My theory~survivor of the fire!!!

[Sugary Snicket]

lauren said:

I reckon that niether the baud mum nor dad survived the fire. Why cos if you take notice, none of the books say that it was a baudelaire parent who survived the fire they only say that there was a survivor of the fire. In TBB rare edition it says that the baudelaire parents had a rude visitor on the day of the fire...rude?and someone who likes to drink wine...No doubt, i think that must have been count olaf. Therefore Lemony thought he might kill Olaf, knowing that he would be there that day and so sets fire to the house soon realising he has killed his love Beatrice. Olaf escapes via the secret passageway to dark avenue and alas he is the survivor of the fire and what an unfortunate event that will be when the baudelaire children find out this...what do u think? pretty abstract...but i think itwould be prety funny ;D

Olaf surviving the fire? That's a bit far-fetched. Plus, Snicket claims that he had never set fire to a house in his life, so no dirt on him there. Olaf probably was there and HE set fire to the mansion. Beatrice, who was their mother, died, and the father is alive, but then of course we could argue the whole "dead-men-rise-up-never" coincedence and say that the mother is NOT Beatrice and is alive, while the father is dead, but does it really matter who is alive and who is dead? Would it not make more sense to say that the surviving member is, in fact, the father? Or are both dead and gone? We'll soon find out at the end of our beloved series.......

[Juan Roberto Montoya De Toledo]

lauren said:

but does it really matter who is alive and who is dead?

It does if you're the one who's dead.

[lilmermaid987]

^*cackle*

Because Lemony insists that he isn't an arsonist, I think we have pretty much ruled him out as starting a fire.

But I had never really thought about Olaf being "the survivor". But then why, in page 13 of the Snicket file be a picture of the Baudelaire parents and 2/3 of the Snicket siblings?

So what if the survivor of "the fire" is Lemony? In his books he is always trying to write messages to his sister about being alive. Maybe the message in Sebald was written to Monty where Jacques ended up arriving (though very late). It's a slim chance, I realize, but there is some chance that "the survivor" of "the fire" could be Lemony Snicket, survivor of the Snicket fire that is discussed in the Snicket file...There are an awful lot of Snicket titles for the person to be a Baudelaire.

[Dante]

Ah, but in THH, the Snicket file was referred to exclusively as "The Baudelaire file," and Hal says that there was a picture of the Baudelaire children in it. (I can't remember when and why they started calling it the Snicket file. Well, I know why it's called the Snicket file, but I don't know why the characters changed from using their previous name for it.)

[Juan Roberto Montoya De Toledo]

It was written by the Snickets, about the Baudelaires. Well, there's my two cents.

[Flaneur]

ffwf said:

Ah, but in THH, the Snicket file was referred to exclusively as "The Baudelaire file," and Hal says that there was a picture of the Baudelaire children in it. (I can't remember when and why they started calling it the Snicket file. Well, I know why it's called the Snicket file, but I don't know why the characters changed from using their previous name for it.)

Not quite exclusivley. Hal just says "the file about the Snicket fires," and the note on the file (which is marked Baudelaire) says "All thirteen pages of the Snicet file have been removed from the Library of Records for the official investigation." Esmé does call it the Baudelaire file on page 116, but by 250 Olaf is calling it the Snicket file and saying that it wasn't there.
Conclusion: I have no idea. The Baudelaire file seems to have been empty except for the Snicket file, though.

[Dante]

Oh, really? I could have sworn that it was never referred to as anything but the Baudelaire file in all THH (Hal's description was a description). I've looked it up, though, and you're quite right. Still, the terms would seem to be interchangeable. Baudelaire file = Snicket file = file about the Snicket fires = file written by the Snicket siblings. Hence, even if it's not about the Baudelaire fire, then it's got quite some information about the Baudelaire (parent)s (?) in it.

[lilmermaid987]

But why would the Baudelaries be included in a file about the SNICKET fires?

[Dante]

Well, they're in it, regardless. I've always believed that the "Snicket fires" are fires believed to have been set by a Snicket. Lemony himself says, in TSS, that he's been blamed for setting a number of fires that were actually set by Olaf.

Possibly the Snicket file's primary purpose was to prove that Lemony did not set those fires, and that Olaf did it instead. It could focus on the Baudelaire fire as an example. However, that would be too much like the contents of the sugar bowl. Although the sinister duo did say that the contents of the Snicket file could put them all in jail... I'm just throwing out a few ideas here.

[Antenora]

I think the information in the Snicket file and the sugar bowl do overlap somewhat. Like the fragmentary clues we're given in the books, they probably fit together to tell a greater story.

Dante, I agree with your interpretation of "Snicket fires" as fires allegedly started by Lemony Snicket or his siblings(Or Olaf, who might be Lemony's cousin based on the family tree), as opposed to, say, fires that destroyed the Snicket homes.

[Jacques the Environmentalist]

Or it could be both. It could be any fires remotely related to the Snickets, fires of their home, fires people think Lemony started, and such. Obviously the Snicket File and the Baudelaire File are the same, they just called it the Baudelaire File because it was filed under Baudelaire. And it's got to be something like the sugarbowl, both incriminate the true villains, they said so and desperately search for both. Pity they got the Snicket File, I'd really have liked to see it.

As for the survivor I absolutely rule out the father because Lemony comes out and tells that it's not in tss. The mother, if there was any survivor, is the one, and I think there was a survivor because in bbre notes it said the fountain of Victorious Finance(or Fickle Fountain, not sure which..) would calm and soothe someone who had just been trapped in a fire.. And the only fire we'd heard of in tbb was obviously the baudelaire fire...

[Antenora]

In the Swinburne poem, "dead men rise up never" refers to all of humanity, "men" being used there as a generic term for humans. But Snicket makes it pretty clear that the dead men, giving the father and Jacques as examples, will never rise up. I personally think that clue is somewhat iffy.

[Dante]

I'm distinctly suspicious of that clue myself - part of the reason why I won't speculate which parent survived, if one of them did.

And Jacques, the BBRE notes referred to both the Fickle Fountain and the Fountain of Victorious Finance. The note to one of them said "See note to page X," and page X (I can't remember which number) was the note about the other fountain, and that said about people being hidden in fountains, and such.

[Sugary Snicket]

I don't like that clue either..... very fishy.

[joebob190]

You can't really tell what someone (especially L.S.) means by a word in a book because you can't really tell what emphasis they put where. I think we won't be able to tell what survivor means and who survived until Lemony tells us.