehow, and it must not have been through his rhetorical training in VFD.
Like Lemony Snicket, Olaf must have learned about the subject through personal experience. And the fact that Olaf is being chased by a submarine (at least the fact that he believes he is being followed by a submarine) seems to me that he was or believes he is fleeing from a recently discovered robbery.
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