Wow...no one's posted here in a very long time! After reading the pages of posts, I'm formulated my own theories...
--Referring to the clue thing on the official website, (
Many individuals have the same initials, which can lead to much injustice), I think it may have something to do with being falsely accused of starting fires. After all, that's what LS said he was in trouble for--being framed. Maybe somebody with the same initials as many other people will do something bad, but the wrong person will be blamed. (Note: The initials that are the same are probably JS. Jacques Snicket, Jerome Squalor, and Justice Strauss all are. Also the inJUSTICE may be a subtle clue towards that.)
--Earlier people were discussing what was with the eye obsession. Obviously the V.F.D. insignia is an eye, and Olaf has it tatooed on his ankle (see chapter 10 illustration). So probably when Olaf was a member of V.F.D., before the schism, he had it tatooed on and now just simply can't get it off. He's too busy to go get a tatoo-removing.
--As for the Baudelaires' father being the man in the fire truck, I don't think it could be. It only makes half-sense. It's logical to think that he was in a fire truck, only because he was part of V.F.D., which we all know stands for Volunteer Fire Department. At the same time, if he was fighting the fire & lived, why would he be letting his children run away from Olaf time after time. And we all know how much LS loves his red herrings...
--Mr. Poe & Mrs. Poe being the no hair/no beard people. It might be, only because in TEE, Mr. Poe says, "I promise you I will concentrate a great deal of my energy on finding the Quagmires and returning them to safety, or my name isn't Poe." (page 10) Maybe his name really isn't Poe...? And, let's face it, he hasn't been too much of a help, has he? Otherwise it's a pretty proof-less theory.
--I don't get what's with the sugar bowl. It used to belong to Beatrice, and Esme tried to steal it (right?). There's something extremely valuable about it. The only thing that struck me as odd was that the no hair/no beard people say that when they burned down V.F.D. HQ, no volunteers were there--we can assume they were all travelling to the last safe place for the meeting next Thursday. However, who was the volunteer who threw the sugar bowl out the window if there were no volunteers there.....?
--The snakes & the Incredibly Deadly Viper. Olaf probably thinks that they're now on his side, and may possibly try to use them against V.F.D. and the Baudelaires. But does he know that the IDV isn't really incredibly deadly? And does he know that the IDV is somewhat of a good friend to Sunny? Probably not, which will be interesting when he finds out that...
--Does V.F.D. really stand for "Volunteer Fire Department"? It makes sense, perhaps before the schism they were all happily fighting fires together, but when Olaf and his compadres said good-bye, they decided to fight against V.F.D. with the thing that they probably hated most-fire. And if you go to acronymfinder.com, you'll come up with these top ten:
Volunteer Fire Department
Vacuum Fluorescent Display
Valorous Farms Dairy (fictional, Lemony Snicket)
Variable Field Data
Variable Frequency Drive
Verified Free Distribution
Very Fancy Doilies
Veterinary Feed Directive
Virtual Flight Deck (aviation)
Volunteers Fighting Disease
Quite a few of these have already been used in the books, one is taken directly from it. But the most common one is volunteer fire deparment. As for O.F.D., it only comes up with three, and none make sense, nor do they include Official Fire Department.
One Function Diagram
Operational Flying Duty
Optical Fire Detector
WHOA! But look there! Optical Fire Detector?! Optical has to do with eyes, and fire detector? I think that might be significant...(but what the heck IS an optical fire detector?)
--And does the whole, "well-read people are less evil" thing really mean something? Or is it just there to add a little something? Maybe it's more important than we think.
Now for just a few little comments on things, no more theories.
--Violet (I think) likes Quigley more. Yes, she did sort of like Duncan but sometimes girls get caught up in the moment. Oh well, it seems to me that Quigley was a bit more helpful & clever than Duncan anyways. Wow, they propped the gym door open. Congrats. Oh well, I still like all the Quagmires.
-- Now we all know the the next book is the Grim Grotto. Probably the one after that will be about crossing the ocean to the Hotel Denounement, and the last will be the "denounement", or the unravelling. (Oh, and thanks to whoever defined that. I was here, thinking, what in the world is a denounement??)
Okay, now that I've written something that you can all take forever reading, maybe this thread will get moving again!!!
P.S. Just figured out what an optical fire detector is. It's a type of smoke detector. I guess that's a bit anti-climatic. The only tie-ins I can think of to this are the whole, "where there's smoke, there's fire", which could be a way to detect where a fire is. And maybe it has to do with why the V.F.D. insignia looks like an eye.
APRIL FOOLS ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D